Error as Justice

Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Phyle (+2013)

Sunday of the Blind Man, May 23 / June 5, 2005

 

 

One diamond from the countless treasures of patristic wealth is also the following saying of Anthony the Great: “From one’s neighbor come life and death.” Do you treat your brother with love, humility, and respect? The streams of life in Christ will be opened to you by the divine Comforter. Do you wound the conscience, scandalize, condemn, and belittle your neighbor? The gate of the Kingdom closes for you. A particular weakness that marks the pious is condemnation, especially that which is based on a superficial judgment, chiefly on the basis of suspicions. We have referred many times to this subject, but now we shall approach another aspect of the matter.

Condemnation certainly comes from a lack of love and brotherly affection. Further, however, as the Holy Fathers teach, man’s superficiality and his proud confidence in his critical ability lead him to judge, belittle, and despise his brother. But who are you, wretched man, who anticipate the judgment of God? Do you forget that only our Lord, the Knower of hearts, sees the unseen and hidden things of man, and that only His judgment is infallible?

Let us set forth here the holy thoughts of Abba Dorotheos, so that we may deeply realize the whole matter and at last fear the great sin of condemnation. “It happens that a certain brother does some things with simplicity... Yet this simplicity is more pleasing to God than your whole life... But you sit and condemn him, and you condemn your own soul... And if it should happen sometime that the brother falls into sin, how do you know how much he struggled and how much blood he shed before doing the evil, so that ‘his error is almost found as justice before God’?...

For God sees the toil and the affliction which the brother endured before falling, and He has mercy on him and forgives him... And while God has mercy on him, you condemn him and lose your soul... How do you know also how many tears he shed before God for this?... And you saw the sin, but you are ignorant of the repentance...” Let us therefore avoid soul-destroying condemnation, and let us not become hasty judges, and especially strict judges, of others.

Let us do what that holy Elder did when he saw the brother sinning: “Woe is me, for today he has fallen; tomorrow it will certainly be I... And he will repent of his sin, but I will not...” Let us not be superficial and quick to judge; as we have seen, a fall of our fellow man may be, before God, almost as justice. No one knows the disposition of another except our Lord alone; and it is the disposition that gives weight to our actions.

 

Greek source: https://353agios.blogspot.com/2019/01/blog-post_11.html