Homily 15 — Second Corinthians 7, verses 8 to 12

“So even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it.” [a]

He goes on to apologize for his letter, now that the sin had been corrected and treating them tenderly carried no danger; and he shows what good the thing had done. He had done this even before, when he said, “For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, not so that you would be made sorry, but so that you might know the love I have for you” (Second Corinthians 2, verse 4). And he does it again now, establishing this same point at greater length. Notice that he did not say, “I regretted it before, but now I do not regret it.” What did he say? “I do not regret it now, though I did regret it.” “Even if what I wrote,” he says, “was such as to go beyond the proper measure of rebuke, and to make me regret it, still the great benefit that has come from it does not let me regret it.” He said this, not as though he had rebuked them beyond the proper measure, but to heighten his praise of them. “For the improvement you showed was so great,” he says, “that even if I did happen to strike you too hard, so hard that I even condemned myself for it, I now praise myself because of the result.” We do the same with little children. When they have gone through a painful treatment — a cut with the knife, or burning, or bitter medicine — we are not afraid to comfort them afterward. That is what Paul does too.

Verses 8 and 9: “For I see that that letter made you sorry, though only for a while. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you were made sorry to the point of repentance.”

Having said, “I do not regret it,” he also gives the reason, pointing to the good that came from his letter; and he skillfully excuses himself by saying, “though only for a while.” For truly, what was painful was brief, but what was beneficial was lasting. The natural thing to say next would have been, “Even if it grieved you for a while, it made you glad and did you good forever.” But he does not say this. Before mentioning the gain, he turns again to his praise of them and to the proof of his own concern for them, saying, “Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry” — for what gain did I get from your being made sorry? — “but that you were made sorry to the point of repentance,” that is, that the sorrow brought some gain. A father, too, when he sees his son under the surgeon’s knife, does not rejoice that he is in pain but that he is being cured. So it is with Paul. But notice how he credits to them everything that was well done in the matter, and charges whatever was painful to the letter. “It made you sorry for a while,” he says; but the benefit that came from it he speaks of as their own good work. He did not say, “The letter corrected you,” although that was so, but, “You were made sorry to the point of repentance.”

“For you were made sorry in a godly way, so that you suffered loss from us in nothing.” [b]

Do you see his wisdom, beyond all words? “If we had not done this,” he says, “we would have done you harm.” What was well done he declares to be theirs; the harm, had he kept silent, he declares would have been his own. For if they were likely to be corrected by a sharp rebuke, then if we had not rebuked sharply, we would have done you harm; and the injury would not have been yours alone, but ours as well. Think of a man who does not give a merchant what he needs for his voyage: he is the one who causes the loss. In the same way we too, if we had not given you this occasion for repentance, would have done you harm. Do you see that failing to rebuke those who sin does harm to both the teacher and the disciple?

Verse 10: “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, a repentance that brings no regret.” “So,” he says, “though I did regret it before I saw the fruit and the gain and how great they were, I do not regret it now. For that is what godly sorrow is like.” Then he reasons about it as a philosopher, showing that sorrow is not a painful thing in every case, but only when it is worldly. And what is worldly? If you grieve over money, over reputation, over someone who has died — all these are worldly. That is why they also produce death. For the man who grieves over his reputation feels envy, and is often driven to his own ruin. That was the kind of sorrow Cain felt, and Esau.

By this worldly sorrow, then, he means the kind that harms those who feel it. For sorrow is profitable only where sins are concerned, as you can see in this way. The man who grieves over lost wealth does not make up the loss. The man who grieves over someone who has died does not raise the dead to life. The man who grieves over an illness not only is not made well, but even makes the disease worse. The man who grieves over his sins is the only one who gains something from his sorrow, for he makes his sins wane and vanish. Since the medicine was prepared for this purpose, it is effective and shows its usefulness in this case alone; in the other cases it even does harm. “And yet Cain,” someone says, “was sorry because he was not accepted by God.” It was not for this, but because he saw his brother glorious in honor. If he had grieved over not being accepted, he ought to have imitated his brother and rejoiced with him. As it was, by grieving he showed that his sorrow was worldly. But David did not grieve that way, nor Peter, nor any of the righteous. That is why they were accepted, grieving as they did either over their own sins or over those of others.

And yet what is more crushing than sorrow? Still, when it is godly, it is better than the joy of the world. For that joy ends in nothing, but this sorrow “produces repentance leading to salvation, a salvation that brings no regret.” What is remarkable about it is this: whoever has sorrowed this way will never regret it, whereas regret is the particular mark of worldly sorrow. For who is mourned more than a true-born son? And what grief is heavier than a death of that kind? Yet those fathers who at the height of their grief … and beat themselves wildly, after a time regret it, because they grieved beyond measure. They did themselves no good by it; they only added to their misery. But godly sorrow is not like this. It has two advantages: a man is not condemned for what he grieves over, and this sorrow ends in salvation. Worldly sorrow has neither. Those who feel it grieve to their own harm, and after grieving violently they condemn themselves, which is the plainest sign that they did it to their harm. Godly sorrow is the reverse. That is why he said, “produces repentance leading to salvation, a repentance that brings no regret.” For no one will condemn himself for having grieved over sin, for having mourned and afflicted himself. And when blessed Paul had said this, he did not need to bring in proof of his words from elsewhere, or to point to those in the ancient histories who had sorrowed. He brings forward the Corinthians themselves and draws his proof from what they had done, so that along with his praise he might both instruct them and win them all the more to himself.

Verse 11: “For look,” he says, “at this very thing, that you were made sorry in a godly way: what earnest care it produced in you!” “Not only,” he says, “did your sorrow not throw you into condemning yourselves, as though you had done it for nothing; it even made you more careful.” Then he names the sure signs of that care. “Yes, what clearing of yourselves” — toward me. “Yes, what indignation” — against the man who had sinned. “Yes, what fear” (verse 11). For such great care and so swift a reform belonged to people who were very much afraid. And so that he would not seem to be exalting himself, see how quickly he softened it by saying, “Yes, what longing” — for me. “Yes, what zeal” — for God. “Yes, what avenging!” For you too avenged the laws of God that had been outraged. [f]

“In everything you have shown yourselves to be pure in the matter.” Not only by not having done the deed, for that was plain before, but also by not consenting to it. For he had said in the former letter, “And you are puffed up” (First Corinthians 5, verse 2). So here he says: “You have cleared yourselves of this suspicion too, not only by not praising it, but also by rebuking it and being indignant.”

Verse 12: “So although I wrote to you, I wrote not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong.”

They might have said, “Why then do you rebuke us, if we were ‘pure in the matter’?” So, meeting this even earlier on and disposing of it in advance, he said what he said: “I do not regret it, though I did regret it.” “For I am so far,” he says, “from repenting now of what I wrote then, that I regretted it more then than I do now, when you have shown yourselves to be in the right.” Do you see again his forcefulness and his earnest contending — how he has turned what was said around into its very opposite? What they thought would make him take back his words in embarrassment, as though he had rebuked them hastily, now that they had reformed, he uses as proof that he was right to speak boldly. And afterward, when he finds he can, he does not hold back from soothing them without fear.

The man who said such things earlier as, “He who is joined to a prostitute is one body” (First Corinthians 6, verse 16), and, “Hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (First Corinthians 5, verse 5), and, “Every sin that a man does is outside the body” (First Corinthians 6, verse 18), and other things of that kind — how can he say here, “Not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong”? He is not contradicting himself; he is entirely consistent with himself. How is he consistent with himself?

Because it mattered very much to him to show the affection he had for them. So he does not throw away his concern for the man; but, as I said, he shows at the same time the love he had for them, and that a greater fear stirred him — fear for the whole church. He had been afraid that the evil might eat its way further, and advancing, take hold of the whole church. That is why he also said, “A little yeast leavens the whole batch” (First Corinthians 5, verse 6). That is what he said at the time. But now that they had done well, he no longer puts it that way but differently. He means the same thing, but he frames his words more pleasantly, saying, “so that our care for you might be made plain to you.” [g]

That is, “so that you might know how much I love you.” Now this is the same thing as before, but because it is expressed differently it seemed to carry another meaning. To convince yourself that it is the same, unfold his thought, and you will see that the difference is nothing. “Because I love you so much,” he says, “I was afraid you might suffer some harm from that quarter, and fall into that same sorrow yourselves.” Just as, when he says, “Does God take care for oxen?” (First Corinthians 9, verse 9), he does not mean that God does not care for them — for nothing that exists could hold together if it were abandoned by God’s providence — but that he did not make the law chiefly for oxen, so here too he means: “I wrote first of all for your sake, but secondly for his as well. And I had that love in myself even apart from my letter; but I wanted to show it, to you, and in a word to everyone, by that writing.”

Verse 13: “Therefore we have been comforted.” [h]

Comforted, since we have both shown our care for you and have succeeded completely. As he also said in another place, “For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord” (First Thessalonians 3, verse 8), and again, “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not you?” (First Thessalonians 2, verse 19). For this is life, this is comfort, this is consolation to a teacher who has understanding: the growth of his disciples.

Nothing so marks out the one who holds rule as a father’s affection for those he rules. For begetting alone does not make a father; loving after begetting does too. And if so much love is needed where nature is concerned, much more where grace is concerned. This is how all the men of old stood out. All who won a good name among the Hebrews were made known by this. This is how Samuel was shown to be great, when he said, “But far be it from me that I should sin against God by ceasing to pray for you” (First Samuel 12, verse 23). So it was with David, with Abraham, with Elijah, and with each one of the righteous, both in the New Testament and in the Old. So too Moses, for the sake of those he ruled, left behind great riches and countless treasures, “choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God” (Hebrews 11, verse 25); and even before he was appointed, he was the people’s leader by what he did. That is why that Hebrew spoke so foolishly when he said to him, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?” (Exodus 2, verse 14). What are you saying? You see what he does, and you question his title? It is as if someone watched a physician using the knife superbly and helping a diseased limb of the body, and said, “Who made you a physician and told you to use the knife?” “My skill, my good sir, and your own illness.” In the same way, Moses’ knowledge made him what he claimed to be.

For ruling is a craft, not merely a rank — and a craft above all crafts. If the rule exercised by those outside the church is a craft and a science higher than all the others, much more is this one. This rule is as much better than that one as that one is better than the rest — or rather, far more. And if you like, let us examine this argument more carefully. There is the craft of farming, of weaving, of building. These are very necessary and do much to keep us alive. The others are really only servants of these: the coppersmith’s craft, the carpenter’s, the shepherd’s. But of the crafts themselves, the most necessary of all is farming, the very one God introduced first, when he had formed man. For it is possible to live without shoes and clothes, but without farming it is impossible. Such, they say, are the Hamaxobii, the nomads among the Scythians, and the naked wise men of India. They do not trouble themselves with the crafts of house-building, weaving, and shoemaking; they need only farming. Blush, you who need superfluous crafts in order to live — cooks, pastry makers, embroiderers, and ten thousand others of that kind! Blush, you who bring empty refinements into life! Blush, you who are unbelievers, before those barbarians who have no need of any craft! For God made nature very self-sufficient, needing only a few things. Still, I do not force you or lay it down as a law that you should live this way, but only as Jacob asked. And what did he ask? “If the Lord will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear” (Genesis 28, verse 20). Paul gave the same command, saying, “Having food and covering, let us be content with these” (First Timothy 6, verse 8). So farming comes first; weaving second; building third after it; and shoemaking last of all — for among us at least there are many servants and laborers who live without shoes. These, then, are the useful and necessary crafts.

Come, then, let us compare them with the craft of ruling. I brought forward these, the most important of all, so that once ruling has been shown to be above them, its victory over the rest may be beyond question. How, then, shall we show that it is more necessary than all of them? Because without it there is no benefit in these. And if you agree, let us leave the rest unmentioned and bring onto the stage the one that stands higher and matters more than any: farming. What good will the many hands of your laborers do if they are at war with one another and plunder one another’s goods? As things are, fear of the ruler restrains them and protects what they have worked for; take that away, and their labor is in vain. But if one looks closely, he will find yet another rule that is the parent and the bond of this one. What might that be? The rule by which each man ought to govern and rule himself, disciplining his unworthy passions, and nourishing and furthering the growth of all the seeds of virtue with all care.

For there are these kinds of rule. One is that by which men rule peoples and cities, ordering public life. Paul points to it when he says, “Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God” (Romans 13, verses 1 and 4). Then, to show the benefit of it, he went on to say that the ruler “is God’s servant for good,” and again, “he is God’s servant, an avenger to carry out wrath on the one who does evil.” The second is that by which every person of understanding rules himself. The apostle points to this too, when he says, “Do you want to have no fear of the authority? Do what is good” (Romans 13, verse 3) — speaking of the man who rules himself. [k]

But here there is yet another rule, higher than the political one. What is it? The rule in the church. Paul mentions this too, when he says, “Obey those who rule over you and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give account” (Hebrews 13, verse 17). This rule is as much better than the political one as heaven is better than earth — or rather, far more. In the first place, its chief concern is not how to punish sins once they are committed, but how they may never be committed at all; and next, once they are committed, not how to cut off the diseased member, but how the sins may be blotted out.

It makes little account of the things of this life; all its business is with the things in heaven. “For our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3, verse 20). Our life is there too: “For our life,” he says, “is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3, verse 3). Our prizes are there, and our race is run for the crowns that are there. For this life is not dissolved at the end; it is then that it shines out all the more. And that is why those who hold this rule have a greater honor put into their hands, not only than provincial governors but even than those who wear the diadem themselves, since they shape people in greater things and for greater things. But neither the one who seeks political rule nor the one who seeks spiritual rule will be able to exercise it well unless he has first ruled himself as he ought, and kept with all strictness the laws of his own way of life. For just as rule over the many is in a sense twofold, so is the rule each person exercises over himself. And here again spiritual rule surpasses political rule, as what we have said has proved.

Yet one may see certain of the crafts imitating rule, and farming in particular. For just as the farmer is in a way a ruler over his plants, pruning and holding back some, making others grow and tending them, so too the best rulers punish and cut off those who are wicked and harm the many, while they promote the good and orderly. That is why Scripture likens rulers to vinedressers. For what if plants cannot cry out, as the injured do in cities? They still show the wrong done them by their looks, withering, crowded for room by worthless weeds. And just as wickedness is punished by laws, so here too this craft corrects poor soil, and plants that have degenerated and run wild. For we will find here too every variety of human temperament: roughness, weakness, timidity, boldness, steadiness. Some grow rank out of season through their wealth, to their neighbors’ harm, while others are starved and wronged — as when hedges are made to grow thick at the cost of the plants beside them, or when other trees, barren and wild, shoot up to a great height and keep those beneath them from growing. And just as rulers and kings have those who trouble their rule with violence and war, so the farmer has the attacks of wild beasts, unseasonable weather, hail, mildew, heavy rain, drought, and all such things. But these things happen so that you may always look to the hope of God’s help. For the other crafts make their way through human diligence as well; but this one succeeds as God tips the scale, and depends almost wholly on him from start to finish. It needs rain from above, and the right mixture of seasons, and above all his providence. “For neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth” (First Corinthians 3, verse 7).

Here too there is death and life, labor pains and bringing forth, just as with human beings. For here we find things cut down and things bearing fruit, things dying and things — the very ones that were dead — born over again. In this the earth speaks to us of a resurrection, in many ways and clearly. For when the root bears fruit, when the seed sprouts, is that not a resurrection? And one could see a great measure of God’s providence and wisdom at work in this rule, if one went through it point by point. But what I meant to say is that this rule is concerned with earth and plants, while ours is concerned with the care of souls. As great as the difference is between plants and a soul, so great is the superiority of our rule over that one. And the rulers of this present life, again, fall as far short of our rule as it is better to govern the willing than the unwilling. For this too is a rule in keeping with nature; in their case everything is done through fear and by force, but here what is done rightly is done by choice and free decision.

Nor is this the only point where ours excels the other. It is not only a rule but, so to speak, a fatherhood; for it has a father’s gentleness, and while it commands greater things, it persuades. The worldly ruler says, “If you commit adultery, you forfeit your life.” But this rule threatens the heaviest punishments if you so much as look with unchaste eyes. For this court is awe-inspiring, and it is for the correction of the soul, not of the body only. As great as the difference is between soul and body, so great is the gap between this rule and that one. The one sits as judge of open offenses — or rather, not even of all of these, but only of those that can be fully proved — and even in these it often judges crookedly. But this court teaches those who come into it that he who judges our case will bring out “all things naked and laid open” (Hebrews 4, verse 13) before the whole world as its theater, and that hiding will be impossible. So Christianity holds our life together far better than the laws of this world. For if trembling over secret sins makes a man safer than fearing only for open ones, and if calling him to account even for smaller offenses spurs him on to virtue more than punishing only the graver ones, then it is easy to see that this rule, more than all others, binds our life together.

But if you like, let us also consider how the rulers are chosen, for here too you will see a great difference. This authority cannot be gained by giving money, but only by having shown a highly virtuous character. And the one who is appointed is brought into this rule not for glory among people or ease for himself, but for toils and labors and the good of the many. That is why the help he receives from the Spirit is so abundant. In the other case, the rule can do no more than declare what must be done; but in this one, it adds besides the help that comes from prayers and from the Spirit. Further, in the other case there is not a word about philosophy. No one sits there teaching what a soul is, what the world is, what we will be hereafter, where we will go when we depart from here, and how we will attain virtue. There is much talk about contracts and bonds and money, but not a thought about these things; whereas in the church one can see that these are the subject of every sermon. That is why one could rightly call it by all these names: a court of justice, a hospital, a school of philosophy, a nursery for the soul, a training ground for the race that leads to heaven. [l]

Again, that this rule is also the mildest of all, even though it demands greater strictness, is plain from this. The worldly ruler, if he catches an adulterer, punishes him at once. And yet what good does that do? This is not to destroy the passion, but to send the soul away with its wound still on it. But this ruler, when he has found the man out, does not consider how to take vengeance, but how to root out the passion. For you who rule in the world do the same thing as if, when there was a disease of the head, you did not stop the disease but cut off the head. I do not do that; I cut off the disease. I do shut him out of the mysteries and the sacred precincts; but when I have restored him, I receive him back again, freed at once from that vice and made better by his repentance. “And how is it possible,” someone says, “to root out adultery?” It is possible, yes, very possible, if a man comes under these laws. For the church is a spiritual bath, which washes away not the dirt of the body but the stains of the soul, by its many ways of repentance. You, if you let a man go unpunished, have made him worse, and if you punish him, you have sent him away uncured. But I neither let him go unpunished nor punish him as you do; I exact the penalty that is fitting for me to exact, and I set right what has been done.

Would you like to learn in yet another way that you, for all your drawn swords and the fires you display against offenders, bring about no real cure, while I, without these things, have led them to perfect health? I have no need of arguments or words. I bring forward the earth and the sea and human nature itself as witnesses. Ask what the state of human affairs was before this court began to sit: not even the names of the good works now done were ever heard of. Who braved death? Who despised money? Who cared nothing for glory? Who fled the turmoil of life and welcomed the mountains and solitude, the mother of heavenly wisdom? Where was the very name of virginity? All these things, and more besides, are the good work of this court, the doing of this rule. Knowing these things, then, and understanding well that from this comes every benefit of our life and the reforming of the world, come often to hear the words of God, to our assemblies here, and to the prayers. For if you order your lives this way, you will be able to show a way of living worthy of heaven and to obtain the promised good things. May we all obtain them, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.