Homily 31 — First Corinthians 12, verses 21 to 26

“And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” [a]

He has checked the envy of those of lower rank, and has lifted the dejection they were likely to feel because greater gifts had been given to others. Now he humbles the pride of those others as well, the ones who had received the greater gifts. He had in fact already done this in what he said to the first group, for his statement that it was a gift and not an achievement was meant to make exactly this point. But now he does it again, and even more forcefully, dwelling on the same image. From the body, and from the unity that comes from it, he goes on to compare the members themselves, the very thing they most wanted to be taught about. For there was less comfort for them in being all one body than in being convinced that, in the very gifts they had been given, they had not been left far behind.

So he says, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” For even if the gift is smaller, it is still necessary. When the one is missing, many functions are hindered; in the same way, without the other the fullness of the church is maimed. And he did not say “will not say,” but “cannot say.” So even if it wanted to, even if it actually said so, the thing is impossible and does not fit with nature. That is why he takes the two extremes and tests his argument on them: first the hand and the eye, and then the head and the feet, giving the example more force.

For what is lowlier than the foot? And what is more honorable and more necessary than the head? The head, more than anything else, is the man. Yet it is not enough by itself, nor could it do everything on its own; if it could, our feet would be a needless addition.

He did not stop there, either. He looks for a further way to press the point, which is something he is always doing, striving not only to put them on equal terms but even to go beyond that. That is why he goes on to say, Verse 22: “No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.”

Verse 23: “And those parts of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor; and our unseemly parts have more abundant seemliness.”

In every clause he adds the word “body,” and by it he both comforts the one group and checks the other. He says: “I do not say only this, that the greater need the lesser, but that they need them very much. For if there is anything weak in us, anything dishonorable, it is both necessary and enjoys greater honor.” And he did well to say “which seem” and “which we think,” showing that the judgment does not come from the nature of the things but from the opinion of most people. For nothing in us is dishonorable, since it is God’s work. What in us, for instance, is thought less honorable than our genitals? Yet they enjoy greater honor. Even the very poor, though they leave the rest of the body bare, cannot bear to leave those members uncovered. Surely that is not how dishonorable things are treated; it would have been natural for these to be despised more than the rest.

So it is in a house: the servant who is held in dishonor, far from receiving more attention, is not even given an equal share. By the same rule, if this member were dishonorable, then instead of having greater privileges it ought not even to enjoy the same ones. As it is, it has more honor for its portion, and this too is the work of God’s wisdom. To some parts he gave by their nature no need of this care; to others he did not give it by nature, and so he has compelled us to supply it. Yet they are not dishonorable for that reason. Animals too, most of them, have enough by nature, and need neither clothing nor shoes nor a roof; yet our body is not less honorable than theirs because it needs all these things.

In fact, if one looks at it carefully, these very parts are honorable and necessary even by nature itself. And this is just what Paul himself did: he gave his verdict in their favor not from the care we take of them or from the greater honor they enjoy, but from the very nature of the things. That is why, when he calls them “weaker” and “less honorable,” he uses the words “which seem”; but when he calls them “necessary,” he no longer adds “which seem,” but gives his own verdict and says, “they are necessary.” And he was quite right. For they serve the begetting of children and the continuing of our race. That is also why the Roman lawgivers punish those who mutilate these members and make men eunuchs, as people who injure our common stock and insult nature herself.

But woe to the debauched, who bring reproach on God’s handiwork! Many people curse wine because of drunkards, and women because of unchaste ones; in the same way they count these members shameful because of those who do not use them as they should. But they are wrong. For the sin is not assigned to the thing as part of its nature; the wrongdoing comes from the will of the one who dares it.

Some, however, suppose that Paul uses the expressions “the weaker members,” “less honorable,” “necessary,” and “those that enjoy more abundant honor” of the eyes and the feet. On this view he calls the eyes “weaker” and “necessary” because, though they fall short in strength, they excel in usefulness; and the feet “less honorable,” because these too receive great attention from us.

Next, so as not to work out yet another amplification, he says, Verse 24: “But our seemly parts have no need.” [b]

That is, so that no one should say: “Why, what kind of talk is this, to despise the honorable parts and court the less honored ones?” He says: “We do not do this out of contempt, but because they ‘have no need.’” And see how large a measure of praise he packs into a few words, and then hurries on, a thing done most fittingly and usefully. Nor is he content with this; he adds the reason too, saying, “But God blended the body together, giving more abundant honor to the part that lacked,”

Verse 25: “so that there should be no division in the body.”

Now if he blended it together, he did not allow the less seemly part to show. For what is mixed becomes one thing, and what it was before no longer shows; otherwise we could not say it was blended. And see how he keeps passing quickly over the defects, saying “the part that lacked.” He did not say “to the dishonorable part” or “to the unseemly part,” but “to the part that lacked” (lacked in what way? by nature) “giving more abundant honor.” And why?

“So that there should be no division in the body.” For though they had an endless store of comfort, they still gave way to grief, as if they had received less than others; so he shows them that they had in fact been honored more. His words are, “giving more abundant honor to the part that lacked.”

Next he adds the reason, showing that it was for their benefit that he both made it lack and honored it more abundantly. And what is the reason? “So that there should be no division,” he says, “in the body.” (And he did not say “among the members,” but “in the body.”) For it would indeed be a great and unfair advantage if some members were cared for both by nature and by our forethought, and others by neither of the two. Then they would be cut off from one another, unable to bear the connection; and once these were cut off, the rest would be harmed as well. Do you see how he shows that “greater honor” is necessarily given to “the part that lacks”? “For if this had not been so,” he says, “the harm would have fallen on all alike.” And the reason is this: unless these parts received great attention from us, they would have been roughly treated, since they lack the help of nature; this rough treatment would have been their ruin; their ruin would have divided the body; and once the body was divided, the other members too would have perished, though they are far greater than these.

Do you see that the care of these lesser members is bound up with providing for the others? For their existence lies not so much in their own nature as in their being one, by virtue of the body. So if the body perishes, they gain nothing from whatever health each of them has on its own. Let the eye survive, or the nose, keeping its proper function: once the bond of union is broken, there will be no use for them ever again. But suppose the bond remains and they are injured: through it they both hold themselves up and quickly return to health.

But perhaps someone will say: “In the body this does make sense, that ‘the part that lacks has received more abundant honor.’ But among people, how can this be shown?” Why, among people above all you may see it happening. Those who came at the eleventh hour were the first to receive their pay. The sheep that had wandered made the shepherd leave the ninety-nine behind and run after it, and when it was found, he carried it and did not drive it. The prodigal son received more honor than the brother who had proved faithful. And the thief was crowned and proclaimed ahead of the apostles.

You may see it happen in the case of the talents too: the one who received five talents and the one who received two were given the same rewards. Indeed, the very fact that he received two meant that he was favored with great care from providence. For had he been entrusted with five, his lack of ability would have made him fall from the whole; but having received two and done his own duty, he was counted worthy of the same reward as the one who gained five, with this advantage, that he won the same crown with less labor. And yet he was a man too, just like the one who traded with the five. Nevertheless his master does not call him strictly to account in any way, nor force him to do as much as his fellow servant, nor say, “Why could you not gain five?” (though he might justly have said it), but gives him his crown all the same.

Knowing this, then, you who are greater, do not trample on the lesser, or instead of harming them you will harm yourselves. For when they are cut off, the whole body is destroyed. What else is a body but many members existing together? As Paul himself says, “the body is not one member, but many.” If this, then, is what a body is, let us take care that the many remain many. Unless this is kept wholly intact, the blow lands in the vital parts. That is also why the apostle does not ask only that they not be separated, but also that they be closely united. [d]

For example, having said, “that there be no division in the body,” he was not content with this, but added, “that the members should have the same care for one another.” This is a further reason for the lesser enjoying more honor. God has arranged it this way not only so that they would not be separated from one another, but also so that there might be abundant love and harmony. For if each one’s existence depends on his neighbor’s safety, do not talk to me of lesser and greater; here there is no more and less. While the body lasts, you may see the difference too; but when it perishes, no longer. And perish it will, unless the lesser parts also remain.

So if even the greater members will perish when the lesser are broken off, they ought to care for the lesser just as for themselves, since the greater survive in the safety of the lesser. So even if you say ten thousand times, “Such a member is dishonored and inferior,” still, if you do not provide for it as you do for yourself, if you neglect it as inferior, the harm will pass on to you. That is why he did not say only that “the members should care for one another,” but added “that they should have the same care for one another,” that is, that the small should enjoy the same care as the great.

So do not say, “That man is an ordinary person.” Consider that he is a member of the body that holds the whole together, and that he, just as much as the eye, makes the body a body. Where the body is being built up, no one has anything more than his neighbor. For it is not one part being greater and another smaller that makes a body, but their being many and different. Just as you, because you are greater, helped to make up the body, so did he, because he is smaller. So his lesser standing, when the body is to be built up, turns out to be of equal value with yours toward this noble contribution; indeed, he counts for as much as you do.

This is clear from the following. Suppose there were no member greater or smaller, none more or less honorable, but all were eye, or all head: would the body not perish? Anyone can see it. Again, if all were inferior, the same thing would happen. So in this respect too the lesser are shown to be equal. And if one must say something more, the lesser are lesser for this purpose, that the body may survive. So he is lesser for your sake, so that you may go on being great. And here is the reason he asks the same care from all. Having said, “that the members may have the same care for one another,” he explains “the same” again by saying,

Verse 26: “And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” [e]

He says: “He made the care he asks for common for no other reason, setting up unity in so great a variety, than that there might be complete fellowship in everything that happens. For if our care for our neighbor is the safety of all, it follows that our glory and our sorrow must be shared too.” So here he asks three things: that they not be divided but be perfectly united; that they have the same care for one another; and that they count everything that happens as shared. Above he said, “He gave more abundant honor to the part that lacked,” because it needed it, showing that its very inferiority had become the way in to greater honor. So here he makes them equal in the care they give one another as well. “That is why he gave them a share of greater honor,” he says, “so that they would not meet with less care.”

And it is not only by this that the members are bound to one another, but also by everything that happens to them, good and painful alike. Often, when a thorn is driven into the heel, the whole body feels it and attends to it: the back bends, the belly and thighs draw in, the hands come forward like guards and servants and draw out what was stuck there, the head stoops over it, and the eyes watch it with great care. So even if the foot is inferior because it cannot rise high, yet by bringing the head down it has equality and is favored with the same honor, especially when the feet are the cause of the head’s coming down, not as a favor but because they have a claim on it. And so, if the head has an advantage in being more honorable, yet because, being so, it owes such honor and care to the lesser, and equal sympathy as well, by this it shows great equality. For what is lowlier than the heel? What is more honorable than the head? Yet this member reaches down to that one, and moves them all along with itself.

Again, if anything is wrong with the eyes, all complain and all are idle: the feet do not walk, the hands do not work, the stomach does not enjoy its usual food; and yet the trouble is in the eyes. Why do you make the stomach waste away? Why keep your feet still? Why bind your hands? Because they are tied to the feet, and in a way beyond words the whole body suffers. For if it did not share in the suffering, it would not bear to share in the care. That is why, having said, “that the members may have the same care for one another,” he added, “whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”

You say: “And how do they rejoice with it?” The head is crowned, and the whole person is honored. The mouth speaks, and the eyes laugh and are delighted; yet the credit belongs not to the beauty of the eyes but to the tongue. Again, if the eyes look beautiful, the whole woman is made lovely; just as the eyes, in their turn, rejoice and look cheerful when a straight nose, an upright neck, or other members are praised; and again, they shed floods of tears over griefs and misfortunes, though they themselves remain unharmed.

Let us all, then, with these things in mind, imitate the love these members have. Let us never do the opposite, trampling on our neighbor’s miseries and envying his good things. That is what madmen do, people out of their minds. The man who gouges out his own eye has given the greatest proof of senselessness, and the one who devours his own hand shows clear evidence of outright madness. If that is how it is with the members, then when the same thing happens among brothers and sisters, it fastens on us a name for folly and brings no ordinary harm.

For as long as he shines, your beauty too is seen, and the whole body is adorned. He does not keep the beauty to himself alone; he lets you glory in it too. But if you put out his light, you bring a common darkness on the whole body, and the misfortune you cause is shared by all the members; just as, if you keep him bright, you keep the whole body in bloom. No one says, “The eye is beautiful.” What do they say? “That woman is beautiful.” And if the eye too is praised, that comes after the praise of the whole.

It is the same in the church. I mean that if there are any people of renown among us, the whole community reaps the good name. For our enemies are not inclined to divide up the praise, but join it all together. If someone is brilliant in speaking, they praise not him alone but the whole church as well. They do not say only, “That man is wonderful.” What do they say? “The Christians have a wonderful teacher.” And so they make the treasure common.

And now let me ask: do the pagans bind us together, while you divide and make war on your own body, and set yourself against your own members? [g]

Do you not know that this overturns everything? For “a kingdom divided against itself,” he says, “will not stand” (Matthew 12, verse 25). But nothing divides and separates like envy and jealousy, that grievous disease, beyond all pardon, and in some ways worse than “the root of all evils” (First Timothy 6, verse 10). For the greedy man is pleased when he himself has received; but the envious man is pleased when another has not received, not when he himself has. He counts other people’s misfortunes, rather than his own prosperity, a benefit to himself. He goes about as a common enemy of humankind, striking the members of Christ; and what could be closer to madness than that? A demon is envious, but of men, not of another demon. But you, a man, envy men, and set yourself against your own tribe and family, which not even a demon does. What pardon will you find, what excuse, when you tremble and turn pale at the sight of a brother prospering, when you ought to crown yourself, and rejoice, and exult?

If you want to emulate him, I do not forbid that. Emulate him, but with the aim of becoming like the one who has proved himself: not to pull him down, but so that you may reach the same height and show the same excellence. This is healthy rivalry, imitation without contention: not grieving at the good things of others, but being troubled at our own faults. Envy produces the opposite, for it neglects its own faults and wastes away at the good fortune of others. And so the poor man is not as troubled by his own poverty as by his neighbor’s plenty; and what could be more grievous than that? Indeed, in this respect, as I said before, the envious man is worse than the greedy one: the one rejoices at some gain of his own, while the other takes his delight in someone else going without.

So I beg you: leave this evil road and turn to the right kind of emulation (for this kind of zeal is a powerful thing, hotter than any fire), and win great blessings by it. This is how Paul too used to lead people on, when he said, “If by any means I may stir to emulation those who are my flesh, and may save some of them” (Romans 11, verse 14). For the one whose emulation is of the kind Paul wished for does not waste away when he sees the other held in honor, but when he sees himself left behind. The envious man is not like that; he wastes away at the sight of another’s prosperity. He is a kind of drone, spoiling other people’s labors, never eager to rise himself, but weeping when he sees another rising, and doing everything to throw him down.

To what, then, might one compare this passion? It seems to me like a sluggish donkey, heavy with a mass of flesh, yoked together with a winged horse, that is neither willing to rise itself and tries to drag the other down with the weight of its carcass. In the same way this man takes no thought and makes no effort to shake off his own deep sleep, but does everything to trip up and throw down the one who is flying toward heaven. He becomes an exact imitator of the devil. For the devil too, seeing man in paradise, did not seek to change his own condition, but to cast man out of paradise. And again, seeing him seated in heaven and the rest hurrying there, he keeps to the same plan, tripping up those who are hurrying there, and by this he heaps up the furnace all the higher for himself.

For this happens every time: the one who is envied, if he is watchful, becomes more distinguished, and the one who envies heaps up more evils for himself. So Joseph became distinguished; so did Aaron the priest: the plot of the envious made God cast his vote for him again and again, and was the occasion of the rod’s budding. So Jacob came to his great wealth and all those other blessings. So the envious pierce themselves through with ten thousand evils.

Since we know all this, let us flee this kind of emulation. For tell me, why do you envy? Because your brother has received spiritual grace? And from whom did he receive it? Answer me. Was it not from God? Then clearly it is God you are making the object of your hostility, he who gave the gift. Do you see where the evil is heading? Do you see what a crowning point it puts on the heap of your sins, and how deep the pit of vengeance it is digging for you?

Let us flee it, then, beloved. Let us not envy others, and let us not fail to pray for those who envy us, and let us do all we can to put out their passion. Let us not behave like the thoughtless, who, wanting to make them pay, do everything they can to fan their flame. Let us not do that; rather let us weep for them and mourn. For they are the injured ones: they have a worm always gnawing through their heart, and they gather a fountain of poison more bitter than any gall. Come, then, let us implore the merciful God both to change their feelings and to keep us from ever falling into that disease. For heaven is closed to the one who has this wasting sore, and even before heaven, this present life is not worth living for him. Timber and wool are not eaten through so thoroughly by the moth and worm that lodge in them as the fever of envy devours the very bones of the envious and destroys all mastery of themselves in their souls.

So, in order to free both ourselves and others from these countless woes, let us drive out of us this evil fever, more grievous than any gangrene, so that, having regained our spiritual strength, we may both finish the present race and win the crowns to come. May we all attain them, by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, power and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.