Chapter 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[1]—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.[2]

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.[3]

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.[4]