Category: JUDGMENT

  • One day the monks dismissed a brother, and when St. Serapion asked about the reason, they told him because of the sin in which he fell. Upon hearing this, St. Serapion left their company, saying “I also am a sinner”.

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • Once some brothers praised someone before St. Bimen saying that he hates evil. The saint asked them what did they mean by ‘hates evil’, and when they were confused the saint explained, “To hate evil is to hate the evil things we do, not the things which the others do.”

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • St. Evagrius explains:

    ‘If we judge and condemn ourselves as wicked, we shall see the others chaste and angles. But if we judge and condemn the others as wicked, we shall see ourselves angels and saints’.

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • How strange that everyone sets himself in charge of others!

    How strange that one thinks of the others and of their deeds and the judgments he should utter against them, and the last thing about is himself.

    Believe me, it is a war from the devil by which he wants to attract our attention from ourselves to thinking of the people’s sins, and from repentance to thinking of the people’s acts.

    On the Last Day, God will charge you for your own sins not for the sins of the others.

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • The hardness may be in the use of hurting words.

    It may be in the form of ascribing very bad attributes to the condemned person or uttering such accusations that prejudice his honor, his character, or his mentality. For example the words “you fool” are hurting words which should be punished by hell fire as the Lord said (Mt. 5: 22). How many, actually, are the words and expressions used by people bearing the same meaning of “you fool”.

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • What is the guilt of the hearer that he loses his simplicity and have bad thoughts because of you?

    Because of you, the image of the others may change in his mind and may remain so, affecting his relationship and his dealings with them without the other person knowing the cause of all this! Why all this destruction?

    Therefore, the fathers said that a person who talks wickedly against others, destroys the souls of the hearers and his own as well.

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • When you judge the others, you expose yourself to have your weaknesses revealed.

    You will have your weakness revealed by him whom you judged, by that person’s friends, his beloved ones, and those defending him, or even be revealed for any reason whatsoever by God’s permission, so that you may not sit yourself a judge to condemn others as if you were without blame.

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • Moreover, one who judges others may be treated in the same way by people.

    As the saying goes, ‘Who sifts people, will be bolted by them’. One who always finds faults with the others is often treated the same, and as he reveals the weaknesses of the others, his own weaknesses are revealed by them. All are under the same weakness, he who condemns, and he who is condemned.

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • Do not judge the others then, not merely out of compassion for them, but out of compassion for yourself.

    Out of compassion for yourself avoid the consequences of judging others. You may be subject to be forsaken by the grace, to be condemned on the Day of Judgment, or to suffer falling in the same sin for which you judged your brothers as in the story of some old father who condemned hardly a youth who fell in sin, making him fall in doubt and finally leave the monastery to the world. God permitted that the old father suffer in his old age the sin he never experienced in his youth.

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • St. Dorotheus said:

    Who judges someone in his heart and opens his mouth against him will fall in the same sin for which he judged his brother as the divine help will have forsaken him.

    Judge Not Others
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III