Homily 28 — Matthew 8, verses 23 to 34

“And when he had gone into a boat, his disciples followed him. And look, a great storm arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered by the waves; but he was asleep.” [a]

Now Luke, to free himself from being required to keep to the order of time, puts it this way: “And it happened on a certain day that he went into a boat with his disciples”; and Mark does the same. But this evangelist does not; here too he keeps the order. For they did not all write everything in the same way. I have mentioned this before, so that no one would suppose, because something is left out, that the evangelists disagree.

So he sent the crowds away, but the disciples he took with him; the other evangelists mention this too. And he took them with him not for nothing, and not at random, but to make them spectators of the miracle that was about to take place. Like the very best of trainers, he was oiling them for two contests at once: to stay undismayed in dangers, and to be modest in honors. So that they would not grow proud because he had sent the rest away and kept them, he lets them be tossed by the storm. At one stroke he corrects this, and trains them to bear trials nobly.

The earlier miracles were great too, but this one also held a kind of training in it, and no small one; and it was a sign much like the one of old. That is why he takes only the disciples with him. When there were miracles to display, he let the people be there as well; but when trials and terrors were rising against him, he took with him no one but the champions of the whole world, the men he was going to train.

Matthew only mentions that “he was asleep”; Luke says it was “on a cushion.” This shows how free he was of pride, and by it he teaches us a high standard of plain living.

So when the storm was fully roused and the sea was raging, “they woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us; we are perishing!’” But he rebuked them before he rebuked the sea. For, as I said, these things were allowed for their training, and they were a picture in advance of the trials that would overtake them. Indeed, after this he often let them fall into still harsher storms of circumstance, and bore with them a long time. That is why Paul too said, “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that we were weighed down beyond measure, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life”; and after this again, “who rescued us from such great deaths.”

So to show them that they should be confident even when the waves run high, and that he arranges everything for good, he first of all reproves them. In fact their very alarm was useful: it made the miracle seem greater and made their memory of the event last. When something extraordinary is about to happen, many things are prepared in advance to make it remembered, so that once the miracle has passed people will not sink into forgetting it. So Moses too is first afraid of the serpent — and not merely afraid, but in great distress — and then he sees that extraordinary thing come to pass. In the same way these men first expected to die and then were saved, so that, having admitted the danger, they might learn how great the miracle was.

That is also why he sleeps. If he had been awake when it happened, either they would not have been afraid, or they would not have begged him, or it would not even have crossed their minds that he could do any such thing. So he sleeps, to give their timidity its opening and to make their sense of what was happening sharper. For a person does not look with the same eyes at what happens to others as at what happens to himself. They had seen everyone else helped, while they themselves had received no help and were at their ease — for they were not lame, and had no other such illness — and it was right that they should feel his benefits for themselves. So he allows the storm, so that through their rescue they might come to a clearer sense of the benefit.

That is why he does not do this in front of the crowds either, so that they would not be condemned for little faith. He has them apart and corrects them, and before the storm on the water he ends the storms in their souls, rebuking them and saying, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” He is teaching them as well that people’s fear is caused not by the approach of trials but by the weakness of their own minds.

But if anyone says that it was not fear or little faith to come near and wake him, I would answer that this very thing was the clearest sign that they did not have the right opinion of him. They knew he had power to rebuke once he was awake; that he could do it even while sleeping, they did not yet know.

And why be surprised that it was so now, when even after many other miracles their understanding was still rather imperfect? That is why they are often rebuked, as when he says, “Are you also still without understanding?” So do not be surprised that when the disciples were in so imperfect a state, the crowds had no lofty idea of him. For “they marveled, saying, ‘What kind of man is this, that even the sea and the winds obey him?’”

But Christ did not scold them for calling him a man; he waited to teach them by his signs that their supposition was mistaken. What made them think him a man? First his appearance, then his sleeping, and his using a boat. That is why they were thrown into perplexity and said, “What kind of man is this?” For while the sleep and the outward appearance showed a man, the sea and the calm declared him God.

Because Moses had once done something of this kind, here too he shows his own superiority: the one works miracles as a slave, the other as Lord. He did not stretch out a rod, as Moses did, or lift his hands to heaven, and he needed no prayer. As was fitting for a master giving orders to his servant girl, or a creator to his creature, he calmed and reined in the sea by word and command alone; and at once the whole surge was over, and not one trace of the disturbance remained. The evangelist made this plain when he said, “And there was a great calm.” And what had been spoken of the Father as a great thing, he now showed again by his deeds. What had been said of him? “He spoke,” it says, “and the stormy wind ceased.” So here too he spoke, and “there was a great calm.” And it was this above all that made the crowds marvel at him; they would not have marveled if he had done it the way Moses did.

Now when he has left the sea, another miracle follows, still more awe-inspiring. Men possessed by demons, like wicked runaway slaves at the sight of their master, said, “What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” [h]

Because the crowds called him a man, the demons came proclaiming that he is God; and those who had not heard the sea swell and settle heard from the demons the same cry that the sea was loudly uttering by its calm. Then, so that it would not seem to come from flattery, they cry out from what they were actually suffering: “Have you come here to torment us before the time?” So their hostility is declared beforehand, so that their pleading would not come under suspicion. For they were in fact being lashed by unseen blows, and the sea was not in such a storm as they were: stung, inflamed, suffering unbearable things from his mere presence. And since no one dared to bring them to him, Christ goes to them of his own accord.

Matthew relates that they said, “Have you come here before the time to torment us?” but the other evangelists have added that they also begged him, and adjured him, not to send them into the deep. For they supposed their punishment was already close upon them, and they were afraid, as though they were about to fall into vengeance that very moment.

And though Luke and those who agree with him say that it was one man, while this evangelist says two, this shows no disagreement at all. I grant that if they had said there was only one and no other, they would seem to disagree with Matthew. But if the one speaks of one man and the other of two, the difference comes not from disagreement but from a different way of telling it. In my own view, Luke singled out the fiercest of them for his account, which is why he describes his miserable state in more tragic terms: for instance, that he would burst his bonds and chains and wander about the wilderness. And Mark says that he also cut himself with stones.

Their words, too, show just how implacable and shameless they are. For he says, “Have you come here to torment us before the time?” You see, they could not deny that they had sinned; they only demand not to suffer their punishment before the time. He had caught them in the very act of committing those incurable and lawless horrors, disfiguring and tormenting his creature in every way, and they supposed that because their crimes were so extreme he would not wait for the time of their punishment. So they begged and pleaded with him. Those who could not be held even by iron chains come bound; those who roam the mountains come out onto the plain; and those who blocked the road and let no one else pass stand still at the sight of him.

But what can be the reason that they like to live in the tombs? They want to plant a deadly opinion in the minds of the crowd: that the souls of the dead become demons. God forbid that we should ever let that idea into our minds! [j]

“Then what will you say,” someone may ask, “when many sorcerers take children and kill them, so as to have their souls to help them afterward?” Why, how is this known? Many people tell us that they kill them, yes; but that the souls of the murdered are with them — how do you know that, may I ask? “The possessed themselves cry out, ‘I am the soul of so-and-so.’” But this too is a kind of play-acting, a demon’s deceit. It is not the spirit of the dead that cries out, but the evil spirit, pretending these things in order to deceive the hearers. For if a soul could enter into the being of an evil spirit, it could much more easily enter into its own body.

Besides, it does not stand to reason that the wronged soul would work together with the one who wronged it, or that a human being could change a bodiless power into another substance. If this is impossible with bodies — no one could make a man’s body become a donkey’s — it is much more impossible with the invisible soul; no one could transform it into the being of an evil spirit. So these are the sayings of silly old women, bogeys to frighten children.

Nor indeed is it possible for a soul, once torn away from the body, to wander here any longer. For “the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God”; and if the souls of the righteous, then the souls of those children too, for they are not wicked either. And the souls of sinners too are led away from here at once. This is clear from Lazarus and the rich man; and elsewhere too Christ says, “This day they demand your soul from you.” It cannot be that a soul, once it has gone out of the body, wanders about here; and the reason is not hard to see. We go about on an earth that is familiar and well known to us, wrapped in a body; yet when we travel a strange road we do not know which way to go unless we have someone to lead us. How then could the soul, torn away from the body and gone out of all its accustomed surroundings, know where to walk without someone to show it the way?

One could see from many other things too that a soul without its body cannot remain here. Stephen says, “Receive my spirit”; and Paul, “To depart and to be with Christ is far better”; and of the patriarch too the Scripture says that “he was gathered to his fathers, cared for in a good old age.” And as proof that the souls of sinners cannot stay here either, listen to the rich man pleading hard for this very thing and not getting it. If it had been at all possible, he would have come and told what had happened there. From this it is clear that after they leave here our souls are led away to some place, with no power of their own to come back again, but waiting for that dreadful day.

“And why did Christ grant the demons’ request, and let them go off into the herd of pigs?” [l]

Should anyone say this, here would be our answer. He did so not as giving in to them, but as providing for many purposes by it. One was to teach those set free from those wicked tyrants how great the malice of their treacherous enemies is. Another was so that everyone might learn that the demons do not dare to touch even pigs unless he allows it. A third was to show that they would have treated those men more cruelly than the pigs, if the men had not enjoyed much of God’s providential care even in their misery. That the demons hate us more than the animals is surely plain to everyone. So if they did not spare the pigs, but in one moment of time threw them all down the steep bank, much more would they have done this to the men they possessed, driving them toward the wilderness and dragging them about — unless, even in the middle of that tyranny, God’s guarding care had been abundant, reining in and checking the excess of their violence.

From this it is plain that there is no one who does not enjoy the benefit of God’s providence. And if not all enjoy it equally or in the same way, that itself is a very great mark of providence: its work is displayed according to what benefits each person.

And besides what has been mentioned, there is something else we learn from this: his providence is not only over all in common but also over each in particular. He declared this about his disciples too when he said, “But the very hairs of your head are numbered.” And one can see it plainly from these demon-possessed men as well: they would have been “choked” long before, if they had not enjoyed the benefit of much tender care from above.

For these reasons, then, he let them go off into the herd of pigs; and also so that the people who lived in those parts would learn his power. Where his name was great, he did not show himself much; but where no one knew him, and people were still without feeling, he made his miracles shine out, so as to bring them to recognize that he is God. The outcome shows that the people of that city were rather senseless. When they should have worshiped him and marveled at his power, they sent him away, and “begged him to leave their region.”

But why did the demons destroy the pigs? Everywhere they labor to throw people into dismay, and everywhere they delight in destruction. The devil did this, for instance, with Job. There too God allowed it, but not then either as doing the devil a favor. He wanted to show his own servant all the more glorious, to take from the evil spirit every excuse for his shamelessness, and to turn back on his own head what he did against the righteous man. So now too the opposite of what they wanted came about. The power of Christ was gloriously proclaimed; the wickedness of the demons, from which he freed those they possessed, was shown more plainly; and so was the fact that they have no power to touch even pigs without permission from the God of all.

And if anyone wants to take these things in a hidden sense, nothing prevents it. The story is as it is told; but we should know for certain that people who live like pigs are especially open to the workings of the demons. As long as it is still human beings who suffer such things, they can often still win out; but once they have become pigs altogether, they are not only possessed but thrown down the cliff as well. And besides, so that no one would suppose that what happened was mere play-acting, instead of plainly believing that the demons had gone out, the death of the pigs makes it clear.

Notice also his gentleness together with his power. When the people of that country, after receiving such benefits, were driving him away, he did not resist. He withdrew, and left those who had shown themselves unworthy of his teaching, giving them as teachers the men freed from the demons, and the swineherds, so that they might learn from them everything that had happened. And he himself, by withdrawing, leaves the fear strong in them. For the size of the loss, too, spread the story of what had been done, and the event sank deep into their minds. From many quarters voices carried the news of how extraordinary the miracle was: from the men who were cured, from the drowned pigs, from the owners of the pigs, and from the men who had been feeding them.

You can see these things happening now too: many people in the tombs, possessed by evil spirits, whom nothing restrains from their madness — not iron, not chains, not crowds of people, not advice, not warning, not terror, not threats, nor anything else of the kind. [n]

When a man is dissolute and chases after every embrace, he is no different from the demon-possessed man. He goes about naked just as he did — dressed in clothes, it is true, but robbed of the true covering and stripped of his proper glory — cutting himself not with stones, but with sins more harmful than many stones. Who then will be able to bind such a man? Who will stop his indecency and his frenzy, his never coming to himself, his haunting the tombs forever? For that is what the haunts of prostitutes are: full of foul stench and of much rottenness.

And what of the greedy man? Is he not like this? Who will ever be able to bind him? Are there not fears, and daily threats, and warnings, and advice? Yet he bursts all these bonds apart; and if anyone comes to set him free, he adjures him not to set him free, counting it the worst torture not to be in torture. What could be more wretched than that? For that evil spirit, though he despised men, still gave way to Christ’s command and quickly sprang out of the man’s body; but this man does not give way even to his commandment. See how he hears him every day saying, “You cannot serve God and mammon,” and threatening hell and its incurable torments, and yet does not obey — not because he is stronger than Christ, but because Christ does not correct us against our will. So such people live as if in desert places, even in the middle of cities. For who in his right mind would choose to be with such people? For my part, I would sooner agree to live with ten thousand demon-possessed men than with one person sick with this disease.

That I am not wrong in saying this is clear from how each of them behaves. The greedy count as an enemy someone who has done them no wrong; they want to make even a free man their slave, and they surround him with countless evils. The demon-possessed do nothing of the sort; they toss their disease back and forth within themselves. The greedy overturn many households, cause the name of God to be blasphemed, and are a plague to the city and to the whole earth; those troubled by evil spirits deserve our pity and our tears instead. The possessed act for the most part without awareness; the greedy rave while in possession of their reason, holding their wild revels in the middle of cities, maddened with some new kind of madness.

For what have all the demon-possessed done as bad as what Judas dared to do, when he displayed that utmost extreme of wickedness? And all who imitate him, like fierce wild beasts escaped from their cages, throw their cities into turmoil, and no one restrains them. They too have bonds on them on every side — the fear of the judges, the threat of the laws, the condemnation of the public, and more besides — yet they burst even these apart and turn everything upside down. And if anyone took these bonds away from them altogether, then he would know for certain that the demon in them is far fiercer and more frantic than the one that has just gone out.

But since this cannot be, let us suppose it for the moment, for argument’s sake. Let us take all his chains off him, and then we will see his madness plainly. But do not be afraid of the monster when we uncover it; it is a picture drawn in words, not the real thing. Let there be a man, then, darting fire from his eyes, black, with snakes hanging from each shoulder instead of hands. Let him have a mouth with sharp swords set in it instead of teeth, and for a tongue a gushing spring of poison and some deadly drug; a belly more consuming than any furnace, devouring everything thrown into it; and winged feet, so to speak, fiercer than any flame. Let his face be made up of a dog and a wolf. Let him utter nothing human, but something harsh and unpleasant and terrifying; and let him hold a firebrand in his hands as well.

Perhaps what we have said seems terrifying to you, but we have not yet shaped him as he deserves; we must add still more to all this. I mean that he also kills those who meet him, devours them, and fastens on their flesh.

Yet the greedy man is far fiercer even than this. He attacks everyone like hell itself, swallows everything up, and goes about as the common enemy of the human race. Why, he would like no one else to exist, so that he might possess everything. And he does not stop even there: once in his craving he had destroyed all people, he would long to spoil the very substance of the earth and see it all turned to gold — and not the earth only, but the hills too, and the woods, and the springs, and in a word everything that can be seen.

And to convince you that we have not yet fully described his madness, let there be no one to accuse him and frighten him. Just take away the terror of the laws in imagination for a while, and you will see him snatching up a sword, laying violent hands on everyone and sparing no one — not friend, not relative, not brother, not even his own parent. Or rather, there is no need even to imagine it here. Let us ask him whether he is not forever picturing such things to himself, and whether in his thoughts he does not go about among everyone destroying them — friends and relatives, and even his own parents. Or rather, there is no need even to ask, because in truth everyone knows that those in the grip of this disease grow weary even of their father’s old age; and what is sweet and desired by all, having children, they find burdensome and unwelcome. Many, in fact, with this in view have even paid money to be childless, and have maimed their nature — not only by killing their children after they were born, but by not letting them be born at all.

So do not be surprised that we have drawn the greedy man this way — in truth he is far worse than we have said. Instead, let us consider how we may free him from the demon. How, then, shall we free him? By making him see clearly that his love of money stands very much in his way in this very thing, the gaining of money. For those who want to gain on little things suffer great losses; which is why a proverb has been coined to say just this. Many people, for instance, have often wanted to lend at high interest, and in their hope of gain have not looked into the people who received their money; and they have lost all their capital along with the interest. Others again, falling into danger and unwilling to give up a little, have lost their life along with their property. [p]

Again, when it was in their power to buy profitable offices or something of the kind, they have lost everything through some petty stinginess. Because they do not know how to sow, but have only ever practiced reaping, they naturally keep missing their harvest. No one can always be reaping, just as no one can always be gaining. So since they are unwilling to spend, they do not know how to gain either.

And if they have to take a wife, the same thing happens to them again. Either they are tricked into taking a poor wife in place of a rich one, or they bring home a rich one who is full of countless faults, and here too they have suffered more loss than gain. For it is not abundance but virtue that makes wealth. What good is her wealth when she is extravagant and loose-living, and scatters everything abroad more violently than any wind? What if she is unchaste and brings in countless lovers? What if she is a drunkard? Will she not quickly make her husband the poorest of men? And they do not only marry this way; they also buy slaves at great risk, out of their great greed, working hard to find not good slaves but cheap ones.

Think over all these things, then — for you are not yet able to hear words about hell and the kingdom — and keep in mind the losses you have often suffered from your love of money: in loans, in purchases, in marriages, in positions of power, and in all the rest. And pull yourselves away from your infatuation with money.

For in this way you will be able to live the present life in safety, and, after a little progress, to hear also the words that teach mastery of oneself, and to look steadily upon the very Sun of Righteousness, and to attain the good things he has promised. May we all attain them, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.