Homily 51 — Matthew 15, verses 1 to 20

“Then scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, ‘Why do your disciples…’” and the rest of the passage. [a]

“Then.” When? When he had worked his countless miracles; when he had healed the sick by the touch of the fringe of his garment. The evangelist marks the time for this very purpose: to show their wickedness, which is beyond words and which nothing could hold back.

But what does “the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem” mean? They were scattered through every one of the tribes, divided into twelve parts. But those who held the chief city were worse than the rest, because they both enjoyed more honor and had picked up a great deal of arrogance.

But notice, please, how they are convicted by their very question. They do not say, “Why do they break the law of Moses?” but, “the tradition of the elders.” From this it is plain that the priests were inventing many new things, even though Moses, with great terror and with many threats, had commanded them neither to add nor to take away. “You shall not add,” he says, “to the word which I command you this day, and you shall not take away from it.”

Yet they went on making innovations all the same, as in this case: that no one should eat with unwashed hands, that cups and bronze vessels must be washed, that we must wash ourselves too. So just when, as time went on, people were soon to be set free from their observances, at that very time these men bound them with more and more of them. They were afraid that someone would take away their power, and they wanted to inspire more dread, as though they were lawgivers themselves. In fact the thing went so far into outrage that while their own commands were kept, God’s were broken; and they had gained so much ground that this was actually made a matter for accusation. It was a double charge against them: they both invented new things and were such strict enforcers of their own rules, while they took no account of God’s.

They left the other things unmentioned, the pots and the bronze vessels, for that would have been too ridiculous. Instead they brought forward the one that seemed more reasonable than the rest, wanting — so it seems to me, at least — to provoke him to anger that way. That is also why they mentioned the elders: so that if he treated them with contempt, he would give them something to use against him.

But we ought first to ask why the disciples ate with unwashed hands. Why, then, did they eat that way? Not because they made a point of it, but because by now they overlooked what was unnecessary and paid attention to what was necessary. They had no rule either to wash or not to wash, but did whichever happened. People who despised even the food they needed — how were they going to think these things worth much attention? This had often happened without their meaning anything by it — for instance, when they ate in the wilderness, when they plucked the heads of grain — and now it is brought up as a charge by these men, who are always breaking the law in the great things and making a great deal of what is unnecessary.

What, then, does Christ say? He did not argue against the charge, and he made no defense. At once he blames them in turn, pulling down their confidence and showing that a man who commits great sins ought not to be strict with others about small matters. He says: “What? When you ought to be blamed, are you even blaming others?” [e]

But notice how, when he wants to set aside any of the things the law commanded, he does it in the form of a defense; and that is what he did in this case. He does not go straight to breaking it, nor does he say, “It is nothing” — that would certainly have made them bolder. First he cuts away their boldness entirely, bringing forward the far heavier charge and turning it on their own heads. He does not say, “They do well to break it,” so as not to give them a hold on him. Nor does he speak ill of what they did, so as not to confirm the law. Nor, on the other hand, does he blame the elders as lawless and unholy men, for then they would surely have shunned him as a slanderer who meant them harm. He lets all these things go and takes another way. He seems to be rebuking only the men who had come to him, but he is censuring those who made these laws. He never mentions the elders, yet by his charge against the scribes he brings them down too, and shows that their sin is double: first, they disobey God; second, they do it for the sake of men. It is as though he had said, “This is what has ruined you — obeying the elders in everything.”

He does not say that, but that is exactly what he implies when he answers them like this:

“Why do you also break the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever curses father or mother, let him surely die.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or his mother, “It is a gift, whatever help you might have had from me,” and does not honor his father or his mother…’ And you have made the commandment of God void by your tradition.”

He did not say “the elders’ tradition,” but “your own.” And “you say” — again, he did not say “the elders say” — to make his words less galling. That is, since they wanted to prove the disciples lawbreakers, he shows that they themselves are the ones doing it, and that the disciples are free of blame. For of course what men command is not a law — that is why he calls it “a tradition” — and especially when the men are lawbreakers themselves.

And since commanding people to wash their hands was not in the least opposed to the law, he brings forward another tradition, one that is opposed to the law. What he says amounts to this: “They taught the young, under the cloak of piety, to despise their fathers.” How, and in what way? “If one of their parents said to his child, ‘Give me this sheep you have,’ or ‘this calf,’ or anything of the kind, they used to say, ‘This is a gift to God, from which you would have been helped by me, and you cannot have it.’ And two evils came of this. On the one hand they did not bring these things to God; on the other, they defrauded their parents under the name of an offering. They insulted their parents for God’s sake, and God for their parents’ sake.”

But he does not say this at once. First he recites the law, by which he shows how earnestly he wants parents to be honored. “Honor,” he says, “your father and your mother, that you may live long on the earth.” And again, “Whoever curses father or mother, let him surely die.” But he leaves out the first — the reward appointed for those who honor their parents — and states the more fearful one, I mean the punishment threatened against those who dishonor them. He wants both to dismay the Pharisees and to win over those who have understanding, and he implies that for this they deserve death. For if the one who dishonors his parents in words is punished, how much more you, who do it in deeds, and who not only dishonor them but teach others to do it as well! “You, then, who ought not even to be alive — how can you find fault with the disciples?

“And what wonder is it if you insult me like this, when I am not yet known, since you are found doing the same even to the Father?” For everywhere he both states and implies that it was with the Father that they began this arrogance of theirs.

Some, though, interpret “It is a gift, whatever help you might have had from me” differently, taking it to mean: “I owe you no honor; if I do honor you, it is a free gift from me to you.” But Christ would not have mentioned an insult of that sort.

And Mark, again, makes this plainer, saying, “It is Corban, whatever help you might have had from me.” This means not a gift and a present, but, strictly speaking, an offering.

Having shown, then, that men who were trampling on the law had no right to blame others for breaking a command of certain elders, he points out the same thing again from the prophet as well. Once he has taken a firm grip on them, he goes further, as he does on every occasion, bringing forward the Scriptures and so showing that he is in agreement with God.

And what does the prophet say? “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”

Do you see a prophecy that agrees exactly with his words, and that proclaimed their wickedness in advance from the very beginning? For what Christ charged them with now, Isaiah also spoke of from the very beginning: that they despise the words of God — “for in vain do they worship me,” he says — but make a great deal of their own — “teaching,” he says, “as doctrines the commandments of men.” So the disciples are right not to keep them.

So he has dealt them their death blow. He has made the charge heavier, first from the facts, then from their own verdict, then from the prophet. With them he no longer reasons at all, since by now they have become past correcting. Instead he turns his words to the crowds, so as to bring in his teaching — a great and lofty teaching, full of strictness. Taking his opening from the earlier subject, he goes on to add something greater, and casts out the keeping of the food laws as well. [h]

But notice when. After he had cleansed the leper, after he had set aside the Sabbath, after he had shown himself King of earth and sea, after he had made laws, after he had forgiven sins, after he had raised the dead, after he had given them many proofs of his divinity — then he speaks about foods.

For indeed the whole religion of the Jews is summed up in this. Take this away, and you have taken away everything. By this he shows that circumcision too must be done away with. But he does not bring that forward himself, openly, since it was older than the other commandments and more highly esteemed; he makes that law through his disciples. So great a thing was it that even the disciples, long afterward, when they meant to do away with it, first practiced it themselves, and only in that way put it down. But see how he introduces his law: how “he called the crowd and said to them, ‘Hear and understand.’”

He does not simply reveal it to them bare. First, by the respect and courtesy he shows them, he makes his saying welcome — the evangelist makes this plain by saying, “He called them to him.” Second, by his timing as well: it is after the Pharisees had been refuted, after his victory over them, after the prophet’s accusation, that he begins to make his law, when the crowds too would more readily receive his words.

And he does not merely call them to him; he also makes them more attentive. “Understand,” he says — that is: “Think about it; rouse yourselves; for the law now about to be made is of that kind. If they set aside the law, and at the wrong time, for their own tradition, and you listened to them, how much more ought you to listen to me, who at the right time am leading you to a higher standard of self-restraint.”

He did not say, “The keeping of the food laws is nothing,” nor that Moses had given wrong commands, nor that he had given them by stooping down to meet the people. Instead, by way of warning and counsel, and taking his proof from the nature of things, he says, “Not what goes into the mouth defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.” He turned to nature herself, both in making his law and in proving it. And they heard all this and made no reply. They did not say, “What are you saying? When God has given countless commands about keeping the food laws, do you make laws like these?” For he had stopped their mouths completely — not only by refuting them, but also by making their cunning public, exposing what they did in secret, and laying bare the secrets of their minds. So their mouths were shut, and they went away.

But notice, please, how he does not yet venture to set himself boldly and openly against the food laws. That is why he did not say “foods,” but, “what goes in does not defile a person” — which they might naturally take to be about the unwashed hands as well. He was speaking of foods, but it could be understood of these matters too.

Why, the scruple about foods was so strong that even after the resurrection Peter said, “Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” It is true that he said this for the sake of others, to leave himself a defense against those who would criticize him, by showing that he had actually protested and even so was not let off. Nevertheless, it shows how deep their feeling on this point went.

That is why, you see, at the beginning Christ himself did not speak openly about foods, but said, “what goes into the mouth.” And again afterward, when he seemed to have spoken more plainly, he veiled it with his conclusion, saying, “But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person.” He wanted to seem to have taken his occasion from there and to be still speaking of the same thing. So he did not say, “Eating foods does not defile a person,” but spoke as though he were on that other subject, so that they would have nothing to say against it.

So when they had heard these things, “the Pharisees,” it says, “were offended” — not the crowds. For “his disciples,” it says, “came and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?’” And yet nothing had been said to them. What, then, does Christ say? He did not remove the offense as far as they were concerned, but rebuked them, saying, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.” For he is used both to disregard offense and not to disregard it. Elsewhere, for instance, he says, “But so that we do not offend them, cast a hook into the sea.” But here he says, “Leave them alone; they are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch.” [l]

The disciples said these things not only because they were troubled for those men, but because they themselves were somewhat perplexed as well. Since they did not dare to say so for themselves, they hoped to find out by telling him about others. And to see that this is so, listen: after this the ardent Peter, always the first to step forward, came to him and said, “Explain this parable to us.” He was revealing the trouble in his soul. He did not venture to say openly, “I am offended,” but asked to be freed from his perplexity by Christ’s explanation. That is also why he was rebuked. What, then, does Christ say? “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.”

Those who are sick with the Manichaean plague say that this was spoken of the law. But their mouths are stopped by what had been said before. If he was speaking of the law, how did he defend it earlier and fight for it, saying, “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” And how does he bring forward the prophet? No, it is of the Pharisees themselves and their traditions that he speaks this way. For if God said, “Honor your father and your mother,” how is what God spoke not of God’s planting?

What follows also shows that it was said of them and of their traditions. For he added, “They are blind leaders of the blind.” If he had been speaking of the law, he would have said, “It is a blind leader of the blind.” But he did not say that. He said, “They are blind leaders of the blind,” clearing the law of blame and turning it all back on them.

Then, to separate the people from them as well, since the people were about to fall into a pit because of them, he says, “If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch.”

It is a great evil simply to be blind. But to be in that state and have no one to lead you — worse, to take the place of a guide yourself — is double and triple ground for blame. If it is dangerous for a blind man not to have a guide, it is much more so for him even to want to be a guide to another.

What, then, does Peter say? He does not say, “What can this be that you have said?” He puts his question as though the saying were full of obscurity. And he does not say, “Why have you spoken against the law?” — for he was afraid he would be thought to have taken offense — but claims it is obscure. Yet it is plain that it was not obscure, and that he was offended; for there was nothing obscure in it.

That is why Christ rebukes him too, saying, “Are you also still without understanding?” As for the crowd, perhaps they did not even understand the saying; it was the disciples themselves who were offended. So at first they wanted to be told, as though they were asking on the Pharisees’ behalf. But when they heard him pronounce a great threat, saying, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up,” and, “They are blind leaders of the blind,” they fell silent. But Peter, ardent as always, could not bear to hold his peace even then, and said, “Explain this parable to us.”

What, then, does Christ say? He answers with a sharp rebuke: “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not yet understand?”

He said these things and rebuked them in order to cast out their prejudice. But he did not stop there; he adds more, saying, “Whatever enters at the mouth goes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine. But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, blasphemies, false testimony. These are the things that defile a person; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person.”

Do you see how sharply he deals with them, by way of rebuke? Then he establishes his saying from our common nature, with a view to their healing. For when he says, “It goes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine,” he is still answering on the level of the Jews’ low understanding. What he says is, “It does not stay, but goes out.” And what if it did stay? It would not make a person unclean. But they were not yet able to hear this.

One may also notice that this is why the lawgiver allows exactly as much time as the food may remain inside a person, and no longer once it has gone out. For instance, he tells you to wash yourself in the evening and so be clean, measuring out the time of digestion and of excretion. But the things of the heart, he says, stay within, and they defile when they go out, not only while they stay inside. And first he names our evil thoughts, a kind of thing that belonged to the Jews. He does not yet make his refutation from the nature of the things, but from the different ways they come out of the stomach and out of the heart, and from the fact that the one kind stays and the other does not: the one enters from outside and goes back out again, while the others are bred within, and once they have gone out they defile — and then all the more, when they have gone out. For, as I said, they were not yet able to be taught these things with full strictness.

But Mark says that he said this “cleansing the foods.” Yet he did not state it outright. He did not say at all, “But to eat such and such foods does not defile a person,” for they could not have borne to hear it from him so plainly. And so his conclusion was, “But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person.”

Let us learn, then, what the things are that defile a person. Let us learn them, and let us flee them. Even in church we see this custom common among most people: they take pains to come in clean clothes and with their hands washed, but how to present a clean soul to God they take no account. [p]

I say this not to forbid anyone to wash their hands or mouth, but because I want people to wash as they should — not with water only, but, instead of water, with all the virtues. For the filth of the mouth is evil speaking, blasphemy, insults, angry words, filthy talk, laughter, joking. If, then, you are aware of having spoken none of these and of not being stained with this filth, come near with confidence. But if you have taken on these stains countless times, why do you labor in vain, washing your tongue with water while you carry around on it such deadly and harmful filth? Tell me, if you had dung and mud on your hands, would you dare to pray? Certainly not. And yet that would do no harm, while this is ruin. How is it, then, that you are so reverent about things that do not matter, and so careless about things that are forbidden? Someone says: “What then? Should we not pray?” Yes, we should — but not while we are defiled and have mud of that sort on us.

“But what if I have been caught in a fault?” Cleanse yourself. “How, and in what way?” Weep, groan, give alms, apologize to the one you have insulted and win him back to yourself that way. Wipe your tongue clean, so that you do not provoke God still more grievously. If someone had filled his hands with dung and then took hold of your feet, begging you, far from listening to him you would rather kick him away. How, then, do you dare come near to God in such a state? For truly the tongue is the hand of those who pray; by it we take hold of God’s knees. So do not defile it, or he may say to you too, “Even if you make many prayers, I will not listen.” Yes, and “death and life are in the power of the tongue”; and, “By your words you will be counted righteous, and by your words you will be condemned.”

So I tell you: guard your tongue more closely than the pupil of your eye. The tongue is a royal horse. If you put a bridle on it and teach it to step in good order, the King will rest and take his seat on it. But if you let it rush about unbridled and prance wildly, it becomes a beast for the devil and evil spirits to ride. When you have just come from your own wife, you do not dare to pray, though there is no blame in that at all. And will you lift up your hands fresh from abuse and insults, which bring nothing less than hell after them, before you have properly cleansed yourself? Tell me, how is it you do not shudder? Have you not heard Paul saying, “Marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled”? If on rising from the undefiled bed you do not dare to come near in prayer, how can you come from the devil’s bed and call on that awesome and terrible name? For wallowing in insults and abuse truly is the devil’s bed. Like some wicked adulterer, anger lies with us in great delight, casting deadly seed into us and making us give birth to devilish hatred, and doing everything in the opposite way to marriage. For marriage makes the two one flesh, but anger splits into many parts those who were united, and cleaves and cuts in pieces the very soul.

So that you may come near to God with confidence, then, do not take anger in when it comes at you and wants to be with you, but drive it away like a mad dog.

Paul too commanded this; his words are, “lifting up holy hands without anger and disputing.” So do not dishonor your tongue — for how will it plead for you once it has lost the confidence that belongs to it? Adorn it instead with gentleness and with humility; make it worthy of the God to whom it pleads; fill it with blessing and with much almsgiving. For it is possible to give alms even with words: “A word is better than a gift,” and, “Answer the poor man peaceably, with meekness.” And all the rest of your time, adorn it with reciting the laws of God: “Yes, let all your conversation be in the law of the Most High.”

Having adorned ourselves in this way, let us come to our King and fall at his knees, not with the body only, but with the mind as well. Let us consider whom we are approaching, and for whose sake, and what we want to accomplish. We are drawing near to God, whom the seraphim look upon and turn away their faces, unable to bear his brightness; at whose sight the earth trembles. We are drawing near to God, “who dwells in light that no one can approach.” And we draw near to him for deliverance from hell, for the forgiveness of sins, for escape from those unbearable punishments, to reach the heavens and the good things that are there. Let us fall down before him, I say, both in body and in mind, so that he may raise us up when we are down. Let us speak with him in all gentleness and meekness.

Someone may say: “And who is so wretched and miserable as not to become gentle in prayer?” The man who prays with curses, fills himself with anger, and cries out against his enemies.

No — if you want to accuse, accuse yourself. If you want to whet and sharpen your tongue, let it be against your own sins. Do not tell what evil another has done to you, but what you have done to yourself; for that is truly an evil, since no one else will really be able to harm you unless you harm yourself. So if you want to go against those who wrong you, go against yourself first. There is no one to stop you. But by going to court against another, you only go away with the greater injury. [t]

And what injury, really, do you have to mention? That so-and-so insulted you, robbed you by force, and surrounded you with dangers? No — if we are clear-headed, this is not receiving an injury but the very greatest benefit. The one injured is the man who did such things, not the one who suffered them. And more than any one thing, this is the cause of all our evils: that we do not even know who is the injured one and who the one doing the injury. If we knew this well, we would never injure ourselves, and we would not pray against another, having learned that it is impossible to suffer harm from another. For it is not being robbed that is an evil, but robbing. So if you have robbed, accuse yourself; but if you have been robbed, pray instead for the one who robbed you, because he has done you the greatest good. Even though that was not what the man who did it intended, you have received the greatest benefit, if you have borne it nobly. People and the laws of God alike call him wretched, while you, the injured party, they crown and proclaim your praise.

Suppose someone sick with a fever had taken a vessel of water from another person by force and had drunk his fill, satisfying his harmful craving. We would not say that the one who was robbed had been injured, but the robber, for he has made his fever worse and his illness more serious. Reason the same way, I tell you, about the man who loves wealth and money. He has a far worse fever than the other, and by this plunder he has fanned the flame inside himself.

Again, if some madman were to snatch a sword from someone and kill himself with it, which is the injured one? The man who was robbed, or the robber? Clearly, the one who did the robbing.

Well, then, in the case of seizing property too, let us give the same verdict. For what a sword is to a madman, wealth is to a greedy man — or rather, it is something even worse. The madman, when he has taken the sword and run himself through, is both freed from his madness and has no second blow to take. But the lover of money takes countless wounds every day, more grievous than that one. He does not free himself from his madness but makes it far worse; and the more wounds he takes, the more he lays himself open to further and more grievous blows.

So, reflecting on these things, let us flee this sword; let us flee the madness; late as it is, let us come to self-control. For this virtue too deserves to be called self-control, no less than the one that everyone commonly calls by that name. There, one has to fight against the rule of a single craving; here, we have to master many cravings, of every kind.

Yes, nothing — nothing — is more foolish than the slave of wealth. He thinks he is winning when he is beaten. He thinks he is master when he is a slave. He puts chains on himself and rejoices; he makes the wild beast fiercer and is pleased; he becomes a captive and prides himself on it and jumps for joy. He sees a rabid dog flying at his soul, and when he ought to tie it up and weaken it with hunger, he actually gives it plenty of food, so that it may leap at him more fiercely and be more dangerous. So, reflecting on all these things, let us loose the chains, let us kill the monster, let us drive away the disease, let us cast out this madness, so that we may enjoy calm and pure health, and, having sailed with great joy into the calm harbor, may attain the eternal blessings. May we all attain them, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.