Homilies on Second Corinthians

⁵ And withal observe heedfully one thing more, in praying to say none of those things that provoke your Master; neither draw near [to pray] against enemies. For if to have enemies be a reproach, consider how great the evil to pray against them. For need is that thou defend yourself and show why you have enemies: but thou even accusest them. And what forgiveness shall you obtain, when thou both revilest, and at such a time when yourself needest much mercy. For you drew near to supplicate for your own sins: make not mention then of those of others, lest you recall the memory of your own.

For if you say, 'Smite mine enemy,' you have stopped your mouth, you have cut off boldness from your tongue; first, indeed, because you have angered the Judge at once in beginning; next, because thou asks things at variance with the character of your prayer. For if you come near for forgiveness of sins, how do you discourse of punishment? The contrary surely was there need to do, and to pray for them in order that we may with boldness beseech this for ourselves also. But now you have forestalled the Judge's sentence by your own, demanding that He punish them that sin: for this deprives of all pardon.

But if you pray for them, even if you say nothing in your own sins' behalf, you have achieved all. Consider how many sacrifices there are in the law; a sacrifice of praise, a sacrifice of acknowledgment, a sacrifice of peace, a sacrifice of purifications, and numberless others, and not one of them against enemies, but all in behalf of either one's own sins or one's own successes. For do you come to another God? To him you come that said, “Pray for your enemies.” How then do you cry against them?

How do you beseech God to break his own law? This is not the guise of a suppliant. None supplicates the destruction of another, but the safety of himself. Why then do you wear the guise of a suppliant, but hast the words of an accuser? Yet when we pray for ourselves, we scratch ourselves and yawn, and fall into ten thousand thoughts; but when against our enemies, we do so wakefully. For since the devil knows that we are thrusting the sword against ourselves, he does not distract nor call us off then, that he may work us the greater harm.

But, says one, 'I have been wronged and am afflicted.' Why not then pray against the devil, who injures us most of all. This you have also been commanded to say, “Deliver us from the evil one.” He is your irreconcileable foe, but man, do whatsoever he will, is a friend and brother. With him then let us all be angry; against him let us beseech God, saying, “Bruise Satan under our feet;” for he it is that breeds also the enemies [we have]. But if you pray against enemies, you pray so as he would have you pray, just as if for your enemies, then against him.

Why then letting him go who is your enemy indeed, do you tear your own members, more cruel in this than wild beasts. 'But,' says one, 'he insulted me and robbed me of money;' and which has need to grieve, he that suffered injury, or he that inflicted injury? Plainly he that inflicted injury, since while he gained money he cast himself out of the favor of God, and lost more than he gained: so that he is the injured party. Surely then need is not that one pray against, but for him, that God would be merciful to him.

See how many things the three children suffered, though they had done no harm. They lost country, liberty, were taken captive and made slaves; and when carried away into a foreign and barbarous land, were even on the point of being slain on account of the dream, without cause or object. What then? When they had entered in with Daniel, what prayed they? What said they? Dash down Nabuchodonosor, pull down his diadem, hurl him from the throne? Nothing of this sort; but they desired “mercies of God.” And when they were in the furnace, likewise.

But not so ye: but when you suffer far less than they, and oftentimes justly, you cease not to vent ten thousand imprecations. And one says, 'Strike down my enemy as You overwhelmed the chariot of Pharaoh;' another, 'Blast his flesh;' another again, 'Requite it on his children.' Recognize ye not these words? Whence then is this your laughter? Do you see how laughable this is, when it is uttered without passion. And so all sin then discovers how vile it is, when you strip it of the state of mind of the perpetrator.

Should thou remind one who has been angered of the words which he said in his passion, he will sink for shame and scorn himself and wish he had suffered a thousand punishments rather than those words to be his. And should you, when the embrace is over, bring the unchaste to the woman he sinned with, he too will turn away from her as disgusting. And so do ye, because you are not under the influence of the passion, laugh now. For worthy to be laughed at are they, and the words of drunken old gossips; and springing from a womanish littleness of soul.

And yet Joseph, though he had been sold and made a slave, and had tenanted a prison, uttered not even then a bitter word against the authors of his sorrows. But what says he? “Indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews;” and adds not by whom. For he feels more ashamed for the wickedness of his brethren, than they who wrought them. Such too ought to be our disposition, to grieve for them who wrong us more than they themselves do. For the hurt passes on to them. As then they who kick against nails, yet are proud of it, are fit objects of pity and lamentation on account of this madness; so they who wrong those that do them no evil, inasmuch as they wound their own souls, are fit objects for many moans and lamentations, not for curses.

For nothing is more polluted than a soul that curses, or more impure than a tongue that offers such sacrifices. You are a man; vomit not forth the poison of asps. You are a man; become not a wild beast. For this was your mouth made, not that you should bite but that you should heal the wounds of others. 'Remember the charge I have given you,' says God, 'to pardon and forgive. But you beseech Me also to be a party to the overthrow of my own commandments, and devourest your brother, and reddenest your tongue, as madmen do their teeth on their own members.'

How, do you think, the devil is pleased and laughs, when he hears such a prayer? And how, God is provoked, and turns from and abhors you, when you beseech things like these? Than which, what can be more dangerous? For if none should approach the mysteries that has enemies: how must not he, that not only has, but also prays against them, be excluded even from the outer courts themselves? Thinking then on these things, and considering the Subject of the Sacrifice, that He was sacrificed for enemies; let us not have an enemy: and if we have, let us pray for him; that we too having obtained forgiveness of the sins we have committed, may stand with boldness at the tribunal of Christ; to whom be glory for ever. Amen.