Romans 12:21Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Then he commands him, saying, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." By this he gently hints that one must not act with such an intention, since to remember an injury is already to be overcome by evil.

At first the Apostle did not say this, because it was not yet timely. But when he had drained away the listener's anger, then he added, "Overcome evil with good."

This is victory. A wrestler wins more successfully, not when he exposes himself to the opponent's blows, but when he places himself so that the opponent is forced to spend his strength on the air.

In this way he not only saves himself from blows, but also exhausts all the opponent's strength. The same happens with those who are insulted.

When you return insult for insult, it is not the man who conquers you, but, what is far more shameful, the base passion. Anger has mastered you.

But when you remain silent, you have conquered. Without toil you have raised a trophy for yourself. You will have thousands ready to crown you, who recognize the falsehood of the slander.

One who answers back shows by his answers that he has been wounded. One who is wounded arouses suspicion that he acknowledges what was said about him.

But if you answer with laughter, then by laughter itself you have refuted the evil judgment about you.

If you want clear proof that my words are just, ask your enemy himself what is more painful to him. Is it that you, heated by insult, repay him with insult, or that you laugh at the offender?

You will more readily hear the latter. He rejoices less that he has not suffered insult in return than he is wounded because he cannot drive you out of patience.

Have you not seen that those who are angry count the blows given them as nothing? With all violence they rush forward, and more savagely than a wild boar they seek only to wound their neighbor.

They give attention to this alone and care for it more than for guarding themselves from pain.

Therefore, when you deprive your enemy of the very thing he especially desires, you have deprived him of everything. You have humbled him and shown that he is worthy of contempt, a child and not a man.

You yourself, having gained the reputation of a philosophical man, will compel others to think of him as a worthless beast.

Let us act this way both when blows are inflicted on us and when we desire to strike. Let us not repay blow for blow.

But do you wish to inflict a mortal blow? Offer the other cheek to the one who struck you, and by this you will inflict thousands of wounds upon him.

Those who applaud and marvel will become worse for him than those who stone him. Before them, his conscience will condemn him and sentence him to a dreadful punishment. He will go away in shame, like one condemned to death.

If you care about human glory, you will obtain it to a greater degree by such conduct.

In general, we have some compassion for those who suffer misfortunes. But when we see people who do not resist, and who even give themselves over, we not only pity them, but marvel at them.

This very thing now moves me to weep. We could obtain present goods and attain future ones if we obeyed Christ's commandments as we should.

Yet we lose both because we do not follow what has been commanded and because we think beyond what is needed.

Christ laid down all things properly and showed what serves for our glory and what serves for our shame. Surely He did not give these commands in order to make His disciples ridiculous.

He commanded all this because not to revile when you hear reviling, and not to do evil when you suffer it, magnifies us before all.

If this is so, then it is far better to answer evil speech with good, to praise those who insult us, and to do good to those who plot against us.

For this reason Christ gave such a commandment. He spares His disciples and clearly knows what makes a man small and what makes him great.

If He spares and knows, why do you persist and wish to go by another path? To compel by evil is one of the devil's laws.

For this reason all those who contend in the Olympic games, which are dedicated to the devil, obtain victory in that way.

Such is not the order, but the opposite, on the course of Christ. There it is ordained that the crown be given not to the one who strikes, but to the one who is struck.

Such is the course of Christ. All its statutes are entirely opposite. It arouses still greater wonder not only by the victory, but by the very manner of victory.

What is considered defeat elsewhere is victory here. This is the power of God. This is the heavenly course. This is the angelic spectacle.

I know that your hearts too are now warmed, and that you too have become softer than wax. But you lose all this as soon as you depart from here.

Therefore I grieve, because we do not put into practice what has been said, though we should acquire the greatest benefits from it.

If we show meekness, we shall become invincible to all. No man, small or great, will be able to harm us.

If someone speaks evil of you, he will not harm you in the least, but will cause the greatest harm to himself. If someone wrongs you, all the harm will fall upon the wrongdoer.

Have you not seen in courts that those who have been wronged are calm, stand with complete boldness, and speak freely, while the wrongdoers stand with heads bowed, in shame and fear?

But why should I speak of evil speech and wrongs? If someone sharpens a sword against you and stains his hand in your throat, he will not harm you at all, but will kill himself.

The first man who fell by a brother's hand can testify to this. He went away into a calm harbor, having acquired immortal glory.

The fratricide lived a life worse than any death, groaning and trembling, and bearing on his very body the evidence of his crime.

Of course, we shall desire not the latter, but the former. In one who suffers evil, evil does not dwell, because he did not produce it.

He received it from outside and through patience turned it into good. But in the one who did evil, the wound of evil remains.

Was Joseph not in prison, while the adulterous woman who plotted evil against him lived in a bright and splendid house? Yet which of them would you wish to be?

Do not speak to me of recompense. Examine the matter itself, and then you will prefer prison with Joseph a thousand times over the palace that held the adulteress.

If you look into the soul of each, you will see that Joseph's soul enjoyed all spaciousness and freedom. The Egyptian woman's soul remained in constraint and shame, in humiliation and fear, in great distress.

Though in appearance she conquered, this was not victory. Knowing this, let us prepare ourselves for suffering evil.

Then we shall be freed from suffering evil and receive the good things to come. May all of us be granted to attain them by grace and love for mankind.

The evil enemy has remained deaf to all exhortations and examples of good. The Apostle’s general thought is that Christians must always do good to all, not excluding enemies, since evil cannot extinguish evil, but only good can. Every seed bears fruit according to its kind. Explaining the words, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him,” Saint John Chrysostom says: “Because this commandment is difficult and great, he added, ‘For in doing this you will heap burning coals upon his head.’ The Apostle said this to restrain the offender by fear and to encourage the wronged by hope of repayment, namely, God’s recompense upon the enemy. Nothing is more pleasant to a man than to see his enemy punished. What a man desires, the Apostle first gives him. But when the poison has been drawn out, he offers him more exalted exhortations, saying, ‘Do not be overcome by evil.’ The Apostle knew that the enemy, even if he were a wild beast, would not remain an enemy after being fed. He also knew that the wronged man, however vengeful he might be, would no longer desire vengeance after feeding and giving drink to his enemy. Therefore, being confident of the outcome, he not only threatens, but is lavish even in punishments. He does not say, ‘You will bring down God’s vengeance,’ but, ‘You will heap burning coals upon his head.’ The Apostle gives his commandment, saying, ‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’ By this he secretly suggests that one must not benefit an enemy with that intention. To remember the injury is already to be overcome by evil. Although the Apostle did not say this at first, because it was not yet timely, once he had calmed the listener’s anger, he immediately added, ‘Overcome evil with good.’ For this too is victory. Ask your enemy himself what is more painful to him: that you become heated and repay him with an insult, or that you laugh at the offender. He will say that the latter is far more painful to him. To conquer by doing evil is one of the devil’s statutes. Such is not the rule of rewards in the arena of Christ. There it is ordained to crown not the one who strikes, but the one who is struck. We have some compassion in every case for the sufferings of others. But when we see a man who does not repay blow for blow, but offers his own cheek, we do not so much pity him as marvel at him.”

Is this not a new, bright stone in the crown of Nicholas I, drawn from the mines of our fatherland? His predecessors long sought this stone, and by his untiring labor he has anticipated his successors.

Or place yourselves on the borders of two empires, two parts of the world, and two religions. Look at the recently completed work of pacification in the East.

To become the benefactor, guardian, and savior of a kingdom recently hostile, and brought to reconciliation only by victories, is this not a deed of royal virtue?

Does it not bring a new bright adornment to the crown of our most pious Emperor, and new glory to his reign?

The glory of this deed must especially be proclaimed here, in the Church, because it is a magnificent fulfillment of the noble Christian rule: "Overcome evil with good."

This deed is not only glorious for the king and the people, but also useful for Christianity.

For the whole East that has not known Christ now sees in this glorious deed the pure, disinterested, and lofty faithfulness and beneficence to which the Christian faith disposes the hearts of king and people.

But enough of this glance at certain royal deeds. It is enough for today's special prayer and thanksgiving for the king to be offered by us, both by duty of obedience to the Church's command and by our own conviction and zeal.

It is far more necessary for each of us to turn attention to our own deeds. They may be small and scarcely noticeable in the boundless multitude and variety of human affairs.

Yet they are never of small importance for the doer. They will follow him beyond the limits of the present life, and will either crown him or place upon him reproach and eternal shame.

"Overcome evil with good." Will everyone find the fulfillment of this rule in his own deeds? Will everyone find this rule sufficiently unfolded in his mind and sufficiently rooted in his heart?

That there is evil in the world, and especially in men, is testified so strongly by the experience of all and each that even reason, if it wished to dispute it, could not overcome the testimony of feeling.

Our sensations do not obey abstract arguments. And when evil exists and acts against us, to use no means against it would contradict the law of self-preservation and the law of love for mankind.

Unrestrained evil would swallow up the whole human race. It would also contradict the law of faith in God, because not hindering the spread of evil would mean favoring enmity against God, and blasphemy against His creation and governance of the world.

Therefore one must resist evil, fight against it, and overcome it. "Overcome evil."

But with what weapon? Suppose you decided to use the same weapon with which you are attacked, and to act according to the right of equal recompense.

Insult for insult, evil speech for evil speech, wound for wound. Will evil be conquered in this way? I do not think so.

For example, if a wound is repaid with a wound, then two wounded men have appeared instead of one. Therefore the evil has been doubled, not stopped, because the injured man did not heal his own wound by wounding the offender.

An insult repaid for an insult not only fails to destroy the evil already done, but also does not stop the course of evil. It may even strengthen it.

In the one who had enough evil to begin the insult, there will in all likelihood be still more of it to answer the mutual insult.

Thus a chain of insults must arise. Since each one repaying an insult will naturally try to make his rival less able to harm him, each further insult must be heavier and more deadly than the preceding.

From this one may see how true the Apostle's reasoning is: "If you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another" (Gal 5:15).

Therefore, to overcome evil with evil is unreliable, even if someone were not restrained from such a battle by the thought that it is not permitted.

Perhaps someone will ask: how then are murderers punished by death? How then is war waged?

I answer: one thing is the right of a private person, another the right of a court, and still another the right of supreme authority.

Supreme authority, since it has no judge above itself on earth, must by necessity judge offenses inflicted on the state and use war as the executor of state justice.

But even this, supreme authority animated by feelings worthy of its height, does not do in order to strike evil with evil. It does so to defend and preserve the good, that is, the safety and welfare of its own state.

If judicial authority within the state fights with the evil of punishment against the evil of crime, even this differs from private vengeance as reason differs from passion, and construction from destruction.

The court fights against evil not for itself, but for the innocent sufferer. Therefore it is guided not by the evil of vengeance, but by the good of compassion, love for mankind, and justice.

Moreover, in a well-ordered state, the court only reveals the guilty man, while the law punishes him.

But civil law also, if it is uttered in the spirit of Christian justice, does not intend to avenge evil, but to cut off and prevent evil.

It does not intend to kill the murderer, but by death, or otherwise, to deprive him of the possibility of murder and to protect the living from him.

In precisely this spirit, the meek law of our most pious autocrats sentences even the murderer not to death, but to life.

This life is separated from the life of honorable citizens, yet it is life, and a hope to die not the death of a criminal, but the death of a Christian.

As for private persons, if each decided to appropriate the rights by which the court acts against crime, or supreme authority against the enemies of the state, then almost as many warring parties would appear as there are people strong enough to control their limbs.

This is a condition of mankind that has found a fitting place in the heads of certain speculators. But, thanks be to Providence, it has not existed and will not exist, because it cannot exist in the true being of the human race.

Therefore, if overcoming evil with evil is partly not permitted and partly unreliable, even with the help of human justice, then the Christian rule to "overcome evil with good" proves as necessary as it is attractive in its purity and loftiness.

Human justice, even with all its vigilance, cannot place enough shields against the subtle wounds of malice and deceit.

The shortsighted may think that in a struggle of this kind you will be conquered sooner than you conquer. Evil acts offensively, while good, and especially Christian good, does not love even defensive opposition.

In vain do they think this. We have an experience of this victory so great and so evident that it must encourage every timidity and resolve all perplexities, if one looks at it as one should.

What enormous evil fought against the earliest Christianity. It was the evil of the whole world.

By contrast, how small and weak the good contained in Christianity seemed. "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.

"God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the low-born things of the world and the despised, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are" (1 Cor 1:27-28).

How then was the wise conquered by the foolish, the strong by the weak, and the existent by the insignificant? Evil was conquered by good.

Unbelief was conquered by faith, vice and corruption by strict virtue, persecution by patience, injustice by magnanimity, covetousness and plunder by non-possessiveness and voluntary poverty, deceit by sincerity, enmity by love, and the force and fury of tormentors by the blood of martyrs.

The worldwide evil of paganism disappeared, and the good of Christianity took possession of the world.

Will you really think, O Christian, to the offense of Christianity, that it is harder now to struggle against evil that has crept into the Christian world than it formerly was against evil that reigned in the pagan world?

Good victory does not consist in your doing evil to your enemy. It consists in your enemy being unable to do true evil to you.

No enemy will do this if you stand firmly in the good by the power of faith in God and love for God and men.

Look at a man fighting in this way against evil, and listen, amid the very dangers of battle, to his battle cry: "Who shall separate us from the love of God?

"Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?" You see an attack from many sides. The blows are strong.

Will the warrior of Christ fall? No, he cries out: "In all these things we more than conquer through Him Who loved us."

And what more? He assures us that in the whole world there is no power that can shake the one who overcomes evil with good.

"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:35-39).

To all members of the Church militant who hear this, we desire not so difficult a struggle against evil, but the same good power of faith and love, and the same perfect victory and salvation with eternal glory. Amen.

"By these words the Apostle persuades us not to repay enemies with evil in return. It is more profitable for us when we yield to malice. He conquers evil who, for a time, seems to be conquered by it.

Vengeance acts against itself and thinks that it is gaining victory when it is suffering defeat. Here the enemy also acts, trying to draw us away from good disposition and cast us into sin.

But when we, though inflamed by him, do not repay evil for evil, we conquer him by good.

Therefore we do not resist evil, so that we may preserve the good of peace, leaving justice unsatisfied. For the feeling of justice, though not always just, usually moves one to retribution" (Ambrosiaster).

Saint Chrysostom speaks at length about this: "Overcome evil with good. For this is victory. A fighter wins not when he exposes himself to the opponent's blows, but when he places himself so that the opponent is forced to strike only the air.

By this he saves himself from blows, while the opponent spends his strength in vain. The same happens with insults. When you repel abuse with abuse, it is not a man who conquers you, but, what is far more shameful, a base passion.

For anger rules over you. But when you are silent, you have conquered, and without labor you have raised a trophy. Thousands of people are ready to crown you and to recognize the slander as false.

The one who refutes slander shows by his objections that it wounds him. And the one who is wounded gives rise to suspicion that he admits the thing for which he is slandered.

But if you answer with laughter, that very laughter refutes the evil judgment about you.

If you want clear proof of the justice of my words, ask your enemy himself what is more painful for him. Is it that, heated by the insult, you repay him with insult?

Or is it that you laugh at the offender? He will say that the latter is far more painful for him.

It is not so pleasant for him that he does not hear insults from you, as it is tormenting that he cannot drive you out of patience.

By depriving the enemy of success in what he especially desires, you humble him. You show that he is worthy of contempt, that he is a child and not a man.

You yourself gain the glory of one who loves wisdom, and you make people think of him as a worthless beast.

Let us use the same measures if it happens that we receive blows. And if we want to strike someone, let us not pay blow for blow.

Offer the other cheek to the one who struck you. By this you will inflict thousands of wounds on him.

Those who applaud you and marvel at you will become more fearful to him than those who throw stones at him. Even before this, his conscience will condemn him and sentence him to terrible punishment.

He will go away in shame, as one condemned to death. If you care also for human glory, you will gain it in greater measure by such conduct.

For in any case we have a certain compassion for the sufferings of others. But when we see a man who does not pay blow for blow, but offers his cheek, we do not so much pity him as marvel at him.

To conquer by doing evil is one of the devil's ordinances. Such is not the ordinance of rewards in the arena of Christ. There it is ordained that the one crowned is not the striker, but the one struck.

Such is the arena of Christ. All its regulations are opposite. It excites wonder not by victory alone, but still more by the very manner of victory.

What elsewhere is considered overthrow is here victory. This is the power of God. This is the heavenly arena. This is the angelic spectacle!"