Homily 10 — Ephesians 4, verse 4

“There is one body, and one Spirit, just as you are called in one hope of your calling.” [a]

Whenever the blessed Paul urges us to something of special importance, wise and spiritual as he truly is, he grounds his appeal in the things of heaven. This itself is a lesson he learned from the Lord. So he also says elsewhere, “Walk in love, just as Christ also loved us” (Ephesians 5, verse 2). And again, “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count it a prize to be equal with God” (Philippians 2, verses 5 and 6). He is doing the same thing here too, for whenever the examples he sets before us are great, his zeal and feeling run high. What, then, does he say now, when he is urging us to unity?

“There is one body, and one Spirit, just as you are called in one hope of your calling.”

Verse 5: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”

Now what is this one body? The faithful throughout the whole world — those who are, those who have been, and those who will be. And again, those who pleased God before Christ came are also “one body.” How so? Because they too knew Christ. Where does this appear? “Your father Abraham,” he says, “rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad” (John 8, verse 56). And again, “If you had believed Moses,” he says, “you would have believed me, for he wrote about me” (John 5, verse 46). And the prophets would not have written about someone without knowing what they were saying about him. On the contrary, they both knew him and worshiped him. So they too were “one body.”

The body is not cut off from the spirit, for then it would not be a body. That is why we too are in the habit of saying, of things that are united and hold closely and firmly together, that they are one body. And again, when it comes to union, we count as a body whatever is under one head. If there is one head, there is one body. The body is made up of members, some honorable and some less honorable. Only, the greater must not rise up even against the lowest, nor the lowest envy the greater. They do not all contribute the same share, but each according to the measure of the need. And since all are formed for necessary purposes, and for different ones, all are of equal honor.

Some members, it is true, are more especially the chief ones, and others less so. The head, for example, is more a chief member than all the rest of the body, since it holds within itself all the senses and the governing part of the soul. To live without the head is impossible, whereas many people have lived a long time with their feet cut off. So the head is better than the feet, not only by its position but by its very power of life and by its work.

Now why am I saying this? There are great numbers in the church. There are those who, like the head, are raised up to a height; who, like the eyes in the head, survey the things of heaven, who stand far off from the earth and have nothing in common with it. Others hold the rank of feet and tread the earth — healthy feet, to be sure, for treading the earth is no crime in feet; running to evil is. “Their feet,” says the prophet, “run to evil” (Isaiah 59, verse 7). So, he says, let the head not be proud toward the feet, and let the feet not look at the head with an envious eye. For that destroys the particular beauty of each and keeps each from doing its work perfectly. [b]

And naturally so, since the one who sets traps for his neighbor is setting traps first of all for himself. If the feet refuse to carry the head where it needs to go, they will be injuring themselves at the same time by their idleness and sloth. Or again, if the head refuses to take any care of the feet, it will be the first to suffer the harm. But those members do not rise up against one another. That is not likely; nature has ordered things so that they should not. But with people, how can one man help rising up against another? No one, we know, ever rises up against the angels, since the angels do not rise up against the archangels either. Nor, on the other side, can the animals without reason proudly lift themselves up over us. But where the nature is equal in dignity, and the gift is one, and no one has more than another, how is this to be prevented?

And yet surely these are the very reasons you ought not to rise up against your neighbors. If all things are shared, and one has nothing more than another, where does this mad folly come from? We share the same nature, we share alike in soul and body, we breathe the same air, we eat the same food. Where does this rebellious rising of one against another come from? And yet, to be able by one’s virtue to overcome the bodiless powers — that would be enough to lead a man to arrogance. Or rather, it would not be arrogance: I have good reason to hold my head high, very high, against the evil spirit.

Look at Paul, how high he held his head against that evil spirit. When the evil spirit was saying great and marvelous things about him, he made it hold its peace and would not put up with it even when it flattered him. When that girl “who had a spirit of divination” cried out, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who show us the way of salvation” (Acts 16, verses 16 and 17), he rebuked the spirit severely and silenced its impudent tongue. And again he writes elsewhere, “God will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16, verse 20). Will the difference of nature count for anything? Do you not see that the difference of nature counts for nothing at all, and only the difference of purpose does? It is because of the purpose they chose, then, that the evil spirits are far worse than all.

“Well, but I am not rising up against an angel, because there is such a vast distance between my nature and his.” And yet surely you ought no more to rise up against a man than against an angel. The angel differs from you in nature, and that can be neither an honor to him nor a disgrace to you. But man differs from man not at all in nature, only in purpose; and there is such a thing as an angel even among men. So if you do not rise up against angels, much less should you rise up against men — against those who have become angels in this nature of ours. For if anyone among men becomes as virtuous as an angel, that man is far more your superior than an angel is. Why so? Because what the angel has by nature, the man has achieved by his own purpose. And again, because the angel has his home far from you, in distance too, and lives in heaven, whereas this man lives with you and stirs you to match him.

And yet he really lives farther away from you than the angel does. “For our citizenship,” says the apostle, “is in heaven” (Philippians 3, verse 20). And to show you that this man has his home still farther off, hear where his Head is seated: on the throne, he says, the royal throne! And the farther that throne is from us, the farther off is he too.

“Well, but I see him enjoying honor, and it makes me jealous.” Why, this is the very thing that has turned everything upside down, that has filled not only the world but the church too with countless troubles. Just as fierce winds sweeping across a calm harbor make it more dangerous than any rock or any narrow strait, so the craving for glory, once it gets in, overturns everything and throws it all into confusion.

You have often been there when large houses were burning. You have seen how the smoke keeps rising up to the sky; and if no one comes near to stop the damage, but everyone looks out for himself, the flame spreads freely and devours everything. Often the whole city will stand around — stand around, yes, as spectators of the disaster, not to help or lend a hand. There you may see them all standing around doing nothing, each one simply stretching out his hand and pointing out to someone who has just come up a flaming brand flying through a window that very moment, or beams hurled down, or the whole circuit of the walls bursting outward and crashing violently to the ground. Many of the bolder and more reckless kind will even dare to come right up to the buildings themselves while they are burning — not to lend a hand and stop the damage, but to enjoy the sight more fully, since from closer up they can take in everything that often escapes those farther away.

Then, if the house happens to be large and splendid, it seems to them a pitiful sight and worth many tears. And truly it is a pitiful sight to see: the capitals of the columns crumbled to dust, and many of the columns themselves shattered to pieces, some eaten by the fire, others thrown down, often by the very hands that put them up, so that they will not feed the flame. Statues, too, which stood so gracefully with the ceiling resting on them — you may see them all laid bare, the roof torn off, standing hideously disfigured in the open air. And why go on to describe the wealth stored up inside, the cloths woven with gold and the silver vessels? Where the master of the house and his wife scarcely went, where the storeroom of fine fabrics and perfumes was, and the caskets of costly jewels — all has become one blazing fire. Inside now are bath attendants and street sweepers and runaway slaves and everybody, and everything within is one mass of fire and water, of mud and dust and half-burned beams!

Now why have I painted so full a picture? Not simply because I want to show you a house on fire — for what concern is that of mine? — but because I want to set the disasters of the church before your eyes as vividly as I can. For like a fire, or like a thunderbolt hurled from on high, they have fallen on the roof of the church, and yet they rouse no one. While our Father’s house is burning, we are sleeping, as it were, a deep and senseless sleep. And yet whom does this fire not touch? Which of the statues that stand in the church? For the church is nothing other than a house built of our souls. [e]

Now this house is not of equal honor throughout. Of the stones that go into it, some are bright and shining, while others are smaller and duller than these, and yet better again than others. There we may see many who stand in the place of gold too, the gold that adorns the ceiling. Others we may see who give the beauty and grace that statues give. Many we may see standing like pillars. For he is in the habit of calling men “pillars” too (Galatians 2, verse 9), not only because of their strength but because of their beauty, since they add much grace and have their heads overlaid with gold. We may see a multitude making up, in general, the wide space in the middle and the whole extent of the circuit; for the body of the people at large takes the place of the stones the outer walls are built of. Or rather, we must go on to a more splendid picture yet. This church I speak of is not built of stones like these we see around us, but of gold and silver and precious stones, and there is gold in abundance scattered everywhere through it.

But oh, the bitter tears this calls forth! For all these things the lawless rule of empty glory has consumed — that all-devouring flame which no one has yet brought under control. And we stand gazing at the flames in amazement, no longer able to put out the evil. Or if we do put it out for a short while, then after two or three days, like a spark blown up from a heap of ashes, it overturns everything and consumes no less than it did before. So it is here too, for this is just what usually happens in such a fire. And the cause is this: it has devoured the supports of the very pillars of the church. Those of us who held up the roof, who once held the whole building together — the flame has wrapped them round. That is how it spread so readily to the rest of the outer walls. For with buildings too, when the fire takes hold of the timbers, it is better armed for its attack on the stones; but once it has brought down the pillars and leveled them with the ground, nothing more is needed for it to consume all the rest. When the props and supports of the upper parts fall, those parts will soon enough follow them down.

So it is with the church at this moment: the fire has taken hold of every part. We seek the honors that come from men, we burn for glory, and we do not listen to Job when he says, “If, like Adam, I covered my transgressions by hiding my wrongdoing in my bosom, because I feared the great multitude…”

Do you see his virtuous spirit? I was not ashamed, he says, to own my unintended sins before the whole multitude. And if he was not ashamed to confess, how much more is it our duty to do so! For the prophet says, “State your case, so that you may be proved right” (Isaiah 43, verse 26). Great is the violence of this evil; everything is overturned and destroyed by it. We have forsaken the Lord and have become slaves of honor. We can no longer rebuke those under our rule, because we ourselves are gripped by the same fever as they are. We who are appointed by God to heal others need a physician ourselves. What further hope of recovery is left, when even the physicians themselves need someone else’s healing hand? [g]

I have not said these things without a purpose, and I am not lamenting for nothing. I say them so that all of us, together with our women and children, may sprinkle ourselves with ashes, put on sackcloth, keep a long fast, and beg God himself to stretch out his hand to us and stop the danger. For we do need his hand, that mighty, that marvelous hand. More is required of us than of the Ninevites. “Yet three days,” said the prophet, “and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jonah 3, verse 4). A fearful message, and loaded with a tremendous threat. And how could it be otherwise? To expect that within three days the city would become their tomb, and that all would perish in one common judgment! If, when two children happen to die at the same time in one house, the blow is unbearable — and if to Job this seemed the most unbearable thing of all, that the roof fell in on all his children and they were killed — what must it be to see, not one house, not two children, but a nation of a hundred and twenty thousand buried beneath the ruins!

You know how terrible a disaster that is, for this very warning came to us lately — not that any prophet spoke, for we are not worthy to hear such a voice, but the warning cried aloud from on high more clearly than any trumpet. However, as I was saying, “Yet three days,” said the prophet, “and Nineveh will be overthrown.” A terrible warning indeed, but now we have nothing even like that. No, there are no longer “three days,” nor is there a Nineveh to be overthrown. Many days have already passed since the church throughout the whole world was overthrown and leveled with the ground, and all alike are overwhelmed in the evil. More than that, for those in high places the strain is all the greater.

So do not be surprised if I urge you to do greater things than the Ninevites. And why? More than that: I am not now proclaiming a fast only, but pointing you to the remedy that raised up that city too when it was falling. And what was that? “God saw their works,” says the prophet, “that they turned from their evil way, and God changed his mind about the harm he had said he would do to them” (Jonah 3, verse 10). Let us do this, both we and you. Let us renounce the passion for riches and the craving for glory, begging God to stretch out his hand and raise up our fallen members. And well we may, for our fear is not for the same things as theirs. Then it was only stones and timbers that were going to fall, and bodies that were going to perish. Now it is none of these; no, it is souls that are about to be handed over to the fire of hell.

Let us implore him, let us confess to him, let us thank him for what is past, let us plead with him for what is to come, so that we may be counted worthy to be delivered from this fierce and most terrible monster, and to lift up our thanks to the loving God and Father, with whom, to the Son, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, and honor, now and from now on, and forever and ever. Amen.