St Nicodemus the Hagiorite, Do Not Bear False Witness, Do Not Slander

And I also want to add that you should be commenting on
the long videos rather than a one minute short video, as
minute long videos are by definition always biased,
because they are only a minute long.

What can we learn when we reflect on the teachings
of St Nicodemus the Hagiorite on the commandment
warning us not to bear false witness against our
neighbor, and also not to slander our neighbor, but to
instead to protect his good reputation?
Why is that slander is often a more dangerous sin
than any other sin we can commit against our
neighbor? Can we commit the sin of slander when
we are spreading the truth about our neighbor?

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video. Feel free to follow along in the
PowerPoint script we uploaded to SlideShare.

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St Nicodemus was born to a wealthy family on a Greek island in
the Aegean Sea in 1749, though it was nominally under Ottoman
rule, it was administered by the Venetians. From an early age he
studied the Eastern Orthodox Church Fathers, but he also was
widely read in the Western classics, learning the Latin, Italian and
French languages, he was a brilliant student. In the chapters we
are currently studying in Christian Morality, in addition to the
Church Fathers, he also occasionally references Plutarch,
Aristotle, and the Greek Cynic philosophers, so he must also be
very familiar with the Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers. His
ascetic habits were a strong part of his faith.

The Holy
Mount
Athos, by
Alphonse
Mucha,
1926

St Nicodemus joined a monastic community on Mount
Athos peninsula. This is a monastic province of many
monasteries, you can only practically enter only by sea,
and women are not permitted to stay overnight. Over his
lifetime he resided at numerous monasteries, studying
under various elders. These communities were granted
relative autonomy by the Ottomans. One reason why he is
so strict in his teachings is he desires to show the Muslims
that the Orthodox Christians are the more devout.

St Nicodemus collaborated with St Makarios on scholarly
projects, they both edited the Greek version of the
Philokalia, the collection of Orthodox classics published by
St Nicodemus and St Makarios. He also edited the Catholic
classics, Spiritual Combat and Treatise on Peace of the
Soul, adding Orthodox practices. The resulting work,
Unseen Warfare, was subsequently supplemented by St
Theophan the Recluse, sometime in the future we will
review this work.

Philokalia: Influential collection of
works of Eastern Church Fathers

St Nicodemus was not sympathetic to the Kollyvades movement,
which was an effort in the late 1700’s to totally reject the
influence of the Western Enlightenment philosophy. But St
Nicodemus was also deeply traditional and deeply revered the
teachings of the Eastern Church Fathers, and was a leader of the
Hesychast movement, which sought to preserve the prayer
tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and is exemplified by
the Jesus Prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner,
often prayed contemplatively with a prayer rope, the prayer
repeated for each knot. He passed away at the age of sixty after a
very productive scholarly life.

Monastery of Dionysius, Monk's Republic of Athos, by Matthias Laurenz Gräff, 2014

St Nicodemus the Hagorite, Do Not Slander

What are we taught by our teachers? Sticks and
stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt
me. Except that this is not true, St Nicodemus
teaches us that King David, in his Psalms, feared
slander more than sticks and stones, and for good
reason, for words harm our reputation, which sticks
and stones can never touch. Wounds heal, but
suspicions linger.

King David, the King of Israel, by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622
Bathsheba Observed by King David, by Jan Matsys, 1500's

St Nikodemus quotes David from his
longest psalm, (Psalm 118/119) “Deliver
me from the false accusation of men, and
I will keep Thy commandments.” He
repeats the words of St Paul, “I praise Thy
name, for Thou has preserved my body
from destruction, and from the snare of
the slanderous tongue.” Our saint
continues, “The wise Solomon exhorts us
to study the Law of the Lord,” “so we can
receive enlightenment, knowledge, and
discretion in our souls so we can guard
against slanders, false testimonies, and
betrayals of deceitful men.”

These are not exact synonyms, for many Church Fathers
and preachers teach us that when we maliciously spread
truths about our neighbor, intending to harm him and his
reputation, we are committing slander. The exception is we
can be more frank when discussing the affairs of political
or cultural leaders, as Luther discussed, and when
providing testimony in a court of law.
Those who slander do grievously hurt others, but their
slanders hurt themselves.

First, slanderers become “sons of
the Devil, becoming disciples and
imitators of the Devil.” “The Devil is
called a slanderer, because he
slandered and accused God to men,
telling Adam and Eve that God, out
of envy, had prevented them from
eating of the Tree of Knowledge,
lest they should become gods.”
Adam and Eve, by Marcantonio
Franceschini, 1680

Second, slanders turn slanderers into
grotesque creatures. In the words of St
Nicodemus:
• The eyes of slanderers “resemble the
eyes of a basilisk,” the large, ugly snake in
Harry Potter. These eyes cannot see the
glorious works of God, but rather “see
the flaws of others,” while they seek to
poison them with the venom of slander.
• The mouths of slanderers are like a deep
pit, and “he that is hated of the Lord shall
fall into it.” St Michael Vanquishing Satan, by
Raphael, 1518

• The tongues of slanderers “are like a
sharpened razor,” with their “slanders
and false witnesses they cut down
and slay the guileless.”
• The lips of slanderers “resemble a
snare.” It was with slanderous lips
that Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss.
• The hands of slanderers “are defiled
by the money they receive” in
payment “for false witness,” they
have blood on their hands from “the
harm and death they caused the
innocent.” The Kiss of Judas, by Simão Rodrigues, around 1600

Worst of all, this sin is easily passed on to
your children. As St Nicodemus teaches us,
“The children of slanderers and false
witnesses do not walk the straight path of
goodness, virtue, and truth,” following God,
but “rather they walk on crooked paths,
precipitous paths of wickedness and
mendacity,” “always stumbling, always falling,
always coming to grief.”
Third, slanderers ruin their own reputation,
and are often hated even by those evil doers
who user their slanders to destroy those who
have been slandered.

How do slanderers hurt those whom they
slander?
First, slanderers “harm people’s
reputations,” they are gas lighters, they
paint the “honorable as dishonorable, the
chaste as unchaste, the pure as impure,
the righteous as ruthless, the brave as
rash, the thrifty as misers.” “They stir up
scandals among friends,” among
acquaintances, among clergy and their
flock, between employers and employees,
between teachers and students.

Envy also leads to slander; we have already discussed the examples
from Scripture that St Nicodemus mentions. King Ahab was
distraught because he envied the vineyard of Naboth, his loving evil
Queen Jezebel promised him the vineyard. She planted false
witnesses at a banquet that falsely accused Naboth of blasphemy,
and after his execution, King Ahab was granted his vineyard. Neither
the prophet Elijah nor the Lord were happy about this turn of events.
Naboth in his Vineyard, by James Smetham, 1856
https://youtu.be/8QHrtKGDzKM

And we also learned that King Ahab and Queen
Jezebel were punished by God for this sin, and as
Jezebel died the wild dogs of Africa tore her body
apart, eating her, leaving only her heels.

Jezebel Devoured
by the Dogs, by
Luca Giordano,
painted 1680

St Nicodemus retells the story of Susanna, where two peeping
Toms tried to coerce her into licentious behavior. When she
refused their lecherous advances, “these elders slandered and
falsely testified that the chaste Susanna was a fornicator and
adulteress; that she who was honorable was dishonorable; that
she who was pure was impure and defiled; and they caused
much distress between that righteous woman and her husband,
and her relatives and the entire people of the Hebrews.” With
Daniel's assistance, Susanna's innocence was established, and
the two elders were put to death.

Susanna and the Elders, by
Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari,
early 1700's
With Daniel's assistance,
Susanna's innocence is
established, and the two elders
are put to death. This painting
depicts the unhappy woman as
she tries to escape the
advances and gazes of the
men. The focus on her body
testifies to her innocence and
virtue, as truth was often
symbolized by a nude woman,
but was also meant to appeal
to male patrons.

Second, “slanderers, and in particular false witnesses, can
harm people’s property.” Bearing false witness can cause
the innocent to lose a legal suit or suffer other financial
loss, people can lose their businesses or their houses, or
more commonly, their jobs. A friend of mine was forced to
retire several years early because a female coworker
falsely accused him of abusive behavior, not even legal
action can erase the slight stain to his reputation.

St Nicodemus mentions the story in Maccabees about how
a slanderer sought to seize the large fund that had been
accumulated in the Temple to care for a multitude of
widows and orphans and the Temple. The slanderer Simon
told King Seleucos that this fund was far more immense
than it was, and that it could be easily seized. But when
the King’s official, Heliodoros, came to seize the treasure,
heavenly beings, possibly angels, prevented him,
frightening him and causing him to abandon this task.

Expulsion of
Heliodorus from
the Temple, by
Francesco
Solimena, 1725

Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, by Raphael, Vatican Museum

Similarly, the Jesuits became skilled fundraisers
because they desired that the schools that they ran
in Europe should be tuition-free, and the story began
to be told that this religious order was fantastically
wealthy. This caused several kings in Europe to envy
this fantastic Jesuit wealth, and the order was shut
down so the Jesuit wealth could be seized by the
kings, which meant that their schools and their
ministries were also shut down.

Third, “slanderers,
and in particular false
witnesses, can harm
people’s lives.”
St Nicodemus
recounts that “the
Chaldeans went
before King
Nebuchadnezzar and
slandered the three
youths, saying that
they were not
worshipping his
image, so he threw
them into the fiery
furnace.”

As you can see in the icon and the stained-glass
window, an angel of the Lord came and protected the
three young men from the flames.

St Nicodemus
recounts that
the “governors
and satraps also
slandered the
prophet Daniel,
so the king
condemned him
to the lion’s
den.”
But God closed
the mouths of
the lions, and
he was unhurt.
Daniel in the Lions' Den, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1616

St Nicodemus also recounts the story of Esther, the
Jewish queen in the harem of the king of Persia, who
risked her own life to save the lives of her people.

Esther Denouncing Haman, by Ernest Normand, 1888
St Nicodemus also
recounts that
“Haman slandered
and betrayed the
entire Hebrew
nation to the king,
falsely testifying
that they did not
observe the royal
laws, that they were
an insubordinate
race, that they were
the enemies of the
king, and that their
laws were contrary
to those of every
nation.”

Haman was planning a pogrom to massacre the Jews
in the Persian empire, but after he was accused by
Esther, the king was convinced of his ill intentions,
and Haman was hung on the gallows he had erected
to hang prominent Jews.

Haman begging Esther for mercy, by Pieter Lastman, 1618

St Nicodemus teaches us that
“the man who is a slanderer, a
betrayer, or a false witness is
another Judas Iscariot, who is
mendacious, deceitful, unjust,
and homicidal,” a plague on the
human race. He points out that
Jesus does not merely call Judas a
demon, a mere minion of Satan,
but he calls them both devils.
Judas Leaving Last Supper, by Carl Bloch, 1800's

“St Basil teaches us that
whoever maligns
another, and also
whoever puts up with
hearing malicious talk,
they both deserve to be
excommunicated from
the Church.”

“The Divine Chrysostom teaches us
that the Devil is called by Holy
Scripture a solitary wild boar
because of his ferocity and
uncleanness. Such is the slanderer,
who also betrays and bears false
witness, since he runs back and
forth like a wild boar, looking for
slanders to concoct against his
brother, and since he rolls around
in the mud of impurities and then
hastens to defile others who are
pure, accusing them of impurity.”

As St Nicodemus teaches us, the
slanderer “breaks up friendships, sheds
blood, denudes orphans, afflicts
widows, destroys houses, wrecks
villages, devastates cities, and
annihilates entire races.” The slanderer
“does not fear God,” “does not show
compassion, does not listen to pleading
or tears or groans. He has only one goal:
to add slander to slander, betrayal to
betrayal, deceit to deceit, falsehood to
falsehood, thereby inflicting harm,
dishonor, loss, and death.”

https://youtu.be/zAAal5p8AX8
Listen to the Accusations of Your Enemies
To understand
this next
teaching, we
must keep in
mind the
saying by the
Greek Cynic
Philosopher
Antisthenes:
“Pay attention
to your
enemies, for
they are the
first to notice
your faults.”

St Isaac the Syrian teaches us that
“he who is truly humble is not
perturbed when wronged, nor
does he defend himself” when he
“suffers injustice. Rather, he
accepts criticisms as truth and is
not concerned about persuading
men that he has been slandered
but asks for forgiveness.”

Here I have substituted criticism for slander, or calumny in
the translation, so the passage makes sense. We must
think the best of our neighbor, we must presume his
criticisms are not slander if we can, for how can we know if
the criticism is valid? And this is true even when the
criticism is meant as slander. We must be especially
forgiving towards our neighbor if we suspect his motives
are pure.
In our next video, we will reflect on St Nicodemus’
teachings on whether Christians can joke and laugh.

Conclusion As St Nicodemus teaches us in his
epilogue: To escape our torments, we
“must make haste to repent, to
refrain our tongue from evil.” We
must “keep the commandments of
the Lord, not taking vengeance, but
we must love our brother,” covering
his sins. Show your brotherly love by
refusing to “condemn him or betray
him,” so the Lord will see that you
indeed possess brotherly love.

This concluding teaching of St Nicodemus is clearly
reflected in the classic Orthodox and Catholic Prayer
of St Ephrem:

Prayer of St Ephrem
O Lord and Master of my life,
take from me a spirit of despondency,
sloth, love of money, and idle talk.
But give to me, your servant,
a spirit of sober-mindedness, humility,
patience, and love.
Yes, O Lord and King,
grant me to see my own sins and not to
judge my brother,
since you are blessed to the ages. Amen.

DISCUSSING THE SOURCES
Christian Morality was published in 1803 when St Nicodemus
was in his fifties, several decades after the publication of the
Philokalia, and it references and repeats the teachings of many
of the Church Fathers in the Philokalia, which can be clearly
traced in the footnotes. My minor complaint is the translators
use several words that are not currently used in English. For
example, “calumnies” I rendered as deceit, and also “jape,”
which is an archaic word meaning jest.
The translators defend St Nicodemus, arguing that his teachings,
properly filtered, indeed should influence our behavior.

The translators state that “because St
Nicodemus reflects the monastic propriety of his
age, and the public behavior and ethical
standards of the centuries in which he lived, he
is often the subject of almost sophomoric
contempt, if not open ridicule, by modern
critics who harshly judge his advisement
against secular music, secular singing and
dancing, and frivolity as inappropriate to
Christian life, not to mention his advocacy of
virginity as a prerequisite for marriage, the
avoidance of keeping pets, and, under the
influence of ruling Islamic customs,” “the veiling
and virtual social isolation of women.”

We need not view all of these
restrictions as applicable to
Christians today. But “we must
realize that St Nicodemus was”
“urging his fellow Christians to
set a pristine example for the
Moslems and Jews in the
society around them.”

This discussion reflects the classic debate between Stoicism and
Epicureanism on the need to live an ascetic life, and the degree
that you can permit entertainment and frivolity into your life, or
whether you should always wear a dour stoic expression, never
showing emotions. What was true in the ancient world was that
you needed to belong to the upper class to be able to afford to
live an Epicurean lifestyle, but that is no longer true today, the
middle class and upper lower classes can afford to go to the
movies and go on vacation and enjoy themselves in ways the
lower classes of antiquity could only dream of.

Some of the later Epicurean philosophers were quite
hedonistic, but in his writings, Epicurus promotes
pleasures enjoyed in moderation, his is almost like a Stoic-
lite type of philosophy.
What were the attitudes of the Stoics to Epicurus? On one
hand the destitute stoic Epictetus, the former slave of a
former slave, detested Epicurus, often condemning his
teachings. On the other hand, the fabulously wealthy
stoic Seneca admired Epicurus, quoting his works often.

https://youtu.be/49Qv3Be86Jw https://youtu.be/m4mcP2F9c4w
https://youtu.be/Dhd543kov-E https://youtu.be/0qHpReZYhv4

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