James 3:11Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

This spring is the heart of man. The stream is the word. The opening is certainly the mouth of man. The sweet water is sound teaching. The bitter water is worthless teaching.

Sweet and bitter water cannot flow at the same time from one opening of a spring. If they are mixed in one vessel, the bitter water will make the sweet bitter, but the sweet will not be able to make the bitter sweet. Blessing and cursing cannot proceed from one mouth. Whoever prays to God, preaches His word, and yet does not cease slandering men shows that the sweetness of his blessing has been swallowed by the bitterness of slander. Because of one drop of leaven, the whole lump becomes leavened. Praise from the mouth of a sinner is not beautiful.

By the likeness of a soulless spring and insensible trees, Saint James, according to Saint Mitrophanes, requires that the unbridled and reviling tongue be corrected.

It is said that two kinds of water, sweet and bitter, never flow from the same spring. They are incompatible with one another, and therefore cannot be joined in a natural way.

Likewise, a fig tree cannot bear olives, and a vine does not bear figs. Each tree bears its own fruits.

Then, as though drawing a conclusion from what was said, he says that no spring can send forth salt and sweet water from one opening.

The spring is the heart of man, from which spoken speech flows forth. The cleft from which it wells up is the mouth, which pours forth the spoken word that the heart produces. This is the meaning of the saying.

"Does a spring send forth from the same opening both sweet and bitter water?" Having shown in the preceding verses (9 and 10) that blessings and curses come from man's mouth, the apostle uses the likeness of a spring.

A spring cannot give forth both bitter and sweet water together. By this likeness he wishes to prove the unnaturalness and impossibility of such conduct in man.

Whoever curses men created according to the image of God cannot at the same time praise God, the Creator and prototype of man, however much he may insist on the sincerity of such praise.

Concerning true wisdom: whoever considers himself capable of teaching must prove his wisdom by good conduct. If someone nourishes bitter envy and contentiousness, he has no true wisdom and no capacity to teach others.

By examples from visible nature, the apostle makes clear the unnaturalness of such action by the tongue.

In nature, according to its natural laws, opposite actions do not arise from one source. Each cause can produce only what is of one kind and corresponds to its nature.

Thus sweet and bitter water cannot flow together from one opening of a spring. There must be either sweet water alone or bitter water alone.

Likewise, olive fruits cannot grow on a fig tree, nor figs on a grapevine (cf. Mt 7:16).

Nor can one spring pour forth salt and sweet water. More precisely, a salty spring cannot give forth sweet water. Otherwise this saying would be a purposeless repetition of verse 10.

Wishing to move Christians toward the good use of the tongue, the apostle points to it as a lofty gift. It is appointed for the great work of rational praise of God.

God has sealed in us a certain likeness of Himself, and this likeness must be attained through the proper use of this divine gift. But if cursing also proceeds from the mouth, this is a clear departure from the true order of things.

This ought not to be, just as sweet and bitter water do not flow from one spring. Nor do different trees bear fruits contrary to their kind and likeness (cf. Mt 7:16).

"No prudent man will mix mud and myrrh with the same instrument," says blessed Theophylact.