It is a Sin to Judge Others
March 2
(The Teaching of Saint Athanasios, Not to Condemn Everyone Who Sins.)
By Archpriest Victor Guryev
March 2
(The Teaching of Saint Athanasios, Not to Condemn Everyone Who Sins.)
By Archpriest Victor Guryev
We ought not to judge others, first, because the human heart is deep as the sea, and the inner dispositions of the heart are known to God alone; second, because in judging our neighbor we can almost always be mistaken; and finally, third, because over us all there is one true Judge — God — and we ourselves are not judges, but those under judgment.
Saint Athanasios says:*
“Let us reflect, brethren, on the Lord who says: 'Judge not, that you be not judged.' And again the Apostle teaches us, saying: 'Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.' And again: 'Take heed to yourself, lest you also be tempted.'
Many have sinned openly, but secretly repented, and received forgiveness and accepted the Holy Spirit. And many of those whom we consider sinners are righteous before God. We have seen their sins, but we do not know that they have repented.
You knew the jester Philemon in Egypt. He was considered a sinner, yet once he accomplished so great a deed that he became equal to the Great Makarios. Therefore, if we see those who sin, let us not condemn them. Sometimes the one whom we condemn may walk ten steps away, and in that short time he may change for the better.
Judas the betrayer on Thursday was with Christ and the Apostles, and the thief was crucified among murderers. Yet on Friday Judas went into outer darkness, while the thief entered paradise with Christ.
Therefore it is not fitting to condemn one who has sinned and thereby seize for oneself the rank of Christ; and he who condemns becomes like the antichrist. But if we ourselves are judged, that is another matter: being innocently condemned, we shall then receive forgiveness of sins from the Lord.
No one, brethren, is without sin — only God alone. Who could have thought that the Lord would forgive such sinners as the harlot, the publican, and King Manasseh, who for fifty-two years served idols and taught all the people of Israel lawlessness? Yet even such a sinner He forgave, and the rest of his time he spent in repentance.
Let us, therefore, brethren, judge ourselves and not others; let us watch ourselves and not others. Is it for us to condemn, when we ourselves are covered from head to foot with the sores of sin, and are ourselves before others worthy of condemnation, punishment, and expulsion from our Father’s house?
Is it for us to condemn, when the sword of God’s justice hangs over our own heads?
Is it for us to condemn, when we who judge others may be ten times or a hundred times worse than they?
No, this is no time for condemnation; rather, in order to escape righteous condemnation at the Judgment of God, we must condemn ourselves and ask for mercy.
Grant me, O Lord, to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother. Amen.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
Notes:
* The passage attributed to Saint Athanasios is not from Athanasios of Alexandria. It is in fact a well-known moral exhortation from the Russian ascetical tradition and is most commonly associated with Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724–1783). The structure, pastoral tone, rhetorical questioning, and concluding prayer — “Grant me, O Lord, to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother” — are characteristic of Tikhon’s homiletic style and frequently appear in his collected spiritual instructions.
In older Russian devotional collections (especially 19th-century printings), patristic sayings were sometimes introduced with “Святый Афанасий говорит…” (“Saint Athanasios says…”) in a loose or edifying sense rather than as a strict historical citation. Over time, such headings were copied forward as formal attributions.
However:
- The anecdote (from the Apophthegmata) of Philemon the jester (скоморох Филимон) in Egypt,
- The moralistic comparison of Judas and the Good Thief,
- The strongly penitential Russian rhetorical cadence,
- And the concluding prayer identical in form to the Lenten Prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian,
all indicate Russian homiletic provenance, not 4th-century Alexandrian patristics.
