as the perpetrator of that crime, bound him in sleep; and the woman, taking the pin and the hammer, drove it through his temples so forcefully that it even reached the ground: and thus he died between the woman’s feet.
7. God does not lack occasions, and when He wills, it is no hindrance A that human assistance is absent: there is the weapon of God, the soldier of God, the power of God, the mere nod of God. Let us say this to Christ: Say the word, and Thy enemies shall be scattered; say the word, and Thou shalt have mercy on Thy city; say the word, and Thou shalt have compassion on Thy world. Let us say to Him: Lo, Thy enemies have made a noise, and they that hate Thee have lifted up their heads. Do you wish to learn the strategy of another woman, since God so willed it? There was another, Abimelech by name, who had killed seventy of his own brethren, and having seized power through such fratricide, keeping the whole people in subjection, he struggled with a certain city, fighting against the walls B and when all were paralyzed at the sight of the war, God again, strengthening the hand of a woman, causes a certain woman to appear upon the wall, who, having taken a fragment of a millstone, threw it at the head of the tyrant, and crushed his skull. And behold the boundless wickedness of the proud man dying with him. He says to the attendant standing by: Draw your sword, and strike me, that they may not say: A woman killed him (Judg. 9). His body was dying, and his pride remained: he was laying aside his life, but he did not lay aside his vainglory. And now God does not lack a Deborah, God does not lack a Jael. We too have the holy Virgin and Mother of God, Mary, C who intercedes for us. For if an ordinary woman conquered, how much more does the Mother of Christ confound the enemies of the truth? The Enemy, putting on a full armor, thought the woman to be something to be mocked, and he found a commander doing battle. He did not think to touch a monument, and a tomb was found for him; he thought her dead, and he was put to death by her. We have our Lady, the holy Mary, the Theotokos; but there is need also for apostles. Let us say to Paul, as they said then: Crossing over into Macedonia, help us. We have apostles, let us not be sluggish D. We have our Lady the Theotokos, the holy ever-virgin Mary, let us not delay. We have the choir of the martyrs, let us not be slothful. Let us not only entreat, but, if it pleases, let us also fast. It is better to fast a fast of desire than a fast of hunger; it is better to fast a fast of love than a fast of necessity. The Savior says about the demons: This kind is not cast out, except by prayer and fasting (Matt. 17. 20). Does prayer and fasting banish demons and not drive away barbarians? And I have already said, and I say again: Let us beseech the holy glorious Virgin and Theotokos Mary: let us beseech the holy and glorious apostles: let us beseech the holy martyrs. If anyone, having fallen into necessity, runs to one of the powerful, he does not attend to him sincerely. Before the necessity arises, he says, you did not know how to honor or serve me, but [only] in the necessity. Honor that is outside of necessity is above suspicion. If you serve the judge before necessity, you will find an ally in [the time of] necessity. For he sees that it is not necessity, but the desire that has brought you. Let us therefore not be friends of the martyrs in necessity, but in love. Before the winter, when we are in the winter, let us grieve, so that in the time of winter we may find the spring. We say these things not as having authority, but as beseeching; not as legislating, but as entreating; we implore all to be sober. God is able, beyond all faith, beyond all speech, both to confound the enemies, and to have mercy on the world, and to honor the emperors, and to establish the empire, and to brighten His own glory, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Of those in the assembly.
CONCERNING THE FOLLOWING HOMILY
This homily, as one more fittingly argues, having been written out from the Royal Codex, was first published by Cotelier in the *Monumenta Ecclesiae Graecae*, Vol. 3, pp. 121-157, and he attempts to assert it as Chrysostom's in his notes, p. 558, in these words: "That this speech, a genuine work, it seems, of the supreme doctor—a child not wholly to be disowned by so great a father—was delivered at Antioch, is shown by the fact that near the end, as is his habit, he speaks of the common father or bishop, namely Flavian. I would believe it was taken down rather from the mouth of the speaker than produced by the pen of an author; unless one prefers to think it interpolated. But because it seems it may contribute no little weight to investigating both the place and the time when the discourse was delivered, that which is said regarding the two later Epistles of John, it has seemed good to add here the note of Cotelier on that place." Note carefully the remarkable testimony; so that one may inquire whether and in what manner the later Epistles of John are cited in the various works of John Chrysostom, which, as Eusebius is a rich witness regarding the fact that they were not placed by the ancients in the canon of the Scriptures, nor attributed to John the apostle (Book 3, chapter 25), and after him Jerome in his *Catalogue*, and Oecumenius in his Commentaries. Furthermore, that this controversy existed around the times of our John is signified by Amphilochius in his iambics to Seleucus, and by the *Christian Topography* which Allatius cites in his *Dissertation on the Ecclesiastical Books of the Greeks*. Only three catholic Epistles are mentioned above in the *Synopsis* of Chrysostom, namely those of James, Peter [index: entries preserved]