Homily 81 — Matthew 26, verses 17 to 25

“Now on the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?’ And he said, ‘Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, “The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.”’” [a]

By “the first day of the feast of unleavened bread” he means the day before that feast. For they are accustomed always to count the day from the evening, and he is speaking of the day on whose evening the Passover had to be killed; it was on the fifth day of the week that they came to him. So this evangelist speaks of the day before the feast of unleavened bread, meaning the time when they came to him. Another puts it this way: “Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover had to be killed.” By the word “came” he means that it was near, that it was at the doors, plainly referring to that evening. For they began with the evening, and that is why each of them adds, “when the Passover was killed.”

And they say, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” So even from this it is clear that he had no house, no place to stay; and I suppose they had none either, or they would surely have begged him to come there. But they had none, having by now given up everything.

But why did he keep the Passover? To show by everything he did, up to the last day, that he is not opposed to the law.

And for what possible reason does he send them to a man they do not know? To show by this too that he could have avoided suffering. For he who so won over this man’s mind that he took them in — and that with mere words — what would he not have done with those who crucified him, if it had been his will not to suffer? What he did about the donkey, he did here as well. For there too he says, “If anyone says anything to you, you will say that the Lord needs them”; and so here, “The Teacher says, I will keep the Passover at your house.” But what I marvel at is not only that the man took him in, a stranger as he was, but that, though he could expect to bring such enmity and relentless hostility on himself, he thought nothing of the enmity of the crowd.

After this, because they did not know the man, he gave them a sign, just as the prophet did concerning Saul when he said, “You will find a man going up and carrying a wineskin”; and here, “carrying a jar.” And see again the display of his power. He did not only say, “I will keep the Passover,” but adds something more: “My time is near.” He did this both to keep reminding his disciples of his suffering, so that, trained by hearing it foretold so often, they would be ready for what was to happen; and at the same time to show them, and the man who was receiving him, and all the Jews — as I have often said — that he does not go to his suffering against his will. And he adds “with my disciples,” so that the preparations would be large enough, and so that the man would not suppose he was hiding himself.

“Now when evening came, he reclined at table with the twelve disciples.” Oh, the shamelessness of Judas! He too was there, and came to share both in the mysteries and in the meal, and he is exposed at the very table — where, even if he had been a wild beast, he would have become tame.

That is why the evangelist also points out that it was while they were eating that Christ spoke of his betrayal, so that by both the time and the table he might show the wickedness of the traitor.

For when the disciples had done as Jesus had directed them, “when evening came, he reclined at table with the twelve. And as they were eating,” we are told, “he said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.’” And before the supper he had even washed his feet. And see how he spares the traitor. He did not say, “So-and-so will betray me,” but “one of you,” so as to give him room to repent, again by keeping him hidden. He chooses to alarm them all for the sake of saving this one man. He says: “One of you — you twelve, who are with me everywhere, whose feet I washed, to whom I promised so many things.”

Unbearable sorrow then took hold of that holy company. John says that they “were at a loss, and looked at one another,” and each of them asked in fear about himself, though aware of nothing of the kind in himself. But this evangelist says that “being extremely sorrowful, they began each one of them to say to him, ‘Is it I, Lord?’ And he answered and said, ‘It is the one to whom I will give a morsel when I have dipped it.’”

Notice when it was that he revealed him. It was when he wanted to free the rest from this distress, for they were half dead with fear; that is why they pressed him with their questions. But he did this not only because he wanted to free them from their distress, but also because he wanted to reform the traitor. For since Judas, after often hearing it said in general terms, remained beyond correction, having grown numb, Christ, wanting to make him feel it more, pulls off his mask.

For when in their sorrow they began to say, “Is it I, Lord?” “he answered and said, ‘The one who dips with me in the dish, he will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.’”

Now some say that Judas was so bold that he did not honor his Teacher, but dipped with him. But to me it seems that Christ did this too, to shame him the more and to bring him around to a better mind. For this act, again, carries something more in it.

We ought not to pass over these things carelessly. They should be fixed in our minds, and then anger would never find room in us. For who, keeping in mind that supper — the traitor at table with the Savior of all, and the one about to be betrayed reasoning with him so gently — would not put away all the venom of wrath and anger? See at any rate how gently he treats him: “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him.” [j]

And he said these things both to steady the disciples, so that they would not think what was happening was a sign of weakness, and to reform the traitor.

“But woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” See again his unspeakable gentleness, even in his rebukes. Even here he does not apply what he says as an attack, but rather with compassion, and again in a veiled way. And yet not only Judas’s earlier numbness but his shamelessness afterward deserved the utmost indignation. For after being exposed like this he says, “Is it I, Lord?” What numbness! He asks, when he knows such things about himself! The evangelist too says this because he marvels at his nerve. What, then, does Jesus, the mildest and gentlest, say?

“You have said it.” And yet he might have said: “You unholy, utterly unholy man, cursed and profane! So long in labor with this evil, you went off and made compacts with Satan, and agreed to take money, and you have been exposed by me as well — and do you still dare to ask?” But he said none of these things. What then? “You have said it,” setting for us the limits and rules of patience.

But someone will say: “Yet if it was written that he was to suffer these things, why is Judas blamed? He did what was written.” But he did not do it with that intent; he did it out of wickedness. If you do not look into the motive, you will clear even the devil of the charges against him. But it is not so; it is not so. Both the one and the other deserve countless punishments, even though the world was saved. For it was not Judas’s treachery that brought about our salvation, but the wisdom of Christ, and the fine design of his skill, which turns the wickedness of others to our good.

Someone may say: “What then? If Judas had not betrayed him, wouldn’t someone else have betrayed him?” And what does that have to do with the question? “This: if Christ had to be crucified, it had to be through someone; and if through someone, then surely through a man like this. But if everyone had been good, the plan of salvation for our sake would have been blocked.” Not so. The All-wise knows how he will bring about our benefits, even had that been the case. His wisdom is rich in resources and beyond understanding. So it is for this reason — so that no one would suppose Judas had become a servant of the plan of salvation — that he declares the wretchedness of the man.

But someone will say again: “And if it would have been good for him never to have been born, why did he allow both this man and all the wicked to come into the world?” When you ought to blame the wicked, because they had the power not to become what they are and still became wicked, you leave that aside and busy yourself prying into the things of God — though you know that no one is wicked by necessity.

He would say: “But only the good should be born, and then there would be no need of hell, or punishment, or vengeance, or any trace of vice. The wicked should either not be born at all, or, once born, should die at once.”

First, then, it would be well to repeat to you the apostle’s words: “No, but who are you, my friend, to answer back to God? Will the thing formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’”

But if you still demand reasons, we would say this: the good are more admired for living among the bad, because that is when their patience and great self-control are most displayed. By saying these things you take away the occasion for their wrestling matches and contests. He says: “What then? So that these may be seen to be good, are others punished?” God forbid! They are punished for their own wickedness. They did not become wicked because they were brought into the world, but through their own wickedness; and that is why they are punished. How could they not deserve punishment, when they have so many teachers of virtue and gain nothing from them? Just as the noble and good are worthy of double honor, because they both became good and took no harm from the wicked, so also the worthless deserve double punishment: both because they became wicked when they could have become good (those who have become good show it), and because they gained nothing from the good.

But let us see what this wretched man says when he has been exposed by his Teacher. What does he say? “Is it I, Rabbi?” And why did he not ask this from the beginning? He thought he could escape notice because it had been said, “one of you.” But when Christ had made him plain, he dared to ask again, relying on his Teacher’s mercy to keep him from being exposed.

Oh, blindness! What has it led him to? That is what greed does. It makes people fools and senseless, yes, reckless — dogs instead of men, or rather fiercer even than dogs, and after being dogs, demons. Judas at least took the devil in, even while the devil was plotting against him; but Jesus, even while he was doing him good, he betrayed, having already become a demon in his will. That is what the insatiable desire for gain makes people: out of their minds, struck with frenzy, wholly given over to gain, as happened with Judas. [m]

But how is it that Matthew and the other evangelists say that the devil seized him when he made the agreement for the betrayal, while John says that “after the morsel Satan entered into him”? And John himself knew the other, for further back he says, “The devil having already put it into the heart of Judas to betray him.” How then does he say, “After the morsel Satan entered into him”? Because the devil does not enter suddenly or all at once, but first tests a person a great deal; and that is what happened here too. After testing him at the beginning and attacking him quietly, when he saw him ready to receive him, from then on he breathed himself wholly into him and got complete control of him.

But if they were eating the Passover, how did they eat it contrary to the law? They should not have eaten it reclining at table. What can be said, then? That after eating it, they then reclined for the banquet. But another evangelist says that on that evening he not only ate the Passover but also said, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you” — that is, in that year. Why? Because then the salvation of the world was to be accomplished, and the mysteries handed down, and the causes of sorrow ended by his death. So welcome was the cross to him.

But nothing softened the savage brute; nothing moved him or shamed him. Christ called him wretched, saying, “Woe to that man.” He frightened him again, saying, “It would have been good for him if he had not been born.” He put him to shame, saying, “The one to whom I will give a morsel when I have dipped it.” And none of these things held him back. He was seized by greed as by some madness, or rather by a worse disease; for this is indeed the worse madness.

For what would a madman do to match this? Judas did not pour foam from his mouth, but he poured out the murder of his Lord. He did not twist his hands, but stretched them out for the price of precious blood. That is why his madness was greater: he was mad while in good health.

You say: “But he does not utter meaningless sounds.” And what is more meaningless than these words: “What will you give me, and I will hand him over to you?” That “I will hand him over” — the devil spoke it through that mouth. “But he did not beat the ground with his feet, thrashing about.” How much better to thrash about like that than to stand upright like this! “But he did not cut himself with stones.” Yet how much better that, than to do such things as these!

Would you like us to bring forward the demon-possessed and the greedy and compare the two? But let no one take what we are doing as an insult to himself. We are not reproaching anyone’s nature; we are lamenting a deed. The possessed man never wore clothes; he cut himself with stones and ran, rushing over rough paths, driven headlong by the demon. Don’t these things seem dreadful? What, then, if I show that the greedy do worse things than these to their own souls — so much worse that these seem child’s play beside them? You would run from that plague, would you not? Come, then, let us see whether the greedy are in any way better off than the possessed. In no way; they are in an even worse condition. They are more shameful than ten thousand naked men. It would be far better to be naked of clothing than to be dressed in the fruits of greed and go about like those who hold wild revels for Bacchus. For just as those revelers wear madmen’s masks and clothes, so do these. And as the nakedness of the possessed is caused by madness, so madness produces this clothing — and the clothing is more pitiable than the nakedness.

I will try to prove this now. Among madmen themselves, whom should we call more mad: one who cuts himself, or one who hurts those he meets along with himself? It is quite clear that it is the second. Madmen strip themselves of their clothes; these strip everyone they meet. “But madmen tear their clothes to pieces.” And how gladly would every one of those who are wronged agree to have his garment torn, rather than be stripped of all his property!

“But they do not strike people in the face.” In the first place, the greedy do even this. And if not all of them, still all of them inflict worse pain on the belly through hunger and poverty.

“But they do not bite with their teeth.” I wish it were with teeth, and not with the arrows of greed, which are fiercer than teeth. “Their teeth are weapons and arrows.” Who will feel more pain — the man who was bitten once and quickly healed, or the man forever eaten away by the teeth of poverty? For poverty that is not chosen is harder to bear than a furnace or a wild beast.

“But they do not rush off into the deserts like those possessed by demons.” I wish it were the deserts they overran, and not the cities; then everyone in the cities would be safe. As it is, in this respect too they are more unbearable than all the insane, because they do in the cities what the others do in the deserts. They make the cities deserts, and, as though in a desert where there is no one to stop them, they plunder everyone’s goods.

“But they do not pelt the people they meet with stones.” And what of that? Stones are easy to guard against. But the wounds they deal the wretched poor with paper and ink, drawing up documents full of countless blows — who among those who fall into their hands can ever easily guard against those?

Let us see also what they do to themselves. They walk naked up and down the city, for they have no garment of virtue. And if this does not seem a disgrace to them, that too comes from their extreme madness: they have no feeling of the indecency. While they are ashamed to have their bodies naked, they carry their souls about naked and glory in it. If you like, I will tell you the cause of their insensibility too. What is it? They are naked among many who are naked in the same way, and so they are not ashamed, just as we are not in the baths. So if many were clothed with virtue, their shame would show more. [q]

But as it is, this above all deserves many tears: because the bad are many, bad things are not even thought a disgrace. Among the rest, the devil has brought this about too. He does not let them get even a sense of their evil deeds, but uses the crowd of those who practice wickedness to throw a shadow over their disgrace. For if such a man found himself among a crowd of people living with self-control, he would see his nakedness more clearly.

That they are more naked than the possessed is clear from this; and no one could deny, either, that they go into the deserts. For the wide and broad way is more deserted than any desert. Though many travel along it, none of them is human; they are serpents, scorpions, wolves, vipers and asps. Such are those who practice wickedness. And this road is not only deserted but far more rugged than the madmen’s. That is clear from this: stones and ravines and cliffs do not wound those who climb them as badly as robbery and greed wound the souls of those who practice them.

And that they live among the tombs like the possessed — or rather that they themselves are tombs — is plain from this. What is a tomb? A stone with a dead body lying in it. How, then, do these men’s bodies differ from those stones? Or rather, they are even more wretched than the stones. For here it is not a stone holding a dead body, but a body more senseless than stones, carrying about a dead soul. So one would not be wrong to call them tombs. That is what our Lord too called the Jews, and chiefly for this reason; at any rate he went on to say, “Their inner parts are full of plunder and greed.”

Would you like me to show next how they also cut their heads with stones? Where, I ask you, will you learn it from first — from things here, or from things to come? They have little regard for things to come, so we must speak of things here. Are not anxieties worse than many stones, not wounding heads but wearing away the soul? They are afraid that what came to them unjustly may justly go out of their house. They tremble in fear of the worst disasters; they are angry and irritated with those of their own household and with strangers. Now despair, now fear, now rage comes on them in turn, and they are like men crossing one cliff edge after another. Day after day they are eagerly looking for what they have not yet acquired. So they take no pleasure in what they have, both because they have no confidence that it is safe and because their whole mind is set on what they have not yet seized. A man who is always thirsty takes no pleasure though he drinks up ten thousand springs, because he is never satisfied. So these men, far from feeling pleasure, are tormented the more they heap up around themselves, because they know no limit to such desire.

So much for things here. But let us speak also of the day to come; for though they pay no attention, we must still speak of it. On the day to come, then, one will see men like these being punished everywhere. When he says, “I was hungry, and you gave me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink,” he is punishing these. And when he says, “Depart into the eternal fire prepared for the devil,” he is sending there those who make bad use of riches. The wicked servant who does not give his fellow servants his Lord’s goods is one of these men, and so is the one who buried his talent, and so are the five virgins. Wherever you go, you will see the greedy punished. Now they will hear, “There is a gulf between us and you”; now, “Depart from me into the fire that is prepared.” Now, cut in two, they will go away where there is gnashing of teeth. One may see them driven from every place, finding room nowhere, but gathered into hell alone.

What good, then, is the right faith to us for salvation, when we hear these things? There, gnashing of teeth, and outer darkness, and the fire prepared for the devil, and being cut in two, and being driven away; here, hatreds, abuse, slanders, dangers, worries, plots, being hated by everyone and loathed by everyone — even by the very people who seem to flatter us. For just as good men are admired not only by the good but even by the wicked, so bad men are hated not only by the good but by the worthless as well. [t]

To prove that this is true, I would gladly ask the greedy whether they do not feel sore toward one another, and count such men more their enemies than those who have done them the greatest wrong; whether they do not accuse themselves too; whether they do not take it as an insult if anyone brings this charge against them. For this is indeed the worst of reproaches, and sure proof of great wickedness. If you cannot bring yourself to despise wealth, what will you ever master — lust, or the mad craving for glory, or anger, or rage? And how would anyone be persuaded of it? As for lust and anger and rage, many blame them even on the temperament of the flesh, and students of medicine trace their excesses to this. The man of a hotter and more languid temperament, they say, is more given to lust; the man whose imbalance runs toward the drier side is eager, irritable and quick to rage. But no one has ever heard them say anything of the kind about greed. So entirely is this plague the result of nothing but slackness and a soul gone numb.

So I beg you, let us make every effort to correct all such things, and to steer against the passions that come on us at each age of life. If through every part of our life we sail past the labors of virtue and suffer shipwreck everywhere, then when we arrive at the harbor empty of spiritual cargo, we will suffer the utmost punishment. For our present life is a wide, open ocean. In the sea here, different bays are exposed to different storms. The Aegean is dangerous because of its winds; the Tyrrhenian strait because of its narrowness; the Charybdis near Africa because of its shallows; the Propontis, outside the Euxine Sea, because of its violence and currents; the waters beyond Cadiz because of their emptiness, their lack of any track, and their unexplored reaches; and other parts for other reasons. So it is in our life too.

The first sea we see is that of childhood. It is very stormy because of its foolishness, its fickleness, its lack of steadiness. That is why we set guides and teachers over it, supplying by our effort what nature lacks, just as at sea it is supplied by the pilot’s skill.

After this age comes the sea of youth, where the winds blow violently, as in the Aegean, as lust grows in us. And this age above all lacks correction — not only because the young man is attacked more fiercely, but also because his faults are not rebuked, since after that both teacher and guide withdraw. So when the winds blow harder, and the pilot is weaker, and there is no helper, think how great the storm is.

After this comes yet another stage of life, that of grown men, when the cares of the household press on us: a wife, and marriage, and the having of children, and the running of a house, and a thick downpour of worries. Then above all greed flourishes, and envy too.

So when we pass through each part of our life with shipwrecks, how will we be equal to the present life? How will we escape the punishment to come? If at the earliest age we learn nothing sound, and then in youth we do not practice self-control, and when grown to manhood we do not master greed, we will come to old age as into a hold full of bilge water. Having made the boat of our soul weak with all these blows, its planks sprung apart, we will reach that harbor carrying a load of filth instead of spiritual merchandise. We will give the devil something to laugh at and ourselves something to mourn, and we will bring the unbearable punishments on ourselves.

So that this may not happen, let us brace ourselves on every side, and, standing firm against all our passions, let us cast out the lust for wealth, so that we may also attain the good things to come, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.