in this life, he leaves behind heirs to his enmities, and leaves them amidst enemies; and if he ends his life without children, through his buildings and his other possessions, which he acquired by rapine and greed, he leaves behind him an immortal accusation. But the just man is not so; rather, even when he departs, he gains the greatest things, benefiting all the living by the memory of his own virtue and making them better, just as the wicked man is punished even in this way. For not only while they live, but even when they die, they injure many, leaving behind everywhere the proofs of their own greed. Knowing these things, therefore, let us not call those who die in a strange land wretched, but those who die in their sins; and let us not bless those who die at home and in their beds, but those who depart with virtue; and let us be diligent in virtue and flee vice. For the former benefits both the living and the departed, while the latter injures both, shaming them and leading them away to immortal punishments. May God, who has gathered us together this day, and who has counted us worthy to strip, and to wrestle, and to conquer, and to be crowned, count us all worthy together, when we have finished the present life on that day, to be able, according to His commandments and laws, to come before the tabernacles of this holy one and enjoy immortal goods; which may we all attain, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, for ever. Amen.
ON THE HOMILY ON THE EGYPTIAN MARTYRS
Whether this homily was delivered at Antioch or at Constantinople, we cannot ascertain by certain signs and indications. Tillemont conjectures that it was delivered at Constantinople, led by this reasoning: this homily was spoken on the occasion of Relics brought from Egypt to the city in which Chrysostom preached; but such translations were accustomed to take place far more frequently at Constantinople than at Antioch.EULOGY FOR THE EGYPTIAN MARTYRS
A 1. Blessed be God, that there are martyrs even from Egypt, from Egypt that fought against God and was most insane, and from whence came godless mouths, from whence came blasphemous tongues; there are martyrs from Egypt, not only in Egypt, and not in the neighboring region, but everywhere in the inhabited world. And just as in a time of abundance of goods, when those who dwell in the cities see that the yield has become greater than the needs of the inhabitants, they send it forth even to the cities outside, at once showing their own kindliness, and together with the surplus of these, easily buying back again whatever they may need from them; so have the Egyptians done in the case of the athletes of piety. Seeing by the grace of God that the yield among them had become great, they did not shut up in the city this great gift of God; B but everywhere in the earth they sent forth these treasures of good things, both showing their own brotherly love, and glorifying the common Master of all, and adorning their own city before all, and declaring it the metropolis of the entire world. For if cold and cheap commodities, and graces which provide only for our present life, have had the power to grant this honor to many of the cities, how is it not fitting that this city should above all others obtain this precedence from them—this city that offers nothing of these perishable and corruptible things, but men who possess great security for the cities allotted to them even after death? For the bodies of these saints wall in the city more securely than any adamantine and unbreakable wall; and like certain high watchtowers thrown up on every side, they not only repel the attacks of these sensible and visible enemies, C but they also overturn and dissolve the plots of invisible demons and all the wiles of the devil, as easily as if some brave man were to overturn and cast down the playthings of children. And while other engines produced by men—such as walls, and trenches, and arms, and multitudes of soldiers, and whatever has been devised for the safety of the inhabitants—it is possible for enemies to repel with other more numerous and greater engines of their own; yet when a city is walled with the bodies of saints, even if those enemies spend countless wealth, they will not be able to set up any such engine against the cities that possess them. Nor is this possession, beloved, useful to us only against the plots of men, nor against the wickedness of the demons; but even if our common Master is angry at the multitude of our sins, we shall be able DHomily on the Martyrs of Egypt
A...and if He is angry at the multitude of men, by presenting these bodies, we shall immediately be able to render Him propitious to the city. For if those men who had accomplished great things in the time of our ancestors, by putting forward the names of holy men and taking refuge in the invocation of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, obtained no small consolation and harvested great benefit from the commemoration of these names, much more shall we, by putting forward not only the names but the very bodies that have struggled, be able to have God propitious, kind, and placated. And that these things we say are not mere smoke of words, many of both the local people and those who have come from elsewhere know, seeing how great the virtue of these saints is; and they prove by their own testimony that these things are so, as they have learned by experience what great boldness they have before God; and quite reasonably so. For they did not struggle for the truth in a common way, but stood against the violent and intolerable onsets of the devil with such fortitude and vigor as if they were struggling in stone and iron bodies, and not in those subject to corruption and death; as though they had already been translated to that impassible and immortal nature, not yielding to the bitter and painful necessities of the body. For like certain wild beasts, cruel and savage, the executioners, surrounding the bodies on all sides, dug into their sides, lacerated their flesh, uncovered and laid bare their bones, nor did anything restrain them from that cruelty and inhumanity; but even when they had reached their backs and entrails, and had penetrated to the innermost parts, they did not find the treasure of faith stored up within them to be pillaged. Rather, the same thing happened to them as happens to some who, when they have besieged a most august city, filled with many riches and abounding in copious treasures, and having overturned its walls, have arrived at the very storehouses of money, broken down the doors, removed the bars, dug up the pavement, and searched everything, have not been able to depart having carried off its riches. Such, indeed, are the goods of the soul: they are not betrayed by the passions of the body, whenever it keeps itself safe; even if one digs through the very chest and cuts the heart into pieces, it will not surrender the treasure once entrusted to it by faith. B This is the work of divine grace, which arranges all things and is able to bring about wonders in weak bodies; and this is all the more worthy of admiration: for not only, when they had raved and raged so much, did they pilfer nothing of the stored-up treasures, but they even caused them to guard them with still greater caution; nay, they even rendered them more illustrious and more opulent. For it was not merely the soul, but even the body itself that became a partaker of greater grace; and not only did it not lose what it had, after being dissected and cut to pieces many times, but it acquired for itself a more abundant and greater resource. For what could be more wonderful than this victory, when those who held them, and had them in their power, and were beating them imperiously, could not overcome them, but were miserably and unhappily conquered by them? For they were not waging war against them, but against God who inhabited them: with the Father...
C ...who wages war against God, it is clear that it is necessary to be defeated by a superior power, and to suffer the penalties of one's own attempts, no one is ignorant.
Christian martyrs condemned to the mines.
Such are the victories of the saints. But if their contests and struggles are so wonderful and stupendous, what shall we say of the rewards and crowns that are reserved for their endurance? For they did not stop within those torments, nor did they interrupt their course here; but their trenches were extended further, as the wicked demon hoped to trip up the athletes with an accession of punishments, but God, being kind, permitted and did not hinder it, so that the insanity of the infidels might appear more manifest to all, and that more and more splendid crowns might be woven for them. And just as it happened in the case of Job: the one here was requesting more punishments against him from God, and hoped to defeat the noble athlete of piety with an accumulation of evils; but the other allowed it and indulged the base petitions of the base demon, and rendered his athlete more illustrious: so, indeed, it happened here. For after he had grazed and devoured their body on all sides more cruelly than any wild beast, and had bloodied their tongue and mouth—yet not with the blood of the saints, but with those inhuman and cruel sentences—he departed, conquered by their patience and sated and filled to the full by that inhuman feast. And see how great the patience of the saints was, which sated such fury with their own tortures. He attacked again, renewing the contest with fury, and striving to surpass all wild beasts in cruelty; for they, impelled by the necessity of nature, are moved to such a feast, and, when sated, they withdraw, and even if they see six hundred bodies, they touch none of them; but he, from the wickedness of his own will, proceeded to this food, and, sated with their flesh, he weaves another trap against them, and condemns the saints to a most long and bitter death; for he ordered them to work in the mines perpetually. O singular madness! When he had received such a manifest experience of their fortitude and endurance, he relied on this method to overcome them. The saints, therefore, dwelt with wild beasts, having become companions of the angels and citizens of the heavens, and being enrolled in the Jerusalem above; and then, the desert became holier than any city. And in the cities, indeed, these unjust and tyrannical orders were carried out every day; but the desert rejoiced in its immunity from that inhuman service; the tribunals were filled and overflowing with nefarious deeds and unjust orders; but the deserts had the most righteous citizens of all mortals, who had become angels out of men; the desert vied with heaven, at least on account of the virtue of the citizens by whom it was inhabited. And by its own nature, the punishment was most grave, but by the cheerfulness of the spirit of those who were struggling, it was rendered easy, light, and manageable; they thought they were then seeing increased light, and that what was said by the prophet, *The moon shall be as the sun, but the sun shall be seven-fold* (Isai. 30:26), was the light that had befallen them. For there is not, there is not, I say, any soul...[Ad Homiliam in S. Martyrem Phocam — Monitum]
A Phocam the Wonder-worker. We read in the Roman Martyrology on March 5, from Gregory of Tours, *De gloria Martyrum*: "Nativity of St. Phocas at Antioch." Likewise, July 14: "At Sinope in Pontus the martyrdom of St. Phocas, bishop of that same city, whose relics were translated to Vienne in Gaul," as Ado testifies in his *Chronicon*; and in the Greek *Horologion*, June 22 is noted, *ἡ ἀνακομιδὴ τοῦ λειψάνου τοῦ ἁγίου ἱερομάρτυρος Φωκᾶ*, which according to Usuard and Molanus's edition is *Reportatio Lipsani sancti Hieromartyris Phocae*; in the calendar of the Greeks, translated by Genebrard, *Translatio Reliquiarum Phocae*; again, September 22, *τοῦ ἁγίου ἱερομάρτυρος Φωκᾶ*. In the Greek Menology edited at Venice, the passion of Phocas is briefly related twice, and indeed in the former, *τοῦ ἁγίου ἱερομάρτυρος Φωκᾶ τοῦ θαυματουργοῦ*, who is said to have been the son of Pamphilus and Maria, born at Sinope in Pontus, and from his tenderest years he was dedicated to the Lord. A dove brought him a crown; he was sent forth with a human voice saying: "The chalice is mixed, and you must drink it." And this was granted to him as a gift: for the Emperor Trajan finished his martyrdom with the sword and fire simultaneously; after his death he was famous for miracles. But the latter says Phocas was also a gardener at that same place, Sinope, and he says he provided hospitality to those soldiers who were seeking him for execution, and, as Narrot says in Lipomanus, Asterius [relates], and having been beheaded, he was offered as a grateful victim to God. B From these two former ones, who was bishop, I suspect he is praised in this oration, because the title *ἱερομάρτυρος* is more often used in the Menology. But in that title, bishops or presbyters who are martyrs are ornamented, and I see they are distinguished by the Greeks, as Ignatius, Dionysius, and Blasius, and those they call *ἱερομόναχους* are of the monastic order, but those who are created presbyters are joined to the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Latin translation of the oratorical text (continuing seamlessly from the fragment of the homily on column 697-698):
...laborious, and full of the misery of affliction. For as it is impossible that he who contends in the struggle, through sleep and sluggishness, should attain crowns—nor the soldier, the trophies; nor the helmsman, the harbor; nor the husbandman, the full threshing-floor—so neither can the faithful man, who has passed his life in sluggishness, attain the promised blessings. Is it not, therefore, absurd that in all human affairs labors are set before pleasure, and dangers before security, and this while only a cheap and trifling expectation remains after those labors; but when heaven is set before us, and angelic honors, and a life that has no end, and communion with the angels, and good things that no one can even conceive or express, we expect to attain them through sluggishness, sloth, and a loose soul, and not value them with the same diligence as human affairs? Do not, I implore you, do not let us deliberate so poorly regarding ourselves and our own salvation; but looking toward these holy ones, these noble and steadfast athletes, who are given to us as if they were lamps, let us direct our own life toward their endurance and patience, C so that by their prayers we may be enabled, after our departure from here, both to see them and to embrace them, and to be placed in their heavenly tabernacles; which may we all attain by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory to the ages of ages. Amen.