liberally poured them out for the use of the poor and the churches, so that he might thereby strike shame into those of the present day. But because those rich men were accustomed to send the needy and the beggars to the Antiochene Church, which was furnished with most ample revenues, he objects and says that alms dispensed by the Church confer no merit upon the opulent unless they themselves also distribute liberally. In a certain discourse inserted in previous volumes, he had said that the Antiochene Church, from its income, fed the needy, widows, and virgins to the number of three thousand daily. It is therefore certain from Chrysostom’s own testimony that these discourses on the first Epistle were delivered at Antioch.
2. Taking the occasion from the apostolic words, he often inserts much against the foreign philosophers and against the worshippers of idols. First, he relates a certain disputation of a Platonist with a Christian, col. 27, where arguments are employed by both sides so ill-advisedly that both are found to assert the contrary opinion and to impugn their own. Not rarely he attacks Plato, whom he says held evil opinions concerning the gods yet worshipped them himself, col. 241, that he undertook a journey to Sicily, col. 36, and labored much concerning the line, angle, and point, col. 34. He brings forward verses of a certain profane and unknown poet and traduces the indecency and history of the Pythia, cols. 241 and 242. He brings forward the example of Socrates, who was accustomed to bear a voluble and insolent wife with patience; and when the audience had erupted into shouting and laughter, Chrysostom suppressed them, saying: "You have exclaimed with a loud voice; but I now groan greatly when I see that the Greeks are better philosophers than we, who are commanded to imitate the angels, nay, who are commanded to emulate God himself in the matter of meekness"; col. 224. Likewise concerning Diagoras and Theodorus the atheists, cols. 36 and 37. And he inserts certain things concerning Pythagoras, cols. 62 and 63. Concerning Diogenes the Cynic, he says that he dwelt in a tub for the sake of empty glory and showed himself off covered in rags, col. 302. And he criticizes other Greek philosophers in the same way.
3. Here he combats the Manichaeans not once, but repeatedly, cols. 61, 324, 326, 335, as he also does in his other works. For the poison of this heresy was spreading everywhere throughout the East. I think, however, those heretics who, according to Chrysostom, col. 356, said that a different body rises again from the former one, are the Manichaeans, who, since they asserted that the human body was created by an evil god or by the devil, concocted the idea that a different and distinct body would rise in its place: he mentions this opinion of the heretics, without naming them, also in the Homilies on the second Epistle, col. 470.
4. He also attacks the Marcionites, especially when he reaches the place where Paul offers these things difficult to explain: "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead?" Where, regarding what they feel about that matter and how the Marcionites carry it out, Chrysostom thus expresses it: "Do you wish me first to tell you how those who suffer from the disease of Marcion adulterate this saying? And I know that I shall provoke much laughter; yet I will say it, that you may the more shun their disease. For after any catechumen has passed away among them, with some living person hidden beneath the bed of the dead, they approach the dead one and address him, and ask whether he wishes to receive baptism. With him remaining silent, the one who is hidden speaks from below, saying that he wishes to be baptized; and so they baptize him on behalf of the one who has passed away, as if they were acting in a play: so much did the devil prevail in the minds of the slothful. Then, when they are accused, they bring forward this saying, stating that the Apostle said, 'Who are baptized for the dead.'" Chrysostom fights against the Pneumatomachi, who denied that the Holy Spirit is God, col. 245. But he does not dwell long on that matter. B