Homilies on Romans — Homily 16

St. John Chrysostom

1. 0. Greeting

Rom. IX. 1

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.

Did I not seem yesterday to you to have spoken some great and exorbitant things of Paul's love toward Christ? And great indeed they were, too great for any words to express. Yet what you have heard today are as far above those things, as those things were above ours. And yet I did not think they could be exceeded, still when I came to what has been read today it did appear far more glorious than the whole of the former. And that he was aware of this himself he shows by his exordium. For as on the point of entering upon greater things than those, and therefore liable to be disbelieved by the generality, he first uses a strong asseveration about the matter he is going to speak of; which many are in the habit of doing when they are going to say somewhat which is not believed by the generality, and about which they feel the utmost certainty in their own minds. Hence he says, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, and my conscience bears witness,

Ver. 2, 3. That I have a great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ.

What do you say, O Paul? From Christ, your beloved One, from Whom neither kingdom nor hell, nor things visible nor intelligible, nor another world as great, would separate you, is it from Him that you would now be accursed? What has happened? Have you changed, have you given over that love? No, he replies, fear not. Rather I have even made it more intense. How then is it that you would fain be accursed, and seekest a separation, and a removal to such a distance, that after it there is no possibility of finding a more distant one? Because I love Him exceedingly, he may reply. How, pray, and in what manner? For the things seem a riddle. Or rather, if you will, let us learn what the curse is, and then we will question him upon these points, and shall understand this unspeakable and extraordinary love. What then is the curse? Hear his own words, If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. anathema, [[1 Corinthians 16.22]] That is, let him be set apart from all, removed from all. For as in the case of a thing dedicated ( ἀ νάθημα ), which is set apart for God, no one would venture so much as to touch it with his hand or even to come near it; so too with a man who is put apart from the Church, in cutting him off from all, and removing him as far off as possible, he calls him by this name ( ἀ νάθεμα ) in a contrary sense, thus with much fear denouncing to all men to keep apart from him, and to spring away from him. For the thing set apart, no one, from respect of it, ventures to come near to. But from him who is cut off, all men separate themselves from a very opposite feeling. And so the separation is the same, and both the one and the other are equally removed from the generality. Still, the mode of separation is not the same, but in this case it is the oppos