Chapter 1

Theophylact of Ohrid, Exposition of the Catholic Epistle of St James the Apostle

1 Theophylact of Ohrid, Exposition of the Catholic Epistle of James — Chapter One

¹ Why these epistles are called catholic. These Epistles are called catholic: one of James, two of Peter, three of John, and one of Jude — as it were, encyclical letters. For the company of those disciples of the Lord does not address these Epistles to a single nation or city in particular — as the divine Paul writes, for instance, to the Romans or to the Corinthians — but to the faithful universally, that is, to the Jews in the dispersion, as Peter also does, or indeed to all Christians who live under the same faith.

² The Argument of the Catholic Epistle of James. Since James himself writes this letter to those who had been scattered abroad from the twelve tribes and had come to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ; and since he writes the Epistle in a didactic manner, teaching about the difference among temptations — which kind is from God, and which kind is from men’s own heart; and that faith must be shown not by word alone but also by work, and that it is not the hearers of the law but the doers of the law who are justified. Concerning the rich he gives charge that the rich should not be preferred above the poor in the churches, but should rather even be rebuked as proud. And at the end, having consoled those who are wronged, and exhorted them to be longsuffering until the coming of the Judge; and having taught about patience, and shown from Job the usefulness of patience, he gives charge to call for the elders to those who are sick, and to be diligent to turn back those who have gone astray unto the truth — for the reward of this from the Lord is the forgiveness of sins. And thus he brings the Epistle to its completion.

³ An Exposition of the chapter-headings of the Catholic Epistle of James.
1. Concerning patience, and unfeigned faith, and humility toward one’s neighbors; wherein also concerning the burning that is among you, and the passions that arise from it, that God is not the cause of it — for whatever good we have is from Him. Concerning gentleness, and purity, and good deeds shared with others unto blessedness, and concerning understanding and a due measure in speech. Concerning love toward each one, without respect of persons, according to the law. That a man is justified not from faith alone, nor from works alone, nor from each of these taken separately, but from both together. That the rash and disordered tongue puts to death the one who possesses it, which tongue it is necessary to master unto the good repute and glory of God.
2. Concerning good conduct, free of contention toward one another, arising out of vainglory over human wisdom.
3. Concerning divine wisdom.
4. And that out of slothfulness and love of pleasure arise strife, and disorder, and enmity toward God.
5. Concerning repentance unto salvation.
6. Concerning not judging one’s neighbor.
7. That it is not in man, but in God, that the steps of a man are directed.
8. Concerning the greed of the rich and their luxury in the world, and concerning the righteous judgment of God.
9. Concerning longsuffering and the patient endurance of sufferings, and concerning the truth.
10. Particular exhortations befitting each person, joined with faith. And that one must minister to the salvation of one’s neighbor.

⁴ Chapter One. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the dispersion: greeting. Of God, that is, the Father; and of the Lord, that is, Jesus — so that, if he is equally the servant of the Father and of the Son, then the Son too is of equal honor with the Father, both according to essence and according to honor. And above every worldly dignity the apostles of the Lord adorn themselves with being the servants of Christ.[1]

⁵ Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations. The temptations that are according to God, and the sorrow they bring, these he knows to be both praiseworthy and worthy of joy; for they are an unbreakable bond and a growth in love and compunction. Whence this too has been said: My child, if you come forward to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for temptations. And Christ said: In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. For it is not possible, apart from contests — whether worldly ones or those that are according to God — to be counted worthy of crowns. And in his modesty he calls them brethren, not children. Temptations are an occasion of all joy to the earnest, because through them the proof of them is made manifest. For the proof leads on to a perfect work. But someone will say: If such is the work of temptations, how is it that Christ in the prayer teaches us to ask God that we not be led into temptation? We say, then, that temptations are of two kinds: some that take their beginning from ourselves, and others that are brought upon us from God for the sake of training and of public proclamation. And those that take their beginning from ourselves are also of two kinds: those that come through unreasoning boldness, which we also call rashness — which the Lord enjoins us to guard against, since though the spirit is willing, in the midst of the contests the willingness is quenched and ends not in good for those who employed it; and those brought on through sin, as destruction came upon the Sodomites. These temptations are to be fled with all one’s might by those who would live without sin; whereas those that come from God — as to Job, as to Abraham — are not only not to be fled, but, if possible, to be drawn to oneself through patience and thanksgiving, as worthy of public proclamation and of crowns. And he said various temptations because the temptations, as we have said, are partly from God and partly from ourselves.

⁶ Knowing that the proving of your faith works patience. Since the temptations are of two kinds, as we have noted, patience profits in either case: in the case of those from God, because here we obtain public proclamation, as did Abraham, as did Job; and in the case of those from ourselves, because, enduring them with thanksgiving, we bring this as a kind of counterweight for our sins. For he who acknowledges his own faults has laid in himself a beginning of salvation, and has conformed himself to the character of a righteous man, if indeed: A righteous man is his own accuser in the first plea.

⁷ But let patience have a perfect work. Observe that he did not speak of patience in a declarative way, that it has a perfect work, but in an imperative way, Let it have. For he is not announcing a virtue already laid down beforehand, but one now being worked out, which he lays down as law that it ought to come to be. That you may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. The cause of the perfect work he says is wisdom. Since he knows that the proving of faith and of the patience that is in temptations is no achievement of ordinary men, but of those who are wise according to God, for this reason he spurs on to the asking of wisdom those who long to accomplish this very thing.

⁸ But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all simply and does not reproach; and it shall be given him. Spiritual wisdom, he means, not human wisdom. For he names it as the cause for us of the perfect work also. And this is the wisdom that is from above, by which, being empowered, we shall be able to do the good entire.

⁹ But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing. For if he believes, let him ask; but if he does not believe, let him not even ask, for he will receive nothing of what he asks. And the doubter is the one who asks with contempt. By common confession he is insolent, the one who doubts. For if you have not believed that He will bring your request to fulfillment, do not approach at all, lest you be found an accuser of Him who is able to do all things, having become double-souled against your own will. Therefore one must shun this so shameful a disease. For the doubter is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed about.

¹⁰ For let not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord. The doubter is the one who sets himself apart from a sure thing, and hesitates whether it shall be, or not. For this man will not even receive, since he becomes of two minds concerning the thing hoped for.

¹¹ A double-souled man, unstable in all his ways. Double-souled — that is, confounded, ill-furnished, unprofitable, self-opinionated, a hypocrite. By ways he means the movements of the soul, upon which hopes are suspended, whether good or not; just as David also said: You have foreseen my ways. In another sense: he calls a double-souled man the one who is unsteadied, who is firmly grounded neither toward the things to come nor securely toward the things present, but is carried about hither and thither, now clinging to the things to come, now to the things present. And such a man he likens both to a wave of the sea, which has no fixedness, and to the flower of the grass, which has no permanence, but withers when the sun has risen — wherefore he did not compare him to the grass, which is more lasting, but to the flower, displaying his short duration. And why is he called double-souled? Because he is directed with confidence neither toward the present life nor toward the life to come. For in Scripture the soul is called the life, as in this: All that a man has he will give for his soul. Put away from yourself double-mindedness, and do not at all be of two minds about asking from God, saying within yourself, How can I ask from the Lord and receive, having sinned so greatly against Him? Do not reckon thus, but confess out of your whole heart, and turn back to the Lord, and ask of Him without wavering; and you shall know His tender compassion, that He will by no means forsake you, but will fulfill the request of your soul. For God does not remember evil, and He has compassion upon His own works.[2]

¹² Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation. Since he knows humility to be the storehouse of all good things, and that without it none of the earnest things is accomplished, for this reason he adds, Let the lowly glory in his exaltation. For since he likens the doubter to a wave of the sea, which is lifted up, swollen by the winds, but is laid to rest sooner than it is raised; the doubter suffers likewise, who out of pride props his own requests upon none of the things that are needful. For this reason he adds, Let the lowly brother glory, saying something like this: He who wishes to ask for anything, let him first ask the things that are needful, in which he will not miss the things sought; and these are the kingdom of heaven and righteousness. Then let him persevere in asking for such things; let him not, having prayed for a little while, straightway withdraw (for this belongs to the boastful), but let him await the receiving, persevering in lowliness of soul.

¹³ But let the rich man glory in his lowliness, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun rose with its burning heat, and withered the grass, and its flower fell. He likens riches to the flower of the grass, wishing to display its ephemeral nature.

¹⁴ And the comeliness of its appearance perished. He used face loosely; for this is said of man alone, but not of the other living creatures.

¹⁵ So also shall the rich man wither in his goings. By goings he means the courses of the present life.

¹⁶ Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been proved he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love Him. Since the temptations are of two kinds, as we have noted, patience profits in either case. Then, having called to mind the Lord’s prayer — which, beseeching that we not fall into temptation, commends to us the better course — he takes up the argument again by means of what lies before him, making clear which is the temptation from God and which is the self-chosen one from ourselves. Yet it is well that the Lord and God, looking to the weaker part of human nature, should propose that the onset of temptations be prayed against, the disciples being as yet too imperfectly disposed. But since by the knowledge that came through His resurrection, and by His being taken up into the heavens, our weak nature has been strengthened, his brother according to the flesh urges that the temptations be no longer dreaded.

¹⁷ Let no one who is tempted say, I am tempted from God. If the temptations are of two kinds, then he casts every temptation out of being caused by God. But observe that he did not say the one who has been tempted, but the one being tempted. For the man who procures temptations for himself through fault and intemperance, and who, as it were, tumbles amid circumstances in a continual surge, this man he says is tempted not from God but from his own desire. For he who has conquered the temptation brought upon him, having established himself more securely, becomes thereafter hard to consume by temptations, especially those moved from himself. For, having inclined toward a more philosophic life, he continues thenceforth at ease from temptations.

¹⁸ For God is untempted by evils, and He Himself tempts no one. God is untempted by evils, according to him who said: The divine and blessed is neither itself troubled with affairs nor causes trouble to others. For all these things belong to the mortal and earthbound nature, about which alteration is seen and decay, the things that take their beginning in our nature. But desire, and sin, and the death that through desire takes root in the soul, are certain steps of man’s ruin. For desire, having found room for reception, wrought sin, which brought forth death — unless, having uprooted it through repentance, we lay for ourselves a beginning of a second life.

¹⁹ But each one is tempted by his own desire, being drawn away and enticed. Then desire, having conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is brought to completion, brings forth death. Since he has shown that the divine nature is neither itself tempted nor furnishes this to others, he here calls temptations the thoughts that disturb the soul; for those that come from God do not confound but, being settled, make the soul radiant. For this reason he says what follows.

²⁰ Every good gift and every perfect present is from above, from the Father of lights; inasmuch as the things brought on by ourselves have imperfection.

²¹ Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect present is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. By the Father of lights understand God, or [the Father] of the angelic powers, which have been illumined through the Holy Spirit.

²² With whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning. There is not, he says, with the Father of lights any variableness; for He Himself cries out through the prophet: I am, and I am not changed. And shadow of turning means that there is not even the suggestion of any surmise of change.[3]

²³ Of His own will He brought us forth by the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. He said of His own will because of those mad ones who say that the world came into being of its own accord. For since above he said with whom there is no variableness, and showed thereby that the Divine is unchangeable, he adds, of His own will He brought us forth. For if we have come into being, it is clear that we are also changeable. For how could that be unchangeable which came forth from non-being, through alteration, into being? Then, since he said He brought forth, lest anyone suppose that He begot the Son also in the same manner as us, he adds, by the Word of truth. For all things, according to John the Theologian, came into being through Him; that is, through the Word of truth. So that, if our coming forth is through the Word, we are not of the same kind as He from whom we have our being. And a kind of firstfruits means first and most honored. And by creature he means the visible nature.

²⁴ Therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. The swift he does not confine to bare hearing, but to an active hearing, one that hastens, after hearing, to the handling of the things heard. For he knew the one who lends his ear with eagerness, and who would render himself ready also for the working of these things; just as, on the contrary, the one who disposes himself toward something with slowness by delay, and who is at times wholly hindered from the undertaking. Therefore in the teaching of divine things he enjoins swiftness; but in the things that have a perilous handling, slowness. And these are speaking and being angry. For speech under anger does not end in good. Wherefore a certain man wise in divine things said: He who spoke repented often; but he who kept silence, never. And the blessed David: Be angry, and sin not; that is, do not, being angry, straightway bring in also the madness that comes from anger. In harmony with these is also the present passage, both as concerns speaking itself and as concerns being angry; but especially concerning anger, which, being brought forth unreasoningly, deprives one of the righteousness of God. Wherefore he also says: Anger does not work the righteousness of God.

²⁵ For the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. Righteousness is a state in the soul that renders to each according to his desert; but anger destroys even the prudent. How could this anger, darkening the mind through its excessive passion, establish that righteousness which renders to each, by judgment, what is according to his desert? But observe that he did not speak simply of the one who does not work the righteousness of God, but of the one who plays the man over things ruinous to himself. For this reason he also brought forth the saying without the addition of the article; and that this is his intent, the following shows: Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly. For the application of the subjunctive article shows that he wishes man to signify those who have an inclination both ways, toward good things and toward evil. And it must be noted that he did not say works in the simple form, but with the addition of the preposition, works out. That is to say, one is not wholly deprived of what is fitting. For it is possible to discern in anger a certain usefulness, inasmuch as in no other movement of the soul either is that which is in some way to be cast off bereft of the praiseworthy, but it is possible to find something serviceable as well.

²⁶ Therefore, putting away all filthiness and superfluity of malice, in meekness of heart receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. To filthiness he adds also superfluity of malice, wishing to display this: that even if one has often fallen into some filthiness, he should swiftly withdraw from it, and not, by persisting in it through habit, work the evil more firmly; for it is natural that the things done by us more continually and more abundantly settle the deed into a nature, that is, procure for it the fixed state of a nature. And he said in meekness because of the teaching word, which makes its reception not in tumult and disturbance. And he calls implanted word that according to which we have become rational, able to discern the better and the worse.

²⁷ But become doers of the law, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man considering the face of his birth in a mirror. To consider the face of his birth is to have come to know himself through the law. Therefore he added of birth to face. For through the law we learn what sort of beings we have become, and we consider what sort the spiritual law renders us through the washing of regeneration. Then, not abiding in such a contemplation through action, we forget also the gift. For he who gives himself over to wicked deeds does not even remember that he has been benefited by God. For if he remembered that he had been born from above, and justified, and reckoned among the sons of God, he would not give himself over to works that nullify the grace. And from this familiar mirror he carries the argument over to the spiritual mirror, taking away nothing of the things that mark off what is said as an example. As though he were to say thus: If anyone is a hearer of the law and not a doer, he is like a man considering his own face in a mirror. For as that man considered himself and went away, and straightway forgot what sort he was, so also this man — who, through the law of Moses, considered for what he had come into being, namely, for the glory of God and to become according to the image of God his Maker — after considering, wrought none of the things considered, but was in the same case as the one considering his own face. Though it was needful to use it thus, he did not so use it. And not in vain does the apostle do this, gathering up the hearer and straining him toward not hearing these things carelessly. For not those hearers are blessed, but those who join action to the hearing. Since the Pharisees also became hearers, but, since they were not doers, they were no longer blessed. Deceiving yourselves — that is, beguiling, despising their own salvation.

²⁸ For he considered himself, and went away, and straightway forgot what sort he was. To the hearing he joined the forgetting, since the hearing of the law alone does not suffice for the soul’s salvation, unless doing also follow upon it for the confirmation of the hearing.

²⁹ But he who looked into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and continued therein, this man, being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his doing. He said looked into, and not entered in; for the spiritual law, having everywhere what is desirable and magnificent, knows how to draw a man even from a brief encounter. And having said perfect law, he added of liberty, making the liberty its distinguishing mark. For the law that is according to Christ, having set free from the bondage that concerns the flesh, establishes in liberty the one who comes to it, and through its liberality has made him attentive, and has freed him from the forgetfulness that ruins all good things.

³⁰ If anyone among you seems to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his heart, this man’s religion is vain. Religious, among the Jews, is the one who has faith in works in a way that seems unpublicized; and since the Jews thought highly of themselves over their observances, and supposed that in these consisted the whole of godliness toward God, and, busying themselves with these alone, reckoned that they procured blessedness for themselves; while toward others they were rather disposed to reproach, as is clear from the Pharisee in the Gospels, and from the insolent things he presumed concerning the publican — the apostle, restraining this conceit, says what lies before us. For having made mention of a doer of works, and blessed him, he straightway corrects also the evil that grows up in the doing among the many, and says: Do not suppose, you who boast over your doing of the law, that you have blessedness according to the doing alone. For this is not acceptable to God; but that man is acceptable who indeed does, but not out of conceit is carried reproachfully against those who do not do. And deceiving his heart means, as it were, strangling, and not, out of conceit as a doer of the law, deceiving his own conscience. For this is what heart means here, as also in the phrase a heart contrite and humbled.

³¹ Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction. Religion seems to have something more than faith. For the name promises a knowledge of certain hidden things, and a firmness of the things contemplated according to faith. For this reason the Apostle also used this expression, saying religious, as though he were to say: You suppose yourself a knower of the secret things in the law and an exact keeper of them. How is it, then, that you who do not know how to bridle your tongue accuse your neighbor, and, living haughtily, pity none of those in want — though the law neither admits the slanderer, but commands us to pity even our enemies? If, therefore, you wish to be religious, do not display the religious man in the reading of the law, but in the doing. And this is to pity one’s neighbors. For pity toward one’s neighbor is a making of oneself like to God. For, He says, become merciful, as also your heavenly Father. But let your pity also be without respect of persons; since God too does not make His own benefits to be portioned out, but makes His sun to rise upon rich and poor, and sends rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous.

³² To keep oneself unspotted from the world. World is here to be understood as the common and rabble crowd, which is corrupted according to the desires of its deceit.

2 Chapter Two — Exposition of the second chapter

¹ My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For whoever acts with partiality fills himself with great defilement, dishonoring one of his own kind, and himself even before that other; for the show he makes toward his fellow rebounds upon the very man who does it.

² For if there enter into your assembly a man with a gold ring, in splendid clothing, and there enter also a poor man in shabby clothing, and you give regard to the one wearing the splendid clothing and say, Sit here in a good place, and to the poor man you say, Stand there, or, Sit here under my footstool— The wearing of rings seems to have been especially a custom among the Hebrews. Perhaps someone will object here: If James is a teacher of the covenant according to Christ, how is it that he does not now abolish the things of the Law, but rather upholds them, approving of those who are still in the worship of the Law and not rebuking them? To him we will say this: that he is now speaking to them in a more introductory manner, condescending to their weakness, lest, by overturning the Law at the very threshold, he should make them draw back from the newness of the teachings. Managing the matter with greater prudence, and yielding—so far as it did no harm to the New Covenant—to their scruples about the Law (for what injury did it do to the faith in Christ to keep the Sabbath, or to fast and abstain from foods?), and so for the time making them more attentive to his own discourse by these concessions, he thus little by little exhorts them to withdraw from the things of the Law as useless and as calling men to bondage rather than to freedom, the freedom that is in Christ. Wisely, then, employing these slight accommodations, when he had won over those who were not put off by what he said, he then set before them the things befitting Christians.

³ And did you not make distinctions among yourselves? The conjunction and is superfluous here, after an archaic manner of speech; for since this is the apodosis of what was stated above, the conjunction is redundant. For it runs thus: If anyone enter into your assembly, and so on; then, Did you not make distinctions among yourselves? Since this is the apodosis, the construction requires that it be brought in without the conjunction and, so that the sense is: Inasmuch as you did not judge what was right, you became judges with evil thoughts. And you did not make distinctions stands for you corrupted your power of discernment, making no examination beforehand whether a man were poor but earnest, or rich but slothful; rather your want of discernment led you into partiality, to praise the one for his wealth and to dishonor the other for his poverty. And you became judges with evil thoughts—that is, unjust judges, having of malice set yourselves up out of partiality.

⁴ Listen, my beloved brethren: Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor. Do not the rich oppress you, and do they not themselves drag you into the courts? Since poverty is a hard thing for most people even to hear of, on this account, having said the poor of this world, he at once added rich. But rich in what? In faith; for so it is. For the fact that the poor are undistracted by the world makes them, once they have come to the faith, more active than the wealthy. Therefore the Lord too chose disciples of this kind, whom He also declared to be heirs of the kingdom.

⁵ Do they not themselves blaspheme that good name which was invoked over you? If, however, you fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, being convicted by the Law as transgressors. A new name, in accordance with the prophetic word which says: To those who serve Me a new name shall be given, which shall be blessed over all the face of the earth.

⁶ For whoever keeps the whole Law, but stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all. For He who commanded, You shall not kill, also commanded, You shall not commit adultery. And if you do not commit adultery, but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the Law. So speak and so act, as those about to be judged by the law of liberty. For the judgment is merciless to him who has shown no mercy; and mercy triumphs over judgment. But stumbles in one point—that is, in not having perfect love; for this is the chief of all good things. If one lacks the head, the whole remaining body is useless. That he is speaking about this is plain from the foregoing argument. The words You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill were given by way of example. And observe that even the examples are drawn from the Law as it tends toward love. For he who loves his neighbor will not commit adultery, nor kill; for these are the deeds of an enemy. For if it were not so, no human being could be saved, since no one possesses an unbroken perfection through all the commandments. Rather, he who has achieved purity is at times overcome by anger, and he who gives alms often harbors envy. Therefore it was said not of every perfection in the virtues without exception, but concerning love—that one ought not, while showing partiality, to accomplish it defectively, but wholly and completely. And this we say of the other virtues as well. For whoever does not hold to the things of temperance, or of righteousness, to the end, but practices them more defectively, this man, limping in his conduct, has marred the whole body of virtue. The whole Law, then, must be understood as the law concerning love, with which his aim is chiefly occupied. And he calls the law of liberty the law that is free of partiality; for the one who shows partiality is not free, but a slave. For by whatever a man is overcome, to that also is he enslaved.

⁷ What is the profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but has not works? Can that faith save him? When we have forgiven our neighbors the sins they have committed against us, and have shared the giving of our goods with the needy, the mercy that is from God will receive us at the examination of our manner of life; for great is such amendment, just as, on the contrary, the condemnation is heavy for those who have not been conscientiously disposed toward their own kind. For upon those who have borne themselves without compassion toward the offenses committed against them by their neighbors, the condemnation of the wicked servant will close in, together with the recompense given in the prayer. For there our petition is that God forgive us, even as we also forgive those who have offended against us. And for those who are unmerciful, that is, hard, toward those who need bodily consolation, the judgment will meet them without mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment; for the merciful, according to the Lord’s pronouncement, shall obtain mercy. Besides, if mercy toward the poor can procure forgiveness even for idolaters, as we heard in Daniel, what would it not accomplish for believing men? And this mercy seems to me to work much as the oil from the trees does for those who contend in the arenas: rubbed upon the athletes, it makes the grasp of their adversaries slip off; so too in the judgment, the mercy we show toward the poor will enable us to elude the assaults of the demons.

⁸ But if a brother or sister be naked and lacking the day’s food, and one of you say to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, yet give them not the things needful for the body, what is the profit? Observe his spiritual insight. For he did not say merely, If he has faith, but, What is the profit?—as though he said: Show me the thing from which I am to reckon you worthy of this title. For this is the work of faith. And what he says is this: Unless a man show by his deeds that he believes in God, the very claim to be called a believer is superfluous. For it is not the one who simply says he belongs to the Lord that is a believer, but the one who so loves the Lord that, for his faith in Him, he dares even death. And that this is the aim of what lies before us, the examples make clear. For Abraham, he says, showed by deed that he believed God, when he offered up his firstborn as a whole burnt offering. And in like manner Rahab too, having believed, despised death.

⁹ So too faith, if it has not works, is dead in itself. But someone will say, You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith from your works, and I will show you my faith from my works. You believe that God is one; you do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. These words do not contradict the blessed Paul. For the name of faith is used in two senses: of the mere assent to what appears—for we are accustomed to call this too faith, in the sense in which we know that the demons believe in Christ, that He is the Son of God—and again, of the consequent commitment of disposition together with firm assent, which we call by the appellation of faith. It is the simple assent that the divine herald declares to be a dead faith, as having no part in the works that quicken it. But Paul speaks of that faith which springs from disposition, which most of all is not deprived of works; for such a faith could never come to be empty of noble works. For neither did Abraham obtain it without having first struggled to thrust off the weakness of his fathers, in which contest faith was awarded to him as the prize. Rather, Paul preferred this faith to the works according to the Law—Sabbath-keepings, and circumcision, and the rest of the purifications. For in the case of works also two meanings are to be seen. For works is said both of the works that confirm faith, deprived of which faith is left dead, and again of the works of the Law, apart from which both Abraham and all who are in Christ are justified. For that faith could never arise in an unclean man—I mean the faith of works—who will deny? For neither could ointment be stored in a vessel full of filth, nor could the faith of God arise in an unclean man. The divine apostles, then, are not at variance with one another; rather, dealing each with the differing sense of the term according to his need, each carries through the matter set before him.

¹⁰ But do you wish to know, O empty man, that faith apart from works is dead? He called empty the man who boasts in bare faith alone, possessing nothing of the substance that comes through works for its fulfillment.

¹¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? You see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says— Both apostles bring forward Abraham as an example of the doctrine of faith: the one, showing faith to be greater than works through the example of Abraham; the other, again, showing works to be greater than faith. And it has been said above how each turns about the twofold sense of the term, taking what contributes to his own demonstration. Some of the Fathers, however, have understood the matter in this way also. For they say that Abraham, distinguished according to the times, is an image of both kinds of faith: of the faith before baptism, which does not require works, but only faith and the confession of salvation, and the word by which we who believe in Christ are justified; and of the faith after baptism, which is joined together with works. In this way the Spirit, who spoke in these passages, is shown not to be at variance with itself; rather, the one faith justifies the one who comes to it by confession alone, if he straightway departs this life (for to such a one works are not present, but the cleansing through baptism was sufficient for him); while the other faith requires of the one already baptized the showing forth of good works as well. And with this Paul too agrees, speaking thus elsewhere, and teaching that the faith after baptism requires perfection through works, where he says: Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. And love needs much wisdom to be fulfilled. And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Of justification by faith alone Abraham was an image, when he believed and it was reckoned to him for righteousness; and of justification by works, when he offered up his son upon the altar. For he not only did the work, but also did not depart from his faith concerning Isaac, in whom his seed was to be multiplied as the stars, reckoning that God is able to raise him even from the dead. Yet Paul also brings forward David as a witness. For David knew by the divine Spirit the faith that was to come in Christ in due season. Therefore he says: Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will in no way reckon sin.

¹² You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone. By works—not those of the Law, as has already been said, such as circumcision and the like, but those of virtue, of righteousness, and the like.

¹³ And in like manner was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works, when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

3 Chapter Three — Exposition of the third chapter

¹ My brothers, do not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater judgment. Having said and taught above that believers should hold a faith not empty of diligent works, he passes on to another injunction of equal weight. For there are some who undertake to teach the very things they have not themselves accomplished. And he says that for such people the judgment is greater, even while they gain nothing. For the one who teaches things that are not present in him, as though they were his own, stands condemned, since he slips through his own tongue; and he confirms this from the circumstance, saying: For if even apart from this the tongue is naturally prone to slip through inattention—and the one who possesses it does not escape the judgment for such slips (as Solomon teaches: Through the sin of his lips the sinner falls into a snare)—how then could the one who sins deliberately, teaching with his tongue the things he has not learned by experience, flee the inescapable sentence?

² For we all stumble in many things. Being negligently disposed toward life out of inattention.

³ If anyone does not stumble in word, this man is perfect, able to bridle the whole body as well. The impossibility of any human being living free of sin is established from the proneness of the tongue to slip; and from this he also shows that perfection belongs to no one. For who is there who has not sinned with his tongue? But if anyone should master the slipperiness of his own tongue, how is such a man not also capable of governing the whole body well? For the one who has prevailed over what is so easily led into stumbling would surely also rule over what is more sluggish.

⁴ Behold, we put bridles into the mouths of horses that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body. This is the exemplary confirmation of the saying, able to bridle the whole body as well, drawn from the bridles of horses and from the rudders of ships. The word behold stands for observe. And the bridles of horses must be construed thus, inverting the syntax: we put the bridles into the mouths of horses. For unless it be so construed, the sentence is unintelligible: Behold, we put the bridles of horses, and the ships with a small rudder, just as we also turn the horses, by means of a small bridle, wherever we wish. So then let the tongue also be turned by right reason; for even though it is a world of unrighteousness, carried away as it were and gazing toward the rabble crowd (for here by world he means the multitude); or even because, though it is a world—that is, something that adorns human nature (for by it we share our thoughts with one another, since some also wish to take world in this sense)—yet still, being carried away toward the common mob, it does wrong, defiling at times the whole body, and setting on fire the whole wheel of becoming, and itself set on fire by Gehenna. Nevertheless it is not hard to handle it so that it is moved reasonably, and as the one who handles it wishes. For if every kind of beasts and creeping things and birds and creatures of the sea has been tamed and is being tamed by human nature, then I would not say of the tongue—that it is an unrestrainable evil, that it is full of deadly poison which no human being can tame. For if it were untamable and not yet led to the better, how is it that with it we bless God and the Father, and with it we curse human beings? Behold, it is led to the will of the one who uses it. But these things, my brothers, ought not so to be. For if with it we bless, are we then not ashamed to curse human beings who have come into being according to the likeness of God? It is unjust that blessing and cursing should come out of the same mouth. Therefore guard your tongue more than the apple of the eye. The tongue is a royal horse. If, then, you put a bridle on it and train it to walk gracefully, the King will rest upon it and take His seat. But if you let it go unbridled, to rush and leap about, it becomes the chariot of the devil.

⁵ Behold also the ships, though they are so great and are driven by fierce winds, are turned about by a very small rudder, wherever the impulse of the helmsman wills. These too still concern the point that the tongue ought not to be moved at random, but directed toward the better. For as we check the boldness of a horse with a bridle, and shift the impulse of a ship with a rudder, so too we ought to redirect the tongue into a good course. For the words so too the tongue mean this: that so too the tongue ought to be turned by right reason; for though it is small, it does great things, and therefore it kindles a great blaze for us, since it is itself fire. And what does it do? It adorns unrighteousness through the eloquence and cleverness of its words; it defiles the body, winning over weak women by its enticements; it works murders through deceit; by false oaths it reaps what belongs to others; and it sets on fire the wheel of Gehenna; and it too is set on fire by Gehenna, as is clear from the rich man whose tongue is seared in the frying pan. If, then, the text has of Gehenna, as some of the copies have, the passage is to be unfolded in this way. But if it has the wheel of becoming, it admits of the following resolution: by wheel of becoming he means our life. So in setting on fire the wheel of becoming, the tongue defiles our life. For this the Melodist too named a crown, saying [to God: Bless the crown of the year of Your goodness]. Now a crown and a wheel do not differ in their circular shape. And life too is a wheel, as one that winds back upon itself.

⁶ So too the tongue is a small member and boasts great things. Behold, how small a fire kindles how great a forest. In this way too the tongue ought to be moved in due measure. For it is a small member, yet it accomplishes great things—evil, that is, and good; and boasts great things stands for has great works to its account.

⁷ And the tongue is a fire, the world of unrighteousness. So is the tongue set among our members, the one that defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the wheel of becoming, and is itself set on fire by Gehenna. The sense in order is this: So then the tongue, being the world of unrighteousness, is a fire. For as fire destroys all things, so too does it. Some here take world to mean the multitude, just as in the saying, The world did not know Him. So the tongue too is a world—that is, a multitude of unrighteousness.

⁸ For every kind of beasts and creeping things, of birds and of creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by human nature. But the tongue no human being can tame. It is an unrestrainable evil, full of deadly poison. The force of this reasoning must be understood in relation to what was stated above. For having spoken and taught by means of the bridle and the rudder—things which are small, yet accomplish great results when well directed—and having added that so too the tongue ought to be turned by right reason, he shows through what follows, by the examples set before us, that he does not enjoin impossible things. It is as though he said: But someone will say that, even granted the tongue is a small member, yet, since it works great things both good and evil, it is not readily obedient to our wishes. This is no excuse at all. For if a man tames wild beasts foreign to his own nature, much more can he tame his own member. The words no human being can tame are to be read not as a statement but as a question, so that the sense is this: If a man tames untamed beasts and makes them docile, will he then not tame his own tongue? It is to be read in this way. For if it were taken as a statement, he would not appear, in what follows, to make fitting use of the admonition—I mean the words, These things, my brothers, ought not so to be. For if it were impossible to reform the tongue, then one who urges men to attempt the impossible makes an unsafe exhortation, someone might say. But the words an unrestrainable evil, full of deadly poison are to be taken as a statement.

⁹ With it we bless God and the Father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made according to the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. These things, my brothers, ought not so to be. Surely a spring does not pour out the sweet and the bitter from the same opening?

¹⁰ Can a fig tree, my brothers, produce olives, or a vine figs? So neither can one spring produce salt water and sweet. This too is to be understood as a question, for it is meant to shame the hearers; as also is what follows, Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. For if we are commanded to bless all (for revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God), then are you not ashamed to use the same instrument as a servant of both wickedness and goodness? No one of sound mind would stir up filth and perfume with the same instrument. Are you praying? Do not curse your enemy. For prayer and cursing have a great gulf between them. If you do not forgive the one who has grieved you, neither will you be forgiven; but in cursing you will catch yourself when you pray that your debts be forgiven you, even as you also forgive your own debtors.

¹¹ Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show his works out of good conduct, in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish rivalry in your heart, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom is not one that comes down from above, but is earthly, soulish, demonic. For where there is jealousy and selfish rivalry, there is disorder and every base deed. Being lovers of power, and priding themselves on the wisdom of this world, these people preached out of strife and jealousy against the orthodox teachers, bearing envy toward them, and mixing human things with the divine, so that by the novelty of what they said they might draw their hearers after them—whence also heresies arose. So then, having completed his discourse on rashness and incontinence of the tongue, he now proceeds also to the envy that arises in men from a like foolishness, and says that such teachings are not those of stable men, since they spring not from divine wisdom but from demonic. And he said these things after first praising the good teacher. But since the word jealousy is seen as a mean between things good and base (for jealousy is an ardent movement of the soul toward something, with some likening of itself to that for which the zeal is felt), for this reason he added bitter, showing toward what end the jealousy was directed. And selfish rivalry is blameworthy contentiousness; it is also called slander joined with evil-speaking.

¹² But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easily entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Clean and undefiled, clinging to none of the things of the flesh. Without partiality—not making distinctions of foods and of various washings. Paul discusses these matters precisely in his Epistle to the Colossians. [4]

4 Chapter Four — Exposition of the fourth chapter

¹ From where come wars, and from where come fightings among you? Is it not from this, from your pleasures that war in your members? He shows that, even though they put on the guise of a teacher’s discourse, they are nonetheless wholly carnal, and do the most grievous things, procuring pleasures for themselves: some craving a more sumptuous table (which Paul also condemns when he says, For such serve not the Lord, but their own belly); others reaching out after the acquisition of fields; others after splendid houses; one man after one thing, another after another, in those very matters about which the evil one puts before them, contriving to strip them of their salvation.

² You desire, and have not; you kill and envy, and cannot obtain; you fight and war, yet you have not, because you ask not. He proceeds by setting forth a thesis and then refuting it, the thesis being overturned because of its absurdity. (And the absurdity is this: that the things observed in the thesis are bound to become kindling for pleasure.) For desire ends in the consummation of pleasures. And murder, and envy, and fighting, and war are not good things; and therefore neither do they obtain those things for the sake of which they pursue them. But one must understand that he does not here speak of murder and war in the bodily sense. (For this would be a grave thing to suppose even of robbers, much less of believers, in any degree, who are drawing near to the Lord. Rather, as it seems to me, he calls murderers those who slay their own soul by such undertakings, on account of which there is also waged in them this war against godliness. And just as, going on, he said adulterers and adulteresses, not because they were altogether such, but as committing fornication against the divine commands by introducing spurious doctrines—for no one would tolerate a fornicating teacher, even were he filthier than swine—so too he speaks of murders and wars not as bodily but as belonging to the soul.)

³ You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your pleasures. Like the Pharisee in the Gospel according to Luke. For the more he recounted his own good deeds, the more he stripped bare the divine hearing, and the swelling mass of his words was empty about his lips, and ran down into froth and dissolved like a seething wave. But someone will say: If the promise of the Lord Jesus, the teacher who cannot lie, is true—the saying, Everyone who asks receives—how does the present Apostle now say these things? But we answer that the one who proceeds to ask by the proper road has the promise undiminished, failing in none of the things he asks. But if anyone, having strayed outside the aim of the manner of asking that was handed down, should seem to ask, yet not asking in the way that he ought, this man does not really ask at all; and therefore neither will he receive. For suppose a teacher—say, a grammarian—promises to teach the whole science of grammar to everyone who comes to him, but the student approaches carelessly and, in his wish to learn, does not strain himself toward grasping what was promised, and then turns out to match his own negligence: would anyone justly charge the teacher with falsehood? He who did so would not be acting sensibly. For the would-be learner did not approach as the teacher had urged. But how, or what ought one to ask? someone might say. Listen to the very One who made the promise: Ask for the kingdom of God and His righteousness. It is clear, then, that whoever asks in this way, and first of all for such things, will not fail of the rest either; and whoever receives these will not fall outside his own salvation. But the one who asks for what is harmful and ruinous will not find Him a giver, from whom every good gift comes. And indeed, even one who asks for divine knowledge and does not receive it, or who asks for some spiritual gift out of love of pleasure, will not receive it. For he asks amiss, and asks for an evil thing unto his own destruction; and God is not a provider of evil things.

⁴ Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Since a little earlier he reproved certain false-wise men who prostituted the divine Scripture and used it perversely to their own purpose (that from this they might have provision for their own life of pleasure)—and this evil is nothing other than a species of boastful pride—for this reason he now proceeds more weightily (and uses reproachful words more foreign to his own gentleness), calling such men adulterers and adulteresses, employing reproofs of nearly this kind: Tell me, you vain man, do you wish to declare yourself wise? And whence comes this living of yours amid strife and unceasing war, this perpetual clinging to present things, and this pursuit of the sweetness of the present life without ever turning back? This is not the mark of wise men, but of vulgar men, and of those who have inclined toward the friendship of the world; which also shows you to be adulterers (preferring what is common, profane, and shameful to the inward, divine, and chaste beauty, and by your passionate attachment to the present taking up enmity against God). Or do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity toward God, alienating from the divine friendship and rendering us enemies? For by world he here calls all material life, as the mother of corruption; and whoever hastens to share in it becomes an enemy of God. (For through his zeal for unprofitable things he holds the divine in slight regard and with contempt—which we suffer only toward those whom we hate and our enemies.) Since, then, there are two objects of human zeal, God and the world, and toward each of these two there is set, respectively, friendship and hatred, whichever of these we may be found zealous for, we are surely seen to be sparing nothing of the other. Now zeal produces friendship, and neglect produces hatred. Whoever, therefore, holds fast to the divine things both is and is called a friend of God; but whoever, having slighted God, has loved the world, this man will be reckoned among the enemies of God. And since all these things were shown to spring from the boastful pride (and arrogance) of the false-wise teachers, he uses yet a second reproof, wishing to sober such men from their drunkenness (and to free them from their stupor); and he says what follows.

⁵ Do you suppose that the Scripture speaks in vain? The Spirit that dwelt in you yearns even to envy? But He gives more grace. Therefore it says: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Saying and signifying some such thing through these words, he again uses speech elliptically, because of his habit of compressed expression. I, he says, I have set you before your own discourses concerning the rightness and the blameworthiness of your use of wisdom, that you may not, abusing it out of arrogance, adulterate and corrupt the word of teaching. But if you seek this also from the Scripture, then hear: The Lord resists the proud. If, then, He resists the proud, and we are accustomed to resist our enemies, then surely the proud too would be reckoned among the enemies. For not in vain, that is, idly, nor unto envy, does the Scripture proclaim to us things impossible, but yearning for the grace that, through its exhortation, is established as a dwelling within us. So that, if you are obedient to the Scripture, humble yourselves before God, and you will find the grace that comes through His exalting. Now boastful pride is wickedness raised to its uttermost—differing from conceit in this, that boastful pride exalts itself over things it actually possesses, whereas conceit exalts itself over things that do not exist at all. And humility, or modesty, differs from this too, in that modesty—that is, humility—being diametrically opposed to boastful pride, is a great good; and since both come to be in us by our own choice, everyone who in boastfulness exalts himself, besides being put down by the Lord, is moreover humbled in due time by Him who exalts the man that has humbled himself in modesty, inasmuch as the prizes won for that humility have led the one who possesses it upward to spiritual height. Otherwise, from Cyril. If by the envy of the devil death entered into the world, and if Christ dwelt in our inward man, according to the Scriptures, He dwelt there for this reason: that He might abolish the death that comes from envy. And not only this, but He also gives more grace. For I came, He says, that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly. And that it was out of yearning for us that God dwelt in us, Isaiah made plain when he said: No angel, no ambassador, but the Lord Himself saved us (through loving us and caring for us). And how, in saving us, did He give more grace? By casting down the Satan who had plotted against us. For this reason he added: God resists the proud. For how is he not proud who cries out: I will seize the whole inhabited world with my hand as a nest?

⁶ Submit yourselves therefore to God; resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-souled. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. By double-souled he means those who do not choose to live in a single manner, but are continually led and persuaded by the compulsion of men; for they are not single-minded, dwelling in the house of the Lord. And that the soul is also called life, the passage in Job will teach us, namely: Skin for skin, and all that a man has will he give for his soul, that is, for his life.

⁷ Do not speak evil one of another, brethren. He that speaks evil of his brother, or judges his brother, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy. He knows that boastful pride moves men, out of contempt and evil-speaking, to press hard against the gentle, unto their utter contempt. Drawing them away from this, then, he wishes to bring them to soberness through what lies before him. And to judge the law stands for condemns, despises. For he who condemns does this out of contempt. And what law? First, the one that proclaims, Judge not, that you be not judged; then also the one in the Psalms: Whoever secretly speaks evil of his neighbor, him did I drive out; and to show that this comes from contempt, he adds: But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law. For what a man despises, how will he endure to go on living under it? Do not, then, he says, be disposed to treat it with contempt and, as it were, to set up a rival law. For it is not permitted to you, since God alone is the one lawgiver, He who is able to save and to destroy the transgressors of His law; for this belongs to law and lawgiver—to punish those who transgress it; but not to you, who have nothing more than empty babble, and who moreover bring the verdict against yourself. For by doing the very same things as the one you speak evil of, in the measure that you condemn him, you condemn yourself.

⁸ But who are you that judge your neighbor? Contemptuously, as if to say: Being such as you are, how do you dare to judge one who is subject to the same passions?

⁹ Go to now, you that say: Today and tomorrow we will go into such a city, and spend there one year, and trade and make gain. He does not do away with man’s power of action, but shows that the whole is not his own, but that he stands in need also of the grace from above. For it is indeed possible to run about and to trade and to do all the things that pertain to living, but not to reckon this to one’s own labors, but rather to the lovingkindness of God. For Jeremiah says: O Lord, the way of man is not in himself; and the author of the Proverbs: Boast not of the things of tomorrow; for you know not what the coming day will bring forth.

¹⁰ You that know not what shall be on the morrow. Hereby he hints at the vanity of our life, and puts us to shame as wearing away upon this the whole of life, in that all our toil is spent on transient evils. This David also says: Surely man walks about in an image; surely he is troubled in vain. That is, about that which is not, but only has subsistence as in a phantom—for such is an image—or about that which has no being of itself, but only as in a likeness and a semblance of the life that truly goes forward.

¹¹ For what is our life? It is a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. Instead of your saying: If the Lord wills, and we live, we will do this, or that. A vapor is an airy composition, exhaled from moisture by fiery warmth, having the slightest substance. For by reason of its extreme thinness it is quickly dispersed by the surrounding air, passing into it and being dissolved, like a little moisture into water. To such a thing he has likened our life, and most aptly. And having interrupted his discourse in the middle with such an illustration, he then, returning, renders what follows upon it. For it runs thus: Go to now, you that say: Today and tomorrow we will go into such a city, and spend there one year, and trade and gain—whereas you ought to say: If the Lord wills, and we live, we will do this and that.

¹² But now you boast in your boastings. Although this is the proper sequence, he does not do this, but having broken the continuity of the discourse with the illustration, he afterward brought in what was lacking, having first shown, through the image of the matter, the vanity of the distraction that comes from boastful pride about this world. For it runs thus: You boast in your boastings. Who? You that know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? and so forth. And by the words, What is your life? having thus prepared the way through this lowly illustration, he so brings in the example, doing this most opportunely: But now you boast in your boastings. The boaster and boastfulness consist in zeal for things that have no real existence. Hence the boaster (ἀλαζών) is so called as one who lives with wandering, that is, with error. Every such boasting is evil.

¹³ Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin. He takes up again the empty boasting, which loves to be born of boastful pride, and, as if drawing his discourse to a conclusion, he infers that it is evil. And if evil, then surely it is also from the Evil One. But those who have been dedicated to the Lord through holy baptism ought not to receive the sowings of the Evil One. And he also brings in the following words.

¹⁴ Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin, he again instructs the false teachers not to dare to teach those things which they themselves have not first accomplished. For blessed, he says, is not the one who shall teach, but the one who shall do and teach. For works must take precedence over words, inasmuch as the righteous man proclaims a faith that is also displayed in deed. For whoever breaks, says the Lord, one of these least commandments, and so teaches men—that is, in those matters in which he himself has not labored—shall be called least; but great is he who teaches after he has done. For the God-man Himself also made His teaching concerning the very things that He had begun to do. Such, it seems to me, is also the saying, He that boasts, let him boast in the Lord, meaning, according to the Lord, using Him as teacher and example. For indeed, when David says, In the Lord shall my soul be praised, he means nothing other than that he who walks according to the commandments of the Lord shall be praised.

5 Chapter Five — Exposition of the fifth chapter

¹ Come now, you rich, weep and wail over the miseries that are coming upon you. He makes a lament over the stinginess and miserliness of the rich, charging them to wail—that is, to mourn—as men who hoard their wealth unto its own ruin and do not spend it on the needy. For only that expenditure of wealth which is laid out upon these is never lost. This is why the author of Proverbs also says: Send forth your bread upon the face of the water[5]—that is, upon what seems to be its dissolution and ruin. [For this is seen to happen to loaves cast upon the water,] yet they are not in fact lost, but by their dissolution they procure refreshment for us. And the refreshment will come at the very hour when our tongue is about to be scorched by the flame yonder.

² Your riches have rotted, and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded with rust, and their rust will be a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh. The rotting of the wealth, he says, or the moth-eaten state of the garments, and the rust upon the silver and the gold, bear witness against you, convicting your ungenerous unwillingness to share. Therefore in the last days as well (he means the coming of the Lord) you will find your wealth, hoarded up for you like fire, turned to your destruction—the very thing the rich man in the Gospels suffered. Like fire, which you have laid up in the last days. This is to be construed together with the phrase your riches, so that it reads thus: Your riches, which you have stored up like fire, and you reveled upon the earth and lived in wanton luxury.

³ Behold, the wages of the laborers who reaped your fields, which has been fraudulently withheld by you, cries out; and the cries of those who harvested have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have reveled upon the earth and lived in wanton luxury. You have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. This is an outcry and an onslaught against the Jewish rulers, who devour the poor and grow fat on the honors paid them by all—yet are being readied for slaughter at the hands of the Roman authorities and by their hands; and this above all because they condemned and put to death the Lord, the only righteous one, who did not wrangle nor cry out.

⁴ You condemned, you murdered the Righteous One, who does not set himself against you. Beyond all dispute, in saying You murdered the Righteous One, he refers this to Christ. By the added clause, who does not set himself against you, he extended the word also to the others who suffered the like at the hands of the Jews. And perhaps he speaks of the Passion concerning him in a prophetic manner as well.

⁵ Be longsuffering therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer awaits the precious fruit of the earth. Having denounced the wanton luxury of the Jewish rulers and their harshness toward the poor, he turns also to the faithful and says: Do not, brethren, on seeing these things, be scandalized and dispirited, as though no vengeance were laid up. He means the assault of the Romans and the captivity of the Jews under them, which he also calls the coming of the Lord—just as John too, when he reclined upon the breast of the Lord, in the words by which he brings in the same Lord speaking concerning his own departure from life: If I will that he remain until I come. For to him likewise the span of this life was prolonged until the capture of Jerusalem, and a little beyond. And that the coming of the Lord, both here and in the case of John, is the utter destruction of Jerusalem, is plain also from the prophet who says: Behold, the Lord is coming; and who shall endure his threat?—that is, since the coming of God brings punishment upon the impious. Moreover John the golden-tongued, in certain of his expository works, unfolding this very phrase, Until I come, means it to signify this saying: the utter destruction of Jerusalem; and he confirms this from the prayer of the three children, who say: So let our sacrifice be in your presence today, and let it be accomplished behind you. For he says: What is the meaning of behind you? After your wrath has passed by. And when did it come to pass? When Nebuchadnezzar was laying Jerusalem waste. So much, then, concerning the coming. And some of the Fathers say this also: that by longsuffering here he means longsuffering toward one another, and by endurance, endurance toward those outside. For a man is longsuffering toward one whom he is also able to requite, but he endures one whom he cannot requite. For this reason endurance is never spoken of with respect to God, but longsuffering; whereas with respect to men, endurance.

⁶ Being longsuffering over it, until it receive the early and the latter rain. The early rain is repentance in youth, accompanied by tears; the latter, that in old age. But all things hang upon the lovingkindness of God; therefore he says, Until it receive.

⁷ Be longsuffering, you also; establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord has drawn near. Do not groan against one another, brethren, that you be not judged. Behold, the Judge stands before the doors. Take, my brethren, as an example of suffering hardship and of longsuffering, the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we call blessed those who endure. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord, that he is very compassionate and merciful. But above all, my brethren, do not swear, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath; but let your yes be yes, and your no be no, that you fall not into hypocrisy. That is to say: let your affirmation be sure and resting upon what is sure, and your denial likewise. Otherwise: Let the witness of your life, he says, be more sure than an oath. But if some shameless person, not put to shame by your manner of life, dares to press an oath upon you, let your yes be yes, and your no be no, in place of the oath. Above all, my brethren, do not swear, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other oath. But let your yes be yes, and your no be no, that you fall not into hypocrisy. By hypocrisy he means condemnation, which follows upon those who swear without restraint and, through the habit of oath-taking, are carried away into perjury; or else the very name signifies here the act of dissembling, which, being one thing, appears as another. How, then, does the one who swears fall into hypocrisy? Being believed, through his oaths, to be truthful, yet, when transgression follows, being shown to be a liar. He forbids swearing by God on account of perjury; and by heaven and the rest, because these too are not to be brought into a place of honor that belongs to God. For all who swear, swear by what is greater. But someone will say: If a man is forced to swear, what is to be done? We will answer that the fear of God is stronger than the constraint of the one compelling. And one might raise a further difficulty regarding the old Law: if the old Law commends the one who swears by the name of the Lord, how is it that grace forbids the doing of this? We will answer, then, that the old Law, leading the Jews away from swearing by idols, enjoined swearing by God—just as it also commanded sacrifice to God, drawing them away from sacrifice to idols; but when it had sufficiently taught them to worship God, then it thrust away the sacrifices as unprofitable, seeking for a sacrifice not the one made through animals, but the contrite soul. And what is this soul? The one wholly consumed, through humility, by the fire of love, such as was Paul’s, who, because some of the faithful were being scandalized, was burning beyond measure.[6]

⁸ Is anyone among you suffering hardship? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him. Let prayer accompany the suffering of hardship, so that the way through the trials may be lighter for the one being tried. Then, once through prayer the things that trouble us have been calmed, and the soul has come back to its proper state, let him at that point sing praise, that good things may be multiplied to him. For, according to Basil the Great, it is the language of hymns that bestows the cheerful and griefless condition upon the soul. For whoever has not so advanced, nor first attained such a condition (which David also calls holiness, when he says, Sing praise to the Lord, you his holy ones, exhorting them), accomplishes only long idle babble.

⁹ Anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, it will be forgiven him. Confess your transgressions to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. This the apostles did even while the Lord was still living among men, anointing the sick with oil.

¹⁰ The supplication of a righteous man, when it is made effectual, avails much. Elijah was a man of like nature with us, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain upon the earth for three years and six months. And again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit. The prayer of the righteous man is made effectual when the one on whose behalf he prays also works together with the one praying, through spiritual self-affliction. For if, while others pray on our behalf, we give ourselves over to wanton luxury and ease and a dissolute life, by this we undo the earnest intensity of the prayer of the one who contends for us, and there comes to pass in our case the saying of the blessed Peter: One building up, and one tearing down—they gain nothing else but toils for their pains.[7]

¹¹ My brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who has turned back a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. This Jeremiah too says, namely: And if you bring forth what is precious out of what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth. For everyone who proclaims his words becomes a mouth of God. For what does he say? For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of my Father that speaks in you. For this reason he also forbids the sinner, through David, to recount his ordinances.

¹² The Catholic Epistle of James: 242 stichoi.[8]