25-08-2026, Tuesday of Twenty First Week in Ordinary Time
ἁρπαγῆς καὶ ἀδικίας (Gk) (harpagēs kai adikias) (Graspingness and impotence En) (Mt 23:25)
OUTSIDE and INSIDE, these two words in their fatal opposition sum up the whole illness of hypocrisy. Jesus hammers home the opposition no less than four consecutive times, using almost identical language, in this and the following three verses. The contradictions between external appearances and interior realities in the same person or social group manifest the greatest evil of religious hypocrisy, which is to destroy the integrity of a person and shatter the organic unity and welfare of a community.
The previous (fourth) Woe showcased the gulf that hypocrisy can carve out between exterior ritual observances and interior spiritual virtues. Now this fifth Woe intensifies the probing by showing that, if the soul lacks the essential God-like virtues that alone give it life, it is not simply going to be empty and neutral but is in fact, by default, already “full of extortion and rapacity”.
The literal translation for the two maladies of the soul would be “graspingness” (ἁϱπαγή, harpagé) and “impotence” or “incontinence”, in the sense of “lack of self-control” (ἁϰϱασία, akrasia). We cannot encounter the first of these words, ἁϱπαγή, without thinking at once of Philipians 2:6, where St. Paul describes the mind of Christ, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (ἁϱπαγμόν)” (Phil 2:6). The word Paul uses is a slight variation of the one we find in Matthew. This equivalence powerfully reminds us of the whole point of these Woes. Jesus is trying to implant into the hearts of both the historical Pharisees and us an attitude and actions like his own. The very divinity of Christ makes him not grasp at his divinity; rather, it impels him to empty out the substance of his Divine Being so as to nourish others and so glorify his Father.
The second term, ἁϰϱασία, literally means “powerlessness” or “impotence”, implying, “not having command over oneself”. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man” (Mt 15:19-20). Instead of the heart being the source of good, it is powerless and brings out evil.
Only the powerful intervention of grace can give us the courage to reverse such a situation of self-defensive falsehood and to face squarely the reality of the evil within us. Otherwise, the gulf between the interior corruption and the exterior appearance of purity will only continue to widen until our conscience is torn asunder. “first cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean”: external ritual actions, can only express, support, and ingrain, but never substitute, the critical moral decisions that take place in the heart and in the will. Any truly significant change in our person must originate interiorly and radiate outward, kindled and nourished by grace.
What about you and me? Do we struggle ἁρπαγῆς and ἀδικίας? Do I appear holy, rather then be holy? Let us ask for an infilling of God’s grace to become holy, then we don’t need to appear holy.