Homilies

Contents

Only Homily 5 (on divorce, Matt 19:3) is published; the other homilies are not yet on the site.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 6.1The opening of the homily on the prophet Daniel and Susanna.
8. 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.
9. 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.