Scandal
“The wolf catcheth and scattereth the sheep.”—John 10:12
The wolves that catch and scatter the sheep of Jesus Christ, as we read in today’s Gospel, are the authors of scandal, who, not content with destroying themselves, labor to destroy others as well. But God says: “Woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh” (Matt. 18:7). Woe to him who gives scandal and causes others to lose the grace of God. For Origen says that “a person who impels another to sin sins more grievously than the other.”
If, brethren, there be any among you who has given scandal in the past, I want this day to make him aware of the great evil he has done, that he may bewail it and guard against it for the future. I will show, in the first point, the great displeasure which the sin of scandal gives to God; and in the second, the great punishment which God threatens to inflict on the authors of scandal.
First Point.—On the great displeasure which the sin of scandal gives to God.
1. We must first of all explain what is meant by scandal. See how St. Thomas defines it: “Scandal is a word or act which gives one’s neighbor occasion of spiritual ruin” (Summa II-II, q. 45, a. 1). Scandal, then, is a word or act by which you become to your neighbor the cause or occasion of losing his soul. It may be direct or indirect. It is direct when you directly tempt or induce another to commit sin. It is indirect when, by bad example or by your words, you foresee your neighbor’s fall and yet do not refrain from that evil word or that evil act. But scandal, whether direct or indirect, is always a mortal sin when it is in a matter of grave moment.
2. Let us now see the great displeasure given to God when a neighbor’s soul is destroyed. To understand it, we must consider how dear every soul of our neighbor is to God. He has created it to his own image: “Let us make man to our image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Other creatures God made by a fiat, by a nod of his will; but the soul he created by his own breath: “And the Lord breathed into his face the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7).
The soul of your neighbor God has loved from eternity: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3). He has, moreover, created it to be a queen in paradise and a partner in his glory, as St. Peter writes: “That by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). In heaven he will make it a partaker of his own joy: “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matt. 25:21). And he will give himself to it as its reward: “I am thy reward exceeding great” (Gen. 15:1).
3. But above all, nothing shows the value which God sets on a soul more clearly than what the Incarnate Word did to redeem it, seeing it lost through sin. “If you do not believe your Creator,” writes St. Eucharius, “ask your Redeemer how precious you are.” And St. Ambrose, speaking of the care we ought to have for the salvation of our brethren, says: “The great value of a brother’s salvation is known from the death of Christ.” We judge the value of a thing by the price an intelligent purchaser pays for it. Now, since Jesus Christ has purchased the souls of men with his own blood, as the Apostle says—“You are bought with a great price” (1 Cor. 6:20)—we may say that a soul is worth as much as the blood of a God.
Such, indeed, is the language of St. Hilary: Tam copioso munere redemptio agitur, ut homo Deum valere videatur—“So abundant is the gift by which redemption is wrought, that man seems to be worth God himself.” Hence our Savior makes known to us that whatever good or evil we do to the least of his brethren, we do to himself: “So long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40).
4. From all this we may see what bitter displeasure he gives to God who gives scandal and causes a soul to be lost. It is enough to say that he robs God of a child and murders her—a child for whose salvation God has spent his blood and his life. Hence St. Leo calls the author of scandal a murderer: Quisquis scandalizat, mortem infert animae proximi—“Whoever gives scandal brings death to his neighbor’s soul.” He is the most impious of murderers, for he kills not the body but the soul of his brother, and robs Jesus Christ of all his tears, his sorrows, and all that he has done and suffered to gain that soul.
Hence the Apostle writes: “Now when you sin thus against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ” (1 Cor. 8:12). Whoever scandalizes another seems to sin properly against Christ; because, as St. Ambrose says, he who causes a soul to be lost makes Jesus Christ lose a work on which he spent so many years of toil and hardship. It is related that Blessed Albertus Magnus spent thirty years making a head that resembled a human head and uttered certain words; and that St. Thomas, suspecting that this was done by the agency of the devil, took the head and broke it. Blessed Albertus complained to him, saying: “You have broken on me the work of thirty years.” I do not vouch for the truth of this; but it is certain that, when Jesus Christ sees a soul lost through someone’s scandal, he may well reprove its author and say: Wicked wretch, what have you done? You have deprived me of this soul, for which I labored thirty-three years of my life.
5. We read in Scripture that the sons of Jacob, after selling their brother Joseph to certain merchants, came and told their father that a wild beast had devoured him on the way: Fera pessima devoravit eum—“A most evil wild beast has devoured him” (Gen. 37:20). And to make their father believe it, they took Joseph’s coat, dipped it in the blood of a goat, and so presented it to Jacob, saying: “See whether this be thy son’s coat or not” (Gen. 37:32). At this the afflicted father wept and said: “It is my son’s coat: an evil wild beast hath eaten him” (Gen. 37:33).
Just so we may imagine that, when a soul falls into sin, drawn down by one who gives scandal, the devils present to God the garment of that neighbor dipped in the blood of the Immaculate Lamb, Jesus Christ—that is, the grace lost by that scandalized soul, which Jesus Christ had purchased with his blood—and that they say to him: “See whether this be thy son’s coat or not.” And if God could weep, he would weep then more bitterly than Jacob did at the sight of that lost soul, that poor murdered child, and would say: “It is my son’s coat: an evil wild beast hath eaten him.” Therefore the Lord will go in search of the wild beast: Where is it? Where is the beast that has devoured my child? And when he finds it, what will he do with it?
6. “I will,” says the Lord by his prophet Hosea, “meet them as a bear that is robbed of her whelps” (Hos. 13:8). When the bear comes to her den and does not find her whelps, she roams the wood to find whoever took them; and when she finds him, oh, with what fury she rushes upon him to tear him apart! Thus, says the Lord, will he rush upon the author of scandal, who has robbed him of his children.
The author of scandal will answer: But that neighbor of mine is already damned; how can I now repair the evil? And since he is damned through your fault, God will reply, you must pay me for him: “I will require his blood at thy hands” (Ezek. 3:20). It is written in Deuteronomy: “Thou shalt not pity him, but shalt require life for life” (Deut. 19:21). You have caused a soul to be lost; you must lose your own. Let us pass to the second point.
Second Point.—The great punishment with which God threatens those who give scandal.
7. “Woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh” (Matt. 18:7). If great is the displeasure which scandal gives to God, great too must be the punishment that awaits its author. See how Jesus Christ speaks of this punishment: “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).
If a criminal dies on the scaffold, he stirs the compassion of the spectators, who, if they cannot deliver him from death, at least pray to God for him. But were he cast into the depths of the sea, there would be no one even to pity him. A certain author says that Jesus Christ described this kind of punishment for the author of scandal in order to declare him so hateful even to the angels and saints that they have no heart to recommend to God a man who has caused some soul to be lost. “He is declared unworthy even to be seen, much less to be helped” (Mansi, cap. iii. num. 4).
8. St. John Chrysostom says that scandal is so hateful to God that, although he overlooks more grievous sins, he will not let the sin of scandal pass without its merited punishment: Tam Deo horribile est scandalum, ut peccata graviora dissimulet, non autem peccata ubi frater scandalizatur—“So horrible to God is scandal, that he may overlook more grievous sins, but not sins where a brother is scandalized.” God himself first said the same by the prophet Ezekiel, declaring that if anyone “set up the stumbling block of his iniquity … I will make him an example and a proverb, and will cut him off from the midst of my people” (Ezek. 14:7, 8).
And in fact scandal is one of the sins which we find in the sacred Scriptures punished by God with the greatest rigor. Of Eli, simply because he did not correct his sons, who gave scandal by stealing the flesh offered in sacrifice (for parents give scandal not only by bad example, but also by failing to correct their children as they ought), the Lord said: “Behold, I do a thing in Israel: and whosoever shall hear it, both his ears shall tingle” (1 Kings 3:11). And earlier, speaking of the scandal given by the sons of Eli, Scripture says: “Wherefore the sin of the young men was exceeding great before the Lord” (1 Kings 2:17). What was this exceeding great sin? St. Gregory, explaining the passage, says: Quia ad peccandum alios pertrahebant—“Because they drew others to sin.”
And why was Jeroboam likewise so chastised? Because he gave scandal: he “hath sinned, and made Israel sin” (1 Kings 14:16). In the family of Ahab, every member of which was an enemy of God, the most severely chastised was Jezebel; for she was thrown down from a window and then devoured by dogs, which left nothing but her skull and the tips of her hands and feet. And why? Because, as Abulensis writes, “she set Ahab on to every evil.”
9. For the sin of scandal hell was created. “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1). But when did he create hell? It was when Lucifer began to seduce the angels into rebellion against God; and lest he should go on to seduce those who had remained faithful to God, he was banished from heaven immediately after his sin. Hence Jesus Christ said to the Pharisees, who by their bad example scandalized the people, that they were children of the devil, who from the beginning was the murderer of souls: “You are of your father, the devil: he was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).
And when St. Peter gave scandal to Jesus Christ, urging him not to let himself be seized and put to death by the Jews, and thus seeking to prevent him from accomplishing the redemption of mankind, Jesus Christ called him a devil: “Go behind me, Satan; thou art a scandal to me” (Matt. 16:23). And in truth, what other office does the author of scandal perform than that of a minister of the devil? The devils would certainly not gain so many souls as they do, had they not the help of such impious ministers. A scandalous companion does more harm than a hundred devils.
10. On those words of Hezekiah in Isaiah, “Behold, in peace is my bitterness most bitter” (Isa. 38:17), St. Bernard puts these words into the mouth of Holy Church: “Peace from pagans, peace from heretics, but no peace from children.” At present the Church has no idolaters or heretics to persecute her; but she is persecuted by her own children, the scandalous Christians. To catch birds, fowlers carry decoys, certain birds that are blinded and tied so that they cannot fly away. So does the devil act, said St. Ephrem: “When a soul has been taken, she is made a snare to deceive others.” After making a young man fall into sin, the enemy first blinds him and binds him as his own slave, and then makes him his decoy to deceive others and draw them into the net of sin; and he not only impels but even forces him to deceive others. “The enemy,” says St. Leo, “has many whom he compels to deceive others” (Sermon on the Nativity).
11. Miserable wretches! The authors of scandal must suffer in hell the punishment of all the sins they have made others commit. Cesarius relates (bk. 2, c. vi.) that a certain author of scandal died, and at the moment of his death a holy man saw his judgment, in which he was condemned; and then he saw that, when this man reached the gate of hell, all the souls he had scandalized came to meet him and said: Come, accursed one, come and pay for all the sins you made us commit. And so saying, they rushed upon him and, like so many wild beasts, began to tear him to pieces.
St. Bernard says that, when Scripture speaks of other sinners, it holds out hope of amendment and pardon; but when it speaks of the authors of scandal, it speaks of them as of the reprobate, already separated from God and despairing of salvation: Loquitur tanquam a Deo separati, unde hisce nulla spes vitae esse poterit—“It speaks of them as separated from God, whence for these there can be no hope of life.”
12. Behold, then, the deplorable state of those who give scandal by their bad example; and of those who speak immodestly before their companions, before unmarried girls, and even before poor innocent children, who, hearing such words, afterward dwell on them and commit a thousand sins. Think how the guardian angels of those poor children weep at seeing them fallen into sin, and how they cry to God for vengeance against the sacrilegious tongues that have scandalized them. A great chastisement also awaits those who mock and ridicule anyone who does good; for many, to escape the ridicule of others, abandon what is good and give themselves up to a wicked life.
What, then, will become of those who carry messages to arrange some shameful meeting? Or of those who go so far as to boast of the evil they have done? O God, instead of weeping and repenting for having offended the Lord, they laugh and glory in it! There are some who advise others to sin; others who lead others into sin; and others who go so far as to teach how sin is done—a thing the very devils do not do. And what shall we say of those fathers and mothers who, though they could prevent the sins of their children, do not, but allow them to keep company with bad companions, or to frequent certain dangerous houses, and permit their daughters to keep company with young men? Oh, with what scourges shall we see all such scandal-givers chastised on the day of judgment!
13. Perhaps someone among you will say: Then, Father, am I lost, I who have given scandal? Is there no more hope of salvation for me? No, I will not say that you are past hope; the mercy of God is great. He has promised pardon to those who repent. But if you wish to be saved, you are bound to repair the scandals you have given. “Let him,” says Eusebius Emissenus, “who has destroyed himself by the destruction of many, redeem himself by the edification of many” (Hom. x. ad Mon.). You have ruined yourself, and by your scandals have caused many to be lost; you are now bound to repair the harm.
As you have until now drawn others to evil, so now you are bound to draw them to good—by good words and good example, by avoiding sinful occasions, by frequenting the sacraments, by being seen often in church at prayer, and by attending sermons. And from this day forward guard yourself, more than against death, from doing any deed or saying any word that could give scandal to others. “Let their own ruin,” says St. Cyprian, “suffice for those who have fallen” (bk. 1, Letter 3). And St. Thomas of Villanova says: “Let your own sins be enough for you.” What evil has Jesus Christ done to you, that it is not enough for you to have offended him yourself, but you wish to make others offend him too? This is an excess of cruelty.
14. From this day forward, then, guard yourself against giving even the slightest scandal. And if you wish to be saved, flee as far as you can from those who give scandal. These incarnate devils will be damned; but if you do not flee them, you will be damned along with them. “Woe to the world because of scandals,” says the Lord (Matt. 18:7)—meaning that many are lost because they take no care to flee occasions of scandal.
But you may say: That person is my friend; I am under obligations to him; I hope for much from him. But Jesus Christ says: “If thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. It is better for thee, having one eye, to enter into life, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire” (Matt. 18:9). Even though that person were your right eye, you must leave him and see him no more; it is better for you to lose the eye and save your soul, than to keep the eye and go to hell.
Points for Reflection
1. “You are bound to repair the scandals you have given. As you have until now drawn others to evil, so now you are bound to draw them to good—by good words and good example, by avoiding sinful occasions, by frequenting the sacraments, by being seen often in church at prayer, and by attending sermons” (§13)
2. “From this day forward guard yourself, more than against death, from doing any deed or saying any word that could give scandal to others” (§13)
3. “If you wish to be saved, flee as far as you can from those who give scandal. These incarnate devils will be damned; but if you do not flee them, you will be damned along with them” (§14)