Homilies 11.9–12.3

"'But,' someone says, 'we do better when we give thanks to him and to all the others together.' Saying this, you do not know the plot against you. For just as, when many physicians who can do nothing promise to cure one sick man, the one who can truly heal does not apply his remedy, reckoning that if he cures him others will take the credit, so God too, when he is asked together with many who can do nothing, does not grant his benefits. 'What then,' someone says, 'is God indignant at this, if another takes the credit when he heals?' I say that even if he is not indignant, he at least does not agree to become an accomplice in the deception. For if he did the good, the idol that did nothing would also be believed to have had power. And I say to you as well: if the one who is infatuated with senseless things had not been harmed by the nature of the case, perhaps he would have tolerated even this; through whom you have begun to think reasonably about salvation. For God, being without need, himself needs nothing and is not harmed; it is we who are helped or harmed. For just as Caesar is neither harmed when he is slandered nor helped when he is thanked, but safety comes to the one who thanks and ruin to the one who slanders, so those who speak well of God help him not at all but save themselves; and likewise those who blaspheme do him no wrong but are themselves destroyed.

"'But,' someone says, 'the case of a man and of God is not alike.' I too agree that it is not alike. For the punishment is greater for one who has committed a greater impiety, and less for one who has sinned against a lesser. As God is greater than all, so the one who acts impiously against him will undergo greater punishment, as having sinned against the greater; not that God avenges himself with his own hand, but the whole creation is indignant at it and by nature pursues the offender. The sun will not give the blasphemer its light, nor the earth its fruits, nor the spring its water, nor will the ruler appointed in Hades give his soul rest; for even now, while the appointed term of the world still stands, the whole creation is indignant. That is why the sky does not provide full rains, nor the earth its fruits, so that very many suffer harm. Even the air itself, inflamed with anger, is changed into pestilential action. Yet as for all the good things we enjoy, by his mercy God constrains creation to kindness toward us. So the whole creation is hostile to you who dishonor the Creator of all.

"Even if you escape punishment by the dissolution of the body, how will you be able, through corruption, to escape your soul, which is incorruptible? For the soul even of the ungodly is immortal, and it would be better for them not to have it incorruptible. For it is punished by the unquenchable fire with endless torment, and not dying, it cannot find an end to its misery. But perhaps one of you will say: 'You are frightening us, Peter.' Teach us, then, how we can keep silent and still tell things as they are; for we cannot make them known to you in any other way. If we keep silent, you are ensnared by evils through ignorance; if we speak, we are suspected of frightening you on a false premise. How then shall we charm the evil one who lurks in your soul and cunningly sows in you notions hostile to God under the pretext of friendship toward God? Be reconciled to yourselves: taking refuge in him with good deeds is for your own salvation. Irrational desire in you is a kind of enmity against God, for under the appearance of wisdom it strengthens ignorance.

"Others say: 'God does not care for us.' This too is false. For if he really did not care, he would not make his sun rise on the good and the evil, nor bring his rain on the just and the unjust. Others say: 'We are more godly, since we worship both him and the images.' I do not think that if someone said to a king, 'I give you equal honor with what I give to corpses and to discarded dung,' he would come off well. But someone will say: 'Do you call our objects of worship dung?' Yes, I say. For you have made them useless to yourselves by counting them as objects of worship, when their material might perhaps have been useful for something else, even for use as manure. But now it is not useful even for this, since you have reshaped it and worship it. How can you say you are more godly, you who are the most ungodly of all, who by this one incomparable sin truly incur the destruction of the soul, if you persist? For if a son who has received many benefits from his father gives to someone else who is not his father the honor owed to his father, he is certainly disinherited; but when he lives according to his father's mind and gives thanks for his benefits, he rightly becomes heir.

"Others say: 'We shall act impiously if we abandon the objects of worship handed down to us from our fathers; for it is like guarding a deposit.' By this reasoning, then, if someone's father is a robber or lives shamefully, the son ought not to come to his senses and choose the better, lest he act impiously? How foolish are those who say, 'We worship these so that we may not trouble him,' as if God were troubled by those who speak well of him, and not troubled by those who ungratefully blaspheme him! Why, then, when there is a withholding of rain, do you all look to heaven and offer prayers and supplications, and when you obtain it, quickly forget? For when you have reaped or gathered the vintage, you at once give the firstfruits to the idols, which are nothing, quickly forgetting God your benefactor. And so it goes forever. And coming to the temples and performing sacrifices, you feast. That is why some of you say: 'These things were well devised for comfort and for the sake of feasting.'

"O foolish people! Be just judges of what is said. If one had to give oneself here to bodily enjoyment by some feast, which is better: a feast by rivers and woods and groves, where there are banquets and drinking parties and shady places, or where there is the madness of demons, the cutting of hands and the castration of genitals, frenzies and manias, locks of hair let loose, boastings, ecstasies and shrieks, and all those things done with pretense to astonish the foolish, so that you may offer your due prayers and thanksgivings to things deader than the dead?

"And why do you do these things with delight? Since the serpent lurking in you, who sowed in you the fruitless desire, does not wish to tell you, I will remind you. It is like this. In the worship of God it is proclaimed that one must be sober, self-controlled, master one's anger, not appropriate what belongs to others, and live justly, fairly, steadily, gently, and rather punish oneself with want than, having nothing, take another's goods unjustly to satisfy oneself. But among the so-called gods the opposite happens. You do enjoin some things to make an impression of righteousness; but even if you did all the precepts, ignorance of God alone is enough to bring punishment on you. Besides, gathering in the places you have given to them, you gladly get drunk and light altars, whose drifting smell of sacrifice, by the authority granted them, draws even the blind and deaf spirits to the place where they can smell it. And so of those there, some are filled with frenzy, others with strange foods, others turn to debauchery, others to thefts and murders. For the vapor of the blood there and the libation of wine itself glut the unclean spirits, which, lurking in you, make you take pleasure in what is done there, surround you in dreams with false apparitions, and punish you with countless afflictions. For under the pretext of the so-called sacrificial meats you are filled with cruel demons, who also cleverly escape your notice and destroy you, so that you do not perceive the plot against you. On the pretext of some insult, or necessity, or love, or anger, or grief, they remove people from life by the noose, or by drowning them in water, or throwing them from a cliff, or by suicide, or apoplexy, or some other affliction.

"But none of us can suffer any such thing; rather, the demons are punished by us, when, having entered someone, they beg us to let them come out slowly. But someone will say: 'Perhaps some of the God-fearing also fall into such afflictions.' I say that this is impossible. For the God-fearing man I speak of is the one who is truly God-fearing, not one who is merely called so, but one who truly carries out the deeds of the law given to him. If someone acts impiously, he is not godly. In the same way, if a foreigner does the law, he is a Jew; if he does not, he is a Greek. For the Jew, believing God, does the law, and by that faith he removes the other afflictions too, which are like mountains and heavy. But the one who does not do the law clearly deserts his post through not believing God; and so, as a sinner and not a Jew, because of his sin he is overpowered by the afflictions appointed to punish sinners. By the will of God fixed from the beginning, punishment justly follows those who worship him, on account of their transgressions. This happens so that, having exacted the sin like a debt through torment, it may present those who have turned back pure at the judgment of all things. For as luxury here brings the wicked the loss of eternal goods, so punishments are sent upon Jews who transgress to exact payment, so that, paying for the transgression here, they may be freed from eternal punishment there.

"But you cannot say this, for you do not believe that things there are as we say, I mean, where recompense is made to all. For this reason, not knowing what is profitable, you are ensnared by temporary pleasures so as not to obtain the eternal. That is why we try to give you proofs of what is profitable, so that, fully convinced of the promises of true religion, you may through good deeds inherit with us the age free from grief. Until you get to know us, do not be angry with us as though we were lying about the good things we wish for you. What we have judged to be true and good we have not begrudged bringing to you; on the contrary, we have hastened to make you fellow heirs of the good things we have come to understand. For so one must speak to unbelievers. But that we are truly speaking the truth about what we say, you will not be able to know in any other way unless you first listen with a love of truth.

"So for the present, even if the serpent lurking in you wants to ensnare you in countless ways, suggesting evil thoughts and distractions, you ought all the more to strive against him by listening to us constantly. For you who have been so thoroughly deceived must sit with us and learn how to charm him; otherwise it is impossible. By charming I mean opposing their evil counsels with reason.

"Hence the Prophet of truth, knowing that the world had gone far astray and seeing that it had agreed with wickedness, did not love peace with it, since that peace rested on error. So to the end he brings war on all who are of one mind for wickedness, setting truth against error; and casting like fire into those who have come to their senses anger against the one who ensnared them, an anger like a sword, and holding out the word, he destroys ignorance by knowledge, as though cutting and separating the living from the dead. So, while wickedness is being conquered by the knowledge of the law, war held the whole world. For the sake of salvation a son who yielded was separated from his disobedient father, or a father from his child, a mother from her daughter, a daughter from her mother, and in short relatives from relatives and friends from companions.

"And let no one say: 'How is it just for parents to be separated from children and children from parents?' It is just, entirely so. For if, staying with them without helping them at all, they also perished with them, how is it not just that the one who wishes to be saved should be separated from the one who does not, but who wants him to perish too? Besides, those who had understood the better way did not themselves wish to be separated, but to stay with them and help them by instruction in better things. It was the disobedient, unwilling to listen to them, who made war on them, separating them, persecuting them, hating them. But those who suffered these things, pitying those ensnared by ignorance, prayed with the instruction of wisdom for those who mistreated them, having learned that ignorance is the cause of sin. For the Teacher himself, when he was nailed to the cross, prayed to the Father that the sin of those killing him be forgiven, saying: 'Father, forgive them their sins, for they do not know what they do.' Becoming imitators of the Teacher, they too, in their sufferings, prayed for those who mistreated them, as they had been taught. So they did not separate from their parents out of hatred, since they made constant prayers even for those who were not their parents or relatives but had become their enemies, and they try to love them, as they were commanded.

"But tell me: how do you love your parents? If it is always with an eye to what is just, I rejoice with you; but if it is by chance, then no, for you can become their enemies on a small pretext. And if you love them knowingly, tell us what parents are. You will say: 'The founders of one's race.' Why then have you not loved the founder of the race of all things, if indeed you undertook to do this with a just understanding? But even now you will say: 'We have not seen him.' Why then, without seeking him, do you flatter senseless things? What then? Even if it was hard for you to know what God is, you could not fail to know what is not God, so as to reason that God is not wood, not stone, not bronze, not anything else made of perishable matter.

"Were they not shaped by iron, and was not the iron that shaped them softened by fire, and is not fire itself quenched by water? And does not water have its motion from spirit, and does not the spirit have the beginning of its going forth from God who made all things? For so the prophet Moses said: 'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water.' This Spirit, at God's word, like his hand, fashions all things, separating light from darkness, and after the invisible heaven spreading out the visible one, so that the regions above might be inhabited by the angels of light, and those below governed by man together with all the things made for his sake.

"For your sake, O man, God commanded the water on the face of the earth to withdraw, so that the earth might be able to bring you fruits; and he made channels to provide you with springs, so that riverbeds might appear and living creatures be brought forth; in short, so that everything might be at your service. Are not the winds borne for your sake to bring on the fruits, and the rains, and the changes of season? The sun and moon, with the other stars, accomplish their risings and settings for your sake, and rivers and lakes with the seas serve you. So, senseless one, as the greater honor was given to you, so for your ingratitude the greater punishment by fire has been prepared, because you would not know him whom you ought to have known before all things.

"Even now, recognize the cause of all things from the lesser: reason that water makes all things, that water receives its generation from the motion of spirit, and that spirit has its beginning from the God of all. So you should have reasoned, in order that by reason you might be able to arrive at God, so that you may recognize your own race and, being born again by the first-born water, may be made heir of the parents who begot you to incorruption.

"Come readily, then, as a son to a father, so that God may set down ignorance as the cause of your sins. But if even after being called you are unwilling or delay, you will perish by the just judgment of God, unwanted because you did not want. And do not think that, even if you become more godly than all the godly who ever lived, you will ever be able to attain hope if you are unbaptized. On the contrary, for this very reason you will undergo greater punishment, because you did good works not in a good way. For doing good is good when it is done as God commanded. But if you are unwilling to be baptized as he has decided, you serve your own will and set yourself against his counsel.

"But perhaps someone will say: 'What does being baptized with water contribute to godliness?' First, that you do what has pleased God. Second, being born again to God from water, because of fear, you exchange your first birth, which came about from desire, and so you can obtain salvation; otherwise it is impossible. For so the Prophet swore to us, saying: 'Truly I say to you, unless you are born again by living water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.' Therefore come. For there is something merciful there from the beginning, borne upon the water, which rescues from the coming punishment those who are baptized with the thrice-blessed invocation, offering to God as gifts the good deeds of the baptized done after their baptism. So flee to the water, for it alone can quench the violence of the fire. Whoever is still unwilling to come to it still carries the spirit of madness, because of which he will not come to the living water for his own salvation.

"Come, then, whether you are righteous or unrighteous. If you are righteous, the only thing you lacked for salvation was to be baptized, for the forgiveness of what was done in ignorance. If you are unrighteous, there remains for you good conduct after baptism in proportion to your ungodliness. So, whether you are righteous or unrighteous, hasten to be born to God, because delay brings danger, since the appointed time of death is unknown; and show by good deeds your likeness to the Father who begets you from water. As a lover of truth, honor the true God as father. And the honor due to him is that you live as he, being righteous, wishes. The will of the righteous one is that there be no wrongdoing. Wrongdoing is murdering, committing adultery, hating, being greedy, and the like; and there are many kinds of these.

"But along with these one must bring in something which has nothing in common with conduct toward other people but is proper to the worship of God: I mean keeping pure, not having intercourse with one's own wife while she is in her monthly separation, because the law of God commands this. And what if purity were not also bound up with the worship of God? You would gladly roll about like dung beetles. Therefore, as human beings who have something more than irrational animals, namely reason, cleanse your heart of evils by heavenly reasoning, and wash your body with bathing. For keeping pure is truly so, not because purity of body comes before cleansing of heart, but because cleanliness follows goodness. For our Teacher, too, reproved as hypocrites certain of the Pharisees and scribes among you, who are set apart and, as scribes, know the matters of the law better than others, because they kept pure only in what appears to men and neglected the purity of the heart, which is seen by God alone.

"So he used this explicit saying, truly, of the hypocrites among them, not of all; for of some he said that they should even be obeyed, because they had been entrusted with the seat of Moses. But to the hypocrites he said: 'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside it is full of filth. Blind Pharisee, clean first the inside of the cup and the dish, so that their outside also may become clean.' And rightly. For when the mind has been enlightened by knowledge, the one who has learned can be good, and becoming clean follows from that. For from the understanding within comes good care of the body without. As care for the understanding cannot come from indifference toward the body, so the pure man can cleanse both the outside and the inside; but the one who cleanses the outside does it looking to the praise of men, and from the praise of those who see it he has nothing with God.

"To whom is it not evident that it is better not to have intercourse with a woman during her period, but only after she has been purified and has washed? And after intercourse, too, one must wash. If you are reluctant to do this, recall how you pursued the various parts of purity when you worshipped senseless idols. Be ashamed that here, where you ought to take on, I do not say more, but simply the whole of purity, you become more hesitant. Consider, then, who it was that made you do those things there, and you will understand who it is that casts hesitation about purity into you here.

"But one of you will say: 'Must we then do all that we did among the idols?' I tell you: not all, but whatever you did well, and here more. For whatever is done well in error depends on the truth, just as, if anything is done badly in the truth, it comes from error. So take back what is your own from every quarter, not what belongs to others; and do not say, 'If those in error do something good, we ought not to do it.' For by this reasoning, if someone who worships idols does not murder, we ought to murder, because the one in error does not murder.

"No; rather, if those in error do not murder, let us not even be angry; if the one in error does not commit adultery, let us not even think of it in the first place; if the one in error loves the one who loves him, let us love even those who hate us; if the one in error lends to those who have, let us lend even to those who do not. In short, we who hope to inherit the endless age ought to do better than the good done by those who know only the present one, knowing that if on the day of judgment their works are examined beside ours and found equal in doing good, we shall be put to shame, while they, having acted against themselves through error, will perish. I have spoken of shame in this sense, that we did not do more than those whom we have also surpassed in knowledge. And if it is shameful to show them an equal, and not greater, doing of good, how much more if we show less than their doing of good?

"That on the day of judgment the deeds of those who have known the truth are indeed weighed against the good deeds of those in error, the One who does not lie himself taught us. To those who neglected to come and listen to him he said: 'The queen of the south will rise with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here, and you do not believe.' And to those among the people who would not repent at his preaching he said: 'The men of Nineveh will rise with this generation and condemn it, because when they heard they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater is here, and no one believes.' So, setting against all their ungodliness those from the nations who had done well, to condemn those in the true religion who had not done even equal good to those in error, he admonished those who have reason to do not only as much good as the nations, but more. My discourse ran on from the occasion of the need to observe the monthly separation and to wash after intercourse, and not to refuse such purity even if those in error practice it; for those in error who do well, without being saved, serve for the condemnation of those in the true religion, because their regard for purity is due to error and not to the worship of the true Father and God of all."

Having said this he dismissed the crowds, and as usual, having shared salt with his dearest friends, he rested. So, acting and discoursing in this way each time, he steadily brought people over to the law of God, refuting the supposed gods together with the supposed doctrine of birth-fate, and showing that there is no chance but the world is governed by providence.

When three months had been completed, he told me to fast for some days, and taking me to the springs near the sea, he baptized me as in ever-flowing water. When our brothers had feasted over my God-given rebirth, not many days later he turned to the presbyters in the presence of the whole church and charged them, saying: "Our Lord and Prophet who sent us told us that the evil one, having disputed with him forty days and being able to do nothing against him, promised to send apostles from among his own followers to deceive. Therefore remember above all: receive no apostle or teacher or prophet who has not first compared his preaching with James, who was called the brother of my Lord and was entrusted with governing the church of the Hebrews in Jerusalem, and who has not come to you with witnesses; so that the wickedness that disputed with the Lord for forty days and could do nothing may not afterward, falling like lightning from heaven to earth, send out a preacher against you, just as it has now put Simon forward against us, preaching in the name of our Lord under pretext of truth and sowing error. For this reason the one who sent us said: 'Many will come to me in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves; by their fruits you will know them.'"

Having said this, he sent the forerunners ahead to Antioch of Syria, telling them to wait there for the following day. When they had gone, Peter, from great crowds who had been persuaded, drove out diseases, afflictions, and demons; he baptized them in the springs near the sea, broke the eucharist, and appointed as bishop Maroones, who had received him and was by now perfected. He set apart twelve presbyters, designated deacons, and established the order of widows; and having spoken about the common good and what was profitable for the good order of the church, and having advised them to obey the bishop Maroones, now that three months had been completed he took leave of those in Tripolis of Phoenicia and set out on the road to Antioch of Syria.

So we left Tripolis in Phoenicia to go to Antioch in Syria, and on the same day we came to Orthosia and stayed there. Because it was near the city we had left, and almost everyone had already heard the preaching, we stayed only one day there and set out for Antaradus. Since many were travelling with us, Peter spoke with Nicetes and Aquila, saying: “Because the great crowd of our fellow travellers draws no small envy upon us as we enter each city, I have found it necessary to consider how neither they may be grieved by being prevented from being with us, nor we, by becoming conspicuous, may fall under the envy of wickedness. For this reason I want you, Nicetes and Aquila, to go ahead of me, dividing them into two groups scattered apart, and entering the cities of the Gentiles unnoticed.”

“I know that you are downcast, having heard that you must do this and be separated from me by a distance of not even two whole days. So I want you to know that we who persuaded you love you, who were persuaded, many times more than you, if indeed at all, love us who persuaded you. Loving one another, then, let us take thought for safety as far as it lies with us, by not doing whatever we wish without reason. Besides, you will not miss a single day of my discourses. For, as you also know, I have decided to stay for some days in the more notable cities of the provinces and to hold discussions there. So for now go ahead to Laodicea, which is nearest to us, and after two or three days, as far as my intention goes, I will overtake you. Wait for me at the gates, you alone, because of the commotion, so that we may enter together with you quietly. And from there likewise, after staying some days, others in your place will go ahead in turn to the places beyond, preparing lodgings.”

When Peter had said this, they were compelled to agree, saying: “It does not greatly grieve us, lord, to do this, since you command it. First, because you were chosen by the providence of God as one worthy to understand and to counsel everything well. Besides, for the most part it is only for two days that, because we must go ahead, we are separated from you. These days are many indeed when it comes to not seeing you, our lord Peter; yet we reckon that those who are sent much farther ahead will be grieved more, since they are ordered to wait for you longer in each city and are pained at being deprived longer of seeing your longed-for face. And we, no less downcast than they, do not object to doing as you command for the common good.” Having said this, they nevertheless went ahead, with instructions to speak to the travelling crowd at the first inn, so that they might enter the cities scattered apart from one another.