Chapter 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. [1]