Homily 21 — Ephesians 6, verses 1 to 4

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.” [a]

When someone forms a body, he sets the head in place first, after that the neck, then the feet. The blessed Paul proceeds the same way in his teaching. He has spoken of the husband; he has spoken of the wife, who is second in authority; and now, advancing step by step, he comes to the third rank, which is that of children. For the husband has authority over the wife, and the husband and the wife together over the children. So now notice what he says:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is the first commandment with a promise.”

Here he has not a word to say about Christ, not a word on lofty subjects, because he is still speaking to young and tender minds. That is also why he keeps his exhortation short: children cannot follow a long argument. For the same reason he says nothing at all about a kingdom, since it is beyond the tender years of childhood to understand such things. Instead he tells them what a child’s soul most longs to hear: that it will “live long.”

If anyone asks why he left out any teaching about a kingdom and set before them instead the commandment laid down in the law, the answer is that he is speaking to them as to little ones. He also knows very well that if the husband and the wife are disposed as the law he has just laid down requires, it will take very little trouble to secure the children’s obedience. Whenever anything has a good, sound and orderly beginning and foundation, everything from then on goes forward with method and order, and with great ease. The hard thing is to settle the foundation, to lay a firm base.

“Children,” he says, “obey your parents in the Lord” — that is, according to the Lord. This, he means, is what God commands you. But what if they command foolish things? As a rule a father, however foolish he may be himself, does not command foolish things. Even so, the apostle has guarded the point by saying “in the Lord” — that is, wherever you will not be offending God. So if the father is a pagan or a heretic, we ought no longer to obey, because then the command is not “in the Lord.”

But how can he say, “which is the first commandment”? For the first are “You shall not commit adultery” and “You shall not kill.” So he does not call it first in rank, but first with regard to the promise. No reward is attached to those others, since they are laws about evil things and about turning away from evil. But in these, where it is a matter of doing good, a promise is held out as well.

And notice what an admirable foundation he has laid for the road of virtue: honor and reverence toward parents. Just when he is leading us away from wicked practices and is about to set us on virtuous ones, the first thing he commands is honor toward parents. For after God, they before all others are the authors of our being, so it is reasonable that they should be the first to reap the fruit of our good actions, and after them the rest of humankind. A man who does not have this honor for his parents will never be gentle toward those who are no relation to him.

However, having given children the instructions they need, he passes on to the fathers and says:

Verse 4: “And you fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

He does not say, “Love them,” because nature draws them to that even against their will, and it would be pointless to lay down a law about such things. What does he say, then? “Do not provoke your children to anger,” as many do by disinheriting them and disowning them and treating them high-handedly, not as free people but as slaves. That is why he says, “Do not provoke your children to anger.” [e]

Then — and this is the chief thing of all — he shows how they will be brought to obedience, and he traces the whole source of it back to the head and chief authority. He showed the husband to be the cause of the wife’s obedience (which is also why he addresses most of his arguments to him, urging him to bind her to himself by the power of love). In the same way, I say, he lays the work of bringing it about on the father here too, saying, “but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” You see that where the spiritual ties are in place, the natural ties will follow.

Do you want your son to be obedient? From the very beginning, “bring him up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Never think it unnecessary for him to be a diligent listener to the divine Scriptures. For the first thing he will hear there is this: “Honor your father and your mother.” So this works in your favor. Never say: “This is the business of monks. Am I making a monk of him?” No. There is no need for him to become a monk. Why are you so afraid of something so full of advantage? Make him a Christian. It is necessary above all things for lay people to know the lessons that come from this source, and especially for children. Theirs is an age full of folly, and on top of that folly come the bad examples from the pagan tales. There they get to know those heroes so admired among the pagans, slaves of their passions and cowards in the face of death: Achilles, for example, when he goes soft, when he would die for his concubine; another hero when he gets drunk; and many other things of the kind. So a child needs remedies against these things.

How can it not be absurd to send children off to learn trades and to go to school, and to do everything you can for these ends, and yet not to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord”? And truly, this is why we are the first to reap the fruit: we bring up our children to be insolent and dissolute, disobedient and coarse. Let us not do this, then. No, let us listen to the admonition of this blessed apostle: let us “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Let us give them an example. Let us have them apply themselves to reading the Scriptures from their earliest years.

How sad that, as often as I repeat this, I am thought to be talking nonsense! Still, I will not stop doing my duty.

Tell me, why do you not imitate the people of old? You women especially, follow the example of those admirable women. Has a child been born to one of you? Imitate Hannah’s example (First Samuel 1, verse 24). Look at what she did: she brought him up to the temple at once. Which of you would not rather have his son become a Samuel than become king of the whole world ten thousand times over? You will say: “And how is it possible for him to become someone like that?” Why is it not possible? It is because you do not choose it yourself, and you do not entrust him to the care of those who are able to make him such a man. Someone will ask: “And who is able to do that?” God. For she put him into God’s hands. Not even Eli himself was one of those especially fit to form him — how could he be, when he was not able to form even his own children? No, it was the mother’s faith and her earnest zeal that accomplished the whole thing. He was her first child and her only one, and she did not know whether she would ever have others besides. Yet she did not say: “I will wait until the child has grown up, so that he can have a taste of the things of this life. I will let him enjoy himself in them a little in his childhood.” No, the woman rejected all such thoughts. She was absorbed in one thing: how, from the very beginning, she might dedicate this spiritual image to God.

We men may well blush at this woman’s wisdom. She offered him up to God, and there she left him. And that is why her married life became more glorious: because she made spiritual things her first care, because she dedicated the firstfruits to God. That is why her womb became fruitful and she had other children besides. And that is why she saw him honored even in this world. For if people who are honored give honor in return, will not God do so far more — he who does this even when he is not honored?

How long will we be mere lumps of flesh? How long will we stoop toward the earth? Let everything come second for us to the care we should take of our children, and to our “bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” If from the very start he is taught to be a lover of true wisdom, he has gained wealth greater than all wealth, and a more glorious name. You will achieve nothing so great by teaching him a trade and giving him the learning of the outside world, by which he will get rich, as by teaching him the art of despising riches. If you want to make him rich, do this. The rich man is not the one who wants great riches and is surrounded by great riches, but the one who needs nothing. Discipline your son in this; teach him this. This is the greatest wealth.

Do not look for ways to give him a reputation and high standing in the learning of the outside world. Think hard instead about how you will teach him to despise the glory that belongs to this present life. That is how he would become more distinguished and more truly glorious. The poor man and the rich man alike can do this. These are lessons a person does not learn from a schoolmaster or by any art, but from the divine sayings. Do not look for ways for him to enjoy a long life here, but for ways to enjoy a boundless and endless life hereafter. Give him the great things, not the little things.

Listen to what Paul says: “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Do not work to make him an orator; train him to be a philosopher. If he lacks the one, there will be no harm at all; if he lacks the other, all the rhetoric in the world will do him no good. What is needed is a good disposition, not talk; character, not cleverness; deeds, not words. These win a person the kingdom; these bestow benefits that are real. Do not sharpen his tongue; cleanse his soul. I do not say this to stop you from teaching him these things, but to stop you from attending to them alone.

Do not imagine that only the monk needs these lessons from Scripture. More than anyone, children who are about to go out into the world need them. It is not the man who always lies at anchor in harbor who needs his ship fitted out, with a helmsman and a crew, but the man who is always out at sea. So it is with the man in the world and the monk. The monk has entered, so to speak, a harbor without waves; he lives an untroubled life, far removed from every storm. The other is always on the ocean, living out at sea in the very middle of the deep, battling waves without number.

And even if he does not need it for himself, he still ought to be prepared to stop the mouths of others. So the more distinguished he is in this present life, the more he needs this education. If he spends his life at court, there are many pagans there, and philosophers, and people puffed up with the glory of this life. It is like a place full of people with dropsy. That, more or less, is what the court is like. Everyone there is, so to speak, swollen and inflamed, and those who are not are trying to become so. [h]

Now think what an immense benefit it is for your son to enter that place like an excellent physician, equipped with instruments that can relieve each person’s particular inflammation; to go up to each one and talk with him, and restore the sick body to health, applying the remedies that come from the Scriptures and pouring out the teaching of the true philosophy. For with whom is the man who lives alone to talk? With his wall and his ceiling? Or with the wilderness and the woods? Or with the birds and the trees? So he does not need this kind of training as much. Even so, he makes it his business to perfect this work, not so much to train others as to train himself.

So those who are to live in the midst of this present world have every need of a great deal of this training, because such a man faces a stronger temptation to sin than the other does. And if you care to understand it, he will also be a more useful person in the world itself. Everyone will revere him because of these words of his, when they see him in the fire without being burned, and with no desire for power. But power he will gain at the very moment he least desires it, and he will be held in still higher respect by the king; for such a character cannot stay hidden. Among a crowd of healthy people, a healthy man goes unnoticed; but when there is one healthy man among many sick ones, word of him quickly spreads and reaches the king’s ears, and the king will make him ruler over many nations. Knowing these things, then, “bring up your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

“But suppose a man is poor.” Even so, he will be no less important than the man who lives at the king’s court just because he is not at court. No, he will be admired, and he will soon win the kind of authority that people yield willingly, not under compulsion. Think of the Greeks, worthless men that they are, and dogs. By taking up that worthless philosophy of theirs (for that is what Greek philosophy is) — or rather, not even the thing itself but only its bare name — and by wearing the threadbare cloak and letting their hair grow long, they impress many people. How much more, then, will the man who is a true philosopher? If a false appearance, a mere shadow of philosophy, catches us so at first sight, what would happen if we loved the true and pure philosophy? Would not everyone seek it out, and entrust houses and wives and children to such men with complete confidence? [i]

But there is no such philosopher now — no, there is not. And so it is impossible to find an example of the kind. Among those who live alone there are such men, but among people living in the world, no longer. That there are such men among those who live alone, I could show with a great many instances. I will mention one out of many. You know, surely, and have heard of — and some of you have perhaps even seen — the man I am about to mention. I mean the admirable Julian.

He was a man from the countryside, of humble life and humble parents, completely untaught in the accomplishments of the outside world, but full of unadorned wisdom. Whenever he came into the cities (and that was only rarely), such crowds gathered as never gathered when an orator or a sophist or anyone else rode in. But what am I saying? Is not his very name more glorious than any king’s, and famous even to this day?

And if these things happened in this world — the world in which the Lord promised us nothing good, and in which he has told us that we are strangers — let us think how great the blessings stored up for us in heaven will be. If, where they were only travelers passing through, they enjoyed such honor, how great the glory they will enjoy where their own city is! If, where he promised distress, they are treated with such attentive care, then where he promises true honors, how great will their rest be!

Now would you like me to show you examples of people living in the world? At present, indeed, we have none. Still, there may perhaps be people living in the world who are excellent, though they have not reached the highest philosophy. So I will give you examples from the holy men of ancient times. How many of them had wives to support and children to bring up, and yet were in no way inferior — in no way at all — to those I have mentioned? Now, however, it is no longer so, “because of the present distress” (First Corinthians 7, verse 26), as this blessed apostle says. [l]

Whom would you like me to mention, then? Noah, or Abraham? The son of one or the other? Or Joseph? Or would you like me to go to the prophets — Moses, I mean, or Isaiah? Well, if you like, let us turn our attention to Abraham, whom everyone keeps bringing up to us above all others. Did he not have a wife? Did he not have children? Yes — for I too use the same language with you that you use with me. He had a wife, but it was not because he had a wife that he was so remarkable. He had riches, but it was not because he had riches that he pleased God. He had children, but it was not because he had children that he was called blessed. He had three hundred and eighteen servants born in his house, but it was not for this that he was thought wonderful. Would you like to know why it was? It was for his hospitality, for his contempt of riches, for his self-control.

For tell me, what is a philosopher’s duty? Is it not to despise both riches and glory? Is it not to rise above envy and every other passion? Come, then, let us bring him forward and strip him, and show you what a philosopher he was. First of all, he counted his homeland as nothing. God said, “Go out from your country and from your kindred” (Genesis 12, verse 1), and at once he went. He was not tied to his house (or he would surely never have gone), nor to his affection for close friends, nor to anything else at all. And what else? Glory and money he despised above all. For when he had ended a war by putting the enemy to flight and was asked to take the spoil, he refused it (Genesis 14, verses 21 to 23).

Again, the son of this great man was revered, not for his riches but for his hospitality; not for his children but for his obedience; not for his wife but for the barrenness laid upon his wife (Genesis 25, verse 21). [n]

They counted the present life as nothing; they did not chase after gain; they despised everything. Tell me, which plants are the best? Are they not the ones that have their strength in themselves, that are harmed neither by rain nor by hail nor by gusts of wind nor by any other change of that kind, but stand bare in defiance of them all, needing neither wall nor fence to protect them? Such is the true philosopher; such is that wealth we spoke of. He has nothing, and has everything; he has everything, and has nothing. For a fence is not inside, but only outside; a wall is not something that grows by nature, but is only built around from outside.

And again, I ask, what kind of body is a strong one? Is it not the one that is healthy and is overcome neither by hunger nor by overeating, neither by cold nor by heat? Or is it the one that, faced with all these things, needs caterers and weavers and hunters and physicians to keep it healthy? The rich man, the true philosopher, is the one who needs none of these things.

That is why this blessed apostle said, “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Do not surround them with defenses from outside. For that is what wealth is, and glory. When these fall — and fall they do — the plant stands bare and defenseless, having gained no profit from them in the time before, but even harm. For the very shelters that kept it from growing hardened to the attacks of the winds will now have prepared it to perish all at once. And so wealth does harm instead, because it leaves us untrained for the changes of life. So let us train our children to be such that they can bear up under every trial and are not caught off guard by whatever may come upon them.

Let us “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” And great will be the reward stored up for us by this. If people who make statues and paint portraits of kings are given such great honor, shall we not, who adorn the image of the King of kings (for a human being is the image of God), receive ten thousand blessings, if we produce a true likeness? For the likeness lies in this, in the virtue of the soul: when we train our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (for all these are attributes of God), to be generous in doing good, to be kind to others; when we train them to count the present world as nothing. [o]

Let this be our task, then: to shape and direct both ourselves and them in what is right. Otherwise, with what confidence shall we stand before the judgment seat of Christ? If a man who has unruly children is unfit to be a bishop (Titus 1, verse 6), much more is he unfit for the kingdom of heaven. “What are you saying? If we have an unruly wife or unruly children, will we have to give an account for them?” Yes, we will, if we have not carefully contributed our own share. For our own individual virtue is not enough for salvation. If the man who put away the one talent gained nothing, and was punished as he was, it is plain that one’s own individual virtue is not enough for salvation; the virtue of another is needed too.

So let us be deeply concerned for our wives, and take great care of our children, and of our servants, and of ourselves. And in governing both ourselves and them, let us ask God to help us in the work. If he sees us interested in this work and concerned about it, he will help us; but if he sees us paying no attention to it, he will not give us his hand. For he does not give us his help while we sleep, but when we are working too. A helper, as the name itself shows, does not help someone who does nothing, but someone who is also working himself. But the good God is able by himself to bring the work to completion, so that we may all be counted worthy to attain the blessings promised us, through the grace and compassion of his only Son, with whom, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, and honor to the Father, now and always, and for all ages. Amen.