But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
All Commentaries on Matthew 11:22 Go To Matthew 11
John Chrysostom
AD 407
To these same things let us also listen: since not for the unbelievers only, but for us also, has He appointed a punishment more grievous than that of the Sodomites, if we will not receive the strangers that come in unto us; I mean, when He commanded to shake off the very dust: and very fitly. For as to the Sodomites, although they committed a great transgression, yet it was before the law and grace; but we, after so much care shown towards us, of what indulgence should we be worthy, showing so much inhospitality, and shutting our doors against them that are in need, and before our doors our ears? Or rather not against the poor only, but against the apostles themselves? For therefore we do it to the poor, because we do it to the very apostles. For whereas Paul is read, and you attend not; whereas John preaches, and you hear not: when will you receive a poor man, who will not receive an apostle?
In order then that both our houses may be continually open to the one, and our ears to the others, let us purge away the filth from the ears of our soul. For as filth and mud close up the ears of our flesh, so do the harlot's songs, and worldly news, and debts, and the business of usury and loans, close up the ear of the mind, worse than any filth; nay rather, they do not close it up only, but also make it unclean. And they are putting dung in your ears, who tell you of these things. And that which the barbarian threatened, saying, You shall eat your own dung, and what follows; Isaiah 36:12 this do these men also make you undergo, not in word, but in deeds; or rather, somewhat even much worse. For truly those songs are more loathsome even than all this; and what is yet worse, so far from feeling annoyance when you hear them, you rather laugh, when you ought to abominate them and fly.
But if they be not abominable, go down unto the stage, imitate that which you praise, or rather, do thou merely take a walk with him that is exciting that laugh. Nay, you could not bear it. Why then bestow on him so great honor? Yea, while the laws that are enacted by the Gentiles would have them to be dishonored, you receive them with your whole city, like ambassadors and generals, and dost convoke all men, to receive dung in their ears. And your servant, if he say anything filthy in your hearing, will receive stripes in abundance; and be it a son, a wife, whoever it may, that does as I have said, you call the act an affront; but if worthless fellows, that deserve the scourge, should invite you to hear the filthy words, not only are you not indignant, thou dost even rejoice and applaud. And what could be equal to this folly?
But dost you yourself never utter these base words? Why what is the profit? Or rather, this very fact, whence is it manifest? For if you did not utter these things, neither would you at all laugh at hearing them, nor would you run with such zeal to the voice that makes you ashamed.
For tell me, are you pleased at hearing men blaspheme? Do you not rather shudder, and stop your ears? Surely I think you do. Why so? Because you blaspheme not yourself. Just so do thou act with respect to filthy talking also; and if you would show us clearly, that you have no pleasure in filthy speaking, endure not so much as to hear them. For when will you be able to become good, bred up as you are with such sounds in your ears? When will you venture to undergo such labors as chastity requires, now that you are falling gradually away through this laughter, these songs, and filthy words? Yea, it is a great thing for a soul that keeps itself pure from all this, to be able to become grave and chaste; how much more for one that is nourished up in such hearings? Do you not know, that we are of the two more inclined to evil? While then we make it even an art, and a business, when shall we escape that furnace?
Heardest thou not what Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord? Philippians 4:4 He said not, in the devil. When then will you be able to hear Paul? When, to gain a sense of your wrong actions? drunken as you are, ever and incessantly, with the spectacle I was speaking of. For your having come here is nothing wonderful nor great; or rather it is wonderful. For here you come any how, and so as just to satisfy a scruple, but there with diligence and speed, and great readiness. And it is evident from what you bring home, on returning thence.
For even all the mire that is there poured out for you, by the speeches, by the songs, by the laughter, you collect and take every man to his home, or rather not to his home only, but every man even into his own mind.
And from things not worthy of abhorrence you turn away; while others which are to be abhorred, so far from hating, thou dost even court. Many, for instance, on coming back from tombs, are used to wash themselves, but on returning from theatres they have never groaned, nor poured forth any fountains of tears; yet surely the dead man is no unclean thing, whereas sin induces such a blot, that not even with ten thousand fountains could one purge it away, but with tears only, and with confessions. But no one has any sense of this blot. Thus because we fear not what we ought, therefore we shrink from what we ought not.
And what again is the applause? What the tumult, and the satanical cries, and the devilish gestures? For first one, being a young man, wears his hair long behind, and changing his nature into that of a woman, is striving both in aspect, and in gesture, and in garments, and generally in all ways, to pass into the likeness of a tender damsel. Then another who is grown old, in the opposite way to this, having his hair shaven, and with his loins girt about, his shame cut off before his hair, stands ready to be smitten with the rod, prepared both to say and do anything. The women again, their heads uncovered, stand without a blush, discoursing with a whole people, so complete is their practice in shamelessness; and thus pour forth all effrontery and impurity into the souls of their hearers. And their one study is, to pluck up all chastity from the foundations, to disgrace our nature, to satiate the desire of the wicked demon. Yea, and there are both foul sayings, and gestures yet fouler; and the dressing of the hair tends that way, and the gait, and apparel, and voice, and flexure of the limbs; and there are turnings of the eyes, and flutes, and pipes, and dramas, and plots; and all things, in short, full of the most extreme impurity. When then will you be sober again, I pray you, now that the devil is pouring out for you so much of the strong wine of whoredom, mingling so many cups of unchastity? For indeed both adulteries and stolen marriages are there, and there are women playing the harlot, men prostituting, youths corrupting themselves: all there is iniquity to the full, all sorcery, all shame. Wherefore they that sit by should not laugh at these things, but weep and groan bitterly.
What then? Are we to shut up the stage? it will be said, and are all things to be turned upside down at your word? Nay, but as it is, all things are turned upside down. For whence are they, tell me, that plot against our marriages? Is it not from this theatre? Whence are they that dig through into chambers? Is it not from that stage? Comes it not of this, when husbands are insupportable to their wives? Of this, when the wives are contemptible to their husbands? Of this, that the more part are adulterers? So that the subverter of all things is he that goes to the theatre; it is he that brings in a grievous tyranny. Nay, you will say, this is appointed by the good order of the laws. Why, to tear away men's wives, and to insult young boys, and to overthrow houses, is proper to those who have seized on citadels. And what adulterer, will you say, has been made such by these spectacles? Nay, who has not been made an adulterer? And if one might but mention them now by name, I could point out how many husbands those harlots have severed from their wives, how many they have taken captive, drawing some even from the marriage bed itself, not suffering others so much as to live at all in marriage.
What then? I pray you, are we to overthrow all the laws? Nay, but it is overthrowing lawlessness, if we do away with these spectacles. For hence are they that make havoc in our cities; hence, for example, are seditions and tumults. For they that are maintained by the dancers, and who sell their own voice to the belly, whose work it is to shout, and to practise everything that is monstrous, these especially are the men that stir up the populace, that make the tumults in our cities. For youth, when it has joined hands with idleness, and is brought up in so great evils, becomes fiercer than any wild beast. The necromancers too, I pray you, whence are they? Is it not from hence, that in order to excite the people who are idling without object, and make the dancing men have the benefit of much and loud applause, and fortify the harlot women against the chaste, they proceed so far in sorcery, as not even to shrink from disturbing the bones of the dead? Comes it not hence, when men are forced to spend without limit on that wicked choir of the devil? And lasciviousness, whence is that, and its innumerable mischiefs? You see, it is thou who art subverting our life, by drawing men to these things, while I am recruiting it by putting them down.
Let us then pull down the stage, say they. Would that it were possible to pull it down; or rather, if you be willing, as far as regards us, it is pulled down, and dug up. Nevertheless, I enjoin no such thing. Standing as these places are, I bid you make them of no effect; which thing were a greater praise than pulling them down.
Imitate at least the barbarians, if no one else; for they verily are altogether clean from seeking such sights. What excuse then can we have after all this, we, the citizens of Heaven, and partners in the choirs of the cherubim, and in fellowship with the angels, making ourselves in this respect worse even than the barbarians, and this, when innumerable other pleasures, better than these, are within our reach?
Why, if you desire that your soul may find delight, go to pleasure grounds, to a river flowing by, and to lakes, take notice of gardens, listen to grasshoppers as they sing, be continually by the coffins of martyrs, where is health of body and benefit of soul, and no hurt, no remorse after the pleasure, as there is here.
You have a wife, you have children; what is equal to this pleasure? You have a house, you have friends, these are the true delights: besides their purity, great is the advantage they bestow. For what, I pray you, is sweeter than children? What sweeter than a wife, to him that will be chaste in mind?
To this purpose, we are told, that the barbarians uttered on some occasion a saying full of wise severity. I mean, that having heard of these wicked spectacles, and the unseasonable delight of them; why the Romans, say they, have devised these pleasures, as though they had not wives and children; implying that nothing is sweeter than children and wife, if you are willing to live honestly.
What then, one may say, if I point to some, who are nothing hurt by their pastime in that place? In the first place, even this is a hurt, to spend one's time without object or fruit, and to become an offense to others. For even if you should not be hurt, you make some other more eager herein. And how can you but be yourself hurt, giving occasion to what goes on? Yea, both the fortune-teller, and the prostitute boy, and the harlot woman, and all those choirs of the devil, cast upon your head the blame of their proceedings. For as surely as, if there were no spectators, there would be none to follow these employments; so, since there are, they too have their share of the fire due to such deeds. So that even if in chastity thou were quite unhurt (a thing impossible), yet for others' ruin you will render a grievous account; both the spectators', and that of those who assemble them.
And in chastity too you would profit more, did you refrain from going there. For if even now you are chaste, you would have become chaster by avoiding such sights. Let us not then delight in useless argument, nor devise unprofitable apologies: there being but one apology, to flee from the Babylonian furnace, to keep far from the Egyptian harlot, though one must escape her hands naked. Genesis 39:12
For so shall we both enjoy much delight, our conscience not accusing us, and we shall live this present life with chastity, and attain unto the good things to come, by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom be glory and might, now and ever, and world without end. Amen.
