THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
The peace of God is a firm and steadfast peace. If you have peace from men, it will soon be destroyed. But if you have it from God, it never will. He has spoken of love in general. Now he returns again to particulars.
There is also an immoderate love. For example, out of great love for one person, someone may accuse another without cause, enter into conflict, and turn away. He did not say, "I do not want this," but, "As God was reconciled with you, so do you also."
How was He reconciled? He Himself willed it, having received nothing from us. What does this mean: "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts"? When two thoughts are contending within you, do not stop at the one that stirs up anger or seeks repayment. Stop at the one that inclines toward peace.
Suppose, for example, that someone has been unjustly wronged. From the offense two thoughts arise in him. One demands revenge, and the other demands patience. They contend with one another. If the peace of God appeared before them with a prize, it would give it to the thought that demanded patience. It would put the other to shame.
How would it do this? By assuring him that God is peace, and that He has been reconciled with us. Not without purpose does he show the great struggle involved in this matter. Let the prize, he says, be assigned neither by anger, nor by rivalry, nor by human peace.
Human peace comes from the fact that we do not take revenge, and from the fact that we suffer nothing grievous. I do not want that peace, he says, but the peace which Christ Himself left us. In the soul, in the thoughts, He has established an arena, a contest, a struggle, and a giver of prizes.
Then again comes an exhortation: "To which also you were called," he says. That is, you were called for its sake. He reminded them how many blessings came from peace. For its sake God called you. He called you in such a way that you are likely to receive the prize.
Why did He make one body? Was it not so that peace might reign? Was it not so that we might be able to live in peace? Why are we all one body? And how are we one body? We are one body for the sake of peace. We are in peace so that there may be one body.
Why then did he not say, "Let the peace of God conquer," but, "Let it rule"? He did this to make peace more certain. He did not permit the evil thought to contend with peace, but placed it beneath it. By the name of a prize, without a contest, he stirred the hearer’s attention.
If he had given the prize to the good thought while the evil thought was fighting with all boldness, this would have brought it no benefit. But now that evil thought knows it will not receive the prize, whatever it does. However hard it strains, and however violent its assaults may be, it will abandon useless labors.
He also added well: "And be thankful." To be thankful, and sincerely thankful, means to act as fellow servants should. A servant honors his master as God, agrees with him in everything, obeys him, and gives thanks for everything, even if someone insults him or strikes him.
Whoever thanks God for an injury suffered does not take revenge on the offender. But whoever takes revenge does not thank God. Let us not act like the man who demanded one hundred denarii, lest we too hear, "Wicked servant" (Mt 25:26). There is nothing worse than such ingratitude. Therefore those who take revenge are ungrateful.
Why does he again begin to speak about fornication? After saying, "Put to death your members which are on the earth," he immediately adds, "fornication." He does this almost everywhere, because this passion rules more than all the others.
He did the same in the Epistle to the Thessalonians. Indeed, what is remarkable, even when he speaks to Timothy he says, "Keep yourself pure" (1 Tim 5:22). Elsewhere he says, "Pursue peace with all men, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb 12:14).
"And be thankful," he says. This is what he requires everywhere above all, since it is the summit of good deeds. Therefore let us give thanks to God in every circumstance. In this consists thanksgiving. To give thanks in prosperity is not difficult. There the very nature of things urges us to do so.
What is worthy of wonder is this: that we give thanks while in extreme circumstances. If we give thanks for what causes others to blaspheme and drives them to despair, see what philosophy is here. First, you have gladdened God. Second, you have shamed the devil. Third, you have shown that what happened to you is nothing.
At the very moment when you give thanks, God takes away the sorrow, and the devil withdraws. If you fall into despair, then the devil stands beside you as one who has achieved what he wanted. But God, as One insulted by blasphemy, leaves you, and your misfortune grows greater.
If you give thanks, the devil withdraws, since he has gained no success. God, as One who has received honor, rewards you in return with greater honor. It cannot be that a man who gives thanks in misfortune suffers. His soul rejoices in doing good. Since he has a pure conscience, he delights in his own praises. A soul that rejoices cannot be sorrowful.
In despair, together with the misfortune, conscience also punishes. Here conscience crowns and proclaims. There is nothing holier than the tongue that gives thanks to God in misfortunes. In truth, it differs in nothing from the tongue of martyrs, and it receives the same crown as theirs.
For beside it stands an executioner, compelling it to deny God through blasphemy. The devil stands there, tearing it with painful thoughts and darkening the soul with grief. Therefore whoever has endured sorrow and thanked God has received the crown of martyrdom.
For example, if a child is sick, and the mother gives thanks to God, this is a crown for her. Is her grief not worse than every torture? Yet it did not make her utter a harsh word. The child dies, and again the mother gives thanks to God. She has become a daughter of Abraham.
Although she did not slaughter the child with her own hand, she rejoiced over the slain sacrifice. That is the same thing. She did not grieve when the gift of God was taken from her. Another child fell ill. She did not make magical amulets, and this was counted to her as martyrdom, because in thought she offered her son in sacrifice.
What does it matter that these amulets bring no benefit, and that they are a matter of deception and mockery? There are some who believe they are useful. But she preferred to see her child dead rather than surrender to idolatry.
As this mother is a martyr, whether she acted thus toward herself, toward her child, toward her husband, or toward anyone most beloved, so another woman is an idolater. Clearly she would have offered sacrifice if only she could have done so. Rather, she has already done what constitutes sacrifice.
For these amulets are idolatry, however much those who use them may philosophize and say, "We call upon God and do nothing else," and the like. They may say that the old woman who ties them is a Christian and a believer. Still, they are idolatry.
Are you a believer? Make the sign of the Cross. Say, "This is my only weapon. This is my medicine. I know no other." Tell me, if a physician came to a sick man and began chanting instead of using medical remedies, would we call him a physician? No, because we would see no medical assistance.
So here also, in the use of amulets, there is nothing Christian. Others hang around the neck names of rivers and permit themselves many similar things. Behold, I declare and warn all of you. I will no longer spare anyone if I learn that he has made an amulet, an incantation, or anything else belonging to this art.
What then, you say? Should the child die? When he lives by these means, then he has died. When he dies without them, then he has come to life. If you saw that your son had gone to prostitutes, you would rather wish him buried. You would say, "What use is it that he lives?"
When you see that he is in danger of losing salvation, do you want him to live? Have you not heard what Christ said? "He who saves his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will save it" (Mt 10:39). Do you believe what was said, or does it seem to you a fable?
Tell me, if someone said to you, "Lead me to a pagan shrine, and I will live," would you agree? No, you say. Why? Because he compels service to idols. But here, you say, there is no idolatry, only an incantation.
This is a satanic thought. This is a devilish trick, to hide error and give poison in honey. When the devil saw that he did not persuade you by that other means, he came by this path, through amulets and old wives’ tales.
And behold, the Cross is despised, and superstitious inscriptions are preferred to it. Christ is driven out, and a drunken, senseless old woman is brought in. Our mystery is trampled underfoot, and the devil’s deception triumphs.
Why then, you say, does God not expose it? He has often exposed the supposed help from these means, but you did not believe. At last He left you in your error. "God gave them over," it says, "to a debased mind" (Rom 1:28).
No sensible pagan would believe in these means. They say that in Athens a certain demagogue used them. But a philosopher, his teacher, met him and reproached him. He rebuked him, mocked him sharply, and laughed at him. Yet we, wretched as we are, believe these superstitions.
Why then, you say, are there no people now who raise the dead and perform healings? Why? I will not say yet. But why are there no people now who despise the present life? Why do we serve God for the sake of reward?
When human nature was weaker, when the faith was only being planted, there were many such men. But now God does not want us to depend on these signs. He wants us to be ready for death.
Why do you value the present life? Why do you not look to the future? For the sake of the present life, you dare to practice idolatry. For the sake of the future life, you are unwilling even to suffer grief.
This is why there are no such people now. We despise the future life and do nothing for it. But for the present life we dare everything. What shall I say about other ridiculous superstitions, about ashes, soot, and salt? And again this old woman is there. Truly, it is laughter and shame.
The child, she says, perished from the evil eye. How long will these satanic things continue? How can the pagans not laugh? How can they not mock when we tell them, "Great is the power of the Cross"? Will they believe us when they see that we expect help from what they themselves laugh at?
For this reason God gave physicians and medicines. But what if they do not help, and the child departs? Where does he depart, tell me, you poor and miserable man? Does he depart to demons? Does he depart to some tyrant? Does he not depart to heaven? Does he not go to his own Master?
Why then do you grieve? Why do you weep? Why are you crushed? Why do you love the child more than your own Master? Did He not give you the child? Why then are you so ungrateful that you love the gift more than the Giver?
But I am weak, you say, and cannot endure the fear of God. Yet if in bodily illnesses the greater pain suppresses the lesser, much more is this true in the soul. If the fear of God were in it, fear would be scattered by fear, and sorrow by sorrow.
Was the child beautiful? Whatever he was, he was not more beautiful than Isaac. Isaac was also an only-begotten son. Was yours born in old age? So was he. Was the child lovely? Whatever he was, he was not more lovely than Moses.
Moses stirred love even in a barbarian’s gaze, though he was at an age when beauty had not yet unfolded. Yet his parents cast their beloved son into the river. You see your child lying there, and you entrust him to the tomb, and you go to the monument.
They did not know whose food he would become, whether that of fish, dogs, or some creature living in the sea. They did this while knowing nothing yet about the Kingdom of God or the Resurrection.