God is not a God of war and fighting. Make war and fighting to cease, both that which is against Him, and that which is against thy neighbor. Be at peace with all men, consider with what character God saveth thee. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." (Matt. v. 9.) Such always imitate the Son of God: do thou imitate Him too. Be at peace. The more thy brother warreth against thee, by so much the greater will be thy reward. For hear the prophet who saith, "With the haters of peace I was peaceful." (Ps. cxx. 7, Sept.) This is virtue, this is above man's understanding, this maketh us near God; nothing so much delighteth God as to remember no evil. This sets thee free from thy sins, this looseth the charges against thee: but if we are fighting and buffeting, we become far off from God: for enmities are produced by conflict, and from enmity springs remembrance of evil.
Cut out the root, and there will be no fruit. Thus shall we learn to despise the things of this life, for there is no conflict, none, in spiritual things, but whatever thou seest, either conflicts or envy, or whatever a man can mention, all these spring from the things of this life. Every conflict hath its beginning either in covetousness, or envy, or vainglory. If therefore we are at peace, we shall learn to despise the things of the earth. Hath a man stolen our money? He hath not injured us, only let him not steal our treasure which is above. Hath he hindered thy glory? Yet not that which is from God, but that which is of no account. For this is no glory, but a mere name of glory, or rather a shame. Hath he stolen thy honor? Rather not thine but his own. For as he who committeth injustice doth not so much inflict as receive injustice, thus too he who plots against his neighbor, first destroyeth himself.
For "he who diggeth a pit for his neighbor, falleth into it." (Prov. xxvi. 27.) Let us then not plot against others, lest we injure ourselves. When we supplant the reputation of others, let us consider that we injure ourselves, it is against ourselves we plot. For perchance with men we do him harm, if we have power, but we injure ourselves in the sight of God, by provoking Him against us. Let us not then harm ourselves. For as we injure ourselves when we injure our neighbors, so by benefiting them we benefit ourselves. If then thy enemy harm thee, he hath benefited thee if thou art wise, and so requite him not with the same things, but even do him good. But the blow, you say, remains severe. Consider then that thou dost not benefit, but punishest him, and benefitest thyself, and quickly you will come to do him good. What then? Shall we act from this motive? We ought not to act on this motive, but if thy heart will not hear other reason, induce it, saith he, [676] even by this, and thou wilt quickly persuade it to dismiss its enmity, and wilt for the future do good to thine enemy as to a friend, and wilt obtain the good things which are to come, to which God grant that we may all attain in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[671] ["Happy" would be more exact, but "blessed" has a fixed association with the passage quoted from the Sermon on the Mount.--J.A.B.]
[672] [Chrys. had little notion of scientific precision in the use or interpretation of language. The word en, "in," sometimes introduces the instrument, where we in English say "with"; but it would be hard to find any passage in which it is clearly equivalent to sun, "with," i.e. in company with, in connection with.--J.A.B.]
[673] [It is evident from the connection that Chrys. connects "the Lord is at hand" with what follows, and not (as Meyer wrongly states) with what precedes. Yet recent commentators generally connect it with what precedes, and are pretty certainly right.--J.A.B.]
[674] [These are hasty jottings by Chrys. or a reporter, and might easily be altered in copying. He can hardly have meant to define "just" by "of good report," yet so the Greek stands; or else (as in some documents) he defines "of good report" by "if there be any virtue," etc. The abridgment in the Catena may have caught the real meaning. It omits "whatsoever thing are just," and puts together the three remaining clauses as the occasion of the remark which follows. Or perhaps "i.e. saith he" is a corrupt addition, and all four clauses should be simply taken together; for the remark applies to them all.--J.A.B.]
[675] [All of Field's mss. here insert "For nothing is such an enemy of our nature as vice," which, however, seems here out of place, and fits well below, where it is placed by the altered text.--J.A.B.]
[676] i.e. St. Paul, Rom. xii. 20, on which passage see St. Chrys., who there fully states this view, perhaps the only one that fully explains the difficulty.