Excerpts from St. John Chrysostom from the Gospel of Matthew speaking on John the Baptist and his exhortation to the Pharisees in calling them a ‘Brood of Vipers’ when they came to see hear him speak in the desert.

Excerpt 1

Homily XI 3:   For to flee from wickedness is not enough, but you must show forth 

also great virtue. For let me not have that contradictory yet ordinary case, that 

refraining yourselves for a little while, you return unto the same wickedness. For 

we are not come for the same objects as  the prophets before. No, the things that 

are now are changed, and are more exalted, for as much as the Judge hereforth is 

coming, His very self, the very Lord of the kingdom, leading unto greater self-

restraint, calling us to heaven, and drawing us upward to those abodes. For this 

cause do I unfold the doctrine also touching hell, because both the good things 

and the painful are forever. Do not therefore abide as you are, neither bring 

forward the accustomed pleas, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the noble race of your 

ancestors."

Excerpt 2

See how for the time he drew them off from their vain imagination about things 

of the body, and from their refuge in their forefathers; in order that they might 

rest the hope of their salvation in their own repentance and continence? See how 

by casting out their carnal relationship, he is bringing in that which is of faith?

6. See you how great is the wisdom of the Baptist? how, when He Himself is 

preaching, He said everything to alarm, and fill them with  anxiety; but when 

He is sending men to Him, whatever was mild and apt to recover them: not 

bringing forward the axe, nor the tree that is cut  down and burnt, and cast 

into the fire, nor the wrath to come, but remission of sins, and removing of 

punishment, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, 

and adoption, and brotherhood, and a partaking of the inheritance, and

an abundant supply of the Holy Spirit. For all these things he obscurely 

denoted, when he said, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit;" at 

once, by the very figure of speech, declaring the abundance of the grace 

(for he said not, "He will give you the Holy Spirit," but "He will baptize you 

with the Holy Spirit"); and by the specification of fire on the other hand 

indicating the vehement and uncontrollable quality of His grace.

And mark again how he rouses the hearer, by putting that first which was 

to take place after all. For the Lamb was to be slain, and sin to be blotted out, 

and the enmity to be destroyed, and the burial to take place, and the 

resurrection, and then the Spirit to come. But none of these things does he 

mention as yet, but that first which was last, and for the sake of which all the 

former were done, and which was fittest to proclaim His dignity; so that when 

the hearer should be told that he was to receive so great a Spirit he might search 

with himself, how and in what manner this shall be, while sin so prevails; that 

finding him full of thought and prepared for that lesson, he might thereupon 

introduce what he had to say touching the Passion, no man being any more 

offended, under the expectation of such a gift.

Wherefore he again cried out, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, which bears the 

sin of the world." He did not say, "which remits," but, that which implies a more 

guardian care, "which hears it." For it is not all one, simply to remit, and to take 

it upon Himself. For the one was to be done without peril, the other with death.

In short explanation what is being taught is that; simply believing and fleeing 

from doing wicked things is not enough, we must also bear good fruit, destroy 

the carnal and build the spirit and by God’s grace we are saved. 

Jesus the Christ said: if you love me, keep my commandments.  This is the task 

of every Christian on earth not simply of clergy, monks, and nuns.

Be still and know that I am God!

May you be Blessed.

+William

Monk Michael

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