Homily 5

these things written down: let us thus depart, and let us emulate the athlete, and let us imitate his contests; that we may also attain to the future blessings, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom to the Father be the glory, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and for ever and ever. Amen.

Homily V

1. How most sweet is the reading of the Scriptures, and sweeter than every meadow and more delightful than paradise, especially when knowledge is added to the reading. For the meadow, and the beauty of flowers, and the shade of trees, and roses, and ivy, and myrtle delight the sight, yet after a few days they wither: but the knowledge of the Scriptures fortifies the mind, purifies the conscience, pulls up illiberal affections, plants virtue, raises the reasoning power aloft, does not permit us to be drowned in unexpected tumults of affairs, makes us higher than the darts of the devil, transports us to the very heaven, releases the soul from the bonds of the body, renders its wings light; and whatever good thing anyone could name, it plants within the mind of the hearers. ^C Wherefore I do not cease lamenting those who are absent, and pronouncing blessed those who are present, because you are gathering an inexhaustible treasure and unspendable wealth and abundance that knows no envy, and you depart homeward filled with much gladness. For nothing could provide such pleasure as a conscience that is pure: for a pure conscience, even if it be burdened with countless sins, becomes light by enjoying constant hearing. Nor does it add to previous transgressions, but consumes even those that exist, and renders the soul less prone to attempt the same things again. For this very reason I exhort your love to keep repeating these things to those who are absent, and to bring them quickly back to their common mother, and to make them partakers of spiritual gains; for this fellowship does not cause any diminution, but an increase. But, oh, the tyranny of wealth! Which leads astray the greater number of our brothers! For nothing is what is drawing them away, but that grievous disease and that never-extinguished furnace: this mistress, more barbarous than any barbarian, and more grievous than any wild beast, and wilder than demons, taking those who are her own captives, carries them about the marketplace now, issuing grievous commands, and not allowing them even a little to breathe from their pernicious labors. But what will they do, when that fearful day arrives, the impartial vote, and the judge who cannot be deceived? ^D When the veils of the heavens are drawn together, and the host of angels descends with the Judge? When all things appear naked and manifest? For not the cleverness of rhetoricians then, nor abundance of wealth, nor anything else will be able to corrupt the justice. For because he is impartial and knows all things clearly, the actual sins stand before his eyes, as if depicted on an image: then neither king, nor commoner appears, nor poor, nor rich, nor wise, nor unlearned, but all these masks are taken away, and by the appearance of the things done, each one is shown; it is not possible to see one crowned with a diadem, nor clothed in purple; it is not possible to see one carried on chariots and having countless lictors who bluster in the marketplace; but all these things are out of the way, and each one is brought in naked, having the subject matter of his deeds, whether for glory or for salvation; for as each of these things happens to be done, so the vote is given. Much good may you receive, because you listen with such sighing, and the beating of your brow, the fruit of the zeal of these words; for each one of you shows the fruit of these seeds. For these reasons I lament those who are absent, because, able to enjoy such care, they become befouled with sores and daily wounds, and do not even know that they are sick: whence it is difficult for them even to be healed. For who will converse with them about this, concerning gold and garments and the luxury of the house? The wives who dwell with them? But one care and concern prevails for them, that concerning the provision of the household. But the servants? How, when they have no freedom of speech, and they also have one goal, to fulfill their service? But the judges? No account of anything else is with them, but the concern for political affairs. But the kings and those who have the diadems? But for them too, the whole labor is about rule and power and money, all the zeal. But they themselves for themselves? How, when they have not even power to breathe from the crowd of affairs, but spend both night and day on these things? Who then would not be more pitiable than those who receive countless wounds, but do not meet here, where they might be able to learn that, even if they have wounds, it is possible to be released from them, and attain to health? When then will they take care of their own soul? For it is a thing to be desired that those who constantly meet at church, and enjoy spiritual instruction, and obtain such care, might be able to prevail and bridle their wicked desires, and look toward the working of virtue.

2. But, so that we may not continually accuse them and deprive you of your accustomed nourishment, come, let us again set before you your habitual table, and recount for you the gain of the actual singing of psalms. For behold, the psalm having entered has mixed the diverse voices, and caused one all-harmonious song to be brought up, and young and old, and rich and poor, and women and men, and bond and free, we all offered up one melody. For if a cithara-player, having tempered the diverse strings by the precision of his art, makes the many produce one, while remaining many; what is strange, if the power of the psalm and the spiritual song has wrought this same thing? For it did not indeed only [bring together] us who are present, but

even mingled the dead with the living: for that blessed prophet was even singing along with us; although in royal courts this is not permitted: for there he sits adorned with a diadem, while all stand by in silence, even though they be set in the greatest magistracies. But here it is not so; but the prophet speaks, and we all answer, we all sing in unison: nor is it permitted here to see a slave, nor a free man, nor a rich man, nor a pauper, nor a prince, nor a private citizen; but that secular inequality is driven away, one choir is gathered from all, there is also much equality in the voices, and the earth imitates heaven. Such is the nobility of the Church. For it cannot be said that the master indeed sings with much confidence, while the servant is restrained; nor again, that the rich man moves his tongue, while the pauper is ordered to be silent; nor again, that the man sings with confidence, while the woman is silent and stands without a voice: but all, enjoying equal honor, offer the common sacrifice, the common oblation: nor has one more here than another, nor that one more than this; but all are in the same honor, and one voice is sent up from different tongues to the Creator of the world. ^A The difference, however, is not in the slave and in the free, not in the rich and in the poor, not in the woman and in the man, but in the mind, in care and in sloth, in vice and in virtue. For thus I am able to call the rich man poor, and the pauper rich, and the woman a man, and the man a woman, and the unlearned wise, and the wise unlearned: not confusing the nature of things, but introducing the best rule, which corrects all things. And how, you will ask, can a man be a woman, and a woman a man? Not by changed nature, but by way of life. For when I see a man wearing gold, elegant, adorned with coiffure, fragrant with perfumes, with soft garment-attire, with feminine gait, addicted to delights: how can I call him a man, who has betrayed the nobility of nature and has turned into a woman? ^B For not even a woman doing such things is Paulus deemed worthy to count among the living, but he set her apart from the choir of the living, and placed her among the dead, saying: "She who is given to pleasure is dead while she lives" (1 Tim. 5:6): how then could a man doing these things be numbered in the order of men, which, if a woman does, she has so utterly lost her life? Do not show me a man from his garments, from his belt, or from the fact that he is puffed up at home and is formidable and utters threats, but by the philosophy of his mind; when he suppresses vices, and overcomes the diseases of the soul, when he rules his own inner house, I speak of the soul, and is not drawn away by inordinate thoughts—this is especially the mark of a man. But if he gives himself to drunkenness and gluttony, and spends and consumes the day in banquetings and drunkenness, made softer than any wax by vice, how shall I be able to call such a one a man, being clearly a captive, a purchased slave, surrendering himself to all vices, broken, softened, living in luxuries, cast off by all, who cannot even stand in the battle line? ^C Do ye not know that for us it is not a war and battle-array to be prepared against fellow men, but against invisible Powers, against the phalanxes of demons, according to the blessed Paul: "We do not wrestle against blood and flesh, but against principalities and Powers" (Eph. 6:12). [The text omitted in the source continues:] since he is adorned [but] does not show the virtue of a man, how can he stand in the battle line? Or how can he be called a man, when he is softer than any woman? In the same way, however, just as I would not call this one a man, but softer than a woman; so also I would call a woman acting manfully stronger than any man, if, having seized spiritual arms, clothed in the breastplate of justice, having assumed the helmet of salvation, protected by the shield of faith, girded with the belt of truth, and having received the sword of the spirit, she stands in the battle line, shining with arms, made more exalted than the heavens themselves by the disposition of her mind, dissolving the phalanxes of demons, abolishing the tyranny of the devil, stinging vices, and making a slaughter denser than that which occurs in war, not of men, but of absurd desires. ^D For woman and man are divided in corporal things; and to those indeed are assigned weapons, the distaff, the basket, the protection of the house, that she may remain in the bridal chamber and nourish her children; but for a man [are assigned] tribunals, counsels, the forum, wars, fights, battle lines: yet in those fights which concern piety, the study is common, the contests are common: and in like manner women gird themselves for the fight, nor are they cast out from the contest, but they also fight in the battle line, are crowned, are proclaimed victors, and carry off the rewards of strenuousness, both prizes and crowns: and the trophies among them are splendid, and their victories frequent.

How much the mother of the Maccabees suffered.

And lest you think these are things that savor of pride and the sound of words, and that you may clearly know that certain women were not only more strenuous than men, but even, if I may so say, arrived at the impassibility of the angels, as far as was possible: let there be brought into the midst that one, by nature indeed a woman, but who by the power of philosophy reached the heavens, the mother of the Maccabees, who wove for herself fourteen crowns; and bring into the midst the most warlike soldier you wish, the bravest and most preeminent in magnanimity with a word, and you will see that woman so much more exalted, as the vaults of the heavens are distant from the earth. For a brave man and fighter fears even one wound, and from it death following shortly: but she stood as a mountain pierced by torments, sustaining in her mind heavier wounds for each of her sons than they were receiving in their sides as tortures: for she was a mother, and a widow, and had reached extreme old age: and you know, as many of you as are fathers, and as many of you as have experienced the pains of childbirth, that these things are more bitter than all darts. And no sharp weapon inflicts such heavy pain upon the wounded, as each of these things stung her mind. For consider how much it was to see in each son the one body broken by fire and iron and the struggle stretched out long; how she saw, how she heard, how she received the odor from those bodies, seeing a thousand deaths inflicted upon each child. But she indeed stood like a rock, immovable, not tossed by the waves, but [turning] the waves into foam

I say these things, so that a woman might not offer excuses, saying that because she is a woman she could not reach the measure of perfect piety. For behold, this was a woman, and her nature was no hindrance; but she was deemed worthy to become a patron of Paul, and is proclaimed everywhere in the inhabited world. But how did she become his patron? Did she perhaps snatch him from dangers? She sat beside him while he was bound, she comforted him in his chain, she brought him solace from the necessities of life, she restrained those who were plotting against him, she gave herself up to death in order ^A to rescue that holy man as he was being led away to his fate. But this other one, shaking off the love of money, mortifying her body, crucifying her flesh, considering present things as nothing, walking on the earth but touching the very vaults of heaven, trampling upon power, mocking at glory, spitting upon splendor, having assumed a sackcloth in place of a fine linen garment, having put on a chain, having spread ashes [for a bed], having the ground for her couch and seeking nothing more, having been enclosed in a narrow room, conversing with the prophets, handling a life that had the meditation of death, having died before her end, pining away with hunger and watching and squalor, and deeming the phantasms of the present life more contemptible than rotting leaves—will you, tell me, call this a woman? Nay, will you not rather release her from the order of men and place her in the choir of the angels, because she manifests such philosophy in a female nature?

4. And who shall contradict these things? There is no one. Hear what kind of women there were in the time of the apostles: hear Paul writing to the Romans and saying: *I commend unto you Phebe our sister, who is a servant of the Church which is at Cenchrea, who became a patron of many and of myself also* (Rom. 16, 1). What are you saying, O Paul? A woman became your patron, and are you not ashamed or blushing to say these things? I am not ashamed, he says, but I even boast; for my Master too was not ashamed to have a woman as a mother; and she became my patron, not because she was simply a woman, but because she was a philosopher and abounded in piety. And how did she become Paul’s patron? For what did Paul need, he who traversed the inhabited world, who carried his body about to no purpose, who had trampled upon the necessities of nature, who drove away demons, who healed diseases by his garments, whose voice and shadow the devil trembled at, who was honored as an angel among the faithful, whom wild beasts feared, whom the sea respected—and though it took him in for a night and day, it did not drown him—the citizen of paradise, he who was snatched up into the third heaven, who shared in the mysteries with God, who labored more than all the apostles, the chosen vessel, the paranymph of the Church, the herald of the nations, who ran around land and sea and everywhere set up trophies of his own courage, he who was ^B continually struggling with hunger and thirst, he who was boxing in nakedness and cold and saying: *Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked* (1 Cor. 4, 11); he who was dead to the world, who considered the world to be dead, the citizen of the heavens, the mad lover of Christ, he who was hotter than fire, stronger than iron, more solid than adamant: is this man not ashamed to say concerning a woman that *She became a patron of many and of myself also*? And he does not say it only, but he even writes it; and he does not write it simply, but he writes these things specifically while letters were being sent to such a great multitude of Romans—a people feverish and proud from their external dignities. And he was not writing to them alone, but he also desired this to be manifest to the generations that followed. For if he had not wished it, he would not have included it in his epistle; but now, wishing the matter to be handed down to everlasting memory, he both addresses the woman, and stirs up everyone to her imitation, and calls her his patron, and is not ashamed nor does he blush. So great a thing is there even in a female body.

For this very reason he also praises the one after her, saying thus: *Greet Priscilla and Aquila* (Rom. 16, 3). And see here again the woman shining forth; for though it is a pair, yet the woman is placed before the man; for he did not say, Aquila and Priscilla, but *Priscilla and Aquila*. And who were these people? Tent-makers by trade, standing at a workbench; but neither the trade, nor poverty, became a hindrance; but this blessed man, having traversed the whole city, used to come down to that very dwelling. For what purpose and why? Not because it had columns, nor because it had slabs and floor adorned with mosaics, nor because it had a golden ceiling, nor because it had herds of slaves, nor because it had a company of eunuchs, but because, before all these things, the dwelling was pure; because the woman and the man, gathering their earnings from just labors, were making their home a church; not plundering, not coveting, but using the labor of their bodies for necessary sustenance. For this very reason Paul considered this dwelling most suitable for lodging. And in order that you may learn that he abode there approving the virtue of their souls, hear what follows: *Who for my life*, he says, *laid down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the Churches of the Gentiles*. Do you see neither female nature, nor trade, nor poverty hindering the course of virtue? Do you see a woman and a man who were strangers-welcomers, receiving the Apostle not only with a table but also with their lives? For what if they were not slaughtered? They fulfilled their own part, and became living martyrs, and often martyrs, always prepared to be slaughtered for Paul. For he did not say, they who spent money, they who opened their house, but—which was greater than all—he sets forth the murder, the slaughter, into the midst, so he might say that they chose even to be beheaded for my sake. Let those now who are wealthy, and who scarcely share an obol with the saints, listen; they [Priscilla and Aquila] even shared their blood, and cast off their very life, in order to rescue and sustain the holy man; but those of the present day would not readily part with even the smallest fraction of their own wealth for those in need; but Priscilla and Aquila surrendered both their money and their bodies and their very life. Do you see how much a woman who is philosophizing is worth, how much a man who lives in poverty and a trade is worth? Let us indeed emulate these, let us imitate these, and, despising present things, let us surrender everything for the sake of those things that are pleasing to God, so that [we may... ^{C D}

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