St. John Chrysostom: "It Is Not Enough to Leave Egypt: One Must Also Travel to the Promised Land"

 


It is not enough to escape evil, if we are to attain the kingdom of the heavens, but many works of virtue are needed. So that we might escape Gehenna, we must cleave from wickedness; so that we might attain the kingdom, we must cleave to virtue….Not doing good is a part of evil; for this is idleness, and idleness is a part of evil; rather, not a part, but the foundation and root of wickedness; for idleness has taught all evil...For to not do good is to do evil….

Because of this, the blessed Paul, too, leading us from wickedness, leads us towards virtue. For what is the use, tell me, of cutting away all the thorns, if you do not plant good seeds? For, the toil remaining incomplete, it turns again to our loss….He who does not weep does not, because of that, laugh, but he is in a middle state. So, too, here, he who is not bitter is not thereby good, nor he who is not wrathful thereby compassionate; but another effort is needed so that we might obtain the good.

 

Source: St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians XVI.1-2, in PG 62:111-113.  St. John is here commenting on Eph 4:31-32.  The title of this post is a purported quote from this homily, though I did not find it therein; the quote is in Thomas Merton, Life and Holiness (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1964), 15.  The image of the Coptic Sower icon was found by an image search; it appears to have originally been offered for sale on Etsy, but the link is dead.

Translation ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Discuss the Eastern Church: A Grammatical Primer

Image
"To count the terms used in theology as of primary importance, and to endeavor to trace out the hidden meaning in every phrase and in every syllable, is a characteristic wanting in those who are idle in the pursuit of true religion, but distinguishing all who get knowledge of the mark of our calling...The beginning of teaching is speech." --St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit I.2 I've often written here of the need to reclaim the Church's bipulmonary nature, that is, the fact that she has two lungs, as Pope Bl. John Paul II loved to say, the West and the East.  I've recently realized that just having people mention the Eastern Church is not enough (though it is certainly a great start): people must also know what they're talking about in regards to Eastern Christianity.  One of the greatest aspects that needs to be cleared up is simply the matter of terminology.  Thus I here attempt to give a quick grammatical primer on terms that are often
Read more

St. Gregory Palamas on the Graven Images

Image
"You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God" (Ex 20:4-5a). God's forbidding of graven images is a part of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) that I do not hear mentioned often among Catholics. Since the Decalogue does not have a strict division in the Scriptures themselves, there are multiple ways to divide them. The division commonly used by the Orthodox and most Protestants lists "I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before Me" and "You shall not make for yourself a graven image" as two separate commandments, while combining "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods" and "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" into one commandment. The division commonly used by Catholics and ma
Read more

Franciscan Fasting

Image
 "Induebar cilicio, humiliabam in ieiunio animam meam, et oratio mea ad sinum meum revertetur." "I wore sackcloth, I afflicted myself with fasting.  I prayed with head bowed on my bosom."--Ps 35:13. No Christian life is without suffering, for Christ suffered.  Even the most joyful Christian recognizes the necessity of suffering, whether voluntary or no.  The Seraphic Father, St. Francis of Assisi, was no different in this regard.  Yet so many portray him as solely a lover of God's creation (which he most assuredly was).  How many know of his tears, his tears so plentiful that they ran furrows in his cheeks, that they took away his sight?  Who knows of his public self-deprecation when he took a spoonful of meat broth while fasting?  Who knows of his flight into a thorn bush to conquer the passions of the flesh? St. Francis was not just a man of joy who loved God's creation, but he was a man who suffered for the Lord, who mortified himself for t
Read more