Readers’ Questions – “If Your Eye or Your Hand Causes You to Stumble”
Question:
Is it permissible for a person to pluck out his eye or cut off his hand if it causes him to stumble, according to the saying of the Scripture (Matthew 5:29–30)?
Answer:
The Lord intends to emphasize the necessity of keeping away from stumbling, as He says: “For it is better for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna” (Matthew 5:29–30).
However, this commandment should be taken in its spiritual meaning, not in its literal meaning. Its spiritual meaning can be binding, but the literal meaning is difficult to be binding…
Some saints applied this commandment literally, such as Simon the Tanner, and also some holy women in the Paradise of the Monks.
But it is impossible to apply this commandment literally in a general way.
Otherwise, most of the people in the world would become one-eyed and one-handed, due to the widespread presence of stumbling, especially at certain ages and under particular circumstances.
Many saints have also said that the “eye” may refer to the dearest person to you, and the “hand” to the one who helps you the most. If stumbling comes to you through any of these, you may cut yourself off from their companionship.
We also note that the Church, in some of its canons, has forbidden cutting off parts of the human body to avoid stumbling, such as the canon that forbids one who castrates himself.
Moreover, cutting off the eye or the hand (in the literal sense) does not prevent stumbling or sin, because sin often arises from within the heart.
If the heart is pure, a person can see without stumbling. Therefore, it is better to take the commandment in its spiritual meaning rather than its literal one. This is also supported by the Lord’s saying in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 9:43–48): “It is better for you to enter into life maimed… lame… one-eyed…”
Of course, this cannot be taken literally, because a righteous person in heaven cannot be maimed, lame, or one-eyed!
We cannot imagine that a righteous person in bliss would have such نقص, nor can this be the reward of the righteous for their righteousness and their avoidance of stumbling, no matter what it cost them…!
The Scripture teaches us that “the Spirit gives life, but the letter kills” (2 Corinthians 3:6).
Therefore, we cannot take all commandments in a literal way. This particular commandment was meant by the Lord to explain to us the seriousness of stumbling and the necessity of avoiding it, even if it were to cost the plucking out of an eye or the cutting off of a hand…
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Year Eight (Issue Five) 4-2-1977
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