Therefore if your hand or your foot offend you, cut them off, and cast them from you: it is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed,
rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
All Commentaries on Matthew 18:8 Go To Matthew 18
John Chrysostom
AD 407
He is not saying this about human limbs. Far from it. This is said about friends, about relatives, whom we regard in the rank of necessary limbs. Jesus also said this earlier, and now he says it again. For nothing is so harmful as bad company. For what relationship cannot do, often friendship can do, both for harm and for benefit. So he orders us with great emphasis to cut off those who are harmful to us, implying that these are people who supply temptations to sin. Do you see how he checks the future damage from temptations? First he predicts that they will happen, so that no one should be lazy, but everyone should be awake expecting them. Then he predicts that the evils will be very great. For Jesus did not simply say, “Woe to the world for temptations to sin,” but showed their great damage. For when he says, “But woe to that man by whom temptation comes,” he indicates a great punishment. He does not only mention this, but he increases the fear by adding a comparison. And he supplies incontrovertible reasoning. If they remain your friends, you will not benefit them and you will destroy yourself. If you cut them off, at least you will preserve your own salvation. Then, not content with this, he shows us the way by which we can escape temptations to sin. What is that? The wicked, he says, even if they are very friendly to you, cut them off from your friendship. Therefore if someone’s friendship harms you, cut him off from you. For if at times we cut off our limbs when they are incurable and are doing damage to our other members, how much more should we do this in the case of friends. If the limbs were evil by nature, all this advice and counsel would be useless; the warning of what is preached would be superfluous. If it is not superfluous, as in fact it is not, then it is clear that wickedness comes from the will. The Gospel of Matthew, Homily
