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THE blessed Apostle, like a true and spiritual physician, either seeing
this disease, which springs from the spirit of accidie, already creeping
in, or foreseeing, through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, that it would
arise among monks, is quick to anticipate it by the healing medicines of
his directions. For in writing to the Thessalonians, and at first, like a
skilful and excellent physician, applying to the infirmity of his patients
the soothing and gentle remedy of his words, and beginning with charity,
and praising them in that point, that this deadly wound, having been
treated with a milder remedy, might lose its angry fostering and more
easily bear severer treatment, he says: "But concerning brotherly charity
ye have no need that I write to you: for you yourselves are taught of God
to love one another. For this ye do toward all the brethren in the whole of
Macedonia." He first began with the soothing application of praise, and
made their ears submissive and ready for the remedy of the healing words.
Then he proceeds: "But we ask you, brethren, to abound more." Thus far he
soothes them with kind and gentle words; for fear lest he should find them
not yet prepared to receive their perfect cure. Why is it that you ask, O
Apostle, that they may abound more in charity, of which you had said above,
"But concerning brotherly charity we have no need to write to you"? And why
is it necessary that you should say to them: "But we ask you to abound
more," when they did not need o be written to at all on this matter?
especially as you add the reason why they do not need it, saying, "For you
yourselves have been aught of God to love one another." And you add a third
thing still more important: hat not only have they been taught of God, but
also that they fulfil in deed that which they are taught. "For ye do this,"
he says, not to one or two, but "to all the brethren;" and not to your own
citizens and friends only, but "in the whole of Macedonia." Tell us then, I
pray, why it is that you so particularly begin with this. Again he
proceeds, "But we ask you, brethren, to abound the more." And with
difficulty at last he breaks out into that at which he was driving before:
"and that ye take pains to be quiet." He gave the first aim. Then he adds a
second, "and to do your own business;" and a third as well: "and work with
your own hands, as we commanded you;" a fourth: "and to walk honestly
towards those that are without;"a fifth: "and to covet no man's goods." Lo,
we can see through that hesitation, which made him with these preludes put
off uttering what his mind was full of: "And that ye take pains to be
quiet;" i.e., that you stop in your cells, and be not disturbed by rumours,
which generally spring from the wishes and gossip of idle persons, and so
yourselves disturb others. And, "to do your own business," you should not
want to require curiously of the world's actions, or, examining the lives
of others, want to spend your strength, not on bettering yourselves and
aiming at virtue, but on depreciating your brethren. "And work with your
own hands, as we charged you;" to secure that which he had warned them
above not to do; i.e., that they should not be restless and anxious about
other people's affairs, nor walk dishonestly towards those without, nor
covet another man's goods, he now adds and says, "and work with your own
hands, as we charged you." For he has clearly shown that leisure the reason
why those things were done which he blamed above. For no one can be
restless or anxious about other people's affairs, but one who is not
satisfied to apply himself to the work of his own hands. He adds also a
fourth evil, which springs also from this leisure, i.e., that they should
not walk dishonestly: when he says: "And that ye walk honestly towards
those without." He cannot possibly walk honestly, even among those who are
men of this world, who is not content to cling to the seclusion of his cell
and the work of his own hands; but he is sure to be dishonest, while he
seeks his needful food; and to take pains to flatter, to follow up news and
gossip, to seek for opportunities for chattering and stories by means of
which he may gain a footing and obtain an entrance into the houses of
others. "And that you should not covet another man's goods." He is sure to
look with envious eyes on another's gifts and boons, who does not care to
secure sufficient for his daily food by the dutiful and peaceful labour of
his hands. You see what conditions, and how serious and shameful ones,
spring solely from the malady of leisure. Lastly, those very people, whom
in his first Epistle he had treated with the gentle application of his
words, in his second Epistle he endeavours to heal with severer and sterner
remedies, as those who had not profited by more gentle treatment; and he no
longer applies the treatment of gentle words, no mild and kindly
expressions, as these, "But we ask you, brethren," but "We adjure you,
brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw from every
brother that walketh disorderly." There he asks; here he adjures. There
is the kindness of one who is persuading; here the sternness of one
protesting and threatening. "We adjure you, brethren:" because, when we
first asked you, you scorned to listen; now at least obey our threats. And
this adjuration he renders terrible, not by his bare word, but by the
imprecation of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: for fear lest they might
again scorn it, as merely man's word, and think that it was not of much
importance. And forthwith, like a well-skilled physician with festering
limbs, to which he could not apply the remedy of a mild treatment, he tries
to cure by an incision with a spiritual knife, saying, "that ye withdraw
yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not according to
the tradition which ye received of us." And so he bids them withdraw from
those who will not make time for work, and to cut them off like limbs
tainted with the festering sores of leisure: lest the malady of idleness,
like some deadly contagion, might infect even the healthy portion of their
limbs, by the gradual advance of infection. And when he is going to speak
of those who will not work with their own hands and eat their bread in
quietness, from whom he urges them to withdraw, hear with what reproaches
he brands them at starting. First he calls them "disorderly," and "not
walking according to the tradition." In other words, he stigmatizes them as
obstinate, since they will not walk according to his appointment; and
"dishonest," i.e., not keeping to the right and proper times for going out,
and visiting, and talking. For a disorderly person is sure to be subject to
all those faults. "And not according to the tradition which they received
from us." And in this he stamps them as in some sort rebellious, and
despisers, who scorned to keep the tradition which they had received from
him, and would not follow that which they not only remembered that the
master had taught in word, but which they knew that he had performed in
deed. "For you yourselves know how ye ought to be followers of us." He
heaps up an immense pile of censure when he asserts that they did not
observe that which was still in their memory, and which not only had they
learned by verbal instruction, but also had received by the incitement of
his example in working.
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