Homily 34 — Matthew 10, verses 23 to 33

“But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone over the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.” [a]

He had spoken of those fearful and dreadful things, enough to melt even diamond, that were to come upon them after his cross and resurrection and his being taken up into heaven. Now he turns his words again to something calmer, letting those he is training catch their breath, and giving them complete security. For he did not command them, when they were persecuted, to close with the enemy at all, but to flee. Since this was still only a beginning and a prelude, he gave his words a turn that stooped very low to meet them. He is not speaking now of the persecutions that would come later, but of those before the cross and the passion. He showed this by saying, “You will not have gone over the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.” That is, so that they would not say: “What then, if we flee when we are persecuted, and they catch up with us there too and drive us out?” — to destroy this fear he says: “You will not have gone around Palestine before I come to you at once.”

And see how here again he does not take away the terrors, but stands by them in their dangers. He did not say, “I will snatch you out and put an end to the persecutions.” What did he say? “You will not have gone over the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.” Yes, for simply to see him was enough to comfort them.

But notice, I beg you, how he does not on every occasion leave everything to grace, but requires them to contribute something of their own as well. “If you are afraid,” he says, “flee”; for this is what he meant by saying “flee” and “do not be afraid.” And he did not command them to flee at the start, but to withdraw when they were persecuted. Nor is it a great distance he allows them, but only as far as going around the cities of Israel.

Then he trains them again in another branch of self-mastery. First he cast out all worry about their food; second, all fear of their dangers; and now, fear of slander. He freed them from that first anxiety by saying, “The worker deserves his wages,” and by showing that many would take them in; and from their distress about their dangers by saying, “Do not worry about how or what you are to speak,” and, “The one who endures to the end will be saved.”

But it was likely, besides, that they would also bring a bad name on themselves, which to many people seems harder to bear than anything. See where he draws his comfort from even in this case: he draws the encouragement from himself, and from everything that had been said about him, and nothing else could equal that. For just as he said in that other place, “You will be hated by everyone,” and added, “for my name’s sake,” so he does here too.

And he softens it in another way as well, joining a fresh point to that earlier one. What kind of point is it?

“A disciple,” he says, “is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household! So do not be afraid of them.”

See how he reveals himself to be the Lord and God and Creator of all things. What, then? Is there no disciple above his teacher, no servant above his lord? As long as he is a disciple and a servant, he is not, by the very nature of that rank. Do not tell me here about the rare exceptions; take the rule from the majority. And he does not say, “How much more his servants,” but “those of his household,” to show how very close he felt them to be to him. Elsewhere, too, he said, “From now on I do not call you servants; you are my friends.” And he did not say, “If they have insulted the master of the house and slandered him,” but states the very form of the insult as well: that they “called him Beelzebub.”

Then he gives them another comfort too, no less than this one. This first is in fact the greatest; but because they were not yet living by a strict rule, they needed another as well, one with a special power to revive them, and so he states that too. The saying looks in form like a statement about everything; yet it is spoken not of all matters, but only of those in hand. For what does he say?

“There is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and nothing hidden that will not be known.” What he says is something like this: “It is enough to encourage you that I too have shared the same insults with you — I, your Teacher and Lord. But if it still grieves you to hear these words, consider this as well: you will soon be set free even from this suspicion. Why are you grieving? Because they call you sorcerers and deceivers? Wait a little, and everyone will call you saviors and benefactors of the world. For time uncovers everything that is concealed; it will both refute their false charge and bring your virtue to light. When events show you to be saviors and benefactors and examples of every virtue, people will not pay attention to their words, but to the real state of the case. They will be shown up as false accusers and liars and slanderers, and you as brighter than the sun, as the length of time reveals and proclaims you, sounds out with a voice clearer than a trumpet, and makes everyone a witness of your virtue. So do not let what is being said now bring you low; let the hope of the good things to come lift you up. For it cannot be that what concerns you should stay hidden.”

Then, having rid them of all distress and fear and anxiety, and set them above what people say against them, then and only then, at the right moment, does he speak to them about boldness in their preaching as well. [f]

“What I tell you in the dark,” he says, “speak in the light; and what you have heard in the ear, preach on the housetops.”

Yet it was not dark at all when he was saying these things, and he was not speaking to them in their ear. He was using a strong figure of speech. Because he was talking with them alone, and in a small corner of Palestine, he said “in the dark” and “in the ear,” setting the boldness of speech he was going to give them later against the manner of the conversation then going on. For he says: “You will preach not to one city, or two, or three, but to the whole world, crossing land and sea, inhabited country and desert; to rulers and nations alike, to philosophers and orators, saying everything openly and with all boldness.” That is why he said “on the housetops” and “in the light”: without any shrinking back, and with complete freedom.

And why did he not say only, “Preach on the housetops” and “Speak in the light,” but added, “What I tell you in the dark” and “what you hear in the ear”? It was to raise their spirits. Just as when he said, “Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater works than these,” so here too, to show that he will do it all through them, and more through them than by himself, he put this in. For he says: “I have given the beginning and the prelude; but the greater part I mean to accomplish through you.”

This is the language of one who is not only giving commands, but also declaring beforehand what was to happen, encouraging them with his words, implying that they would prevail over everything, and quietly removing once again their distress at being spoken ill of. For just as this teaching, after lying hidden for a while, will spread over everything, so the evil suspicion of the Jews will quickly perish.

Then, because he had lifted them up so high, he warns them again of the dangers too, giving their minds wings and raising them high above everything.

For what does he say? “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” Do you see how he set them far above everything, persuading them to despise not only anxiety and slander, dangers and plots, but even the thing everyone thinks the most terrible of all, death? And not death only, but a violent death too? And he did not say, “You will be killed,” but, with the dignity that suited him, he put it before them this way: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” As always, he turns the argument around to its opposite. For he says: “What? Is it death you are afraid of? And are you slow to preach because of it? No — I bid you preach for this very reason, because you are afraid of death; for this will deliver you from what is really death. What if they do kill you? They will not prevail over the better part, though they try ten thousand ways.”

That is why he did not say, “who do not kill the soul,” but “who cannot kill it.” For however much they may want to, they will not prevail. So if you fear punishment, fear that one, which is far more terrible.

Do you see how once again he does not promise them deliverance from death, but lets them die, and gives them more than if he had not allowed them to suffer it? For deliverance from death is nowhere near as great as persuading people to despise death. You see, he does not push them into dangers, but sets them above dangers. In a short sentence he fixes in their minds the teaching about the immortality of the soul; and having planted a saving teaching in two or three words, he comforts them with other reasons as well.

So that they would not think, when they were killed and butchered, that they suffered this as men abandoned, he brings in again the argument from God’s providence, saying this: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall into a snare without your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” “What is worth less than they are?” he says. “Yet not even these will be caught without God’s knowledge.”

He does not mean that they fall by his doing — that would be unworthy of God — but that nothing that happens is hidden from him. If, then, he is not unaware of anything that happens to us, and loves us more truly than a father, and loves us so much that he has numbered our very hairs, we ought not to be afraid. He said this not because God counts our hairs, but to show his perfect knowledge and his great providence for them. So if he knows everything that happens, and is both able and willing to save you, then whatever you may have to suffer, do not think that you suffer it as people abandoned. For his will is not to deliver you from the terrors, but to persuade you to despise them, since this, more than anything, is deliverance from the terrors.

“So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” [h]

Do you see that fear had already taken hold of them? Yes, for he knew the secrets of the heart; that is why he added, “So do not be afraid of them.” For even if they prevail, it will be over the lesser part — I mean the body — and even if they do not kill it, nature will certainly take it away with her when she departs. So not even this depends on them; people have it from nature. And if you fear this, you should fear far more what is greater, and dread “him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

He does not say openly here that it is he himself “who can destroy both soul and body”; but he made that plain earlier, where he declared himself to be the judge.

But now the opposite happens. The one who can destroy the soul — that is, punish it — we do not fear; but those who kill the body we shudder at. And yet, while he punishes the body along with the soul, they cannot even chastise the body, much less the soul; and however severely they chastise it, they only make it more glorious that way.

Do you see how he shows the struggles to be easy? For in truth death shook their souls violently and filled them with terror for a time, because it had not yet been made easy to overcome, and those who were to despise it had not yet received the grace of the Spirit.

So, having cast out the fear and distress that were shaking their souls, by what follows he encourages them again, casting out fear by fear — and not by fear only, but also by the hope of great prizes. He threatens with great authority, urging them in both ways to speak boldly for the truth, and he says further: “Whoever, then, confesses me before people, I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before people, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.”

So he urges them not from the good things only, but also from their opposites, and he ends with the grim part.

And notice his precision. He did not say “me,” but “in me,” implying that the one who confesses makes his confession not by any power of his own, but with the help of grace from above. But of the one who denies he did not say “in me,” but “me”; for it is when he has been stripped of the gift that the denial follows. Someone may say: “Why, then, is he blamed, if he denies after being abandoned?” Because being abandoned is the fault of the one who is abandoned.

But why is he not satisfied with faith in the mind, but requires confession with the mouth as well? To train us for boldness of speech, and for a fuller love and resolve, and to lift us on high. That is why he addresses himself to everyone. He does not apply this only to the disciples personally; he is now making not them only but their disciples too noble-hearted. For whoever has learned this lesson will not only teach boldly, but will also bear everything easily and willingly. This, at any rate — their belief in this saying — is what brought many over to the apostles.

For both in the punishment the penalty is heavier, and in the good things the reward is greater. I mean this: the one who does right has the advantage in time, and the sinner counts the delay of his penalty as gain; so he has brought in something to balance it — or rather a far greater advantage — the increase of the rewards. “Did you gain an advantage by confessing me first, here?” he says. “I too will gain an advantage over you, by giving you greater things, unspeakably greater; for I will confess you there.” Do you see that both the good things and the evil things are dealt out there? Why, then, are you in such a hurry and a rush? Why look for your rewards here, you who are “saved by hope”?

So if you have done something good and have not received its reward here, do not be troubled; for in the time to come its reward awaits you, with increase. And if you have done something evil and have not paid the penalty, do not be at ease; for there vengeance will receive you, unless you turn back and change your ways.

If you do not believe it, judge the things to come from the things here. If those who confess are so glorious in the time of the contests, imagine what they will be in the time of the crowns. If the enemies here applaud, how could that most tender of all fathers fail to admire you and proclaim you? Yes, then we will have both our gifts for the good and our punishments for the evil. So those who deny will suffer harm both here and there: here, living with an evil conscience, they will surely be dead, even if they were never to die; and there they will undergo the final penalty. But the others will profit both here and there: here making a gain of their death, and becoming in this way more glorious than the living; and there enjoying those blessings beyond words.

God, then, is not quick to punish only, but to do good as well — and to this more than to the first. But why has he set down the reward only once, and the punishment twice? He knows that this is more likely to correct us. That is why, after saying, “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell,” he says again, “I will also deny him.” Paul does the same, constantly mentioning hell.

So we see that he trained his pupil in every way: by opening heaven to him, by setting before him that fearful judgment seat, and by pointing to the amphitheater of angels, and to how the crowns will be proclaimed in the midst of them — which would from then on prepare the way for the word of godliness to be received very easily. Then, in what follows, so that they would not grow timid and the word be hindered, he bids them be ready even for slaughter itself, to make them aware that those who persist in their error will have to suffer, among other things, for plotting against them.

So let us despise death, even if the time that requires it of us has not come; for it will move us to a far better life. “But the body decays.” Why, this is the very reason we ought most of all to rejoice: because it is death that decays, and mortality that perishes, not the substance of the body. If you saw a statue being cast, you would not call the process destruction, but a better shaping. Reason the same way about the body, and do not mourn. It would be right to mourn if it had remained under its punishment. [k]

Someone says: “But this ought to happen without our bodies decaying; they should stay whole.” And what good would that have done either the living or the departed? How long will you be lovers of the body? How long will you be riveted to the earth, gaping after shadows? Why, what good would this have done? Or rather, what harm would it not have done? If our bodies did not decay, then in the first place the greatest of all evils, pride, would have remained with many. For if even while this goes on, with worms pouring out, many have been eager to be gods, what would have happened if the body lasted?

In the second place, it would not be believed to be made of earth. For if some still doubt it, though its end bears witness to it, what would they not have suspected if they did not see this? Third, bodies would have been loved to excess, and most people would have become more fleshly and coarse. If even now some cling to people’s tombs and coffins after those people have perished, what would they not have done if they still had even their likeness preserved? Fourth, they would not have longed for the things to come. Fifth, those who say the world is eternal would have been more confirmed in it, and would have denied God as Creator. Sixth, they would not have known the excellence of the soul, and what a great thing it is for a soul to be present in a body. Seventh, many who lose their relatives would have left their cities, lived in the tombs and gone mad, talking all the time with their own dead.

For even now people make images for themselves, since they cannot keep the body — for that is impossible; whether they like it or not, it slips away and hurries from them — and they are riveted to the wooden panels. If so, what monstrous thing would they not have invented then? To my mind, most people would even have built temples for such bodies, and those skilled in such sorceries would have persuaded evil spirits to speak through them. For even now those who venture on the arts of calling up the dead attempt many things stranger than these. And how many forms of idolatry would not have sprung from this, when even after the dust and ashes people are still eager for these practices?

So God, to take away all our excesses, and to teach us to stand apart from all earthly things, destroys bodies before our eyes. Even the man who is infatuated with bodies, and deeply stirred at the sight of a beautiful young woman — if he will not learn from words how ugly that substance is, he will know it from the sight itself. For many of the same age as the one he loves, and often more beautiful too, have died, and after the first or second day have given off a foul smell and putrid matter, and decayed with worms. Imagine, then, what kind of beauty it is you love, and what kind of elegance has the power to disturb you so. But if bodies did not decay, this would not be well known. And just as evil spirits haunt people’s graves, so many of our lovers, sitting continually by the tombs, would have taken evil spirits into their souls and quickly perished in this terrible madness.

But as it is, along with everything else, this too comforts the soul: that the form is no longer seen. It brings people to forget their grief.

Indeed, if it were not so, there would be no tombs at all. You would see our cities holding corpses instead of statues, each man wanting to look on his own dead. Great confusion would arise from this; no ordinary person would attend to his soul, or make room for the teaching of immortality to come in; and many other things more shocking than these would have followed, things it would be unseemly even to speak of. That is why the body decays so soon: so that you may see the beauty of the soul unveiled. For if the soul is the source of all that beauty and life, it must be far more excellent itself. And if it keeps something so ugly and unsightly in being, how much more itself.

For the beauty does not lie in the body, but in the expression and the bloom that the soul sheds over its substance. So I bid you love that which makes even the body look as it does. And why do I speak of death? Even in life itself, I would have you notice how everything beautiful belongs to the soul. If it is pleased, it showers roses over the cheeks; if it is pained, it takes that beauty and wraps it all in a dark robe. If it is continually cheerful, the body thrives; if it is in grief, it makes the body thinner and weaker than a spider’s web; if in anger, it makes it loathsome and foul again. If it shows the eye calm, great is the beauty it gives; if it shows envy, it spreads a very pale and livid hue over us; if love, it at once gives abundant grace. So in fact many women who were not beautiful in feature have gained great grace from the soul; and others again, of brilliant bloom, have spoiled their beauty by having a graceless soul. [l]

Think how a pale face turns red, and gives great delight by its change of color, when shame and blushing are called for. And on the other hand, if the soul is shameless, it makes the face more unpleasant than any monster.

For nothing is fairer, nothing sweeter, than a beautiful soul. With bodies the longing comes with pain; with souls the pleasure is pure and calm. Why, then, let go of the king and go wild over the herald? Why leave the philosopher and gape after his interpreter? Have you seen a beautiful eye? Get to know what is within. And if that is not beautiful, despise this too. For surely, if you saw an ugly woman wearing a beautiful mask, she would make no impression on you; just as, on the other hand, you would not let a fair and beautiful woman be disguised by a mask, but would take it off, choosing to see her beauty unveiled.

This, then, is what I bid you do with the soul too: get to know it first. For it is clothed with the body in place of a mask. That is why the body stays as it is, while the soul, even if it is misshapen, can quickly become beautiful. Even if it has an eye that is ugly and harsh and fierce, it can become beautiful, mild, calm, sweet-tempered and gentle.

So let us seek this beauty and adorn this face, so that God too may “take pleasure in our beauty,” and give us a share of his everlasting blessings, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.