And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.
Read Chapter 18
John Chrysostom
AD 407
And so our sins become greater, and not only from this but also from the benefits and honor which we enjoy from them. If you want to learn how our sins against God are like ten thousand talents, or more in fact, and even much more, I will try to show you briefly. But I fear, lest to those who are inclined to wickedness and love continually to sin, I should appear to provide them with still greater security; or that I might drive the meeker sort to despair, and that they should repeat the despairing question of the disciples: “Who then can be saved?” But nevertheless I will continue on in the hope that I may make those who pay attention more secure and more amenable. For those who suffer an incurable disease and feel no pain are untouched by these words and do not change from their natural wickedness and inertia. And even if in the future they derive from my words greater occasion for contempt, that should be attributed not to this kind of argument but to their own insensibility. What I...
What then says the other? Have patience with me, and I will pay you all. But he did not regard even the words by which he had been saved (for he himself on saying this was delivered from the ten thousand talents), and did not recognize so much as the harbor by which he escaped shipwreck; the gesture of supplication did not remind him of his master's kindness, but he put away from him all these things, from covetousness and cruelty and revenge, and was more fierce than any wild beast, seizing his fellow-servant by the throat.
What doest thou, O man? Do you not perceive, you are making the demand upon yourself, thou an thrusting the sword into yourself, and revoking the sentence and the gift? But none of these things did he consider, neither did he remember his own state, neither did he yield; although the entreaty was not for equal objects.
