Homilies on the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Hebrews

NPNF (V1-14)St. Chrysostom505[4.] Ver. 15 . “Looking diligently 3403 lest any man come short of the grace of God; lest anyroot of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled: lest there be any fornicatoror profane person.” Dost thou see how everywhere he puts the common salvation into the handsof each individual? “Exhorting one another daily” (he says) “while it is called To-day.” ( c. iii. 13.) Do not then cast all [the burden] on your teachers; do not [cast] all upon them who have the ruleover you: ye also (he means) are able to edify one another. Which also he said in writing to theThessalonians, “Edify one another, even as also ye do.” ( 1 Thess. v. 11 .) And again, “Comfortone another with these words.” ( 1 Thess. iv. 18 .) This we also now exhort you.[5.] If ye be willing, ye will have more success with each other than we can have. For ye bothare with one another for a longer time, and ye know more than we of each other’s affairs, and yeare not ignorant of each other’s failings, and ye have more freedom of speech, and love, and intimacy;and these are no small [advantages] for teaching, but great and opportune introductions for it: yewill be more able than we both to reprove and to exhort. And not this only, but because I am butone, whereas ye are many; and ye will be able, however many, to be teachers. Wherefore I entreatyou, do not “neglect this gift.” ( 1 Tim. iv. 14 .) Each one of you has a wife, has a friend, has aservant, has a neighbor; let him reprove him, let him exhort him.For how is it not absurd, with regard to [bodily] nourishment, to make associations for messingtogether, and for drinking together, and to have a set day whereon to club with one another, as theysay, and to make up by the association what each person being alone by himself fails short of—asfor instance, if it be necessary to go to a funeral, or to a dinner, or to assist a neighbor in anymatter—and not to do this for the purpose of instruction in virtue? Yea, I entreat you, let no manneglect it. For great is the reward he receives from God. And that thou mayest understand, he whowas entrusted with the five talents is the teacher: and he with the one is the learner. If the learnershould say, I am a learner, I run no risk, and should hide the reason, 3404 which he received of God,that common and simple [reason], and give no advice, should not speak plainly, should not rebuke,should not admonish, if he is able, but should bury [his talents] in the earth (for truly that heart isearth and ashes, which hides the gift of God): if then he hides it either from indolence, or fromwickedness, it will be no defense to him to say, ‘I had but one talent.’ Thou hadst one talent. Thououghtest then to have brought one besides, and to have doubled the talent. If thou hadst broughtone in addition, thou wouldst not have been blamed. For neither did He say to him who broughtthe two, Wherefore hast thou not brought five? But He accounted him of the same worth with himwho brought the five. Why? Because he gained as much as he had. And, because he had receivedfewer than the one entrusted with the five, he was not on this account negligent, nor did he use thesmallness [of his trust, as an excuse] for idleness. And thou oughtest not to have looked to him whohad the two; or rather, thou oughtest to have looked to him, and as he having two imitated him whohad five, so oughtest thou to have emulated him who had two. For if for him who has means anddoes not give, there is punishment, how shall there not be the greatest punishment for him who isable to exhort in any way, and does it not? In the former case the body is nourished, in the latterthe soul; there thou preventest temporal death, here eternal.3403ἐ πισκοποῦντες3404τὸν λόγον , includes “ word, ” and “ doctrine. ”731