Homily 77 — Matthew 24, verses 32 to 51

“Now learn a parable from the fig tree: when its branch is still tender and puts out leaves, you know that summer is near. So also you, when you see all these things, know that it is near, right at the doors.” [a]

He had said, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days.” But they were asking how long after, and wanted to know the very day itself. That is why he also puts in the comparison of the fig tree: to show that the interval was not great, but that his coming too would follow close behind. And he declared this not by the parable alone but by the words that follow, when he says, “Know that it is near, right at the doors.”

By this he foretells something else as well: a spiritual summer, and a calm that the righteous will have on that day, after the present storm; but for sinners the opposite, winter after summer. He makes this plain in what follows, when he says that the day will come upon them while they are living in luxury.

But he did not put forward this about the fig tree only to show the interval, for he could have set that before them in other ways too. He did it also to confirm by it that what he said would certainly come to pass. As this about the fig tree happens of necessity, so will that. Wherever he means to speak of something that will certainly happen, he brings forward the fixed courses of nature — he himself does, and the blessed Paul in imitation of him. So too, when he speaks of his resurrection, he says, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” And the blessed Paul, taught by this, uses the same comparison: “You fool,” he says, “what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.”

After this, so that they would not come straight back to it and say, “When?”, he reminds them of what had been said: “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things are fulfilled.” All these things — what things, I ask you? The things about Jerusalem, about the wars, about the famines, about the plagues, about the earthquakes, about the false Christs, about the false prophets, about the sowing of the good news everywhere; the uprisings, the upheavals, and all the other things that we said were to happen until his coming.

Then someone may ask: “How, then, did he say, ‘this generation’?” He was speaking not of the generation living then, but of the generation of the believers. For he is accustomed to mark out a generation not only by its times but also by its way of worship and its way of life, as when he says, “This is the generation of those who seek the Lord.”

What he said above — “All these things must come to pass,” and again, “The good news will be preached” — he declares here too. He is saying: all these things will certainly come to pass, and the generation of the faithful will remain, cut off by none of the things that have been mentioned. Jerusalem will perish, and most of the Jews will be destroyed, but nothing will overpower this generation: not famine, not plague, not earthquake, not the upheavals of wars, not false Christs, not false prophets, not deceivers, not traitors, not those who cause others to stumble, not false brothers, nor any other trial of the kind whatever.

Then, to lead them further on in faith, he says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” That is: it would be easier for these firm, fixed, immovable bodies to be wiped out than for any of my words to fall to the ground. Whoever disputes these things, let him test his sayings. When he has found them true from what is past — and he certainly will find them so — let him believe the things to come as well. Let him search out everything carefully, and he will see the events themselves bearing witness to the truth of the prophecy.

He brought forward these elements of the world both to declare that the church is more to be honored than heaven and earth, and at the same time to show by this too that he is the maker of all things. Since he was speaking of the end, something many people disbelieved, he brought forward heaven and earth. In this way he showed his power beyond words, declared with great authority that he is Lord of all, and made his sayings worthy of belief even to those who are much given to doubt.

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.” By saying “not even the angels,” he shut their mouths, so that they would not seek to learn what the angels do not know. And by saying “nor the Son,” he forbids them not only to learn it but even to ask. To see that this is why he said it, look at what happened after his resurrection. When he saw that they had become overcurious, he shut their mouths more firmly still. Here he has named signs that do not fail, many and without number; but then he says simply, “It is not for you to know times or seasons.” And then, so that they would not say, “We are left at a loss; we are utterly slighted; we are not thought worthy even of this,” he says, “which the Father has put in his own authority.” He did this because he took great care to honor them and to hide nothing from them. That is why he refers it to his Father: both to make the matter awe-inspiring, and to shut out from their questioning the thing he had spoken of.

For if this is not the reason, and he really does not know it, when will he know it? Together with us? But who would say that? He knows the Father clearly — as clearly as he knows the Son — and is he ignorant of the day? Besides, “the Spirit searches even the deep things of God,” and does he not know so much as the time of the judgment? He knows how he is to judge, and he has full knowledge of each person’s secrets; could he be ignorant of this, which is far more ordinary than that? And if “all things were made through him, and without him not one thing was made,” how was he ignorant of the day? He who made the ages plainly made the times as well; and if the times, then that day too. How, then, is he ignorant of what he made?

You say that you know even God’s very essence, and yet that the Son does not know even the day — the Son, who is always in the Father’s bosom! And yet God’s essence is much greater than the days, infinitely greater. How is it, then, that you claim the greater things for yourselves and will not grant even the lesser to the Son, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”? No: you do not know what God is in his essence, though you rave like this ten thousand times; and the Son is not ignorant of the day, but knows it with full certainty. [h]

This, I say, is why, after telling them everything, both the times and the seasons, and bringing them right up to the doors (“for it is near,” he says, “right at the doors”), he said nothing about the day. He is saying: “If you look for the day and the hour, you will not hear them from me. But if you ask about the times and the preludes, I will tell you everything exactly, hiding nothing. I have shown in many ways that I am not ignorant of it. I have told you the intervals, and all the things that are to happen, and how short the time is from now until the day itself — this is what the parable of the fig tree pointed to — and I am leading you to the very entrance hall. And if I do not open the doors to you, this too I do for your good.”

And so that you may learn from something else too that his silence is not a mark of ignorance, see how, along with what we have mentioned, he sets out another sign as well: “As in the days of Noah they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day the flood came and swept them all away, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” He said this to show that he would come suddenly and unexpectedly, while most people were living in luxury. Paul says this too, writing as follows: “When they say, ‘Peace and safety,’ then sudden destruction comes upon them.” And to show how unexpected it will be, he said, “as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman.”

Then how does he say, “after the tribulation of those days”? If there is luxury then, and peace and safety, as Paul says, how does he say, “after the tribulation of those days”? If there is luxury, how is there tribulation? The luxury belongs to those who have lost all feeling and are at peace. That is why Paul did not say, “when there is peace,” but “when they say, ‘Peace and safety,’” pointing to a numbness like that of the people in Noah’s time, since amid such great evils they lived in luxury.

But it is not so with the righteous: they were passing their time in tribulation and dejection. By this he shows that when the Antichrist has come, the pursuit of unlawful pleasures will be all the more eager among the lawbreakers and among those who have learned to despair of their own salvation. Then there will be gluttony, then carousing and drunkenness. That is why, above all, he puts forward an example that fits the thing. When the ark was being built, he says, they did not believe; and while it stood there in their midst, proclaiming beforehand the evils to come, they saw it and lived for pleasure, as though nothing dreadful were about to happen. So now too: the Antichrist will appear, and after him the end, and the punishments at the end, and vengeance no one can bear; but those who are held fast by the drunkenness of wickedness will not even perceive how dreadful the things are that are about to be done. That is why Paul too says, “as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman”: that is how those fearful and incurable evils will come upon them.

And why did he not speak of the evils in Sodom? He wanted to bring in an example that took in all people, and one that was disbelieved after it had been foretold. So, since most people disbelieve the things to come, he confirms them by what is past, striking fear into their minds. And along with the points I have mentioned he shows this too: that he was the one who did those former things as well.

Then he sets out yet another sign, and by all these things he makes it plain that he is not ignorant of the day. What is the sign? “Then two will be in the field: one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and one left. Keep watch, then, for you do not know at what hour your Lord is coming.” All these things are both proofs that he knew and meant to turn them away from their questioning. That is why he spoke of the days of Noah, and why he also said, “Two will be in one bed” — signifying that he would come upon them unexpectedly like this, when they had no thought of it — and “two women grinding at the mill,” which in itself is not the work of people who are on the lookout.

Along with this he declares that servants as well as masters will be taken and left, both those at ease and those at hard labor, from the one rank as from the other — just as in the Old Testament he says, “From him who sits on the throne to the captive woman at the mill.” Since he had said that the rich are saved with difficulty, he shows that not even they are all lost, and not all the poor are saved, but from both groups some are saved and some are lost. And he seems to me to declare that his coming will be at night; Luke says this too. Do you see how exactly he knows everything?

After this again, so that they would not ask about it, he added, “Keep watch, then, for you do not know at what hour your Lord is coming.” He did not say, “I do not know,” but “you do not know.” When he had brought them almost to the very hour and set them there, he again turns them away from the question, because he wants them to be always striving. That is why he says, “Keep watch,” showing that it was for this reason that he did not tell it.

“But know this: if the owner of the house had known in which watch the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

This is why he does not tell them: so that they will keep watch, so that they will always be ready. That is why he says, “When you are not expecting it, he will come,” wanting them to be waiting eagerly and continually, and always at work doing good. His meaning is like this: if ordinary people knew when they were going to die, they would certainly strive hard at that hour.

So that they would strive not at that hour only, he does not tell them either the hour that is common to all, or each one’s own hour, wanting them to be always looking for it, so that they may always be striving. That is why he made the end of each person’s life uncertain too. [n]

After this he openly calls himself Lord, having nowhere spoken so plainly. But here he seems to me also to put the careless to shame, because they do not take even as much care for their own soul as people who expect a thief take for their money. Those people, when they expect him, stay awake and let nothing in the house be carried off. He is saying: “But you, though you know that he will come, and will surely come, do not stay awake and ready, so as not to be carried off from here unprepared.” So the day comes to destroy those who sleep. For just as that man would have escaped if he had known, so you too, if you are ready, will go free.

Then, since he had come to speak of the judgment, he turns his words next to the teachers, speaking of punishment and of honors. He puts first those who do right and ends with those who go on in sin, so that his words close on what is alarming.

That is why he first says this: “Who, then, is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, finds doing so. Truly I tell you, he will set him over all his possessions.”

Tell me, is this too the language of someone who does not know? If, because he said, “nor does the Son know,” you say that he is ignorant of it, what will you say when he says, “Who, then?” Will you say he is ignorant of this too? Far from it! Not even a madman would say that. And yet in the former case one could give a reason, but here not even that. And what about when he said, “Peter, do you love me?” Did he ask because he did not know even this? Or when he said, “Where have you laid him?”

The Father too will be found saying such things. He himself likewise says, “Adam, where are you?” and, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has grown great before me. So I will go down and see whether they have done according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know.” And elsewhere he says, “Whether they will hear, whether they will understand.” And in the Gospel too: “Perhaps they will respect my Son.” All these are expressions of ignorance. But he did not say them in ignorance; he was aiming at ends worthy of himself. In Adam’s case, it was to move him to offer a defense for his sin. In the case of the people of Sodom, it was to teach us never to be sure of anything until we are present at the deeds themselves. In the prophet’s case, it was so that in the judgment of the foolish the prediction would not seem to force them into disobedience. In the parable in the Gospel, it was to show that they ought to have done this and respected the Son. And here it is both so that they would not be curious and meddlesome again, and to show that this is a rare and precious thing.

And see what great ignorance this saying would point to, if he does not know even the man who is set over the household! He blesses him — “Blessed,” he says, “is that servant” — but he does not say who he is: “Who is he,” he says, “whom his master will set over?” and, “Blessed is he whom he finds doing so.”

These things are said not of money only, but also of speech, and of power, and of gifts, and of every stewardship with which each person is entrusted. This parable would fit those who govern in the city as well, for everyone is bound to make full use of what he has for the common good. If it is wisdom you have, or power, or wealth, or whatever it may be, do not let it be to your fellow servants’ harm, or to your own ruin. That is why he requires two things of him, wisdom and faithfulness: for sin comes from folly as well. He calls him faithful because he has stolen nothing, and has not wasted his master’s goods aimlessly and to no purpose; and wise because he knew how to give out what was put in his hands, as was fitting.

We need both things: not to steal our Master’s goods, and to give them out as is fitting. If one is missing, the other limps. If a servant is faithful and does not steal, but wastes it and spends it on what does not concern him, the blame is great. And if he knows how to give it out well but steals, again the charge against him is no small one.

And let those of us who have money listen to this as well. For he is speaking not to teachers only, but also to the rich. Both kinds were entrusted with riches: those who teach, with the more necessary wealth; you, with the lesser. So when the teachers are scattering the greater wealth abroad, and you are not willing to show generosity even in the lesser — or rather not generosity but honesty, since you are giving what belongs to another — what excuse will you have? But now, before the punishment of those who do the opposite, let us hear the honor given to the one who proves himself: “Truly I tell you, he will set him over all his possessions.”

What can equal this honor? What words could set out the dignity, the blessedness, when the King of heaven, who owns all things, is about to set a man over “all his possessions”? That is why he also calls him wise: he knew not to give up great things for small ones, but by practicing self-control here he has reached heaven.

After this, as he always does, he corrects his hearers not only by the honor stored up for the good but also by the punishment threatened against the wicked. That is why he added, “But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him his place with the hypocrites. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” [q]

But suppose someone says: “Do you see what a thought has entered his mind because the day is not known? ‘My master,’ he says, ‘is delaying his coming.’” We would answer that it was not because the day is not known, but because the servant is evil. Otherwise, why did this thought not enter the heart of the faithful and wise servant? Wretched man, what of it, even if your master delays? Surely you expect him to come. Why, then, do you take no care?

From this, then, we learn that he does not even delay. This verdict is not the Lord’s; it belongs to the evil servant’s mind, and that is why he is blamed for it. For proof that he does not delay, hear Paul saying, “The Lord is near; do not be anxious about anything,” and, “He who is coming will come, and will not delay.”

But listen also to what follows, and learn how constantly he reminds them that they do not know the day, showing that this is profitable to the servants and fitted to wake them and rouse them thoroughly. What if some gained nothing by it? Some were not helped by other things that were for their good either; yet he does not stop doing his part.

What, then, is the point of what follows? “He will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour he does not know” — and he will inflict the utmost punishment on him. Do you see how he puts this in everywhere, the fact that they do not know, showing that it was profitable, and by this keeping them always in earnest? For this is what he labors for: that we should always be on the watch. And since it is in luxury that we always grow slack, while in hardships we are braced up, he says everywhere that it is when there is ease that the terrors come. Just as further back he showed this by the example of Noah, so here he says it will be when that servant is drunk, when he is beating others, and that his punishment will be unbearable.

But let us not look only at the punishment appointed for him. Let us look to this other point as well, so that we ourselves are not doing the same things without realizing it. For those who have money and do not give to the needy are like this servant. You too are a steward of your own possessions, no less than the one who distributes the church’s alms. He has no right to squander at random and carelessly what you have given for the poor, since it was given for the support of the poor. In the same way, you may not squander your own. For even if you received an inheritance from your father, and that is how you have all you own, even so, all of it is God’s. Now you want what you have given to be managed with such care; do you not think that God will demand his own from us with greater strictness, or that he lets it be wasted at random? It is not so; it is not so. This is why he left these things in your hands: “to give them their food at the proper time.” But what does “at the proper time” mean? To the needy, to the hungry. For just as you gave your fellow servant something to distribute, so the Lord wants you too to spend these things on what is needed. So though he was able to take them away from you, he left them, so that you might have the opportunity to show virtue; so that, by bringing us into need of one another, he might make our love for one another more fervent.

But you, when you have received, are so far from giving that you even beat them. And yet if not giving deserves blame, what excuse is there for beating? It seems to me that here he is hinting at those who insult others and at the greedy, and showing that the charge is a heavy one when they beat the very people they were commanded to feed.

But he seems to be hinting here also at those who live in luxury, since a great punishment is stored up for luxury too. “He eats and drinks with the drunkards,” it says — pointing to gluttony. For you did not receive in order to spend it on luxury, but in order to lay it out in almsgiving. What! Are the things you have your own? You have been entrusted with the goods of the poor, even if you came to own them by honest work, or by inheritance from your father. Tell me, could God not have taken these things away from you? But he does not do it, so as to give you the power to be generous to the poor. [t]

Notice, I beg you, how in all the parables he punishes those who do not lay out their money on the needy. The virgins had not robbed anyone of their goods; they had simply not given their own. The man who buried the one talent had not embezzled it; he had simply not doubled it. Those who overlooked the hungry are not punished for seizing other people’s possessions, but because they did not lay out their own, just like this servant.

Let us listen, all of us who indulge the belly, all of us who spend on costly banquets riches that do not belong to us at all, but to the needy. Out of his great love for humankind you are commanded to give as though from what is yours; but do not for that reason suppose that these things really are yours. He lent them to you so that you might be able to prove yourself. So do not think them yours when you give him what is his own. If you had lent money to someone so that he could go and find a way to make a profit, you would not say the money was his. In the same way God has given to you, so that you might trade for heaven. Do not, then, make the overwhelming greatness of his love for humankind a reason for ingratitude.

Consider how well worth praying for it would have been, to be able to find a way after baptism to wipe out one’s sins. If he had not said this, “Give alms,” how many would have said, “If only it were possible to give money and so be set free from the evils to come!” But now that this has become possible, they have grown slack again.

“But I do give,” you say. And what is that? You have not yet given as much as the woman who put in the two small coins — or rather, not half as much, not even a tiny part of what she gave. Instead you spend the greater part on useless expenses: on banquets, on drunkenness, on extreme extravagance; now inviting, now invited; now spending yourself, now pressing others to spend. So your punishment is even made double, both for what you do yourself and for what you move others to do. See, at any rate, how he himself blames his servant for this: “He eats,” he says, “and drinks with the drunkards.” He punishes not only the drunkards but those who keep company with them, and very fittingly, because besides corrupting themselves they also make light of the salvation of others. Nothing provokes God so much as our being inclined to overlook what concerns our neighbor. That is why, to show his anger, he commands that the servant be cut in pieces. That is also why he declared love to be the distinguishing mark of his disciples, since the one who loves must of necessity take thought for the concerns of the one he loves.

Let us hold to this way, then, for this above all is the way that leads up to heaven, that makes people followers of Christ, and makes them, as far as possible, like God. See, at any rate, how much more necessary are the virtues that have their home along this way. If you like, let us examine them, and bring out the verdicts from God’s own judgment.

Suppose, then, two ways of most holy life. Let the one secure the goodness of the person who practices it, and the other the good of his neighbor as well. Let us see which is the more approved and leads us to the summit of virtue. Surely the one who seeks only his own will receive endless blame from Paul — and when I say from Paul, I mean from Christ — while the other receives praise and crowns. How is this clear? Hear what he says to the one, and what to the other: “Let no one seek his own good, but each the good of the other.” Do you see how he rejects the one and brings in the other? Again: “Let each of you please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” Then comes the praise beyond words, together with an admonition: “For even Christ did not please himself.”

These verdicts alone are enough to show which wins. But so that it may be shown more than abundantly, let us see, among good works, which stay within ourselves and which pass over from us to others as well. Fasting, sleeping on the bare ground, keeping virginity, a life of self-denial: these bring their benefit to the people who do them. But the works that pass from us to our neighbors are almsgiving, teaching, and love. Hear Paul, then, on this too: “Though I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”

Do you see it celebrated gloriously in its own right, and crowned? [y]

If you are willing, let us compare them on a third point as well. Let one person fast, deny himself, become a martyr and be burned to death. Let another put off his martyrdom for the building up of his neighbor, and not only put it off, but even depart this life without martyrdom. Which will be the more approved after he has left this world? We need no long speech or roundabout argument. The blessed Paul is right here, giving his verdict: “To depart and be with Christ is better; nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.” He put his neighbor’s building up ahead even of departing to be with Christ. For this is to be with Christ in the highest sense: to do his will. And nothing is his will so much as what is for our neighbor’s good.

Would you like me to give you a fourth proof of these things as well? “Peter, do you love me?” he says. “Feed my sheep.” And having asked him a third time, he declared this to be the sure proof of love. This is said not to priests only, but to every one of us as well, for we too have been entrusted with a little flock. Do not look down on it because it is a little flock; for “my Father,” he says, “takes pleasure in them.” Each of us has a sheep; let him lead it to the right pastures. Let the man, as soon as he gets out of bed, seek nothing else than how he may do and say something that will make his whole household more reverent. And let the woman be a good manager of her home, by all means; but before attending to this, let her have another, more necessary care: that the whole household may do the works of heaven.

For in worldly matters, before attending to the affairs of our own household, we work hard to pay the public taxes, so that we will not be beaten for neglecting them, dragged off to the marketplace, and made to suffer countless disgraces. How much more ought we to do this in spiritual things, and to pay first what is owed to God, the King of all, so that we do not come to that place “where there is gnashing of teeth.”

After these, let us seek the virtues that, together with our own salvation, can most help our neighbor. Such is almsgiving; such is prayer — or rather, prayer itself is made effective by almsgiving and given wings. “Your prayers,” it says, “and your alms have gone up as a memorial before God.” And not prayer only; fasting too draws its strength from this. If you fast without almsgiving, the act is not even counted as fasting. Such a person is worse than a glutton and a drunkard, as much worse as cruelty is a heavier thing than luxury. And why do I speak of fasting? Even if you practice self-denial, even if you practice virginity, you are left outside the bridal chamber if you do not have almsgiving. And yet what is equal to virginity? Because of its high excellence, not even under the new covenant has it been imposed by the force of law. Yet even so it is cast out when it lacks almsgiving. But if virgins are cast out because they do not have this in plenty, who will be able to obtain pardon without it? Anyone who does not have it must of necessity perish; there is no one who escapes.

For if in worldly matters no one lives for himself, but craftsman and soldier, farmer and merchant, all contribute to the common good and to their neighbor’s benefit, much more ought we to do this in spiritual things. For this, most properly, is to live. The one who lives for himself alone and overlooks everyone else is useless; he is not even a human being, not one of our race.

“What then,” you would say, “if I neglect my own interests while I seek the good of others?” That is not possible. One who seeks the good of others cannot overlook his own. For whoever seeks the good of others causes no one pain, but pities everyone and helps them as far as his powers allow. He will rob no one, covet no one’s goods, not steal, not bear false witness. He will keep away from all wickedness and give himself to every virtue. He will pray for his enemies and do good to those who plot against him. He will neither insult anyone nor speak ill of them, though he hears countless evil things from them, but will speak the apostle’s words: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?” But when we look to our own good, it is not at all certain that the good of others will follow.

So let us be persuaded by all these things that no one can be saved who has not looked to the common good. And seeing this man who was cut in pieces, and the one who buried his talent, let us choose this way, so that we may also attain eternal life. May we all attain it, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever. Amen.