Chapter 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.