John Chrysostom

How shall we be enabled to mortify those inordinate affections that mar our soul? Only by the precious blood of Christ, if it is received with full assurance, for this will have power to extinguish every disease; and together with this the divine Scriptures carefully heard, and almsgiving added to our hearing. And then only shall we live; for now surely we are in no better state than the dead. For as long as we live, those passions live within us. But we must necessarily perish. And unless we first mortify them here, they will be sure to kill us in the other life. Even before death, they will exact of us, in this life, the utmost penalty. Every inordinate passion is both cruel and tyrannical and insatiable, and it never ceases to devour us every day. For “their teeth are the teeth of a lion,” or rather even far more fierce. For the lion, as soon as ever he is satisfied, wants to leave the carcass that has fallen. But these passions neither are satisfied, nor do they leave the one whom they have seized, until they have set one near the devil.

When a maidservant is rebelling but then sees her master coming, she grows humble and returns to her good behavior. So too the paralytic’s body had revolted like the maidservant, and this caused the paralysis. But when the body saw its master coming near, it returned to its good behavior and resumed its proper discipline. And the word of Christ accomplished all this. Yet the words were not mere words but the words of God, of which the prophet said, “The works of his words are mighty.” For if God’s words made humankind when they did not exist, much more will they make humanity whole again and restore it to health even though it has grown feeble and weak with disease?

On unessential points one must not spend many words. And besides, the sequel is enough to bear him out on this point, so now the discourse is for all in common. “ ‘But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass in the last days,’ says the Lord God.” Nowhere as yet the name of Christ or his promise, but the promise is that of the Father.