Homily 29 — Second Corinthians 13, verses 1 to 9

“This is the third time I am coming to you. By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word will be established.” [a]

Paul’s wisdom and his great tender affection can be seen in many other circumstances, but above all in this: he is so lavish and so forceful in his warnings, and so slow, so ready to delay, in his punishments. He did not discipline them the moment they sinned, but warned them once and again. And even now, when they have paid no attention, he does not exact the punishment; he warns them again, saying, “This is the third time I am coming to you,” and, “Before I come, I write again.”

Then, so that his delay would not breed indifference, see how he guards against that result too: he threatens continually, holds the blow suspended over them, and says, “If I come again, I will not spare,” and, “I fear that when I come again I may mourn over many.” In doing and saying these things he imitates in this too the Lord of all. For God also threatens continually and warns often, but does not often discipline and punish. Paul does the same, and that is why he said earlier as well, “It was to spare you that I did not yet come to Corinth.” What does “to spare you” mean? So that I would not find you had sinned and were continuing unreformed, and have to come upon you with discipline and punishment.

And here: “This is the third time I am coming to you. By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word will be established.” He joins what is unwritten to what is written, as he has done in another place too, where he says, “He who is joined to a prostitute is one body with her; for the two,” he says, “will become one flesh” (First Corinthians 6, verse 16). That was said of lawful marriage, but he turned it aptly to this matter, to frighten them all the more. He does the same here, putting his visits and his warnings in the place of witnesses. What he means is this: “I spoke once and again when I was with you; I am speaking now also by letter. If you listen to me, what I wanted has been done. But if you pay no attention, from now on I must stop speaking and inflict the punishment.”

That is why he says, in verse 2: “I have said beforehand, and I say beforehand, when I was present the second time; so now, being absent, I write to those who have sinned before and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare.” “For if every word is to be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses, and I have come twice and spoken, and am speaking now also by this letter, it follows that from now on I must keep my word. Please do not think that my writing counts for less than my coming. As I spoke when I was present, so now I write when I am absent.”

Do you see his concern, like a brother’s? Do you see the forethought that befits a teacher? He neither kept silent nor punished. He warns them often beforehand, he keeps on threatening, and he puts off the punishment; only if they continue unreformed does he threaten to carry it out in fact. But what did you tell them before, when you were present, and what do you write now that you are absent? “That if I come again, I will not spare.”

He had already shown that he cannot do this unless he is forced to, and had called the thing a mourning and a humbling — for he says, “I fear that my God may humble me before you, and I may mourn over those who have sinned before and have not repented” (Second Corinthians 12, verse 21). He had made his excuse to them: that he had told them beforehand, once, twice and three times, and that he does and contrives all he can to hold back the punishment and to make them better through the fear his words inspire. Only then did he use this unwelcome and frightening expression, “If I come again, I will not spare.” He did not say, “I will avenge, I will punish, I will exact a penalty.” Even the punishment itself he again expresses in a father’s language, showing his tender affection and that his heart grieves along with them, since it was always “to spare” them that he put it off.

Then, so that they would not think that this time too there would be another delay, a threat in words only, he said beforehand, “By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word will be established,” and now, “If I come again, I will not spare.” What he means is this: “I will not put it off any longer if — may it not happen! — I find you unreformed. I will certainly punish it, and make good what I have said.”

Then, with great anger and fierce indignation against those who mocked him as weak, ridiculed his presence, and said, “His bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account” (Second Corinthians 10, verse 10), he aims his words at these men and says, in verse 3: “Since you are seeking proof of Christ who speaks in me.” He said this to strike at these men and at the same time to lash the others too. What he means is this: “Since you want to test whether Christ lives in me, and you call me to account, and on this score mock me as mean and contemptible, as though I had none of that power — you will learn that we are not without it, if you give us occasion. May it not happen!”

What then? Tell me: do you punish, then, because they are seeking proof? “No,” he says. For if he had wanted this, he would have punished them the first moment they sinned and would not have put it off. That he does not want it he shows more clearly as he goes on, saying, “Now I pray that you do no evil — not that we may appear approved, but that you may be approved, even though we may be as those who have failed the test” (verse 7).

So he does not use those words as giving a reason, but rather in indignation, as an attack on those who despise him. “I have no desire,” he says, “to give you such a proof. But if you yourselves give cause and choose to challenge me, you will learn it from the deeds themselves.”

And notice how serious he makes his words. He did not say, “Since you are seeking proof of me,” but “of Christ who speaks in me,” showing that it was against Christ that they sinned. And he did not simply say “who lives in me,” but “who speaks in me,” showing that his words are spiritual. But if Christ does not display his power or punish — for from this point the apostle shifted what he was saying from himself to Christ, and so made his threat more fearful — it is not from weakness, for he can do it, but from patience. So let no one think his forbearance weakness. Why do you wonder that he does not now proceed against sinners, and in his forbearance and patience does not exact a penalty, when he endured even to be crucified, and though he suffered such things did not punish? That is why Paul added, in verses 3 and 4: “Who is not weak toward you, but is mighty in you. For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives by the power of God.”

These words are very obscure, and they trouble the weaker sort. So we must unfold them more clearly and explain the meaning of the expression where the obscurity lies, so that no one, even among the simpler people, may stumble. What, then, is being said here? What does the word “weakness” mean, and in what sense is it used? We must learn this. The word is one, but it has many meanings. [d]

Bodily sickness is called weakness. That is why it is said in the Gospel about Lazarus, “Look, the one you love is weak” (John 11, verses 3 and 4), and he himself said, “This weakness does not lead to death.” And Paul says of Epaphras, “Indeed he was weak, close to death, but God had mercy on him” (Philippians 2, verse 27), and to Timothy, “Use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent weaknesses” (First Timothy 5, verse 23). All these mean bodily sickness.

Again, not being firmly established in the faith is called weakness — not being mature and complete. Paul meant this when he said, “Receive the one who is weak in the faith, but not for disputes over opinions” (Romans 14, verses 1 and 2), and again, “One believes he may eat anything; another, who is weak, eats vegetables.” There he means someone weak in the faith.

These, then, are two meanings of the word weakness. There is also a third thing called weakness. What is it? Persecutions, plots, insults, trials, attacks. Paul meant this when he said, “For this I begged the Lord three times. And he said to me, ‘My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’” (Second Corinthians 12, verses 8 and 9). What does “in weakness” mean? In persecutions, in dangers, in trials, in plots, in deaths. And he meant this when he said, “That is why I take pleasure in weakness.” Then, to show what kind of weakness he means, he spoke not of fever, nor of doubt about the faith. Of what, then? “In insults, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (Second Corinthians 12, verse 10). That is to say: “When I am persecuted, when I am driven from place to place, when I am plotted against, then I am strong. Then all the more I win out over those who plot against me and get the better of them, because grace rests upon me more fully.”

It is in this third sense, then, that Paul uses “weakness,” and this is what he means by it. He is aiming again, as I said before, at the point that he seemed to them mean and contemptible. He had no wish to boast, or to appear to be what he really was, or to display the power he had to punish and avenge; and so he was thought mean. So when, thinking this of him, they went on in great indifference and without feeling, and did not repent of their sins, he seizes a fitting opportunity, speaks with great force on these points too, and shows that it was not from weakness that he did nothing, but from patience. Then, as I said, by shifting the argument from himself to Christ, he heightens their fear and increases his threat. What he says is this: “Even supposing I do something — discipline and punish the guilty — is it I who discipline and punish? It is he who lives in me, Christ himself. But if you do not believe this, and want to receive proof in deeds of him who lives in me, you will learn it soon enough. ‘For he is not weak toward you, but is even powerful.’”

And why did he add “toward you,” when he is mighty everywhere? If he chose to punish unbelievers, he could, or demons, or anything at all. What, then, is the point of the addition? The expression either shames them deeply by reminding them of the proofs they have already received, or else it declares that for the present he shows his power in you, who need to be corrected. As he said in another place too, “For what have I to do with judging those outside?” (First Corinthians 5, verse 12). “Those outside,” he says, “he will call to account then, on the day of judgment; but you he calls to account even now, to rescue you from that punishment.” Yet notice how he combines even this mark of his concern, though it springs from tender affection, with fear and great anger, saying, “Who is not weak toward you, but is powerful in you.”

Verse 4: “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives by the power of God.” [g]

What does “though he was crucified through weakness” mean? “Though he chose,” he says, “to endure something that seems to carry the idea of weakness, that in no way broke in upon his power. His power remains unconquered still, and the thing that seems to belong to weakness did it no harm. No — this very thing shows his power most of all: he endured even such a thing, and yet his power was not crippled.”

So do not let the word “weakness” trouble you. Elsewhere, too, he says, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (First Corinthians 1, verse 25), although there is nothing foolish or weak in God. He called the cross that, setting out the idea the unbelievers had of it. At least listen to him explaining himself: “For the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (First Corinthians 1, verse 18). And again: “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (First Corinthians 1, verses 23 and 24). And again: “But the unspiritual man does not receive the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him” (First Corinthians 2, verse 14). Notice how everywhere he expresses the idea the unbelievers had, who look on the cross as foolishness and weakness. So here too he does not mean weakness that really is such, but what the unbelievers suspected was such.

He does not say, then, that he was crucified because he was weak. Far from it! He showed throughout that he had it in his power not to be crucified: now he threw men flat on the ground, now he turned back the rays of the sun; he withered a fig tree, blinded the eyes of those who came against him, and did ten thousand other things. What, then, does he mean by “through weakness”? That even though he was crucified after enduring danger and treachery — for we have shown that danger and treachery are called weakness — he still suffered no harm from them.

He said this to draw the example over to his own case. The Corinthians saw the apostles persecuted, driven about, despised, and not avenging themselves or punishing it. To teach them that they did not suffer this for lack of power, or because they were unable to punish it, he carries the argument up to the Master. “He too,” he says, “was crucified, was bound, suffered ten thousand things, and he did not punish them, but went on enduring things that seemed to argue weakness. And in this very way he displayed his power: though he does not punish or repay, he is not harmed in the least. The cross, for instance, did not cut off his life, or hinder his resurrection; he rose again and lives.”

When you hear of the cross and of life, expect to find the teaching about his becoming man, for everything said here refers to that. And if he says “by the power of God,” it is not as though Christ himself lacked the strength to bring his own flesh to life. It was all the same to him whether he named the Father or the Son; when he said “the power of God,” he was saying “by his own power.” That he himself raised it up and sustains it, hear him say: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2, verse 19). And if what is his, Paul here calls the Father’s, do not be troubled. “For,” he says, “all that my Father has is mine” (John 16, verse 15); and again, “All that is mine is yours, and yours is mine” (John 17, verse 10). “So as he who was crucified suffered no harm,” he says, “neither do we when we are persecuted and warred against.” That is why he adds, “For we also, if we are weak in him, yet will live with him by the power of God.”

What does “we are weak in him” mean? We are persecuted, we are driven here and there, we suffer the worst. But what does “with him” mean? “Because of the preaching,” he says, “and our faith in him. And if for his sake we undergo what is painful and unpleasant, it is quite plain that we will also enjoy what is pleasant.” And so he added, “but we are saved with him by the power of God.” [j]

Verses 5 and 6: “Test yourselves, whether you are in the faith; examine yourselves. Do you not know about yourselves that Christ is in you — unless indeed you fail the test? But I hope that you will know that we have not failed the test.”

By what he has said, he has shown that even if he does not punish, it is not because he does not have Christ in himself, but because he imitates Christ’s patience, who was crucified and yet did not avenge himself. Now he brings about the same effect again in another way, and still more irrefutably, proving his argument from the disciples. “Why speak of myself,” he says, “the teacher, who carry so much care, who am entrusted with the whole world, and who have worked such great miracles? If you will only examine yourselves, who stand in the rank of disciples, you will see that Christ is in you too. And if in you, much more in your teacher. For if you have faith, Christ is in you too.”

For those who believed in those days worked miracles. That is why he added, “Test yourselves, examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith. Do you not know about yourselves that Christ is in you — unless indeed you fail the test?” “And if in you, much more in your teacher.” He seems to me to be speaking here of the faith that has to do with miracles. “For if you have faith,” he says, “Christ is in you — unless you have failed the test.”

Do you see how he frightens them again, and shows more than enough that Christ is with him? For he seems to me to be touching on them here in regard to their lives as well. Faith by itself is not enough to draw down the working of the Spirit. He had said, “If you are in the faith, you have Christ in you,” and yet it happened that many who had faith lacked that working. To resolve the difficulty he says, “unless you fail the test” — unless, that is, you are corrupt in your lives.

“But I hope that you will know that we have not failed the test.” What would naturally have followed was, “But even if you have failed the test, we have not.” He does not say that, for fear of wounding them; he hints at it obscurely. He neither states it flatly, “You have failed the test,” nor puts it as a question and says, “But if you have failed the test…” He leaves out even that way of putting it, and points to it obscurely by adding, “But I hope that you will know that we have not failed the test.”

Here, too, the threat is great, and great the alarm. “Since you want,” he says, “to receive the proof in this way, through your own punishment, we will have no difficulty in giving you that demonstration.” He does not put it that way, though, but with more weight and more menace: “But I hope that you will know that we have not failed the test.” “You ought to have known even without this,” he says, “what we are, and that we have Christ speaking and working in us. But since you want to receive the proof of it in deeds too, you will learn that we have not failed the test.”

Then, when he has held the threat suspended over their heads, brought the punishment right up to their doors, set them trembling and made them look for vengeance, see how he sweetens his words again and calms their fear. He shows his freedom from ambition, his tender care for his disciples, the nobility of his purpose, his greatness of soul, and his freedom from empty glory. He displays all these qualities in what he adds, saying, in verses 7, 8 and 9: “Now I pray to God that you do no evil — not that we may appear approved, but that you may do what is honorable, though we may be as those who have failed the test. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. And this also we pray for: your being made perfect.”

What can equal this soul? He was despised, spat on, ridiculed, mocked as mean, as contemptible, as a braggart, as boastful in his words but unable in his deeds to make even a small show. And though he saw so great a need to show his own power, he not only puts it off, not only draws back, but even prays that he may not fall into such a position. For he says, “I pray that you do no evil — not that we may appear approved, but that you may do what is honorable, though we may be as those who have failed the test.” What is he saying? “I entreat God, I beg him,” he says, “that I may find no one unreformed, no one who has not repented. Or rather, not only this, but that no one may have sinned at all. I pray that you have done no evil; but if you have perhaps sinned, that you have changed your conduct, reformed before I come, and so headed off all anger. For this is not what I am eager for, that we should be approved in this way — quite the opposite: that we should not appear approved. “If you go on sinning and not repenting, we will have to discipline you, to punish you, to cripple your bodies — as happened with Sapphira and with the magician — and so we will have given proof of our power. But we do not pray for this. We pray for the opposite: that we may not be shown to be approved in this way; that we may not give proof of the power that is in us by disciplining and punishing you as sinners sick past cure. What, then? ‘That you may do what is honorable’ — this is what we pray for, that you may always live in virtue, always be improving; ‘though we may be as those who have failed the test,’ not displaying our power to punish.” [m]

He did not say “though we fail the test,” for he would not fail the test even if he did not punish; on the contrary, for this very reason he would be “approved.” “But even if some suspect us,” he says, “because we do not display our power, of being contemptible and cast off, we care nothing for that. Better to be thought so by them than to display the power God has given us in those blows, and in your hearts’ refusal to reform.”

“For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.” So that he would not seem merely to be humoring them — which someone free of empty glory might do — but to be doing what the nature of the case required, he added this: “For we can do nothing against the truth.” “If we find you,” he says, “in good standing, having driven away your sins by repentance and having confidence before God, we will not be able afterward, however much we wished it, to punish you. Even if we attempted it, God would not work with us. He gave us our power for this purpose: that the judgment we give should be true and just, not contrary to the truth.”

Do you see how in every way he can he takes the offense out of what he says and softens the harshness of his threat? And as he has worked hard at this, so he wants also to show that his heart was fully joined to theirs. That is why he added, “For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong; and this also we pray for, your being made perfect.” “Most certainly,” he says, “we cannot do anything against the truth — that is, punish you if you are pleasing to God. And besides, because we cannot, we do not want to either; we even desire the opposite. We are especially glad of this very thing, when we find you giving us no occasion to show that power of ours to punish. For even if doing such things shows men to be glorious and approved and strong, we still desire the opposite: that you should be approved and blameless, and that we should never at any time reap the glory that comes from it.”

That is why he says, “For we are glad when we are weak.” What does “are weak” mean? When we may be thought weak. Not when we are weak, but when we are thought weak; for their enemies thought them so, because they did not display their power to punish. “But we are glad all the same when your conduct is such as to give us no pretext for punishing you. It is a pleasure to us to be thought weak in this way, as long as you are blameless.” That is why he adds, “and you are strong,” that is, “are approved, are virtuous. And we do not only wish for this; we pray for it, that you may be blameless, perfect, and give us no handle against you.”

This is a father’s affection: to put the salvation of his disciples before his own good name. This is the mark of a soul free from empty glory. And this, more than anything, sets us loose from the bonds of the body and makes us rise from earth to heaven: to be pure of empty glory — just as its opposite leads to many sins. For it is impossible that someone who is not free from empty glory should be lofty and great and noble. He must crawl along the ground and do great damage, the slave of a foul mistress, crueler than any barbarian. What can be fiercer than she, who is most savage precisely when she is most courted? Even wild beasts are not like this; much attention tames them. But empty glory is the very opposite: slighted, she grows tame; honored, she grows savage and arms herself against the one who honors her. [n]

The Jews honored her and were punished with the utmost severity; the disciples slighted her and were crowned. And why do I speak of punishment and crowns? Even for being seen to be glorious, nothing helps more than to spit on empty glory. You will see even in this world that those who honor it are harmed, while those who slight it benefit. The disciples slighted it — nothing stops us from using the same example again — and put the things of God first, and they outshine the sun, having won an undying memory even after their death. But the Jews, who bowed down to it, have become people without a city, broken in spirit, degraded, fugitives, exiles, mean and contemptible.

So if you want to receive glory, push glory away; if you chase glory, you will miss glory. And if you like, let us test this teaching in worldly matters too. Whom do we make fun of in our jokes? Is it not those whose minds are set on glory? Certainly, then, these are the ones most completely without it, with countless accusers and slighted by everyone. And whom do we admire, tell me? Is it not those who despise it? Certainly, then, these are the ones who are glorified. For as the rich man is not the one who needs many things but the one who needs nothing, so the glorious man is not the one who loves glory but the one who despises it. For this glory is only a shadow of glory.

No one who has seen a painted loaf, however hard pressed by hunger, will attack the picture. So do not chase these shadows either, for this is a shadow of glory, not glory. And so that you may know that this is how it is, and that it is a shadow, consider this: it must be so, when the thing has a bad name among people, when everyone considers it something to avoid, even those who want it, and when the one who has it and the one who craves it are ashamed to be called by its name.

“Where, then, does this desire come from, and how is the passion born?” From smallness of soul — for we must not only accuse it but also correct it — from an unformed mind, from a childish judgment. So let us stop being children, and let us become men. Let us pursue the reality everywhere, not the shadows — in wealth, in pleasure, in luxury, in glory, in power — and this disease will stop, and many others with it. For to chase shadows is a madman’s part. That is why Paul too said, “Wake up righteously, and do not sin” (First Corinthians 15, verse 34).

For there is another madness, worse than the madness caused by demons, worse than that of frenzy. That kind can be forgiven, but this one has no excuse, since the soul itself is corrupted and has lost its right judgment. Frenzy is a disorder of the body, but this madness has its seat in the mind, the craftsman within us. Among fevers, those are worse, even incurable, which seize strong bodies, lurk in the recesses of the sinews and hide away in the veins; and so it truly is with this madness, since it lurks in the recesses of the mind itself, twisting and destroying it. For how is it not plain and evident madness — indeed a sickness worse than any madness — to despise the things that last forever and to cling eagerly to those that perish?

Tell me: if someone were chasing the wind or trying to hold it, would we not say he was mad? And what if someone grasped a shadow and neglected the reality — if he hated his own wife and embraced her shadow, or loathed his son and loved his shadow instead — would you look for any clearer sign of madness? Such are those who greedily chase the things of the present. For they are all shadow, whether you name glory, or power, or reputation, or wealth, or luxury, or anything else of this life. That is truly why the prophet said, “Surely man walks in a shadow; surely he troubles himself in vain” (Psalm 39, verse 6); and again, “Our days decline like a shadow” (Psalm 102, verse 11). And in another place he calls human things smoke and the flower of grass.

Yet it is not only human good things that are shadow, but human evils too, whether you name death, or poverty, or disease, or anything else. What, then, are the things that last, both good and evil? The eternal kingdom and everlasting hell. For “neither will the worm die, nor will the fire be quenched” (Mark 9, verse 44); and “these will rise again to everlasting life, and these to everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25, verse 46). So, that we may escape the one and enjoy the other, let us let go of the shadow and cling with all earnestness to the things that are real. For so we will obtain the kingdom of heaven, which may we all obtain, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.