Homily 14 — Second Corinthians 7, verses 2 to 7

“Open your hearts to us. We wronged no one, we corrupted no one, we took advantage of no one. I do not say this to condemn you; for I have said before, as I also declared above, that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.” [a]

Once again he raises the subject of love, softening the harshness of his rebuke. He had convicted and reproached them for being loved and yet not loving in equal measure — for breaking away from his love and mixing with other public pests. So once more he softens the force of his rebuke, saying, “Make room for us,” that is, “Love us.” He asks for a favor that costs them nothing, one that benefits those who grant it more than the one who receives it. And he did not say “love,” but, with a stronger appeal to their compassion, “make room for.” He says: “Who drove us out? Who cast us out of your hearts? How did we come to be cramped in you?” For since he had said above, “You are cramped in your own affections,” here he makes it plainer and says, “Make room for us,” and in this way, too, he wins them back to himself. For nothing produces love so well as for the one who is loved to know that the one who loves him so intensely longs for his love in return.

“We wronged no one.” See how once again he does not mention the benefits he had done them, but shapes his words another way, so as to give less offense and yet cut deeper. At the same time he also hints at the false apostles, saying, “We wronged no one, we corrupted no one, we defrauded no one.” What does “we corrupted” mean? That we deceived no one, as he says elsewhere too: “Lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve, your minds should be corrupted” (Second Corinthians 11, verse 3).

“We defrauded no one”: we plundered no one, we plotted against no one. For the present he holds back from saying, “We did you good in this way and in that.” Instead he frames his words so as to shame them more: “We wronged no one,” he says, as if to say: “Even if we had done you no good at all, you still ought not to turn away from us, for you have nothing to charge us with, small or great.” Then, because he felt how heavy his rebuke was, he tempers it again. He did not keep silent altogether, for then he would not have roused them; nor did he leave the harshness of his language unsoftened, for then he would have wounded them too deeply. And what does he say?

Verse 3: “I do not say this to condemn you.” How is that plain? “For I have said before,” he adds, “that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.” This is the greatest affection: though he is treated with contempt, he chooses both to die and to live with them. “For you are not simply in our hearts, but in the way I have said. It is possible to love someone and still run from danger, but we do not do that.” And see here, too, a wisdom beyond words. He did not speak of what he had already done for them, so as not to seem to be reproaching them again; instead he makes a promise for the future: “If danger should ever come upon us, I am ready to suffer anything for your sake. Neither death nor life means anything to me in itself. Whichever of the two you are in, that is the one I would choose — death rather than life, or life rather than death.”

Now dying is obviously a proof of love. But living — who would not choose that, even among those who are no friends at all? Why, then, does the apostle mention it as something great? Because it is something very great indeed. Many people feel for their friends when they fall into misfortune; but when those friends are honored, they do not rejoice with them. They envy them. “But we are not like that. If you are in disaster, we are not afraid to share your bad fortune; if you prosper, envy does not wound us.”

He had kept repeating these things: “You are not cramped in us,” and “You are cramped in your own affections,” and “Make room for us,” and “You too, open wide your hearts,” and “We wronged no one.” All of this seemed to condemn them. So notice how he eases the severity in another way too, by saying, “Great is my boldness in speaking to you.” And he says: “That is why I venture to say such things — not to condemn you by what I say, but out of my great boldness toward you.” And to make that plainer still, he said, “Great is my boasting on your behalf.” “Do not think that because I speak like this, I speak as though I had condemned you altogether. I am exceedingly proud of you, and I boast about you. I speak out of tender concern, and out of a desire that you should make greater progress in virtue.” [c]

He said the same to the Hebrews, after a great deal of rebuke: “But we are persuaded of better things concerning you, things that accompany salvation, though we speak this way. And we desire that each one of you show the same eagerness for the full assurance of hope to the end” (Hebrews 6, verses 9 and 11). So here too: “Great is my boasting on your behalf.” “We boast of you to others.” Do you see what genuine comfort he has given them? And he says: “I do not simply boast; I boast greatly.” That is why he added these words: “I am filled with comfort.” What comfort? “The comfort that comes from you, because you mended your ways and comforted me by your conduct.” This is the mark of someone who loves: to complain that he is not loved, and yet to fear that he will cause pain by complaining too much. That is why he says, “I am filled with comfort; I overflow with joy.” “But these expressions,” someone says, “seem to contradict what he said before.”

They do not, however. On the contrary, they agree with it perfectly. These words win a favorable hearing for the earlier ones, and the praise they carry makes the benefit of those rebukes more real, quietly drawing off whatever was painful in them. That is why he uses these expressions, and uses them with great sincerity and earnestness. For he did not say, “I am filled with joy,” but “I abound” — or rather, not even “abound,” but “overflow beyond measure.” In this way, too, he shows his longing: even though he is loved so much that he rejoices and exults, he still does not think himself loved as he ought to be, or paid in full. That is how insatiable he was, out of his exceeding love for them. For the joy of being loved in any degree by those one loves passionately is great, precisely because we love them so much. So this, again, was a proof of his affection. Of the comfort he says, “I am filled” — that is, “I have received what was owed me.” But of the joy he says, “I overflow beyond measure.” That is: “I was despondent about you, but you have made your defense well enough and have supplied comfort. You have not only removed the cause of my sorrow; you have even added to my joy.” Then, to show how great it was, he does not only declare it by saying, “I overflow beyond measure with joy,” but also by adding, “in all our affliction.” “So great was the delight you gave us that even so great a distress could not dim it. By the sheer excess of its own greatness it overcame the sorrows that had hold of us, and did not let us feel them.”

Verse 5: “For even when we had come into Macedonia, our flesh had no relief.” Since he had spoken of “our affliction,” he explains what kind it was and enlarges on it in words, to show how great the comfort and joy they had given him were, since they had driven away so great a sorrow. “But we were afflicted on every side.” How on every side? “Outside were fightings” — from the unbelievers. “Inside were fears” — because of the weak among the believers, for fear they would be led astray. For these things did not happen among the Corinthians alone, but elsewhere too. [e]

Verse 6: “Nevertheless he who comforts the lowly comforted us by the coming of Titus.” He had borne witness to great things about them in what he said. So, not to seem to be flattering them, he calls Titus, the brother, as his witness — Titus, who had come from them to Paul after the first letter to tell him in detail how they had mended their ways. But notice, please, how everywhere he makes a great deal of Titus’s coming. He said earlier too, “Furthermore, when I came to Troas for the good news, I had no relief for my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother” (Second Corinthians 2, verses 12 and 13). And here again: “We were comforted,” he says, “by the coming of Titus.” For he wants to establish the man in their confidence and to make him very dear to them. And see how he provides for both. On the one hand, by saying, “I had no relief for my spirit,” he shows how great Titus’s virtue was. On the other, by saying that in our distress his coming was enough to comfort us — “and not by his coming only, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you” — he makes the man dear to the Corinthians. For nothing so produces and cements friendships as saying something sound and kind about someone. And that is what he testifies Titus did, when he says: “By his coming he has given us wings of delight, such things did he report about you. That is why his coming made us glad. We were delighted ‘not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you.’ And how was he comforted? By your virtue, by your good deeds.” That is why he adds, “when he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me.” “These things made him glad; these things comforted him.”

Do you see how he shows that Titus, too, loved them dearly? He counted their good report a comfort to himself, and when he arrived he boasted of it to Paul as though it were his own good fortune. And notice how warmly he reports these things: “Your longing, your mourning, your zeal.” For it was natural that they would mourn and grieve over why the blessed Paul was so displeased, and why he had stayed away from them so long. That is why he did not simply say “tears,” but “mourning”; not “desire,” but “longing”; not “anger,” but “zeal” — and “zeal for me,” which they showed both over the man who had committed sexual immorality and over those who were accusing Paul. “For you were set on fire and blazed out when you received my letters.” For these reasons he overflows with joy; for these reasons he is filled with comfort, because he had made them feel. It seems to me, however, that these things are said not only to soften what came before, but also to encourage those who had acted well in the matter. For though I suppose some were liable to those earlier charges and unworthy of this praise, he still does not single them out. He makes both the praise and the charges common to all, and leaves it to the conscience of his hearers to pick out what belongs to them. In this way the charges would give no offense, and the praise would lead them on to great fervor of mind.

That is how those who are rebuked ought to feel now as well. That is how they should lament and mourn; that is how they should long for their teachers, and seek them out more than they would their fathers. For from fathers comes life, but from teachers a good life. That is how they should bear the rebukes of their fathers; that is how they should share the grief of those who preside over them because of those who sin. For it does not all rest with those who preside, but with you as well. If the one who has sinned sees that he was rebuked by his father but flattered by his brothers, he feels more at ease. But when the father rebukes, you be angry too, whether out of concern for your brother or joining in your father’s indignation. Only let the earnestness you show be great; and mourn, not that he was rebuked, but that he sinned. “But if I build and you tear down, what have we gained but toil?” (Sirach 34, verse 23). Or rather, your loss does not stop there; you also bring punishment on yourself. For the one who keeps a wound from healing is punished no less than the one who dealt it, but even more. It is not an equal offense to wound and to keep what is wounded from healing. Keeping it from healing leads to death without fail; wounding does not necessarily. [f]

I have said this to you so that you may join in the anger of those who preside over you whenever their indignation is just; so that when you see someone rebuked, all of you may keep away from him even more than the teacher does. Let the one who has done wrong fear you more than those who preside over him. If he is afraid of his teacher alone, he will easily sin; but if he has to dread so many eyes and so many tongues, he will be safer. For if we do not act this way, we will suffer the heaviest punishment; but if we do these things, we will share in the gain that comes from his reform.

So let us act this way. And if anyone says, “Be kind to your brother; this is a Christian’s duty,” let him be taught that the kind one is the one who is angry with him, not the one who puts him at ease too soon and does not even let him come to a sense of his wrongdoing. For tell me, which of the two pities a man in a fever and out of his mind? Is it the one who lays him on his bed, ties him down, and keeps from him the food and drink that are not good for him? Or the one who lets him glut himself on strong drink, orders that he be left free, and lets him act in every way like a man in good health? Does not the second, who seems to be acting kindly, make the disease worse, while the first cures it? That is how we must judge in this case too. For true kindness does not humor the sick in everything or flatter their untimely cravings. No one loved the man who committed sexual immorality among the Corinthians as much as Paul did, who commanded that he be handed over to Satan. No one hated him as much as those who applauded him and courted his favor — and the outcome showed it. They puffed him up and made his inflammation worse; but the apostle brought it down, and did not leave him until he had brought him to perfect health. They added to the harm already there; he rooted out even what had been there from the start. So let us learn these laws of kindness too.

If you see a horse rushing toward a cliff, you put the bit in its mouth, rein it in hard, and whip it again and again. That is punishment, yet the punishment itself is the mother of safety. Do the same with those who sin. Bind the one who has done wrong until he has appeased God. Do not let him go loose, or he will be bound all the tighter by the anger of God. If I bind him, God does not put him in chains; if I do not bind him, the chains that cannot be broken await him. “For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged” (First Corinthians 11, verse 31). So do not think that acting this way comes from cruelty and unkindness. No, it comes from the greatest gentleness, the most skillful medicine, and much tender care. “But,” someone says, “they have been punished for a long time.” How long? Tell me. A year, two years, three? I do not ask for length of time, but for a change of soul. Show me this, then: whether they have been pierced to the heart, whether they have changed their ways — and all is done. If this is missing, the time is no help. We do not ask whether a wound has been bandaged often, but whether the bandage has done any good. If it has done good, even in a short time, let it stay on no longer; but if it has done no good, let it stay on even after ten years. Let this fix the term of release: the good of the one who is bound.

If we take this kind of care both of ourselves and of others, and pay no attention to honor and dishonor at human hands, but keep in mind the punishment and the disgrace that await in the world to come, and above all the angering of God, and apply the medicines of repentance with energy, we will soon arrive at perfect health, and will obtain the good things to come. May we all obtain them, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.