Homilies on Second Timothy

Ver. 25. “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.”

For he that teaches must be especially careful to do it with meekness. For a soul that wishes to learn cannot gain any useful instruction from harshness and contention. For when it would apply, being thus thrown into perplexity, it will learn nothing. He who would gain any useful knowledge ought above all things to be well disposed towards his teacher, and if this be not previously attained, nothing that is requisite or useful can be accomplished. And no one can be well disposed towards him who is violent and overbearing. How is it then that he says, “A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject”? He speaks there of one incorrigible, of one whom he knows to be diseased beyond the possibility of cure.

“If God perhaps will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.”

Ver. 26. “And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil.”

What he says amounts to this. Perhaps there will be a reformation. Perhaps! For it is uncertain. So that we ought to withdraw only from those, of whom we can show plainly, and concerning whom we are fully persuaded, that whatever be done, they will not be reformed. “In meekness,” he says. In this temper, you see, we ought to address ourselves to those who are willing to learn, and never cease from conversing with them till we have come to the demonstration.

“Who are taken captive by him at his will.” It is truly said, “Who are taken captive,” for meanwhile they float in error. Observe here how he teaches to be humble-minded. He has not said, if perhaps you should be able, but, “if perhaps God should grant them a recovery”; if anything be done, therefore, all is of the Lord. Thou plantest, you water but He sows and makes it produce fruit. Let us not therefore be so affected, as if we ourselves wrought the persuasion, even if we should persuade any one. “Taken captive by him,” he says, “to His will.” This no one will say relates to doctrine, but to life. For “His will” is that we live rightly. But some are in the snare of the devil by reason of their life, we ought not therefore to be weary even with respect to these.

“If perhaps,” he says, “they may recover, that are taken captive, unto His will.” Now “If perhaps,” implies much longsuffering. For not to do the will of God is a snare of the devil.

For as a sparrow, though it be not wholly enclosed, but only caught by the foot, is still under the power of him who set the snare; so though we be not wholly subverted, both in faith and life, but in life only, we are under the power of the devil. For “Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven”; and again, “I know you not; depart from me, you that work iniquity.” You see there is no advantage from our faith, when our Lord knows us not: and to the virgins he says the same, “I know you not.” What then is the benefit of virginity, or of many labors, when the Lord knows us not? And in many places we find men not blamed for their faith, but punished for their evil life only; as elsewhere, not reproved for evil lives, but perishing for their pravity of doctrine. For these things hold together. You see that when we do not the will of God, we are under the snare of the devil. And often not only from a bad life, but from one defect, we enter into Hell, where there are not good qualities to counterbalance it, since the virgins were not accused of fornication or adultery, nor of envy or ill-will, nor of drunkenness, nor of unsound faith, but of a failure of oil, that is, they failed in almsgiving, for that is the oil meant. And those who were pronounced accursed in the words, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire,” were not accused of any such crimes, but because they had not fed Christ.