In illud Exeuntes pharisaei

On the phrase, "The Pharisees went out and took counsel." All of you who are disciples of Elijah, who did not despise the poor table of the widow, lodge with us. For such a modest table of words has been prepared among us, having one loaf upon it—not one that the mill ground, and hands kneaded, and fire perfected, but one that a virgin field caused to bloom without plow and seed, and the cross ripened, and the Father perfected, and twelve baskets of the apostles harvested. This loaf Mary bore, and the Church received it, and it is eaten by us every day, and remains undiminished. Having placed this loaf upon my modest table for you, I wished to bind my tongue's instrument with silence, but the treacherous ambush of the God-fighting Jews, woven against our Savior, compels even stones to speak. For what did we hear read just now? "And the Pharisees went out," it says, "and took counsel against Jesus, how they might destroy him." And what is the reason for which they plot to destroy the Lord? That on the Sabbath day he healed a man, and stretched out the idle and withered hand on a day of idleness to work. O the insensibility of the Jews, who do not understand that the right hand of Adam in paradise, which touched the tree and was withered by the transgression, had to be remolded again by its own potter! Or that the right hand stained by the devil through the bloodshed of the godless idols had to be stretched out again bright toward heaven by its own creator!

But they are distressed at a man’s benefaction and the salvation of a soul, and they teach the idleness of the Sabbath, yet they are ignorant of the miracle-working of Jesus. For why, O Pharisees, were you not distressed, or did you not devise such things against Manasseh, when he sawed Isaiah in two, when he sacrificed your sons and daughters to demons, and established the houses of God as precincts of idols? Why did you not bring such a counsel against Herod, when he unjustly slaughtered the infants and bereaved mothers; when one could see the infants like unripe ears of grain lying in a single cut of iron, not yet having the kernel of the heart firm, nor yet having the awns of hair grown, but being at the very softest stage of milk nourishment, slain by the violent hail-like rage of Herod; when wailings and lamentations of men and women were heard in the squares and streets of the city, there of fathers with distracted minds and mothers with disheveled hair bitterly mourning over the unjust slaughter of their untimely children; when Bethlehem was reddened with the blood of the infants, and the unripe must of unripe grapes was mingled with the warm tears of their parents; when the faces of fathers were distorted with wailing, and the entrails of mothers were twisted with pangs, and the milk-bearing fountains of breasts were prematurely dried up; when in the breasts of mothers the breath, confined with difficulty, moved irregularly about the nostrils; when the eyes of fathers and mothers imitated springs of water, and cast down silver-colored drops of gushing tears from cheeks to the ground?

when the hair of women was torn by their own nails in great folly with rending, and what locks ought to have been hidden, they paraded in the intoxication of grief? But thinking the opposite, you also do the opposite: and you release murderers and those liable to death, while you punish the innocent and just, though the law says: You shall not kill an innocent and just person. O disorderly order, and lawless law, sent from the devil, written by demons, preserved by the Jews until now! What kind of law is this, that murderers are spared, while this man who grants life to the slain is destroyed? For they deemed it fit that Pilate release Barabbas, who was found guilty of insurrection and murder, but they deemed it fit that Jesus, who brought to life those slain by the devil, be crucified. And the Pharisees went out, it says, and took counsel how to destroy him. O ungrateful mind, and counsel full of folly! The fountain of good things gushed forth benefits to them like a river, but they, even while drawing the grace, belched forth murderous plans in their hearts.

Those who had their wounds were healed and freed from their pains; but those who had no wounds in their body, yet were stung by envy, were in agony. Their hungry in the deserts were fed to fullness; but those in the abundance of faith were being destroyed by faithlessness. The water was changed into wine; but those who had not tasted the wine, intoxicated by envy, were carried about. They saw the flows of blood of the woman with a hemorrhage stopped; but those wasting away with envy were dripping. Their demoniacs, freed from demons, were restored to sanity; but those driven by envy raged worse than the demoniacs. Their blind, having no eyes, were given light; but those having eyes were darkened. Of the deaf, as we have just heard, the helix of hearing was opened; but their heart, giddy, revolved plans of murder. The sea, calming its own waves, prepared itself for the Master's passage; but their heart foamed through the mouth with death-dealing waves of thoughts. The heaviest winds calmed the violent storm of the breath into a gentle breeze; but those shaken by the squall of envy whistled a storm of the cross. O envy, root of death, the complex disease of the heart, sharpest nail! For what nail is so sharp that it pierces the heart that holds it as envy does? And what disease so disfigures the beauty of the face as envy withers the sweet-blooming flower of the soul, love? Fire quenches water, but countless springs of teachers do not stop envy.

One whetstone cleans away the rust of iron, but the five stones of David roused envy in Saul all the more. It is said that the lizard is green, but there is nothing greener than the envious. For just as a worm, gradually eating away the heart of a tree, dries it up, so envy, gradually devouring the heart of the one who harbors it, withers him. And whatever we may say, beloved, about envy, we have not yet begun to describe its wickedness; neither the tongues of orators, nor the words of philosophers, nor the utterances of teachers can express it. So the fulfillment of the law is love of the Word, and the fulfillment of murder is the wickedness of envy. O envy, a pitch-black, Tartarean, shipwreck-bearing vessel! Your shipmaster is the devil, your helmsman the serpent, and Cain your lookout. For the devil gave you the cargo of evils; the serpent, steering Adam, brought him to the shipwreck of death; and Cain is your lookout because, through you, envy, he himself first committed murder. Your mast from the beginning in paradise is the disobedience of the tree; your ropes are the chains of sins; your passengers are the envious; your sailors are the demons; your oars are deceits; your prow is hypocrisy; your deckhands are the envious. O ship that bears countless evils! If you seek hypocrisy, it is found there; if deceit, it is born there. Envy dwells there, along with hatreds, fights, treachery, contentiousness, slander, evil-speaking, blasphemy, and all that we may mention and all that we may omit—all these the Tartarean ship of envy carries. This ship of envy is a flood

could not sink it, but Jesus sank it by the power of the Spirit, in the font of baptism. This ship had iron anchors, but they were melted into the nails of Christ; this ship had a sail, but the devil, taking it, hewed it into a cross; this ship had ropes, but Judas took them and hanged himself. The Jews, embarking on this ship, struck the rock concerning faith and were shipwrecked. For this reason, even now the Jews swim in the depth of ignorance. However, as many of them as are able to grasp the Christ-bearing merchant ship are saved; the others perish by the salty death of unbelief. And would that, even while in the deep, they had run to Jonah in the whale; for perhaps, learning from him piety in Christ, they would, living with him, be cast up by the whale at Nineveh. But now, having closed the eyes of their heart, they neither see the light-bearer of piety standing in the middle of the land, flashing faith, and flee to him; nor do they live by fleeing to John, the herald of repentance. "And the Pharisees, going out," it says, "took counsel how to destroy him." "And the Pharisees, going out," it says. From where? Not from envy, but from the law. For if they had not gone out from the law, they would not have insulted the Lawgiver of the law. "And the Pharisees, going out." From where? From the law that says, "You shall not kill an innocent and just person." "And the Pharisees, going out." From where? From the commandment of God that enlightens the eyes of the heart.

The commandment of the Lord is clear, illuminating eyes. —And the Pharisees went out and took counsel, how they might destroy him. And the Pharisees went out. From where? From the commandment, from the law, from life. For those who plot death for another are themselves the first to abandon the light of life. And the Pharisees went out and took counsel. And the writer did not say from whom, stirring our mind to inquiry. And the Pharisees went out and took counsel. From whom? It is clear: from the devil, the murderer from the beginning. And the Pharisees went out and took counsel, how they might destroy him. The "how"—in what manner? By stone? By sword? By fire or water? And their counselor, the devil, recalling the wood from the beginning, through which he killed Adam, flees to it again, and counsels to crucify Jesus on a tree. But he did not know that that tree would both undo the ancient transgression of the tree and raise up life for men. And the Pharisees went out and took counsel, how they might destroy him. O most evil counsel, sown through envy and exposed through envy! O vain counsel! For they do not know that God is not destroyed. For they will dissolve the earthen lamp of the body, but they cannot extinguish the inextinguishable torch of his divinity. And the Pharisees went out and took counsel, how they might destroy him. O wondrous thing and new mystery! Jesus came to seek out and save the lost, and these seek to destroy the finder of the lost.

For what reason, tell us, O Jews, do you plot such things against him? But they are ashamed to speak; let us expose their shame everywhere. For why, it is said, does he raise the dead? And why does he heal the sick? Why does he speak well? Why does he act well? Why does he teach well? For all these charges they plot to destroy him. When young children go out taking branches, proclaiming his victory beforehand through the branches, and saying in his praise, "Hosanna in the highest," they are stabbed by the swords of envy, for the praises of the envied are arrows to the envious. And they come to Jesus and say to him, "Do you not hear what these are saying?" And they did not know that what was written was being fulfilled prophetically: "From the mouth of infants and sucklings you have fashioned praise." When Jezebel forged false letters against Naboth, you gladly tolerated it; when Pilate writes the good letters on the title, you are indignant and forbid them to be written. For what do they say? "Do not write that 'The King of the Jews.' Do not write," instead of "The truth," "Let no one be benefited, let no one be whole for piety." Surely they would not have been so indignant against those who wrote the dramas of the dancers, nor even now would the many listen to the songs of the demons. And concerning those they do not grieve, but concerning the divine teachings, that they are written, they are distressed. And is it not then worse than every evil that the foolish talk of Philistion should be written, but the doxologies of Jesus, through which we are led to heaven, should not be written?

But even if there was some teacher who was unskilled in speech, yet speaking the things of God, would it not be better for his writings to be recorded than the demonic mythologies of the Greeks? For it is beneficial for the young to be educated by chanting the utterances of theological teachers, even if they happen to be unpolished, having a blameless mind, and not to be driven mad into licentiousness by being occupied with the teachings of demons. Do not write. Why, do not write? For what harm does it do you? Of what money does the writing of the truth deprive you? Another did not pain his hand with the eagerness of writing, and they beat their breasts. But even if the Pharisees said these things to Pilate, and prevented him from writing the letters of the truth, he, though being a pagan, said to them: What I have written, I have written. This teaching is also fitting for us, so that when the heretics advise us to depart from the faith, we may say to them: What we have written, we have written. And the Pharisees, having gone out, held a council on how to destroy him. But Jesus, having learned of this, withdrew from there. Having learned, not by learning from another, but having known by himself; for he was, and is, a knower of hearts, as John the Evangelist says: For he had no need, he says, for anyone to tell him about the man. But Jesus, having learned of this, withdrew from there, not fearing death, but awaiting the time of the cross.

For he ought first to have raised the dead, healed the sick, filled many who were hungry, strengthened many in the faith, and then come to his renowned death—or rather, bridal chamber. He ought first to have set up the wood of the mystery of the cross, and then, with fervent spirit, to have rushed down upon those lying in Hades. But Jesus, perceiving this, withdrew from there. Where no deceit appears, he flees; where murder is contrived, he departs; where love is woven, there the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwell. Let us therefore weave, beloved, the threefold love—not with deceitful tongues, but with industrious hands—so that Emmanuel may be with us, to whom belong glory and power unto the ages of ages. Amen.