Homilies on Colossians

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” All Paul's letters are holy; but those sent while he was in bonds have something more, such as the one to the Ephesians, the one to Philemon, the one to Timothy, the one to the Philippians, and this present one. For this one too was sent while he was a prisoner, as he says when he writes: “for which I am also in bonds, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.” This one seems to be later than the Letter to the Romans. For he wrote that one before he had yet seen the Romans, but this one when he had already seen them and was near the end of his preaching. And this is clear from the following: in the Letter to Philemon he says, “being such a one as Paul the aged,” and makes a request on behalf of Onesimus; but in this one he sends Onesimus himself, as he says, “with Onesimus, the faithful and beloved brother,” calling him faithful and beloved and a brother. That is why he speaks with confidence in this letter: “from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven”; for the preaching had already been going on a long time. Later than this one, I think, is the one to Timothy, written at the very end of his life; for there he says, “For I am already being poured out.” This one, then, is later than the one to the Philippians; for in that one he appears to be at the beginning of his bonds in Rome. Why do I say that these letters have something more? In this respect: that he writes them while in bonds, as if a champion were writing letters in the midst of battle and while setting up trophies; and so he himself did. For he too knew that this was a great thing; writing to Philemon he says, “whom I have begotten in my bonds.” He said these things so that we should not be vexed at hardships, but should even rejoice. Philemon was there among these people; for writing there he says, “and to Archippus our fellow soldier”; and here, “Say to Archippus.” This man seems to me to have been entrusted with some office in the church. He had not seen them when he wrote to them. Concerning the others he shows this in many places, but concerning these hear him saying, “and as many as have not seen my face in the flesh”; and again, “For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit.” So well did he know that his presence was everywhere a great thing; and he always sets himself before them even when absent. When he punishes the man who committed sexual immorality, see how he sets himself in the court: “For I indeed,” he says, “as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged as though present”; and again, “I will come to you, and I will know not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power”; and again, “not only when I am present with you, but much more in my absence.” “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.” It is worth stating also the subject, which we have found from the letter. What is it, then? They were being brought near to God through angels, and they kept many observances, both Jewish and Greek. These things, then, he corrects. That is why at the very beginning he says, “by the will of God.” See, again he has put “by.” “And Timothy the brother,” he says. So he too was an apostle. And it is likely that he too was known to them. “To the saints at Colossae.” It was a city of Phrygia; this is clear from Laodicea being near. “And faithful brothers in Christ.” Tell me, he says, whence have you become holy? Whence are you called faithful? Is it not because you were sanctified through the death of Christ? Is it not because you believe in Christ? Whence have you become a brother? For it was not by deed, nor by word, nor by any achievement that you were shown faithful. Whence, tell me, were you entrusted with such great mysteries? Was it not through Christ? “Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” Whence is grace to you, whence peace? “From God,” he says, “our Father.” And yet in this place he does not set down the name of Christ. To those who slander the Spirit I will say: whence is God the Father of slaves? Who accomplished these great things? Who made you holy? Who made you faithful? Who made you a son of God? He who made you worthy of trust is himself the cause of your being entrusted with all things.

For we are called faithful not only because we believe, but also because we have been entrusted by God with mysteries which not even angels knew before us. But it makes no difference to Paul how he sets these things down: “[We give thanks] to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It seems to me that he refers everything to the Father, so as not to confront them at once with the argument. “Praying always for you.” Not only by his thanksgiving but also by his continual prayer he shows his love: even those whom he had not seen he held always within himself. “Having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.” Above he said “our Lord”; here he says “Jesus Christ.” He himself is Lord, he says, not those who are slaves. And these names are tokens of his benefaction: “For he,” it says, “will save his people from their sins.” “Having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which you have toward all the saints.” Already he makes them his own. Epaphroditus is the one who reports these things. He sends the letter by Tychicus, keeping that man with himself. “And the love,” he says, “toward all the saints”: not toward this one and that one; so toward us too. “Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” He means the good things to come. This is said with a view to their trials, so that they would not seek relief here. For lest anyone should say, “And what is the gain of love toward the saints, when they are being cut down?” — “we rejoice,” he says, “because you are procuring great things for yourselves in heaven.” “Because of the hope,” he says, “laid up”: he has shown its security. “Of which you heard before in the word of the truth.” Here the saying tells against them, because after holding it a long time they have shifted. “Which you heard before,” he says, “in the word of the truth of the gospel.” He bears witness to the word as truth — rightly, for there is no falsehood in it. “Of the gospel.” He does not say “of the preaching,” but calls it gospel, continually reminding them of God's benefits; and having first praised them, he then reminds them of these things. “Which is present among you, as also in all the world.” Already he gratifies them. He said “present” by a metaphor: it did not come, he means, and then depart, but remained and is there. Then, since most people are strengthened by having many who share their beliefs, he added, “as also in all the world.” Everywhere, he says, it is present, everywhere it prevails, everywhere it stands firm. “And it is bearing fruit and growing, as also among you.” Bearing fruit through works, growing in that many receive it and it is more firmly established. For in plants too the fruit grows thick when the plant is firmly established. “As also among you.” He wins the hearer over beforehand with praises, so that he would not fall away even against his will. “Since the day you heard.” That is the marvel, he means: that you came quickly and believed, and at once, from the very outset, displayed the fruits. “Since the day you heard and came to know the grace of God in truth.” Not in word, he says, nor in deceit, but in the very deeds. This, then, is what he means by “bearing fruit”: perhaps the signs and wonders, because as soon as you received it you came to know the grace of God. How then is it not a grievous thing now to distrust what at once displayed its own power? … “[As you learned from Epaphras] our beloved fellow slave.” It is likely that he had preached there: from him you learned the gospel. Then, showing the man's trustworthiness, he says, “our fellow slave, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.” Do not doubt, he says, about the hope to come: you see the world turning to God. And why need we speak of what is among others? What is among you yourselves is trustworthy even without these. “For you came to know the grace of God in truth,” that is, in deeds. So these two things confirm the things to come: that all have believed, and that you too have; and it is not that one thing happened and Epaphras said another. “Who is,” he says, “faithful,” that is, true. And how is he “a minister on your behalf”? By going to him and “declaring to us,” he says, “your love in the Spirit,” that is, your spiritual love toward us. And if this man is a minister of Christ, how do you say that you are brought near through angels? “Who also declared to us,” he says, “your love in the Spirit.” For this love is wonderful and firm, whereas other loves have only the name of love. There are some that are not of this kind; but that is not friendship, and that is why it is easily dissolved.

Many are the causes that make friendships; and for the present we will pass over the shameful ones, for no one will speak against us on their behalf, since they are wicked; but, if you like, let us bring forward the natural ones and those of ordinary life. Those of ordinary life are these: for example, someone has received a kindness, has inherited a friend from his ancestors, has shared a table or a journey, or is a neighbour (these too are good); or has been of the same trade (this one, however, is not pure, for it has some rivalry and envy). The natural ones are such as that of father to son, son to father, brother to brother, grandfather to grandson, mother to children; and if you like, let us add that of wife to husband, for all the ties of marriage are of ordinary life and earthly. These, then, seem to be stronger than those; they seem so, I said, because they are often outdone by those. For friends have sometimes proved more genuinely disposed than brothers, and than sons toward fathers; the one begotten did not help, while the one who did not even know him stood by and helped. But spiritual love is higher than them all, like a queen ruling her own subjects, and it has a splendid bearing; for nothing earthly gives birth to it, as to that other love — not habit, not kindness, not nature, not time — but it comes down from above, from heaven. And why do you marvel if it needs no kindness in order to subsist, when it is not even overthrown by ill treatment? That this love is greater than that one, hear Paul saying: “I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers.” What father would have prayed this, to be in evils? And again: “To depart and be with Christ is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.” What mother would choose to say this, so as to disregard her own interests? And again hear him saying: “For we, having been bereaved of you for a short time, in presence, not in heart.” Here a father who has been insulted dissolves the friendship; but there it is no longer so: he went to those who stoned him, to do them good. For nothing, nothing is so strong as the bond of the Spirit. One who has become a friend through receiving kindness will become an enemy unless this happens continually; one who was inseparable through habit quenches the friendship when the habit is interrupted. The wife again, if a quarrel arises, leaves her husband and dissolves her affection; the son, if he sees his father living a long time, is even burdened by it. But in the case of the Spirit there is none of this; for it is dissolved by none of these things, since it did not arise from them: neither time, nor length of road, nor ill treatment, nor ill report, nor anger, nor insult, nor anything else enters in or can dissolve it. And that you may learn this: Moses was being stoned, and he interceded for them. What father would have done this for one who stoned him, and would not rather have stoned him in return? Let us then pursue these friendships that come from the Spirit, for they are strong and hard to dissolve; not those from tables, for there we are even forbidden to bring these in. For hear Christ saying in the gospel: “Do not invite your friends nor your neighbours when you make a feast, but the lame, the maimed” — rightly, for great is the reward for these. But you cannot, you will not endure feasting with the lame and the blind, but you think this heavy and burdensome, and you refuse? It ought not to be so; still, there is no necessity: even if you do not seat them with you, send them the dishes from your table. For he who invites friends has done nothing great, for he has received his reward here; but he who invites a maimed man and a poor man has God as his debtor. Let us not, then, be vexed when we do not receive repayment here, but when we do receive it here; for there we will no longer receive it. Likewise, if a man repays, God does not repay; if he does not repay, then God will repay. Let us not, then, seek to do good to those who can repay us, nor do them good in such hopes; this is a cold way of thinking. If you invite your friend, the favour lasts until evening; that is why such a friendship is used up faster than the food laid out; but if you invite the poor and maimed man, the favour will never perish, for you have as your debtor God, who always remembers and never forgets. And how great a folly is it, tell me, not to be able to sit with the poor! What do you say? “He is unclean,” he says, “and dirty.” Then wash him and bring him up to your table. “But he has soiled clothes.” Then change them, and give him a clean garment.

Do you not see how great the gain is? Christ comes through him, and are you petty about this? When you are inviting the King to your table, are you afraid about such things? Let two tables be set out. Let one be filled with these people, and let it have the blind, the lame, those maimed in the hand or crippled in the leg, barefoot, wearing a single tunic, and that one worn through; and let the other have potentates, generals, governors, great magistrates, clothed in costly garments … Again, here at the table of the poor let there be neither silver nor much wine, but enough to suffice and to cheer; and let the cups and the other vessels be made of glass only. But there, at the table of the rich, let all the vessels be of silver and gold, and let no single man carry the semicircular table … and let there be a gilded bowl weighing half a talent, so that two young men can scarcely move it, and let the jars stand in a row, gleaming with gold far more brightly than with silver; and let the semicircular table also be … Here let there be many servants, adorned in their clothes no less than the guests, splendidly dressed and wearing trousers, handsome to look at, in the very flower of their youth, vigorous and well built; but there let there be only two servants, who have trampled on all this vanity. And let the one group have costly dishes, and the others as much as will quench hunger and fill them with good cheer. Have I described it sufficiently? Are both tables set out with exactness? Is anything lacking? I do not think so; for I have gone through the guests, and the costliness of the vessels, the coverings, and the dishes. However, if we have left anything out, we will find it as we carry the discourse on. Come then, since each table has fittingly received its proper form, let us see where you will recline. For my part I go to that one, the table of the blind, of the lame; but most of you perhaps will choose this one, the generals' table, the bright and splendid one. Let us see, then, which is fuller of pleasure; for let us not yet examine the things to come, since in those mine prevails. Why? Because this one has Christ reclining at it, and that one men; this one the Master, and that one the slaves. But not these things yet; let us see which has more of present pleasure. In this respect, indeed, this pleasure is greater; for to recline with a king brings more pleasure than to recline with servants. But let us take this away too, and examine the thing itself by itself. I, then, and those with me who have chosen this table, will say everything and hear everything with great freedom and gladness; but you will not dare even to stretch out a hand, trembling and afraid and in awe of those reclining with you, as if you had entered a schoolroom and not a luncheon, trembling as before harsh masters. But those people are not like that. “But the honour,” he says, “is great.” Yet I am in greater honour; for your cheapness appears the greater, because even while sharing the same table you put forward the words of slaves. For a slave shows most when he reclines with his master. He is where it does not befit him, and he gets not so much dignity from the familiarity as humiliation; for at that moment he is greatly humbled. One may see the slave splendid by himself, and the poor man splendid by himself, but not when he walks with a rich man; for the lowly appears lowly when it is near the lofty, and the comparison shows the lowly lowlier, not loftier. So too reclining with those men makes you cheaper, but not us. In two things, then, we have the advantage over these: freedom and honour, and nothing equals these in the account of pleasure. For I would rather share bread with freedom than ten thousand dishes with slavery. “For better,” it says, “is a meal of herbs with friendship and grace than an ox from the stall with hatred.” For whatever those men say, those present must either praise it or give offence, having taken on the role of parasites, or rather being worse than they. For they, even if with shame and insult, nevertheless have some freedom of speech; but you have not even that. Such is the cheapness, for you are afraid and cower; and the honour is nowhere. That table, then, is robbed of all pleasure, while this one is full of all gladness.

But let us also examine the nature of the foods themselves. There one must burst with much wine even against one's will; here no one need eat and drink against his will. So there the pleasure that comes from the quality of the food is taken away both by the dishonour that came before and by the disgust that comes from surfeit. For surfeit damages and pains our bodies no less than hunger, but much more severely; whomever you like to give me, I will burst him more easily by surfeit than by hunger. For truly hunger is more bearable than surfeit: a person might endure hunger even for twenty days, but surfeit not even for two. Those in the fields who constantly wrestle with hunger are healthy and do not need doctors; but surfeit they could not endure without constantly calling doctors, or rather its tyranny has often defeated even their help. In respect of pleasure, then, this table holds the first place. For if honour is pleasanter than dishonour, being in authority than being subject, being confident than trembling and fearing, and enjoying what suffices than being drowned in a flood of luxury beyond measure, then this table is better than that one also in respect of pleasure. And in expense too things are better here; for that one is costly, but this one not at all. But what? Is this table pleasanter only to those reclining at it, or does it bring more pleasure than that one to the host as well? For this is what we are chiefly asking. Well, the one who invites those men prepares for many days beforehand, and is forced to have business and cares and anxieties, neither sleeping at night nor resting by day, but picturing many things to himself; and when the day itself arrives one would see him more afraid than men about to box, lest something go amiss, lest he be struck by envy, lest he gain many accusers from it. But this man is rid of all this anxiety and business, improvising his table and not worrying about it for many days beforehand. And after this, the one has at once lost the favour, but the other has God as his debtor and is nourished by good hopes, feasting every day from that table. For the food is used up, but the favour is not used up; every day he rejoices and is glad, more than those who have filled themselves with much wine. For nothing nourishes the soul so much as good hope and the expectation of good things. But let us see what follows. There are pipes and lyres and panpipes; here no discordant song, but what? Hymns and psalmody. There the demons are praised in song, here God, the Master of all. Do you see how full of grace this table is, and how full of ingratitude and insensibility that one is? For tell me: God has fed you from his good things, and when you ought to thank him after being fed, you bring in the demons? For the songs of the harps are nothing but songs of demons. You ought to say, “Blessed are you, O Lord, because you have fed me from your good things”; but you, like some worthless dog, do not even remember him, but bring in the demons? Or rather dogs fawn on their own masters, but you do not even do this. The dog fawns on its master even when it receives nothing, but you, even when you have received, turn against him. Again, the dog, even when it receives kindness from a stranger, does not on that account end its hostility toward him or let itself be drawn into friendship; but you, though suffering countless evils from the demons, bring them into your luncheons, so that you are twice worse than the dog. I have done well to mention dogs now, against those who give thanks only when they are well treated. Be ashamed, I beg you, before the dogs, which fawn on their masters even when hungry; but you, if you hear that a demon has healed someone, at once abandon the Master, you who are more irrational than dogs! “But the harlots,” he says, “give pleasure when they are watched.” What pleasure? Or rather, what dishonour do they not give? Your house has become a brothel, madness and frenzy; and are you not ashamed to call these things pleasure? If you are allowed to use every pleasure, the shame and the disgust from it are greater. How so? Is it not a grievous thing to make your house a brothel, and to take pleasure like swine wallowing in mire? But if it goes no further than seeing, look, again the pain is greater; for sight is no pleasure when there is no use, but the desire grows greater and the flame more violent. But do you want to learn the end? Those people rise from the table like madmen and the deranged, rash, irascible, ridiculous even to slaves; and the servants go away sober, but they drunk. O the shame! But here there is nothing of the kind; closing the table with thanksgiving, they go home, sleeping with pleasure, rising with pleasure, freed from all shame and accusation.

If you want to see the guests themselves too, you will see these being inwardly what the others are outwardly: blind, maimed, lame; and as are the bodies of the latter, such are the souls of the former, gripped by dropsy and inflammation. For such is arrogance: after luxury comes maiming; such are surfeit and drunkenness, making men lame and crippled. And you will see the others having such souls as those have bodies: bright and adorned. For those who live in thanksgiving, who seek nothing beyond what suffices, who live by such philosophy, are in all cheerfulness. Let us look at the end, both here and there. There, unbridled pleasure, loose laughter, drunkenness, buffoonery, obscene talk; for since they themselves are ashamed to utter obscenities, this is done through the harlots. Here, kindness and gentleness. Beside the one who invites those men stands vainglory, arming him; beside the one here, kindness and gentleness. For the one table is established by kindness, and the other by vainglory and cruelty, born of injustice and greed. And the latter ends in what I said: arrogance, frenzy, madness; for such is the fruit of vainglory. But the former ends in thanksgiving and the glory of God. The praise that comes from men is greater for this one too; for that man people even envy, but this one all regard as a common father, even those who have not been well treated. Just as, when people are wronged, even those who have suffered no wrong grieve with them, and all become common enemies of the wrongdoer, so too, when people are well treated, even those not well treated praise and admire the benefactor just as those who were. There envy is great; here great solicitude, many prayers from all. So it is here; but there, when Christ comes, this man will stand with great confidence and will hear before the whole world, “I saw you hungry, and you fed me; naked, and you clothed me; a stranger, and you took me in,” and all such things; but that man will hear the opposite: “Wicked and slothful servant”; and again, “Woe to those who live wantonly on their couches, and sleep on beds, and anoint themselves with the finest ointments, who reckoned these things as lasting, and not as fleeting.” These things have not been said by us idly, but to change your mind, so that you may do nothing unprofitable. “What then,” he says, “if I do both these and those?” This saying is common among everyone. And what necessity is there, tell me, when it is possible to do everything profitably, to divide, and to spend some not only on nothing needful but even in vain, and the rest profitably? Tell me, if in sowing you threw some seed on rock and some on the best soil, would this have satisfied you, and would you have said, “What harm is it if we throw some in vain and some on the best soil?” Why not all on the best? Why do you lessen the gain? If you had to gather money, you would not say this, but would gather from every side; but there it is no longer so. If you had to lend, you would not say, “Why not give some to the needy and some to the well-off?”, but you would give it all to the latter. But here, where the gain is so great, why do you not reckon this, and at last stop spending in vain and squandering to no purpose? “But this too has a gain,” he says. What, tell me? “It increases friendships.” Nothing is colder than people who become friends from these things, from the table and the surfeit of parasites; nothing is more unpleasant than a friendship that takes its beginning from there. Do not insult so wonderful a thing as love, nor say that this is its root. It is as if someone said of a tree bearing gold and precious stones that its root was not of the same kind, but that it was born from rot: so you too do. For even if a friendship is born from this, nothing could be colder than it. But those tables make friendship, not with men but with God, and an intense one, when they are made intensely. For he who spends some here and some there, even if he gives much, has done nothing great; but he who spends all here, even if he has given little, has accomplished everything. For what is asked is not to give much or little, but not less than one's own means. Let us consider the man with the five talents and the man with the two; let us consider the widow in the days of Elijah. That woman who cast in the two mites did not say, “What harm is it if I keep one mite for myself and give the other?”, but she gave her whole living. But you, being in such abundance, are more sparing than she. Let us not, then, neglect our own salvation, but apply ourselves to almsgiving. For nothing is better than this; the time to come will show it, and meanwhile the present time has shown it. Let us then live for the glory of God and do what pleases him, so that we may be counted worthy of the promised good things, which may we all attain by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might and honour, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

[Homily 2] “For this reason we also, since the day we heard, do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that you may walk worthily of the Lord to all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.” “For this reason”: what reason? Because we heard of your faith and love; because we have good hopes, we are hopeful enough to ask also concerning the things to come. For just as in contests we rouse most those who are near victory, so Paul exhorts most those who have accomplished the greater part. “Since the day we heard,” he says, “we do not cease praying for you.” We pray for you not one day, nor two, nor three. Here he both shows his love and quietly hints that they have not yet reached the goal; for “that you may be filled” is the language of one who shows this. And see, I pray, the understanding of this blessed man: nowhere does he say that they were deprived of everything, but that something was lacking to them everywhere; for this is what “that you may be filled” shows. And again, “to all pleasing, in every good work”; and again, “strengthened with all power”; and again, “to all endurance and longsuffering.” For “all” is the language of one who bears witness that they are succeeding, even if not in everything. And “that you may be filled,” he says, not “that you may receive,” for they had received; but that what was lacking may be filled up. So the reproof gave no offence, and the praise did not let them sink down and grow careless, as it would have done had it been unqualified. What is “that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will”? That is, that you must be brought near through him, no longer through angels. That you must be brought near, you knew; but it remains for you to learn this too, and why he sent the Son. For if we had to be saved through angels, he would not have sent the Son, he would not have given him up. “In all wisdom,” he says, “and spiritual understanding.” For since the philosophers were deceiving them, I want you, he says, to be in spiritual wisdom, not according to the wisdom of men. And if spiritual wisdom is needed to learn the will of God, to learn what his essence is needs continual prayers. And he shows here that Paul has been praying from that time, and has not yet accomplished it, and has not desisted; this is what “since the day we heard” shows. And it brings great condemnation on them if, though helped by prayers from that time, they did not recover themselves. “And asking,” he says, that is, with great earnestness; for this is what is shown by “you knew” — but you must also come to know fully. “That you may walk worthily of the Lord.” Here he speaks of life and works; for this he does everywhere: he always yokes conduct to faith. “To all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing in the knowledge of God.” Just as, he says, he revealed himself to you all at once, and you received such great knowledge, so also display conduct worthy of the faith; for it requires great conduct, much greater than the old dispensation did. For he who knows God, and has been deemed worthy to be the slave of God, or rather a son too — see how much virtue he needs. “Strengthened with all power.” Here he speaks of the trials and the persecutions: we pray that you may be filled, being strengthened, so as not to grow weary or give up. “According to the might of his glory”: that you may take up such zeal, he says, as befits the strength of his glory to give. “To all endurance and longsuffering.” What he says is this: in short, he says, we pray that you may have a virtuous life, worthy of your calling, and may stand … For the present he does not yet touch on doctrines, but busies himself with their life, where he had nothing to charge them with; and having praised them for what he ought, he then comes down to accusation. This he does everywhere: when he is about to write to people with whom he has something to find fault and also something to praise, he praises first and then comes down to the charges. For he first wins the hearer over, frees the accusation from all suspicion, and shows that he himself would have liked to praise throughout, but was brought to these words by necessity. This he does in the First Letter to the Corinthians too: having praised them in countless ways as men who loved him, he then comes down to accusation, starting from the man who committed sexual immorality. In the Letter to the Galatians it is no longer so, but the opposite; or rather, if one examines it, there too the accusation comes out of praise. For since at that time he had no achievement of theirs to speak of, and the charge was serious, and all had been corrupted, and they were able to bear it because they were strong, he begins with accusation, saying, “I marvel”; so that this too is praise. Afterwards he praises them, not for the present but for the past, saying, “If possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.”

“Bearing fruit,” he says: this refers to works. “Strengthened”: this refers to trials. “To all endurance and longsuffering”: longsuffering toward one another, endurance toward those outside. For one is longsuffering toward those on whom it is possible to retaliate, but one endures those on whom one cannot retaliate. That is why endurance is never said of God, but longsuffering often, as this blessed man himself says, writing elsewhere: “Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering?” “To all”: not now, and afterwards no longer. “In all,” he says, “spiritual wisdom and understanding.” For otherwise it is not possible to know his will. And yet they thought they had his will; but their wisdom was not spiritual. “That you may walk,” he says, “worthily of the Lord.” For this becomes the road to the best conduct. For he who has thoroughly learned God's lovingkindness — and he learns it if he sees the Son given up — will have greater zeal. And besides, we pray not only that you may learn this, but that you may also display it in works; for he who knows without doing is going to be punished as well. “That you may walk,” he says: that is, always, not once but continually. Just as walking is necessary for us, so is living rightly. And he always calls this a walk, rightly, showing that this is the life set before us; but the worldly life is not of this kind. And the praise is great: “that you may walk,” he says, “worthily of the Lord,” and “in every good work,” so as always to advance and never to stand still; and, by a metaphor, “bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God,” so that you may thus be strengthened according to the strength of God, as far as was possible for a human being. “Through his might.” The consolation is great. He did not say power but “might,” which is greater. “Through the might,” he says, “of his glory,” because his glory prevails everywhere. Already he has consoled those who were under reproach. And again: “that you may walk worthily of the Lord.” He says this about the Son, that he prevails everywhere, both in heaven and on earth, because his glory reigns everywhere. Not simply strengthened, he says, but as befits those who serve so mighty a Master. “In the knowledge of God.” At the same time he touches on the question of knowledge; for this is what it is to have gone astray: not to know God as one ought. Or he means: so as to advance in the knowledge of God. For if he who does not know the Son does not know the Father either, there is rightly need of knowledge; for there is no profit in a good life without it. “To all endurance and longsuffering,” he says, “giving thanks to God with joy.” Then, when he is about to exhort them, he does not mention the things that are to be laid up for them — he hinted at this at the beginning, saying, “because of the hope laid up for you in heaven” — but here he mentions the things already given; for these are the causes of those. He does this in many places; for things already done carry more conviction and win the hearer more. “With joy,” he says, “giving thanks to God.” The sequence is this: we do not cease praying for you, and giving thanks for the former things. Do you see how he leads himself into the discourse about the Son? For if we give thanks with great joy, the things spoken of are great. For it is possible to give thanks out of fear alone; it is possible to give thanks even while in grief, as Job gave thanks, but in pain; that is why he said, “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away.” Let no one say that what happened did not grieve him or plunge him into despondency, and let not the great praise be taken from the righteous man. But when things are of this kind, we give thanks not out of fear, nor only because God is Master, but because of the very nature of the things. “Giving thanks to him who made us sufficient for the share of the lot of the saints in the light.” He uttered a great thing. Such are the things given, he says, that he not only gave them, but also made us strong to receive them. By saying “who made us sufficient,” he showed the great weight of it. For example, if some lowly person becomes even a king, he can give a prefecture to whomever he wishes; and he can do only so much, give the rank, but not also make the man fit for the office (and often the honour makes such a man ridiculous). But if he both gives the rank and makes him fit for the honour and capable of the administration, then the thing is an honour. This, then, is what he says here too: that he not only gave us the honour, but also made us strong to receive it. For this is a double honour, both to give and to make men fit for the gift. He did not simply say “who gave,” but “who made us sufficient for the share of the lot of the saints in the light,” that is, who ranked us with the saints. But he did not simply say “who ranked,” but also implied that he granted us to enjoy the same things. For the share is what each one receives. It is possible to be in the same city and not enjoy the same things; but to have the same share and not enjoy the same things is impossible. It is possible to be in the same lot and not have the same share: for example, we are all in the lot, but we do not all have the same share. Here, however, he does not say this, but also the share along with the lot. And why does he call it a lot? To show that no one obtains the kingdom by his own achievements; but just as a lot is rather a matter of good fortune, so it is here too. For no one displays such conduct as to be deemed worthy of the kingdom; the whole is of his gift. That is why he says, “When you have done all things, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; for we have done what we ought to do.’” “For the share of the lot of the saints in the light,” that is, in knowledge. He seems to me to speak of the present and the future together. Then he shows what we have been deemed worthy of. For this is not the only marvel, that we are deemed worthy of the kingdom; one must also add who we were when this happened, for it is not the same thing. He does this in the Letter to the Romans too, saying, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; though perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.” “Who delivered us,” he says, “from the authority of darkness.” The whole is his, to give both these things and those; for nowhere is it an achievement of ours. “From the authority of darkness,” he says, that is, of error, of the devil's tyranny. He did not simply say “darkness” but “authority”; for it had great authority over us and held us in its power. It is grievous merely to be under the devil; but to be under him with authority as well is more grievous. “And transferred us,” he says, “into the kingdom of the Son of his love.” So he did not show his lovingkindness only in the deliverance from darkness. Great indeed it was to free us from darkness; but to bring us into the kingdom as well is far greater. See then how manifold the gift becomes: that he freed us when we lay at the bottom; that he did not only free us, but also transferred us into the kingdom. “Who delivered us.” He did not say “cast out,” but “delivered,” showing our great wretchedness and the captivity in which they held us. Then also the ease of God's power: “and transferred,” he says, as if one moved a soldier from place to place. And he did not say “led over” or “removed” (for then the whole would have been the work of the one who removed, not of the one who moved), but he said “transferred,” so that this becomes both ours and his. “Into the kingdom of the Son of his love.” He did not simply say “the kingdom of heaven,” but made the word more solemn by saying “the kingdom of the Son”; for there is no greater praise than this. He says this elsewhere too: “If we endure, we shall also reign with him.” He has deemed us worthy of the same things as the Son, he says; and not only this, but there is also the intensification, “the beloved.” The enemies, those who were in darkness, he transferred all at once to where the Son is, to the same honour as he. And he was not content with this alone; but to show that the gift was great, he was not content to say “kingdom,” but added “of the Son”; and not with this, but added “of the beloved”; and not with this, but added also the dignity of his nature. For what does he say? “Who is the image of the invisible God.” But he did not come to this at once; he first inserted the benefit toward us. For lest, hearing that the whole was the Father's, you should think the Son was outside it, he gives the whole to the Son too, as he gives it to the Father. The one transferred us, but the other supplied the cause. For what does he say? “Who delivered us from the authority of darkness.” This is the same as “in whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” For if we had not been forgiven our sins, we would not have been transferred. See, here again is the “in whom.” And he did not say “ransom” but “redemption,” so that we might no longer fall, nor become mortal. “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” We are coming upon a question raised by heretics; that is why we are putting it off today, and must add it tomorrow, bringing it to your ears while they are fresh. And if something more must be said, the work of the Son is the greater. How? Because it was impossible to give a kingdom to those remaining in their sins; but in this way it became easier, so that he prepared the way for the gift. What do you say? He himself forgave you your sins; so he himself also brought you near. Already he has laid down beforehand the root of the doctrine.

For the present, having said one thing more, I must end the discourse. What is it? That, having enjoyed so great a benefit, we ought always to remember it, to turn God's gift over in ourselves continually, and to consider what we have been freed from and what we have obtained; and so we will be thankful, so we will intensify our love toward him. What do you say, man? You have been called to a kingdom, to the kingdom of the Son of God; if you had to leap into ten thousand deaths every day, ought you not to endure everything? For an office you do anything whatever; but when you are about to share in the kingdom of the Only-begotten, do you not throw yourself on ten thousand swords, do you not leap into fire? And this is not yet the terrible thing; but that even when you are about to depart you lament and linger among the things here, loving the body. What is this? Do you even think death a dreadful thing? Luxury is the cause of these things, and ease; for one who lives a very bitter life would choose even to grow wings and be rid of this place. But as it is we suffer the same as fledglings grown soft, who want to stay always in the nest. But the longer we stay, the weaker we will be. For the present life is a nest, stuck together from twigs and mud. Even if you show me the great houses, even the very palaces gleaming with much gold and precious stones, I will think them no different from a swallows' nest; for when winter comes, all will fall of themselves. By winter I mean that day; not a winter for all. For God too calls that time both night and day, the one with respect to sinners, the other with respect to the righteous; so I too now call it winter. If in the summer we are not nourished well, so as to be able to fly when winter comes, our mothers will not take us, but will leave us to perish of hunger, or to be destroyed when the nest falls. For like a nest, or rather more easily than a nest, God will then pull everything down, dismantling and reshaping everything. And those who are unfledged and unable to meet him in the air, but so earthbound that they have no light wing, will suffer all that those so disposed are likely to suffer. The swallows' nest, when it falls, quickly perishes; but we will not perish, but will be punished continually. That time will be a winter, or rather more grievous than winter. For not torrents of water but rivers of fire sweep down; not darkness from clouds, but darkness unbroken and without light, so that one sees neither the sky nor the air, but is more cramped than those buried in the earth. We say these things often, but we do not persuade some. And there is nothing marvellous in it if we, who are worthless men, experience this when we speak of such things, since the prophets too experienced it, speaking not only of such things but also of war and captivity. Zedekiah was rebuked by Jeremiah and was not ashamed. That is why the prophets said, “Woe to those who say, ‘Let what God will do draw near quickly, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it.’” Let us not marvel at this. For neither did those in the days of the ark believe; they believed when there was no profit in believing. Nor did those in Sodom expect it; they too believed when it was of no further use to them. And why do I speak of the things to come? Who would have expected the things happening now in various places, the earthquakes, the destructions of cities? And yet these things are more credible than those, I mean the events of the ark. How is that clear? Because those people had no other example to look to, nor had they heard the Scriptures; but with us countless such things have happened, both in our own years and in former times. But where does the unbelief of such people come from? From a soft soul: they drank and ate, and that is why they did not believe. For what a man wishes, he also supposes and expects. Those who speak against it say it is idle talk.

But let us not suffer the same; for there will be no flood any more, nor will the punishment last only until death; but death is the beginning of punishments for those who do not believe that there is a judgment. “And who has come from there,” he says, “and told these things?” If you say this in jest, even so it is not right, for one must not jest in such matters; for we are jesting not harmlessly but dangerously. But if you are really so minded and do not think there is anything after this, how do you say you are a Christian? For I have no concern with those outside. Why do you receive the bath? Why do you set foot in the church? Do we promise offices? All our hope is in the things to come. Why then do you come, if you do not believe the Scriptures, if you do not believe Christ? I would not call such a man a Christian — God forbid! — but worse even than the Greeks. In what respect? In this, that while thinking Christ to be God you do not believe him as God. Their impiety at least is consistent, for one who does not think that Christ is God must also not believe him; but this impiety has not even consistency: to confess him God, and not to think him trustworthy in what he said. These are the words of drunkenness, of luxury, of self-indulgence: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Not tomorrow: when you say these things, you are already dead. Shall we then differ in nothing from swine and asses, tell me? For if there is neither judgment nor recompense nor court, why have we been honoured with such a gift, reason, and have all things subjected to us? Why do we rule and they are ruled? See how the devil presses from every side to persuade us to be ignorant of God's gift. He mixes the slaves with the masters; like a kidnapper and an ungrateful servant, he forces the free man down to the same cheapness as the one who has offended. He seems to abolish the judgment, but he abolishes the existence of God. For such is the devil always: he puts everything forward by craft and not directly, so that we may not be on our guard. If there is no judgment, God is not just (I speak in human terms); if God is not just, he is not God either; if he is not God, everything simply drifts at random, virtue is nothing, vice is nothing. But he says none of this openly. Do you see the intent of the satanic argument? How he wants to make irrational animals out of men, or rather wild beasts, or rather demons? Let us not then … I know where you come from to these words: you have sinned much, you have offended, you have no confidence before God, and you think the nature of things will follow your words. “For the present,” he says, “I will not pain my soul with the expectation of Gehenna; and even if there is a Gehenna, I will persuade my soul that there is none; for the present I will live in luxury here.” Why do you add sins to sins? If, having sinned, you believe that there is a Gehenna, you will depart paying the penalty only for your sins; but if you add this impiety too, you will pay the utmost punishment both for the impiety and for this reasoning, and the brief consolation you got will become for you the ground of continual punishment. Granted, you have sinned: why do you also urge others to sin, saying there is no Gehenna? Why do you deceive the simpler? Why do you weaken the hands of the people? As far as it depends on you, everything is overturned: neither will the earnest become more earnest, but slack, nor will the wicked leave their wickedness. For if we corrupt others, do we gain pardon for our sins? Do you not see how the devil tried to bring Adam down? Did he gain pardon for this? No, it was the occasion of greater punishment. For he contrives everything so that we may be punished not only for our own sins but also for others'. Let us not think, then, that bringing others down into the same destruction with us makes the court gentler for us; rather it will make it more severe. Why do we push ourselves over the edge and destroy ourselves? This is wholly satanic. Man, have you sinned? You have a loving Master: entreat, beseech, weep, groan, and frighten the others, and beg them not to fall into the same things. If in a house a slave who is among those who have offended says to his own son, “Child, I have offended the master; be eager to please him, so that you do not suffer the same things,” will he not gain some pardon, tell me? Will he not soften and bend the master? But if he leaves these words and says those others — for example, that the master will not give each according to his deserts, that everything is simply mixed up, good and bad, that there is no gratitude in this house — what do you think the master will think of him? Will he not pay a greater penalty than for his own sins? Rightly; for there his passion will make some defence, even if a weak one, but here none. If no one else, then imitate at least the rich man in Gehenna, who said, “Father Abraham, send Lazarus …” “… into this place,” since he himself could not go, so that they would not fall into the same things. Let us keep away from these satanic words.

“What then,” he says, “when Greeks question us, do you not want to heal them?” No: by throwing the Christian into perplexity under the pretext of healing the Greek, you want to confirm the satanic doctrine. For since, reasoning about these things with your own soul alone, you do not persuade it, you want to bring in others as witnesses. But if one must reason with a Greek, the discussion does not begin here, but with whether Christ is God and the Son of God, and whether the gods they worship are demons. If these points are established, all the rest follows; but before laying the foundation it is vain to argue about the end; before learning the first elements it is superfluous and useless to go on to the end. The Greek disbelieves the judgment: he too suffers the same as you. Yet even he has many who have philosophized about these things, even if they said this after separating the body from the soul; but nevertheless they set up a court. And so evident is the matter that almost no one is ignorant of it, but even the poets and all agree with one another about a court and a judgment. So not even the Greek disbelieves his own teachers, nor does the Jew dispute about these things, nor, in short, does any man. Why then do we deceive ourselves? Look, you say these things to me; what will you say to God, who fashioned our hearts one by one, who knows everything in the mind, who is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword? Tell me truly: do you not condemn yourself when you sin? Is there anyone among men who does not blame himself when he is slack? And how could such wisdom have come about by chance, that the sinner himself condemns himself? For this belongs to great wisdom. You condemn yourself; and will he who gave you such a mind let everything simply drift? This, then, will be a universal rule and definition: no one who lives in virtue disbelieves the doctrine of the judgment, even if he is a Greek, even if a heretic; no one who lives in much wickedness, except a few, accepts the doctrine of the resurrection. And this is what the Psalmist says: “Your judgments are removed from his sight.” Why? “Because his ways are defiled at every time.” “For let us eat,” he says, “and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do you see that it belongs to base men to say these things? These words that overturn the resurrection come from eating and drinking. For the soul does not bear, it does not bear the tribunal of conscience. The same happens as with a murderer: he first assumes that he will not be caught, and so commits murder; for if his conscience were judging him, he would not have come so quickly to the deed. He knows, then, and pretends not to know, so as not to be tormented by conscience and fear; otherwise he would have been weaker for the murder. So too sinners both know that sinning is evil and, wallowing every day in the same evils, do not want to know it, although their conscience lays hold of them. But let us not heed them; for there will be, there will surely be a judgment and a resurrection, and God will not let so many works go for nothing. Therefore, I beg you, let us keep away from wickedness and hold to virtue, so that we may receive the true doctrine in Christ Jesus our Lord. And yet which is easier, to accept the doctrine of the resurrection, or that of fate? The latter is full of injustice, of irrationality, of cruelty, of inhumanity; the former of justice, assigning to each according to his deserts; and yet they do not accept it. The cause is idleness; for no one with sense accepts the other. For among the Greeks too, those who define pleasure as the end accepted fate; but those who loved virtue did not, but rejected it as irrational. And if this is so among the Greeks, much more is it so with the doctrine of the resurrection. See how the devil has contrived two opposite things: so that we might neglect virtue and serve demons, he brought in necessity, and through both he persuaded men of both. What account then will he be able to give who disbelieves so wonderful a thing, and is persuaded by the nonsense those people talk? Let not even this consolation nourish you, that you will obtain pardon; but let us gather ourselves together and rouse ourselves to virtue, and live truly for God, in Christ, and so on.

[Homily 3] “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things were created, things in the heavens and things on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities; all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church.” Today we must pay the debt which … to your minds. Paul says these things while speaking of the dignity of the Son, as we have also shown: “Who is the image of the invisible God.” Whose image, then, do you think he says he is? If God's, well and good; for he is God and the Son of God, and the image of God shows exact likeness; so he is exactly like him in this respect. But if a man's, say so, and from now on I will keep away from you as from a madman. Why is it that an angel has nowhere been called either image or son, but man has been called both? Why? Because in the angel's case the exalted nature would quickly have thrown the many into this impiety; but here the cheapness and lowliness guarantees safety, and does not allow people, even if they wish, to suspect any such thing and drag the word down. That is why, where there was great lowliness, Scripture confidently assigns the honour; but where the nature is greater, no longer. But “image of the invisible,” he says. So if he is invisible, the image too is likewise invisible, since otherwise it would not be an image. For an image, insofar as it is an image, must be exactly like even among us, for example in its features and likeness. Here among us this is quite impossible, for it is human art, which fails in many places, or rather everywhere, if you look for exactness; but where God is, there is no failure and no falling short at all. And if he is a creature, how is he the image of the Creator? For a horse is not the image of a man either. If the image does not show exact likeness to the invisible one, what prevents angels too from being an image? For they too are invisible, though not to themselves; and the soul is invisible. But is it simply because it is invisible that it is an image, even if not in the way he is? “The firstborn of all creation.”

“What then?” he says. “Look, was he created?” From where do you get that, tell me? “Because he said ‘firstborn.’” Yet he did not say “first-created,” but “firstborn.” Then, if you say that he was created because he is said to be firstborn, what will you say when you hear him called a brother? For Scripture calls him a brother, made like us in all things. Shall we then on this account take away his being Creator, and deem him to excel us neither in rank nor in anything else? And who with any sense would say this? For “firstborn” signifies not worth and honour, but only time. If then he has nothing more than we have, perhaps by this reasoning he is the firstborn of all things, and God the Word will be of the same essence as stones and wood and the rest; for “the firstborn,” he says, “of all creation.” “But he is called firstborn,” he says, “so he was created.” Well enough, if this were so and the word did not have other expressions akin to it, such as “firstborn from the dead” and “firstborn among many brothers.” What does “firstborn from the dead” indicate, tell me? You will not say that he rose first; for he did not say simply “of the dead,” but “firstborn from the dead”; nor does it mean that he died first, but that he rose firstborn from the dead. So it indicates nothing other than this, that he became the firstfruits of the resurrection. So it does not mean that he was created here either. Then at last he enters on the doctrine itself. For lest they think him more recent, because formerly men were brought near through angels but now through him, he shows first that those had no power (for otherwise this one would not have led them out of darkness), and secondly that he is also before them. And he makes it a sign of his being before them that they were created by him: “for in him,” he says, “all things were created.” What do those who hold the views of Paul of Samosata say here? That all things came into being in him. For look, it has been said, “for in him all things were created.” But he said, “things in the heavens and things on the earth”: what was disputed he put first. Then he adds, “visible and invisible,” calling the soul invisible and all men visible. And what was agreed he leaves aside, and what was doubted he sets down. Then he says, “whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities.” The “whether” embraces everything. And this is the language not of one who numbers the Spirit with the authorities, but of one who shows the lesser things from the greater. “All things,” he says, “were created through him and for him.” See, the “in him” is “through him”; for having said “in him,” he added “through him.” And what is “for him”? That is, the existence of all things hangs on him. Not only did he bring them from non-being into being, but he himself also holds them together now; so that if they were torn away from his providence, they would perish and be destroyed. But he did not say “holds firmly,” which was cruder, but the subtler expression, that they hang on him. For merely to incline toward him is enough to hold them firm and bind them together. So too “firstborn” is said in the sense of a foundation. This does not show that he is of the same essence as creatures, but that all things are through him and in him. So too elsewhere, when he says, “I laid a foundation,” he speaks not of the essence but of the activity. For lest you think him a servant, he says that he himself holds them together, which is no less than making them. Indeed among us it is even greater; for art brings in the former but not the latter, since it does not keep what is perishing from perishing. “And he is before all things,” he says. This befits God. Where is Paul of Samosata? “And in him all things hold together,” that is, they were created for him. He turns these expressions over continually, and with the continuity of the words, as with dense blows, tears up the deadly doctrine by the roots. For if, though so much was said, Paul of Samosata sprang up after so long a time, how much more if these things had not been said beforehand? “And in him,” he says, “all things hold together.” How do they hold together in one who does not exist? So the things done through angels are his too. “And he is the head of the body, the church.” Having spoken of his dignity, he now speaks also of his lovingkindness. “He is,” he says, “the head of the body, the church.” He did not say “of the fullness,” though even so he shows this very thing, but he wished to show him more closely related to us: that he who is so high, higher than all, joined himself to those below. For everywhere he is first: first above, first in the church (for he is the head), first in the resurrection. For this is what “that he might become pre-eminent” means. So he is first in birth too. And this is what Paul is especially eager to show. For if this is established, that he was before all the angels, that too is brought in with it, that he himself did their works by his command. And the marvellous thing is that he strove to show him first in the later birth too. And yet elsewhere he says that Adam is first, as indeed he is; but here he took the church instead of the whole human race. For he is first of the church, and of men, as of creation, first according to the flesh; and that is why he sets down “the firstborn” here. What does “the firstborn” mean here? The first created, or the one who rose before all, just as there it means the one who is before all. And here he set down “firstfruits,” saying, “who is the firstfruits, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might be pre-eminent,” showing that the others too are such; but there he did not say “firstfruits of creation.” And there it is “image of the invisible God,” and then “firstborn.” “For in him it pleased all the fullness to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, whether things on earth or things in the heavens.” Whatever is the Father's, he says, is the Son's too, and with greater eagerness, in that he also became dead and united himself to us. He said “firstfruits” as of some fruit. He did not say “resurrection,” but “firstfruits,” showing that he sanctified all of us and offered us as a sacrifice. “Fullness” he has said of the Godhead, as John said, “From his fullness we have all received.” That is, whether it was the Son or the Word, what dwelt there was not some activity but essence. He has no cause to state except the will of God; for this is what “in him it pleased” means, “and through him to reconcile all things to himself.” Lest you think that he took the role of a servant, he says, “to himself.” And yet elsewhere he says that he reconciles to God, as he said when writing in the Letter to the Corinthians. And he rightly said, “through him to reconcile fully”; for they had already been reconciled, but it had to be done perfectly, so that they would no longer be at enmity with him. How this happens he next makes clear, announcing not only the reconciliation but also the manner of the reconciliation: “having made peace through the blood of his cross.” “Reconcile” shows the enmity; “having made peace,” the war. “Through the blood,” he says, “of his cross, through him, whether things on earth or things in the heavens.” Great it is to reconcile; but to do it through himself is greater; greater than this, through his blood; and not simply blood, but, greater than this, through the cross. So the marvels are five: he reconciled, to God, through himself, through death, through the cross. Ah, how he has mingled them again! For lest you think that it is one alone, or that the cross is something by itself, he says, “through himself.” How does he know that this is great? Because it was not by speaking words but by giving himself up for the reconciliation that he accomplished everything. What is meant by “things in the heavens”? Things on earth, rightly; for they were filled with enmity and divided into many factions, and each of us was at strife with himself and with the many. But how did he make peace with things in the heavens? Was there war and battle there too? And how do we pray, saying, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth”? What then is to be said? The earth had been cut off from heaven; the angels had been made enemies of men, seeing their Master insulted. He says that he summed up all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. How? Things in the heavens thus: he transferred man there; he brought up to them the enemy, the hated one. Not only did he make things on earth to be at peace, but he brought him up to them, the enemy and foe. This is a profound peace. Angels again appeared on earth from then on, since a man too appeared in heaven. It seems to me that Paul's rapture too happened for this reason, and to show that the Son too had been taken up there. On earth the peace is double, both with the heavenly beings and among themselves; but in heaven it is single. For if the angels rejoice over one sinner who repents, much more over so many. All these things the strength of God accomplished. Why then do you trust in angels? he says. They are so far from bringing you near that they were once even made your enemies, and if God himself had not reconciled you to them, you would not have been at peace. Why then do you run to them? Do you want to learn how great the hatred of the angels toward us was, and how they always turned away? They were sent for punishment against the Israelites, against David, against the Sodomites, against the valley of weeping. But not now; on the contrary, they sang on earth, rejoicing greatly; and he brought these down to men, and brought men up there.

And see the paradox. He first brought these down here, and then brought man up to them; earth became heaven, since heaven was going to receive the things of earth. That is why in thanksgiving we say, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.” Look, he says, men too have at last appeared well-pleasing. What is “good will”? Reconciliation: heaven is no longer a dividing wall. At first the angels were according to the number of the nations; but now not according to the number of the nations, but according to the number of the faithful. How is this clear? Hear Christ saying, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” For each believer has an angel, since from the beginning each man of those approved by God had an angel, as Jacob says: “The angel who feeds me and delivers me from my youth.” If then we have angels, let us be sober, as if some tutors were present with us; for a demon too is present. That is why we pray and say, asking for the angel of peace, and everywhere we ask for peace. For nothing is equal to it: in the churches we ask for peace, in the prayers, in the litanies, in the addresses; and once, twice, three times and many times the one who presides over the church gives it, saying, “Peace to you.” Why? Because this is the mother of all good things, this is the foundation of joy. That is why Christ too commanded the apostles to say this at once when they entered houses, as a token of good things: “For when you enter the houses,” he says, “say, ‘Peace to you.’” For when it is absent, all things are superfluous. And again he said to the disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” This prepares the way for love. And the one who presides over the church does not simply say, “Peace to you,” but “Peace to all.” For what profit is it if we have peace with this person, but war and fighting with another? What is the gain? For neither in the body, if some of the elements are quiet while others are in revolt, is it ever possible for health to subsist, but only through the good order, harmony, and peace of them all; and if they are not all quiet and do not remain within their own bounds, everything will be overturned. And in our mind too, if all the thoughts are not quiet, there will be no peace. So great a good is peace that its makers and craftsmen are called sons of God — rightly, since the Son of God too came to earth for this purpose, to make peace with things on earth and things in the heavens. And if the peacemakers are sons of God, the makers of disturbance are sons of the devil. What do you say? Do you throw in strifes and fights? “And who is so wretched?” he says. Yet there are many who rejoice in evils and tear apart the body of Christ more than the soldiers cut it with the spear or the Jews pierced it with the nails. That evil was less than this: those members that were pierced were joined again; but these, once torn away, if they are not joined here, will never be joined again, but remain outside the fullness. When you want to make war on your brother, consider that you are making war on Christ's members, and stop your madness. What if he is cast off, if he is cheap? What if he is contemptible? “So it is not the will,” he says, “before my Father, that one of these little ones should perish”; and again, “Their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” God became even a slave for his sake and was slaughtered; and do you think him nothing? So in this respect too you fight against God, casting votes contrary to his. When the one who presides over the church enters, he at once says, “Peace to all”; when he preaches, “Peace to all”; when he blesses, “Peace to all”; when he bids you greet one another, “Peace to all”; when the sacrifice is completed, “Peace to all.” And in between again, “Grace to you and peace.” How then is it not absurd if, hearing so many times that we should have peace, we are at war with one another, and while receiving peace and giving it back, we make war on the one who gives us peace? You say, “And with your spirit,” and slander him outside? Alas, that the solemn things of the church have become mere forms and not any reality; alas, that the watchwords of this army remain only words! That is why you do not even know why “Peace to all” is said. But hear what follows, what Christ says: “Into whatever city or village you enter, when you enter the house, greet it; and if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.” That is why we do not know it: because we think these are a formula of words and do not assent with our mind. For is it I who give the peace? It is Christ, who deigns to speak through us. Even if all the rest of the time we are empty of grace, yet not now, for your sake. For if the grace of God worked in an ass and in a soothsayer for the sake of his plan and the benefit of the Israelites, it is clear that it will not refuse to work in us either, but will endure this too for your sake.

Let no one, then, say that I am cheap and lowly and worth nothing, and give heed to me on that footing. For I am such; but it has always been God's custom, for the sake of the many, to stand by even such men. And that you may learn this: he deigned to speak to Cain for Abel's sake, to the devil for Job's sake, to Pharaoh for Joseph's sake, to Nebuchadnezzar for Daniel's sake, to Belshazzar for the same man's sake. Magi too received a revelation, and Caiaphas prophesied, though he was a killer of Christ and unworthy, because of the dignity of the priesthood. It is said too that Aaron was not made leprous for this reason. For why, tell me, when both spoke against Moses, did she alone pay the penalty? Do not marvel; for if in outward dignities, even if someone is accused of countless things, he is not brought to court until he lays down his office, so that the office may not be insulted along with him, much more in the spiritual office, whoever holds it, the grace of God works; otherwise everything would have perished. But when he lays it down, whether by departing or even here, then, then he will pay a heavier penalty. Do not think that these things are said by us of ourselves: it is the grace of God that works even in an unworthy man, not for our sake but for yours. Hear then what Christ says: “If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it.” How does it become worthy? “If they receive you,” he says. “But if they do not receive you, nor hear your words, truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.” What profit is it, then, that you receive us and do not hear what is said by us? What is the gain that you pay us respect, and do not heed what is said to you? That is honour to us, that is wonderful respect, which benefits both you and us: if you hear us. Hear Paul too saying, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest.” Hear Christ too saying, “All that they tell you to observe, observe and do.” It is not me you despise, but the priesthood. If you see me stripped of it, then despise me; then I too will not presume to give commands. But as long as we sit on this throne, as long as we hold the presidency, we have both the dignity and the strength, even if we are unworthy. If the throne of Moses was so venerable that men were heard for its sake, much more the throne of Christ. That throne we have received in succession; from it we speak, since Christ has placed in us the ministry of reconciliation. Ambassadors, whoever they are, enjoy great honour because of the dignity of the embassy. For see: they come alone into the middle of the land of barbarians, among so many enemies; and since the law of embassy has great force, all honour them, all look to them, all send them off in safety. We too, then, have taken up the office of an embassy and have come from God; for this is the dignity of the episcopate. We have come to you as ambassadors, asking you to end the war, and we state on what terms: not promising to give cities, nor so many measures of grain, nor slaves, nor gold, but the kingdom of heaven, eternal life, companionship with Christ, and the other good things, which it is impossible for us to speak of or for you to hear while we are in this flesh and in the present life. We are ambassadors, then; and we want to enjoy honour — not for our own sake, God forbid, for we know how cheap it is — but for yours, so that you may hear what we say with eagerness, so that you may be benefited, so that you may not attend to what is said with slackness or inattention. Do you not see how everyone treats ambassadors with attention? We are God's ambassadors to men. And if this is offensive to you, it is not we who say it but the episcopate itself; not so-and-so, but the bishop. Let no one listen to me, but to the dignity. Let us then do all things as pleases God, so that we may live for the glory of God and be counted worthy of the good things promised to those who love him, by the grace and lovingkindness, and so on.

[Homily 4] “And you, who were once enemies and alienated in mind by wicked works, he has now reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him.” Here at last he shows that he reconciled them even though they were unworthy of reconciliation. For to say that they were under the authority of darkness shows the misfortune they were in. But lest, hearing “authority of darkness,” you should think it was necessity, he adds, “and you, being alienated”; so he seems to say the same thing, but does not. For it is not the same to free from terrible things one who suffered ill by necessity and one who endured it willingly: the former deserves pity, the latter hatred. Yet you, he says, who were neither unwilling nor compelled, but willingly and deliberately leaping away from him, and unworthy, he freed. And since he had mentioned the things in the heavens, he shows that all the enmity had its beginning here, not there. For they had long wished for peace, and so had God; but you were not willing. And throughout he shows that the angels had no power in the times below, since men remained enemies, and the angels could neither persuade them nor, if they were persuaded, free them from the devil. For persuading brought no gain while the one who held them was not bound; nor did his being bound bring any gain while those held did not wish to return. Both were needed; the angels did neither, but Christ did both. So to persuade is more marvellous than to destroy death. For the latter was wholly his, and he alone was master of it; but of the former not he alone is master, but we too; and the things we ourselves are masters of we accomplish more easily. Since then it is the greater thing, he puts it later. And he did not simply say “at enmity,” but “alienated,” which belongs to great enmity; and not merely “estranged,” but not even expecting to return. “And enemies,” he says, “in mind,” showing by this that their alienation did not stop at their will only. But what? “And by wicked works.” You were enemies, he says, and you did the works of enemies. “But now in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him.” Here he sets down also the manner of the reconciliation: that it was in the body, and that it was not simply by being struck, nor scourged, nor sold, but also by dying the most shameful death. Again he mentions the cross, and again he sets down another benefit. For he not only freed us; what he says above, “who made us sufficient,” he hints at here too. “Through his death,” he says, “to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him.” For he not only freed us from our sins, but also set us among the approved. He suffered so much not only to free us from evils, but that we might also obtain the first rewards; as if someone not only freed a condemned man from punishment but also raised him to honour. And he ranked us with those who have committed no sin; or rather not only with those who have not sinned, but with those who have achieved the greatest things; and what is greater, he has given the holiness that is before him. “Irreproachable” is an intensification of “blameless”: one is called irreproachable when nothing has been done by us that comes even to censure or to a charge. But since he has ascribed the whole to him, saying that he accomplished these things through death, lest anyone should say, “So we need nothing,” he added, “if indeed you continue in the faith, … not moved away from the hope of the gospel.” Here he cuts at their slackness. And he did not simply say “continue”; for it is possible to continue while shaken and wavering; it is possible to stand and remain … Not only not shaken, he says, but not even moved. And see: so far he sets down nothing burdensome or laborious, but faith and hope; that is, if you remain believing that the hope of the things to come is true. For here it is possible to be unshaken; but in virtue it is impossible not to be shaken at all, even a little; so this is not burdensome. “From the hope,” he says, “of the gospel which you heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven.” And what is the hope of the gospel but Christ? For he is our peace, and he is the one who accomplished all these things. So whoever ascribes them to others has shifted his ground; for he has lost everything if he does not believe in Christ. “You heard,” he says. Again he brings them forward as witnesses, then the whole world. He does not say “being preached,” but already believed and “preached”; which he did also at the beginning, wishing to make them firm by the testimony of the many. “Of which I, Paul, became a minister.” This too contributes to trustworthiness. “I,” he says, “a minister.” For his dignity was great, now that he was celebrated everywhere and was the teacher of the world. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for his body, which is the church.”

And what is the sequence here? It seems disconnected, but it has much connection. “Minister,” he says: that is, contributing nothing of my own, but proclaiming another's. And I believe so firmly that I even suffer for him; and not only suffer, but rejoice in suffering, looking to the hope to come; and I suffer not for myself but for you. “And I fill up,” he says, “what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh.” What he uttered seems great, but it is not from arrogance — God forbid! — but from great tender love for Christ; for he does not want the sufferings to be his own, but Christ's. He spoke thus wishing to bring these people close to Christ. And what I suffer, he says, I suffer for his sake; so do not acknowledge thanks to me, but to him; for he himself suffers these things. It is as if someone, sent to a person, should beg another, saying, “I beg you, go to so-and-so for my sake,” and the other should then say, “I am doing these things for so-and-so's sake.” So he is not ashamed to call these sufferings Christ's. For he not only died for us, but even after dying he is ready to be afflicted for our sake. He strove and pressed hard to show him even now in danger for the church through Paul's own body; and he aims at this: you are not brought near through us but through him, even if we do these things; for we did not take on a work of our own, but his. It is the same as if a company had been allotted a general to shield it, and he stood firm in the war; and then, when he had departed, his lieutenant took on his wounds until the war was ended. Then hear that he does these things for Christ's sake too: “for his body,” he says, meaning this: “I am not doing you a favour, but Christ; for what he had to suffer, I suffer in his stead.” See how much he establishes. He shows great affection, as he said writing in the Second Letter to the Corinthians: “He placed in us the ministry of reconciliation”; and again, “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were exhorting through us.” This he says here too: “I suffer for him,” so as to draw them the more. That is: “Even if the one who owed you has departed, I repay.” That is why he said “what is lacking,” to show that he does not think he has yet suffered all. “For you,” he says: Christ suffers even after death, if indeed deficiencies still remained. This he does differently in the Letter to the Romans, saying, “who also intercedes for us,” showing that he was not content with death alone, but after it too does countless things. He does not, then, say these things exalting himself, but wishing to show that Christ even now cares for them. And he shows that the word is trustworthy by adding, “for his body.” That it is so, and nothing unlikely, is clear from these things happening for his body. See how he joined us to himself. Why then do you bring in angels as intermediaries? “Of which I became,” he says, “a minister.” Why do you bring in other angels? I am a minister. Then he shows that he himself did nothing, since he is a minister. “Of which I became,” he says, “a minister according to the stewardship of God given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God.” Either he says this: “He willed thus that, when he departed, we should take over the stewardship, so that you would not be at a loss as if abandoned; for it is he who suffers, he who is the ambassador”; or he says this: “He allowed me, the greatest persecutor of all, to persecute for this reason, so that I might be trustworthy when I preach”; or he calls it stewardship because God sought not works, nor deeds, nor achievements, but faith and baptism; for otherwise you would not have received the word. “For you,” he says, “to fulfil the word of God.” He speaks of the Gentiles, and by saying “to fulfil” he shows them still wavering. For that rejected Gentiles were able to receive so great a height of doctrines was not Paul's doing but God's stewardship: “For I could not have done it,” he says. Having shown the greater thing, that his sufferings are Christ's, he then adds the plainer: that this too is God's, to fulfil the word among you. And he shows here plainly that this too belongs to the stewardship, that it is said now, when you are able to hear; it was not from negligence, but so that you might become receptive. For God does not do everything all at once, but uses forbearance because of his great lovingkindness. And this is the reason why Christ came now and not long ago. So too he shows in the gospel that he sent the servants first for this reason, so that they would not come to the murder of the son. For if they did not respect the son even when he came after the servants, much less before this; if they did not listen to lesser commands, how would they have listened to greater ones? What then does someone say? “Are there not Jews even now, and Greeks less perfectly disposed?” This is now an excess of slackness. For to remain imperfect after so long a time, after so many teachings, belongs to great sluggishness.

When, then, the Greeks say, “Why did Christ come now?”, let us not let them say this, but let us ask whether he did not succeed. For just as, if he had come at the beginning and not succeeded, the timing would not have been enough for our defence, so, since he did succeed, we would not be right to be called to account for the timing. No one demands of a doctor who has dispelled the disease and restored health an account of his treatment, nor does anyone question a general who has won why at this time and why in this place. These questions were to be asked if he had not succeeded; but since he succeeded, one should even accept his choices. For which, tell me, is more trustworthy, your reasoning and slander, or the completeness of the deed? Did he win or not? Show this. Did he prevail or not? Did he bring to completion what he said, or not? These are the accounts to be given. Tell me, you certainly confess that there is a God, even if not Christ? I ask you, then: is God without beginning? You will certainly say so. Tell me then, why did he not make men ten thousand years earlier? For they would have lived a longer time; for if existing is good, much more is existing longer. As it is, have they suffered loss for the time in which they did not exist? But they have not suffered loss; how, he who made them knows. Again I ask you: why did he not make all at once? Why has the soul of so-and-so, who was born first, lived so many years, while another's is the poorer, not yet having come into being? Why did he cause one to be brought into this world first, and another later? Such questions are truly worth inquiry, but not curiosity; this one is not even worth inquiry. But I will tell the reason which I mentioned. Suppose human nature to be like a single life, and our race in its first times to have the rank of a boy, in those after that of a young man, and in these times near old age that of an elder. Then, when the soul is at its prime, the members of the body having slackened and the war having ended, we were brought to philosophy. “Yet it is the opposite,” he says: “we teach them while they are boys.” Yes, but not the great doctrines; rather rhetoric, rather skill in speaking; the great doctrines when they are in their prime. See God too doing these things with the Jews. For as with children, he led the Jews on as children, sketching things in outline, as we do the letters. “For the law had a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things.” Just as we buy cakes for children and give them money, demanding only one thing from them, to go to school for the present, so God then gave both wealth and luxury, buying from them through his great condescension only one thing: to listen to Moses. That is why he handed them over to a teacher, so that they would not despise him, but cling to him as to a loving father. For see how they feared only Moses. They did not say, “Where is God?”, but “Where is Moses?” And only when present was he fearsome to them. At any rate, when they acted wickedly, see how he punished them. God wanted to disown them, but Moses would not let him; or rather the whole was God's doing, as when a father threatens and the teacher intercedes, as it were, for the child and says, “Forgive me, and from now on I take responsibility.” So the desert became a school. And just as children who have spent a long time at their lessons want to go away, so they too then constantly sought Egypt and wept, saying … And Moses broke their tablet, on which he had written for them, as it were, some names; doing what a teacher too would do, who takes the writing tablet, sees it badly written, and throws down the tablet itself, wishing to show great anger; and even if he breaks it, the father does not punish him. For Moses was intent on writing; but they, not looking to him but turned elsewhere, were disorderly; and just as children at their lessons strike one another, so then too he commanded them to strike and kill one another. And again, as if giving lessons and then demanding them back and not finding them learned, he punished them. I mean something like this: the things in Egypt were letters making known the power of God. “Yes,” someone says, “but these letters showed the plagues, and that he punishes enemies.” Yet they were an exact school for them. For what else was the punishment of the enemies but your benefit? And besides, he did good to you too. It was the same as if someone said he knew the letters, but when asked them out of order could not find them, and was beaten. So they too said they knew the power of God, but when asked for their knowledge out of order they did not produce it; that is why they were beaten. Did you see a lack of water? You ought to remember the water in Egypt; for he who made blood from water will be able to do this too; just as we often say to children, “When you see the letter A in the book, remember that you had it on your tablet.” Did you see famine? Remember that he was the one who destroyed the crops. Did you see wars? Remember the drowning in the sea. Did you see that the inhabitants of the land were great? But not greater than the Egyptians. Then will not he who took you out of their midst much more save you now that you are outside? But they did not know how to be questioned on the letters in scattered order; that is why they were beaten. They ate and drank and kicked. They should not have sought luxury in the manna, having learned its evil from what happened. And they did the same as if a free boy, sent to school, should seek to be led with the slaves and to serve them, and, having received the food that is necessary and befits a free person, and sitting at his father's table, should want to enjoy the servants' food, foul-smelling and full of confusion. So too these sought Egypt, and they said to Moses, “Yes, lord, all that you say we will do and hear.” And what happens with very incorrigible children, when the father wants to destroy them and the teacher constantly intercedes, happened then too.

Why have these things been said by us? Because we differ in nothing from children. Do you want to hear also how their precepts are those meant for children? “Eye for eye,” it says, “and tooth for tooth.” Rightly; for nothing is so set on retaliation as a child's mind. For since passion belongs to irrationality, and at that age irrationality is great and the absence of reasoning great, the child is rightly tyrannized by anger; and so great is anger's tyranny that often, having stumbled and got up, it strikes its knee in vexation, or turns over the footstool, and so relieves its pain and quenches its anger. God did something of this kind, granting them to put out an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and destroying the Egyptians and the Amalekites who had grieved them. And he promises such things, as if someone should say, “Father, so-and-so struck me,” and then the father says, “So-and-so is a bad man; let us hate him.” So too God says, “I will be an enemy to your enemies, and hate those who hate you.” And again, when Balaam was praying, the condescension shown them was suited to children. For as with children, when they see something not fearful, such as wool or some other such thing, they are suddenly frightened; and so that the fear may not stay in them, we bring the thing under their hands and make the nurses show it to them; so God did too: since the soothsayer was fearsome, he turned their fear into courage. And just as children being weaned have everything in little baskets, so he gave them everything and supplied great luxury. But the child seeks the breast; so too these sought Egypt and the meat there. So one would not be wrong to call Moses teacher and nurse and tutor; for great was the man's wisdom. But it is not the same to lead men already able to philosophize and to rule irrational children. And if you want to hear something else: just as the nurse says to the child, “When you relieve yourself, lift your clothes,” and goes as far as this, “when you sit down,” so too Moses did. And just as all the passions tyrannize in children (for they do not yet have the charioteer) — vainglory, desire, irrationality, anger, envy — so too all these prevailed among the Jews: they spat on Moses, they struck him. And just as a child picks up a stone and we all shout, “Oh, don't throw it!”, so they too took up stones against their father, and he fled. And just as, if the father has some ornament, the child, fond of finery, asks him for it, so did those with Dathan, when they rose up. And they were the most envious of all, and petty, and imperfect in everything. Was it then, tell me, that Christ should have appeared? Then that these philosophical commands should have been given, when they were mad with desire, when they were stallions mad after females, when they were slaves to money and to the belly? He would have poured out the teachings of philosophy in vain, speaking to fools, and they would have learned neither these nor those. And just as one who teaches reading before the letters will never teach even the letters, so it would have been then. But not now: by the grace of God great is the gentleness, and much virtue has been planted everywhere. Let us then give thanks for all things, and not be curious. For we do not know the time, but the maker of time and creator of the ages does. Let us then yield all things to him; for this is to glorify God: not to demand of him an account of what he does. So Abraham too gave glory to God, “being fully convinced that what he had promised he was able also to do.” He did not even ask about the future; but we examine the reasons even of past things. See how great the folly, how great the ingratitude! But let us stop now; for there is no gain from this, but much harm; and let us be well disposed toward our Master and send up glory to God, so that, offering thanksgiving for all things, we may be counted worthy of his lovingkindness, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, honour, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

[Homily 5] “The mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but now has been made manifest to his saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory; whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that [we may present every man perfect in] Christ Jesus.” Having said what we have obtained, and having shown God's lovingkindness and the honour by the greatness of what was given, he again brings in another intensification: that no one before us learned it. He does this in the Letter to the Ephesians too, saying that neither angels nor principalities nor any other created power knew it, but only the Son of God. That is why he did not simply say “hidden,” but “hidden from the ages”; and he shows that even if it has happened now, yet it is ancient, and that God willed these things from the beginning and had so planned them; but why, he no longer says. “From the ages,” he says, that is, from the beginning. And he rightly calls it a mystery, which no one knew except God. And where was it hidden? In Christ, as he says in the Letter to the Ephesians; or it is as when the prophet says, “From everlasting to everlasting you are.” “But now it has been made manifest,” he says, “to his saints.” So the whole belongs to God's stewardship. “But now,” he says, “it has been made manifest.” He did not say, “it came about,” but “it has been made manifest to his saints.” So even now it is still hidden, since it has been made manifest to the saints alone. Do not let those men deceive you, then; for they do not know it. Why to them alone? “To whom he willed,” he says. See how everywhere he stops their questions. “To whom God willed,” he says, “to make known.” And his willing is not irrational. He said this rather to make them answerable for grace than to let them think highly of themselves as for an achievement. “What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles.” He spoke solemnly and added weight, seeking intensifications upon intensifications out of great affection. For this too belongs to intensification, to say indefinitely, “what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles.” For the great glory of the mystery appears most among the Gentiles, as he says elsewhere too, “and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy”; it appears in others too, but much more in these. For all at once to bring men more insensible than stones to the dignity of angels, simply through bare words and faith alone, without any labour, is truly the glory and riches of a mystery; as if someone should suddenly make a dog wasted by hunger and mange, ugly and misshapen, unable even to move, lying cast out, into a man, and show it on the royal throne. For see: they worshipped stones and the earth; they learned that they themselves are better than heaven and the sun, and that the whole world serves them. They were captives and prisoners of the devil; all at once they have come to be above his head, and they commanded him and scourged him. Being worshippers and slaves of demons, they have become the body of the Master of the angels and archangels. Not knowing even what God is, they suddenly became sharers of God's throne. Do you want to see ten thousand steps which they leapt over? They had to learn first that stones are not gods; second, that they are not only not gods but even inferior to men; third, that they are inferior to irrational animals; fourth, inferior even to plants; fifth — to bring the extremes together — that neither stones, nor earth, nor animals, nor plants, nor man, nor heaven; or, again, starting from the top: that neither stones, nor animals, nor plants, nor elements, nor the things above, nor the things below, nor man, nor demons, nor angels, nor archangels, nor any other of those powers above ought to be worshipped by human nature. As though drawn up from some abyss, they had to learn that this God is the Master of all, that he alone must be worshipped, that the wonderful way of life is good, that present death is not death, that this life is not life, that the body rises, that it becomes incorruptible, that it ascends to heaven, that it obtains immortality, that it stands with angels, that it is changed. But he took this man who was down there, and, having made him leap over all these, seated him above on the throne, making the one who had been beneath stones more lordly than angels and archangels and thrones and dominions. Truly he said well, “What is the riches of the glory of this mystery.” It is as if someone should suddenly show a fool to be a philosopher; or rather, whatever one says, one will say nothing adequate; for Paul's words too are indefinite. “What is the riches,” he says, “of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you.” Again they had to learn that he who is higher than all, ruler of the angels and master of all the other powers, came down and became man, suffered countless things, rose, and was taken up.

All these things belonged to the mystery, and he sets it down with praise, saying, “which is Christ in you.” And if he is in you, why do you seek angels as teachers? “Of this mystery”: for there is another mystery too. But this is truly a mystery, which no one knows, which is wonderful, which is beyond common expectation, which was hidden. “Which is Christ in you,” he says, “the hope of glory, whom we proclaim,” bringing him from above; “whom we” proclaim, not angels; “teaching and admonishing,” not by command nor with compulsion; for this too belongs to God's lovingkindness, that men are not brought near tyrannically. Since “teaching” was a great word, he added “admonishing,” which belongs rather to a father than to a teacher. “Whom we,” he says, “proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom,” that is, with all wisdom and understanding, or saying everything in wisdom. So all wisdom is needed; for to be able to learn such things is not for ordinary people. “That we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” What do you say, “every man”? Yes, he says, this is what we are eager for. What then? Even if this does not happen, blessed Paul was eager to make everyone perfect. So this is perfection, and that other is imperfect; so that if someone does not have all wisdom, he is imperfect. “Perfect in Christ Jesus”: not in the law, nor in angels, for that is not perfect. “In Christ,” that is, in the knowledge of Christ. He who knows what Christ did will think higher thoughts than the angels. “In Christ Jesus; for which I also labour, striving.” I do not simply strive, he says, nor casually, but “I labour, striving,” with great earnestness, that is, with much wakefulness. If I am so wakeful for your good, much more ought you to be. Then again, showing that it is divine: “according to his working,” he says, “which works in me in power.” He shows that this is God's work. He who makes me strong for this clearly wills it; that is why at the beginning too he says, “by the will of God.” So he has set it down not only out of modesty, but also confirming his word, and “striving.” By saying this he shows that many fight against him. Then his tender love is great: “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those in Laodicea.” Then, lest it seem to be due to their weakness, he joined others to them too, and did not yet condemn them. “And as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.” He shows here, in a divine manner, that he saw them continually in the spirit. And he bears witness to great love in them; that is why he added: “that their hearts may be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, unto the knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Now at last he hastens and is in travail to enter on the doctrine, neither accusing them nor freeing them from accusation. “I have a struggle,” he says. That what may happen? “That they may be knit together.” What he means is this: that they may stand firm in the faith. But he does not put it so; he cuts short the accusation. That is, that they may be united with love, not with compulsion, not with force. For, as I said, he is always inoffensive, entrusting things to them; and that is why he says, “I am in anguish, since I want it with love, and from willing hearts. For I do not want the gathering to happen merely, nor merely with the mouth, but that their hearts may be comforted, being knit together in love, unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding.” That is, that they may doubt about nothing. And he called the full assurance that comes through faith; for there is also a full assurance through reasonings, but that is worth nothing. I know, he says, that you believe, but I want you to be fully assured, not only unto riches, but “unto all riches,” so that you may be fully assured both in all things and intensely. And see the understanding of this blessed man. He did not say, “You do wrong, you are not fully assured,” and accuse them; but “You do not know how eager I am that you may be fully assured with understanding, and not simply.” For since he had said “faith,” he says, Do not think that I spoke simply and unprofitably, but with understanding, with love. “Unto the knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ.” So this is God's mystery: to be brought near through the Son. “And of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And if they are in him, then he came wisely even now. Why then do some fools find fault? See how he discourses for the simpler: “in whom are all the treasures”: he knows all things. “Hidden”: do not think that you already have everything; they are hidden even from angels, not from you only; so one must ask everything from him; he gives wisdom and knowledge. By saying “treasures” he shows the abundance; by “all,” that he is ignorant of nothing; by “hidden,” that he alone knows. “And this I say, lest anyone delude you with persuasive speech.”

Do you see, he says, that I said these things for this reason, so that you might not seek from men? “Delude,” he says, “with persuasive speech.” What then, if a man speaks persuasively? “For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit.” The consistent thing would have been to say, “For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I know the deceivers”; but as it is he ended in praise: “rejoicing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.” “Your order,” he says, your good order. “And the firmness of your faith in Christ.” These belong rather to praise. And he did not say “your faith,” but “the firmness,” as to soldiers standing in good order and steadily. What is firm, no deceit, no trial shakes. Not only, he says, have you not fallen, but no one has even confused your order. He set himself before them, so that they would fear him as present; for so order is kept. From “firmness” comes the idea of compactness; for a firm structure comes about when, having gathered many things, you glue them together compactly and inseparably; then it becomes firm, as with a wall. And this is the work of love; for it gathers those who stand by themselves. And faith again does the same, when it does not let reasonings enter. For just as reasonings divide and shake, so faith makes firm and fixes. For since God has done us good greater than human reasoning, he rightly brought in faith. For one who demands reasonings cannot be firm. See how all our solemn truths are devoid of reasonings and hold to faith alone. God is nowhere, and is everywhere. What is more irrational than this? Each by itself is full of perplexity. For he is not in a place, nor is there any place in which he is. He did not come into being, he did not make himself, he did not begin to be. What reasoning will accept these things, unless there is faith? Does it not seem ridiculous, and has it not rather the end of a riddle? His being without beginning, unbegotten, uncircumscribed, and infinite is thus perplexing; but let us look at his incorporeality, whether perhaps we can examine it by reasoning. God is incorporeal. What is incorporeal? A bare word only; for the mind has received nothing, nor imprinted anything on itself; for if it forms an image, it comes to nature and to the things that make up a body. So the mouth speaks, but the mind does not know what it says, except one thing, that it is not body; this alone it knows. And why do I speak of God? In the case of the soul, which came into being, which is enclosed, which is circumscribed, what is incorporeality? Tell me, show me. But you could not. Is it air? But air is body, even if not solid; and it is clear from many things that it is a yielding body. Fire, then? But fire is body, while the activity of the soul is incorporeal. Why? Because it pervades everywhere. If it is not itself a body, the incorporeal is in a place; so it is circumscribed; and what is circumscribed is in a shape; shapes come from lines, and lines belong to bodies. Again, what notion does the shapeless have? It has no shape, no form, no outline. Do you see how the mind grows dizzy? Again, that nature is incapable of receiving evils; but it is also good willingly; so it is capable of receiving. But it is impossible to say this — God forbid! Again, was he brought into being willingly or unwillingly? But this too cannot be said. Again, does he encompass the world or not? If he does not encompass it, he is himself encompassed; but if he encompasses it, he is infinite in nature. Again, does he encompass himself? But if he encompasses himself, then he is without beginning not to himself but to us; so he is not by nature without beginning. Everywhere one must grant contradictions. Do you see how great the darkness is, and that everywhere faith is needed? This is the firm thing. But, if you like, let us come to things lesser than these. That essence has activity. And what is activity in his case? Is it some motion? Then he is not unchangeable; for what is moved is not unchangeable, since it moves from motionlessness. … but willingly; for if unwillingly, it will also be capable of being acted upon. But this is not so. But nevertheless he moves, and never stands still. What kind of motion, tell me? For among us there are seven: down, up, inward, outward, right, left, circular; or, if not this, increase, decrease, coming to be, perishing, alteration. But he moves by none of these. Does he then move with such motion as the mind moves? Not this either, God forbid! For the mind moves much, and absurdly. Is willing acting? But he wills all men to be good and to be saved; how is it that this does not happen? Is willing, then, one thing and acting another? Then willing is not enough for activity. How then does Scripture say, “All that he willed, he did”? And again the leper says to Christ, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Do you want me to say something else too? How did things that exist come from things that do not? How are they dissolved into nothing? What is higher than heaven? And what again than that? And what than that? And what after that? And so to infinity. What is lower than the earth? The sea; and after that what? And after that again what? And to the right and to the left, is there not the same perplexity?

But these things are invisible. Do you want me to bring the discourse to visible things, to things that have already happened? Tell me, how did the beast hold Jonah in its belly without his perishing? Is it not irrational? Does it not move at random? How did it spare the righteous man? How did the heat not suffocate him? How did it not rot him? For if merely being in the deep is perplexing, being also in the bowels and in that heat is much more perplexing. For how did he breathe the air there? How was the breathing enough for two creatures? How did it vomit him out unharmed? How did he speak? How was he in his senses and able to pray? Are these things not incredible? If we examine them by reasoning, they are incredible; but if by faith, very credible. Shall I say something more than this? The grain rots in the bosom of the earth and rises. See the wonders contrary to one another and outdoing one another: it is wonderful that it does not … Where are those who disbelieve the resurrection and say, “How is this bone glued to that?” and bring in such fables? Tell me, how did Elijah go up in a chariot of fire? Fire is wont to burn, not to carry up. How does he live so long a time? In what place is he? Why did this happen? And where was Enoch translated? Does he enjoy food such as we do? And what prevents him from being here? But does he not enjoy it? And why was he translated? See God training us little by little. He translated Enoch: this is not very great. This trained us for the taking up of Elijah. Again, he shut Noah in the ark: this too is not very great. This trained us for the prophet's shutting up in the whale. So too the things of old needed forerunners and types. For just as on a ladder the first step sends one on to the second, and from the first it is impossible to come to the fourth, and this one leads to that, so that that may become the way to the next; nor is it possible to come to the second before the first; so it is here too. And see signs of signs; and you will see this in the ladder which Jacob saw, on which the angels went up and down. It was prophesied that the Father has a Son; this had to be believed. From where do you want me to show its signs, from above downward or from below upward? It had to be known that he begets without passion; that is why a barren woman bore first. Or rather let us take the discourse higher. It had to be believed that the Son was from the Father alone. What then? This happens, dimly indeed, as in type and shadow, but it happens; and as it proceeds it becomes somewhat clearer: from a man alone, a woman, and he remains whole. Again, there had to be some token of the conception from a virgin: a barren woman gives birth, not once, but a second and a third time and often. Of the birth from a virgin, then, the barren woman is a type, and she leads the mind on to faith. Again, this became a type of God's being able to beget alone. For if the woman is born from man, the more lordly, even without a woman, much more is the Son begotten from the more lordly one alone. There is also another birth that is a type of the truth: ours, which is from the Spirit. Of this again the barren woman is a type, because this birth from above is not from blood. The one shows its freedom from passion, the other its being able to be begotten from one alone. Christ is above, ruling all things; this had to be believed. This happens on earth in the case of man: “Let us make man,” he says, “according to our image and likeness,” and he is set over the rule of all the irrational creatures. So he trained you not by words but by deeds. Paradise showed the separateness of that nature, and that man is the best of all. Christ was going to rise: see now how many tokens of it: Enoch, Elijah, Jonah, the things in the furnace, the …

[Homily 6] “As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as you were taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.” Again he wins them beforehand by their own testimony, saying, “As therefore you received.” We are bringing in nothing strange, he says; so do not you either. “Walk in him”; for he is the way that leads to the Father; not in the angels, for this way does not lead there. “Rooted,” that is, fixed: not now this way and now that, but rooted; and what is rooted could never be shifted. See how he uses the words in their proper sense. “And built up,” he says, that is, reaching him with your mind. “And established in him,” that is, holding him fast and being built as on a foundation. He shows that they had fallen down; for “being built up” shows this. For faith is truly a building, and there is need both of a strong foundation and of secure building. For if someone does not build securely, it shakes; and if securely, but it does not stand firm, it no longer stands. “As you were taught.” Again the “as” shows that he says nothing new. “Abounding,” he says, “in it with thanksgiving.” For this is the mark of grateful people. I do not say simply give thanks, but with great eagerness, more than you learned, if possible, with great zeal. “Beware lest anyone make spoil of you.” Do you see how he showed him to be a thief and an alien, and one who enters quietly? For he has already … [Displaced passage, the end of Homily 5:] … the things of Noah, baptism, the seeds, the plants, our own birth, and that of all animals. For since on this everything was at stake, this more than anything had many types. That the universe is not without providence one can conjecture from things among us; for nothing remains unprovided for, but even herds and all other things need governance. And that all things did not come about by chance, Gehenna shows, and the flood in Noah's time showed it, and the fire, the drowning of the Egyptians, the things in the wilderness. Many things had to go before baptism too: there have been all the things done in water, and countless others, such as those in the Old Testament, those at the pool, the cleansing of the one who was not healthy, the flood itself, the baptism of John. It had to be believed that God gives up his Son: a man did this beforehand. Who is this? Abraham the patriarch. Types, then, of all these things we will find, if we wish, if we search the Scripture. But let us not grow weary, but form ourselves by these things; let us hold a firm faith and display exactness of life, so that, giving thanks to God through all things, we may be counted worthy of the good things promised to those who love him, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, honour, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

… represented him as entering. And he rightly said, “make spoil” … [as one who undermines a mound gives no] perceptible sign, but it gradually sinks; so too that man does. “Beware,” then; for this is his work, to give no perception of himself. “Through philosophy.” Then, since philosophy seems a solemn thing, he added, “and empty deceit.” For there is also a good deceit, by which many have been deceived, which one should not even call deceit; of which Jeremiah says, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived.” For such a thing one should not even call deceit; for Jacob too deceived his father, but it was not deceit but a dispensation. “Through philosophy,” he says, “and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.” For the present he touches on refuting the observance of days, calling sun and moon the elements of the world, as he said in the Letter to the Galatians too: “How do you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements?” And he did not say “observances of days,” but spoke of the whole present world, to show its cheapness; for if the world is nothing, much more the elements. Having first shown how much good they had received, how much kindness, he then brings in the accusation, to show it the greater and to win the hearers. This the prophets too always do: they first show the benefits and then magnify the accusations, as Isaiah says, “I begot sons and raised them up, but they rejected me”; and again, “My people, what have I done to you, or how have I grieved you, or how have I troubled you?”; and David, as when he says, “I heard you in the secret place of the storm”; and again, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” And everywhere you will find it so. Indeed, even if those men had something to say, they ought not to have been obeyed; but as it is, even apart from the benefits, one must flee those things. “And not according to Christ,” he says. For indeed, even if it were half-and-half, so that one could serve both this and that, not even so ought it to be; but as it is, it does not let you be according to Christ. From there they bring these things. Having first shaken the Greek observances, he then also removes the Jewish ones. For both Greeks and Jews observed many things, the former from philosophy, the latter from the law. He first, then, attacks the former, where the accusation is greater. How “not according to Christ”? “For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are filled in him, who is the head of all principality and authority.”

See how, in accusing these, he undermines that other, first setting down the solution and then the objection. For such a solution is not suspected, and the hearer accepts it the more, as though the speaker were not aiming at this. For in the other case he even strives not to be defeated, but here not. “For in him dwells”: that is, God dwells in him. But lest you think that he is enclosed as in a body, he says, “all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are filled in him.” Others say he means the church, filled by his Godhead, as he says elsewhere, “of him who fills all in all,” and that “bodily” is said here as of a body in the head. How then did he not add, “which is the church”? Some say he is speaking of the Father, that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him; but wrongly. First, because “dwelling” is not said properly of God; second, because the fullness is not what receives; for “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness of it,” and again the apostle says, “until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in”: the whole is called fullness. Then what does “bodily” mean? As in a head. And why does he say the same thing again, “and you are filled in him”? What is it, then? That you have nothing less than he: as it dwelt in him, so in you. For Paul always strains to bring us near to Christ, as when he says, “He raised us up together and seated us together”; and, “If we endure, we shall also reign with him”; and, “How will he not also with him freely give us all things?”; and he calls us fellow heirs. Then about his dignity: “And he is the head of all principality and authority.” He who is higher than all, their cause, is not of one essence with them. Then he brought in the benefit wonderfully, and much more wonderfully than in the Letter to the Romans. For there he says, “circumcision of the heart, in spirit, not in letter”; but here, “in Christ”: “in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ.” See how near the reality he comes. “In the putting off,” he says; he did not say merely “in the taking off.” “Of the body of the sins”: he means the old life. He turns these things over continually and in various ways, as also above he said, “who delivered us from the authority of …” “… that we should be holy and blameless.” No longer, he says, is circumcision with a knife, but in Christ himself; for no hand performs this circumcision, as there, but the Spirit; and it circumcises not a part but the whole man. This is a body, and that is a body; but the one is circumcised in the flesh, the other spiritually; but not as the Jews; for you have put off not flesh but sins. When and where? In baptism. And what he calls circumcision, he again calls burial. See how again he passes to the ordinances. “Of the sins,” he says, “of the flesh,” that is, the things they did in the flesh. He says something greater than circumcision; for they did not throw away what was circumcised, but destroyed it, abolished it. “Buried with him,” he says, “in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” But it is not only a burial; for see what he says: “in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” He said well; for it is wholly of faith. You believed that God can raise, and so you were raised. Then also the trustworthiness: “who raised him,” he says, “from the dead.” Already he shows the resurrection. “And you, who were once dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made alive together with him.” For you were under sentence to die. And if you died, yet not simply: it was a useful death. See how again he shows what they deserved, by what he added: “having forgiven us all our trespasses, having blotted out the handwriting against us in ordinances, which was contrary to us; and he took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; having stripped off the principalities and authorities, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” “Having forgiven us,” he says, “all our trespasses.” Which? Those that caused deadness. And what? Did he let it remain? No, but he even blotted it out; he did not only cross it out, but blotted it out, so that it does not even appear. “In ordinances,” he says. What ordinances? Faith. So it is enough to believe. He set not works against works, but faith against works. And what after this? Blotting out is again an intensification of forgiving. “And he took it,” he says, “out of the way.” And not even so did he keep it, but tore it up, “nailing it to the cross.” “Having stripped off the principalities and authorities, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” Nowhere has he spoken so grandly. Do you see how great an eagerness he showed for the handwriting to be destroyed? For instance: we were all under sin and punishment; he, being punished, abolished both the sin and the punishment; and he was punished on the cross. There, then, he nailed it; then, as having authority, he tore it up. What handwriting? Either he means what they said to Moses, “All that God has said we will do and hear”; or, if not this, that we owe God obedience; or, if not this, that the devil held the handwriting which God made with Adam, saying, “In the day you eat of the tree you will die.” The devil, then, held this handwriting. And Christ did not hand it to us, but tore it up himself, which is the mark of one who forgives with joy. “Having stripped off the principalities and authorities.” He means the devilish powers; either because human nature had put them on, or because they held it as by a handle: having become man, he stripped off the handle. This is “he made a show of them.” And he said this well; for never was the devil so disgraced. For expecting to hold him, he lost even those he had; and when the body was being nailed, the dead were rising. There the devil received the blow, receiving the mortal wound from a dead body. And just as an athlete who thinks he has struck his opponent himself receives a mortal blow from him, so too Paul shows that to die openly is the devil's disgrace. For the devil would have done everything, if he could, to persuade men that Christ did not die. For since all the time afterwards was proof of the resurrection, but if that moment had not proved his death, there would have been no other time to do so, he therefore died publicly with all looking on, but did not rise publicly, knowing that the time after would bear witness to the truth. For that the serpent was slaughtered up on the tree while the world looked on, this is the marvel. And what did the devil not do so that he might die unnoticed? Hear Pilate saying, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; for I find no fault in him.” And again the Jews said to him, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” So, since he had received the mortal blow and did not come down, he was also handed over to burial; for it was possible for him to rise at once, but he did not, so that the fact might be believed. And yet in private deaths … but here not even this is possible. For the soldiers did not break his legs as they did the others', so that it would be manifest that he had died. And those who buried the body are known; that is why the Jews themselves seal the stone with the soldiers. For this was what was most of all striven for, that it should not be obscured. And the witnesses are from the enemies, from the Jews. Hear them saying to Pilate, “That deceiver said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I rise.’ Command, then, that the tomb be guarded by the soldiers.” And this happened with them sealing it. And hear them saying this also afterwards to the apostles: “You want to bring this man's blood upon us.” In the same way he did not allow the cross itself to be a matter of shame. For since angels have suffered nothing of the kind, he does everything on its behalf, showing that the death accomplished something great. For it became like a single combat: death struck Christ, but Christ, having been struck, afterwards destroyed it; the one who seemed to be immortal was being destroyed by a dead body; and the world saw this. And the marvellous thing is that he did not entrust this to another. But there has come to be another handwriting again, not such as the former.

Let us see, then, that we are not caught by this, after saying, “I renounce you, Satan, and I join myself to you, Christ.” Or rather this should not be called a handwriting, but a covenant. For a handwriting is when someone is held liable for debts; but this is a covenant: it has no penalty, nor does it say, “If this, or if not this.” Moses, sprinkling the blood of the covenant, spoke thus, and God promised eternal life. All these things are a covenant. There, a slave to a master; here, a friend to a friend. There, “In the day you eat,” he says, “you will die”: at once a threat; but here nothing of the kind. Here there is nakedness, and there nakedness; but there he was stripped when he sinned, because he sinned; here he is stripped so that he may be freed. Then he put off the glory which he had; now this man puts off the old man, and before going down into the water he puts it off as easily as his clothes. He is anointed, like athletes about to enter the stadium. For he is born at once, and not little by little like that first man, but immediately; and he is anointed not as the priests of old, on the head only, but more fully. For the priest was anointed on the head, the right ear, the hand, so as to rouse him to obedience and good works; but this man is anointed all over. For he comes not only to be taught, but also to compete and to train, and he is led into another creation. For when he confesses his faith unto eternal life, he has confessed another creation. God took dust from the earth and formed man; but now no longer dust, but the Holy Spirit: by this he is formed, by this he is shaped, as Christ himself was in the womb of the Virgin. He did not say “in paradise,” but “in heaven.” For do not think, since the earth lies beneath, that you are on earth: you have been transferred there, to heaven; there these things happen, among angels; God takes your soul above, reshapes it above, sets you beside the royal throne. You are formed in the water, and you receive a spirit in place of a soul. After you are formed he does not bring wild beasts to you, but demons and their leader, and says, “Tread upon serpents and scorpions.” He does not say, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness,” but what? He gives them power to become sons of God, who, it says, were born not of blood but of God. Then, so that you may not listen to the serpent, he at once teaches you to say, “I renounce you,” instead of “Whatever you say, I will not listen to you.” Then, so that he may not catch you through others, he says, “and your pomp and your worship and your angels.” He placed man no longer to guard paradise, but to live as a citizen in heaven. For as soon as he has come up, he utters these words: “Our Father who art in heaven, thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.” No plain meets your sight, you see no tree nor spring, but at once you embrace the Master himself, you are mingled with his body, you are mixed with the body that lies above, where the devil cannot approach. There is no woman there for him to approach and deceive as the weaker; for “there is,” it says, “neither female nor male.” Unless you go down to him, he will not be able to step where you are; for you are in heaven, and heaven is inaccessible to the devil. It has no tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but only the tree of life. No longer is a woman taken from your side, but we are all one from the side of Christ. For if those anointed by men suffer nothing from snakes, neither will the serpent persuade you of anything, so long as you are anointed, so that you can hold the serpent and strangle it, and tread upon serpents and scorpions. But as the gifts are great, so great too is our punishment: one who falls from this paradise cannot dwell opposite paradise, nor return to the place from which we fell. But what after this? Gehenna, and the undying worm. But may none of us become liable to this punishment; but living virtuously, let us be eager to do what pleases him, so as both to be freed from punishment and to obtain the eternal good things, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, honour, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

[Homily 7] “Let no one, then, judge you in food or in drink, or in respect of a feast or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is Christ's. Let no one defraud you of the prize, delighting in humility and the worship of angels, intruding into things he has not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, and not holding fast the head, from whom the whole body, supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with the growth of God.” Having first said darkly, “Beware lest there be anyone who makes spoil of you … according to the tradition of men,” and again further above, “This I say …,” and having thus taken hold of their soul beforehand and made it anxious, then inserting the benefits, and … to sin? That is why he said, “that he is a debtor to keep the whole law”; and again, “Is Christ found a minister of sin?”, which he said when writing to the Galatians. When, then, he had filled them with indignation by saying, “Let no one defraud you of the prize” … “delighting,” he says, “in humility and the worship of angels, intruding into things he has not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh.” How “in humility”? Or how “puffed up”? He shows … What is meant? There were some who said that we must not be brought near through Christ but through the angels, for that was too great a thing for us. That is why he turns over and over the things said about Christ: that we were reconciled through the blood of his cross, that he suffered for us, that … having done this, he then brings in the refutation afterwards … he loved us. And in this very thing they were elated; and he says, “Let no one, then, judge you in food or in drink, or in respect of a feast or a new moon or sabbaths.” Do you see how he pulls these things down? If you have obtained such things, he says, why do you make yourselves answerable in petty matters? And he belittles them, saying, “or in respect of a feast”; for in fact they did not keep all the former rules. “Or a new moon or sabbaths.” He did not say, “Do not keep them, then,” but “Let no one judge you.” He showed that they were transgressing and breaking these observances, but he laid the charge on others. Do not put up with those who judge you, he says. Yet not even this: he only argues with those men, all but stopping their mouths, saying, You ought not to judge. But he would not have touched on these … He did not say, “in clean and unclean,” nor did he say, “in Tabernacles and Unleavened Bread and Pentecost,” but “in respect of a feast”; for they did not dare to keep the whole; and if they kept it, it was not so as to celebrate the feast. “In respect of,” he says, showing that the greater part has been abolished. For even if they kept the sabbath, it was not exactly. “Which are a shadow of the things to come,” that is, of the New Covenant. “But the body is Christ's.” Some punctuate this, “But the body is Christ's,” meaning that the truth has come in Christ; others, “Let no one defraud you of the body of Christ”: one is defrauded of the prize when the victory is with one and the prize goes to another, when someone is wronged after winning. You stood above the devil and sin; why do you again subject yourself to them? And he did not say “access through” angels, but “worship” of angels. “Intruding into things he has not seen.” For he has not seen angels, and yet he is disposed as though he had seen them. That is why he says, “vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh.” For it is not upon any true reality, but upon the doctrine; as if he said, of a fleshly mind, not a spiritual one: the reasoning is human. “And not holding fast the head,” he says, “from whom the whole body.” That is, from there it has its being and its well-being. Why then, letting go of the head, do you cling to the members? If you fall away from there, you are lost. “From whom the whole body.” Whoever it is, he says, has from there not only his life but also his being joined together. The whole church grows as long as it holds the head; otherwise it is no longer growth but a passion of arrogance and vainglory, an invention of human thinking. See, the “from whom” is said of the Son. “Through the joints and ligaments,” he says, “supplied and knit together, it grows with the growth of God,” the growth that is according to God, he says, which comes from the best way of life. “If then you died with Christ.” He sets that in the middle, and the stronger on either side. “If you died with Christ from the elements of the world,” he says, “why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances?” It does not follow; for he ought to have said, “How, as though living, are you subject to the elements?” But leaving this, what does he say? “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, things which all perish in the using, according to the commandments and teachings of men.” … And why at all …

You are not in the world, he says; how then are you subject to the elements? How to the observances of the world? And see how he mocks them: “Do not touch, do not handle, do not taste,” as if they were abstaining from great things. “Which all perish in the using.” He pulled down the arrogance of the many, and added, “according to the commandments and teachings of men.” What do you say? Even if you mean the law, it is now a teaching of men, after its time. Either he said this because they were perverting it, or he hints at the customs of the Greeks. The whole doctrine is human, he says. “Which have indeed a word of wisdom in self-chosen worship and humility and severity to the body, not in any honour, to the satisfying of the flesh.” “A word,” he says, not power; so not truth. So even if it has a word of wisdom, let us turn away from it. For such a man seems to be reverent and moderate and to despise the body; but he is not. “Not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.” For God gave honour, but they do not use it in honour. So, when it is a matter of doctrine, he knows how to call this honour. They dishonour the flesh, he says, by depriving it and taking away its freedom, not allowing it control of its own will; but God honoured the flesh. “If then you were raised with Christ.” He now gathers them up above, having established that he died. That is why he says, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek the things above.” There is no observance there. “Seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” Ah, to what height he has led our mind! How he filled them with great thoughts! It was not enough to say “the things above,” nor “where Christ is,” but he adds, “seated at the right hand of God.” From there he was now preparing them not to look at the earth. “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things on earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your life, is manifested, then you too will be manifested with him in glory.” This is not your life, he says; your life is another. Already he strains to transfer them, and strives to show them both seated above and dead, establishing from both that they should not seek the things here. For whether you are dead, you ought not to seek them, or whether you are above, you ought not to seek them. Does Christ not appear? Then neither does your life. It is above, in God. What then? When shall we live? “When Christ, your life, is manifested”: then seek glory, then life, then luxury. These things prepare the way for leading them away from luxury and ease. Such is his custom: while establishing one thing he leaps to another; as when, speaking of those who went ahead of one another at the supper, he fell suddenly upon the observance of the mysteries. For a reproof has great force when it comes unsuspected. “It is hidden,” he says, from you. “Then you too will be manifested with him”; so now you are not manifest. See how he transferred them to heaven itself. For, as I said, he always strives to show them having the same things as Christ; and through all his letters this is his aim, to show them sharing with him in everything. That is why he speaks of head and body, and does everything to establish this. If then we are manifested then, let us not grieve when we do not enjoy honour; if this life is not life but is hidden, we ought to live this life as dead men. “Then you too,” he says, “will be manifested with him in glory.” He said “in glory,” not simply; for the pearl too is hidden as long as it is in the oyster. So whether we are insulted, let us not grieve, or whatever we suffer; for this life is not our life; for we are strangers and sojourners. “For you died,” he says. Who is so foolish as to buy servants for a dead and buried body, or build houses, or prepare costly clothes? No one. Let not us either; but just as we seek only one thing for it, that it be not naked, so here too let us seek only one thing. Our first man was buried; buried not in earth but in water; not with death destroying him, but with him who destroyed death burying him, not by the law of nature but by the command of his sovereignty, which is stronger than nature. For what is made by nature one might undo; but what is made by his command, no longer. Nothing is more blessed than this burial, at which all rejoice, angels and men and the Master of the angels; for this burial there is no need of grave clothes, nor coffin, nor any other such thing. Do you want to see its symbol? I will show you a pool in which one was buried and the other rose: in the Red Sea the Egyptians were drowned and the Israelites came up; and the same thing buries the one and gives birth to the other.

Do not marvel if birth and destruction take place in baptism; for tell me, is not dissolving the opposite of joining together? It is clear to everyone. Fire does this: it dissolves and destroys wax, but joins together the ore-bearing earth and makes gold. So here too, the power of the fire, having made the wax statue vanish, showed a golden one in its place; for we were truly of clay before the bath, and golden after it. How is this clear? Hear him saying, “The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is heavenly, from heaven.” I spoke of the difference between clay and gold, but I found a greater difference between heavenly and earthly: the difference between clay and gold is not so great as between earthly things and heavenly. We were of wax and of clay; for the flame of desire melted us much more than fire melts wax, and any chance temptation broke us much more than a stone breaks clay vessels. And, if you like, let us describe the former life, whether it was not all earth and water, with everything easily blown about, the dust, the unstable and flowing. And, if you like, let us examine not the former things but the present ones, whether we will not find them all dust and water. For what do you want to mention? Offices and powers? For nothing seems more enviable than these in the present life. But one would sooner find dust standing still in the air than these, especially now. For to whom are they not subject? To those who love them, to eunuchs, to those who do everything for money, to the anger of the populace, to the wrath of the more powerful. He who yesterday was lofty on the tribunal, who had heralds shouting with brilliant voices, and many running before him and scaring people off in the marketplace, today is cheap and lowly and bereft and stripped of all those things, like dust blown up, like a stream that has passed by. And just as dust is raised from our feet, so offices are born from those who busy themselves with money and hold the rank of feet in all of life; and just as dust, when it is raised, occupies much of the air, though it is itself little, so too office; and just as dust blinds the eyes, so the vanity of office maims the eyes of the mind. But what? Do you want us to examine the much-prayed-for thing, wealth? Come, let us examine it part by part. It has luxury, it has honours, it has power. First, then, if you like, let us examine luxury: is it not dust? Or rather it passes by even faster than dust; for the pleasure of luxury lasts as far as the tongue, and when the belly is full, not even as far as the tongue. “But honours,” he says, “are a pleasant thing.” And what is more unpleasant than that honour, when it comes about because of the need of money? When it is not from choice nor from any goodwill, it is not you who reap the honour but your wealth. So this very thing makes the rich man the most dishonoured of all. For tell me, if, because you had a friend, everyone honoured you, but confessed that you yourself were worth nothing and that they were compelled to honour you for his sake, could they have dishonoured you in any other way more? So wealth is a cause of dishonour to us, since it is more honoured than its very owners, and a token of weakness rather than of power. How then is it not absurd that we should not be thought worthy of honour ourselves, but should be honoured because of earth and ashes (for that is what gold is)? Rightly so for them; but not so for one who despises wealth; for it is better not to be honoured than to be honoured thus. For tell me, if someone said to you, “I think you worthy of no honour, but I honour you because of your servants,” could anything be worse than this dishonour? And if to be honoured because of servants, who share the same soul and nature with us, is shameful, much more is it shameful to be honoured because of these things, which are cheaper — walls of houses, I mean, and courtyards and golden vessels and garments. Truly these things are a laughingstock and a shame; it is better to die than to be honoured thus. For tell me, if, when you were in danger in this pride of yours, some cheap and despicable person wanted to rescue you from the danger, what would be worse than this? What you say to one another about our city, I want to say to you. Our city once offended the ruler, and he ordered the whole of it to be utterly destroyed, with men and children and houses; for such is royal anger: they gratify their power as they wish; so great an evil is power. We were then in the utmost danger. And the neighbouring city, this one by the sea, came and entreated the emperor on our behalf; but those who lived in our city said that this was worse than the city being razed. So to be honoured thus is worse than being dishonoured. For see where honour has its root. The hands of cooks make us honoured, so that we owe them thanks; and swineherds, who provide a rich table …

Instead, then, of owing thanks to these people for honour, is it not better not to be honoured? And apart from this, I will try to show clearly that being rich is full of dishonour. It makes the soul ugly; and what is more dishonourable than this? For tell me, if your body were beautiful and surpassed all in beauty, and wealth came and promised to make it ugly, diseased instead of healthy; and instead of trim, filled all the limbs with dropsy and swelled the face and made it swollen all over, made the feet heavier than beams, swelled the belly and made it larger than any jar; and after this promised not even to allow those who wished to heal you (for this is what licence is), but to grant such freedom that if anyone came to take you away from what harms you, it would punish him; would there be anything crueller than this, tell me? How then could being rich be good, when it does these things to the soul? But the licence is more grievous than the disease itself; for not to obey even the rules of doctors when sick is more grievous than being sick; and this is what wealth has: it makes the soul inflamed on all sides and prevents the doctors from approaching. So let us not count these men blessed for their licence, but pity them. For neither, seeing a dropsical man lying down and no one preventing him from filling himself with as much drink as he wanted and with harmful meats, would I have called him blessed for his licence. For licence is not good everywhere, just as honours are not either; for these too fill men with great conceit. And if you would not choose to receive this disease in the body together with wealth, how do you overlook the soul, which suffers not only this but another punishment too … and inflammations, and that fever which no one can quench. For wealth does not allow it, having persuaded men that what are defects are advantages: for example, to put up with no one and to do everything at will. For one will not find another soul so full of desires, and such absurd ones, as the souls of those who want to be rich. What nonsense do they not picture to themselves? One would see them picturing more than those who fashion hippocentaurs and chimeras and serpent-footed giants and Scyllas and monsters. And if you want to picture one of their desires, neither Scylla nor chimera nor hippocentaur will seem anything beside that monstrosity, but you will find it having all the beasts together. And perhaps someone will think that I have lived in great wealth, since I speak so truly of what goes on. A certain man is said — for I will first confirm my word from what is told among the Greeks — a certain king among them is said to have wantoned so much in luxury as to make a golden plane tree, and a heaven above it, and so to sit; and this while campaigning against men who had learned to fight. Is not this desire one of hippocentaurs? Is it not Scylla's? Another again threw men into a wooden ox. Is this not Scylla? For the present, of the former ones, one made the king a woman instead of a man, … from a woman — what shall I say? — an irrational beast, and still worse than this. For beasts, if they are under trees, are content with nature and seek nothing more; but this man overshot even the nature of beasts. What could be more foolish than the rich? And this comes from the greed of their desires. Do not many admire him? Then they share in his ridicule. This showed not wealth but folly. How much better than that golden plane tree is the one that grows from the earth! For natural things are pleasanter than unnatural ones. And what did you want with the golden heaven, fool? Do you see how much wealth makes men mad, how it inflames them? I think that he did not even know the sea, and perhaps wanted to walk on it. Is this not a chimera? Is it not a hippocentaur? But there are even now some such people. For in what, tell me, do those who make golden jars and pots and alabaster boxes differ in folly from the golden plane tree? And what of the women (I am ashamed, but it is necessary to say it) who make silver chamber pots? You women who do these things ought to be ashamed. While Christ is starving, do you live in such luxury, or rather act so foolishly? What punishment will these women not pay? Do you still ask, then, why there are robbers, why murderers, why evils … silver; even this does not belong to a philosophic soul, but is wholly of luxury; but to make even unclean vessels of silver, is this luxury? I would not call it luxury, but folly; nor even this, but madness, or rather worse than madness.

I know that many mock me for this, but I pay no attention; only let something more come of it. Truly being rich makes men foolish and mad. If their abundance were great enough, they would have wanted even the earth to be golden, and walls of gold, perhaps even the sky and the air of gold. What madness, what lawlessness, what fever! Another, who is made in the image of God, is perishing with cold, and do you make such things? O the vanity! What more could a madman have done? Do you so honour your excrement as to receive it in silver? I know that you are stunned at hearing it; but the women who do it ought to be stunned, and the husbands who minister to such diseases; for this is licentiousness and cruelty and inhumanity and brutality and wantonness. What Scylla, what chimera, what dragon, or rather what demon, what devil would have done these things? What profit is there in Christ, what in the faith, when one is put up with by Greeks, or rather not by Greeks but by demons? If one must not adorn the head with gold and pearls, what pardon will he get who uses silver for so unclean a service? Are the other things not enough — though even those are not tolerable — seats and footstools all of silver? Even these belong to folly. But everywhere excessive vanity, everywhere vainglory; nowhere what is needful, but everywhere the superfluous. I fear that, advancing in this madness, the female sex may take on the form of monsters; for it is likely that they will desire to have golden hair too. Or confess that you were not moved at what was said, and roused, and fell into desire, and that if shame had not restrained you, you would not have refused it. For if you dare things more absurd than these, much more, I think, will you desire to have this golden hair, and golden lips and eyebrows, and to melt gold over everything and smear yourselves with it. And if you do not believe it, and think I speak in jest, I will tell what I heard, or rather what exists now. The king of the Persians has a golden beard, those skilled in these things winding the gold leaf into his hair as into a woof; and he sits there like a monster. Glory to you, Christ: with how many good things you have filled us, how you have made us healthy! From how great monstrosity, how great irrationality you have freed us! See, I tell you beforehand: I no longer exhort, but command and charge: let whoever wishes hear, and whoever does not wish disobey: if you persist in doing these things, I will not endure it, nor receive you, nor allow you to cross these thresholds. For what need have I of a crowd of sick people? What then, if in training you I do not forbid the things that are not superfluous? And yet Paul forbade both gold and pearls. We are laughed at by the Greeks; our religion seems a fable. And I exhort the men too about these things: you come to a school … to learn spiritual philosophy? Take away that vanity. This I exhort both men and women; and if anyone does otherwise, I will no longer endure it. The disciples were twelve, and hear what Christ says to them: “Do you also want to go away?” When will we ever do any good? “But there are other heresies,” someone says, “and they go over to them.” This saying is cold: “Better is one who does the will of the Lord than ten thousand transgressors.” For what do you yourself want, tell me? To have ten thousand runaway and thieving servants, or one loyal one? See, I exhort and charge you both to break up the beautifying of your face and such vessels and to give to the poor, and not to be so mad. Whoever wishes, let him leap away; whoever wishes, let him accuse me; I will put up with no one. When I am to be judged at the judgment seat of Christ, you will stand far off, and your favour will count for nothing while I give account. These are the words that have ruined everything: “so that he does not go away,” someone says, “and go over to another heresy; he is weak, condescend to him.” How far? Until when? Once, twice, three times; not forever. See, I charge you again, and I testify in the words of blessed Paul, that if I come again I will not spare … But when you have succeeded, then you will know how great the gain, how great the benefit. Yes, I beg and entreat, and I would not refuse to clasp your knees and make supplication for this. What folly! What luxury! What insolence! This is not luxury but insolence. What folly! What madness! So many poor stand around the church, and the church, which has so many children, and so rich, cannot help a single poor man; but one hungers and the other is drunk; one relieves himself even into silver, and the other does not share even in bread. What madness! What brutality, so great! May we not come to the trial of proceeding against the disobedient, nor to the indignation of permitting these things; but may you willingly and patiently restrain all these things, so that we may live for the glory of God and be freed from the punishment there and obtain the good things promised to those who love him, by the grace and lovingkindness …

[Homily 8] “Put to death your members that are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry; because of which the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience; in which you too once walked, when you lived in them.” I know that many were offended at the previous discourse; but what am I to do? You heard what the Master commanded. Am I to blame? What shall I do? Do you not see how creditors, when debtors are obstinate, put collars on them? Did you hear what Paul cried out today? “Put to death,” he says, “your members that are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.” What is worse than such greed? This is heavier than what I was speaking of, the madness and silliness about silver. “And greed,” he says, “which is idolatry”: see where the evil ends. Do not be annoyed; for I do not willingly or idly want to have enemies, but I wished you to come to such virtue that I might hear of you what I ought. So it is not a matter of authority or rank, but of pain and grief. Forgive me, forgive me: I do not want to be indecent in speaking about such things, but I am compelled. I say these things not for the sake of the pain of the poor but for your salvation; for they will perish, they will perish, who did not feed Christ. For what if you feed someone? As long as you live so wantonly and so luxuriously, everything is in vain. For what is asked is not to give much, but not less than one's own means; otherwise it is mere play. “Put to death, then, your members,” he says, “that are on the earth.” What do you say? Did you not say, “You were buried,” “You were buried with him,” “You were circumcised,” “We put off the body of the sins of the flesh”? How then do you say again, “Put to death”? Do not play with us: do you speak as though these things were still in us? There is no contradiction. If someone scoured a filthy statue, or rather recast it, and showed it bright again, and said that the rust had been eaten away and destroyed, yet exhorted again that care be taken to remove the rust, he would not contradict himself; for he exhorts them to remove not the rust which he scoured off, but the rust that forms afterwards. So he speaks not of the former putting to death, nor of those former acts of sexual immorality, but of those that come later. “But see,” say the heretics, “Paul slanders the creation; for he said before, ‘Set your mind on the things above, not on the things on earth,’ and again he says, ‘Put to death your members that are on the earth.’” But “on earth” here indicates sin, not a slander against creation. For he calls the sins themselves “things on earth,” either because they are done from an earthy way of thinking and on earth, or because they show sinners to be earthly. “Sexual immorality, uncleanness,” he says. He passed over the deeds, which it is not good even to name, and by “uncleanness” indicated them all. “Passion,” he says, “evil desire.” See, he named the whole generically; for all things are evil desire: envy, anger, grief. “And greed,” he says, “which is idolatry; for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” He led them away by many means: by the benefits already given, by the things to come, by the evils from which we were freed, by who we were and why, and all those things, such as who we were and in what, and that we were freed from them, how and in what way and on what terms. These things are enough to turn them away; but more forceful than all is this, unpleasant to say but not unprofitable, rather beneficial: “because of which,” he says, “the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” He did not say “upon you,” but “upon the sons of disobedience.” “In which you too once walked, when you lived in them.” To shame them he says, “when you lived in them,” and with praise, as though they no longer live so: then it was so. “But now you too put them all away.” And he always speaks both generally and particularly; this belongs to affection. “Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, shameful speech out of your mouth.” … “Shameful speech,” he says, “out of your mouth,” expressively, because it defiles it. “Having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new, which is being renewed unto knowledge according to the image of him who created him.” It is worth inquiring here why he calls the corrupt life members and man and body, and the virtuous life likewise. And if the sins are the man, how does he say, “with his deeds”? For having once said “old man,” he showed that this is not man, but that is. For the will is more sovereign than the essence, and this is man rather than that. For it is not the essence that throws into Gehenna or brings into the kingdom, but the will itself; and we neither love nor hate anyone insofar as he is a man, but insofar as he is such a man. If then the essence is the body, and this is not answerable in either case, how does he call it evil?

And what does he mean by “with his deeds”? The will with its works. And he calls him old to show his ugliness and deformity and weakness; and new, meaning: Do not expect, he says, that this one too will suffer the same, but the opposite; for the further he advances, the more he hastens not to old age but to a youth greater than the former. For when he receives more knowledge, he is deemed worthy of greater things, and is more in his prime and stronger, not from his youth only, but also from the image to which he is shaped. See, the best way of life is called a creation. “According to the image of Christ”: for this is “according to the image of him who created him”; since Christ too did not die in old age, but was so beautiful that it cannot even be told. “Where there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.” See a third praise of this new man: when no difference of nation, nor of rank, nor of ancestry enters in, when he has nothing of the outward things, nor needs them; for such are all outward things: circumcision and uncircumcision, slave, free, Greek, that is, proselyte, and Jew, that is, from ancestry. If you have this one only, you will obtain the same things as the others who have those. “But Christ is all and in all,” he says; that is, Christ will be everything to you, both rank and race, and he himself in all of you. Or he means something else: that you have all become one Christ, being his body. “Put on, then, as God's elect, holy and beloved.” He shows the ease of virtue, so that they may have it continually and use it as the greatest adornment. And the exhortation comes with praise, for then it is most effective. For some became holy, but not elect; but now they are both elect and holy and beloved. “Hearts of compassion.” He did not say “mercy,” but put it more expressively through the two words. And he did not say that we must be disposed as to brothers, but as fathers to children. For do not tell me that he sinned; that is why he said “hearts.” And he did not say “compassion,” so as not to belittle them, but “hearts of compassion.” “Kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another and forgiving each other, if anyone has a complaint against anyone; just as Christ forgave you, so also you.” Again he speaks by species; for from kindness comes humility, and from this longsuffering. “Bearing with one another.” And see how he showed it to be nothing by calling it a “complaint.” Then he adds, “just as Christ forgave you.” Great is the example; this he always does, urging them on from Christ. “Complaint,” he says. There he showed it to be small; but when he brought in the example, he persuaded them that even if we have great charges to bring, we must forgive. For “just as Christ” means this; and not this only, but also that we must forgive from the whole heart; and not this only, but also that we must love. For Christ, brought into the midst, brings all these things in: that we must forgive even if the wrongs are great, even if we happen not to have done wrong first, even if we are great and they small, even if they are going to insult us afterwards too; and that we must lay down our life for them; for “just as” demands these things; and that we must not stop even at death, but, if possible, go on even after it. “And above all these, love, which is the bond of perfection.” Do you see that he says this? For since it is possible to forgive without loving, Yes, he says, love too; and he shows the way by which it is possible to forgive. For one can be kind and meek and humble and longsuffering, and not feel affection. That is why at the beginning he said “hearts of compassion,” meaning love and mercy. “And above all these, love, which is the bond of perfection.” What he wants to say is this: none of those things is of any profit; for they all dissolve unless they are done with love. Love binds them all together; whatever good you mention, if love is absent, is nothing, but flows away. Just as on a ship, even if the timbers are great, if the undergirding cables are not there, there is no profit; and in a house, if there are no tie-beams; and in a body, even if the bones are great, if the ligaments are not there, there is no profit. For whatever achievements one has, all are gone if there is no love. He did not say that it is the summit, but what is greater, the bond; this is more necessary than that. For the summit is the intensification of perfection, but the bond is the holding together of the things that make up perfection, as it were the root. “And let the peace of God be umpire in your hearts, to which you were also called in one body.” The peace of God is the peace that is fixed and firm. If you have peace for a man's sake, it is quickly dissolved; but if for God's sake, no longer. He had spoken of love in general, but again he comes to the particular. For there is also an immoderate love, as when out of great love someone finds fault rashly, quarrels, and turns away. No, he says, I do not want this; but as God made peace with you, so also do you. And how did he make it? By his own will, receiving nothing from us. What is “let the peace of God be umpire in your hearts”? If two thoughts are fighting, do not set up anger, do not set up insolence holding the prize, but peace. For example, suppose someone has been insulted unjustly; from the insult two thoughts are born, one bidding him retaliate, the other bidding him bear it, and they wrestle with one another. If the peace of God stands as umpire, it gives the prize to the one bidding him bear it, and puts the other to shame. How? By persuading him that God is peace, that he made peace with us. He shows, not without reason, that the contest is great. Let not anger, he says, be umpire, nor contentiousness, nor human peace; for human peace comes from retaliating, from suffering nothing terrible. But I do not want this, he says, but the peace which Christ himself left. He made a stadium within, in the thoughts, with a contest, an athletic struggle, and an umpire. Then again an exhortation: “to which you were called,” he says, that is, for which you were called. He reminded them of how many good things peace is the cause. For this he called you, on these terms he called you, so that you may receive the prize as one worthy of trust. For why did he make one body? Was it not so that peace might prevail? Was it not so that we might have an occasion for being at peace? Why are we all one body? And how are we one body? Through peace we are one body, and because we are one body we are at peace. And why did he not say, “Let the peace of God conquer,” but “be umpire”? He made it more worthy of trust. He did not allow the evil thought to wrestle with it, but made it stand lower. And the name of the prize roused the hearer. For if peace gives the prize to the good thought, however shameless the other is, it is of no further avail. And besides, the evil thought knew that whatever it does, it will not receive the prize; however much it blusters and tries to attack more violently, it will withdraw, having laboured at senseless things. And he rightly added, “and be thankful.” For this is to be thankful, and very shaming to us: to treat our fellow servants as God has treated us, to yield to the Master, to obey, to acknowledge thanks for all things, even if someone insults us, even if someone strikes us. For one who acknowledges thanks to God for what he has suffered will not retaliate on the one who did it; whereas one who retaliates does not acknowledge thanks. But let us not become like that man who demanded the hundred denarii, lest we hear, “Wicked servant”; for nothing is worse than this ingratitude. So those who retaliate are ungrateful. And why did he come to sexual immorality first? For having said, “Put to death your members that are on the earth,” he at once says, “sexual immorality”; and he does this almost everywhere. Because this passion prevails most; for in writing to the Thessalonians too he did this. And what marvel? Since he even says to Timothy, “Keep yourself pure”; and again elsewhere, “Pursue peace with all, and the holiness without which none of you will see the Lord.” You know what a dead thing is: hateful, abominable, decaying. If you put it to death, it does not stay dead, but at once decays, like the body. Quench, then, its heat, and nothing remains but what is dead. He shows the believer doing this, which Christ did in the bath; that is why he also calls them members, bringing him in like a champion, and leading on to a greater emphasis. And he rightly said, “that are on the earth”; for here they remain and here they decay, much more than these members of the body. So the body is not from the earth in the way that sin is earthly; for the body sometimes appears beautiful, but those never. And these members desire all things on earth. If the eye is such, it does not see the things in heaven; so too if it is the hearing, if a hand, whatever member you mention. The eye sees bodies and beauty and money; these are from the earth, and it delights in them; the hearing delights in soft song, lyre and pipe and obscene talk; these are about the earth. Since then he had set them above, beside the throne, he then says, “Put to death your members that are on the earth.” For it is not possible to stand above with these members; for there is nothing there on which they can act. And this clay is worse than that; for that clay becomes gold: “For this perishable must put on imperishability”; but this clay can no longer be recast. So these are more “on the earth” than those. That is why he did not say “from the earth,” but “on the earth”; for it is possible for these not to be from the earth. For those must necessarily be on earth, but these not necessarily. For when the hearing hears nothing of the things here, but of the things spoken in heaven, when the eye sees nothing of the things here but of the things above, it is not on earth; when the mouth utters nothing of the things here, it is not on earth; when the hand does nothing wicked, it does not belong to the things on earth but to those in heaven.

This Christ too says: “If your right eye causes you to stumble,” that is, if you look licentiously, “cut it out,” that is, the evil thought. It seems to me that “sexual immorality, uncleanness, passion, desire” all say the same thing, sexual immorality: through all of them he leads us away from the thing. For it is truly a passion; and as the body suffers, either has fever or is wounded, so does this. And he did not say, “Restrain,” but “Put to death,” so that it may not rise again; and put it away. What is put to death we put away: for example, if there are calluses on the body, that part of the body is dead, and we put it away. If you cut it while alive, it causes pain; but if it has been put to death, we do not even feel it. So too with the passions: sexual immorality makes the soul unclean, makes the immortal soul subject to passion. How greed is called idolatry we have often said. For the things that most tyrannize the human race are these: greed, licentiousness, and evil desire. “Because of which,” he says, “the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” He says “sons of disobedience,” depriving them of excuse, and showing that they are in these things through not being persuaded. “In which you too,” he says, “once walked,” and were persuaded. He shows them as though still in them, and praises them by speaking so. “But now you too put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, shameful speech.” He directs his words not at them but at others, so as not to wound. And by blasphemies he means abuse, as by wrath he means wickedness. Elsewhere he says, to shame them, “We are members of one another.” He represents them as craftsmen of men, of whom one puts off the old man and the other receives the new. There he said “the members”; here he says “all”: the heart, anger, the mouth, blasphemy, the eyes, sexual immorality, greed, hands and feet, falsehood, the mind itself, and the old mind. The new man has one royal form, Christ's. These people seem to me to be rather from the Gentiles, to whom he also directs his words, showing that the members have one royal form, even if one is greater and another lesser. For just as earth, being sand, first loses its own form and afterwards becomes gold, and just as wool, whatever it was, receives another appearance and hides the former one, so too the believer. “Bearing with one another,” he says. He showed what is just: bear with him, and he with you; as he says in the Letter to the Galatians, “Bear one another's burdens.” “And be thankful,” he says. Above all he seeks this everywhere; for this is the sum of good things.

Let us then give thanks in everything, whatever happens; for this is thanksgiving. To do this in prosperity is nothing great, for the very nature of things pushes one to it; but when we give thanks while in extremities, then it is marvellous. For when we give thanks for things at which others blaspheme and complain, see how great the philosophy is. First, you have gladdened God; second, you have shamed the devil; third, you have shown that what happened is nothing. For at once you give thanks, and God cuts short the pain, and the devil departs. If you complain, the devil stands by you, as having accomplished what he wanted, and God, as blasphemed, abandons you, and the trouble is intensified; but if you give thanks, the devil departs, as gaining nothing, and God, as honoured, honours you more greatly in return. And it is not possible for a man who gives thanks in evils to feel the evils. For the soul rejoices as one that is succeeding; at once it has a bright conscience, it delights in its own praises; and a bright soul cannot be gloomy. In the other case, along with the misfortune, conscience too presses on him, scourging him; but here it crowns and proclaims him. Nothing is holier than that tongue which gives thanks to God in evils; truly it falls short in nothing of the tongue of the martyrs: it is crowned just as the martyr is. For over it too stands an executioner, compelling it to deny God through blasphemy; the devil stands over it … If then someone bears the pains and gives thanks, he has obtained the crown of martyrdom. For example, the child is sick, and the mother gives thanks to God: this is a crown to her. What torture is despondency not worse than? Yet it does not force her to utter a bitter word. The child dies; again she gave thanks? She has become a daughter of Abraham. For if she did not slay it with her own hand, yet she was pleased with the sacrifice, which is equal; for she was not indignant when the gift was taken. Again the child fell sick; she did not make amulets? It is reckoned to her as martyrdom; for she sacrificed her son in her resolve. For what if those things are of no use, but are deceit and mockery? Still there were those who persuaded her that they help; and she chose rather to see the child dead than to put up with idolatry. Just as, then, she is a martyr, whether this is done in her own case or her child's or her husband's or that of any other of her dearest, so the other woman is an idolater. For it is clear that she would have sacrificed, if it were possible to sacrifice; or rather she has already performed the act of sacrifice. For amulets — even if those who make money from them philosophize endlessly, saying, “We invoke God and do nothing more,” and such things, and “The old woman is a Christian and a believer” — the thing is idolatry. Are you a believer? Make the sign of the cross; say, “This is my only weapon, this my remedy; I know no other.” Tell me, if a doctor came and, leaving aside the remedies of medicine, used incantations, would we call him a doctor? Not at all; for we do not see the remedies of medicine. So here too we do not see those of Christianity. Other women again hang on the names of rivers, and dare countless such things. See, I say and forewarn you all, that if anyone is caught, I will not spare again, whether he makes an amulet or an incantation or anything else of such an art. “What then,” she says, “is the child to die?” If it lives in that way, then it has died; but if it dies without those things, then it has lived. As it is, if you see your son given to harlots, you pray that he may be buried, and say, “What use is it to live?”; but when you see him in danger for his salvation, do you wish to see him alive? Did you not hear Christ saying, “He who loses his life will find it, and he who finds it will lose it”? Do you believe what was said, or do they seem fables to you? Tell me, if someone said, “Take him to an idol's temple, and he will live,” would you put up with it? “No,” she says. Why? “Because that compels idolatry; but here there is no idolatry, only an incantation,” she says. This is the satanic thinking, this the devilish craft: to cover up the error and give the poison in honey. Since he knows that he will not persuade you that way, he has gone by this road, to amulets and old wives' fables; and the cross is dishonoured, and the letters are preferred to it; Christ is cast out, and a drunken, babbling old woman is brought in; our mystery is trampled, and the devil's error dances. “Why then,” she says, “does God not refute it?” He has refuted the help from such things in many places, and did not persuade you; now he leaves you to the error: “For God gave them up,” it says, “to a reprobate mind.” Not even a Greek with sense would put up with these things. It is said that a certain demagogue at Athens once had these things hung on him; then a philosopher, his teacher, seeing it, rebuked him … For we are in so wretched a state as to believe even in these things. “And why are there not now those who raise the dead,” someone says, “and perform healings?” Why, I do not yet say; but why are there not now those who despise the present life? Why do we serve God for wages? When human nature was weaker, when the faith had to be planted, there were many such; but now he does not want us to depend on these signs, but to be ready for death. Why then do you cling to the present life? Why do you not see the things to come? For this life you put up even with idolatry, but for that one you will not even restrain your despondency? That is why there are no such men now: because that life has appeared worthless to us, since for it we do nothing, while for this one there is nothing we refuse to endure. And what of that other absurdity, ash and soot and salt? And again the old woman is brought in. Truly a laughingstock and a shame. And “an eye,” she says, “has snatched the child.” How long these satanic things? How will the Greeks not laugh? How will they not mock, when we tell them, “Great is the power of the cross”? How will they be persuaded when they see us needing the things they themselves laugh at? Is it for this that God gave doctors and medicines? “What then, if they do not heal, and the child departs?” Where does it depart, tell me, wretched and miserable woman? To the demons? To some tyrant? Does it not depart to heaven? Not to its own Master? Why then do you grieve? Why weep? Why mourn? Why do you love the child more than your Master? Do you not have this too through him? Why are you ungrateful, loving the gift more than the giver? “But I am weak,” she says, “and I cannot bear the fear of God.” Yet if in bodily evils the greater hides the lesser, much more in the soul: if fear were present, fear would have dissolved fear, and grief grief. Was the child beautiful? But however beautiful it was, it is not more lovely than Isaac; and he too was an only son. Was it born to you in old age? So was he. But is it handsome? However handsome, it is not more lovely than Moses, who drew even a barbarian's eye to love, and that at an age when beauty does not yet show; and yet his parents cast this beloved child into the river. You see your child lying dead, and hand it over to burial, and go to the tomb; but they did not even know whether it would be food for fish, or for dogs, or for some other of the beasts that feed in the sea; and they did this knowing nothing yet of the kingdom or of the resurrection. “But it is not an only child; it has gone after many others too.” But not as with Job, where the misfortune came all at once and was gloomier: not with a roof falling, not while they were at table, not with misfortunes announced one after another. “But it was loved by you.” But not more than Joseph, who became the food of a wild beast; yet Jacob bore that misfortune, and the one after it, and the one after that. The father wept, he mourned, but he stopped at these words, saying, “Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and will you take Benjamin? All these things have come upon me.” Do you see how the tyranny of famine persuaded him to disregard his children? And with you does the fear of God not prevail as much as famine did? Weep, I do not forbid it; but say nothing blasphemous and do nothing blasphemous. Whatever your child is like, he is not like Abel; but Adam said nothing of the kind. And yet that misfortune was grievous; for what is more grievous than that a brother had killed his brother? But I have remembered other fratricides opportunely, as when Absalom killed Amnon, the firstborn. And David the king loved his child, and sat in sackcloth and ashes; but he brought neither diviners nor enchanters, though there were such then, as Saul shows, but he besought God. Do this too: what the righteous man did, do also, and say the same words when the child dies: “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” This is philosophy, this is tender love. However much you love your child, you do not love it as much as he did then; for in that blessed man the longing for its mother was at its height, even if the child came from adulteries. And you know that children share in the love felt for those who bore them. And so great was his love that he wished it to live, though it would be an accuser to him; but nevertheless he gave thanks to God. What do you think Rebekah suffered when the brother threatened Jacob? She did not grieve her husband, but bade him send Jacob away. Consider things worse than these when you suffer something terrible, and you will have sufficient consolation; reckon: what if he had died in war? What if in a fire? And whatever we suffer, let us consider worse things, and we will have enough consolation; and let us always look around at those who have suffered worse, and whether we ourselves ever suffered heavier things. So Paul too exhorts, as when he says, “You have not yet resisted to blood”; and again, “No temptation has taken you but such as is human.” Whatever we suffer, then, let us look around at worse things; for we will find them, and so we will be thankful. And above all let us give thanks continually for all things; for so these things too will cease, and we will live for the glory of God and obtain the promised good things, which may we all obtain, by the grace and lovingkindness … [Homily 9] “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing yourselves with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord; and whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Having exhorted them to be thankful, he also shows the way. What way is this? The one we discussed with you lately. What does he say? “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Or rather not only this way, but another too. For I said that we must count over those who have suffered worse things, and … and give thanks that those things did not befall us; but what does he say? “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” that is, the teaching, the doctrines, the exhortation, in which he says that the present life is nothing, nor its good things. For if we see these things, we will yield to none of the hardships. “Let it dwell,” he says, “in you richly”: not simply, but with great abundance. Hear, all you who live in the world and preside over wife and children, how he entrusts to you especially the reading of the Scriptures, and not simply nor casually, but with great earnestness. For just as one who is rich in money can bear a fine and a penalty, so one who is rich in the doctrines of philosophy will bear not only poverty but all misfortunes easily, and more easily than the other. For there, in paying off the fine, the rich man must be diminished and exposed, and if this happens often he will no longer be able to bear it; but here it is not so; for we do not use up our sound thoughts when we must bear something unwelcome, but they remain always. And see the understanding of this blessed man. He did not simply say, “Let the word of Christ be in you,” but what? “Let it dwell,” and “richly.” “In all wisdom teaching and admonishing yourselves.” He calls virtue wisdom, rightly; for humility and almsgiving and all such things are wisdom, as their opposites are folly; for cruelty too comes from folly. Hence in many places Scripture calls all sin folly: “The fool said,” it says, “in his heart, There is no God”; and again, “My wounds have become foul and festered because of my folly.” For what, tell me, is more foolish than a man who clothes himself in garments but overlooks his own brothers naked? Who feeds dogs but overlooks the image of God in famine? Who does not see that human affairs are nothing, and clings to them as if they were immortal? Just as nothing is more foolish than such a man, so nothing is wiser than one who achieves virtue. For see how wise he is: he shares what he has, he is merciful, humane; he has recognized that nature is common; he has recognized the use of money, that it is worth nothing, and that one should spare one's own body rather than money. Therefore, despising glory, he is also a philosopher; for he knows human affairs. Philosophy is the knowledge of things divine and human. So he knows what things are divine and what are human, and keeps away from the latter and practises the former; he knows also to give thanks to God in all things; he thinks the present life nothing; that is why he neither delights in good fortune nor grieves at the opposite. Do not wait for another teacher: you have the oracles of God; no one teaches you as they do. For a teacher often hides many things through vainglory and envy. Hear, I beg you, all you who … If you want nothing else, at least get the New Testament, the Acts of the apostles, the Gospels, as constant teachers. If grief befalls, dip into them as into a chest of medicines … for the trouble, whether loss or death or the bereavement of your own; or rather do not merely dip into them, but take them all up, hold them in your mind. This is the cause of all evils: not knowing the Scriptures. We go to war without weapons; and how ought we to be saved? It is well if we are saved with them, let alone without them. Do not throw everything on us; you are sheep, but not irrational, rather rational; Paul entrusts much to you too. Those who are being taught do not spend all their time learning, otherwise they are not being taught; if you are always learning, you will never learn. Do not come as one who will always be learning, for then you will never know; but as one who will finish learning and teach another. Tell me, do not all people stay at their lessons for fixed periods, and in short in all the arts? So we all fix a definite time; but if someone is always learning, it is a sign that he has learned nothing. This reproach God spoke to the Jews: “Carried from the womb, and taught until old age.” If you did not always expect this, everything would not have gone backward so. If it were possible for some to have learned and others to be about to learn, our work would have advanced; you would have given place to others and would have joined in the work with us. Tell me, if some went to a schoolmaster and then stayed forever learning the letters, would they not give the teacher much toil? How long are we to discourse to you about life? In the apostles' time it was not so; they constantly moved on, making those who had learned first into teachers … they were able to go round the world by not being tied to one place. How much teaching do you think your brothers in the fields need, and their teachers? But you hold me nailed here. For before the head is well disposed, it is superfluous to go on to the rest of the body. You throw everything on us. You ought to learn from us only, and your wives from you, and your children from you; but you leave everything to us. That is why the toil is great. “Teaching,” he says, “and admonishing yourselves with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” See also how Paul avoids being burdensome. Since reading involves labour and much tedium, he did not lead them to the histories but to psalms, so that you might at once delight your soul by singing and steal away the labour. “With hymns,” he says, “and spiritual songs.” But now your children choose satanic songs and dances, like cooks and caterers and dancers; but no one knows a single psalm; the thing even seems a shame and mockery and a laughingstock. From there all evils are kept alive. For in whatever soil the plant stands, such is the fruit it bears: if in sandy and salty soil, fruit of that kind; if in sweet and rich soil, again fruit like it. So teachings are a kind of spring. Teach your son to sing those psalms full of philosophy, for example about self-control at once, or rather first of all about not keeping company with the wicked, right from the beginning of the book (for that is why the Prophet began from there, saying, “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly”; and again, “I have not sat with the council of vanity”; and again, “The evildoer is set at nought before him, but he glorifies those who fear the Lord”); about keeping company with the good (and you will find these things there, and many others); about controlling the belly, about restraining the hands, about not being greedy; that money is nothing, nor glory, and all such things. When you have led him into these from childhood, little by little you will lead him to higher things too. The psalms have everything; but the hymns again have nothing human. When he has learned in the psalms, then he will also know hymns, as a more divine thing. For the powers above sing hymns; they do not sing psalms. “For a hymn is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner,” it says; and again, “My eyes are on the faithful of the land, that they may sit with me”; and again, “He who practises pride shall not dwell in the midst of my house”; and again, “He who walks in a blameless way, he ministered to me.” So take care that your children mix not only with no bad friends, but not even with bad servants. For countless evils befall free children when we set corrupt slaves over them. For if, enjoying a father's love and so much philosophy, they are hardly kept safe, what will they become under servants? These treat them as enemies, thinking their own masters will be milder if they make them fools and worthless and of no account. Before all else, then, let us be eager about these things. “I loved,” he says, “those who love your law.” Let us too emulate him and love these. And again, so that the children may be chaste, let them hear the Prophet saying, “My loins are filled … everyone who goes whoring from you.” And that one must control the belly, let them hear again: “And he killed,” it says, “the fattest of them, while their food was still in their mouth.” And that one must be above gifts, they will learn from this: “If riches flow in, do not set your heart on them”; and that one must master the love of glory, they will find this too: “Nor will his glory go down after him”; not to envy the wicked: “Do not be envious of evildoers”; to think powers nothing: “I saw the ungodly exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and lo, he was not”; to think present things nothing: “They called the people blessed who have these things; blessed is the people whose God is the Lord”; that we do not sin with impunity, but he repays according to our works. And why does he not repay every day? “God is a judge,” it says, “righteous and strong and longsuffering”; that humility is good: “Lord,” it says, “my heart is not exalted”; that pride is evil: “Therefore,” it says, “pride took hold of them to the end”; and again, “The Lord resists the proud”; and again, “Their injustice will come out as from fat”; that almsgiving is good: “He scattered, he gave to the poor; his righteousness endures forever”; that showing mercy is praiseworthy: “Good is the man who has pity and lends.” And you will find there many more doctrines full of philosophy than these: for example, that one must not speak evil: “He who secretly slanders his neighbour, him I drove out.” What the hymn of those above is, what the cherubim say, the faithful know. What did the angels say below? “Glory to God in the highest.” That is why hymns come after the psalmody, as something more perfect. “With psalms,” he says, “hymns, songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God.” Either he means that God gave us these things by grace; or, with the songs sung in grace; or, admonishing and teaching yourselves in grace; or that they had these gifts in grace; or it is an explanation: from the grace of the Spirit, he means. “Singing in your hearts to God”: not simply with the mouth, he says, but with attention. For this is singing to God, but the other is singing to the air, for the voice is simply scattered. Not for display, he says. Even if you are in the marketplace, you can collect yourself and sing to God, with no one hearing. For Moses too prayed thus and was heard; for God says, “Why do you cry to me?” And yet he said nothing, but cried in his mind, with a contrite heart; that is why God alone heard him. For nothing prevents a person even while walking from praying in the heart and being above. “And whatever you do,” he says, “in word or in deed, do all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” For if we do so, nothing will be defiled, nothing unclean, where Christ is invoked. If you eat, if you drink, if you marry, if you travel, do all in the name of God, that is, calling on him as helper; pray to him first before everything, and so set your hand to things. Do you want to say something? Put this first. That is why we too put the Lord's name first in our letters. Wherever the name of the Lord is, all things are auspicious. For if the names of consuls make documents secure, much more the name of Christ. Or he means this: say and do all things according to God; do not bring in the angels. Do you eat? Give thanks to God, both before and after. Do you sleep? Give thanks to God, both before and after. Do you go into the marketplace? Do the same: nothing worldly, nothing of the common life. Do all things in the name of the Lord, and all will prosper for you. Wherever the name of God is placed, all is auspicious. If it casts out demons, if it drives away diseases, much more will it make things easy. And what is it to do in word or in deed? Either asking for something or doing anything whatever. Hear how Abraham sent his servant in the name of God; David slew Goliath in the name of God. Wonderful is his name, and great. Again Jacob, sending his sons, says, “May my God give you favour before the man.” For he who does this has God as his ally, without whom he dared do nothing. As then God is honoured by being invoked, he will honour him in return by making things easy. Invoke the Son, give thanks to the Father. For when the Son is invoked, the Father is invoked, and when the Father is thanked, the Son is thanked. Let us learn to fulfil these things not in words only, but also in deeds. Nothing is equal to this name; it is wonderful everywhere: “Your name,” it says, “is ointment poured out.” He who says it is at once filled with fragrance. “No one can say ‘Lord Jesus,’” he says, “except in the Holy Spirit.” Such things this name works. If you say, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” with faith, you have accomplished everything. See how much you have done: you have created a man, and you have wrought all the rest from baptism. So too, when diseases are commanded, the name is fearful. That is why the devil brought in the things of the angels, envying us the honour. Such are the incantations of demons. Even if it is an angel, even if an archangel, even if the cherubim, do not put up with it; for not even these powers would accept it, seeing the Master dishonoured. “I honoured you,” he says, “and said, ‘Call on me’; and do you dishonour him?” When you sing this incantation with faith, you will drive away both diseases and demons; and if you do not drive away the disease, it is not from weakness, but because it is not expedient. “According to your greatness,” it says, “so is your praise.” Through this name the world was converted, the tyranny was dissolved, the devil … the heavens were opened. And why do I say the heavens? We were born again through this name. If we have it, we shine. This makes both martyrs and confessors; let us hold it fast as a great gift, so that we may live in glory, and please God, and be counted worthy of the good things promised to those who love him, by the grace and lovingkindness …

[Homily 10] “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be bitter toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is well-pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they lose heart. Slaves, obey in everything your masters according to the flesh, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. Whatever you do, work at it from the soul, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. But he who does wrong will receive back the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality with God. Masters, grant your slaves what is just and equal, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.” Why does he not give these commands everywhere and in all his letters, but here and in the Letter to the Ephesians and in the one to Timothy and the one to Titus? Because it is likely that there were dissensions in these cities; or it is likely that they had succeeded in other things but fell so short in these that they needed to hear about them too. Or rather, what he says to these he says to all. This letter has a great resemblance to the one to the Ephesians. Elsewhere he does not do this; either because to men who were by then at peace, but who still needed to learn the lofty doctrines which they lacked, he ought not to write about these things; or because for those who needed comfort in their trials it was superfluous to hear about them. So I conjecture that the church here was by then settled, and that these things are said toward the end. “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord”: that is, be subject for God's sake; for this adorns you, he says, not them. For I mean not a master's subjection, nor the subjection that comes from nature only, but that which is for God's sake. “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be bitter toward them.” See how again he has exhorted what corresponds. As there he set down fear and love, so here too; for it is possible to love and yet be bitter. What he says is this: Do not fight; for nothing is more bitter than this fighting, when it comes from husband to wife. For the fights that arise with beloved persons are the bitter ones; and he shows that this comes from great bitterness, when, he says, someone is at odds with his own member. To love, then, belongs to husbands; to yield, to wives. If then each contributes his own part, everything stands firm. For from being loved the wife too becomes loving, and from her submission the husband becomes gentle. See too that in nature it has been so arranged that he loves and she obeys. For when the ruler loves the one ruled, then everything holds together. Love is not sought so much from the one ruled as from the ruler toward the one ruled; for from the one ruled obedience is sought. For the woman's being in her bloom and the man's being in desire shows nothing other than that it was so made for the sake of love. Do not, then, since your wife is subject, play the despot; nor you, wife, since your husband loves you, be puffed up. Let neither the husband's love lift up the wife, nor the wife's subjection puff up the husband. For this reason God subjected her to you, that she might be loved the more; for this reason he made you loved, woman, that you might easily bear being subject. Do not fear being subject; for to be subject to one who loves has no difficulty. Do not fear loving; for you have her yielding. Otherwise there would not have been a bond. You have, then, the authority from nature by necessity; have also the bond that comes from love; for love has made the weaker bearable. “Children, obey your parents in everything; for this is well-pleasing in the Lord.” Again he has set down “in the Lord,” both laying down laws of obedience, and shaming and overpowering them. “For this,” he says, “is well-pleasing to the Lord.” See how he wants us to do everything not from nature alone, but before nature from what pleases God, so that we may also have a reward. “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they lose heart.” See, again here too there is subjection and affection. And he did not say, “Love your children,” for that was superfluous, since nature itself compels it; but he corrected what had to be corrected, that the affection here should be stronger, since the obedience is greater. For nowhere does he set down the example of husband and wife; but what? Hear the Prophet saying, “As a father pities his sons, the Lord has pitied those who fear him.” And again Christ says, “Who is there among you, whom if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? And if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?” “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they lose heart.” He set down what was most able to bite them, and spoke more lovingly in commanding them, and nowhere sets down God; for he softened the parents and bent their hearts. “Do not provoke” means this: Do not make them more contentious; there are times when you ought even to give way. Then he came to a third kind of rule: “Slaves,” he says, “obey your masters according to the flesh.” Here there is some affection too, but no longer natural as above, but from habit, and from the rule itself, and from the works. Since then here the affection is cut short and the obedience intensified, he dwells on this, wishing to give these through obedience what the first have from nature. So he speaks to the servants not only for the masters' sake, but also for their own, so that they may make themselves loved by their masters. But he does not set this down openly; otherwise he would have made them careless. “Slaves,” he says, “obey in everything your masters according to the flesh.”

And see how he always sets down the names, “wives,” “children,” “slaves,” as a ground of the duty to obey. But lest the slave be pained, he added, “your masters according to the flesh.” The better part of you, the soul, has been freed, he says; the slavery is temporary. Subject, then, that part, so that the slavery may no longer be one of necessity. “Not with eye-service, as men-pleasers.” Make the slavery that comes from the law come from the fear of Christ, he says. For if, even when your master does not see, you do what is needed and what tends to his honour, clearly you do it because of the unsleeping eye. “Not with eye-service,” he says, “as men-pleasers.” So you yourselves will suffer the harm. For hear the Prophet saying … See, then, how he spares them and also regulates them. “But in singleness,” he says, “of heart, fearing God.” For that is not singleness but hypocrisy, to have one thing in mind and do another, to appear one man when the master is present and another when he is absent. So he did not simply say, “in singleness of heart,” but “fearing God.” For this is to fear God: when, with no one watching, we do nothing wicked; but if we do, we fear not God but men. Do you see that he regulates them? “Whatever you do,” he says, “work at it from the soul, as to the Lord and not to men.” He wants them freed not only from hypocrisy but also from idleness. He made them free instead of slaves, when they do not need the masters' supervision; for “from the soul” means with goodwill, not with servile necessity but with freedom and choice. And what is the reward? “Knowing,” he says, “that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord.” So clearly you will receive the reward from him. And that you serve the Lord is clear from this: “He who does wrong,” he says, “will receive back the wrong he has done.” Here he confirms what he said before. For lest his words seem to be flattery, “He will receive,” he says, “the wrong he has done,” that is, he also pays a penalty; “for there is no partiality with God.” For what if you are a slave? You are not put to shame for it. And yet this should have been said to the masters, as in the Letter to the Ephesians. But here he seems to me to hint at Greek masters. For what if he is a Greek and you a Christian? Not persons but deeds are examined. So even so one must serve with goodwill and from the soul. “Masters, grant your slaves what is just and equal.” What is “just”? What is “equal”? To set them in abundance of everything, and not let them need others, but to reward them for their labours. For do not, since I said that they have their reward from God, on that account defraud them. Elsewhere he says, “forbearing threatening,” wishing to make them gentler; for those were perfect. That is, “With what measure you measure, it will be measured back to you.” And “there is no partiality” is said to these, the masters, but it is placed with the words to the slaves, so that the masters may take it to heart. For when we say to one person what fits another, we correct not so much him as the one who is liable. “And you along with them,” he says. Here he made the slavery common: “knowing,” he says, “that you too have a Master in heaven.” “[Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in] it with thanksgiving.” For since persevering in prayers often makes people slack, that is why he says this. For the devil knows, he knows how great a good prayer is; that is why he presses heavily. And Paul too knows how many grow weary when praying; that is why he says, “Continue steadfastly in prayer,” as of something laborious. “Being watchful in it, with thanksgiving.” Let this be your work, he says: in your prayers to give thanks both for the visible things and for the invisible, both for the good he did us when we were willing and when we were unwilling, both for the kingdom and for Gehenna, both for affliction and for relief. For this is the custom of the saints: to pray thus and to give thanks for the common benefits.

I know a certain holy man who prayed thus. He said nothing before these words, but: “We give thanks for all your benefits shown to us, the unworthy, from the first day until the present; for those we know and those we do not know, for the manifest and for the unseen, those done in deed, those in word, those done willingly, those unwillingly; for all that have come to us, the unworthy; for afflictions, for times of relief, for Gehenna, for punishment, for the kingdom of heaven. We beseech you to keep our soul holy, with a pure conscience, and an end worthy of your lovingkindness. You who loved us so as to give your Only-begotten for us, make us worthy to become worthy of your love; give wisdom in your word, and in your fear, only-begotten Christ, breathe into us the strength that is from you. You who gave the Only-begotten for us, and sent forth your Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of our sins, if we have sinned in anything, willingly or unwillingly, pardon us and do not reckon it; remember all who call on your name in truth; remember all who wish us well and the opposite; for we are all men.” Then, adding the prayer of the faithful, he stopped there, making that prayer for all as a kind of finishing stroke and bond. For God does us much good even against our will, and much also without our knowing, and greater things. For when we pray for the opposite, and he does the opposite, it is clear that he does us good even without our knowing. “Praying at the same time for us too.” See the humility: he places himself after them. “That God may open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ.” He means entrance and boldness. Ah! so great a champion did not say, “that I may be freed from my bonds,” but, being a prisoner, he besought others, and besought them about a great matter, that he might receive boldness. The two things are great: the quality of the person and that of the matter. Ah, how great the dignity! “The mystery,” he says, “of Christ.” He shows that nothing is more desirable to him than this, to speak. “For which I am also bound, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.” With great boldness, he means, and shrinking from nothing. Do you see? The bonds make him manifest; they do not overshadow him. “With great boldness,” he says. Tell me, you are bound, and you beseech others? “Yes,” he says, “the bonds give me greater boldness; but I need God's aid; for I heard Christ saying, ‘When they hand you over, do not be anxious how or what you will speak.’” And see how he spoke by a metaphor: “that God may open to us a door for the word.” See how free from pride he is, and how in bonds he speaks lowly words. He means, “that he may soften their hearts”; but he did not say so, but “that he may give us boldness.” He spoke thus out of humility, and asks to receive the very thing he had. He shows in this letter why Christ did not come then, by calling those things a shadow: “but the body,” he says, “is Christ's.” So they had to be accustomed first in the shadow. At the same time he shows a very great token of his love toward them: “that you may hear,” he says; “but I am bound.” Again he sets the bond in the midst — the bond which I love exceedingly, which stirs my heart and always leads me to desire to see Paul bound, and writing in bonds, and preaching, and baptizing, and catechizing. The concerns of the churches everywhere were brought to him in his bonds; bound, he built up countless things. Then he was the more free. For hear him saying, “So that most of the brothers, trusting in my bonds, are much more bold.” Again he confesses this, saying, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” That is why he also said, “But the word of God is not bound.” He was bound with evildoers, with prisoners, with murderers; the teacher of the world, who went up to the third heaven, who heard unspeakable words, was bound. But then his race was swifter. The one who was bound had been loosed, and the one who was not bound was bound. For Paul did what he wished; but the other did not hinder him, nor fulfil his own purpose. What are you doing, fool? Is he a bodily runner? Does he compete in our stadium? He lives as a citizen in heaven; earthly things cannot bind or hold back one who runs in heaven. Do you not see this sun here? Put bonds on its rays, stop its course; but you will not be able. Then neither can you stop Paul; and much less this one than that; for this one enjoyed more providence than that, since he carried a light not such as ours, but bore the true light. Where now are those who will suffer nothing for Christ? And why do I say suffer, when they will not even part with money? Paul too once bound men and threw them into prison; but since he became Christ's slave, he prides himself no longer on doing but on suffering. And this too is the marvel of the preaching, that it is raised up and increases through those who suffer, and not through those who do evil. Where has anyone seen such contests? The one who suffers ill conquers, and the one who does ill is defeated. This one is more glorious than that; through bonds the preaching came in. “I am not ashamed, but I even boast,” he says, “in preaching the crucified.” For consider: the whole world, leaving those who were free, came to those who were bound; turning away from those who bound, it honours those who wear the chain; hating those who crucified, it worships the crucified.

It is not only marvellous that the preachers were fishermen and unlettered, but that there were other hindrances too, hindrances by their very nature, and yet the increase became greater. Not only did their lack of learning hinder nothing, but this very thing made the preaching manifest. For hear Luke saying, “And perceiving that they were unlettered and ordinary men, they marvelled.” Not only did the bond hinder nothing, but this very thing made them bolder. The disciples were not so bold when Paul was free as when he was bound: “More abundantly,” he says, “they dare to speak the word of God without fear.” Where are those who will say that the preaching is not divine? Was not their lack of learning enough to make them despised? And here, ought not the danger to have frightened them? For you know that the multitude is held by these two passions, vainglory and cowardice. Their lack of learning ought to have made them ashamed; the dangers ought to have thrown them into cowardice. “But they did wonders,” someone says. Then believe that they did wonders. But they did not do them? This is a greater wonder than doing them, if men came over without wonders. Socrates too was bound among the Greeks; what then? Did not his disciples at once flee to Megara? Certainly; for they had not received the doctrines about immortality. But see here: Paul was bound, and the disciples were bolder — rightly, for they saw the preaching unhindered. For can you bind a tongue? It is with this chiefly that he runs. For just as with a runner, unless you bind his feet, you have not hindered his course, so too with an evangelist, unless you bind his tongue, you have not hindered his course. And just as the runner, if you bind up his loins, runs the better and is carried along, so too this man, when bound, preaches the more, and with greater boldness. The prisoner is afraid when there is only the bond; but how could one who despises death be bound? They did the same as if they had bound Paul's shadow and stopped its mouth. For the bond was … ; he was more beloved to his own and more revered by his enemies, carrying the bond as a prize of courage. A crown adorns a head and does not shame it, but makes it brilliant. Unwillingly they crowned him with the chain. For tell me, could iron bind him who … the adamantine bonds of death? Let us come, beloved, to the emulation of these bonds. All you women who wear gold, long for Paul's bonds. Your necklace does not shine around your neck as the adornment of the iron bonds gleamed about his soul. If anyone longs for those, let her hate these. For what fellowship has silliness with courage, bodily beautification with philosophy? Those bonds angels revere; these they even mock. Those bonds are wont to draw men from earth to heaven; these bonds bring them down from heaven to earth. For truly these are bonds, not those; those are adornment, these are bonds. These afflict the soul along with the body; those adorn the soul along with the body. Do you want to learn that those are adornment? Tell me, who attracted the onlookers more, you or Paul? And why do I say you? The empress herself, wearing gold all over, would not have attracted the onlookers more; but if it happened that Paul in bonds and the empress entered the church at the same time, all would have turned their eyes from her to him — rightly. For to see a man greater than human nature, having nothing human about him, but an angel on earth, is more marvellous than to see a woman adorned. For such things one can see in theatres and processions and baths and in many places; but a man wearing bonds, and thinking that he has the greatest adornment, and not yielding to the bonds, is not an earthly sight for the onlooker; the sight is worthy of heaven. The soul that wears those ornaments looks around to see who saw and who did not see; it is full of vanity, held by cares, bound by countless other passions; but he who wears these bonds is free of pride; his soul exults, is rid of all care, rejoicing, looking to heaven, winged. If someone offered me to see Paul leaning out from heaven and uttering his voice, or to see him in prison, I would choose the prison; for those who are in heaven come to him when he is in prison. The bond that holds the preaching together is Paul's bonds; its foundation is that chain. Those bonds …

“And how,” she says, “can that be?” If we break and shatter these. We have no profit from these bonds, but even harm. These will show us there as prisoners, but Paul's bonds will loose those bonds. She who is bound here with these will be bound there too with the undying bonds, hands and feet; she who is bound with Paul's will then have them about her as an adornment. Loose both yourself from your bond and the poor man from his hunger. Why do you tighten the cords of your sins? “How?” she says. When you wear gold and another perishes; when, to obtain empty glory, you take so much gold, and another does not even have anything to eat, have you not tightened your sins? Put on Christ, and not gold; where mammon is, there Christ is not; where Christ is, there mammon is not. Do you not want to wear the King of all himself? If someone gave you the purple and the diadem, would you not accept it instead of all your gold? I offer you not the royal adornment, but to put on the King himself. “And how,” she says, “could one wear Christ?” Hear Paul saying, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”; hear the apostolic exhortation: “Make no provision for the flesh,” he says, “for its desires.” So one puts on Christ, by making no provision for the flesh for its desires. If you put on Christ, even demons will fear you; but if gold, even men will laugh at you. If you put on Christ, even men will respect you. Do you want to appear beautiful and comely? Be content with the Creator's handiwork. Why do you bring in gold, as if to correct God's work? Do you want to appear comely? Put on almsgiving, put on kindness, … all these are more precious than gold; these make even a beautiful woman more comely; these make even a plain woman well-formed. For when one looks at a face with goodwill, one casts one's vote from love; but a wicked woman, even if she is beautiful, no one can call beautiful; for the mind, struck by her wickedness, does not cast a right vote. The Egyptian woman once adorned herself, and Joseph too was adorned; who then was the more beautiful? I do not mean when she was in the palace and he in the prison. He was naked, but he was clothed with the garments of chastity; she was clothed, but was more shameful than a naked woman, for she had no chastity. When you adorn yourself excessively, woman, then you have become more shameful than a naked woman; for you have stripped off decorum. Eve too was naked; but when she was clothed, then she was more shameful. For when she was naked, she was adorned with the glory of God; but when she put on the garment of sin, then she was shameful. And you too, putting on the garment of love of finery, then appear the more shameful. For that costliness is not enough to show a woman fair, but that even when clothed she can be more indecent than a naked woman, I will tell you. If you ever put on the costume of a piper or a chorus flute-player, would it not be a disgrace? And yet the clothes are golden; but it is a disgrace precisely because they are golden. For the costliness of the stage befits the soldiers who fight the wild beasts; but to a believing woman other garments have been given by God: the only-begotten Son of God himself. “For as many,” he says, “as were baptized into Christ …” … if someone gave you a royal garment and you put … over it, would you not be punished as well as disgraced? You have put on the Master of heaven and of the angels, and do you still turn about the earth? These things have been said by me because love of finery is a great evil even in itself, even if nothing else were born from it and it were possible to have it without danger (for it anoints one for vainglory and vanity); but as it is, many other things too are born from beautification, occasions of greed. For why do you beautify yourself, tell me? To please your husband? Then do it at home. But here the opposite happens. For if you want to please your own husband, do not please others; but if you please others, you will not be able to please your own. So you should lay aside all your adornment when you go into the marketplace, when you go to church. And besides, do not please your husband by the means harlots use, but rather by the means free women use. For in what, tell me, does a wife differ from a harlot? In this: the harlot looks to one thing only, how to draw her lover by the beauty of her body; but the wife presides over the house, shares in the children and in all other things. Do you have a little daughter? See that she does not inherit the harm; for character tends somehow to be shaped by upbringing, and to imitate the mother's character. Be an example of chastity to your daughter; adorn yourself with that adornment, and see how you will despise this one. For truly those things are adornment, and these are disorder. What has been said is enough. May God, who made the world and gave us the adornment of the soul, adorn us and clothe us with his glory, so that all of us, shining in good works and living for his glory, may send up glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

[Homily 11] “Walk in wisdom toward those outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” What Christ said to the disciples, Paul now exhorts too. What did Christ say? “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; be therefore wise as serpents and …,” giving them no handle against you. For this is why “toward those outside” is added: so that we may learn that toward our own members we need less caution than toward those outside. For where there are brothers, there are many pardons and much love. There must be caution here too, but much more outside; for it is not the same to be among enemies and foes as among friends. Then, since he has made them afraid, see how again he encourages them: “redeeming the time,” he says, that is, the present time is short. He said these things not wishing them to be shifty or hypocrites, for that belongs not to wisdom but to folly. But what? In things where they do no harm, he says, give them no handle; as he says also when writing to the Romans: “Render to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute, tax to whom tax, honour to whom honour.” Let your war be only for the preaching, he says; let this war have no other beginning. For if they are to hate us for other things too, we will have no reward, they will become worse, and they will seem to bring just charges against us: for example, if we do not pay the taxes, if we do not render the fitting honours, if we are not humble. Do you not see how Paul, where the preaching suffered no harm, gives way? Hear him saying to Agrippa, “I think myself happy that I am to make my defence before you today, especially because you are expert in all the customs and questions among the Jews.” If he had thought he must insult the ruler, he would have overturned everything. And hear how gently blessed Peter and his companions answer the Jews, saying, “We must obey God rather than men.” And yet these men, who had given up on their own lives, could have insulted them and done anything whatever; but they did not, for that belongs to vainglory; rather they did everything that they might preach and speak everything with boldness; the other belongs to excess. “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt,” that is, let your graciousness not fall into carelessness. For it is possible to be gracious, and possible to be so with fitting decorum. “That you may know how you ought to answer each one.” So one must not converse alike with all, I mean with Greeks and with brothers. By no means; for that belongs to the utmost folly. “All my affairs Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow slave in the Lord, will make known to you.” Ah, how great is Paul's wisdom! Why does he not put everything into his letters, but only the necessary and urgent things? First, not wishing to stretch them to great length; secondly, making the one who goes more respected, so that he may have something to relate; thirdly, showing how he is disposed toward him, for he would not have entrusted these things to him otherwise. Besides, there were things that ought not to be made known by letter. “The beloved,” he says, “brother.” If beloved, he knows everything, and Paul hid nothing from him. “And faithful minister and fellow slave in the Lord.” If faithful, he will tell no lie; if a fellow slave, he has shared in the trials; so that he has gathered trustworthiness from every side. “Whom I have sent to you for this very purpose.” Here he shows his great love, since he sent him for this, and this was the cause of his journey; as he also said writing to the Thessalonians: “We thought it good to be left at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy our brother.” And to the Ephesians too he sends this same man, and for the same cause. “That he may know,” he says, “your affairs, and comfort your hearts.” See what he says: not that you may learn my affairs, but that I may learn yours; so nowhere does he put his own first. By saying “that he may comfort your hearts,” he shows that they too are in trials. “With Onesimus, the beloved and faithful brother, who is one of you. They will make known to you all things here.” This is the Onesimus about whom he wrote to Philemon, “whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in the bonds of the gospel; but without your consent I wished to do nothing.” And he adds the praise of the city too, so that they may even take pride in him, and not only not be ashamed. “Who is,” he says, “one of you. They will make known to you all things here. Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you.”

Nothing is greater than this praise. This is the one who was taken up from Jerusalem with him. He said something greater than the prophets: they call themselves strangers and sojourners, but this man calls himself even a captive. For like a captive he was led and carried about, and was exposed to all to suffer ill, or rather worse than captives. For enemies, once they take captives, treat them with much care afterwards, as tending their own possessions; but this man everyone slandered as an enemy and foe. This was a comfort to them too; for when the teacher too is in such circumstances, the disciples are the more comforted. “And Mark, the cousin of Barnabas” — he adds the kinship, for Barnabas was a great man. “About whom you received instructions: if he comes to you, receive him.” Why? Would they not have received him even without this? Yes; but I want it to be done with great eagerness, he says; and this shows the man to be great. Where they received the instructions he does not say. “And Jesus who is called Justus.” Perhaps this man was a Corinthian. Then he gives a praise common to all, having said what was peculiar to each: “who are of the circumcision; these only are my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, who have been a comfort to me.” Since he said “fellow prisoner,” lest he cast down the souls of the hearers, see how he sets this down and rouses them: “fellow workers,” he says, “for the kingdom of God.” So, sharing in the trials, they will share in the kingdom. “Who have been a comfort to me.” He shows them to be great, since they have been a comfort to Paul. But let us see Paul's understanding. “Walk in wisdom,” he says, “toward those outside, redeeming the time.” That is, the time is not yours, but theirs; do not then wish to play the master. He did not simply say “buy,” but “redeem,” showing that by being so disposed you make it yours in another way. For it belongs to excessive folly to devise pretexts for wars and hatreds. For besides enduring superfluous dangers that bring no gain, another harm arises too: the Greeks do not come over to us. When you are among the brothers, you are rightly confident; but outside it should not be so. Do you see how everywhere he calls the Greeks “those outside”? That is why, writing to Timothy too, he said, “He must also have a good testimony from those outside”; and again, “For what have I to do with judging those outside?” “Walk in wisdom,” he says, “toward those outside.” For they are outside, even if they inhabit the same world with us, being outside the kingdom and the father's house. At the same time he consoles them by calling those men “outside”; as he said above, “Your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Then, he says, seek glory, then honours, then all the rest; but not now; rather grant these things to them. Then, lest you think he means money, he adds, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one”: that it may not be full of hypocrisy, he says; for that is not grace, nor is it seasoned with salt. For example, if you must show respect and it is without danger, do not refuse; if it is the time to speak courteously, do not think the thing flattery; do everything that tends to honour, without harm to piety. Do you not see how Daniel shows respect to an impious man? Do you not see the three youths, how wisely they conducted themselves toward the king, showing courage and boldness, and nothing rash or offensive? For that is no longer boldness but vainglory. “That you may know,” he says, “how you ought to answer each one.” One way to the ruler, another to the subject; one way to the rich man, another to the poor. Why? Because the souls of the rich and of rulers are weaker, being enervated; so there one must be condescending; while those of the poor and of subjects are firmer and more understanding; so here one must use greater boldness, looking to one thing, edification. It is not that the one should be honoured more and the other less because one is rich and the other poor; but because of weakness the one should be supported, and the other not so. For example, do not without cause call the Greek defiled, nor be insolent; but if you are asked about the doctrine, answer that it is defiled and impious; when no one asks or compels you to speak, it is not fitting to take on hatred for nothing. For what need is there to manufacture superfluous enmities? Again, if you are catechizing someone, speak from the subject at hand; otherwise be silent. If the speech is seasoned with salt, even if it falls on a dissolute soul it will tighten its slackness; and if on a harsh one, it will smooth its hardness. Being gracious, let it be neither burdensome nor again slack, but let it have both astringency and pleasantness. For if it is immoderately astringent, it does more harm than good; and if immoderately pleasant, it grieves more than it benefits; so everywhere there must be measure. Be neither downcast and gloomy, for that is unpleasant, nor dissolute, for that is contemptible and trampled on; but taking the virtue of each, avoid its vice, as the bee takes the cheerfulness of the one and the gravity of the other. For if a doctor will not treat all bodies alike, much more must a teacher not treat all souls alike. And yet bodies would bear unsuitable medicines better than a soul an unsuitable word. For example, does a Greek come to you and become your friend? Say nothing to him about this until he becomes quite your friend; and when he becomes so, gently …

For see how Paul too, when he came to Athens, conversed with them. He did not say, “O defiled and utterly defiled men!”, but what? “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.” Again, when he had to insult, he did not refuse, but said with great vehemence to Elymas, “O full of all deceit and all villainy, son of the devil, enemy of all righteousness!” For just as to insult the Athenians would have been folly, so not to insult this man would have been weakness. Again, have you been brought before a ruler on some matter? Render the fitting honours. “They will make known to you,” he says, “all things here.” Why have I not come myself? he means. What is “they will make known to you all things here”? That is, the bonds and all the other things that detain me. So I, who pray to see them and who send others too, would not myself have stayed behind unless a great necessity detained me. And yet this was not for those who were finding fault? Yes, very much for those who were finding fault. For to learn that he had fallen into trials and borne them nobly was a thing that confirmed them and set their souls upright. “With Onesimus,” he says, “the beloved and faithful brother.” Paul calls the slave a brother — rightly, since he names himself too a slave of the believers. … the arrogance. Paul, who is worth the whole world and ten thousand heavens, names himself a slave, and are you proud? He who led and carried everything as he wished, who holds the first place in the kingdom of heaven, who has been crowned, who went up to the third heaven, calls slaves brothers and fellow slaves. Where is the madness? Where the arrogance? So trustworthy did Onesimus become that he was even entrusted with such things. “And Mark,” he says, “the cousin of Barnabas, about whom you received instructions; receive him.” Perhaps they received instructions from Barnabas. “Who are of the circumcision.” He checks the conceit of the Jews; he lifts up the souls of these Colossians, because few are from the circumcision and most from the Gentiles. “Who have been,” he says, “a comfort to me.” He shows himself to be in great trials. So this too is no small thing, when we comfort the saints by our presence and word and attendance, when we suffer ill with them (“those in bonds,” he says, “as bound with them”), when we make their sufferings ours; we will also share in the crowns. Were you not dragged into the stadium? Did you not come down into the contest? Another has stripped, another wrestles. But if you wish, you too will share: anoint him, become his friend, … rouse his strength, refresh his soul. It follows that this happens in all other cases too. For Paul did not need it, but said these things to lift them up. You then, in all other cases, … those who love him, receive him as he comes out with great attention; so you will share in the crowns, so in the glory. Even if you do nothing else, but rejoice at what has happened, even so you have shared not a little; for you have contributed love, the sum of all good things. For if those who weep are thought to share in the grief, and do a great kindness to the mourners, and take away much of the pain, much more do those who rejoice make the pleasure greater. For how great an evil it is not to have those who grieve with one, hear the Prophet saying, “And I waited for one to grieve with me, and there was none.” That is why Paul too says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Increase the pleasure: if you see your brother well thought of, do not say, “The good reputation is his; why should I rejoice?” These are not the words of a brother but of an enemy. If you wish, it is not his but yours; you are master of making it greater, if you are not downcast but pleased, if you become cheerful, if you are glad. And that this is so is clear from this: the envious envy not only those who are well thought of, but also those who rejoice in their good reputation; so well do they know that these too share in the good reputation, and these are the ones who most take pride in it. For he blushes when much praised; but this man takes pride in it with great pleasure. Do you not see with athletes how one is crowned and another not? But the pain and the joy belong to their lovers and their haters; those leap, those skip. See how great a thing it is not to envy: the labour is another's, and the pleasure yours; another wears the crown, and you skip, you take pride. For tell me, another has won; why do you leap? But they too know well that what happened is common. That is why the envious do not accuse him, but try to bring down the victory; and you hear them saying such words as “I wiped you out” and “I threw you down”; and yet the deed is another's, but the praise yours. And if in outward things it is so great a good not to envy, but to make another's goods one's own, much more in victory over the devil; for then he blows against us more, clearly because we are more pleased. Defiled as he is, he knows well that this pleasure is great. Do you want to grieve him? Be pleased and rejoice. Do you want to gladden him? Become gloomy: you will lighten through your despondency the grief your brother's victory caused him; you stand with him, separated from your brother; you do greater evil than he. For it is not the same to be an enemy and do what enemies do, and to be a friend and stand with the enemies; this man is more defiled than the enemies. If your brother is well thought of, whether in speaking or in some display, or in achieving something, become a sharer in his good reputation; show that he is your member.

“And how?” someone says; “for I am not well thought of.” Never utter this word; close your lips. If he who says this were near me, I would put my hand over his lips, lest the enemy hear. Often we have enmities with one another, and do not show them to our enemies; but you show yours to the devil. Do not say this, do not think it; but the opposite: “He is my member; the glory passes to the body.” “Why then,” he says, “are those outside not so disposed?” Because you are the cause: when they see you estranging yourself from his pleasure, they too estrange themselves; when they see you making it your own, they do not dare; but you too are just as glorious. You were not well thought of for speaking, but you were well thought of for rejoicing with him, more greatly than he. For if love is a great thing and the sum of all, you have received the crown that comes from it; he the crown from rhetoric, you that from loving greatly; he displayed the power of words, you by your deeds overthrew envy and trampled on jealousy. So you would rightly be crowned more than he; your contest is more glorious; you not only trampled on jealousy but did something else too. He has only one crown, but you two, and the two more glorious than the one. What are these? One, that which you won against envy; the second, that which you bound on from love. For rejoicing with him is a token not only of being pure of envy, but also of having love firmly rooted. Him some human passion often troubles, such as vainglory; but you are pure of every passion; for you do not rejoice in another's good things out of vainglory. Did he set the church right, tell me? Did he increase the assembly? Praise him again: you have double crowns: you overthrew envy, you bound on love. Yes, I beg and entreat you. Do you want to hear of a third crown too? Men below applaud him, but angels above applaud you. For it is not the same to display eloquence and to master the passions. This praise is temporary, that eternal; this from men, that from God; he appears crowned, but you are crowned in secret, where your Father sees. If it were possible to see each one's soul separated from the body, I would have shown you this one more dignified than that one, gleaming more brightly. … the stings of jealousy, we benefit ourselves from this, beloved; we ourselves will bind on the crown … The jealous man fights against God, not against that man; for when he sees someone having grace, and is pained, and wants the church pulled down, he fights not with that man but with God. For tell me, if someone adorned a king's daughter, and was well thought of for adorning her and making her dignified, and someone else wanted her to be disgraced and the man unable to adorn her, against whom would he be plotting, against this man, or against her and her father? So now you who are jealous fight against the church, you war against God. For since the benefit of the church is bound up with the good reputation of your brother, necessarily when this is destroyed that too is destroyed; so in this respect you do a satanic work, plotting against the body of Christ. You are pained at this man who has done no wrong, but much more at Christ. What wrong has he done you, that you do not let his body be adorned with beauty, that you do not let the bride be adorned? See how great the punishment is: you gladden your enemies; and the very man who is well thought of, whom you want to grieve by envying, you gladden more; by being jealous you show more clearly that he was well thought of, for you would not have been jealous otherwise; you show more clearly that you are being punished. I am ashamed to exhort you from these motives; but since we are so weakly disposed, let us be trained even by these, and be freed from this deadly passion. Are you pained that he was well thought of? Why then do you exalt his good reputation by envying? Do you want to punish him? Why then do you show that you are pained? Why do you exact punishment of yourself before the man whom you wish not to be well thought of? From now on the pleasure will be double for him, and the punishment for you: not only because you show him to be great, but because you also produce another pleasure for him by punishing yourself; and again, the things at which you are pained, he is pleased at while you envy. See how we deal ourselves grievous blows, and do not perceive it. “But he is an enemy.” And yet why an enemy? What wrong did he do? But nevertheless we make the enemy more glorious, and punish ourselves the more, because he knew it. Perhaps he is not even pleased; but we, thinking he is pleased, are pained again on this account. So stop envying: why do you inflict wounds on yourself? Let us consider these things, beloved: the double crowns of those who do not envy, the praises from men and from God, the evils that come from jealousy; and so we will be able to quench the beast, and be well thought of before God, and obtain the same things as those who are well thought of. For perhaps we will obtain them; and even if we do not, it will be for our good that we do not; but even so we will be able, having lived for the glory of God, to obtain the good things promised to those who love him, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, honour, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

[Homily 12] “Epaphras, who is one of you, a slave of Christ, greets you, always striving for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has great zeal for you and for those in Laodicea and those in Hierapolis.” At the beginning of the letter too he commended the man from his love; and praising him also shows love, as he said at the beginning: “who also declared to us,” he says, “your love in the Spirit.” Praying for them too shows love and makes him loved. He commends him, opening a door for his word (for the teacher's being respected is the disciples' benefit); and again by saying “one of you,” so that they may take pride in the man, as people who produce such men. “Always,” he says, “striving for you in his prayers.” He did not simply say “praying,” but “striving,” trembling and fearing. “For I bear him witness,” he says, “that he has great zeal for you.” A trustworthy witness. “That he has,” he says, “great zeal for you”; that is, he loves you exceedingly and burns with affection for you. “And for those in Laodicea,” he says, “and for those in Hierapolis.” He commends him to them too. But how were they to know this? It is likely that they heard it; besides, when the letter was read, they learned it. For “see to it,” he says, “that it is read also in the …” … “perfect,” he says. At the same time he accuses them, and inoffensively exhorts and counsels them. For it is possible to be perfect and not to stand firm, as when someone knows everything but is still shaken; and it is possible not to be perfect and yet to stand, as when someone knows in part, but stands firmly. But he prays for both: “that you may stand,” he says, “perfect.” See how again he reminded them of the teaching about the angels, and about life. “And fully assured,” he says, “in all the will of God.” For it is not enough simply to do the will. He who is fully assured does not allow another will to be in him, since otherwise he is not fully assured. “For I bear him witness,” he says, “that he has great zeal.” Both “zeal” and “great”: both are intensifications, as he himself says writing to the Corinthians: “For I am zealous for you with a godly zeal.” “Luke the beloved physician greets you.” This is the evangelist. He puts him later not to humble him, but to exalt Epaphras. It is likely that there were others too called by this name. “And Demas.” Having said, “Luke the physician greets you,” he added, “the beloved.” This too is no small praise, but a very great one: to be beloved of Paul. “Greet … the church in his house.” See how he glues them together and joins them to one another, not only by the greeting, but also by the exchange of the letters. Then again he gratifies the man by addressing him individually. He does this not idly, but to lead the others too to the same zeal. For it is no small thing not to be numbered with the rest. See, at any rate, how he shows the man to be great, since his house was a church. “And when this letter has been read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans.” I think there were some things written there which these too needed to hear. And for them the benefit was greater when, while others were being accused, they recognized their own sins. “And that you also read the one from Laodicea.” Some say that it is not Paul's letter sent to them, but the one from them to Paul; for he did not say, “the one to the Laodiceans,” but “the one from Laodicea,” that is, written from there. “And say to Archippus, ‘See to the ministry which you received in the Lord, that you fulfil it.’” Why does he not write to him? Perhaps he did not need it, but only a bare reminder, so as to be more earnest. “The greeting with my own hand, Paul's.” This is a token of genuineness and friendship, that they should see the handwriting and be moved by it. “Remember my bonds.” Ah, how great an encouragement! For this was enough to urge them to everything and make them more courageous in the contests; and not only more courageous, but it made them more intimate with him too. “Grace be with you. Amen.”

Great praise, and greater than all the others, is to say of Epaphras, “who is one of you, a slave of Christ.” And he calls him a minister on their behalf, as he calls himself too a minister of the church, as when he says, “of which I, Paul, became a minister.” He raises the man to the same rank; above he calls him a fellow slave, and here a slave. “Who is one of you,” he says, as though speaking to a mother and saying, “who came from your womb.” But this praise might have bred envy. That is why he commends him not only from these things but also from his attitude toward them; and there he dissolves envy, and here too. “Always,” he says, “striving for you”: not only now, when with us, so as to make a display, nor only when with you, so as to make a display to you. He showed great eagerness by saying “striving.” Then, lest he seem to flatter them, he added that “he has great zeal for you and for those in Laodicea and those in Hierapolis.” And “that you may stand perfect” — this too is not flattery, but the language of a teacher who deserves respect. “And fully assured,” he says, “and perfect.” The one he granted them; the other he said they lacked. And he did not say, “that you may not be shaken,” but “that you may stand.” And to be greeted by many restores them, when not only their own people from among them but others too remember them. “And say to Archippus, ‘See to the ministry which you received in the Lord.’” He especially subjects them to him. For they could no longer find fault with him when he rebuked them, since they themselves had undertaken the whole; for it is not reasonable for disciples to speak about their teacher. But he writes this to stop their mouths. “Say,” he says, “to Archippus, ‘See.’” This word is everywhere the language of one who frightens, as when he says, “See the dogs”; “See lest anyone make spoil of you”; “See lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak.” Everywhere he speaks so when he frightens. “See,” he says, “to the ministry which you received in the Lord, that you fulfil it.” He does not leave him master of it, as he himself said: “For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I have been entrusted with a stewardship.” “That you fulfil it”: using diligence continually. “Which you received in the Lord.” Again the “in” means “through the Lord”: he gave it to you, not we. He subjects them to him too, by showing that he was entrusted with them by God. “Remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Amen.” He dissolved their fear. For even if the teacher is in bonds, grace frees him. And this too is of grace, to allow him to be bound; for hear Luke saying that the apostles returned from the presence of the council rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to be dishonoured for his name. For to be dishonoured and to be bound is truly to be counted worthy. For if someone who has a beloved thinks it gain to suffer something for him, much more for Christ's sake. Let us not, then, be vexed at afflictions for Christ's sake; but let us too remember Paul's bonds, and let this be our exhortation. For example, are you exhorting some to give to the poor for Christ's sake? Remind them of Paul's bonds, and call yourself and them wretched, if he gave even his body to bonds for Christ's sake, while you do not even share your food. Have you been lifted up by your achievements? Remember Paul's bonds, and that you have suffered nothing of the kind, and you will no longer be lifted up. Have you desired your neighbour's goods? Remember Paul's bonds, and you will see how absurd it is that he should be in dangers and you in luxury. Have you desired luxury again? Bring to mind Paul's prison; you are his disciple, his fellow soldier. How is it reasonable that your fellow soldier should be in bonds and you in luxury? Have you been in affliction, and did you think yourself abandoned? Hear Paul's words, and you will see that being in affliction is no token of abandonment. Do you want to wear silk clothes? Remember Paul's bonds, and these will appear to you more worthless than rags … Bring to mind Paul's bonds, and your ornaments will seem to you no better than an old rope. Do you want to arrange your hair and appear beautiful? Consider Paul's squalor in prison, and you will be fired with love for that beauty, bitterly desiring those bonds. Do you want to put on cosmetics and paint and such things? Consider his tears: for three years, night and day, he did not cease weeping. Beautify your cheek with this adornment; these tears make it brilliant. I do not say that you should weep for others (I would like that too, but it is beyond you), but I exhort you to do this for your own sins. Did you order a slave to be bound, and were you angry and provoked? Remember Paul's bonds, and you will at once stop your anger; remember that we are of those who are bound, not of those who bind; of those broken in heart, not of those who break. Have you become dissolute and …? … and you will groan; these tears show you much more brilliant. Did you see people living in luxury and dancing? Remember his tears. What spring ever poured out such streams as those eyes poured tears? “Remember,” he says, “my tears,” as here, “my bonds.” And rightly he said this to those men when he summoned them from Ephesus to Miletus. For he was speaking to teachers; so from them he demands also the gathering of the flock, but from these only remembrance. What spring do you want to compare with these tears? The one in paradise, which waters the whole earth? But you will name nothing equal; for this spring of tears watered souls, not earth. If someone showed us Paul in tears and groaning, would it not be much better to see than ten thousand choruses gaily crowned? I do not say this about you; but suppose someone dragged from the theatre and the stage one of the licentious, burning and frenzied with love of bodies, and showed him a maiden in the very flower of her youth, surpassing her companions in everything else and in her face above her other features, having a tender and soft eye that rests quietly and turns quietly, liquid, gentle, calm, smiling, wrapped in much modesty and much grace, crowned with dark lashes below and above, with a pupil, so to speak, alive, a shining forehead, and below again the cheek, smooth and even like marble; and then showed me Paul weeping: I would have left her and leapt to the sight of him; for a spiritual beauty shone from those eyes. For the one makes young men's souls lose their wits, kindles and inflames them; but this does the opposite and calms them. He who sees these eyes makes the eye of his soul more beautiful … of much divine …, and they can soften even an adamantine soul. With these tears the church is watered, with these tears souls are planted; even if there is fire, these tears can quench it, both sensible and bodily fire; these tears quench the fiery darts of the evil one. Let us then remember his tears, and we will laugh at all present things. These tears Christ blessed, saying, “Blessed are those who mourn,” and “Blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh.” Such tears Isaiah too shed, and Jeremiah: the one said, “Let me alone, I will weep bitterly”; and the other said, “Who will give water to my head, and to my eyes fountains of tears?”, as though natural ones were not enough. Nothing is sweeter than these tears; they are sweeter than any laughter. Those who mourn know how much comfort the thing holds. Let us not think it a thing to be prayed against, but very much a thing to be prayed for: not that others may sin, but that when they sin we may be broken. Let us remember these tears, these bonds. Perhaps tears ran down even upon the bonds; and the death of those who were perishing, of those who were binding him, did not let him feel the pleasure that came from the bonds. For he grieved for them too; for he was a disciple of him who wept over the priests of the Jews, not because they were going to crucify him, but because they themselves were perishing. And not only does Christ do this himself, but he also exhorts others so, saying, “Do not weep for me, daughters of Jerusalem.” These eyes saw paradise, saw the third heaven; but I do not count them blessed for this sight so much as for those tears through which they saw Christ. That indeed is blessed; for he himself takes pride in it, saying, “Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?”; but it is more blessed to weep so. Many shared in that sight, and Christ again blesses those who did not share it, saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed”; but this not many attained. For if remaining here for Christ's sake is more necessary than departing to him, for the salvation of others, then groaning for them is more necessary than seeing him. For if being in Gehenna for his sake is more desirable than being with him, and being separated from him for his sake more desirable than being with him (for this is what he said: “I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ”), much more is weeping for his sake. “I did not cease,” he says, “to admonish each one with tears.” Why? Not because he feared the dangers; but as someone sitting by a sick man, not knowing the outcome, weeps from longing, fearing lest he lose his life, so he too, when he saw someone sick and could not rebuke him, wept at last. This Christ too did, so that they might respect at least the tears. For example, someone sinned? He rebuked him; he spurned him …

Let us remember these tears; so let us bring up our own daughters, so our sons, weeping when we see them in evil ways. All you women who … of Paul, and let them groan; all you who are counted blessed, all you who are in bridal chambers, all you who live in pleasure, remember these things; all you who are in mourning, exchange tears for tears. He mourned not the dead, but those who were perishing though alive. Shall I mention other tears too? Timothy too wept, for he was his disciple; that is why, writing to him, he said, “Remembering your tears, that I may be filled with joy.” Many lament even out of pleasure. So this thing belongs to pleasure too, and to a very intense pleasure; so tears that come from such pain are not burdensome, but much better than those shed for worldly pleasure. Hear the Prophet saying, “The Lord has heard the voice of my weeping.” For where is a tear not useful? In prayers, in exhortations. But we bring tears into disrepute by not using them for what they were given. When we exhort a sinning brother, we must weep, beating our breast and groaning; when we exhort someone, and he does not heed but is perishing, we must weep. These are the tears of philosophy; but when someone becomes poor, when he is in bodily sickness, when he dies, no longer; for these things are not worth tears. Just as we bring laughter into disrepute by using it out of season, so too tears, by handling them out of season. For the virtue of each thing appears when it is led to its proper work; but when it is led to an alien one, no longer. For example, wine was given for gladness, not for drunkenness; bread for food; intercourse for the begetting of children; … so too tears. Let the law be laid down that we use them only in prayers and exhortations; and see how desirable the thing will be. Nothing scours away sins like tears. Tears make even this bodily face beautiful; for they draw the onlooker to pity, and make the face dignified for us. Nothing is sweeter than tearful eyes. For this is the nobler and more beautiful member in us, and belongs to the soul. As then the very … These things have not been said to you idly, but so that you may not attend weddings, dances, satanic choruses. For see what the devil has devised. Since nature itself kept women away from the stage and the indecencies there, he brought the things of the theatre into the women's quarters, I mean effeminate men and harlots. This pest the custom of weddings brought in; or rather not the custom of marriage, God forbid, but our own silliness. What are you doing, man? You do not know what you are doing. You take a wife for chastity and the begetting of children; what then are the harlots for? “So that the festivity,” he says, “may be greater.” And yet these things are not … For if they delight in such things, the thing is an outrage. If seeing harlots disgrace themselves brings some distinction, why do you not drag the bride there too, so that she may watch? It is altogether unseemly and shameful to bring effeminate men and dancers and the whole satanic pomp into the house. “Remember,” he says, “my bonds.” Marriage is a bond, a bond appointed by God; the harlot is a loosing and a dissolution. It is possible to brighten the wedding by other things, such as full tables and garments; I do not cut these off, so as not to seem very harsh, although a veil alone was enough for Rebekah; but … women. Why do you bring in those mockeries, those monsters? Say what you hear from them. But you blush to say it? You blush, and do you force them to do it? If it is good, why do you not do it yourself? But if it is shameful, why do you force another? Everything must be full of chastity, everything of dignity, everything of decorum; but now I see the opposite: people skipping like camels, like mules. For the virgin the bridal chamber alone is fitting. “But she is poor,” someone says. Since she is poor, she ought to be all the more modest; let her have character instead of wealth. She has no dowry to give? Why do you make her contemptible in another way too by her conduct? I praise it when virgins attend to honour their companion, when women attend to honour the one who is brought down to them; this is well ordained. For there are these two choirs, that of the virgins and that of the married women; the latter hand her over, the former receive her. The bride is between these, neither virgin nor wife; for she is leaving the one … But the harlots, why are they there? They ought to hide themselves when there is a wedding; they ought to be buried (for sexual immorality is the ruin of marriage); but we bring them to weddings. When you do anything else, you take omens even from a word, avoiding anything ill-omened: for example, when you sow, when you draw the wine from the vats, you would not even answer a word that means vinegar; but here, when chastity is being celebrated, do you bring in vinegar? For that is what the harlot is. When you prepare ointment, you let nothing foul-smelling come near. Marriage is an ointment; why then do you bring the stench of the mire into the preparation of the ointment? What do you say? The virgin dances, and is not ashamed before her companion? For she ought to be more dignified than the bride; she has come from her mother's arms, not from the wrestling ground. For a virgin ought not to appear at weddings at all. Do you not see in the palaces that the honoured are within, about the king, and the dishonoured outside? You too be within, about the bride. But remain chaste at home; do not parade your virginity. Each choir stands by, the one showing what sort of virgin they are giving, the other so that they may guard her; why do you shame virginity? For if you are such, the bridegroom will suspect such things of her too; if you want to be loved … these things. Is this not a disgrace? It is a disgrace to behave indecently, even if she is a king's daughter. Does poverty prevent it? Does one's occupation? Even if a virgin is a slave, let her remain in chastity; “for in Christ Jesus there is neither slave nor free.” Is marriage a theatre? It is a mystery and a type of a great thing; even if you do not revere it, revere that of which it is a type. “This mystery,” he says, “is great; but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” It is a type of the church and of Christ, and do you bring in harlots? “If then,” someone says, “neither virgins nor married women are to dance, who will dance?” No one; for what need is there of dancing? In the mysteries of the Greeks there are dances, but in ours silence and decorum, modesty and restraint. A great mystery is being performed: out with the harlots, out with the profane! How is it a mystery? They come together, and the two make one. Why, when he entered, was there no dancing, no cymbals, but much silence, much quiet; but when they come together, making not a lifeless image, nor an image of anything on earth, but of God himself … do you … and shame the soul, and make an uproar? They come to become one body. See again a mystery of love. If the two do not become one, they do not make many, as long as they remain two; but when they come into unity, then they make them. What do we learn from this? That the power of union is great. God's wise contrivance divided the one into two at the beginning, and wishing to show that even after being divided it remains one, he did not let one suffice for generation. For one who is not yet united is not one, but half of one; and it is clear that he does not beget children, just as before. Do you see the mystery of marriage? He made one from one, and again, making these two one, so he makes one; so that even now a human being is born from one. For wife and husband are not two human beings, but one human being. And one can confirm this from many places, for example from Jacob, from Mary the mother of Christ, from the saying, “Male and female he made them.” If he is the head and she the body, how are they two? That is why she holds the rank of a disciple and he of a teacher; he of a ruler, she of one ruled. And from the very formation of the body one could see that they are one; for she came from the side, and they are like two halves. That is why he calls her a helper, to show that they are one; that is why he prefers living together to father and mother, to show that they are one. And the father rejoices alike when his daughter and his son marry, as though the body were hastening to its own member; and though so much expense arises and loss of money, yet he cannot bear to leave a child unmarried. For just as, the flesh having been cut in two, each is incomplete for the begetting of children, so each is incomplete for the constitution of the present life. That is why the prophet says, “the remnant of your spirit.” And how do they become one flesh? Just as if you take the purest part of gold and mix it with other gold, so here too the wife receives the richest part, melted down by pleasure, nourishes and cherishes it, and, contributing her own share, gives it back as a man. And the child is a kind of bridge; so that the three become one flesh, the child joining each to the other from either side. For just as, if there were two cities and a river divided them right through, they become one city when a bridge touches either side, so it is here, and more so; for the bridge itself is made from the substance of each. And in this way they are one, as body and head are one body; for they are divided by the neck, yet they are not so much divided as joined; for being in the middle it brings both together. It is the same as if a chorus that had been separated were made one, by taking one part of it from here and the other from the right; or as those who stand apart become one by stretching out their hands; for the hands, stretched out, do not let them be two. That is why he said exactly, not “they shall be one flesh,” but “into one flesh,” clearly joined in the flesh of the child. “What then, when there is no child, will they not be two?” Clearly they are one even then; for intercourse does this, pouring out and mixing the bodies of both. And just as one who puts ointment into oil makes the whole one, so it is here too.

I know that many are ashamed at what is said; and the cause of this is licentiousness and lack of self-control. Holding weddings in this way, and their corruption, has brought the thing into disrepute; for “marriage is honourable, and the bed undefiled.” Why are you ashamed of what is honourable? Why do you blush at what is undefiled? These attitudes belong to heretics, to those who bring in harlots. That is why I want marriage cleansed, so as to bring it back to its own nobility and stop the mouths of the heretics. God's gift has been insulted, the root of our birth; for much dung and mire lies about the root. Let us then cleanse this away by our discourse. Bear with me, then, a little, since one who clears away dung puts up with the stench too. I want to show that one should not be ashamed of these things, but of the things you do; but you, leaving off being ashamed at those, are ashamed at these; so you condemn God, who ordained it so. Shall I tell how it is also a mystery of the church? Christ came to the church, and came into being from it, and joined it in spiritual union. “For I betrothed you,” he says, “to one husband, as a pure virgin.” And that we are from him, hear how he says: “Of his members and of his flesh are we all.” Considering all these things, let us not shame so great a mystery. Marriage is a type of Christ's presence, and do you get drunk? Tell me, if you saw an image of the emperor, would you shame it? By no means. The things done at weddings seem indifferent, but they are the causes of great evils. Everything is full of lawlessness. “Let filthiness and foolish talk and jesting not come out of your mouth,” he says. But all those things, filthiness and foolish talk and jesting, are done not simply but with intensity; for the thing is an art, and great praise goes to those who pursue it; sins have become an art. We pursue them not simply but with earnestness and skill; and the devil now commands his own ranks. For where there is drunkenness, there is licentiousness; where there is obscene talk, the devil is present, contributing his own share. Feasting on these things, tell me, do you celebrate a mystery of Christ and invite the devil? Perhaps you think me burdensome. For this too belongs to the great perversion, that even the one who rebukes incurs laughter as austere. Do you not hear Paul saying, “Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink or do anything else, do all to the glory of God”? But you do it to ill repute and dishonour. Do you not hear the Prophet saying, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice in him with trembling”? But you are dissolute. Is it not possible to be pleased, and that with safety? Do you want to hear beautiful songs? It ought not to be so at all; but I condescend, if you wish: do not listen to the satanic ones, but to the spiritual. Do you want to see dancers? See the chorus of angels. “And how is it possible,” someone says, “to see it?” If you drive these away, Christ too will come to this wedding; and when Christ is present, the chorus of angels is present too. If you wish, he will work wonders now too, as he did then; he will make the water wine now too; and, much more wonderful, he will turn the dissipation, the flowing and cold desire, and transfer it to the spiritual. This is making wine from water. Where there are pipers, Christ is nowhere; and even if he enters, he first casts them out, and then works wonders. … where everything is inarticulate; and if anything is articulate, again everything is shameful, everything unpleasant.

Nothing is sweeter than virtue, nothing more pleasant than decorum, nothing more desirable than dignity. Let someone hold a wedding such as I describe, and he will see the pleasure. What kind of wedding? Pay attention. First, seek for the virgin a husband who is truly a husband and a protector, as one who is going to set a head on a body, as one who is going to hand over to him not a slave but a daughter. Do not seek money, nor splendour of family, nor greatness of country — all these are superfluous — but piety of soul, gentleness, true understanding, the fear of God, if you want your little daughter to live with pleasure. For if you seek a richer man, you will not only not benefit her, but even harm her, making her a slave instead of free. For the pleasure from the gold ornaments is not as great as the unpleasantness of being a slave. Do not seek these things; but most of all seek one of equal rank; and if this is not possible, a poorer man rather than a richer, if indeed you want not to sell your daughter to a master but to give her to a husband. When you have examined the man's virtue exactly and are about to give her, beseech Christ to be present; for he will not be ashamed; it is a mystery of his presence. Indeed beseech him even before, that he may give such a suitor. Do not be worse than Abraham's servant, who, sent on so long a journey, knew where to take refuge; that is why he obtained everything. When you busy yourself and seek the husband, pray; say to God, “Arrange it with whomever you will”; entrust the matter to him, and he, honoured by you with this honour, will repay you. Two things must be done: to entrust it to him, and to seek such a man as he himself would wish, decent and chaste. When then you hold the wedding, do not … for the thing is not for display, nor are you bringing your little daughter in a procession; but brightening the house with what is in it, invite neighbours and friends and relatives. Invite as many as you know to be decent, and exhort them to be content with what there is. Let no one from the orchestra be present; for that is superfluous and unseemly expense. Invite Christ before all others. Do you know through whom you will invite him? “Whoever does it,” he says, “to one of the least of these, did it to me.” Do not think it a disagreeable thing to invite the poor for Christ's sake; the disagreeable thing is to invite harlots. For inviting the poor is an occasion of wealth, but the other of ruin. Adorn the bride not with these gold ornaments, but with gentleness and modesty and the customary garments; instead of all adornment of gold and braiding, put on her blushing and modesty, and not seeking those things. Let there be no uproar, no confusion; let the bridegroom be called, let him receive the virgin. Let the luncheons and dinners not be full of drunkenness, but of spiritual pleasure. For countless good things will come from such a wedding, and the affairs of life will be in safety; but from the weddings held now (if indeed one should call them weddings, and not processions), see how many evils come. The bridal chambers are dismantled, and at once there is anxiety and fear lest something of what was borrowed be lost, and unbearable despondency succeeds the pleasure. But this is the anxiety of the bride's mother; or rather not even the bride herself is free of it: all that follows belongs to the bride herself. For to see everything dismantled is a cause of despondency; to see the house deserted, an occasion of dejection. There Christ, here Satan; there gladness, here anxiety; there pleasure, here grief; there expense, here nothing of the kind; there indecency, here decorum; there envy, here freedom from envy; there drunkenness, here sobriety; here salvation, here chastity. Considering all these things, let us stop the evil at this point, so that we may please God and be counted worthy to obtain the good things promised to those who love him, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, honour, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.