Homily 26 — Matthew 8, verses 5 to 13

“When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, pleading with him and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible torment.’” [a]

The leper came to him “when he had come down from the mountain,” but this centurion “when he had entered Capernaum.” Why, then, did neither of them go up the mountain? Not out of carelessness, for the faith of both was fervent, but so as not to interrupt his teaching.

Having come to him, the centurion says, “My servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible torment.” Now some say that he also mentioned the reason he had not brought him, by way of excuse: “It was not possible, paralyzed as he is, and in torment, and at his last gasp, to lift him and carry him here.” For Luke says that he was at the point of death: “He was even ready to die.” But I say this is a sign of great faith in him, far greater even than the faith of those who let a man down through the roof. Because he knew for certain that a bare command was enough to raise the sick man up, he thought it unnecessary to bring him.

What, then, does Jesus do? Here he does what he had never done before. On every other occasion he used to follow the wishes of those who asked him; here he runs out ahead of them, and offers not only to heal the servant but also to come to the house. He does this so that we may learn the centurion’s virtue. If he had not made this offer, but had said, “Go your way; let your servant be healed,” we would have known none of these things.

He did the same, though in the opposite way, with the Phoenician woman. Here, when he has not been invited to the house, he says of his own accord that he will come, so that you may learn the centurion’s faith and great humility. But with the Phoenician woman he refuses the favor, and when she keeps on asking, he drives her into great perplexity. Being a wise physician, full of resources, he knows how to bring about the same end by opposite means. As here by his freely offered coming, so there by his flat putting-off and refusal, he brings the woman’s faith to light. He does the same in Abraham’s case, saying, “I will by no means hide from Abraham my servant,” to make you know that man’s kindness and his care for Sodom. And with Lot, those who were sent refuse to go into his house, to make you know how great that righteous man’s hospitality was.

What, then, does the centurion say? “I am not worthy for you to come under my roof.” Let us listen, all of us who are to receive Christ — for it is possible to receive him even now. Let us listen, and imitate him, and receive him with just as much eagerness. For when you receive a poor man who is hungry and naked, you have received and cared for Christ himself.

“But only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” [d]

See how this man too, like the leper, holds the right opinion about him. He did not say, “Ask,” nor did he say, “Pray and plead,” but, “Only command.” Then, afraid that Christ might decline out of modesty, he says, “For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

Someone says: “And what of it, if the centurion did suppose this was so? The question is whether Christ affirmed it and confirmed it.” You are right, and very sensible. So let us look at this very point, and we will find the same thing happening here as happened with the leper. The leper said, “If you are willing.” And we are sure of Christ’s authority not from the leper alone but from Christ’s own voice. Far from putting an end to that belief, he confirmed it all the more, adding words that would otherwise have been needless — “I am willing; be clean” — to establish that man’s opinion. So here too it is right to see whether anything of the kind happened.

And in fact we will find the same thing taking place again. When the centurion had spoken these words and had borne witness to Christ’s great authority, far from blaming him, Christ approved — and did something more than approve. The evangelist does not say that he merely praised the saying; showing the warmth of his praise, he says that he even “marveled.” And he did not simply marvel, but did it in the presence of the whole people, and set the centurion before the rest as an example for them to imitate.

Do you see how each of those who bore witness to his authority is marveled at? “And the crowds were astonished at his teaching, because he taught as one having authority.” Far from blaming them, he took them with him when he came down, and by his words of cleansing to the leper he confirmed their judgment. Again, that leper said, “If you are willing, you can make me clean,” and far from rebuking him, Christ cleansed him in just the way he had said. Again, this centurion says, “Only say the word, and my servant will be healed,” and “marveling” at him, Christ said, “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel.”

Now, to convince you of this from the opposite side as well: Martha said nothing of this sort, but on the contrary, “Whatever you ask of God, he will give you.” Far from being praised, although she was a friend of his, and dear to him, and one who had shown great devotion to him, she was instead rebuked and corrected by him for not having spoken well. For he said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” — blaming her as if she did not yet believe. And again, because she had said, “Whatever you ask of God, he will give you,” he leads her away from that notion and teaches her that he does not need to receive from another, but is himself the fountain of all good things. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” That is to say: “I do not wait to receive power to act; I do everything of myself.”

That is why he both marvels at the centurion and ranks him above the whole people, and honors him with the gift of the kingdom, and stirs the rest to the same eagerness. And to show you that he spoke this way for this purpose — to teach the rest to believe in the same way — listen to how carefully the evangelist has hinted at it. “Jesus,” he says, “turned around and said to those who followed him, ‘I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel.’”

It follows that to hold a high view of him is above all the mark of faith, and is what wins the kingdom and his other blessings. For his praise did not stop at words. He restored the sick man to health as a reward for the centurion’s faith, and weaves a glorious crown for him, and promises great gifts, saying, “Many will come from east and west and will sit down in the bosom of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; but the children of the kingdom will be thrown out.”

So, since he had now shown many miracles, he goes on to speak with them more openly.

Then, so that no one would think his words came from flattery, but all would know that this really was the centurion’s mind, he says, “Go your way; as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And at once the deed followed, bearing witness to the man’s character: “And his servant was healed at that very hour.”

This is what happened with the Syrophoenician woman too. To her also he says, “O woman, great is your faith; let it be done for you as you wish. And her daughter was healed.”

But Luke also tells of this miracle, and along the way he puts in a good many other details that seem to point to some disagreement. These too we must explain. [i]

What, then, does Luke say? That the centurion sent elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come. But Matthew says that he came himself and said, “I am not worthy.” Now some say that the one man is not the same as the other, though the two have many points of likeness. Of the one it is said, “He has built our synagogue, and he loves our nation”; but of the other Jesus himself says, “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel.” And of the first he did not say, “Many will come from the east,” so it is likely that he was a Jew.

What, then, are we to say? That this solution is easy enough, but the question is whether it is true. To me this man seems to be the same as the other. Someone may ask: “Then how is it that Matthew relates that he himself said, ‘I am not worthy for you to come under my roof,’ but Luke that he sent for Christ to come?” To me Luke seems to be hinting at the flattery of the Jews, and at the way people in trouble, being unsettled, form many different plans. It is likely that when the centurion wanted to go, the Jews stopped him, flattering him and saying, “We will go and bring him.”

Notice at least that even their request is full of flattery. “For he loves our nation,” it runs, “and he built our synagogue.” They do not even know what to praise the man for. What they ought to have said was, “He wanted to come himself and plead with you, but we stopped him, seeing his trouble and the disaster lying on his house”; and so they would have set out how great his faith was. They do not say this. Out of envy they were unwilling to make the man’s faith known. They chose rather to cast a shadow over the virtue of the very man they had come to plead for, so that the one they were pleading with would not seem to be someone great, than to proclaim the other man’s faith and so accomplish what they had come for. For envy is enough to blind the understanding. But he who knows the secret things made the centurion known even against their will.

And to see that this is true, listen to Luke himself again, explaining it. This is what he says: “When he was now not far off, the centurion sent word, saying, ‘Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy for you to come under my roof.’” That is, once he was free of their pestering, then he sends, saying, “Do not think it was from laziness that I did not come; I counted myself unworthy to receive you in my house.”

And if Matthew says that he said this not through his friends but himself, that proves nothing. The question is whether each of them has set before us the man’s eagerness and his right opinion about Christ. And it is likely that after sending his friends, he also came himself and said these things. If Luke did not speak of the one, neither did Matthew speak of the other. This is not what men do who disagree among themselves; it is what men do who fill in what the other has left out.

See from another detail too how Luke has proclaimed his faith: he says that his servant “was ready to die.” Yet not even this cast him into despair or made him give up; even so, he trusted that he would succeed. And if Matthew says that Christ said, “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel,” and so shows plainly that the man was not an Israelite, while Luke says, “He built our synagogue,” this is no contradiction either. It was possible for someone who was not a Jew both to build the synagogue and to love the nation.

But do not, I beg you, look only at what he said; take into account his rank as well, and then you will see the man’s excellence. For people in positions of command are very proud indeed, and they will not take a lower place even in trouble. The man recorded in John, for example, tries to drag him to his house, and says, “Come down, for my child is ready to die.” Not so this man. He is far above both that man and those who let the bed down through the roof. He does not look for Christ’s bodily presence, nor did he bring the sick man near the physician — which showed no low idea of him, but rather an inkling of his divine dignity. And he says, “Only say the word.” [j]

At the beginning he does not even say, “Say the word,” but only describes his trouble. For in his great humility he did not expect Christ to agree at once and ask the way to his house. So when he heard him say, “I will come and heal him,” then, and not before, he says, “Say the word.” Nor did his suffering throw him into confusion; even in his distress he reasons calmly, looking not so much to his servant’s health as to avoiding all appearance of doing anything irreverent.

And yet it was not he who pressed for it; it was Christ who offered it. Even so he was afraid he might be thought to be overstepping what he deserved and taking on himself something beyond his strength. Do you see his wisdom? Now notice the foolishness of the Jews in saying, “He is worthy for you to do this for him.” When they should have taken refuge in Jesus’ love for humankind, they plead this man’s worthiness instead — and do not even know on what grounds to plead it. Not so the centurion. He declared himself utterly unworthy, not only of the favor but even of receiving the Lord in his house. That is why, even when he said, “My servant is lying sick,” he did not add, “Say the word,” for fear that he was unworthy to obtain the gift; he simply made his trouble known. And when he saw Christ eager in his turn, not even then did he rush forward, but he still kept to his own proper measure to the end.

If anyone should say, “Why did Christ not honor him in return?” we would say this: he did honor him in return, and exceedingly. First, by bringing his mind to light, which showed most of all in Christ’s not going to his house. Second, by bringing him into his kingdom and ranking him above the whole Jewish nation. Because he counted himself unworthy even to receive Christ into his house, he became worthy both of a kingdom and of gaining the good things Abraham enjoyed.

But someone may say: “Why, then, was the leper not praised, when he showed greater things than these? He did not even say, ‘Say the word,’ but what was far more, ‘Only be willing,’ which is what the prophet says about the Father: ‘He has done whatever he pleased.’” But he too was praised. When Christ said, “Offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them,” he means nothing else than this: “You will be an accuser of them, because you believed.”

Besides, it was not the same thing for a Jew to believe and for someone from outside that nation. That the centurion was not a Jew is clear both from his being a centurion and from the words, “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel.” And it was a very great thing for a man outside the roll of the Jewish people to take in so great a thought. For it seems to me that he did no less than picture to himself the armies in heaven — or that diseases and death and everything else were as subject to Christ as his soldiers were to himself.

That is why he also said, “For I too am a man set under authority.” That is: you are God, and I am a man; I am under authority, but you are not. If I, then, being a man and under authority, can do so much, far more can he, both as God and as one under no authority. So with the strongest expression he wants to convince him that he says this not as one giving a like example, but one far surpassed. For, he said, “if I, though I am equal in honor to those I command, and under authority, am still able to do such great things because of the trifling superiority of my rank — and no one contradicts me, but what I command is done, though the orders vary (‘for I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes’) — much more will you yourself be able.”

Some actually read the passage this way: “For if I, being a man,” and after putting a stop there, they add, “having soldiers under authority under me.”

But notice, I beg you, how he showed that Christ can both master even death as a slave and give it orders as its lord. By saying, “Come, and he comes,” and “Go, and he goes,” he expresses this: “If you command his end not to come upon him, it will not come.”

Do you see how full of faith he was? What was later to be made plain to all, this man has already made evident: that Christ has power over both death and life, and “leads down to the gates of hell, and brings up again.” Nor was he speaking of soldiers only, but also of slaves, which pointed to a more complete obedience.

Yet though he had such great faith, he still counted himself unworthy. But Christ, showing that he was worthy to have him enter his house, did much greater things: he marveled at him, proclaimed him, and gave him more than he had asked. For he came seeking bodily health for his servant, and went away having received a kingdom. Do you see how the saying had already been fulfilled, “Seek the kingdom of heaven, and all these things will be added to you”? Because he showed great faith and lowliness of mind, Christ both gave him heaven and added health besides. [o]

And he honored him not in this way alone, but also by showing at whose casting out he is brought in. For from this time on he begins to make known to everyone that salvation is by faith, not by works of the law. That is why the gift will be offered not to Jews only but to Gentiles as well, and to the Gentiles rather than to the Jews. For he says, “Do not by any means think that this has happened in this man’s case alone; no, so it will be with the whole world.” He said this prophesying about the Gentiles and giving them good hopes, for in fact there were some following him from Galilee of the Gentiles. He said it, on the one hand, so as not to let the Gentiles despair, and on the other, to bring down the proud spirit of the Jews.

But so that his saying would not offend the hearers or give them any pretext, he does not put forward what he has to say about the Gentiles in so many words, but takes the occasion from the centurion. Nor does he use the bare word “Gentiles.” He does not say, “many of the Gentiles,” but “many from east and west” — language that pointed to the Gentiles, yet did not offend the hearers so much, because his meaning was veiled.

Nor is this the only way he softens the apparent newness of his teaching. He also does it by speaking of “Abraham’s bosom” instead of “the kingdom,” for that word was not familiar to them; and besides, bringing in Abraham would sting them more sharply. That is also why John said nothing about hell at first, but said what was most likely to hurt them: “Do not think of saying, ‘We are children of Abraham.’” He is providing for another point as well: not to seem in any way opposed to the old way of life. For one who admires the patriarchs, and speaks of their bosom as an inheritance of blessings, more than sufficiently removes this suspicion too.

So let no one suppose that the threat is only a single one. Both the punishment of the one group and the joy of the other are double. For the one, it is not only that they fell away, but that they fell away from what was their own. For the other, it is not only that they gained it, but that they gained what they had never expected. And there is a third thing along with these: the one group received what had belonged to the other. And he calls them “children of the kingdom,” those for whom the kingdom had been prepared. This above all was bound to gall them: having pointed to them as being in that bosom by his offer and promise, after all he puts them out.

Then, because what he had said was a bare assertion, he confirms it by the miracle, just as, in their turn, he proves the miracles by the later fulfillment of the prediction. So whoever does not believe in the health the servant received then, let him believe that too because of the prophecy, which has come to pass in our own day. For that prophecy, in its turn, was made plain to everyone even before the event, by the sign that took place then. That is why, you see, he first spoke that prediction, and only then raised up the paralyzed man: to make the future believable by the present, and the lesser by the greater. For good people to enjoy his good things, and the opposite sort to suffer his penalties, was nothing improbable. It was a reasonable outcome, in keeping with the way laws work. But to brace up the feeble and to raise the dead was something beyond nature. [q]

Yet the centurion, too, contributed no small part to this great and wonderful work. Christ himself declared as much when he said, “Go your way; as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” Do you see how the servant’s health proclaimed aloud both Christ’s power and the centurion’s faith, and also became a pledge of what was to come? Or rather, it was all a proclamation of Christ’s power. For not only did he completely heal the servant’s body; he himself also brought the centurion’s soul over to the faith by his miracles.

And look not only at this, that the one believed and the other was healed, but marvel at how quickly it happened. The evangelist made this plain too, when he said, “And his servant was healed in that very hour,” just as he said of the leper, “he was immediately cleansed.” For he displayed his power not simply by healing, but by healing in a wonderful way and in a moment of time. Nor is this the only way he benefits us. He also does it by his constant practice, whenever he shows his miracles, of opening up his teaching about his kingdom as the occasion arises, and drawing everyone toward it. Even those he was threatening to throw out, he did not threaten in order to throw them out, but so that through that fear he might draw them in by his words. And if they did not profit even from this, the whole blame is theirs, as it is the blame of all who suffer from the same sickness.

For this is not something you can see happening only among the Jews, but also among those who have believed. Judas, too, was a child of the kingdom, and it was said to him along with the disciples, “You will sit on twelve thrones”; yet he became a child of hell. Meanwhile the Ethiopian, barbarian though he was, and one of those “from east and west,” will enjoy the crowns with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. This happens among us too, now. “For many,” he says, “who are first will be last, and the last first.” He says this so that the one group will not lose heart, as though they could not come back, and the others will not grow overconfident, as though their footing were secure. John also declared this beforehand, right at the beginning, when he said, “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” Since it was going to happen, it was proclaimed long in advance, so that no one would be thrown into confusion by how strange the event was. But John speaks of it as something possible, for he came first; Christ speaks of it as what will certainly be, and gives the proof of it by his works.

So let us who stand not be overconfident, but let us say to ourselves, “Let anyone who thinks he stands take care that he does not fall.” And let us who have fallen not despair, but let us say to ourselves, “Does one who falls not get up again?” For many who had climbed to the very summit of heaven, who had displayed every kind of strict self-denial, who had made their home in the deserts and had not so much as seen a woman even in a dream, grew a little careless, were tripped up, and came to the very depths of wickedness. Others, again, have gone up from there to heaven. They passed from the stage and the dancing floor to the way of life of the angels, and displayed such virtue that they drove out demons and worked many other miracles of that kind. The Scriptures are full of examples of both, and so is our own life. [t]

Even the sexually immoral and the effeminate stop the mouths of the Manichaeans, who say that wickedness cannot be moved. These people enlist themselves on the devil’s side. They weaken the hands of those who would like to be in earnest, and they overturn our whole life. For those who teach these things not only harm people with respect to the life to come; here too, as far as it rests with them, they turn everything upside down. For when will anyone living in wickedness give any thought to virtue, as long as he thinks that turning back that way, and changing for the better, is impossible? Even now, when there are laws, and penalties are threatened, and public opinion is there to call ordinary people back, and hell is expected and a kingdom promised, and wrong deeds are reproached and good ones praised, hardly anyone chooses the labors that virtue requires. If you took all these things away, what would there be to prevent universal ruin and corruption?

So let us recognize the devil’s craft. Let us recognize that the lawgivers of the Gentiles and the words of God, the reasoning of nature and the common opinion of all people — barbarians too, Scythians and Thracians, and everyone at all — stand directly opposed both to these teachings and to those who try to establish the doctrine of fate. Knowing this, let us be sober, beloved. Let us say goodbye to all those people and travel along the narrow way, both confident and afraid: afraid because of the cliffs on either side, confident because Jesus is our guide. Let us travel on, sober and awake. For if someone dozes off even for a little while, he is quickly swept away.

For we are not more perfect than David, who through a little carelessness was hurled into the very depths of sin. Yet he quickly got up again. So do not look only at the fact that he sinned, but also at the fact that he washed his sin away. That is why God recorded that history: not so that you would look at him fallen, but so that you would admire him risen, and learn, when you fall, how you should get up. Physicians pick out the most serious diseases and write them up in their books, and teach how to treat them, so that people who have practiced on the greater cases may easily master the lesser. In the same way God has put forward the greatest of sins, so that those who offend in small things may find the cure of theirs easy by means of the other. For if those sins could be healed, how much more the lesser ones. [w]

Let us look, then, at the nature both of the sickness and of the speedy recovery of that blessed man. What was his sickness? He committed adultery and murder. I do not shrink from proclaiming these things aloud. If the Holy Spirit thought it no shame to record this whole history, much less ought we to throw any shadow over it. So I not only proclaim it, but I add something more. In fact, those who hide these things are the very ones who most of all put his virtue in the shade. Just as people who say nothing of the battle with Goliath rob him of no small crowns, so do those who hurry past this history. Does what I say seem a paradox? Wait a little, and you will see that I have said it with good reason. The reason I magnify the sin and make my account more startling is so that I can supply the remedies all the more abundantly.

What is it, then, that I add? The man’s virtue, which makes the fault greater as well. For not everything is judged alike in everyone. “The mighty,” it says, “will be mightily tormented,” and “The one who knew his master’s will and did not do it will be beaten with many blows.” So more knowledge is grounds for more punishment. For the same reason the priest, if he commits the same sin as the people he governs, will not have the same to suffer, but things far more severe.

Perhaps, seeing the charge against him enlarged, you tremble and are afraid, and you wonder at me, as though I were going over a cliff. But I am so confident on that righteous man’s behalf that I will go even further. The more I weigh down the charge, the more I will be able to show David’s praise.

“And what more than this can be said?” you will say. Much more. In Cain’s case what was done was not murder only, but worse than many murders. It was not a stranger he killed, but a brother; and a brother who had not done wrong but suffered it; and he did not come after many murderers, but was the first to invent that horrible crime. So here, too, what was done was not murder only. It was no ordinary man who did it, but a prophet. And he killed not someone who had done wrong, but someone who had been wronged. Indeed, the man had already been mortally wronged, by having his wife taken from him by force; and yet after that, he added this as well.

Do you see how I have not spared that righteous man? How I have named his offenses without the slightest reserve? And yet I am so confident of his defense that, after so heavy a load of sin, I wish the Manichaeans were here, who ridicule all this more than anyone, and those who are sick with Marcion’s disease, so that I could stop their mouths completely. They say, “He committed murder and adultery.” But I say not only this; I have also shown that the murder was doubled, first because of the man who suffered the wrong, and then because of the standing of the man who did it. For it is not the same thing for someone who had been given the Spirit, on whom such great benefits had been heaped, who had been granted such freedom of speech, and at such an age, to venture on crimes of that kind, as it is for someone without all these to do the very same thing. Yet in this very respect that illustrious man deserves admiration most of all. When he had fallen into the very pit of wickedness, he did not sink, or despair, or lie down in listlessness after receiving so deadly a wound from the devil. Quickly, or rather at once, and with great force, he struck a deadlier blow than the one he had received. [y]

It is as if, in war and in battle, some barbarian had driven his spear into the heart of a commander, or shot an arrow into his liver, and then added to the first wound a second, deadlier still; and as if the man who had received these terrible blows, fallen and wallowing in a pool of his own blood, were first to get up quickly, then to hurl a spear at the one who wounded him and lay him dead on the ground in a moment. So it is here too. The greater you declare the wound to be, the more admirable you show the soul of the wounded man to be, since after that terrible wound he had the strength to rise again, to stand in the very front line of battle, and to bring down the one who had wounded him.

How great a thing this is, those who have fallen into grave sins know best. It is not so much the proof of a noble and vigorous soul to walk upright and run the whole course (for such a soul has good hope traveling with it, to cheer and rouse it, to brace it and make it more eager) as it is, after countless crowns and so many trophies and victories, and after suffering the worst of losses, to be able to take up the same course again. And to make what I am saying clear, I will try to set before you another example, not at all inferior to the first.

Imagine, I ask you, a ship’s captain who has crossed seas without number and sailed over the whole ocean. After all those storms and rocks and waves, he sinks with a great cargo aboard, right in the mouth of the harbor, and barely escapes that terrible shipwreck with nothing but his naked body. How would he naturally feel about the sea, and sailing, and labors like that? Unless he has a very noble soul, will such a man ever choose to look at a beach, or a ship, or a harbor again? I do not think so. He will lie there with his face hidden, seeing night all day long and shrinking from everything, and he will choose to live by begging rather than put his hand to the same labors.

But that blessed man was not like this. Though he had suffered such a shipwreck after countless troubles and toils, he did not stay there with his face covered. He launched his ship, spread his sails, took the rudder in hand, set himself to the same labors, and made his wealth more abundant again. Now if merely to stand is so admirable, and not to lie down forever after falling, what crowns would it not deserve to rise up again and do such deeds?

And yet there were surely many things to drive him to despair. First, the greatness of his sins. Second, that these things happened to him not at the beginning of life, when our hopes are fuller, but near its end. For the merchant who has just left the harbor and been wrecked does not grieve as much as the one who strikes a rock after very many trading voyages. Third, that this befell him when he had already gained great wealth. For by that time he had stored up no small cargo: the deeds of his early youth, for example, when he was a shepherd; his deeds against Goliath, when he set up that glorious trophy; the deeds of his self-restraint toward Saul. He showed even the patience the good news teaches, for he had his enemy in his hands ten thousand times and kept sparing him, and he chose to be an outcast from his country and his freedom and even from life itself rather than kill the man who was unjustly plotting against him. Likewise, after he came to the throne, there were noble deeds of his, and not a few.

Besides what I have said, his reputation among the people, and his fall from such bright glory, would cause no ordinary distress. The royal purple did not adorn him nearly as much as the stain of his sin disgraced him. You know, of course, what a heavy thing it is for evil deeds to be made public, and how great a soul such a man needs so as not to lose heart under the censure of the crowd, when he has so many witnesses to his own offenses.

Nevertheless that noble man drew all these arrows out of his soul. He shone so brightly after this, wiped out the stain so completely, and became so pure, that even after his death his descendants had their sins softened for his sake. What was said of Abraham, we find God saying of this man too, or rather much more of him. Of the patriarch it is said, “I remembered my covenant with Abraham.” But here God does not say “the covenant.” What does he say? “I will defend this city for the sake of my servant David.” Besides this, because of his favor toward David, he did not let Solomon fall from the kingdom, great as the sin was that Solomon had committed. And so great was the man’s glory that Peter, so many years later, when he was urging the Jews, spoke this way: “Let me speak freely to you about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried.” Christ, too, reasoning with the Jews, shows that after his sin David was given the Spirit in such measure that he was counted worthy to prophesy again, and this time about Christ’s own divinity. With this he stopped their mouths, saying, “How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand’?” And what happened with Moses happened with David too. Just as Miriam, even against Moses’ will, was punished by God for her insolence toward her brother, because God greatly loved that holy man, so when this man was outrageously treated by his son, God swiftly avenged him, and that against his will.

These things, then, are enough, or rather these above all others are enough, to show the man’s excellence. When God pronounces his judgment, we ought to inquire no further. But if you want to become closely acquainted with his self-mastery, read his history after his sin, and you will see his confidence toward God, his kindness, his growth in virtue, his strictness to his last breath.

So, having these examples, let us be sober. Let us strive not to lose heart, and if we ever fall, not to lie there. I did not speak of David’s sins to throw you into slackness, but to work more fear in you. For if that righteous man received such wounds through a little carelessness, what will we have to suffer, who are careless every day? So do not look at his fall and grow slack. Consider instead what great things he did even after this: how deeply he mourned, how much repentance he showed, adding his nights to his days, pouring out fountains of tears, washing his bed with his tears, and clothing himself in sackcloth besides. [ac]

Now if he needed so great a turning back, when will it be possible for us to be saved, who feel nothing after so many sins? The one who has many good deeds could easily cast a shadow over his sins even by these; but the one who is unarmed receives a deadly wound wherever an arrow strikes him. So that this does not happen to us, let us arm ourselves with good works, and if any offense has befallen us, let us wash it away, so that, having lived this present life to the glory of God, we may be counted worthy to enjoy the life to come. May we all attain it, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.