A B C D 393 - AD HOMILIAM DE LEGISLATORE 394 paradisum expulit; but the Word who came forth from the Virgin showed the cross, by which He brought the thief into the presence of Adam in paradise. Since, indeed, the Greeks, the Jews, and the children of heretics did not believe that God was begotten without flux and without passion, for this reason today, having come forth from a passible body, He kept the passible body impassible, so that He might show that, just as when born from the Virgin He did not dissolve her virginity, so also God, while His holy essence remained unchangeable, as God begat God in a manner befitting God. For because men, having abandoned Him, sculpted human-shaped idols, which they even worshipped to the insult of the Creator, for this reason today [400] the Word of God, being God, was seen in the form of man, so that He might both destroy the lie and secretly bring the worship to Himself. To Christ, then, who brought a way out from impossible straits, let us send up glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
MONITUM
Regarding this homily, Savile notes the following: We provide this oration from the Roman Edition, corrected and augmented by a few pages from the Caesarean Manuscript; which, were it not for Photius, would certainly have deserved to be placed among the [i]dubia[/i], although it appears to belong to someone among the ancients. Nor is the authority of Photius, who accepted certain other things not of the best quality, of such value to me that I would judge it to be numbered among the [i]genuine[/i] without doubt. For first, the style is alien to the character of Chrysostom. Second, it bristles with allegories, which our author, unless he prefaces an excuse, does not usually intermix. Third, because Ignatius is cited by name, which is unusual for this author of ours. Finally, the whole ratio of the intention and the leap, rather than a transition, from one thing to another, do not smack of our golden-tongued one. And certainly, in these ten homilies (Savile is speaking of the ten homilies which he placed with this one in Volume 6) published by learned men at Rome, there are scarcely two—at most three—[i]genuine[/i] ones. Yet those most learned men fared somewhat better than others, who gave us scarcely one [i]genuine[/i] work out of ten or twelve. However, this same argument concerning the sole Lawgiver is often magnificently found in his authentic writings; here, certainly, it is found scarcely, and is touched upon coldly. This oration seems to have been written, as is evident from the epilogue, in most difficult times for the Republic, and when the Eastern Empire was imminent in its destruction by barbarian nations, which seems hardly to fit the times of Chrysostom. Concerning this homily further, and others which bear the name of Chrysostom but are not his [i]genuine[/i] works, Fronto Ducaeus holds these views, which are set forth in place of a preface to the Notes on the sixth Volume, which contains all the spurious works.ON THE SERMONS OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM ON VARIOUS PLACES OF BOTH TESTAMENTS, NOTES BY FRONTO DUCAEUS, THEOLOGIAN OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.
That which has been common practice by other editors of the works of the holy Fathers—that while they translate their books from the Greek, or correct the Latin ones which they acknowledge as their legitimate offspring, they also proffer their own judgment concerning those which, because of the dissimilarity of style or the diversity of doctrine, they judge not to sustain their dignity and fame, whose names they bore—that, I say, no just evaluator of matters will deny should be granted to me, who am bringing the lucubrations of St. John Chrysostom to light. For we have seen before the books of Justin Martyr translated and divided into two classes by Joachim Perion and Sigismund Gelenius, and those of Athanasius by Peter Nannius; and the works of Jerome and Augustine so corrected by Mariano Vittorio and the Leuven theologians that they joined their own censorship to them, whereby they might warn the reader separately about those which were genuine and those which were falsely inscribed to them. Furthermore, Photius himself did not hesitate to do the same concerning this very Chrysostom in his [i]Bibliotheca[/i], when he wrote thus about his Homily on the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, page 832: "It is inscribed as Chrysostom’s, but it does not seem so to me. For in its rhetorical arguments and the experience of Scripture, it falls far short of his other discourses." This oration is inscribed with the name of Chrysostom; yet it does not seem to me to be his. For in its arguments and manner of writing, it is distinguished much from his remaining orations. He bears the same judgment concerning the third one of the same subject. Moreover, there exists in the Augsburg Library a Greek Catalogue of the works of John Chrysostom, written in a manuscript Codex, which the most learned Marcus Velserus, Duumvir, once communicated to us before it was printed in England, with this title prefixed: "The truly genuine orations of Chrysostom; but those outside these are false." Which are truly the genuine orations of Chrysostom; which, however, are found outside these are false. But the author of this Catalogue did not pass judgment on entire Commentaries or larger treatises, such as those on Matthew and John, or the books on the Priesthood and against the Jews, but rather on individual Sermons or Homilies which expound one or another place of Scripture. Following the example of these, the most learned Sixtus Senensis in Book 4 of his [i]Bibliotheca Sacra[/i] wove two catalogues, one of which comprises the works which are believed without any controversy to be Chrysostom's; the other, of those which are falsely thought to be inscribed to him. But in order to protect both, he said that it was the author's custom to divide his discourse into three parts: into the [i]parasceve[/i] (preparation), [i]exegetice[/i] (explanation), and [i]ethice[/i] (moral). In the [i]parasceve[/i] or preparatory part, sometimes recommending the argument he is about to treat, sometimes praising the frequency and alacrity of the audience, and repeating what he had said before, he disposes the minds of the audience to the remaining discourse with pleasant exordia. In the second, which is the expository one, he is occupied in the explanation of Scripture according to history, or literal understanding, which he places as a foundation, and illustrates it with clear paraphrases, and does not distort it to certain remote allegories, but persists in the true sense of the letter, after the example of Eusebius of Emesa and Diodorus of Tarsus. In the third part, which is moral, he digresses into commonplaces regarding the contempt of riches, the fleeing of vices, and sometimes expands upon select paradoxes of moral instruction unique to himself, such as: "No one is hurt except by himself"; "It is better to suffer an injury than to inflict one." He is also wont to abound in similarities, dissimilarities, comparisons, and metaphors, woven with admirable artifice. In the other catalogue, however, those sermons are listed which, although they may be learned and worthy to be read, it appears from many conjectures that they are not Chrysostom's, but of authors who possess neither the candor nor that perpetual facility which we admire in Chrysostom, but rather a common and concise style, somewhat harsh in its affectation, destitute of comparisons and abundant in sentences ending in like fashion, and in verbal conceits or etymologies from which Chrysostom recoils, and often, having left the historical sense, the author revolves toward allegorical and anagogical ones. The most illustrious Cardinal Bellarmine agrees with this censure of Sixtus in his [i]Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers[/i], and approves his judgment regarding the fourteen sermons on Mark, the author of which was a monk constituted under the power of a bishop, and wrote for monks.A Adam was expelled from paradise: but the Word who came forth from the Virgin displayed the cross, through which He introduced the thief into paradise in the place of Adam. For since neither the Gentiles, nor the Jews, nor the heretics believed that God had begotten without passion and flux, for that reason today, having proceeded from a suffering-capable body, He kept the body suffering-capable yet impassible, so that He might show that, just as He was born of the Virgin without dissolving her virginity, so too did God, while the sacred substance remained without flux or mutation, beget—as God, in a manner befitting God. For after men, having abandoned Him, had carved for themselves statues endowed with human form, to which they offered worship to the dishonor of the Creator, for this reason the Word of God, though He was God, appeared today in the form of a man, so that He might dissolve the lie and secretly transfer all worship unto Himself. Therefore, to Him who made tangled things thus straightforward, to Christ the Lord let us offer glory, and together to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
AD HOMILIAM DE LEGISLATORE
their explanations mixed with frequent and sometimes violent allegories. Insisting on the footsteps of these learned men, we also, when we had exhibited in the other five volumes published at Paris those books and sermons which seemed to us the legitimate offspring of our author, except for a few, we rejected those into the end of the Volume which embraces the discourses on the Psalms and the prophet Isaiah; we have at last relegated into this sixth Volume those which do not expound complete books of Scripture, but certain individual passages, and are written in a style different from the other works of Chrysostom, since the whole oration is dramatic and fashioned from prosopopoeias, often commatic and concise, and turned toward allegories; lacking the comparisons and other charms which are familiar to Chrysostom: yet they belong to authors either contemporary with Chrysostom, or from that learned antiquity which was not far removed from his own age.
Nor is it a wonder that some of them are cited even in ancient Synods under the name of Chrysostom, since they were already in use in the Churches, and Councils, when they bring forward testimonies, are not accustomed to inquire into the authors or to examine other questions diverse from the one they have at hand, but rather to use what are commonly offered, and by any means possible to oppose accepted writers to the inventions of heretics, just as the apostles and the remaining fathers cited apocryphal books, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Nazarenes: although by their times that custom had already taken root, so that they attributed supposititious offspring to the fathers, just as they ascribed the A *Acts of Paul and Thecla* to the very apostles themselves, and the *Acts of Peter* and the *Apocalypse*.
This first class contains those sermons which are falsely attributed to Chrysostom, from the first page up to 608; the second, however, exhibits those which, although they might be his, yet are not to be considered as delivered by him as the scripts occur, but are rather *anthologies* and flowers gathered from his gardens, for the use of those who were cutting them from his moral digressions; such are those LIV discourses, or rather centos fashioned from diverse fragments of discourses, and appended to the XXI Homilies to the people of Antioch; the sources of which we have indicated, and have restored them to their own birthplaces. For it is of no small importance for the reader to understand that those sermons were not disposed by the author in such a way, lest perhaps he might deem the doctrine of Sixtus of Siena false, who divides them into three parts and separates the allegorical explanations from them; or for that reason think it permissible to move the affections or employ moral exhortation immediately from the very opening, as happens in those centos, which Chrysostom, a most eloquent man, would never have cobbled together from such various fragments. Nevertheless, we do not propose this judgment of ours in such a way that we wish to sit as the sole arbiters of his works, but we submit it to the censure of the best and most learned reader, so that he may see whether it is much better to distinguish what is true and genuine from the supposititious, and to weigh each writing at its proper moment, than to sell spurious works as genuine, and in arguments with the adversaries of the Church, to send Patroclus hiding under the arms of Achilles into the battle line, to be slain with greater ignominy than if he had gone forth in his own arms.
Thus far Fronto Ducæus concerning the spurious works of Chrysostom, which he placed in the sixth Volume, in which this homily on the Lawgiver leads the procession: and that volume is finished by the *anthologies* or Florilegia, which will be edited at the end of this current Volume. That we might consider it spurious, persuade all those things which Savile noted above; the diversity of style is so great, that it alone could lead us to render a calculation to the contrary; the use of allegories is frequent, against the custom of Chrysostom; Ignatius Martyr is cited; which is never to be seen in Chrysostom. And indeed it is unusual in Chrysostom to see the Holy Fathers who preceded him brought forward by name into the midst. The series is intricate, against the custom of Chrysostom; who flows always like a river without obstacles. Pearson in his *Edition of Ignatius* (Cantab. Vol. 1, p. 132 et seqq.) tries in vain to refute these arguments. He refutes more easily that other thing which Savile adds, namely that this oration was made when the ruin of the Constantinopolitan empire was imminent, and in most difficult times of the republic. For we must admit that these things are full of obscurity, and hardly can a mark either of authenticity or of forgery be extracted from this. But others which we have premised are enough and more than enough for adjudging the homily away from Chrysostom. For that Photius held it to be genuine, that does not cause a great deal of trouble, since he held not a few other spurious works to be true. Another argument not to be scorned, by which its authenticity is impugned, is that, as it is said shortly before the end, *Habemus Dominam nostram Deiparam sanctam semper virginem Mariam* (We have our Lady the Theotokos the holy ever-virgin Mary), which are even repeated. For although the B. Virgin Mary was always commemorated in the Church with a signification of honor, the holy Fathers, and especially Chrysostom, were not accustomed to bring these things forward in such a conglobated manner, which no one who has read the Holy Fathers of the first five centuries will deny. Another argument is brought forward, taken from the following words: *Dicamus et nos Paulo, quemadmodum et prisci illi: Cum in Macedoniam pertransieris, nobis auxiliare*. (Let us also say to Paul, just as those ancients did: When you pass into Macedonia, help us.) Hence it is argued, they say, that he who was preaching these things was in Macedonia. But I do not know whether any such thing can be extracted from there; for I would willingly believe that Macedonia is placed here because it is held in Scripture; but that the mind of the writer is that one must pray thus in any region whatsoever. Certainly, this writer intimates that not only Macedonia, but the whole Empire was then in peril. Let the strife be before the judge.
From these things, however, which we have said, it is clear that this discourse was delivered after the fifth century. Some have tried to assign a time. Cotelerius thinks this writer equal in age to Chrysostom, which I would not believe. In the course of things, perhaps we shall discover something to designate the age. Meanwhile, I would rather agree with Ussher, who refers the discourse to the age of Justinian. We have amended the translation of Jacob Beurer in many places.