Evil in Secret and Good in Public, and the Reverse

Admonition 36. Those who do bad things in secret and good things in public are to be admonished differently from those who hide the good they do and yet, by some things done in public, let others think ill of them. Those who do bad things in secret and good things in public are to be admonished to consider how swiftly human judgments fly away, but how unmovably divine judgments endure. They are to be admonished to fix the eyes of their mind on the end of things; since, while the testimony of human praise passes away, the heavenly sentence, which sees into even hidden things, grows firm toward a lasting retribution. When, therefore, they set their hidden wrongs before the divine judgment and their right deeds before human eyes, the good they do in public is without a witness, and their hidden sin is not without an eternal witness. So by concealing their faults from men and displaying their virtues, they uncover, even while they hide them, the things they deserve to be punished for, and hide, even while they display them, the things they might have been rewarded for. Such people the Truth calls whitewashed tombs, beautiful outwardly but full of dead men’s bones; because they cover up the evil of their vices within, but by the display of certain works flatter human eyes with a mere outward color of righteousness. So they are to be admonished not to despise the right things they do, but to believe them deserving of something better. For those who think human favor enough for their reward greatly misjudge their own good deeds. For when passing praise is sought in return for right doing, a thing worthy of eternal reward is sold for a cheap price. Of receiving that price the Truth says, “Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.” They are to be admonished to consider that, when they prove themselves bad in hidden things yet offer themselves publicly as examples in good works, they show that what they shun is to be followed; they cry aloud that what they hate is to be loved; in short, they live for others and die to themselves. [a]

But on the other hand, those who do good things in secret and yet, by some things done in public, let evil be thought of them are to be admonished that, while the good in them gives them life in the virtue of well-doing, they must not kill others by the example of a bad reputation; that they must not love their neighbors less than themselves, nor, while they themselves drink a wholesome draught of wine, pour out a deadly cup of poison for minds intent on watching them. Such people certainly help their neighbor’s life little in the one way and burden it greatly in the other, since they both take care to do what is right unseen, and, in certain things in which they set an example, sow the seeds of evil from themselves. For whoever is already able to trample on the craving for praise commits a fraud against the building up of others if he hides the good things he does; and he steals away, as it were, the roots of the growing plant after sowing the seed, if he does not show the work that ought to be imitated. That is why the Truth says in the Gospel, “That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” But then comes this saying too, which seems to command something very different: “Take care that you do not do your righteousness before men, to be seen by them.” [c]

What, then, does it mean that we are commanded both that our work be done so as not to be seen, and yet that it should be seen, except that the things we do are to be hidden so that we ourselves are not praised, and yet shown so that we may increase the praise of our heavenly Father? For when the Lord forbade us to do our righteousness before men, he immediately added, “to be seen by them.” And again, when he commanded that our good works be seen by men, he at once added, “that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven.” So he showed, in the endings of his commands, how they are to be seen and how they are not to be seen: that the mind of the worker should not seek to have his work seen for his own sake, and yet should not hide it, for the sake of the glory of the heavenly Father. So it commonly happens that a good work is in secret when it is done in public, and again in public when it is done in secret. For whoever in a public good work seeks not his own glory but the heavenly Father’s hides what he has done, since he has had as witness only the one he wanted to please. And whoever in his secret good work longs to be noticed and praised has done it before men, even if no one has seen what he did; because he has called in as many witnesses to his good work as the human praises he has sought in his heart. But when a bad reputation, so far as it prevails without any sin having been committed, is not wiped from the minds of onlookers, the cup of guilt is offered, by way of example, to all who think evil. So it generally happens that those who carelessly let evil be thought of them do not indeed commit wickedness in their own persons, but still, through those who may have taken their example from them, offend in more ways. That is why Paul says to those who ate certain unclean things without being defiled, but who by their eating put a stumbling block of temptation in the way of the imperfect, “Take care lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak”; and again, “And by your conscience the weak brother will perish, for whom Christ died. But when you sin in this way against the brothers, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” That is why Moses, when he said, “You shall not curse the deaf,” at once added, “nor put a stumbling block before the blind.” For to curse the deaf is to disparage someone who is absent and does not hear; but to put a stumbling block before the blind is to act indeed with discernment, yet to give cause of offense to one who does not have the light of discernment. [d]