Homily 43 — Matthew 12, verses 38 to 45

“Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.’ But he answered and said, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.’” [a]

Could anything be more foolish than these men, not to mention more ungodly? After so many miracles, as though none had been done, they say, “We want to see a sign from you.” Why, then, did they speak like this? So that they might lay hold of him again. He had stopped their mouths with his words, once and twice and many times, and had checked their shameless tongues, so now they turn to his works again. That is why the evangelist, marveling once more, said, “Then certain of the scribes answered him, asking for a sign.”

“Then” — when? When they ought to have been bowing low before him, to admire him, to be amazed, and to give way, “then” they do not give up their wickedness. And look at their words too, full of flattery and hypocrisy, for they thought they could draw him over to their side that way. Now they insult him, now they flatter him; now they call him demon-possessed, now “Teacher” — both out of the same evil mind, however opposite the words they speak. That is why he rebukes them severely. When they were questioning him roughly and insulting him, he reasoned with them gently; when they flattered him, he answered with reproach and great severity. He was showing that he stands above both passions: at the one time he is not moved to anger, at the other he is not softened by flattery. And notice his reproach: it is not merely hard words, but it carries a proof of their wickedness. For what does he say?

“An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign.” What he says amounts to this: “Is it any wonder that you treat me this way, when until now I have been unknown to you, since you have done the very same even to the Father, whom you have come to know through so much experience? You abandoned him and ran off to demons, drawing wicked lovers to yourselves.” Ezekiel too kept reproaching them with this.

By these words he showed that he is of one mind with his Father, and that they were doing nothing new. He was also laying bare their secret thoughts: that they were making their demand in hypocrisy and as enemies. So he called them “an evil generation,” because they have always been ungrateful to those who did them good, and because kindness only makes them worse, which is the mark of extreme wickedness.

And he called it “adulterous,” pointing to both their former and their present unbelief. By this he shows once again that he is equal to the Father — if indeed it is not believing in him that makes it “adulterous.”

Then, after his reproach, what does he say? “No sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.” Here he is sounding the first note of the teaching about his resurrection, and confirming it by the type. Someone may say: “What, then? Was no sign given to it?” None was given to it for the asking. He did not work his signs to win them over, for he knew they were hardened; he worked them to set others right. Either we may say this, or else that they were not going to receive a sign of that kind. For a sign did come upon them, when they learned his power through their own punishment. So here he speaks as one who threatens, and this is the meaning he conveys darkly, as if he were saying: “I have shown you countless kindnesses, and none of them has drawn you to me; you were not willing to bow before my power. So you will know my might by the opposite tokens: when you see your city thrown to the ground, its walls torn down, and the temple become a ruin; when you are driven out of your former citizenship and freedom, and go wandering everywhere again, homeless and in exile.” (All these things came to pass after the cross.) “These, then, will be great signs to you.” And indeed it is an exceedingly great sign that their misfortunes remain unchanged, and that although countless people have tried, no one has been able to reverse the sentence once passed on them. [d]

He does not say all this, though; he leaves it to later times to make it plain to them. For the present he is testing the ground for the teaching of his resurrection, which they were to come to know through what they would suffer afterward.

“For as Jonah,” he says, “was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” He did not say openly that he would rise again, since they would even have laughed him to scorn; but he hinted at it in such a way that they might believe he had known it beforehand. And they did grasp it, for they say to Pilate — these are their words — “That deceiver said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’” Yet we know his disciples did not understand this; beforehand they had been even duller than these men. That is exactly why these men stand condemned by their own mouths.

But see how exactly he puts it, even in a riddle. He did not say, “in the earth,” but “in the heart of the earth,” to point to his very tomb, and so that no one would suspect it was only an appearance. It was for this reason too that he allowed three days: so that the fact of his death would be believed. He makes it certain not by the cross alone, and by its being seen by everyone, but also by the length of those days. All the time that followed was going to bear witness to the resurrection; but the cross, unless it had many signs bearing witness to it at the time, would not have been believed — and along with that unbelief would have gone complete unbelief in the resurrection too. That is why he also calls it a sign. And if he had not been crucified, the sign would not have been given.

That is also why he brings forward the type: so that the truth may be believed. For tell me, was Jonah in the whale’s belly only in appearance? No, you cannot say so. Then neither was Christ in the heart of the earth only in appearance. Surely the type is not real while the truth is mere appearance! That is why we proclaim his death everywhere: in the mysteries, in baptism, and in everything else. And that is why Paul cries out in a clear voice, “Far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

From this it is clear that those who suffer from Marcion’s disease are children of the devil. They wipe out these truths, his cross and his suffering — the very things Christ did so much to keep from being undone, and the devil took such pains of every kind to undo.

That is why he said elsewhere too, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”; and, “The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them”; and here, “No sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.” He was declaring both that he would die for them, and that they would gain nothing from it; for he declared this afterward. Yet even knowing this, he died: so great was his tender care. [i]

For so that you would not suppose it would turn out with the Jews as with the Ninevites — that they would be converted, and that, just as in that case he steadied the tottering city and converted the barbarians, so these too would turn to him after his resurrection — hear how he declares exactly the opposite. That they would reap no good from it for their own benefit, but would rather suffer incurable evils, he went on to declare by the parable of the evil spirit.

For now, though, he is showing that their coming sufferings are just, that they would suffer deservedly. Their disasters and their desolation he pictures in that comparison; but up to this point he is showing the justice of their having to suffer all these things. This was his custom in the Old Testament too. When he was about to destroy Sodom, he first defended himself to Abraham, showing how deserted of virtue the place was and how rare virtue had become: not even ten men were found in all those cities who had made it their rule to live chastely. To Lot likewise he first points out their inhospitality and their unnatural lusts, and then he brings the fire on them. With the flood, again, he did the very same thing, defending himself to Noah by what he did. So too with Ezekiel, when he made him, living in Babylon, see the evil deeds people were doing in Jerusalem. And again with Jeremiah: when he said, “Do not pray,” he added in his own defense, “Do you not see what they are doing?” Everywhere he does the very same thing, as he does here.

For what does he say? “The men of Nineveh will rise up and condemn this generation, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and look, one greater than Jonah is here.”

“He was a servant, but I am the Master. He came out of the whale, but I rose from death. He proclaimed destruction, but I have come preaching the good news of the kingdom. They believed without a sign, but I have shown many signs. They heard nothing more than those words, but I have opened a spring of every kind of self-denial. He came as one who was waited on, but I, the very Master and Lord of all, have come not threatening, not demanding an account, but bringing pardon. They were barbarians, but these people have lived among countless prophets. No one had foretold his coming, but all foretold mine, and the facts agreed with their words. When he was to set out, he ran away so as not to be laughed at; but I have come knowing that I am to be crucified and mocked. He could not bear even to be reproached on account of those who were saved, but I underwent death, and the most shameful death, and after that I sent others again. He was a stranger, a foreigner, unknown; but I am a kinsman according to the flesh, descended from the same forefathers.” And anyone who searched carefully could gather many more points besides.

But he does not stop even there; he adds another example as well, saying, “The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and look, one greater than Solomon is here.”

This was more than the first. Jonah went to them; but the queen of the south did not wait for Solomon to come to her. She went to him herself, though she was a woman, and a barbarian, and so far away, with no threat hanging over her and no fear of death — simply out of love for wise words. “But look, one even greater than Solomon is here.” “In that case the woman came, but here I have come. She rose up from the ends of the earth, but I go around the cities and villages. His talk was of trees and different kinds of wood, which could do his visitor no great good; but mine is of hidden things and the most awe-inspiring mysteries.”

So when he had condemned them, having proved most fully that they were sinning without excuse, and that their disobedience came from their own perversity and not from any inability in their Teacher; and when he had shown this by many other arguments, as well as by the Ninevites and by the queen, he then speaks also of the punishment that would overtake them. He does it darkly, yet he does speak of it, weaving an intense fear into his story. [o]

“When the unclean spirit,” he says, “has gone out of the man, it goes through dry places seeking rest, and finding none, it says, ‘I will return to my house that I came out of.’ And when it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So will it be also with this generation.”

By this he shows that they would suffer most grievously not only in the world to come, but here as well. He had said, “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment and condemn this generation.” So that they would not make light of it because the time was put off, and grow more careless, by this he brings the terror close to them. The prophet Hosea too threatened them with this, saying they would be “like the prophet who is out of his mind, the man carried away by a spirit” — that is, like madmen, driven to distraction by evil spirits: the false prophets. For here, by “a prophet who is out of his mind,” he means the false prophet, such as the soothsayers are. Christ is telling them much the same: that they will suffer the worst of evils.

Do you see how he uses everything to urge them to attend to his words: things present and things to come; those who had proved themselves good — the Ninevites, I mean, and that queen — and the offending people of Tyre and Sodom? The prophets did this too, bringing forward the sons of the Rechabites, and the bride who does not forget her own jewelry and her sash, and “the ox that knows its owner, and the donkey that remembers its manger.” In the same way here, after setting out their perversity by comparison, he goes on to speak of their punishment as well.

What, then, can the saying mean? He says: “Just as the possessed, once they have been freed from that affliction, bring the delusion back on themselves worse than ever if they grow at all careless, so it is with you. For before, too, you were possessed by a demon, when you worshiped idols and sacrificed your sons to demons, showing great madness. Still I did not abandon you, but drove out that demon through the prophets; and now I have come again in my own person, wanting to cleanse you more completely. Since, then, you will not listen, but have wrecked yourselves on greater wickedness, your sufferings will be more grievous than the former ones.” For killing prophets was not nearly so great and grievous a crime as killing him. By the former sufferings I mean those in Babylon and in Egypt and under the first Antiochus. For what befell them in the time of Vespasian and Titus was far more grievous than those. That is why he said, “There will be great distress, such as has never been, nor ever will be.”

But the illustration declares not only this; it declares also that they would be utterly stripped of all virtue, and more open to the power of the demons than they were then. For at that time, even though they sinned, there were still some among them who did right, and God’s providence was with them, and the grace of the Spirit, tending them, correcting them, doing its whole part. But now they will be utterly deprived of this protection too; so he tells them. So now there is both a greater scarcity of virtue, and a more intense affliction, and a more tyrannical working of the demons.

You know, then, how even in our own generation, when the man who surpassed everyone in ungodliness — Julian, I mean — was carried away by his fury, they took the side of the pagans and courted their favor. So even if they seem to be chastened a little now, it is the fear of the emperors that keeps them quiet; if it were not for that, their daring would have been far worse than before. For in all their other evil deeds they surpass those who went before them: sorcery, magic arts, and impurity they practice to great excess. And besides all this, strong as the curb that holds them down is, they have often raised revolts and risen up against their kings, and this has ended in their being pierced through with the worst of evils.

Where now are those who seek signs? Let them hear that a thoughtful mind is what is needed, and that if this is lacking, signs are of no use. See, for example, how the Ninevites believed without signs, while these, after so many miracles, grew worse, made themselves a home for countless demons, and brought countless disasters on themselves — and quite naturally. For when someone who has once been delivered from his troubles fails to be corrected, he will suffer far worse than before. That is why he said, “it finds no rest”: to show that such a person will certainly, and of necessity, be caught in the ambush of the demons. Surely two things should have sobered him, his former sufferings and his deliverance; or rather, a third is added too, the threat of having still worse to endure. Yet by none of these were they made better.

All this could fittingly be said not of them only, but of us too, when after being enlightened and delivered from our former evils, we cling again to the same wickedness. For from then on the punishment for the sins we commit afterward will be heavier. That is why Christ said to the paralyzed man as well, “Look, you have been made well; sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you” — and this to a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years. One might ask: “And what worse than this was he going to suffer?” Something far worse, and more unbearable. May we never suffer all that we are capable of suffering! For God has no lack of punishments. As great as his mercy is, so great also is his wrath. [s]

He charges Jerusalem with this too, through Ezekiel. “I saw you,” he says, “defiled in blood, and I washed you and anointed you, and you became famous for your beauty; and you poured out your acts of prostitution,” he says, “on those who live near you.” That is why his threats against you are all the heavier when you sin.

But from this, do not conclude only your punishment; see also God’s boundless patience. How often, at any rate, have we set our hands to the same evil deeds, and still he is patient! But let us not be overconfident; let us fear. Pharaoh too, if he had been taught by the first plague, would not have gone through the later ones, and he would not afterward have been drowned together with his whole army.

I say this because I know many who, like Pharaoh, are saying even now, “I do not know God,” and are keeping those in their power bound to the clay and the bricks. How many there are who, though God tells them to give up their “threatening,” cannot bear even to ease the labor!

“But we have no Red Sea now to cross afterward.” No, but we have a sea of fire — a sea not like that one in kind or in size, but far greater and fiercer, with waves of fire, of some strange and horrible fire. A vast abyss is there, of the most unbearable flame, and everywhere fire can be seen rushing around like some savage wild beast. And if here on earth this fire of the senses, this material fire, leaped out of the furnace like a wild beast and sprang on those who were sitting outside, what will that other fire not do to those who have fallen into it?

Hear the prophets speaking of that day: “The day of the Lord is incurable, full of anger and wrath.” For there will be no one to stand by you, no one to rescue you, and nowhere the face of Christ, so gentle and calm. Those who work in the mines are handed over to certain cruel men, and see none of their friends, but only those who are set over them. So it will be then too — or rather, not so, but far more grievous. For here it is possible to go to the king, plead, and set the condemned man free; but there, no longer. He does not allow it; they remain in the scorching torment, in anguish so great that words cannot tell it. If no speech can describe the sharp pains of those who are burned here, far less can it describe the pains of those who suffer it in that place. For here everything is over in a brief moment; but there, there is burning indeed, yet what is burned is not consumed.

What, then, will we do there? For I say these things to myself as well.

“But if you, our teacher, speak this way about yourself, I no longer care. What wonder is it if I am punished?” No, I beg you, let no one look for this consolation; it gives no relief at all. For tell me: was not the devil a bodiless power? Was he not above human beings? Yet he fell away. Is there anyone who will draw comfort from being punished along with him? Not at all. And what of all those in Egypt? Did they not see those in high places punished too, and every house in mourning? Were they refreshed by this, then, and comforted? Certainly not. That is clear from what they did afterward: like people tortured by some kind of fire, they rose up together against the king and forced him to drive out the Hebrew people. [w]

Yes, and this saying is utterly senseless: to suppose that there is comfort in being punished along with everyone else, and to say, “As everyone, so I too.” Why should I speak of hell? Think, please, of those who are seized with gout. When they are racked by sharp pain, you may show them ten thousand people suffering worse, and it does not even enter their minds. The intensity of their pain leaves their reason no leisure to think of others and so find consolation. So let us not feed ourselves on these cold hopes. Drawing comfort from our neighbors’ troubles happens in ordinary sufferings; but when the torment is extreme, and all our inner parts are full of storm, and the soul has come to the point where it cannot even know itself, where will it find consolation? So all these sayings are nonsense, tales for foolish children. What you speak of happens in low spirits — and only in moderate low spirits — when we are told, “The same thing has happened to so-and-so”; and sometimes not even then. Now if it has no strength in that case, much less in the anguish and unspeakable burden that “the gnashing of teeth” points to.

I know that I am stinging you and giving you pain with these words. But what can I do? I would gladly not speak this way; I would rather be aware of virtue both in myself and in all of you. But since most of us are in sins, who will give me the power really to pain you, and to reach deep into the understanding of those who hear me? Then I could be at rest. As it is, I am afraid that some may despise my words, and that their punishment may grow greater through their careless way of listening. When a master utters a threat, and one of the fellow servants hears it and makes light of it, he will not get past his angry master unpunished; rather, it will be a reason to punish him more.

So I beg you, let us pierce our own hearts when we hear his words about hell. For nothing is more delightful than this discourse, just as nothing is more bitter than the reality. One may ask: “But how can it be delightful to be told about hell?” Because falling into hell is anything but delightful, and these words of ours, which seem so stinging, keep us from it. And before that they give us another pleasure: they brace our souls, make us more reverent, lift up the mind, give wings to our thoughts, and drive out the desires that beset us so harmfully. And so the thing becomes a cure.

So, to go on, along with the punishment let me speak of the shame as well. For just as the Jews will then be condemned by the Ninevites, so we too will be condemned by many who seem beneath us now. [x]

Let us picture, then, how great the mockery will be, how great the condemnation. Let us picture it, and at last lay some foundation, open some door of repentance.

I say these things to myself; to myself first I give this advice. Let no one be angry, as though he were the one condemned. Let us enter on the narrow way. How long will it be luxury? How long laziness? Have we not had enough of idleness, of merriment, of putting things off? Is it to be the same all over again — feasting and overeating, spending and wealth, possessions and buildings? And what is the end? Death. What is the end? Ashes and dust, coffins and worms.

So let us show a new kind of life. Let us make earth into heaven; let us show the Greeks by this how great are the blessings they are missing. For when they see a good way of life in us, they will be looking on the very face of the kingdom of heaven. Yes, when they see us gentle, clean of anger, of evil desire, of envy, of greed, and fulfilling all our other duties rightly, they will say: “If the Christians have become angels here, what will they be after they leave this world? If they shine so brightly where they are strangers, how great will they become when they have reached their homeland!” So they too will be reformed, and the word of godliness will run its course freely, no less than in the apostles’ times. For if they, only twelve, converted whole cities and countries, imagine how high our cause will be raised if all of us become teachers by our careful conduct. Not even a dead man raised to life draws the Greek so powerfully as a person practicing self-denial. At the miracle he will be amazed, but by the life he will be helped. The one is done and passed away; the other remains, and is a constant tending of his soul.

So let us take care of ourselves, so that we may win them too. I am saying nothing burdensome. I do not say, “Do not marry.” I do not say, “Leave the cities and withdraw from public affairs.” No: stay engaged in them, and show virtue. In fact, I would like those who are busy in the midst of the cities to be more approved than those who have taken to the mountains. Why? Because great is the profit that comes from it. “For no one lights a lamp and puts it under the basket.” So I would have all the lamps set on the lampstand, so that the light may grow great.

Let us kindle his fire, then; let us free those who are sitting in darkness from their error. And do not tell me: “I have a wife and children to look after, and I am head of a household; I cannot properly practice all this.” Even if you had none of these, if you were careless, all would be lost; and though you are surrounded by all of them, if you are earnest, you will attain virtue. Only one thing is needed: a noble mind made ready. Then neither age, nor poverty, nor wealth, nor a reversal of fortune, nor anything else will be able to stand in your way. In fact, old and young, men with wives and raising children, men working at trades and serving as soldiers, have carried out everything commanded. Daniel was young, and Joseph a slave, and Aquila worked at a trade; the woman who sold purple ran a workshop; another was the keeper of a prison, another a centurion, like Cornelius; another was in poor health, like Timothy; another a runaway, like Onesimus. Yet none of these found anything a hindrance; all were approved, men and women, young and old, slaves and free, soldiers and civilians.

So let us not make empty excuses, but let us provide a thoroughly good mind; and whatever we may be, we will surely attain virtue and reach the good things to come, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, might, and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.