Homilies

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.4 · 2.1–2.4 · 3.1–3.6 · 4.1–4.3 · 5.1–6.3 · 7.1–8.2 · 8.3–8.7 · 8.8–8.11 · 9.1–9.4 · 10.1–10.6 · 11.1–12.4 · 13.1–13.5 · 14.1–14.5 · 15.1–15.5 · 16.1–17.3 · 18.1–19.3 · 20.1–20.6 · 21.1–21.6

1. 1.1Asterius opens his homily on the rich man and Lazarus by attacking luxurious clothing, purple, fine linen, silk, and robes woven with pictures.
2. 1.2Asterius urges the devout rich to do the deeds shown in the gospel scenes on their garments rather than wear them, and describes the many vices that luxury requires.
3. 1.3Asterius describes Lazarus's sufferings and the rich man's hardness, explains Abraham's bosom as an image pointing to Christ, and says that poverty is praised only when joined to humility.
4. 1.4Asterius explains that only the humble poor are blessed, contrasts the funerals of Lazarus and the rich man, and teaches from Abraham's refusal and the great chasm that punishment after death is not lessened.
5. 2.1Asterius argues that nothing we have is our own: we are sojourners and stewards, as the image of travellers sharing the shade of one tree shows.
6. 2.2Asterius shows that we are not masters even of ourselves, since each sense and limb is bound by God's commands, and that our goods come from God with commands for their use.
7. 2.3Asterius compares death to the steward's dismissal, urging the faithful to prepare their account, and cites the rich fool and Paul's longing to depart.
8. 2.4Asterius contrasts Paul's longing for death with the steward's grief, explains that after death there is no more work or begging, and interprets the steward's remission of debts as almsgiving with the Master's goods.
9. 3.1At a martyrs' festival Asterius reminds the crowd why martyrs are honoured, recalls the day's readings, and begins his case against covetousness with the devil, Adam, Esau and the tower of Babel.
10. 3.2Asterius lists biblical examples of covetousness (Pharaoh, Gehazi, Absalom, Judas, Ananias and Sapphira) and describes the covetous man's lifelong, ivy-like disease.
11. 3.3Asterius describes the covetous hoarder of grain who rejoices at shortages and refuses the poor, and urges him to restore what he holds unjustly, since his heirs and his will are uncertain.
12. 3.4Asterius reads the chasm in the parable as the barrier of sin, calls covetousness idolatry and the root of all evils, recalls Christians who apostatized for rewards under the apostate emperor, and describes a son's greed for his father's estate.
13. 3.5Asterius blames covetousness for the inequality of rich and poor and for wars and their miseries, cites Christ's commands against wealth, and answers the objection that renouncing wealth makes life impossible by appeal to God's providence.
14. 3.6Asterius tells how Elisha multiplied the widow's oil to pay her debt, and urges trust in God's providence, which fed Israel in the desert and the crowds with five loaves.
15. 4.1Asterius denounces the New Year feast of the Kalends, which coincides with a Christian feast: its origin is unclear, its joy is not shared, and its forced gift-giving flows upward from the poor to the powerful.
16. 4.2Asterius describes the miseries the Kalends bring: begging troupes, debts, children taught greed, farmers abused, soldiers mocking authority and dressing as women, and consuls squandering ill-gotten wealth on games.
17. 4.3Asterius urges giving to the poor instead of to entertainers, and reminds his hearers of the recent downfall of consuls and prefects as proof that worldly honour is vanity.
18. 5.1Asterius begins his homily on Matt 19:3 by recalling the previous day's readings, then argues that marriage is a union of body and soul, sealed by Adam's words over Eve, which a husband may not cut apart.
19. 5.2Asterius warns that a wife put away without cause can appeal to Genesis against her husband, and praises the wife's faithfulness in poverty, prison and flight, with the example of Job's wife.
20. 5.3Asterius answers the husband who complains of his wife's faults: he married a human being, has faults of his own that she has borne, and should heal rather than amputate the marriage.
21. 5.4Asterius shames the husband who divorces lightly by the loyalty of animals and the friendship of chance travellers, and praises the widower who stays faithful to his dead wife instead of remarrying quickly.
22. 5.5Asterius makes one exception: a husband who separates from an adulterous wife is justified, since adultery destroys both purposes of marriage; and he insists that the law of chastity binds husbands as much as wives, against Roman law.
23. 5.6Asterius ends his homily on divorce by warning that God judges the sexually immoral whatever human lawgivers allow; the scan then continues with the opening of his homily on Daniel and Susanna.
24. 6.1The opening of the homily on the prophet Daniel and Susanna.
25. 6.2In his homily on Susanna, Asterius presents the young captive Daniel as judge of the elders, denounces the lustful elders who slandered a lawful marriage, and sets Susanna beside Joseph as a model of chastity.
26. 6.3Asterius retells Susanna's trial, the elders' false accusation, her appeal to God, and Daniel's cross-examination that condemned them, and urges wives to imitate her chastity; the text breaks off.
27. 7.1Asterius introduces the healing of the man born blind by recalling Christ's discourse in John 8, his escape from those who tried to stone him, and the many scriptural titles of Christ as the stone.
28. 7.2Asterius explains Christ's answer that the man's blindness was not punishment for sin but an occasion for a new act of creation, and describes the wonderful structure of the eye.
29. 7.3Asterius praises the eye as the witness of creation, explains Christ's use of clay and spittle as a sign of his creative power, reads the washing in Siloam as a figure of baptism, and rebukes those who disbelieved the miracle.
30. 7.4Asterius follows the Pharisees' repeated inquiries into the healing, compares their ingratitude to that of Israel in the desert, and rebukes them for not worshipping the one who made eyes from clay.
31. 7.5Asterius reproaches those who believe the miracles of Moses and Elisha from books but reject the miracle before their eyes, which fulfils Isaiah's prophecy that the blind will see.
32. 8.1Opening his encomium on Peter and Paul, Asterius professes his inadequacy and announces that, unlike pagan panegyric, he will praise the apostles not for family but for virtue and humility.
33. 8.2Asterius argues from Eli's sons, Timothy and Absalom that virtue is not inherited, praises Peter as the rock on which Christ built the Church, and describes his Pentecost sermon, which persuaded three thousand where Demosthenes and Socrates failed.
34. 8.3Asterius recounts Peter's healing of the lame man and second sermon, his punishment of Ananias as a necessary warning to the young Church, and his daily healings, even by his shadow.
35. 8.4Asterius says Peter's miracles exceeded even the Lord's, fulfilling John 14:12, defends Peter's renunciation and trade against those who despise him as a poor fisherman, and introduces his walking on the sea.
36. 8.5Asterius sets Peter's walking on the water above the miracles of Moses and Joshua, expounds his confession “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” as covering both Christ's eternal Godhead and his incarnation, and contrasts its simplicity with the arguments of Arius and Eunomius.
37. 8.6Asterius tells how Christ entrusted the whole Church to Peter, how Peter preached everywhere and was crucified head downward in Rome under Nero, and turns to Paul, the persecutor converted on the road to Damascus.
38. 8.7Asterius reads Jacob's blessing of Benjamin as a prophecy of Paul the persecutor turned shepherd, contrasts Paul's letters of arrest with his Epistles, and explains why Christ appeared to him as light and fire rather than in human form.
39. 8.8Asterius expounds Christ's words to Paul, explains his three days of blindness, and describes Paul's preaching of Christ as God in the synagogues of Damascus and his return to Jerusalem.
40. 8.9Asterius describes Paul's uncompromising freedom from the law, his rebuke of the Galatians and of Peter, his endurance under persecution, and his speech on the Areopagus that converted Dionysius.
41. 8.10Asterius follows Paul from Corinth through Asia Minor and Macedonia, holds up his refusal of support as a rebuke to priests who grow rich from the altar, and compares his being caught up to the third heaven with Elijah and Moses.
42. 8.11Asterius says Paul always had Christ dwelling in him, then ends his encomium with the joint preaching of Peter and Paul at Rome and their martyrdom under Nero, the occasion of the yearly feast.
43. 9.1Asterius explains that the martyrs' deeds teach better than words, and begins his praise of Phocas, the hospitable gardener of Sinope, whose fame surpasses that of other martyrs.
44. 9.2Asterius tells how the soldiers sent to kill Phocas lodged with him unknowingly, how he prepared his own grave, revealed himself to them, and urged them to carry out his execution.
45. 9.3Asterius describes the pilgrimages, almsgiving and veneration at Phocas's shrine in Sinope, the honour paid to his relics and head at Rome, and the sailors' custom of setting aside a daily portion for him and giving its price to the poor.
46. 9.4Asterius tells how even a Scythian king sent his crown and breastplate as offerings to Phocas's shrine, mentions healings and visions there, and glorifies Christ, whose servants benefit others even after death.
47. 10.1Asterius says the devil's persecution gave the Church its martyrs and their feasts, presents the martyrs as teachers and accusers of our sins, and lists the torments they endured for confessing Christ.
48. 10.2Asterius describes Christians bringing their troubles, sick children, weddings and voyages to the martyrs' shrines as intercessors, contrasts the martyrs' lasting honour with the oblivion of their persecutors, and says every day of the year has its martyrs.
49. 10.3Asterius explains that the martyrs conquer by suffering and become helpers of mankind, answers pagans and Eunomians that Christians honour but do not worship the martyrs, and turns the charge back on pagans who worship dead men as gods.
50. 10.4Asterius rebukes the Eunomians, who dishonour the martyrs and avoid their shrines, reminds them that Christ, Stephen and the apostles are martyrs, and argues from Elisha's bones and Elijah's mantle that God works wonders through the saints after their death.
51. 10.5Asterius shows from Jacob's and Joseph's remains, David's prayer, Abraham's intercession for Sodom, and Moses' appeal to the patriarchs that God honours and spares people for the sake of the righteous dead.
52. 10.6Asterius cites Solomon, spared for David's sake, then denounces the Eunomians for despising the martyrs' shrines despite the demons' confessions and the healings that happen there, and prays for their return to unity.
53. 11.1Asterius describes a painting on linen at the tomb of the martyr Euphemia, showing her trial, the breaking of her teeth, her prayer under the sign of the cross, and her joyful death in the fire.
54. 12.1Preaching on the day after Christmas, Asterius praises Stephen as the first to shed his blood for the Gospel, and argues that in this he surpassed even Peter and James.
55. 12.2Asterius tells how Stephen, the first deacon, calmed the hostile crowd with his long speech, then rebuked them, and how God, seeing him alone among his murderers, appeared to him with the Son standing at his right hand to strengthen him.
56. 12.3Asterius explains why God himself appeared to the first martyr, describes Stephen's stoning and his death on his knees in prayer, and interprets his prayer for his killers as a prayer for their repentance, not for their sin to go unpunished.
57. 12.4Asterius describes the angels' joy and the devil's defeat at Stephen's death, foresees Paul's conversion, and explains that the vision of the Father and the Son as distinct persons was given to guard against the confusion of the hypostases, the Spirit being present earlier in the narrative.
58. 13.1From Christ's eating with a Pharisee, Asterius rebukes those who think themselves righteous, judge sinners harshly and shut them out of hope, though they themselves need God's mercy.
59. 13.2Asterius shows that God receives sinners again after baptism, through tears and repentance, with the examples of Peter, the Jews who believed after the cross, Paul, Matthew, Zacchaeus, David and Nineveh, and suggests even Judas could have been forgiven.
60. 13.3Asterius draws on Jonah and the gourd, Christ's command not to judge, the sin offering for the priest, and the parables of the lost sheep and the barren fig tree to teach that priests and people alike should intercede for sinners rather than condemn them.
61. 13.4Asterius urges priests to intercede for sinners like Moses and to welcome them like the father of the prodigal son, and urges penitents to imitate the sinful woman's tears instead of living as before while excluded from communion.
62. 13.5Asterius contrasts the sick man's change of life with the careless penitent, prescribes the opposite virtue as the remedy for each sin, and urges sinners to confess their hidden sins to the priest as to a father and physician before death overtakes them.
63. 14.1At the beginning of Lent Asterius praises fasting as the chief part of the soul's philosophy, describing its benefits to the soul and even to the body's health, and says angels guard the faster's house while demons attend those who revel.
64. 14.2Asterius argues that the need for fasting arose from Adam's sin of eating, and that gluttony and drunkenness led to the shame of Noah, the ruin of Eli's sons, Esau's loss of his birthright, and the golden calf.
65. 14.3Asterius shows from Scripture that the saints worked wonders through fasting, urges the people to welcome Lent cheerfully, argues the soul's claim to a share of the year against the body, and mocks the excuses of gluttons.
66. 14.4Asterius rebukes those who evade the fast with contrived luxuries, points to the hardy water-drinking barbarians to show that self-control is a matter of habit, and teaches the faster to answer the belly with words of hope and of Christ.
67. 14.5Asterius cites Daniel's companions and Samson to show that fasting does not weaken, then attacks Jewish fasts and feasts as empty of meaning without Christ, reading the Day of Atonement, Tabernacles and Trumpets as types of Christ's death, the Church and the resurrection.
68. 15.1Asterius reads the title of Psalm 5 (LXX: “For the end, for her who inherits”) as Christ's testament in favour of the Church, written through the prophets and signed at his death on the cross.
69. 15.2Asterius argues, against the Jews' claim to the psalm, that God as testator changed his first covenant for a new one in favour of the Gentile Church, quoting Jeremiah and Isaiah as the terms of the will.
70. 15.3Asterius sets prophecies of Israel's rejection beside promises to the Gentiles, argues that the Jews lost the inheritance while the Church received the kingdom, and begins to expound “Give ear to my words” as a request that God weigh each word of the prayer.
71. 15.4Asterius explains that the psalmist asks God to weigh each word of his petition, that God hears the unspoken cry of the heart, and that “My King and my God” anticipates Thomas's confession of Christ as God.
72. 15.5Asterius explains “my King and my God”, and reads “in the morning you will hear my voice” as the Church's inheritance given at Christ's resurrection at dawn, when Mary sought him at the tomb.
73. 16.1Asterius, in a second homily on Psalm 5, explains that the Church is the heiress, the kingdom of heaven the inheritance, and the Gospel Christ's testament, whose heirs are those who fed Christ in the poor.
74. 16.2Asterius urges his hearers to read Psalm 5 as the terms of Christ's testament, naming as heirs the meek, those who feed the poor, those who keep the commandments and suffer with Christ, and contrasts this with the eager pursuit of earthly legacies.
75. 16.3Asterius presents the prophet as pleading the Church's case against the devil, who disinherited Ham, Ishmael and Esau and had Naboth killed for his inheritance, as Christ was crucified for the Church.
76. 16.4Asterius explains that the prophet's words, cry and voice are his deeds and the silent groaning of his heart, that “Understand” asks God to read the mind behind poor words, and that God is King and God as Creator, Redeemer and giver of grace.
77. 17.1Asterius presents the risen Christ as the bridegroom showing the Church her inheritance, and argues that the Synagogue, divorced for unfaithfulness and for crucifying the bridegroom, was disinherited in favour of the Gentile Church.
78. 17.2Asterius compares the Jews to the wicked tenants who killed the heir, reads the title of Psalm 5 as a funeral psalm foretelling Christ's death, burial and morning resurrection, and warns that God first examines the words we speak.
79. 17.3Asterius warns that God tests our words and our cries before granting our petitions, and urges the congregation to keep the feast with psalms and hymns rather than drunkenness and coarse talk.
80. 18.1Asterius explains that the psalmist's words carry weight with God because he first practised them, that his cry is his boldness and good works, and that God distinguishes the cry of the righteous among many as a mother knows her own young.
81. 18.2Asterius defines petition as need, shows from the Pharisee and the tax collector that good works must be presented with humility, explains “My King and my God”, and reads “in the morning” of Christ's resurrection at dawn.
82. 19.1In a homily for Easter week Asterius celebrates Christ's resurrection as the bridegroom's triumph over death and the devil, praises the Easter night, and begins to show Joseph as a type of Christ.
83. 19.2Asterius sets out Joseph as a type of Christ in his beauty, betrayal, sale, imprisonment and release, and urges the newly baptized to imitate Joseph's chastity, warning free men against concubinage with their slave women.
84. 19.3Asterius has Joseph rebuke the baptized man who keeps a slave concubine, and urges the newly baptized to enter by the door of lawful marriage so as to inherit the kingdom.
85. 20.1Asterius presents David's prayer in Psalm 6 as the plea of a repentant sinner, explains the title “for the eighth” as circumcision and resurrection, and urges parents to baptize infants at once, as circumcision was given on the eighth day.
86. 20.2Asterius sets the necessity of baptism beside that of circumcision, explains the title “for the end” from the psalm's ending, and reads “the eighth” as the day of Christ's resurrection, prefigured by the eight saved in the ark.
87. 20.3Asterius explains that David does not refuse God's rebuke and discipline but asks that they come without wrath, that God's wrath is not a passion but just judgment, and that the weakness he confesses is weakness of faith.
88. 20.4Asterius compares soul and body to a loan from God that must be repaid with interest, and teaches from the parables that repentance and confession are accepted as repayment, and that God disciplines sinners through disease.
89. 20.5Asterius explains that David's sickness was God's discipline for adultery and murder, that the troubled “bones” are his thoughts tossed by desire, and urges those tempted to fornication to run to the harbour of the Church and confess their desires to God before they act on them.
90. 20.6Asterius explains that David's “how long?” asks not for forgiveness, which Nathan had already announced, but for an end to the afflictions that followed, such as Absalom's revolt.
91. 21.1Asterius introduces Psalm 7 by its title, “concerning the words of Chousi”, and praises the faithful friendship of Chousi (Hushai) for David as stronger than kingship.
92. 21.2Asterius tells how David sent Hushai to defeat Ahithophel's counsel to Absalom, hoping to save his son, and explains that David's psalm gives thanks not to Hushai but to God who gave him his words.
93. 21.3Asterius explains why the psalm is said to have been both sung to the harp and sung as a song, before and after the victory, and recalls how the patriarchs and Moses were saved by hoping in God.
94. 21.4Asterius compares David's plight under Absalom with Moses' in the desert, and explains the persecutors from whom he asks to be saved as not only enemies but the spirits of fornication, adultery, injustice, greed and other sins.
95. 21.5Asterius explains the single lion of Ps 7:2 as the devil, and Absalom as his instrument, describes Absalom's death caught by his hair, and reads “if I have done this” as David's defence against the charge of causing his son's death.
96. 21.6Asterius applies “if I have done this; if there is injustice in my hands” to David's dealings with his father and with Saul, to Joseph falsely accused of adultery and forgiving his brothers, and to Susanna falsely accused by the elders, urging the falsely accused to call on God as witness.