Homilies on First Corinthians

“And through your meat he that is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died.”

For there are two things which deprive you of excuse in this mischief; one, that he is weak, the other, that he is your brother: rather, I should say, there is a third also, and one more terrible than all. What then is this? That whereas Christ refused not even to die for him, you can not bear even to accommodate yourself to him. By these means, you see, he reminds the perfect man also, what he too was before, and that for him He died. And he said not, “For whom even to die was your duty;” but what is much stronger, that even Christ died for his sake. Did your Lord then not refuse to die for him, and do you so make him of none account as not even to abstain from a polluted table for his sake? Yea, do you permit him to perish, after the salvation so wrought, and, what is still more grievous, 'for a morsel of meat?' For he said not, “for your perfectness,” nor “for your knowledge,” but “for your meat.” So that the charges are four, and these extremely heavy: that it was a brother, that he was weak, and one of whom Christ made so much account as even to die for him, and that after all this for a “morsel of meat” he is destroyed.