ADMONITION ON THE EXPOSITION OR HOMILY OF CHRYSOSTOM ON PSALM XLI
In this Exposition, or Homily—for it is truly a Homily—Savile notes the following: "It is a homily delivered to the people on the beginning of Psalm 41, not a continuous exposition of the whole Psalm; nor does it have anything A *hypomnematikon* (commentary-like) or similar to the rest. Add that it was delivered after another one concerning Melchizedek. We provide it based on the authority of two codices, in one of which it is found among the various and singular ones; rightly so, and not inserted among the other commentaries on the Psalms, as it is in the other codex."
It is certainly established that this homily does not belong to the Expositions on the Psalms, but is a moral exhortation, with its argument taken from the beginning of Psalm 41. As to the time it was delivered, Chrysostom himself indicates it not obscurely at the beginning: "You, indeed," he says, "were recently admiring us when we discoursed on Melchizedek, because of the length of what was said; but I was admiring you for your attention and wisdom in listening, and because, although the discourse presented itself as somewhat prolix, you followed us right to the end." And with some things interposed: "As therefore I was saying then, that while wolves invade the flock, the shepherds, leaving the pipe, take the sling into their hand: so now, while the feasts of the Jews have passed, who are more savage than any wolves, leaving the sling again, let us return to the pipe." B Here you see that this Homily on Psalm 41 was delivered when he had already said many things about Melchizedek and had completed the Homilies against the Jews. He said many things about Melchizedek in the seventh Homily against the Jews, which is the penultimate one of that argument; and that ought to be counted among the long speeches of Chrysostom; the eighth and final one is longer, however, but in it there is nothing about Melchizedek, from which one might perhaps conjecture that this Homily on Psalm 41 was delivered in the days intervening between the seventh and the eighth.
For although this is said to be on Psalm 41, it happened when the feasts of the Jews had passed—feasts which were celebrated with fasting—yet that eighth Homily against the Jews is also said at the beginning to have been delivered after the feasts and fasts of the Jews: *The fast of the Jews has passed*. And Chrysostom convinces us that it was spoken after this one on Psalm 41, when he says that he had recently—that is, as it seems, in the last discourse—woven a long speech and said many things about Melchizedek, which certainly pertains to the seventh against the Jews. C When, however, he later says that *then* he had brought forward the example of the shepherd, who, seeing a wolf, lays aside the pipe and takes up the sling, you should understand that "then" to refer to the entire struggle against the Jews, which, having already arisen in the year 386 during the feast of the Jews, around the month of September—at which time Chrysostom delivered the first three discourses against the Jews—also recurred in the following year, 387, upon the return of the same feast, when he spoke the remaining five homilies against the Jews. Therefore, in the fourth one, at the beginning of the second war, he seems to sound the trumpet call thus. Chrysostom... D