Homilies on First Corinthians — Homily 21

St. John Chrysostom

1. 0. Greeting
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11

Am I not an Apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?

Inasmuch as he had said, If meat make my brother to stumble I will eat no flesh forever; a thing which he had not yet done, but professed he would do if need require: lest any man should say, You vaunt yourself at random, and art severe in discourse, and utterest words of promise, a thing easy to me or to any body; but if these sayings come from your heart, show by deeds something which you have slighted in order to avoid making your brother stumble: for this cause, I say, in what follows he is compelled to enter on the proof of this also, and to point out how he was used to forego even things permitted that he might not give offense, although without any law to enforce his doing so.

And we are not yet come to the admirable part of the matter: though it be admirable that he abstain even from things lawful to avoid offense: but it is his habit of doing so at the cost of so much trouble and danger. For why, says he, speak of the idol sacrifices? Since although Christ had enjoined that those who preach the Gospel should live at the charge of their disciples, I did not so, but chose, if need were, to end my life with famine and die the most grievous of deaths, so I might avoid receiving of those whom I instruct.

Not because they would otherwise be made to stumble, but because his not receiving would edify them: a much greater thing for him to do. And to witness this he summons themselves, among whom he was used to live in toil and in hunger, nourished by others, and put to straits, in order not to offend them. And yet there was no ground for their taking offense, for it would but have been a law which he was fulfilling. But for all this, by a sort of supererogation he used to spare them.

Now if he did more than was enacted lest they should take offense, and abstained from permitted things to edify others; what must they deserve who abstain not from idol sacrifices? And that, when many perish thereby? A thing which even apart from all scandal one ought to shrink from, as being the table of demons.

The sum therefore of this whole topic is this which he works out in many verses. But we must resume it and make a fresh entrance on what he has alleged. For neither has he set it down thus expressly as I have worded it; nor does he leap at once upon it; but begins from another topic, thus speaking;