THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
The Apostle points here to two gifts of God: liberation from sin and enslavement to righteousness, which is better than any freedom. God acted as a man might act who takes an orphan carried away by barbarians into their land. He not only frees him from captivity, but himself becomes a caring father in his place and raises him to very high dignity.
Something similar happened with us. God not only freed us from ancient evils, but led us into the angelic life. He made the path to the most perfect virtue level for us, after placing us under the protection of righteousness. He slew the ancient evil, put the old man to death, and guided us toward immortal life.
Therefore let us remain in this life as truly living. For many, though they seem to breathe and walk, are in a state more pitiable than the dead.
There are different kinds of deadness. There is bodily deadness, according to which Abraham, though dead, was not dead, as it is said: "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Mt 22:32). There is deadness of soul, which Christ meant when He said: "Leave the dead to bury their own dead" (Mt 8:22).
There is also another deadness, worthy of praise, which comes through philosophy, of which Paul says: "Put to death your members which are on the earth" (Col 3:5). Finally, there is a deadness that produces the preceding one and occurs in baptism, as it is said: "Our old man was crucified" (Rom 6:6), that is, put to death.
Knowing this, let us flee that mortification by which, even while alive, we die. Let us not fear that by which the common death comes. As for the other two kinds of mortification, one is blessed and given by God, while the other is praiseworthy and depends both on us and on God. Let us choose them and zealously carry them out.
David blesses one of these two mortifications when he says: "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven" (Ps 31:1). Paul praises the other when he says in the Epistle to the Galatians: "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh" (Gal 5:24).
Of the other pair of mortifications, Christ calls one worthy of contempt when He says: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." He calls the other fearful when He says: "Rather fear Him Who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna" (Mt 10:28).
Therefore, fleeing Gehenna, let us choose for ourselves the mortification that is blessed and praised. Then, of the other two deadnesses, we shall avoid one and fear the other.
There is no profit for us in seeing the sun, eating, and drinking, if our life is not marked by good works. Tell me, what profit is there if a king is clothed in purple and has weapons with him, but governs not a single subject? What if he is accessible to all who wish to insult and wrong him?
So too, there will be no profit for a Christian if he has faith and the gift of baptism, but proves subject to all the passions. In that case the insult will be greater and the shame stronger.
As a king clothed in diadem and purple not only adds nothing to his honor by such clothing, but dishonors it by his own shame, so also a believer, if he leads a vicious life, will inspire no respect by these things. Rather, he will become still more ridiculous.
"Those who sinned without the law," says the Apostle, "will also perish without the law. Those who sinned under the law will be judged by the law" (Rom 2:12). And in the Epistle to the Hebrews he said: "If one who rejected the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses, how much worse punishment, do you think, will he deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God?" (Heb 10:28-29).
And this is altogether natural. Through baptism, Christ says, I subjected all the passions to you. How then did it happen that you insulted so great a gift and became one thing instead of another? I put to death and buried your former sins, like worms. Why then have you bred others?
For sins are worse than worms. Worms gnaw the body, but sins harm the soul and produce a greater stench. We do not perceive this, and therefore we do not hasten to cleanse the soul.
A drunkard does not notice the foul smell from spoiled wine, while a sober man perceives it well. So it is also with sins. One who lives chastely notices exactly their stench and impurity. But one who has given himself over to vice, as if suffering in the head from some intoxication, does not even perceive that he is sick.
The most terrible effect of vice is that it does not allow those who fall into it to see the whole danger of their own destruction. On the contrary, while wallowing in mud, they imagine that they are enjoying fragrances. For this reason they cannot be freed.
Being full of worms, they boast as though adorned with precious stones. They do not even wish to destroy them, but feed and breed them in themselves until they hand them over to the worms of the age to come. For those here are attendants of those to come, or rather not only attendants, but progenitors of those worms that never die, according to the saying: "Their worm does not die" (Mk 9:44).
They also kindle the Gehenna that is never quenched. Therefore, so that this may not happen to us, let us dry up the source of evils, extinguish the furnace, and tear out the root of vice from below. If you cut a bad tree above the ground, you will do no good, because the root of vice remains below, from which bad shoots will grow again.
What, then, is the root of evil? Learn this from the good gardener, who knows it exactly, tends the spiritual vineyard, and cultivates the whole world. What does he call the cause of all evils? Passion for money. "For the love of money," he says, "is the root of all evils" (1 Tim 6:10).
From it come battles, hostility, and wars. From it come quarrels, strife, suspicions, and injuries. From it come murder, theft, and grave robbery. Because of love of money, not only cities and regions, but roads, inhabited and uninhabited places, mountains, forests, ravines, in a word, everything is full of blood and murders.
This evil does not spare even the sea, but rages there with all fury. Sea robbers constantly make attacks there and invent new ways of plunder. Because of love of money, the laws of nature have been distorted, the bonds of kinship shaken, and the rights of existence itself overthrown.
The power of money has armed hands not only against the living, but also against the dead. There can be no reconciliation with lovers of money even through death. They break open tombs, stretch out criminal hands even to dead bodies, and do not free from their evil designs the one already freed from life.
Whatever evil you encounter, whether in the house or in the marketplace, in courts or in public offices, in royal palaces or anywhere else, you can observe that all evil has arisen from love of money.
This very evil has filled everything with blood and murders. It has kindled the flame of Gehenna. It has made cities no better, but much worse, than the wilderness. One can still guard against those who rob on the roads, because they do not always attack.
But those who do the same thing in the middle of cities are worse than the former insofar as it is harder to guard against them. They dare with complete boldness to do the very things the former do secretly.
Lovers of money, having drawn into alliance with themselves the very laws established to abolish their wickedness, have filled cities with many murders and crimes. Tell me, is it not murder, and worse than murder, to hand a poor man over to hunger, cast him into prison, and with hunger subject him also to torments and countless tortures?
Although you do not do all this yourself, you are the cause of this deed and commit it more than those who serve you. A murderer thrusts in the sword once, causes brief pain, and does not continue the torments. But you, by your slanders, insults, and plots, make even the light darkness for him and force him a thousand times to desire death.
Think how many deaths you cause him instead of one. Worst of all, you plunder and practice usury not because poverty oppressed you or hunger compelled you. You do it so that you may gild more richly the bridle on your horse, the roof on your house, and the capitals of your columns.
How can all this not be worthy of Gehenna? You cast into countless misfortunes a brother who, together with you, has become a sharer in ineffable blessings and has been so honored by your Master. You do this in order to adorn stones, pavement, and irrational animals that have no awareness of the adornment.
Your dog receives great care, while a man, or rather Christ, is condemned to extreme hunger for the sake of the dog and all the things just mentioned. What is worse than such indifference? What is more terrible than such lawlessness? How many rivers of fire will be needed for such a soul?
One created in the image of God stands dishonored because of your inhumanity. Meanwhile the heads of the mules carrying your wife shine with abundant gold. So too do the coverings and wooden fittings of the canopy. If a chair or footstool must be made, everything is made of gold and silver.
But the one for whom Christ came down from heaven and shed His precious blood does not have the most necessary food because of your greed. Your beds are overlaid with silver on every side, while the bodies of the saints lack even necessary covering. For you Christ is of less value than everything: servants, mules, bed, chair, and footstool.
I do not even mention other most dishonorable things, leaving you to think about them yourselves. If, hearing this, you are horrified, then stop acting so, and what has been said will not harm you in the least. Stop. Restrain yourself from this madness. It is manifest madness to be concerned with these things.
Therefore, leaving this behind, let us finally lift our eyes to heaven. Let us remember the coming day. Let us think of the dread judgment, the strict account, and the incorruptible sentence. Let us think that God sees all this and yet does not send lightning upon us from above, though our deeds deserve not only lightning.
He does not do even this. He does not raise the sea against us, nor split the earth in the midst, nor darken the sun, nor command the heaven with the stars to fall. In a word, He changes nothing, but allows the whole creation to remain in order and serve us.
Therefore, considering this, let us stand in awe before the greatness of His love for mankind and return to our own nobility. For now we are in no way better than irrational animals, but even worse. They love those of their own kind and are satisfied with common nature as a bond of mutual inclination.
But you have, besides common nature, thousands of motives to be in close union with your own members. These are the gift of reason, participation in piety, and communion in countless blessings. Yet you have become more brutish than irrational animals. You show great care for useless things and neglect the temples of God, which perish from hunger and nakedness. Often you yourself subject them to thousands of misfortunes.
If you act this way from love of glory, then you ought to care more for your brother than for your horse. For the better the one who benefits from your good deed, the more beautiful the crown woven for your zeal. But now, acting altogether otherwise, you do not perceive that you arm thousands of accusers against yourself.
Who will not speak evil of you? Who will not accuse you of extreme cruelty and hatred of mankind, seeing that you abase the human race and value irrational animals above men, and together with irrational animals your house and household furnishings?
Have you not heard how the Apostles said that those who first received the teaching sold houses and possessions in order to feed the brethren? But you take houses and lands from others in order to adorn a horse, trees, coverings, walls, and pavement.