as a leper is cast out from this sacred camp. For just as I first used exhortation and counsel, so now, after so much admonition and doctrine, it is necessary to apply the incision at last. The year has finally passed A since I was brought to your city, and I have not ceased to frequently exhort you regarding this matter. Since, therefore, some have remained in this moral filth, come, let me apply the incision. For if I do not have a blade, I have a word sharper than steel; though I do not carry fire, I possess a doctrine hotter than fire, capable of burning even more intensely. Do not then despise our judgment. For if we are cheap and altogether wretched, yet we have been entrusted with a dignity from the grace of God that is able to accomplish these things. Let such men, therefore, be cast out, so that those who are healthy may become healthier among us, and those who are ill may reclaim themselves from their grievous malady. But if you have shuddered hearing this sentence (and indeed I see everyone looking gloomy and downcast), let them change their ways, and the judgment is dissolved. For just as we have received the authority to bind, so have we also to loose, and to impose it again. For we do not wish to cut off our brothers, but to repel the disgrace of the Church. For now, even the Gentiles laugh at us, and the Jews will mock us, when we thus overlook ourselves as we sin. But then even they will greatly praise us, and will admire the Church, having been put to shame by our laws. Let no one, therefore, of those who persist in the same fornication enter the church; rather, let him be rebuked even by you, and let him be a common enemy. For if anyone, he says, does not obey our word by this letter, mark that man, and do not associate with him (2 Thess. 3:14). Do this, moreover: do not grant him speech, do not receive him into your house, do not share a table with him, do not let him enter or leave, do not meet him in the marketplace; and thus we will easily reclaim them. And just as hunters do not drive the beasts that are difficult to catch from one side only, but from every side, casting them into the net, so let us drive those who have turned into beasts, and quickly cast them into the nets of salvation, we from this side, you from that side. In order, therefore, that this may happen, join us in being indignant—or rather, be pained on behalf of the laws of God, and little by little turn away from those brothers of yours who are sick with such things and are breaking the law, so that you may have them permanently. For it is no small judgment for you if you overlook such a ruin; rather, you will have the greatest punishment. For if, in the houses of men, anyone is caught stealing silver or gold from the servants, not only is the one caught punished, but also those who were aware of it and did not report it; much more so in the Church. For God will say to you then: "Seeing that from my house not silver or a gold vessel was stolen, but temperance was plundered, and that he who took it had been partaker of the precious body and such a sacrifice, and had gone off into the place of the devil B and had sinned in such a way, why did you keep silent? Why did you endure it? Why did you not report it to the priest?" And you will be required to give no small account. For this reason I too, although I am about to cause pain, will spare none of the more burdensome things. For it is much better that we be pained here and be rescued from the judgment to come, than that, by being granted easy words, we be punished with you then. For it is neither safe for us, nor without danger, to bear such things in silence. For each one of you will give an account for himself; but I am responsible for the salvation of all. Because of this, therefore, I will not cease doing and saying everything, even if it is necessary to cause pain, even if it is necessary to appear burdensome, even if weight, that I may be able to stand at that fearful tribunal, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. May it come to pass, through the prayers of the saints, that those who have already been corrupted quickly return, and that those who have remained unharmed progress further in decorum and temperance; so that you may be saved, and we may rejoice, and God may be glorified now and always, and unto the endless ages of ages. Amen.
TO THE FOLLOWING HOMILY
In the beginning, and especially at the end of the homily, he says: "Since, however, I have often been afflicted by illness, it is not so easy to note when these things happen, nor can we say whether this speech was delivered at Antioch or at Constantinople." Chrysostom himself, however, seems to profess it was delivered at Antioch, in the very beginning of the homily, where he speaks of his instruction.