they are not, as in the theater, public banquets, nor statues of bronze, nor images depicted with colors, and other such trifles and vanities: but a life that never reaches an end, the nobility conferred by the sons of God, the joy to be joined to the choirs of angels, the presence secure before the royal throne, and to be forever with Christ.
6. The teachers of this discipline are tax collectors and fishermen, who have not lived for a short time, but still live and remain unto eternity. And therefore, even the departed have great power to profit their disciples. Thus, the war of this discipline is not with men, but against the most savage demons, and against those incorporeal powers. For which reason, such an army is not of men, not of angels, but is, in fact, God himself. Neither are these soldiers equipped with iron or leather, but with truth, faith, and justice, and the other virtues. Since, therefore, the discipline of this kind is also the subject of this book, and the proposal is for us to discuss it, let us listen more diligently to Matthew clearly discoursing on the same. For his sayings are not his own, but Christ’s, who is the very instructor of the disciple. We must consider this carefully, so that we may merit being enrolled among them, and attain those crowns in the glorious number, which those who have first striven have received, and which are incorruptible. And many indeed opine that this book is clear and plain enough; they think it is difficult only for those who are entirely ignorant of the depth of the meanings hidden within it. For which reason, I beseech you, let us follow with great study, so that we may traverse the very ocean of the Gospel, with Christ granting us the lead in this journey. But because this book is easier to understand, we ask and exhort (as we are accustomed to do with other Scriptures) that you come with a prepared mind, and that you turn it over, since the reading [of it] prepares the way for understanding, which even in that case of the eunuch brought us much capacity for teaching. For there are many things which are sought for, and which are varied. Consider, therefore, how great a forest of questions arises in the very beginning of the Gospel. First, indeed, by whose grace the order of generation runs down to Joseph, from whom Christ is not born. Second, whence it is that it draws its origin to David, when the parents of Mary, from whom he is born, are held unknown: for generations are not numbered on the part of the Virgin. Third, for what reason even the generation of Joseph is set forth, which certainly contributes nothing to the generation of Christ, as it is diligently asserted: yet the Virgin, who also became His mother, is not shown from what parents, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers she is born. After these, it also seems worth inquiring for what reason generations are named through men, while it also remembers women. And since it pleased [the writers] that this be done once, why did he not name all the women? He bypassed the better ones, and those like Sarah and Rebecca, the most dear: only those who were notorious for some defect, he brought into the middle—that is, if any was an adulteress or a harlot; or if any was also not legitimately joined in marriage, or was a foreigner or a barbarian. For the evangelist records not only the wife of Uriah, but also Tamar and Ruth: of whom the one was a foreigner, another indeed a harlot who had relations with her kinsman, not only joined to him not in lawful marriage but in concubinage, and within the habit of a harlot. No one is ignorant of Uriah’s wife, because of that deed of remarkable audacity. Moreover, he passes over all other women, and only in the catalog of generations remembers those. Since he ought to have remembered women, all ought to have been named: but if not all were to be mentioned, it was proper to select those for the sake of virtue, not those celebrated for sin. You have seen how great an attention for us is required, even for the very principles. And certainly it seemed to be a manifest exordium above others, but perhaps to some even superfluous, because they thought only the number of names was contained there. Above, we said what cause compelled the addition, so that he would bypass three kings in enumerating the generations. For if he preferred to withhold the names of the too-wicked, he ought to have remembered others who were similar. To this is added even this question, that when he had said [there were] fourteen generations, he did not keep the number in the third part. Next, what is that reason which persuaded [him] that Luke should make mention of others, and not only of some, but of very many others. Matthew, however, not only of a few, but of different ones, even brings the generation of Joseph down to the end, just as Luke also does. Therefore, perceive how great a task of vigilance we have before us, not only for explaining the Gospel, but also for discerning what those things are, what that exposition is. This is also numbered among the doubtful things, how Elizabeth, existing from the tribe of Levi, is called a kinswoman of Mary.
7. But gathering many things likewise, let us suddenly relieve your memory of questions, and place a limit to our discourse here. It suffices for us, and it is very sufficient to arouse in the meantime the zeal for listening, so that you may learn what is accustomed to come into question. But if you also desire to learn the solution itself, and that, with us telling [it] (a), is in your power. For if you are aroused by what is understood, and eager to hear, I will even attempt to bring the solution. But if I should see you sluggish and lax in attention, I will withhold not only the solution, but even the question, reminding [you] by divine law: *Do not*, he says, *give that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine*, lest they trample them under their feet (Matt. 7. 6). Who is this, you ask, who would trample such? He certainly, who does not believe these to be precious and excellent. And who, you ask, is this unhappy person, who does not think these [to be] more precious [than all things...]
but is occupied with them as if he were in the devilish, lascivious theaters? For there, very many spend even whole days, and on account of that most vain occupation, they suffer even many domestic losses. And yet, with every diligence, they commit to memory what they hear, and keep it deeply fixed to the ruin of their own souls. But here, where God speaks, they do not patiently await even a short time. Why this? Because we have nothing in common with heaven, but our whole religion is carried out at the level of words. And certainly, on account of this, God threatens hell, not that He may cast us into it, but that He may persuade us to flee that most grievous habit. We, however, do all things to the contrary, and daily rush into that path which leads there. For since God commands us not only to hear what is said, but also to perform it with every devotion, we do not even care to hear. When, therefore, shall we fulfill the things that are to be said? I ask you, when shall we begin to work, when we do not even patiently hear the discourse concerning these things, but are indignant and offended by this exercise, even though it is most brief? Furthermore, we ourselves, when speaking about frivolous matters, if we see those who sit with us not being attentive, we deem their carelessness to be an injury to us: yet we do not think God is offended when He is speaking about such great matters, and we despise the things that are said, and are easily led and turned to other things entirely? And often, indeed, someone among the old men who has traveled through many lands and regions of the sea narrates to us diligently not only the number of the stadiums, but also the sites of cities, and their forms, and harbors, and the market-place: but we do not even know how far we are from the heavenly city. For in truth, we would have hastened to overcome this journey if the distance were known. For the city is not as far from us as the divide between heaven and earth is: but it is separated by a much greater distance, if at least we are negligent: so that, on the contrary, if we bestow effort, we can reach its very gates even in a short time. For these distances are to be measured not by the remoteness of places, but by the constitution of our morals.
8. But you indeed carefully keep the deeds of the present life; you know both new and old, and can even enumerate those that are entirely ancient, not only the princes under whom you served in past times, but also all the leaders of the military; but also the sponsors of public spectacles, and those who contended in the shows, and who won, [things] which are not at all relevant to you, nor will they be of use to your interests. But who is the prince in this city of which we are speaking, who is first, or second, or third among them, or how much time each [reigns], or what he has accomplished of virtue, you have never thought of, even in a dream. But the laws which are placed in this city, you do not even sustain hearing and attending while others are speaking. With what confidence, then, tell me, do you hope that you will at some time obtain those good things, to whose magnitude you do not attend even when they are promised? But even if you never have before, at least now let us take care to do so. For if it is granted by God, we shall enter the golden city, nay, easily one more precious than all gold. Let us now therefore learn its foundations, and its gates composed of sapphire and pearls: for we have an excellent leader, Matthew indeed: for we are entering now through his gate, and there is need of much study on our part. For if he sees anyone not attentive, he immediately drives him from the city. For the city itself is most royal, and completely illustrious, and not as we see among us, divided into palaces, houses, and streets: but whatever is of that city, is a royal hall. Let us therefore open the gates of our mind, let us open our hearing, and when we are about to enter the first gates of the eternal city with much trembling, let us suppliantly adore the King who is in it. For the first meeting itself can strike terror into those who behold. Now indeed these gates are closed to us: but when we shall have seen them opened (for this is the solution of the question), then we shall be able to see the splendor within, entirely. For the Spirit leading you with [His] eyes, this herald promises you all things: that He may show you where the King Himself sits, and whose cohorts of soldiers assist Him, where the angels are, where indeed the archangels are held, and what place is assigned to the new citizens in this city, and by what path one travels there: and with how much honor those are to be gifted who have first obtained the right of that city: with how much also those who follow them in the second place: with how much also those who [follow] in the third, and how many are the orders of their citizens, how various the degrees of dignities are distinguished in that senate, and how many different [lights] shine there. Let us not therefore enter with tumult, not with disturbance, nor with clamor: but with silence and reverence, which must be shown to such great mysteries. For if in the theater, when much silence has preceded, then at last the letters of the king are read: how much more in this city is it necessary for all to be restrained and composed, and with ears and minds raised and solicitous. For the scriptures of the Lord of angels are to be read, not of an earthly king. For if we have wished to adapt ourselves in this way, the grace of the Holy Spirit itself will lead us with all diligence to the interior parts, and we shall arrive at the very throne of the King, and shall enjoy all good things, by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and empire, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
THE SECOND HOMILY FROM CHAPTER I.
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
1. Therefore, you remember his admonition that we used on the previous day, when I exhorted that we should approach such great mysteries with the highest silence and quiet, bestowing our hearing upon all the words of the Gospel. For we have already begun to approach the heavenly gates, on account of which I warned you of the previous announcement. For if the Jews, being about to approach the burning and fiery mountain, were commanded that they should touch nothing, how much more we, when we are about to ascend not unto the mountain of Sinai, but unto heaven itself, and to approach the city of the living God?
A And we are to approach it, not with the washing of the body, but with the purity of the soul, for we shall not see smoke, nor darkness, nor storms, but the King sitting upon the throne of His ineffable glory, and the angels standing by, and the hosts of the saints innumerable, joined to those angelic cohorts. For such is the city, having the Church of the firstborn, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and the companies of the angels, and the sprinkling of blood by which all things are reconciled. For the things of heaven have received those on earth, and the earth those in heaven; and the peace that was once desired by angels and saints has been given. In this city stands the trophy of the Cross, bright and conspicuous. In this city are the spoils taken from Christ, that is to say, the exuviae of human nature, the spoils of our King; all of which you shall diligently learn by reading the Gospel. And if you follow me with silence and moderate quiet, we shall be able to lead you through everything, and point out diligently where the crucified death lies, where sin is suspended, and where many and noble monuments of this war shine forth. You shall see here the tyrant bound, and the host of captives that were being led away, and the fortress from which that wicked demon was formerly rushing forth to the destruction of men, suddenly overturned. You shall see the pits of the thief torn up, and the caves destroyed: for the presence of the King radiates even there.
But there is nothing, beloved, for you to hear of these things as yet. For if, in the war of this time and its victories and trophies, you would never be sated with hearing, nor would you ever prefer food or anything else to that narration; if that narration is so pleasant, much more is this one. Consider how magnificent it is to hear how God, rising from His royal throne, came to the earth, and descended even unto the lowest depths, and stood warring in the battle line; and how the devil resisted Him—or rather, not God Himself, but God hidden in the nature of man. And which is more wonderful, you shall see death destroyed by death, and the curse extinguished by the curse; and the very things in which the devil was once most powerful, being destroyed by his own tyranny. Let us arise, therefore, and let us shake off the sleep of the soul for a long time. For behold, the gate of the doors is opened to us; but yet, with all moderation and trembling of mind, we enter the thresholds themselves. What are these thresholds? "The book of the generation," He says, "of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." B What do you say? Do you promise to speak of the Only-begotten Son of God, and do you mention David, and remember him as His son, and say that He is born from a man after a thousand generations, and call Him the father of Christ, and his ancestor? But hold back a little, and restrain yourself, and do not be eager to learn everything at once, but gradually and bit by bit, since we are still standing in the vestibule, and indeed strictly at the very beginning of the doors. Why, then, are you hastening to penetrate the inner chambers? Not yet have you well considered all things that are outside. For I am not seeking now to expound to you the generation of the Lord itself, indeed I shall not even recount that which is inexplicable, and altogether ineffable to any—and this the prophet Isaiah proclaimed to you beforehand. For in preaching His passion, and His most pious care for the whole world, and having marveled who it is, what He has done, and where He has descended, he cried out with a mighty voice and said: "Who shall declare his generation?" (Isai. 53. 8).
2. But our discourse now is not of the divine generation, but of this lower one, which was done upon the earth, and is celebrated by innumerable witnesses. But as for this one, as we receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, we shall relate it as best we can. For we cannot explain it as it ought to be explained, seeing that it is also in itself most stupendous. Therefore, do not think that you are hearing something trifling, when you hear this generation unfolded; but gather yourself up in your soul, and tremble all over, when you hear that God has come upon the earth. So marvelous was this, and unheard of by any before, that even the angels gathered in a choir for the sake of these things, and the whole world sang hymns for this glory, and the prophets furthermore proclaimed it with wonder: "Afterwards he was seen on earth, and conversed with men" (Baruch 3. 38). For it is truly wonderful to hear that the ineffable God, who cannot be explained or comprehended by words, of one substance with the Father, came to us through the Virgin's womb, and was made from a woman. And what did I say, David and Abraham? Even those whom I mentioned a little before, the women, as horrible as it is. Hearing this, therefore, rise up in your mind: but do not suspect anything lowly, but rather, because of this, marvel the more; that since He was the brother and the eternal Son of God, He deigned to be the son of David also, that He might make you a son of God; that He deigned to have a servant for a father, that He might make you, a servant, have God as your Father. I see, I judge, that from the very beginning, how joyful these tidings are. What do you doubt concerning those things that pertain to your honor, when you hear of such humiliation? For it is much more difficult for God to become man, than for man to become a son of God. When, therefore, you hear that the Son of God is also the son of David and Abraham, cease now from doubting, and you, who are a son of Adam, will be a son of God. For not in vain, nor to no purpose, did He descend into such humiliation, but that He might lift us up from our lowly state. For He was born according to the flesh, that you might be born according to the spirit: He was born of a woman, that...
you might cease to be a son of a woman. Therefore, a twofold generation was effected: the one, naturally, similar to our own; the other, transcendently surpassing it. For that He was born of a woman is something common to us; but that He was born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh or of man, but of the Holy Spirit, promises us another generation, more sublime and yet to be obtained through the Spirit. And all other things also consisted of a similar diversity. For He truly received a baptism that possessed something of the old, but also something of the new. For because He was baptized by the prophet, He expressed the old; but because the Spirit descended, He shadowed forth the new. And consequently, just as if someone standing in an arena, seeing two people clashing with one another, might reach out his hand and join them together from both sides: so Christ joined the new to the old, yoking our nature to His divine one. B Do you see now, I believe, the splendor of a city glittering from afar? Do you see how it shines with such brilliance among its very principles, how He displays the King Himself to you in human form, as if to soldiers? For a king is not always seen to possess his own proper dignity in war; but, having laid aside his purple and diadem, he frequently puts on the garb of a soldier. Yet, in that case, it is so that he might not turn his enemies against himself; but here, on the contrary, it is so that, until the contest, he might not put the enemy to flight and confound them with the lightning of his majesty; for He sought to save, not to terrify. And for this reason He immediately named Him by this title, strictly calling Him Jesus. For Jesus is not a word of Greek speech, but in the Hebrew language He is called Jesus, which in our tongue means Savior; and He is Savior from the fact that He arrived to provide salvation to His people.
3. Now, therefore, you understand how the evangelist lifted the hearer into the heights, and through those things that seemed to be in common use, he nevertheless taught us things far greater than we all could have hoped for. C Therefore, the renown of both these names was celebrated among the Jews. For because the things promised for the future were incredible, the figures of the names preceded them, so that any tumult that might arise from the jealousy of novelty would be extinguished beforehand. For he who led the people after Moses into the land of promise is also called Jesus. You see the figure; discern the truth. That one led into the land of promise; this one, however, led into heaven, and to the goods that are in heaven. That one, after Moses was dead; this one, after the law given through Moses had ceased. That one, possessing the dignity of a leader; this one, however, shining with the majesty of a King. But lest, hearing "Jesus," you should suffer an error from the association of names, he immediately added "Christ" also: "of Jesus Christ," he says, "the son of David." For that one was not of David, but of another tribe. But for what reason does he call the book itself the generation of Christ, where not only generation, but the entire dispensation of His mystery is contained? Because it is indeed the head and root and principle of all blessings for us. For just as Moses called his book the book of heaven and earth, although he was certainly not speaking only of heaven and earth, but of all things that subsist between them: so too the evangelist called it the book of Christ, from the very fountain and head of all goods. D For it is indeed most full of all admiration, and beyond the hope and expectation of mortals, that God was made man. And this having been fulfilled, all those things that follow come about in order and according to reason. But for what cause did he not call Him the son of Abraham first, and afterward the son of David? Not as some opine, wishing to ascend from inferior to superior: otherwise he would have done what Luke did; but now he does the contrary. Why then did he commemorate David first? Because he was undoubtedly in everyone’s mouth, on account of the distinction of his honor and glory, and also because the spans of his time were closer. For he had not died long ago like Abraham. For even though God had promised to both, yet that was spoken of as something ancient, while this was celebrated by all as something new and recent. For the Jews themselves say: Does not Christ come from the seed of David, and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was? Therefore, no one called Him the son of Abraham, but everyone called Him the son of David. And indeed, for the sake of time, as I have said, and for the sake of the kingdom, he dwelt more in human memory. By a similar reason, the kings who were more honorable because of their holiness, who were said to have been after David, were all called his. And not only they, but God also. For both Ezekiel and other prophets say that David was to rise for them, and to come: not speaking of him who was already dead, but of those who were to imitate his virtue. And Ezekiel indeed says: "I will protect this city for my sake, and for the sake of David my servant" (4 Reg. 19:34). But he said to Solomon: "Because for the sake of David my servant, I will not tear it asunder during his lifetime" (3 Reg. 11:34). For there is much glory of that man, both before God and before men. Therefore, he begins from the more noted and celebrated person for the time being: and then finally he recurs to the more ancient ancestor, judging it superfluous, as far as the Jews are concerned, to begin the discourse further up. For these were the ones who were especially most admirable: that one, because he was king and prophet; this one, however, because he was prophet and patriarch. And from where, you ask, is it manifest that Christ is from David? For if He is not from man, but only born of a Virgin, about whose generation there is silence, how will we be able to know that He descends from David’s line? For there are two things that produce the question: one, what may be the cause that the Virgin is silent in the catalog of generations; the other, by what reason Joseph is mentioned by them, to whom there is certainly nothing in common with the generation of Christ. For it seems that one thing is superfluous, and the other is missing. What then shall we say? That surely it was necessary first to record how the Virgin descended from David. From where then shall we learn this? Listen to Gabriel speaking to our Lord: "To a Virgin espoused to a man, whose name was Joseph, of the house and family of David" (Luc. 1:27). What then do you wish to hear more clearly than that the Virgin is of the house and family of David?
4. From this it is clear that Joseph also was from there. For it was a precept in the law that it was not permitted to marry into different tribes. But the patriarch Jacob foretold that the Christ would come from the tribe of Judah: "The prince," he says, "shall not depart from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it is prepared; and he shall be the expectation of the nations" (Gen. 49:10).
This prophecy, therefore, declares that He was from the tribe of Judah, but not that He descended from the lineage of David. Do you think, then, that the tribe of Judah propagates a lineage from one family only, that is, from David alone, and not from many others as well? Indeed, we see it happen that someone is from the tribe of Judah who nevertheless does not draw his lineage from David. But lest you say this here, the evangelist, forestalling you, entirely excludes your suspicion, confirming that He was not only of the house but also of the family of David. If now you wish to learn this from another source, we are not lacking in another proof. For it was not lawful to contract marriages not only with another tribe, but not even with another family, that is to say, with another kin. Thus, what is said—that He is of the house and family of David—will hold true whether linked to the Virgin or attributed to Joseph himself, for that same conclusion is reached. For if he was of the house and family of David, he did not take a spouse from anywhere else than from the tribe from which he himself also descended. But what, you ask, if he transgressed the law? It is for this reason that the evangelist, forestalling, testified that A Joseph was a just man, lest you rashly lay a charge against him; rather, by recognizing his virtue, you should cast away the suspicion of transgression. For he was so modest and free from base desire that he would not have wanted to seek punishment for the Virgin even when suspicion forced him to; how, then, would he have violated the precepts of the law out of lust? For he who thought above the law—for to dismiss, and to dismiss secretly, was undoubtedly above the requirements of the law—how would he admit to something against the law, and that without any necessity of cause compelling him? But since it is evident from what has been said that this Virgin was of the lineage of David, it is necessary to say for what reason the evangelist remembers Joseph in the genealogies, while omitting the Virgin entirely. What, then, is this cause? It was not the custom among the Hebrews to weave a catalog of generations through women. Therefore, to both observe the custom and not seem to destroy ancient things at the very beginning, and to indicate the Virgin to us more certainly, he did not remain silent about the generation of Joseph, while omitting her parents and ancestors. For if B he had done this in the case of the Virgin, he would not have escaped the envy of novelty; if he had omitted Joseph, we would not have recognized from which tribe the Virgin subsisted. Therefore, in order that we might discern who Mary was, or whence she came, and that the custom of the law might remain immutable, he brought the catalog of generations up to her spouse, and showed him to be of the house of David. For this having been declared, he likewise showed that the Virgin also was from there, since surely this just man would by no means have suffered a wife for himself from elsewhere than whence the law commanded him to choose. We can, however, offer another and higher reason as well, for which the parents of the Virgin were omitted, which it seems less opportune to explain now, for the reason that many things have [already] been said. And therefore, ending our discourse on the questions here, let us meanwhile diligently hold to those things which have been made clear to us: for what cause he mentioned David first, then by what reason he called the book itself the "book of generation," or also why he said "of Jesus Christ"; then how His generation is both common and not common in every respect; then, whence Mary is shown to pertain to David; and lastly, for what reason Joseph is placed in the catalog of generations, C while Mary's parents are passed over in silence entirely. For if you keep these things, you will make us readier for the rest; but if you reject and drive these things from your minds, we will be more sluggish in the rest. For it will not please the farmer to take care of land that has ruined the seeds sown earlier; for which reason, I beseech you, that you turn over these things which have been sown. For from such study, and such care, a huge and salutary good is acquired for souls. For we can both please God by taking care of these things, and we will preserve our mouths clean from injurious and obscene speech and from insults, while we are exercised in spiritual discourses; and we will be able to be a terror to the demons by arming our tongue with the weapons of such words, and then we will be able to merit the greater grace of God. For from this, the sharpness of your mind is increased, and the light. For God placed eyes, and mouth, and hearing in us for this reason: that all our members might serve Him; that we might hear what is His, speak what is His; that we might always do what is His; and might sing constant praises to Him, and give thanks for all things, and through all these things cleanse the secrets of our conscience. For just as the body that enjoys the purity of the air becomes healthier, so indeed the soul also becomes wiser, nourished by such meditation.
A Therefore, we must strive and be always girded to complete this journey: or rather, it is not even possible, unless we are carried by the Spirit. If, therefore, with a light and ready mind, we are aided by the grace of the Spirit to ascend to that height, we shall encounter no obstacles daily, nor shall we be weighed down by the devilish burden. How, I ask, can we fly upward, pressed down by so heavy a load? For if anyone in the midst of worldly discourse wishes to bring our thoughts to bear upon just weights, one will scarcely find even a hundred denarii of spiritual words, or indeed, not even ten obols. Is it not shameful and most ridiculous that we entrust necessary and certain things to the servants we keep, while we possess our own mouths for base things—base, I say, as in mere chattels—and that we employ them for useless things: would that they were merely useless, and not also damning, harmful, and profitable for nothing? For things that would be useful to us, the things we speak, would indubitably please God, even the words of our mouths. But now, we speak the words which the ancient enemy suggests, at one moment laughing ourselves, and at another saying things that are caustic and urbane to make others laugh; at times hurling insults and abuse: now uttering lies, swearing, and perjuring; now refusing to speak, and now, in wordy vanity, surpassing all madmen in ranting—things that do not pertain to us at all, which we bring forth without any reason. Who among you, I ask, who are standing by, will answer: if anyone demands it, can one learn a psalm by heart, or any part of the Holy Scriptures? None at all. And yet, this is not the only evil; but because you are sluggish and remiss toward spiritual things, you are prompt toward the devilish, and you are overcome by the fire of that same ardor. For if anyone wishes to question you about the songs of the theater and the melodies of harlots, you will find many who have even learned these most diligently, and they pronounce them with the greatest pleasure. B Is there, then, any defense for these crimes at last? "No," one says, "I am a monk, I have a wife and children, and I care for the household." For this is what corrupts all things as if by some plague, because you think that the reading of the Divine Scriptures pertains only to monks, when it is much more necessary for you than for them. For those who live in the midst of the world and receive wounds daily have greater need of medicine. Therefore, it is much graver and worse to think it superfluous for you to observe the law of God, than to not read it at all. For these are the words which are prompted by the devil’s own meditation.
6. Do you not hear Paul saying: "Now these things happened to them for our instruction" (1 Cor. 10: 11)? Do you, then, fear to handle the Gospel with unwashed hands, as they say? You are so far from touching it that you do not even wish to look upon it! It is, therefore, for this reason that all things are turned upside down today, from top to bottom. If you want to learn how much profit arises from the Divine Scriptures, examine yourself diligently: what kind of psalm you hear, and likewise what kind of devilish song you are accustomed to hearing when you stand in church, and how you are affected just as if you were sitting in a theater; and you will see how great is the difference for that soul, even though one may always be in the soul: therefore the apostle says: "Bad company ruins good morals" (1 Cor. 15: 33). Therefore, we are constantly in need of the songs of the Spirit of God for those who are powerful C. For this is that whereby we are superior to irrational animals, though in other things we are certainly inferior. For this is the nourishment of the soul, this is its ornament, this is its security: so that the prophecy might be fulfilled, not of hearing the word of God, but of famine and destruction (Amos 8: 11). What, therefore, could be more wretched than that which, though God threatens it as a punishment, you freely bring upon your own head is evil, bringing upon your soul the most savage and pestilential famine, making it truly more miserable than any other thing? By words, it is now accustomed to be healed, and now it is corrupted. For often a word inflames anger, and by that same fire, the word is again extinguished: and the word inflames one to obscene desire, and reduces it to temperance by decency. But if this word of communication does such things, why do you condemn the utterances of the Scriptures? For if mere admonition alone has such power, how much more does that very admonition brought forth by the grace of the Holy Spirit? For the word brought forth in the Divine Scriptures, by its very fire, strongly inflames the soul of the listener, and prepares it for the use of all good things. Thus, even Paul, by the chastisement of his word, made the Corinthians, whom he had known to be puffed up, more gentle; they, from whom he ought to have recoiled and hidden himself, because they were puffed up with a certain pride D and were wise in their own conceit—hear how great a change he bears witness to in them: "For behold," he says, "what earnestness this very thing, this godly grief, has produced in you: what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment" (2 Cor. 7: 11). Therefore, I urge servants and children and wives to be moderate, and I cause friends to be made from enemies; so also those great men regarding God, having become such, were indeed made better. For David, after hearing the word of God, rushed to that saving repentance (2 Reg. 12: 13). And the apostle, by the pact of what was done, made them such that we marvel at what they had been: in the same way, they drew the whole world toward themselves. And what, you say, is the gain when one hears, and does not set out to fulfill what was said? It is no small thing, even at the very hearing, the gain that comes. For he who frequently blames himself, and groans more deeply, and when he reaches that point, even if he does not recede from sin, does he understand when he is guilty? When will he even attempt to amend? Therefore, do not let us disdain the hearing of the Divine Scriptures. For these things come from the devil's inspiration, not sustaining us
A
HOMILY THREE ON CHAPTER I
*The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, etc.*
We have not spoken in vain, then, when we said that the nature of such understandings contains many profound things. But come, let us discuss what follows today. What, then, is the question now being debated? Why, for the sake of the argument, is Joseph placed in the genealogical catalog, when he contributed nothing to the birth? We have already recounted one reason, but it is necessary to explain another, one more mysterious and more hidden than the former. And what is that? The Evangelist did not want it to be manifest to the Jews, at a time still recent to that new and marvelous birth, that Christ had been born of a Virgin. But let no one be troubled by this unusual explanation; for this discourse is not our own, but was received by us from the tradition of the fathers and eminent men. For if the Lord Himself, in the beginning, obscured and covered many things—calling Himself the Son of Man, and not revealing to us everywhere in the clear light the equality He possesses with the Father—what wonder is it if He also covered this for a time, by a great and marvelous dispensation?
And what, you ask, is this marvelous thing? It is that the Virgin might be saved, and a malignant suspicion be cast away. For if the Jews had heard these things from the beginning, they would have stoned the Virgin, treating her unworthily on account of that rumor, and would have condemned her with the charge of adultery. For those who, even in the works of which examples had often preceded in the Old Testament, fiercely resisted with manifest impudence—calling Him one possessed by a demon when He cast out demons, and judging Him an adversary of God when He performed signs on the Sabbath, even though it was clearly established that the Sabbath was often broken without offense—what would they have hesitated to say or do upon hearing this, since they were always abusing every opportunity to slander Him, though He had given them none? For if even after so many signs they still called Him the son of Joseph, how would they have believed that He originated from a Virgin before the signs? B
Therefore, Joseph is placed in the genealogies, and he takes the Virgin as his own. For if he, a man certainly admirable and just, needed many things in order to believe that what had occurred was true, being admonished by an angel, admonished by the revelations of dreams, and confirmed by prophetic testimony, when would those who were evil-minded, corrupt, and so hostilely resisting Christ have accepted this opinion? For a thing so unusual and new would have greatly disturbed them, especially since they had never heard tell that such a thing had happened in the times of their ancestors. For he who had once believed Him to be the Son of God could be in no doubt about this; but he who thought Him a seducer and contrary to God, how would he not have been scandalized by this even more, and led to that foulest of suspicions?
Therefore, the apostles, at the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel, also do not immediately announce this, but especially inculcate faith in the resurrection, of which examples had already preceded in former times, even if they were not taught to be in all things equal; but that He was born of a Virgin, they conceal for a little while, nor did the mother herself dare to bring this forth rashly. Therefore, consider what she even says to Him: *Behold*, she says, *I and thy father were seeking thee* (Luc. II, 48). Furthermore, if this had been a common, widespread opinion, they would by no means have believed Him to be the son of David; and if that were not believed, many more evils would have arisen from this. For this reason, not even the angels spoke of it, except to Joseph alone and to Mary; but when the angels evangelized to the shepherds, while they clearly announced that the Lord was born, they nevertheless completely concealed the manner in which He was born.
But for what reason, when he had mentioned Abraham and had said that he begat Isaac, and Isaac Jacob, did he not care to make mention of his brother, yet when coming to Jacob, he enumerates not only Judah but also his brothers? C Some, indeed, have wished to say this happened on account of the malignancy of the customs of Esau and others who came before; but I would by no means say this. For if he thought this should be observed, for what reason a little later does he mention such women? For here the dignity of Christ shines forth from the contrary: not because He has great and powerful progenitors, but rather because He has lowly and base ones. For the greatest glory to the sublime is to be humiliated voluntarily and submissively. For what cause, then, does he not mention the others? Because, namely, they had nothing in common with the race of the Israelites: the Saracens, the Ishmaelites, and the Arabs, and as many as were begotten from their fathers. Therefore, he passed over them in silence; but he hastens to those from whom Christ is born, and from whom the people of the Jews are propagated. For which reason he says: *Jacob also begat Judah and his brothers*. Here now the race of the Jews is designated. *Judah also begat Phares and Zara of Thamar*. Why do you do this, O man? Why do you bring to us the memory of such a history, which contains a shameful adultery? What is the meaning of this? Because if the genealogy of a mere man were being described, it would have been right to have remained silent; but because we are writing of the mystery of God incarnate, we ought not only not to be silent about these things, but even to display them, thus subjecting to our eyes both the care that He has for us, and His power. For He came not that our D
A nature should be measured by what is merely human, but that it should be judged as even more admirable, not only because He died, but also because He was crucified—though this is indeed in itself a matter of the most profound reproach. But the more reproachful this is, the more it shows Him to be glorious in His mercy. Thus, in His genealogy as well, it may be said that He is worthy of admiration not only because He took on flesh and was made man, but also because He deigned to have such progenitors, blushing at nothing on account of our sins. By the very beginnings of His birth, He shows that He is not at all ashamed of anything that is ours, thereby teaching us, without a doubt, that we too should never blush for the vices of our parents. Let us seek but one thing: virtue. For he who has attained it, even if he has a foreign mother, and even if she is polluted by fornication or soiled by any other disgrace of that kind, will not be dimmed by her vileness or polluted by her crime. But if the fornicator himself, when converted to better things, is not defiled by his former life, much more so is he who is born from a harlot and an adulteress free from being sullied by his parents' reproaches if he is adorned with his own virtue. And He did not do this only to teach us this lesson, but also to repress the pride of the Jews. For they neglected the signs of that nobility which pertains to the soul, and boasted too insolently of the stock of Abraham, believing the virtue of their parents to be a defense for their own vices. Therefore, at the very beginning of the Gospel, He teaches that one should boast not in foreign virtues, but in one's own. At the same time, He also shows that all men—even their own progenitors—are subject to sin. Since B their very patriarch, from whom they take their name, is not read to have committed some insignificant transgression. For Tamar urges an accusation of his fornication. David, too, took Solomon from the woman who had been joined to him in adultery. And if the Law was not kept by those great men, much less was it by the lesser ones. If, therefore, the Law was not fulfilled, then all indeed sinned, and the presence of Christ became necessary. For this reason, therefore, He also brought in the mention of the twelve patriarchs, that from this, too, He might humble their excessive boasting regarding the nobility of their progenitors. For many of them were born of handmaid mothers, yet the difference in parents did not make a difference in the children. For all of them equally became patriarchs and princes of the tribes. This quality already pointed toward the privilege of the Church. For this is the prerogative of our nobility, of which a figure had preceded in ancient times: that whether one be a slave or a nobleman, nothing is added to or taken away from him. For here only the will and the generosity of the mind are required.
C 3. Above, however, regarding what we said, there is also another reason why He recorded that history. For it was not idly that He added Zarah to Phares. It was abundant, and indeed entirely superfluous, having already recorded Phares—through whom the generation of Christ was to descend—to make mention of Zarah as well. For what reason, then, did He record him? When Tamar was about to bring them forth, and the pains of labor were already present, Zarah first put his hand out from the womb. Then the midwife, seeing this, so that the firstborn might be known, tied his hand with a crimson thread, which he then drew back, bound. Having withdrawn his whole body back inside the womb, Phares came forth, and then at length Zarah. And when the midwife saw them born, she said to Phares: "Why has the hedge been broken for your sake?" (Gen. 38:29). Do you see the most significant figure of the mysteries? For these things were not written so long ago in vain, nor would it have been fitting for sacred history to say what the midwife had spoken, nor was it appropriate to make known a narrative of this kind—that he who came forth second had put out his hand. What, then, is signified by this enigma? First, we learn from the very word for the boy, which lies in the question. For Phares is "breach" or "division." Secondly, from the very novelty of the deed. For it was not a natural consequence that one who had put out his hand should withdraw it after it had been bound. For this was not a habitual movement, nor one of the order of nature. For while it may perhaps be natural for the hand to be put out first and then for another to come forth, for it to be withdrawn, and for the passage to be yielded to another, this is no longer according to the law of those being born, but surely by the grace of God, which was present to the boys at that time, and was managing these things, sketching for us a certain image of future things in their nativity. What, then, do some say, having carefully pondered these things? That these boys were a type of two peoples, and that it pertains to this, that you might understand that the commonwealth of the later people had shone forth before the birth of the former. Having held out his hand, the boy does not show himself entirely to be seen, but pulls it back again. As soon as the brother has fully emerged, he himself also appears entirely: which is what happened in both peoples. For that spiritual commonwealth, which was in the times of Abraham, having shone forth and then being suddenly revoked from the midst of the course, the Jewish people came and the legal commonwealth. Then, after the Law, that whole new people came forth at last along with its own laws, because of which the midwife also exclaims: "Why has the hedge been broken for your sake?" because it was the hedge of the Law that had encroached upon and intersected the liberty of that commonwealth. For Scripture is accustomed to call the Law a "hedge," just as the prophet also says: "He has taken away His hedge, and all who pass by this way gather the vintage" (Ps. 79:13). Again, "I have placed a hedge around it" (Isa. 5:2); and Paul, "breaking down the middle wall of partition" (Eph. 2:14).
4. But others understand all of this—"Why has the hedge been broken for your sake?"—concerning the people who followed the Law: for the one who came destroyed the Law. You see that He did not make mention of history for some insignificant and cheap reason. For He did not mention Ruth and Rahab in vain, of whom it is clear that one was a foreigner and the other a harlot: but so that in this way He might show that Christ came, and that He blotted out all our evils. For He did not come as a judge, but as a physician. Just as therefore those husbands accepted harlots, so also did God join to Himself the nature of men, who had been a harlot. Which the prophets also once said in the synagogue had been the fact: but she, who had been a cohabitant, was always ungrateful. The Church, however, once liberated from the evils of the fathers, remained in the love of the Spouse. Thus consider also those things which were done in Ruth, that they were a figure of us. For she, being a foreigner and having fallen into extreme [poverty]...
but Boaz, seeing her, neither despised her poverty, nor shuddered at the impiety of her people: just as Christ also, taking up the Church, and joining to Himself a foreigner and one suffering from a great lack of good things, united her to His own fellowship. And just as Ruth, had she not first left her parents, and had she not despised her house, and her people, and her country, and her kinsmen, would certainly never have been ennobled by such a marriage: so the Church also, even before this, would not have been made lovable to the Spouse, had she not first left her former way of life. Which the prophet also, speaking to her, says: *Forget thy people and thy father's house, and the king shall greatly desire thy beauty* (Ps. XLIV. 11, 12). A That this was also done in the Church, we read, and therefore she is made the mother of kings in the likeness of the Church. For from her lineage, David and other kings were sprung. Therefore, let everyone be put to shame by these things, and let him not think highly of himself, and he has woven a catalog of generations, and has brought these women into the midst. For David the king certainly did not blush for his descendants because this great foreigner was his kin: nor did he blush at the ignobility of such a mother. For it is not, it is not at all due to the virtue or vice of parents that anyone is worthy of praise or blame: no one is truly base or illustrious from that: nay, as what seems incredible, let us say, I know not how, the man himself shines forth more, who, although he was from parents who were utterly strangers to virtue, himself nevertheless became admirable in virtue. Let no one therefore be lifted up into pride by the glory of his parents, but considering the progenitors of the Lord, let him repress all the swelling of his mind, and let him glory only in virtues, and not even in those B himself. Thus also the Pharisee became worse than the publican. But if you wish to show something supreme of virtue, do not think highly of yourself: and then that which you do, you will show to be more excellent. Do not think that you have done anything if you have done it: for thus it will be a most perfect work. For if even when we are sinners, we think that we are what we are, and are justified, just as the publican: how much more when we have been just, should we hold ourselves to be sinners? Since humility makes even the just from sinners: although it is not humility, but true confession. Therefore, confession in a sinner has such great worth, consider how much humility can do in the just. Therefore, do not ruin the fruits of your labors, do not pour your sweats into the void, do not direct your course into nothingness, lest after a thousand circuits you lose the reward of your labor. For your Lord knows, and indeed far better than you, the reward of your virtues: even if you give only a cup of cold water, this indeed he will not leave unrewarded. C Or even if you give one, or even if, when you can do nothing at all, you sigh: He will accept everything with great kindness, and will prepare for you a reward for it. But for the sake of what thing do you judge yourself, and are eager to frequently harp on it to us? Are you ignorant that if you praise yourself, you are not praised by God? And by right, if you mourn yourself as a miserable person, He will never cease to proclaim you before everyone. For he does not wish the fruit of your labors to perish; rather, he hastens to make everything for your advantage, and to increase the thing for you, even for small things he crowns you, seeking everywhere opportunities by which he can free you from hellish punishment.
5. And therefore, even if you are at the eleventh hour of the day of work, yet he will give you the whole reward. For if there was no occasion of salvation for you, he says, *I will do it for my own sake*, so that my name is not polluted (Ezek. XXXVI. 22). And if you only groan, and shed tears, he immediately snatches you at the occasion of your salvation. D Therefore, do not swell with pride, but let us call ourselves useless, so that we may pass into the part of the useful. For if you say that you are to be praised, you are proved a reprobate, even if you were previously praiseworthy. But if you confess that you are useless, you are useful, even if you were previously culpable: because it is necessary for us to have an oblivion of past virtues. And how, you say, can we be ignorant of what we know? What do you say, when you daily offend the Lord, nonetheless you laugh in your delights, and among great sins you do not know that you have sinned, while committing all things to oblivion: you cannot rightly cast away from your memory what you have done? And certainly when the greater part of fear is much more potent, we do not even call to memory the sins that we committed, and when we hold out a small alms to the needy, we toss it up and down: which is of extreme madness, and that great one of the man who ought to collect in a spiritual manner, he makes a detriment. For the treasure of things rightly done is certain enough, but the oblivion of things done is. For just as when we place precious things in public, we provoke many to snares: if we store them and hide them at home, we keep everything safe: so are also the riches of virtues, if we carry them in memory as if they were for sale, we irritate the Lord, we arm the enemy, we invite them to theft. For no one else would know, unless they could be hidden in secret, where the precious things consist. In no way, therefore, frequently divulge such goods, which someone might perchance seize. Which the Pharisee also suffered, carrying it about on his tongue: from where also the devil stole it: although he certainly referred everything back to the Lord through the action of thanksgiving. But that indeed did not suffice him. For it does not suffice to reproach others for their faults, to seek for yourself great glory among many, and to rise up arrogantly over those who have sinned. What you offer in thanks to God, let it suffice for you alone, nor be willing to bring them into the knowledge of men, nor judge your neighbor. For that action of thanksgiving is not, is it? Do you wish to know how true thanks are rendered to God? Hear the three children saying in the midst of the fire: *We have sinned, we have done wickedly: the Lord is just in all things which you have done to us, because you have brought all these things upon us* (Dan. III. 29, 31). This is indeed to return thanks to God, to confess to Him your own sins, and that He judges you to be worthy of bearing punishment, even if it is not quite great enough. Let us therefore beware of saying anything glorious about ourselves: for this makes us hateful to men, and abominable to God.
A And therefore, the greater the good works we have performed, the more humbly let us speak of ourselves. For in this way we shall attain the greatest glory, both before God and before men: and not only the glory that is from God, but also a reward, and a most complete compensation. Do not, therefore, demand a reward, so that you may deserve to receive one. Confess that you are saved by the grace of God, so that He may acknowledge Himself as your debtor, not only for your works, but also for this grace and humble sentiment. For when we have done some things rightly, we have Him as our debtor, doubtless, for the good deeds alone; but when we consider that we have done nothing rightly, we deserve even more from such a disposition than because of the works themselves that we have done. Therefore, to have thought little of oneself is as great a thing as to have done the greatest things. But if this is not present, neither will those things be praiseworthy. For we too, when we have servants, commend them most when, having served with good grace in all things, they do not think they have done anything great.
They cannot. For thus the centurion said: *I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof* (Matth. 8.8): and therefore he became worthy, and rightly admirable above all the Jews. Thus too Paul says: *I am not worthy to be called an apostle* (1 Cor. 15.9): therefore he was found to be the first of all. Thus also John: *I am not, he says, fit to unloose the strap of his sandal* (Mark 1.7 and Matth. 3.11): and for this reason he became the friend of the bridegroom. And the hand, which he said was unworthy to unloose the sandal, Christ raised to his own head. Thus also Peter says: *Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man* (Luke 5.8): and for that reason he was made the foundation of the Church. For nothing is so friendly to God as when one counts oneself among the least: this is the head and pinnacle of all philosophy. For one who is humbled in heart and contrite will not be carried away by vainglory: he will not be vexed by the malice of envy, nor by the fury of anger, nor will he be subject to any other vices. For just as we cannot lift a contrite hand on high even if we want to a thousand times, so too if we contrite our soul, however much the passions may want to puff it up and raise it, it will not be able to be lifted even a little. For if one who purges from himself the grievances of worldly things banishes all the languors of the soul, much more does he who does this for the sake of sin enjoy the full health of philosophy. And who, you ask, can thus contrite his heart? Hear David, who shone forth especially through this, and see how contrite his soul is. For after countless virtues, when he had fallen away from his house and country, and finally was in danger of losing his very life, when at that very time of his distress he saw a base and utterly abject soldier insulting him and cursing him, not only did he not return the curse, but he did not even allow one of his commanders, who wanted to kill him, to do so, saying: *Let him alone that he may curse, for the Lord has commanded him: perhaps God will look upon my humility* (2 Reg. 16.11). And again, when the priests asked if he should be carried around the ark, he did not allow it: but *Let it remain*, he said, *in the temple: and if the Lord delivers me from the impending evils, I shall see his beauty: but if he says to me, I do not want you: lo here am I, let him do to me what pleases him in his sight* (2 Reg. 15.25.26). B And was not that which was done regarding Saul, once and again and many times, a heap of great philosophy? Indeed, he had surpassed the old law and had approached near to the apostolic precepts. Therefore he loved those things which were of God in all things; not praising himself for the things he had done, but studying to follow one thing alone, the laws set by Him, and to obey them in all things. And after so many certain merits of virtue, when he saw that tyrant, fratricide, parricide, injurious and furious man reigning in his place, not even then did he conceive a scandal in his mind: but if, he said, this has seemed good to God, that I should be tossed about and wander always and flee, but that he should reign, I embrace and accept it: and I give thanks for the countless tribulations that are brought upon me by God. Far otherwise than most men, who are equally impudent and arrogant, who, while they possess not even the smallest part of his virtue, if they see some prospering, while they themselves suffer a small sorrow, do not fear to wound their own souls a thousand times with blasphemies. But David was not like that; rather, amidst the greatest storms of tribulations, he showed all the modesty and patience of his mind: for which God said: *I have found David the son of Jesse, a man according to my own heart* (Psal. 88.21). Let us therefore also possess such a soul: and whatever we suffer, we shall easily and bravely bear it: and before the future kingdom, here too we shall take the fruit of humility. *Learn*, says the Lord, *from me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls* (Matth. 11.29). So that here and there we may enjoy the desired rest with much glory, let us plant humility, the mother of blessings, deep in our minds. For thus, even the sea of this life, we shall be able to cross without any swelling of storms, and sail to that most tranquil port, by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is glory and power, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.
HOMILY FOUR ON CHAPTER 1
All the generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations: and from David to the transmigration of Babylon, fourteen generations: and from the transmigration of Babylon unto Christ, fourteen generations. This he divided, showing that even with the change of the manners of discipline, that people never became better: but whether it obeyed an aristocracy, or a kingdom, or an oligarchy, it remained in the same depravity of morals: and whether it was ruled by a leader, or a king, or by the power of the priesthood, it did not approach the pursuit of virtue. By what reason then...
A did he pass over three kings together in the middle part of the generations, yet in the final part, when he had placed only twelve generations, he records them as being fourteen? I leave that first point for you to inquire into, for you ought not to receive everything explained and finished, lest sloth be born in you from our labor. But we shall attempt to resolve the second point ourselves. For it seems to me that he places even the time of the captivity in the order of the generations in this place, and that Christ himself fulfills the number of one generation, so that he may unite himself to us from every side. He also does well to recall the Babylonian captivity, so that he may show that the Jewish people, not even corrected by that chastisement, had need of Christ’s presence in every way.
Mark, however, wove a different order of writing; for he did not set forth the generations by which he might count Christ: nay, he even recounted the rest of his narrative with the greatest brevity. I therefore believe that Matthew published the Gospel first, for which reason he also diligently enumerates the catalog of the generations, and fully and insistently sets forth all things. Mark, however, ran a compendious course after him, as one who was repeating things already stated and made manifest by another. Luke, indeed, not only wove the catalog of generations, but also wove it by extending it with more names, as one who, being anticipated by Matthew’s writing, strives to teach us something more. For each has rightly imitated his own master. Mark imitated Peter, who spared his words; Luke imitated Paul, who surpassed the abundance of rivers in the richness of his speech.
But why did Matthew not say B at the very opening of his discourse what the prophets were accustomed to say: *A vision which I saw,* or, *The word which was made to me?* Because he was writing to those who would certainly receive all things with good will, since they depended greatly upon his authority: furthermore, the miracles performed by him bore witness to his words, and those for whom the Gospel was composed were most firm in the reason of their faith. Under the prophets, however, there was not such a multitude of signs through which their merits might shine, and a very great crowd of pseudo-prophets had then increased, to whom the Jewish people had been accustomed to obey more readily. For this reason that formula of beginning was then necessary for the prophets.
If, however, signs are sometimes reported to have been performed, they were on the occasion of barbarian nations, so that many of them might be joined to the number of proselytes, and that the sign of divine majesty might shine forth at an opportune time, lest the adversaries, subjugating the people of God, should believe that they had conquered by the power of their own gods. For this reason, signs were performed in Egypt, from which a great multitude of that people set out with the Israelite army: and later, in Babylon, in the fires of the furnace, and in the interpretations of dreams, the greatest miracles shone forth. But the signs shone more copiously when they were in the wilderness, entirely separated from all nations.
But these were not by any means rarer than those shown in the time of our calling. For then, too, when the Gospel first flashed forth, whether Jews or Gentiles were passing from error to the truth, very many and very great wonders provoked them, which surely did not cease until the faith announced in Christ reigned, spread throughout the whole world. But if they were also done after the wilderness, they were few and rare: as when the sun ceased from its course, or even ran backward. Nor, indeed, if we remember, were wonders lacking in our time. For under the prince Julian, who surpassed everyone in impiety, signs were frequently shown. For when the Jews desired to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, fire leaping from the foundations deterred them from the intended construction. C And when the same profane man showed the drunkenness of his mind by violating the vessels consecrated to God, the royal treasurer was suddenly torn through the middle. Then also the uncle of the same king, joined to him also by the communion of his name, perished eaten by worms: when also the fountains, which previously flowed like large rivers, dried up in the regions polluted by sacrifices. Then also an intolerable famine prevailed over the whole world under the impious king. Who could deny that these signs were manifest?
And when he sees his own being afflicted heavily and his adversaries being exalted against him with a certain tyranny of impiety, or rather reveling in the drunkenness of their minds, then he declares the power of his divinity through signs. Which it is read that he also fulfilled on account of the Jews in Babylon. But that the evangelist divided the progenitors of Christ into three parts, not for nothing nor without a certain reason at all, is clear from what has been said. Diligently therefore weigh from where the number of generations itself begins, and where it ends: from Abraham, namely, up to David, and from David up to the transmigration of Babylon, and from this, in turn, up to Christ himself. For at the very beginning he placed two together, David namely and Abraham. And again, by arranging them in order, he nonetheless remembered both in their proper place. Since, as we have said before, the promises had been made specially to them.
But why, as he remembers the Babylonian captivity, does he not also mention the descent into Egypt? Because they did not fear those, but they could not hear the Babylonians without fear: and because the one was indeed ancient, but this one recent, and always occurring before their eyes: and that they had not been led away on account of their sins, but to this they were translated on account of their crimes. But if anyone attempts to discuss the interpretation of the names, he will be amazed that the greatest riches of meanings lie hidden even in these, and that they contribute not a little to the understanding of the New Testament, as in Abraham himself, as in Jacob, as in Solomon, as in Zorobabel. For we do not find these names imposed upon them idly or in vain. But that we may not seem to bring trouble upon you by prolonging the discourse, let us abandon these things, and pass on to more necessary ones. When, therefore, he had named all the progenitors, and had arrived at the enumeration up to Joseph, he was not content to stop there: but he added, *The husband of Mary,* undoubtedly declaring, on account of this...
...comprehended in the catalog of generations. Then, lest when you hear "husband of Mary," you might think he was born by the common law of nature, consider how he corrects what could have been otherwise understood by the account immediately following. You have heard of the husband, he says, you have heard of the mother, you have also heard the name given to the boy: hear, therefore, now also the manner of the generation. 18. *Now the generation of Jesus Christ was in this wise.* Respond, I ask, concerning which generation you are now discoursing; although you seem to have already indicated this in part by naming the progenitors above. But I wish, he says, to expound the very manner of the generation. You certainly see how he has aroused the mind of the hearer; for as if he were about to say something new, he promises that he will also explain the manner. But consider, I pray, the admirable sequence of his words. For he did not immediately proceed to show his generation, but first he taught how many generations from Abraham, how many from David, and by how many degrees of generations it was distant from the Babylonian captivity: by which he sent the diligent hearer to the calculation of times, showing that he is the Christ who was preached by the prophets. For when you have run through the number of generations, and have learned from the time that he is the one who was promised long before, you will easily accept the miracle which was fulfilled in his generation. For because he was about to speak of something great and wonderful, namely that he was born of a Virgin, before he notes the time, he overshadows the mystery by naming the husband of Mary; nay, he even interrupts the series of generations, and besides enumerates the years, reminding the hearer that this is he whom the patriarch Jacob promised would come when the princes had failed from Judah (Gen. 49:10), whom also the prophet Daniel predicted would come after those many weeks of years (Dan. 9:25–27). And if anyone should wish to calculate those weeks of years, which were numbered and predicted to Daniel by the angel, from the restoration of Jerusalem, and to descend by counting down to Christ himself, he will see that these years correspond to those which were marked by Daniel. How then was he born? When she was espoused, he says, his mother Mary. He did not say, the Virgin; but simply, the mother; so that the discourse, bringing nothing new at the beginning, might be accepted without difficulty. On account of which, A first preparing the hearer as if to hear something of those things which occur according to custom, and meanwhile binding him to himself with expectation, then at last he introduces that which all may rightly wonder at, both because of the novelty of the thing and its majesty, saying: *Before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.* He did not say, before she was brought into the house of the husband; for she was already within. For antiquity held this custom generally, that betrothed women were kept in the houses of the husbands, which we see sometimes happens even now; but even the sons-in-law of Lot are read to have lived with their betrotheds not yet joined to them by the law of marriage: thus also lived Mary with her spouse. B This we have also signified among the very beginnings, that the mystery meanwhile might lie as if overshadowed, and that the Virgin might escape every opportunity of malicious suspicion. For when he who could burn with special zeal is seen not only not to cast off his betrothed, nor to mark her with ignominy, but even to receive her into companionship, and to serve her after the conception, it is truly manifest that unless he had openly known that the conception had come to pass from the operation of the Holy Spirit, he would never have kept her with him, or ministered to her in all the things of which she had need. But he rightly placed, *She was found with child.* *She was found,* he says, by which word we are accustomed to denote things which happen contrary to custom and beyond all hope and expectation. Therefore, do not wander further, nor ask anything from here beyond those things which have been said, nor say: But how did the Spirit operate this from the Virgin? For if even when men are formed in the solemn manner of nature it is impossible to state the manner of formation, how shall we ever be able to utter in what way this came to pass, the Holy Spirit operating in an unusual and ineffable manner? For lest you should strike the evangelist with importunate and frequent inquiry, or cause him trouble by asking too often, he said who performed this miracle, and freed himself from all questions at once by a compendium. For nothing is added, he says, than that what was born was done by the Holy Spirit. Let all those who explore that superior generation with rash curiosity blush and be confounded in this place. For if that which has been celebrated by a thousand witnesses, and has been preached from many times, which has been inspected by eyes and touched by hands, no one can interpret—what scale of madness do they not exceed who think that the ineffable generation of God can be investigated by human thoughts or indicated by words? For neither the archangel Gabriel, nor the evangelist Matthew were able to signify anything more, except only that it was from the Spirit. But in what way from the Spirit, and after what manner, certainly none of them explained; for it was not at all possible. For do not think, when you have heard that the conception was from the Spirit, that you have immediately learned everything. For we are still ignorant of many things, even though we have perceived that. Of which kind is this: he who is in the womb, who is infinite: how he who contains all things is carried by a woman: how the Virgin gives birth, and remains a Virgin: how that temple, tell me, the Spirit formed; how he did not take all the flesh from the mother, but a part of it, and increased and fashioned it. For that he proceeded from the Virgin's flesh, he demonstrated who said: *For that which is born in her*. And the blessed Paul: *Made*, he says, *of a woman, made under the law* (Gal. 4:4): in some way obstructing the impious, who say that Christ passed through Mary as if through a certain channel. For if the matter were so, what need would he have had for the Virgin's womb? If it is so, nothing is common to him and us. That flesh, therefore, is not of the communion of our nature. How then did it proceed from the root of Jesse? How as a rod? How as a flower? How as the Son of man? How...
is Mary a mother? How was He made of the seed of David? How did the Lord take the form of a servant? How was the Word made flesh (John 1:14)? How does the apostle say to the Romans: Of whom is A Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all things (Rom. 9:5)? Because, therefore, He is of us, that is, He is entirely of our nature, and from a virginal womb, and by these things which we have said, and by many others it is shown: but how, it is not shown in the same way. Do not, therefore, seek anything further, but accept what has been revealed, and do not curiously inquire into what is silent. But Joseph, when he was just, and did not wish to expose her (he says), B attempted to send her away secretly. After he said that it was of the Holy Spirit, and without any mixture of the sexes, he confirms his statement also from another source. For lest anyone should say, "And whence can this be manifest? Who saw it? Who ever heard that such a thing happened?" and lest you should think that the disciple, as if gratifying his master, is concocting these things: he introduces Joseph, who by the things he suffered makes the words credible in every way, so that from this the evangelist C plainly appears to say: If you do not believe me, and my testimony is perhaps suspect to you, believe then even her husband. For Joseph her husband, he says, when he was just. By "just" here, he says that he was perfect in every virtue. For there is a certain special justice, and justice in part, not to be held by the vice of avarice; but there is another general justice, which is perfected from all things altogether: according to which method Scripture is accustomed to call justice, as when it says: A just man, upright (Job 1:1); and again: They were both just before God (Luke 1:6). D 4. Since, therefore, he was just, that is, a thrifty and good man, he wished to send her away secretly. But the evangelist said why that just man acted thus before his knowledge, so that you would never doubt about the things that were done after the knowledge of the matter. And certainly, if Mary had been such as suspicion was painting her, she had deserved not only to be exposed but also to be punished by the authority of the law: but Joseph not only forgave the greater, but also that which was lesser, namely, her shame. For he not only did not wish to condemn her, but not even to expose her. You have seen, indeed, a man philosophizing in a sublime way, and immune to that tyrannical affection. For you know indeed, you know how impotent a thing jealousy is. Because of which he, not being ignorant of this matter, said: The fury of her husband is full of zeal: he will not spare in the day of vengeance (Prov. 6:34). And again the same: Hard, he says, is jealousy as hell (Cant. 8:6). And we indeed know most men who would rather lose their soul than fall into the torment of jealousy and suspicion of this kind. Although what then could be called suspicion here, where the very swelling of the womb seemed to argue the deed: but yet that man was so clean and free from passion of this kind, that he did not wish to bring sadness to the Virgin even in the slightest. Because, therefore, he thought it wicked to keep her with him, yet to expose her and bring her into judgment he saw was nothing else than to drag her to death: he does neither of these, but while still living under the Law, he philosophizes above the Law. For grace now approaching, it was fitting that many documents of a more sublime discipline should shine. For as the sun, not yet having shown its rays, nevertheless illuminates the greatest part of the world from afar with its splendor: so also Christ, about to proceed from the womb of the Virgin, shone upon the whole world even before He arose. Finally, even before that birth of the blessed Virgin, both the prophets in the Spirit were leaping for joy, and women in the Spirit were predicting the future, and John, not yet having emerged from the barriers of the womb, was conveying his joys even to his mother. Therefore, Joseph also shows such great philosophy. For he neither handed over his betrothed to judgment, nor at least did he himself reproach her with the manifest swelling of the womb, but only attempted to separate himself from her. Since, therefore, the whole matter turned on these things, and consisted in the utmost difficulty, suddenly an angel arrives, who would dissolve all the sad and adverse things at once. But it seems worthy of inquiry why the angel did not reveal what had happened before the man had taken such counsel, but when he had pondered it in his mind. "These things," he says, "he thinking on, behold an angel of the Lord appeared." And certainly, he did not announce to the Virgin before conception what was to be: which indeed itself does not escape questioning. For although the angel did not say it to the man, yet by what reason did the Virgin conceal it? For she who had heard from the angel, and saw her husband troubled, why did she not take away the difficulty with words? By what reason then did the angel not reveal these things to him before he was troubled? For it is fitting that what was proposed first, should be solved first. Why, I say, did the angel not say it before? Lest, forsooth, Joseph should doubt about the novelty of the matter, and perhaps suffer such a thing as Zechariah suffered. For it is easy indeed to believe that what is said is true, when the matter itself is already offered to the eyes; but before it begins to happen as it was promised, things asserted are believed with great labor, and especially those that are unusual. Therefore, the angel did not indicate this, and the Virgin hid what she had heard and felt. For she did not think in any way that she should be believed by her spouse if she brought to him a matter too new and suspicious, but rather she believed that he would be provoked to anger if this seemed to be obscuring a crime that appeared to have been committed. For if even the Virgin herself, to whom such great grace was to be conferred, nevertheless suffers something human, and says: How shall this be, seeing I know not a man (Luke 1:34)? how much more would he have doubted, especially when he heard it from a suspected wife? 5. Therefore the angel arrives to him at an opportune time, and not after the conception, as he asks, lest the anxiety of sadness should consume the mind of one who was standing in awe and was modest. It could well have happened, that being ignorant of such a great secret, he might have been carried away to cruel judgment, or to a halter, or suddenly to the sword. For that Virgin was wonderful in all things, whose virtue the evangelist Luke declares, reporting that when she heard the words of the salutation, which were sufficiently honorable, she did not immediately relax into joy, nor was she too credulous of new things.
She was, therefore, a Virgin of such modesty and gravity that she might well have been overwhelmed with grief, if she had thought that so great an opprobrium was hanging over her: especially since, however much she might say, she thought that no one would believe her, because that conception was not from marriage, nor yet did it arise from adultery. A To prevent such things from following, the angel came before the conception. It was indeed fitting that the womb which the Creator of mankind was about to enter should be unviolated; it was fitting that a soul chosen to be the minister of such a great mystery should be immune from every tumult of thoughts. For this reason, it is announced to the Virgin before conception, but to the man himself only when the birth is already imminent. Many, failing to understand this, have attributed it to a discrepancy among the evangelists: B as if, for example, Luke were asserting that it was announced to Mary, but Matthew that it was announced to Joseph. They are ignorant that in truth both were accomplished consequently; and it is fitting that we should observe this throughout this whole history, so that by this one rule, many things in which the evangelists seem to disagree may be resolved. Therefore, the angel came to Joseph while he was sufficiently anxious and sufficiently disturbed. For both for the reasons we have mentioned, and so that the philosophy of the just man might shine forth more brightly, the appearance of the messenger was delayed. C But he arrived when the matter itself was already about to be fulfilled. While he was pondering this, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. You surely observe the modesty and maturity of the man: he not only did not punish the pregnant woman by any other means, nor did he even reveal the cause of his grief to anyone, lest he should stain even her whom the suspicion was gnawing; but he himself was struggling with the waves of his own thoughts, and even from the Virgin herself he studied to hide the cause of such great sorrow. For he did not say that he wished to put her out of his house, but to dismiss her silently. So meek was that man, and so moderate. D Therefore, while he was pondering this, the angel appeared to him in a dream. Why in a dream, and not openly, as he had appeared to the shepherds and to Zacharias and to the Virgin? Because, forsooth, he was a faithful man and did not need a more manifest revelation. For the Virgin, indeed, since such great and new things were being announced to her—and things much greater than those which had been announced to Zacharias—needed to be taught before the event itself, and to be taught by a most explicit revelation. The shepherds also needed to be instructed more manifestly, inasmuch as they were further removed from such erudition by their rustic way of life. But this man, after the undoubted swelling of the womb, when he was already pining away with grief of mind and malignant suspicion, and was praying in his heart for some reason to be transferred to a better expectation, so that if someone might appear who could lead the mourner into the way of a more joyful hope, he might receive the revelation easily and willingly. And therefore, after being tormented by suspicion, he is refreshed by a vision: so that this very thing which he is taught after his suspicion—that the things being said are true—may be demonstrated. For since he had confessed it to no one, but kept it locked only in his mind, that he recognizes it even while the angel is speaking to him is a most certain and indisputable proof that he was sent to him by God. For it is His alone to look into the secrets of the heart. Consider, therefore, how many things are accomplished in this delay. For the philosophy of the man is shown, and the expected opportuneness of time contributes to the firmness of faith, and the truth of history is preserved above suspicion: which shows that the just man was suffering those things which the consequence of events itself compelled him to suffer. 6 Therefore, just as the angel suggests faith to the one who is wavering, listen and admire how he shines in this philosophical discourse. For when he had come, he said to him: *Joseph, son of David, fear not to take Mary thy wife.* At the beginning, quite necessarily, he introduced David, since Joseph had learned that Christ would be born from him: then he did not allow him to be troubled by confusion, but by the name of his progenitor he admonished him concerning the promise which was made to the whole Jewish race. But as to the one by whose grace he called David his son, showing that he should not fear: *Do not*, he says. And whereas elsewhere God does the same thing, but uses a more severe tone and threats toward a king who thought less well of his wife than he ought—and yet he was someone who had even excused his admission of fault by ignorance. And he was not ignorant that he had taken a woman coupled with another as his wife, and yet he rebuked him much more sharply and leniently: for where the dispensation of the greatest things is contained, and a huge crisis is present between the two men, each needs correction. For this reason, he in no way feared that he would be offended by such: namely, that he should not be offended by God, that he was coupled with an adulteress. But because he showed that, had fear not intervened, he would not have thought of dismissal at all. From all these things it is declared that he came to Joseph sent by the command of God, bringing out into the middle everything that he had pondered, whatever was being suffered in his mind. But he did not add that he should "remember the Virgin," as if he had been betrothed, although he calls him her husband, as Scripture is accustomed to call those who are still betrothed, "generous." Or what, indeed, does *Take* mean? Certainly to retain her in the home. For you have already dismissed her in your mind: but the solemn bond of marriage, not of parents: it is joined, but not in duty. For just as Christ himself later commends her to the disciple, thus even now the angel, covering the matter with the wrapper of words, was silent about the malicious suspicion; but, more honorably, the cause of the birth was set forth, so that by this the suspicion was utterly extinguished: showing that because he had been afraid to take her, and was thinking of dismissing her, for this reason he ought to take her, and keep her with him, and desire to remain in that same trepidation, and it resolved his sadness. Not only, he says, do you not attract sorrow from such a blessed birth of the spouse, but indeed break forth into greater joy.
That Christ abhors men of blood—and I do not mean them alone, but all who dwell with them, since they do not resist their wicked deeds—is shown by the case of Herod. For after the murder of the Baptist, He left and withdrew. If, therefore, you do not wish yourself and all who are in the city of Herod to meet their end, together with whom your own house and children will also be destroyed, cease from this incurable madness. Why do you hasten in vain to be destroyed in so wretched a manner?
D 8. Whence, therefore, answer me, shall I be able to recognize you as a believer, when all these things which we have said carry a contrary opinion of you, and most clearly convict you of being an infidel? And what
shall I call you if I say you are a believer? Even if you are a man, can I clearly recognize you as such? For when, like a beast of burden, you A kick, when like a bull you exult, inflamed by lust, when you neigh like a horse, when at banquets you imitate the gluttony of a bear, and when you distend the bodies of the people with fat; when you exercise rivalry like a camel, when you snatch like a wolf; when you get angry like a serpent, and strike with the ferocity of scorpions; when you lay snares cunningly like foxes, and are armed with the venom of malice like a snake and a viper; when you yourself, like the devil, harbor cruel suspicions against your brothers: in what way, or by what reasoning, can I place you among men, seeing no human signs of nature in you? O, how full of grief and tears! I desired to find a distinction between believers and catechumens, but I found no difference between men and beasts. B For what should I call you? Are you held by some vice? But you surpass the irrational and foolish behavior of the beasts in gathering all these things together in you. Should I call you a devil? But he does not covet money, nor does he obey the tyranny of the belly. Since, therefore, there are more vices in you than there are in beasts, answer me, I beseech you, by what right can I call you a man? But if I cannot call you a man, in what way will you be able to be called a believer? Truly, this is covered by the filth of all vices, and we do not even understand the filth of our own soul, nor do we recognize its deformity at all. For you, indeed, when sitting before a barber and having your beard trimmed, C consider with great study and great care the symmetry and the shine of your hair; yet you are content to have looked at yourself in the mirror without examining the artificer himself, nor the man standing nearby who is quite old and infirm, or the youth insane with foolishness; or are you asking whether somewhere the barber has worked poorly on the forehead, or if it is appropriate for your brow to be lightly clipped? But our soul, which is not only deformed but also entirely conformable to beasts, and which has become some Scylla or Chimera, as the fable celebrates, causes us no care, nor does any anxiety ever gnaw at us; when here, also, there is a mirror prepared for us, a spiritual one, and by far more useful and much clearer than that one. For it does not show only each one's own filth, but also converts it into the greatest beauty, D if we wish. This is the memory of the saints, the history of their blessed life, and generally the reading of divine Scriptures, and the knowledge of the law given by God. If you should wish to behold those images of the Saints with an eye of the heart intently fixed, you will immediately perceive the total deformity of your mind. When you have recognized this, you will surely have no need of another to be liberated from this shame, for this mirror converts [you] as if by its own power. No one, therefore, would persist for long in the likeness of beasts. For if a servant does not enter the master's house, even though he might be made into a beast, when will you be able at least to enter the vestibule? And what kind of beast are you, when everyone who is full of vices is judged more irrational than any beast? For they, indeed, although they are naturally ferocious, are nevertheless usually tamed by human skill; you, however, have surely taken the natural ferocity of those others and converted it into that which is contrary to nature, or rather into that natural mildness which you had, and which was inimical to your nature, and by justifying your own natural mildness into ferocity, you lead that which is naturally gentle into the rabies of beasts, while nature itself resists. You tame the lion, indeed, and make it manageable; but you make the rage of your own soul entirely more ferocious than any lion. And surely there are two impediments there, or the greatest ones, for it is privative of reason itself and of all other kinds of animals: you, however, gifted by God with the abundance of wisdom, surpass nature itself by art. Who, therefore, conquers nature in beasts, why do you not conquer it in yourself, even with the good will of nature? Therefore, if you were to command another man to be mild, you would see nothing impossible in imposing it: as you might excuse yourself, not being the master of another's will, nor would all things consist in your power. Now, however, this is properly yours, and you can certainly master it.
9. What apology do you have, what honest color of excuse do you find, you who, with skillful study, make a man into a lion in some way, yet allow yourself to become a negligent lion from a man? For you do not give them nature above their own, but you reserve for yourself, indeed, natural affections. And he who brings wild beasts to the dignity of mildness, casting himself down from the throne and royal dignity, turns to irrational rage. Let us suppose, if it pleases, that you also, in some way, are a beast. Why, therefore, when you are not able to calm them, do you apply the same study to yourself that you apply to the lion, and exert the same effort and mildness of thought? For since this beast is armed with ferocious claws and teeth; if you do not tame it carefully, it will destroy everything at once, and rend it. There is no lion, but their entrails can tear; how can human anger pierce everything with certain claws? For it does not harm only the body, but also corrupts the health of the soul itself: it tears apart all its powers entirely and makes it useless against all things. For if those worms that are in the interior of the body do not even allow us to breathe, how much more does that venomous viper that is within us, anger I say, consume all the interior parts of man: what can we ever think or bear that is sound or strong? How, therefore, shall we flee from this harmful pestilence? We must drink that potion, which kills all those serpents within us. And what, you ask, is that cup that possesses that power? It is the precious blood of Christ, which, if it is taken with certainty: for all disease is extinguished by this remedy, and after this, the diligent and devout hearing of the holy Scriptures, and the mercy joined to the hearing. For by these, all those things that can kill the soul can be [destroyed]...
And then we shall truly possess life and health, for we certainly now differ in nothing from the dead. Nor is it possible for us to truly live unless the vices in us die entirely. This is necessary for us to perish in the future, if we suffer this life here. Indeed, these things are full of cruelty and greed, and they do not cease to devour us daily. And so I would say that their teeth are not undeservedly called a lion’s, and even more savage ones. For a lion, once satisfied, at once leaves the half-eaten corpse; but these vices are never satisfied, and they never depart from our soul, capturing man for the devil and making him most like him.
The force of these is certainly so great that the servitude which Paul showed to be safe and profitable for Christ, they demand for themselves even from their captives. For whether one is caught by the love of bodies, or the desire for money, or the pleasure of some glory, he immediately despises the things above and below, provided he may serve his vices. It is not right, therefore, for those who say that they have faith in Christ to doubt this, as it has been so inflamed with the love of Christ. For when some are found who serve their vices instead of their own desires, you may judge that they serve Christ in a way that is incredible. For this reason, we have a weaker affection for Christ, because all our strength is consumed in the love of vices. For we serve avarice, and we plunder others, and we willingly submit to vain glory: by which servitude can you ever be more vile and contemptible? Even if you are a thousand times rich and conspicuous, you do not exist as any better because of this, nor are you anything the less inglorious; nay, you are by this very fact much more dishonored and much more despised. For when these same friends, who strive eagerly to glorify you and to show you to be famous, mock you again for this very reason, that you seek glory from them: how are these strivings of yours not turned against you?
10. And this vice is noted to such a degree that, just as we praise everyone who does not covet fornication or adultery, so let us also proclaim this man, and admire even more the one who flees the love of boasting: rather than accusing, we ought to praise those who seek the praises of men. Why, therefore, do you zealously pursue this thing, the opposite of which always meets you in its place? For if you desire to be glorified, despise glory, and you will be more glorious than all. But now you suffer entirely the same as we read that Nebuchadnezzar endured. For he erected a statue once, intent on capturing great fame from wood and a dead image of a body, and while living, he was going to borrow brightness from a non-living thing. Oh, what immense insanity! Where he seemed to honor himself, he presented himself as a laughingstock. For he who relies on a dead thing, more than on himself and the powers of his own mind, deems wood worthy of being above him—who then, I ask, is not most worthy of ridicule, wishing to be commended not by virtues, but by boards and planks? As if someone should think himself more honorable because of the magnitude and beauty of a house, or because of stairs and marble steps, than for being born a man and endowed with the nobility of reason.
Many, therefore, are found even now to imitate him. For as he then [acted] because of the golden image, so now others, because of precious clothing, or horses, or chariots, or the amplitude of the columns that are in their buildings, or the paintings on the walls, think themselves to be better. Because they have lost what they were as men, they busy themselves here and there, collecting glory for themselves from elsewhere, a thing surely worthy of every mockery. But those brave and praiseworthy servants of God did not shine with such things, but with those things B by which it was most appropriate. For when they were still youths, and strangers, nay even servants and captives, and entirely destitute of necessary things, they were much more glorious than those whom all abundance of things and pomp accompany. And to those men, the Babylonian king, not that huge image shining with gold, not the governors of the regions, not the leaders of the armies, not a countless and warlike host, not the stupendous hoard of gold and silver, not anything else that he could think of, could be of any use for his ambition and for accomplishing that great thing; but for these, being bare of the possession of all such things, philosophy alone sufficed. And this, indeed, was what rendered them more glorious than all who are not only rich, but also radiant with crown and purple, as much as sunlight shines more than some foul dung.
For the youths—servants, and captives at that—were led to the spectacle of almost the whole world. When they had stood intrepid before the king, in their presence he ordered the fire to be kindled at once: and the leaders of the soldiers, and the satraps, and the governors of the regions, and all that theater of the devil was standing around, and the voice of pipes and flute-players sounded from everywhere, and the clangor of trumpets, and the sound of all musical art was carried up to the heavens, and was deafening the ears of the holy ones, and the furnace had been kindled to a boundless height, and the flame already touched the clouds themselves, and all things were full of fear and stupor. But nothing of all these things deterred them in the least: but as if they were laughing at and despising some childish and frivolous attempts, they showed their fortitude of mind and modesty so securely: and sending forth a voice clearer than all those trumpets, they were saying with total freedom: "Let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, and we do not adore the golden image that you have set up" (Dan. 3. 18). And consider the modesty shining forth in the very fervor of such a struggle: "Let it be known to you, O king." For they did not wish to despise the king also with words, and to dishonor him: but only to show their piety toward God, on account of which they did not extend their discourse to a great length, but declared everything in a few words. "There is," they say, "a God in heaven" (Ibid. v. 17), who can deliver us from the furnace of the burning fire, and can snatch us from your hands, O king. Why, therefore, do you show us the spread-out forces of soldiers? Why the furnace burning with unusual globes of flame? Why the flashing swords? Why the terrible throngs of javelin-men? For our God is far more sublime and stronger than all these. Then, understanding that it could happen that God might permit them to be subjected to suffering for a time: lest
A it happen that they appear to have proclaimed the omnipotence of God rashly, they add accordingly, "But even if this does not happen, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods." For if this had not been believed, the wicked would have assumed that God was unable, rather than unwilling, to defend them. Therefore, they for the moment remain silent about this, though they certainly groan repeatedly in the furnace, humbly confessing their sins both above and below. But before the king, they do not mention any such thing at all, but only that even if they are delivered to the fire, they will nevertheless in no way depart from piety. For they were not doing this for reward or payment, B but solely for the sake of the love of God. For they were being crushed by the yoke of slavery, they were groaning under the hardships of captivity, and they enjoyed no worldly prosperity. Indeed, they had lost their homeland, their freedom, and everything they previously possessed. Do not mention to me those dignities in the royal court; for since those holy men were just, they would have a thousand times preferred to beg for alms in their own land, provided that they might enjoy the joy of the temple consecrated to God. "I have chosen," he says, "to be an outcast in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners" (Ps. 83:11); and, "Better is one day in your courts than thousands" (ibid.). Therefore, they would have much rather chosen to be outcasts in the city of God than to reign in Babylon; and this is proved especially by those voices which they frequently utter amidst the flames, burdened by living in that region. For although they enjoyed great honor among them before this storm of temptation, yet seeing the various and great dangers of their fellow citizens, they were bitten by intense grief. This, indeed, is usually characteristic of the saints: not to prefer personal glory, honor, or anything else at all above the salvation of their neighbors. C Consider, therefore, how different our affection is from theirs. For they, even placed in the midst of fire, intercede for the whole people of God; while we, even in the greatest security, do not remember our neighbors. But even when asked to interpret the king's dream, they had no personal profit proposed, but only what might pertain to the utility of all citizens: and how easily they would despise death, they taught by the proof of a most glorious trial. Everywhere, however, they oppose themselves piously and humbly for the sake of all, desiring to appease God in all things. Furthermore, because they do not believe themselves sufficient to obtain mercy for the people, they take refuge in the merits of the fathers: they themselves, meanwhile, profess to bring nothing more than a humble spirit and a contrite heart. We ought to imitate the virtue of these men as well. Indeed, even now a golden image is proposed—namely, money—in which a certain tyrannical image of mammon is formed, and it entices the hearts of the covetous to serve it. But let us in no way be moved by the sound of trumpets, or flutes, or the harmony of the lyre, or other incentives of riches, so that we might worship the image of avarice: but even if we are forced to enter a burning furnace—I mean poverty—let us prefer it rather than worship that image of avarice; for then the gentle sprinkling of dew will surround us in the midst of the flames. Let us not, therefore, shudder at the furnace of poverty. For then also, thrown into the fire, they were shown, through it, to be brighter: but those who worshiped the golden image suddenly perished by the consumption of fire. D But at that time indeed all things were fulfilled in like manner: now, however, some things are to be fulfilled in this age, and others both here and in the future judgment. For those who choose to experience poverty so as not to worship mammon will shine with great clarity here, and with much greater in the future. But those who, worshiping the golden image here, are enriched by iniquity, will then certainly pay the ultimate penalties. For from such a furnace as this, Lazarus emerged no less bright than those three men; but, on the contrary, that rich man, purple-clad and splendid, who is rightly numbered among those worshiping the image, is destined for the fire of Gehenna. The things, therefore, that have been said above, clearly express a figure of future things. For just as those who were thrown into the fire there felt nothing of adversity at all, while those who stood outside were consumed by a sudden and violent fire: so also will it be then. For even if the saints pass through a river of fire, they will suffer nothing sad at all, but will undoubtedly appear brighter: but the worshipers of the image will see fire rushing in more fiercely than any beast, and dragging them into the depths of punishment. If, therefore, anyone does not believe in Gehenna, let him look with his mind to the flame of that furnace, and from the contemplation of present things believe in future ones, and let him dread not the furnace of poverty, but of iniquity. For here there is both fire and pain: there, however, both dew and rest are felt. And in that flame, indeed, the devil stands in the middle; in this one, however, the angels drive away the fires. 12. Let these rich men, therefore, who kindle the furnace of iniquity and who offer nothing to the poor, listen—those who spontaneously provide the plunder of the poor, which they certainly kindle with their own hands. Then, therefore, the angel descends to the children, and we, on behalf of those who are burning in the furnace of poverty, bring the dew of mercy, so that by repelling the flame of want from them, we may also be participants of their crowns: and that flame of Gehenna is driven away from us by that voice of Christ which says: "I was hungry and you saw me, and fed me, and gave me to drink" (Matt. 25:35). For this voice, brothers, will be for us in place of dew, by which that flame is extinguished, and it will be related back to us. Let us descend, I say, and with pity look upon those who, in the furnace of poverty, walk securely through such a fire, and by their faith (a) trample upon its summit. Let us consider something new and wonderful: a man in the furnace chanting with sweet modulation, a man in extreme poverty, and yet rendering much glory and praise to God. For those children indeed...
A are equals, all who endure poverty with thanksgiving. For poverty is more terrible than fire, and is accustomed to burn more fiercely. But just as the fire did not consume them, because they rendered thanks to the Lord, and their bonds were immediately dissolved, so also to you, if you endure poverty with thanksgiving, your bonds are resolved and the fire is extinguished; but if it is not extinguished, it will imitate the nature of the fountain with a much greater miracle: which can certainly be seen in those who philosophize according to the Gospel, and who more willingly boast in poverty than others do in their riches. For even then, those who stood in the burning furnace enjoyed a most pure dew: and although the fire was not extinguished, yet standing in the midst B of it, it did not touch them at all. Let us by no means, therefore, long for the space outside the furnace, heartlessly neglecting the needs of the poor, lest we suffer what those servants of the king then endured. For if you descend into the furnace of the poor of your own accord, you will surely stand with those three children, and nothing of the adverse fire will work upon you. But if, placed in the ardor of destitution, you look down as if from a higher seat, the ravenous flame will immediately consume you. Descend, therefore, into the fire, lest a more horrible fire envelop you; and do not sit outside the fire, lest the sudden flame-gulf seize you. For if it sees you with the poor, it will entirely desist from harming you; but if it sees you separated from the poor, it will fly up suddenly and seize you unto punishment. Do not, therefore, depart at all from them when they are cast into it, but when the devil commands them to be thrust into the furnace of poverty, C those who have disdained to worship gold: do not you become one of those who cast them in, but rather one of those who are cast into such a conflagration: that you also may be made one of those who are saved, not of those who are burned. For great is the dew, by no means to be turned away from the commiseration of the needy by love of riches: and they are richer than all, who having treated riches with contempt, have shone forth in virtue. For even those men then, by contemning the king, were made more illustrious than the king himself. And you too, therefore, if you despise the riches of the world with a faithful mind, will be more precious than the whole world: just as also those saints, Of whom the world was not worthy (Heb. 11. 38). That you, therefore, may be made worthy of heavenly D goods, laugh at present things. For in this way you will shine both here in the brightness of virtues, and in the future in the honor of rewards, by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and empire with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
HOMILY FIVE
This whole thing, however, came to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: Behold, a Virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel (Isa. 7. 14).
1. I hear many who say that they afford a hearing worthy of such great things, and are drawn in spirit: but when they leave the church, they suddenly change along with the place and their state of mind, utterly extinguishing all that fire of devotion which the sermon of the preacher had kindled in them. What, therefore, is it proper to employ, that this may not happen? If, namely, we consider in the first place whence it arises. Whence, therefore, does such a change befall you? From a conversation, surely, that is too little attentive, and from the constant and pestiferous talk of vicious men. For it was not fitting, upon departing from the assembly of the church, to be involved in contrary concerns and business, but immediately returning home to open the sacred books, and to invite spouse and children alike to a collation of what has been said, and when these things have been inserted more deeply and profoundly into the mind, then at last to proceed to take care of those things that are necessary for this life. For if, having left the bath, you avoid public gatherings, lest more troublesome business spoil the benefit gained from the warmth of the bath: how much more, when you depart from the congregation of the church, does it behoove you to do this? But now we do the contrary: we squander everything; for the utility of the sermon not yet being firmly fixed in the mind, a multitude of rushing secular impulses tears everything away at once. That this may not happen, as often as you depart from the holy congregation, judge nothing more necessary than to preserve what you have learned by hearing, through meditation. For it is an altogether excessive indevotion, and absolutely extreme, to spend five or six days in carnal matters, and to be unwilling to devote one day—nay, a small part of a day—to spiritual ones. Do you not daily see your children, how they meditate for almost the whole day on the things they undertake to learn? How much more ought we to perform this in spiritual studies: otherwise it will profit us nothing to convene here, drawing from a vessel everywhere gaping with cracks and leaking on all sides: and not even placing as much study in the preservation of these things which we speak of, as we are accustomed to apply toward gold and silver. For when someone receives a few coins, he usually deposits them solicitously in a purse, and seals them diligently with a signet; but we, after we have received words more precious than gold and gems, and inestimable riches of spiritual goods, do not at all store them in the treasury of our soul to be contained, but allow our minds to leak them out passably and negligently. Who, therefore, will ever have pity on us, when we are found to be so openly our own enemies, and cast ourselves willingly into such great poverty? That these things may not happen, therefore, let us write this law for ourselves as immutable, not for us alone, but also for our spouses and children, that we may spend this one day of the whole week, on which people run together to hear, entirely in the meditation of those things which are said. For thus both you will come more teachable to the things that are to be said, and we ourselves shall experience less labor. But also, a greater gain of knowledge will surely accrue to you, when, retaining what was heard before, you fly to recent things more prepared and instructed. For it is not a small [matter] toward those things which...
are said today, that all this has happened, so that what was said by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying. With a truly worthy voice A he signaled such a miracle by saying: *Now all this has happened*. For because he saw an immense sea and an inestimable depth of the mercy of God, and that things had suddenly come to pass which before had not even been in hope, and that suddenly the laws of nature had been dissolved, the reconciliation of God and men had been made, the substance superior to all had descended to the substance inferior to all, the partition of the wall had been destroyed, and the obstacles had been removed—and that many things greater than these had been completed—he expresses the magnitude of the miracle in almost one word, saying: *Now all this has happened, so that what was said by the Lord might be fulfilled*. Do not, he says, imagine that this was first decreed just now: this was long ago ordered and arranged by God. Which Paul also studied everywhere to show. B But now he refers Joseph himself to Isaiah, so that if, having been awakened from sleep, he had forgotten the words of the latter, he might, as if they were things recently said, being reminded of the prophetic words in the meditation of which he had been nurtured, hold them also in his mind, for they had been spoken by him. And to the Virgin, indeed, he said nothing of the sort at all, naturally, since she, being still a girl, would not have knowledge of these things: but to the man, and especially to a just man, and one diligently meditating on the prophetic writings, he discourses consequently from this. And above, indeed, he says, *Mary thy wife*: but here, after he brought the prophet into the midst, then at last he believed him regarding the title of virginity. For he would not have been able C to hear that she was a Virgin and a mother with an untroubled and quiet mind; but from the prophet he was going to hear nothing new, but certainly that which had been worn away by the meditation of a long time. Therefore, so that what is said may be easily believed, he brings the prophet into the midst. But not even content with a witness so clear, he reduces the speech itself to the authority of God. For he does not confirm that that saying is Isaiah’s, but God’s, the governor of all. Wherefore he does not say, what was said by Isaiah: but, *What was said by the Lord*. For Isaiah’s had been the mouth through which the word itself had gone forth, but the response was divine. What then was predicted by this oracle? *Behold, the Virgin shall have in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel* (Isai. 7. 14). And why, you will ask, is he not called by this name, that is, Emmanuel, but Jesus Christ? D Because, forsooth, he did not say, *Thou shalt call*: but, *They shall call*, the peoples without doubt, and the very outcome of events. For here the name is imposed from the effect. For it is the manner of Scripture to put the outcome of events in the place of names. For what is anything else, *They shall call his name Emmanuel*, except, The eyes of mortals shall see God dwelling among men: who even if he was with men before, yet not so openly and so clearly? But if in this place the Jews should impudently object, we will ask them, When then was the boy called, *Speedily despoil, quickly plunder*? For they have no way of answering this here. Why then did the prophet say, *Call his name, Speedily despoil, quickly plunder* (Isai. 8. 3)? Since with him being born, certainly the despoiling of spoils took place, and the pillaging. Rightly, therefore, the thing which occurred so clearly under him, imposed a name on him as though it were his own. And the city, he says, *shall be called the city of justice, the mother of cities, faithful Sion* (Isai. 1. 26). Yet we do not find that it was ever named the city of justice, but it always remained in the appellation of Jerusalem. But because this event changed the customs of the people for the better, he predicted the city would be so called. For when something of this sort happens, so that he through whom it was effected, or he who perceived its fruit, is indicated more clearly by the act than by the name, he calls his name the very truth of the thing that was done. But if, being refuted and convicted by this, they move another question, and attempt to understand the appellation of the Virgin otherwise, and bringing other interpreters to us and saying, They did not say Virgin, but girl: firstly, we will say this, that for the sake of rendering the faith of a true translation, the Septuagint interpreters are more worthy than all others by right. Since others translated after the coming of the Lord, while the Jews remained, and were deservedly suspected: for they, hostilely and deceitfully, corrupted many things, and with set purpose concealed the mysteries predicted by the prophets. But the Septuagint, a hundred and sometimes more years before the coming of the Lord, approaching the task of translation all together, are vindicated from any suspicion of this kind. And because of the very interval of time, and their number, and their consensus, they would certainly be more worthy of credence. And our victory will also come from this part: since Scripture has been accustomed to call a virgin by the name of adolescent or girl. And that this is signified not only in females, but often in males. *Young men*, he says, *and virgins, old men with the young* (Ps. 148. 12). And again, speaking of a girl who had lost the virginity of her body by being violently oppressed: If, he says, the adolescent girl shall have cried out (Deut. 22. 21): that is, a virgin. And those things which were said above easily confirm this sense. For he did not put it simply, *Behold, the virgin shall have in the womb*; but when he had said before, *The Lord himself shall give you a sign*, he immediately subjoined, *Behold, the virgin shall have in the womb* (Isai. 7. 14). And certainly, unless she who was to have [a son] in the womb remained a virgin, but this were done by the common law of marriage, what sign would that which was happening at last have been? For a sign ought to exceed the whole consequence and order of things, and ought to be new in all, and different from the solemn custom: otherwise, it could not be a sign. But Joseph rising from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him. You have surely seen the obedience,
you have seen the mind completely vigilant and violated by no corruption at all. For not even at the time of his own suspicion did he conceive anything sad or absurd against the Virgin; and even now, when he is relieved of that suspicion, he does not attempt to drive her away, but keeps her with him, and is a minister of the whole dispensation. A And he took Mary his wife. You see how frequently the evangelist impresses this name upon the Virgin, not wishing to reveal that wondrous mystery in the meantime, but yet already extinguishing a malignant suspicion. But when he had taken her, *he knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son*. He placed "until" here not so that you might think that he knew her thereafter or at some time; but that you might learn that she remained entirely intact even after the birth. For, you ask, is Scripture accustomed to use this manner of speech, by saying "until," which does not define a certain time? Yes. For when the raven was sent forth from the ark: *It did not*, he says, *return until the earth was dried* (Gen. 8. 7). And certainly, it was not found to have returned afterward. Speaking of God, he also says: *From everlasting and to everlasting thou art* (Ps. 89. 2). But he surely placed no limit here. Again, on the height of peace he proclaims: *Justice shall spring up, and abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away* (Ps. 71. 7): yet he did not set an end to this beautiful element. Even in this place, he placed "until" to resolve that suspicion which existed before the time of the birth. B Afterward, what follows leaves it to you to judge. For what had to be said to you by Him was that she was a Virgin even up to the birth: which the preceding things make clear and manifest, and left it to your understanding; so that you might certainly conclude this: that even after she was made a mother in such a way, and was illuminated by a new birth, and a new childbed, he would the more never have dared to touch her. For if he knew her, how could the Lord, being left without solace, and having absolutely no one, have taken care to commend her to the disciple as if she were his own? Whence, then, you ask, are her brothers called James and John? By no means otherwise than as Joseph himself was thought to be the husband of Mary. For there are many things to obscure the mystery of that birth, on account of which John says: *For neither did his brethren believe in him* (John 7. 5). But yet these same ones, who had believed little before, shone forth later in faith by the miracles. C For when Paul went up to Jerusalem, to confer with the other apostles about the variety of doctrines, he immediately entered unto James. He was indeed so wondrous that he first received the episcopate. They say that his knees became hardened, and that such was the neglect of his body in him, that his limbs almost wore away while he was still alive: and from the assiduity of his prayer, and his constant prostration of his body upon the pavement, his forehead was similarly hardened, so that it hardly differed, if you look at the hardness, from the knees of a camel. Even Paul, when he came to Jerusalem again afterward, was moderated by the maturity of his own sermon, saying: *You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews that have believed*, etc. (Act. 21. 20). So great was his zeal for the edification of the Church, such prudence, indeed, the grace of Christ so resplendent in him! For they who previously resisted the Lord in the flesh, were yet so amazed at him and revered him after his death, that many died for him with desire: which things most greatly show the effect of the resurrection. D Therefore indeed, he reserved more clear things for the end, so that without any ambiguity there would be a document of such great virtue. For if we admire them being alive, yet we forget the dead: how did they who dared to mock Him living, think He was God after death, if they had believed nothing else was in Him than a man? How, then, did they choose to undergo death for Him, unless they recognized the manifest example of the resurrection in Him?
4. These things, indeed, we say, not so that you might only hear them, but also that you might imitate what you hear, namely the fortitude, the constancy, and every justice: so that no one may despair, even if he languishes in the torpor of sloth beforehand, so that each of us might place his hope in nothing else, unless in the mercy of God and in the sanctity of morals he is established. For it profits nothing to be of these entirely, or of the country, or of the house, or to be joined to Christ by proximity, before we are joined by our own virtue: which we think makes us worthy of forgiveness, if we have been imitators of those just ones who are near us in glory. For the prophet himself, signifying this, says: *A brother shall not redeem, shall man redeem?* (Ps. 48. 7). Even if Moses were there, even if Samuel, even if Jeremias: I hear, you say, *I will not hear you* (Jer. 11. 14). What, then, do you wonder, if He should not hear the supplicant? Even if, he says, Moses were present, and Samuel, I would not be moved by their prayers for such people. But if Ezechiel at least were to supplicate, he would be heard. But even he himself says, *For if Noe and Job, and Daniel, shall not deliver their sons and daughters* (Ezech. 14. 14, 16). Even if Abraham the patriarch were to supplicate for them, who remain incurable in their vices, he would not be heard, nor would he intercede with any voice for such people. And if Samuel were again praying for some unworthy person, God would immediately cry out: *How long dost thou mourn for Saul?* (1 Reg. 16. 1). Even if someone incompetently prayed for a sister, he hears what Moses says: *If her father had but spit upon her face, should she not be ashamed?* (Num. 12. 14). Not as if drowsy and slothful do we hang upon the merits of others. We possess from Him, and a great one indeed, the prayers and supplications of the saints: but then certainly when we ourselves through repentance ask, and flee to better studies. Otherwise even Moses himself, who was a brother...
A to them, and who delivered six hundred thousand armed men from the impending wrath of God, could not rescue his own sister. And certainly the sin was not equal. She had indeed spoken against Moses more injuriously; but all that multitude, of which we spoke, had committed a direct impiety against the Lord. But I leave this question to you for the present, while I myself will endeavor to resolve that which is much more difficult. For what should we say now concerning his sister, when that great leader of the people could not suffice for himself either by his intercessions, but after a thousand hardships of labors, and forty years of leadership committed to him by the Lord, was prohibited by the Lord from entering the land of promise, which the divine word had so often promised them? What, then, is the cause? By no means would the entrance of the holy Moses into that land have been useful, but rather conjoined with great damage, and he who could have utterly brought most of the Jews unto the most extreme ruin of error. For if, because they had been liberated from Egypt by his means alone, leaving God, they sought Moses, believing that all those benefits were entirely his: if they had also had him as their introducer into the land of promise, into what impiety would they not have fallen? B Therefore, that every occasion of this kind might be cut away, his very sepulcher was concealed (Deut. 34. 6). And Samuel indeed could not deliver Saul from the wrath of God, but he often saved the Israelite people (1 Reg. 16. 1). Jeremiah also did not rescue the Jews from punishment; yet he is recorded to have saved a certain other person. Daniel also delivered the wise men of Babylon from destruction, yet he did not absolve the Jews from the yoke of captivity (Dan. 2). In the Gospel, however, we see not in others and different people, but in one and the same person it happens that both occur, one and the same man, now indeed sufficient for his own liberation, now truly becoming a traitor to his own salvation. For that debtor of ten thousand talents indeed delivered himself from danger by supplicating with many prayers, but afterward he could not obtain the same thing: the other, on the contrary, although he had previously given himself over entirely to perdition, afterward profited himself most of all. And who is this? He, namely, who had wasted his father’s goods (Luc. 15.30). From which it certainly breathes out, that if we are negligent and slothful, we cannot be saved even by the merits of others. But if we watch in mind, we may be able to achieve this by ourselves, and be safe much more by our own, than by another’s, suffrage. For God also wills to grant our salvation not so much to those asking for us, as to ourselves: that by this very means, by which we seek to appease His wrath against us, we may migrate to better studies, and gather the confidence of a good conscience. For so He once had mercy on that Canaanite woman; so He also granted salvation to the harlot; so He transferred the thief from the cross into paradise, unswayed by any patron, by the prayers of any mediator.
5. And we say these things, not that we deny that we ought to supplicate the saints, but that we do not resolve ourselves into sloth and despair, and, sleeping, mandate to others alone the things that we must care for. For when He had said, "Make for yourselves friends," He did not stop here, but added, "Of the unrighteous mammon" (Luc. 16. 9): so that obviously it might be yours and proper. For He indicated nothing else here but works of mercy: and what is to be marveled at, He does not subtract an exact accounting from us, provided that we desist from iniquity. For what He says is of this kind: You acquired before evilly, spend now well: you gathered heretofore iniquitously, disperse now justly. But what, then, is this virtue, that God is pleased to give of such things? But yet, God, who loves man, descends so far, that if we do these things, He promises us great goods. But we have proceeded in such great folly and madness, that we do not give anything even from unrighteous possession: but even when enriched with a thousand rapes, if perhaps we have given the smallest part, we believe that we have now fulfilled everything. Or have you not perhaps heard the apostle proclaiming, that "He who sows sparingly, shall also reap sparingly" (2 Cor. 9. 6)? By what reason, pray, do you spare and retain? This is not to spend, but to increase: nor should an expenditure be called a loss and a transaction. For where there is seed, there also the multiplication of fruits follows. But you, if you were cultivating a rich and fertile land, and that which was most opportune for seeds, you would not only empty your own barns by sowing, but you would also borrow from elsewhere what you might sow. For you would consider it the greatest detriment to cherish such parsimony: but when you are about to cultivate heaven, where there is no inequality of air, no corruption of winds, but seeds cast everywhere with much interest come forth, how do you dissemble, and understand not that we can lose by sparing, and gather by scattering? Scatter then, lest you lose: do not retain, so that you may gather more, but spend in a most fruitful kind of sowing, that you may gain. And if it is necessary to save them, do not you save them; for by this means all things perish: but rather commit everything to God, and no one will be able to tear them from you. Do not therefore wish to trade here: for you do not know how to gather gains: but put them out at usury rather to Him, who returns a far greater usury for the interest: there (I say) rather lend at interest, where no envy at all, no fear, no accusation, no snares are present: lend at interest to Him who is entirely in need of no such thing, but who nevertheless asks for them as if necessary for your sake. Give to all who are hungry, and for your sake, lest you yourself die in indigence. Give to Him who for this reason became poor, that He might make you rich: lend at interest where you can fructify not death, but life. For those usuries produce the kingdom, but these produce hell; for the former are of avarice, but the latter of philosophy; and the former indeed of cruelty, the latter of piety. What satisfaction, then, shall we be able to offer, who, when we can receive both more, and more safely, and more opportunely, and with all liberty, and possess them without fear, without detractions and dangers, depart from such...
a miserable pit of cruelty, digging, under the guise of helping another's need, and holding out a hand but dragging him down, and like one receiving him into a harbor from a storm, but in an unexpected whirlwind plunging him into a much more cruel shipwreck, as if among reefs and hidden rocks. What then, you say, do you advise here? That I should collect money, useful to me, for another's uses, and ask for no reward from it at all? God forbid. I do not say that, but I desire enough that you receive a reward for it: not one that is base and altogether paltry, but one that is surely far greater. For I do not wish your interest to be gold, but heaven. Why then do you enclose yourself in poverty? Why are you wholly transfixed to the earth, and wallow too sordidly in it, and seek for paltry things in exchange for great ones? For this is the way of those who are utterly ignorant of being enriched. For when God promises you heavenly and eternal goods for a certain small amount of money: and you say, Heaven is not given to me, but let gold be lavished instead of heaven, which is surely going to perish: this is to wish to remain in poverty. But those who desire true wealth and riches, choose rather those things which are to endure, than those which perish: perennial and inexhaustible riches, rather than those which are consumed: for such men prefer great things to small, and eternal things to temporal, and become worthy to obtain both. For he who despises heaven for the love of earth, will surely lose even that: but he who prefers that to this, will obtain both: and with more certainty, more pleasantly. Which, that it may happen to us also, let us despise all present goods entirely, and rather choose the future. For thus we shall enjoy both those and these, by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
HOMILY SIX ON CHAPTER II
A *When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and the rest.*
1. We have need of much vigilance, and many prayers, B that we may be able to resolve the difficulty of this passage; and to understand who these wise men are, and whence they came; and in what manner, and by whose persuasion: and also what that star was, which led the wise men as far as Christ. More than this, if it pleases, let us first bring out into the open what the enemies of the truth argue about this place. For the devil inspires them with such madness, that from this very thing they think they are arming themselves against the reason of virtue. What then do they propose? Behold, they say, even at the birth of Jesus a star appeared: which is certainly a great proof that the science of astronomy is most certain. Furthermore, this is openly refuted as false. For if He was born according to the law of the stars, how did He dissolve astronomy, and destroy fate, and stop the mouths of demons, and exclude all error entirely, and overwhelm the whole most vain workshop of this art? C In what manner also did the wise men learn from that star that this was the King of the Jews, when certainly He was not the king of that kingdom, as He Himself also answered Pilate: My kingdom, He said, is not of this world (John 18:36)? For He did not show that leader with ranks of soldiers, or horses distinguished with royal trappings, or chariots shining with gold and purple. For he had no such adornment around Him, nor any other similar thing: but He lived this life as altogether vile and poor, leading around with Him only twelve men, and those despised. But even if the wise men knew that He was that King, for the sake of what matter, however, would they come to Him? For this does not pertain to the art of astrology, that it might recognize those who are born by the stars: but that from the hour and moment of birth, it predicts what is about to happen to them, as they say. D These men however had stood by neither the mother in labor, nor had they known the time when our King was born, so that from this they might be seen to have received the beginning of predicting future things: but on the contrary, when they had seen the star appear in their region long before the time, they came to see Him who was born. Which indeed itself, as far as human reason is concerned, is proven to be far more illogical, than that which was stated a little before. For what reason moved the wise men? What hope of rewards also compelled them, that they should come to adore a king separated by so vast a distance of lands? For even if He were about to rule over them, not even then would so long a journey have any reason. For if He had been born in a royal palace with His father reigning, perhaps someone might consistently say that they wished to adore the child in honor of the father, and had acquired this as a support for themselves to win the favor of the king: now, however, when they do not hope for Him to be their king, but [the king] of a foreign race, and separated by a great distance from their region, and they do not see His father as king: for what reason do they undertake a journey of such great labor, and adore a little child placed in the bosom of a poor mother, and offer gifts, certainly about to do all these things with the greatest danger? For Herod, hearing these things from them, and the people likewise, was troubled. But here, you say, they certainly did not foresee this. But this objection is proven empty by every reason. For even if they had been very unwise, they could nevertheless by no means have been ignorant of this, that having entered the city in which another king was dwelling, by preaching such things, and by showing that there was another king of that people, they would not stir up a thousand swords against themselves. Why then also did they adore Him still bound in infancy's swaddling clothes? For if He had been of manly age, perhaps someone might have been able to say, that expecting some help from Him, they had given themselves over into manifest danger. Which, however, itself would have been entirely of the utmost madness, that some Persian and barbarian, having no...
A association with the nation of the Jews, would desire to depart from his house and his fatherland, even to leave behind his servants, friends, and kin, and to subjugate himself to the kingdom of another.
2. But if that was foolish, what follows is proven to be far more foolish. For what is this, that, having accomplished such long distances of travel, when they had reached the boy, and many tumults had been stirred up against them, they immediately returned? For what signs of a kingdom were reported to have been seen there? Surely a humble hut, a squalid manger, and a little child wrapped in cheap cloths, and a poor mother. Why, then, did she offer gifts? For what cause? Could it be that the law was, that wherever kings were born, the tribute of devotion should be paid to them? And these men, traversing the whole world, were going to adore as future kings those whom they knew to be from base and poor things, and that before they had ascended a royal throne? No one at all said that. By what intuition of reason, then, did they adore him? But if they were thinking of some benefit from those present, what, in the end, could they hope for as a reward from a little one and a needy mother? Or, indeed, how could they store up favor for themselves hereafter with a king whom they could not expect to remember such a hasty act of adoration, already arrived at his kingdom, even if he had been adored while still in the cradle? If they believed that he needed to be reminded B by his mother, they would be more worthy of punishment than a reward, in that they had delivered him into such open danger, not so much adoring as betraying him. Hence, indeed, Herod was truly troubled, and searched for the boy with all care, and hastened with all eagerness to kill him. Such is the way it is: whenever anyone says that another king will rule, and makes the boy—yet a private person—that king, he exposes him to a thousand dangers and hands him over to the open. You see how many absurdities arise if we believe that this must be understood according to human consistency? But we do not say these things alone; we could bring forward many more, having a greater question than those things which we have said. But that we may not weave darkness with darkness, and cause you weariness, come, let us now come to the explanation of those things which have been proposed, taking from the star itself the beginning of the resolution. For when we have learned what that star was, and of what kind, and whether it was one of many, and one entirely new, and distinct from other stars, and whether it was naturally a star, or only bore the appearance of a star—when, I say, we have learned this, we easily know the rest. Therefore, the history of the gospel reading will be able to be known more manifestly. For that this star was not one of many follows from the fact that it was not a star, but a certain invisible power which took the form of a star, as is shown by the very journey itself. For it is not a star at all which C is said to keep its course through this region of the sky; whether you speak of the sun, or you say the moon and the rest of the stars, we see all borne from the east into the west. But this star came from the north to the south. Thus it proceeded according to the topography of Palestine. Secondly, it is able also to be proven by time. For it is not seen at night, but while the day shines bright, with the sun glaring. How much power, then, not only did no star have, but not even the moon itself was allotted: which, although it twinkles among all the stars, is immediately hidden by the rising of the sun; and that which formerly illuminated everything is seen in the presence of the much brighter sun. But this star surpassed even the rays of the sun themselves with a certain proper and chief radiance, appearing far brighter than they, and shining more brightly amidst their great light. Thirdly, the newness of this star is indicated by its very alternation of light. For now it hides itself completely, and now it radiates with total brightness. For it appeared up until they were coming to Palestine, as if it were always directing the path; but when they had entered Jerusalem, it hid itself again. Then, when they had indicated to Herod the cause of the journey, and having left him they proceeded to adore the boy, the same star showed itself to them again. This movement does not act as does the motion of a star, but a certain power full of reason. Nor did it hold that proper course which a star holds, but rather it proceeded when they were to proceed, and stood still when they were D to stand, fittingly and decorously dispensing all things, just as that pillar of cloud did once in the desert, now standing still, declaring where the camp was to be fixed, now moving forward as it led the army (Exod. 13, Num. 9). Fourthly, one can easily see this more clearly from the very manner of its demonstration. For it did not show the place from a high position fixed in the sky, as those who were inquiring would have had to do, nor could they have learned it in that way; but it descended, and coming to a lower part of the air, it performed that task. For you know that it could not have shown from the heavens such a tiny and humble place, and—if I may so speak—that little body of the child which the short hut contained. For not only could the infinite altitude of the heavens not have marked the brevity of that place as a distinct sign, as could be done with the lunar orb. For the moon, which surpasses stars in such great width, is believed by all inhabitants of the world to be near. Just so, the star shows such a tiny place—that, namely, of the hut and the manger—had it not left its heights and come to the lower parts: which the evangelist signifies, saying, "Behold," he says, "the star which they saw in the east went before them until it came and stood over where the child was." Truly consider how much the evangelist teaches that this was not one of the others, nor was it according to the order of astrology that it showed the boy to the astrologers. 3. Why, then, did it appear? So that it might refute the infidelity of the Jews more and more,
A and utterly shut off every avenue of excuse for the ungrateful. For since Christ, in coming, was about to put an end to the Old Testament and call the entire world to worship Him—for He was to be worshipped by sea and land—He opened the door to the Gentiles immediately from the very beginnings of His birth, and thus also instructed His own domestic worshippers, while inviting the aliens. For because they, hearing the prophets who had often promised His coming, pondered their words too little, He caused barbarians to come from distant regions to inquire about the King born among them, that they might learn in the Persian language what they had been unwilling to learn from the preaching of the prophets; so that if they were of good will, they might be assisted by the greatest occasion for believing, but if they were to contend against the manifest, they might be deprived of every excuse whatsoever. For what colour of impiety could they have employed, after not receiving Christ following the testimonies of so many prophets, when they saw the Magi, upon the appearance of one star, both seeking Christ and, having found Him, supplicantly adoring Him? B What, therefore, God did concerning the Ninevites, by sending Jonah to them, and concerning the Samaritan and the Canaanite woman, this He also did in the case of the Magi; and for this reason He said: The men of Nineveh shall rise and shall condemn, and the Queen of the South shall rise and shall condemn this generation (Matt. 12:41-42). By what reason, you ask, does He lead the Magi to Christ through a star? By what mode was it fitting? Should prophets rather have been sent? But the Magi would by no means have believed the prophets! Should a voice have sounded from above? They would not have cared for this either. Should He have sent an angel? Truly, they would perhaps have disregarded this one too. Therefore, God, leaving behind all things of this kind, calls them through things which the custom familiar to them provided, descending for the salvation of men by a wondrous dispensation of piety. Thus, He showed a huge and bright star, and one which would differ greatly from the stars we behold, so that He might stir in them admiration regarding the magnitude and beauty of the star, and also the very novelty of its course. Thus, Paul, imitating this, taking an occasion from the altar, discourses with the Gentiles, bringing forth testimonies from the poets as from those within their own household; he announces Christ to the Jews for some time without the prohibition of circumcision, and while they were still living under the Law, he takes the beginnings of his doctrine from their sacrifices. For because each one is bound by the affection of their own custom, and God, and those sent by Him for the salvation of the whole world, take for themselves topics of speaking from the very custom of each nation. Do not, therefore, consider it unworthy that the Magi are called by a star. For in this way you would reject all the ceremonies of the Jews, and all the rites and sacrifices, and purifications, and new moons, and the ark, and the temple itself. For all these things drew their origin from the rudeness of the Gentiles. But God, for the salvation of the deceived, permitted Himself to be worshipped through those very things through which they had previously worshipped demons, turning them for a time toward the better, so that He might gradually lead them away from their (own) custom, and lead them to a higher philosophy. This very method of His dispensation He therefore preserved in the Magi, whom He called through the appearance of the star, so that He might make them higher from that point on. After, therefore, He had brought them, and as if by hand had led them to the manger, with the star going before, He speaks to them no longer through the star, but through an angel, thus leading them C gradually to better things. It is read that He did this also to the Ascalonites and the Gazaeans, and their neighbors. For when those five cities, after a deadly plague had come upon them with the Ark coming towards them, were struck, and could find no liberation from such evils, having called the seers and having gathered a multitude of the people, they inquired how that anger of God could be appeased (1 Kings 5). Then their seers replied that they should yoke unbroken heifers, whose calves were still newborn, to the cart by which the Ark was being carried, and allow them to go where they willed, without anyone driving them: they said that it would thus appear whether that plague had come from God, or whether they had perished by some common accident and sickness (Ibid. 6). If, they said, they should break the yoke with a proud neck, and lowing should return to their calves, it is manifest that it happened by accident; but if they should strive on a straight path, and neither attempt to return to the lowing of the calves, nor turn aside into another region through error of path, it will clearly be evident that these cities have been struck by the hand of God. Because, therefore, the people of those regions believed the seers when they said these things, and fulfilled their command, God also, with His accustomed condescension, confirmed the opinion of the seers; nor did He think it unworthy of His majesty to bring the words of profane men to the effect of a deed, and to do so that they might seem to have faithfully advised these things. For it pertained to the greater glory of God if His power were made manifest even by the testimony of enemies, and if they themselves also of their paganism should bear a consonant opinion regarding the power of the man of God. And we find that God ordains many other things similar to these. For in the case of the pythoness also, He held to this tenor of His dispensation: which you yourselves can now solve according to the aforesaid rule (Ibid. 28). Let it therefore suffice that these things have been said by us regarding the occasion of the star, about which you will now be able to say more. For, he says, give to a wise man an opportunity, and he will be wiser (Prov. 9:9). 4. But it is time that we return to the beginning of the things that have been read. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod. And the Magi indeed followed the star going before: the Jews, however, did not believe even when the prophets were proclaiming it. By what reason does he designate both the place and the time, by saying, In Bethlehem, and, In the days of King Herod? And for what cause did he add the dignity? Which he certainly marked for this reason, because there was also another Herod, who killed John: but that one had the honour of a tetrarch, this one that of a king. And he places the place and the time, that he might call to our memory ancient prophecies: one of which Micah once foretold: And you, he says, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the princes of Judah (Mich. 5:2); the other, the patriarch Jacob, who once long ago diligently expressed the time itself to us, and placed an evident sign of the coming of Christ, saying: The prince shall not fail from Judah, nor the leader from his loins, until he comes to whom they are reserved: and he shall be the expectation of the Gentiles (Gen. 49:10). But that inquiry also is worthy: whence were they able to understand
A and who is believed to have stirred them to this? For it seems to me that it was not the star alone, but also God, by whom their soul was moved to this. B Someone may say that it is read that something similar was done by the king in Cyrus, preparing him to free the people of the Jews from the yoke of captivity (2 Paral. 36); yet He did not so work that as to break down the laws of free will. Indeed, since He also called Paul from heaven, He did not only show His own grace, but also caused his obedience to shine forth (Acts 9). And why, you ask, did He not rather reveal this to all? Because, of course, not all were going to believe. These men were indeed more prepared than all who were involved in that art. For even though very many other nations were perishing, yet the prophet was sent only to Nineveh: and two thieves hung beside the Lord, but only one was chosen for salvation. Consider therefore their virtue and admire it, not only because they endured such a long journey, but also because they acted so simply and freely with the king. For they would not be thought to have been sent secretly by anyone, and they disclose the leader of their journey, and acknowledge the great distance of the region, and show the confidence of their mind. "We have come," they say, "to worship him." And they fear neither the tumult of the people and the clamor, nor the power of the tyrant: whence it seems to me that they later became masters of their own citizens in their own region. For those who did not fear to say these things here, preached these same things much more freely to the men of their own fatherland: since besides the token of the star, they also had the response of angels and the testimony of the prophets. He heard, he says, King Herod, and was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him (Matt. 2:3). Herod indeed, logically, as king, and fearing for himself and his children alike, yet Jerusalem, what cause for fear did it have, when it surely had heard that he was the one whom the prophets had previously foretold as its Savior and Liberator? By what reasoning, therefore, were the Jews troubled? By the very perversity of their judgment, by which they had previously opposed the Lord who was conferring benefits: and they preferred that miserable slavery, which they had endured in Egypt, to the glory they had attained from liberty. But you, diligently consider the prophet. For this also the prophet had long ago foretold: "And they shall be burned with fire: for a child is born unto us, and a son is given unto us" (Isai. 9:5, 6). Although they were troubled, they did not strive to see what had been done, nor did they follow the magi to worship: nor in such a great and truly wondrous matter did they show any curiosity: so contentious and sluggish were they more than all others. For it was fitting for them to sense how much dignity had been added to them, by such a birth of the king, who had drawn the region of the Persians to himself by his triumphant rising, and under whom all peoples could be subjugated by laws, as things were rising to better circumstances, and a kingdom so clearly shining from the very beginning of its king. Yet not even so were they changed for the better, when they had been freed a little earlier from the Persian captivity. For it was entirely consequential for them to ponder in their mind, C that if they had learned of deeper and higher things, they would lose their happiness from the very novelty of the present things, and would rightly say: "If Persians are already trembling at our king now born, when will they be able to fear him once he is strengthened and they obey his commands?" They would then be truly more glorious than the kingdoms of all nations: but nothing of the sort stirred their minds. So great a torpor had beset them, and envy joined to it: and we must drive both these vices far from us. For it is necessary that he who fights against vice should kindle in himself a fervor of mind stronger than fire. Whence also the Lord says: "I have come to send fire upon the earth; and what do I will, but that it be kindled?" (Luc. 12:49)? Therefore the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of fire.
5. But let us not become colder, and more insensitive than the dead: and this while we see the blessed Paul himself flying above the heaven, and even above the heaven of heavens, and with fire more glowing than all things, and transcending all things, namely the infernal and the supernal, both things present as well as future, those that are, as well as those that are not. But if this example is above you (for what greater thing did Paul have, since you believe it impossible to imitate him?), let us nevertheless bring forth something more contentious, passing over Paul, and at least consider those who were the first to believe in Christ. For they left behind money, and possessions alike, and cares, and the occupations of this life, and gave themselves to God, adhering to His sermon with the whole of their days and nights. For this is the spiritual nature of the flame, which does not endure to burn with carnal pleasure, but always translates us into another love. And therefore the one who desires such things is forced to spend even all he possesses, if he is to perfectly accomplish the final goal, with great ease. For the fervor of this fire expels torpor and sloth from him whose breast it has once entered, and makes him who has been seized by it lighter than any other. Such a man, despising all things that are seen, continues in continuous compunction, flowing largely with tears, taking pleasure from this. For nothing so binds and unites to God as those tears which grief for sins and love of virtues pour forth. For such a one preserves the tenor of life, even if he seems to dwell in the midst of the city, he rests as if in the vastness of the desert, and among the solitudes of the mountains, and the secrets of the valleys. For he is not shaken by the tumult of things or the clamor: neither perceiving any satiety of such lamentation and tears, whether he laments his own sins or those of others. And therefore Christ declared these blessed above others, "Blessed," he says, "are they that mourn" (Matth. 5, 4).
A 5. And just as you say, Paul says: "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil. 4, 4). He said this, I confess; but he meant, without doubt, the joy that is born of these tears. Just as worldly joy is linked to the company of sadness, so too, second to the Lord, tears beget a certain and steadfast gladness. Even that sinner in the Gospel surpassed the virgins themselves in honesty, and, inflamed by an incredible fire of love for Christ, was cleansed by a most abundant fountain of tears for the most filth of sins. For because she had been perfectly inflamed by repentance, she began, so to speak, to be agitated by a desire for Christ. For she immediately loosened her hair, and washed his holy feet with abundant tears, and wiped them with her own hair, and bedewed them with precious ointment. B And indeed, she did all this externally; but the things she was revolving in the secret of her mind were much more fiery, and much greater, which God alone saw. And therefore, everyone who hears this rejoices with her, and exults in her virtue, and judges her completely alien to every crime. You, therefore, who have heard this strong resolution of hers in conversion, understand how great a bounty you already possess from the liberality of the kind God, and how many fruits of good things you are gathering for yourself from repentance itself even before the day of retribution. For just as the earth is made pure after violent rains, so is the serenity of the mind followed by the rain of tears, and that tranquility, and all that darkness poured over by the shadows of sins, is dissolved. C And as, if water and Spirit are used again, we are cleansed through tears and confession, provided we do not do this for ostentation and praise. For if one has a view of such weeping, it is the more worthy of blame, as it is colored by the beauty of the body, and painted by artifice. I seek, I say, tears, which do not benefit for ostentation, but for compunction: which are poured out secretly, and which flow from that source, which are hidden in the treasury of the conscience, and are concealed in the recesses of the heart, which are shed for the afflicted cheeks without being seen by any men, which spring forth in the highest silence and quiet, and which bubble up from the depths of the heart, and are born from tribulation and pain, and which are offered to the eyes of God alone. Such certainly were the tears of Anna D of old, of whom it is said: "Her lips moved, but her voice was not heard" (1 Reg. 1, 13). And her tears alone sent forth a voice to the Lord stronger than any trumpet: and therefore God changed her barrenness into fertility, and rendered her field fertile, as it were, from hard rock.
6. If, therefore, you also shed such tears, you will be made an imitator of your Lord, for he himself wept and raised Lazarus, and when he was about to storm the city (Joan. 11, 35; Luc. 19, 41). But he was also troubled at the same time by the betrayal and destruction of Judas. Therefore, you will often find him weeping, but never laughing, nor even slightly smiling with delight. No evangelist has surely recorded that. For concerning what Paul wept, and that he did it for three years night and day, and others testify concerning him, and he himself testifies of himself. But that he laughed, 1038 neither he himself ever showed, nor does anyone else point it out. But neither does any narrative of the saints, whether of himself or of another, ever signify that such a thing was done. We read this said of Sarah alone, but she was rebuked by the voice of God. A And for the son of Noah, but because of laughter a servant was made from a free man. And I say this not that I may cut off laughter altogether, but that I may utterly extinguish dissoluteness. For because of this thing, in gratitude, and in flow, you will have become the cause of evils for yourself *spontaneously*, and before the tribunal of Christ that terrible standing, and the reckoning on account of all deeds with the highest examination, where it will be not only for what we do because of will and purpose, but even what we commit because we are forced. For he says, "Whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father" (Matth. 10, 35). And it happens that it is often a matter of extorting some denial of God, but one does not escape this punishment. For we pay penalties for this also. B Nor are we punished for these things alone, which we know, but even for those which we do not know. "I am not conscious of anything," says the Apostle, "but I am not justified in this" (1 Cor. 4, 4). And what about those which we commit through ignorance and knowledge? "I bear witness," he says, "that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge" (Rom. 10, 2). Nevertheless, this is not at all sufficient for them for purgation. But writing to the Corinthians, "I fear," he says, "lest as the serpent seduced Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted, and you may fall from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus" (2 Cor. 11, 3). Since, therefore, you are about to give an account for so many sins, do you sit secure in miserable laughter, and in lamentable witticisms at the same time, while destroying others, and, solicitous only for the pleasure of delights, contemning eternal goods? C But I did not do that, but have been converted to mourning and tears; what fruit, at length, shall I take? For in the judgment of the ages, no matter how much you lament and weep after receiving the sentence, you do not escape the punishment: here, however, you groan to God with your whole heart, and, having been loosened from the expected sentence, you have obtained forgiveness. Therefore, Christ speaks much to us of mourning, and by pronouncing the weeping blessed, and the laughing wretched. For not in the theater, where laughter is stirred up, and we do not come together frequently for that reason, so that we may be dissolved in indecent guffaws: but rather let us groan, and we shall inherit the kingdom from this groaning in the future. For you, indeed, stand before an earthly king, and do not dare to smile *at all*: but having the Lord of angels everywhere present, you do not stand before him with trembling and the greatest reverence; D but even when he is enraged, you laugh, and do not see that you stir him up all the more when you laugh, than when you are sinning. For he does not turn away from those who are sinning, as he does from those who are secure in their sins. And yet there are found some so senseless even after these words, that they say: For my part, I wish that I never
but rather it should be granted to me by God to play and to laugh at all times. What, I pray, could be found more childish than such a mind? For it is not God who gives us leave to play, but the devil. Hear, therefore, what those who were once playing suffered. The people, it says, sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play (Exod. 32. 6). Such were those of old in Sodom, such were they also in the time of the flood. For the Lord says even of them: Because of pride, and fullness of bread, and abundance of riches, they abounded (Ezech. 16. 49). They, too, who in Noah’s time, while they saw the ark being built for so many years, fled from every pain of compunction, and served only a wicked and seductive pleasure, were not at all concerned for the future; and therefore, the sudden penalty of the flood drowned them all, and there was a common shipwreck of the whole world. B
…soul, trembling, humbled, chaste, penitent, and compunctious. For these are the gifts of God, because we have the greatest need of such things. For a great contest is imminent for us, and we must wrestle against invisible powers, against spiritual wickedness, and against principalities and powers of this kind (Ephes. 6. 12); and it is well with us if, by applying strenuous effort, and living soberly, and being vigilant, we can withstand their fierce host. But if we laugh and play, fostering perpetual sloth, we shall most easily be overcome by our own torpor even before the battle. It is not for us, therefore, to be constantly laughing, to be dissolved in laughter, to be softened by delights: but that belongs rather to those who are viewed in the theaters, who are defiled in brothels, to those who are made for this purpose, [namely] parasites and flatterers. It is not, I say, for those who have been called to the eternal kingdom, and who are enrolled in that heavenly city, it is not for those who bear spiritual arms: for this is certainly characteristic of those who serve the devil. C For it is he, he who has even organized jokes and games into a craft, so that through these he might draw to himself the soldiers of Christ, and might make the sinews of their virtue softer. Therefore he has built theaters even in the cities, and has prepared these instigators of laughter and filthy pleasures, and through that plague of theirs, he stirs up such a pestilence throughout the whole city. Which things the blessed Paul orders us to flee (Ephes. 5. 4), persuading us to cast from us far away both foolishness and scurrility: of which laughter is much more pernicious, and nothing is worse. For when those mimes and ridiculous buffoons have said something blasphemous and shameful, then especially do the more foolish ones dissolve into laughter: and they applaud them the more, from where they should have driven them away with stones, those who kindle against their own heads a furnace of horrific fire from such pleasure. For those who praise them as they speak, themselves persuade them to practice these things, and therefore they themselves rather deserve to undergo on account of these things the punishment which is decreed for them. For if there were no spectator or patron of such things, there would not even be any who would care to say them, or to act them out. But when they see you, and your own wives, and the places for your daily work, and [your] wealth which you have prepared from these [efforts], and that you abandon absolutely everything at once for the love of that vainest spectacle, they are snatched away more eagerly to these things, and they devote greater study to them. And I say this not so that I may seem to absolve them of the crime, but so that you may learn that you yourselves are the beginning and head of this iniquity, who consume the whole day in such ridiculous, and indeed such pernicious, pleasure, and make public the honest and reverend name of marriage for that business. For he who pretends these things does not offend so much as you, who command that this be done. And not only do you command it, but also by exultation, laughter, and applause you assist what is being done, and by every means whatever you foster this workshop of the devil. With what eyes, then, will you now look upon your wife at home, whom you saw there in the person of another, subject to such injury? Or how are you not suffused with shame, as often as you remember your wife, when you saw the same sex so basely made public there. D
…it exists, not even the truth of things. For this simulation has made very many adulterers, and has subverted many homes. And for this reason I grieve most of all, that this great evil is not believed to be an evil: but, what is much worse, favor, and clamor, and applause and laughter are applied, when adultery is committed so shamefully to the common ruin. What then do you say, “It is simulation, not a crime”? And for this reason they are deserving of a thousand deaths: because the things which all laws whatsoever command us to flee, these they do not fear to imitate. For if adultery is an evil, its imitation is without a doubt an evil. And I do not yet say how many adulterers they make who represent such adulteries with histrionic simulation, just as they also make the shameless spectators of them. For nothing is indeed more obscene than that eye, and nothing more lascivious, than the one who can look upon such things patiently, not to mention willingly. Then what kind of thing is it, that when you do not wish to see a naked woman in the street, nay, not even at home either, and even if it should happen by chance, you think it has been done to your injury: but when you ascend the theater, to violate the modesty of both sexes, and to defile your own gaze likewise, you believe that nothing inhonest is happening to you? For do not say this, “She who is naked is a harlot”: but because it is nature itself, and the same body belongs both to the harlot and to the free woman. For if you think there is nothing obscene in such a thing, by what grace, when you see the same thing in the street, do you recoil from your intended walk, and more severely rebuke her impudence? Unless perhaps you believe that the same thing is not equally shameful when we are separated, and when we all sit together in one place. But that is laughter indeed, and disgrace, and words of the utmost madness: and it is better to smear one’s whole face with mud and filth than to be a spectator of such filthiness. For mud is not as harmful to the eyes as that impudic countenance, and the sight of a naked harlot. Hear, therefore, what from the beginning has introduced nakedness to the human race, and even in this way fear that shame…
B
HOMILY SEVEN ON CHAPTER II.
*And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where Christ should be born. But they said to him, In Bethlehem of Judea.*
1. You have surely seen how the preceding discourse shows that everything done was entirely for the refutation of the Jews: those who, before they saw Christ and were infected with the poison of envy, simply recited the aforementioned testimonies concerning him; but when they beheld his glory flashing forth from miracles, overcome by malice, they suppressed the truth. But by these very things, it grew all the more, and was helped even by its own enemies. Consider also in this place how unforeseen and how wonderful things come to pass: since they teach in turn, and learn something from each other—the Jews, that is, and the Persians. For the Jews indeed hear from the Magi that a star had proclaimed him in the region of Persia: the Magi, however, learn from the Jews that the same Jesus, whom the star had pointed out, had even been predicted by the prophets before. Such an occasion for interrogation, indeed, becomes a more diligent and manifest demonstration of doctrine. The enemies of the truth themselves are compelled, on behalf of the truth, to read the scriptures and to interpret the prophecy concerning Christ for those who do not know it, even if they did not wish to publish it entirely. For when they said that he who should rule Israel was to come from Bethlehem, they by no means added what follows, in their flattery of the king, truly: so that they might prefer human gain and the damage of the truth. But what was that? *And his goings forth,* he says, *are from the days of eternity, from the beginning* (Micah 5:2). And for what reason, you will ask, if he was to come from there, as it was foretold, did he delay for some time in Nazareth, by which he even obscured the truth of the prophecy itself? Rather, he did not obscure it, but if you consider it, he even revealed it more. For this very thing, that his mother always dwelled in Nazareth, who bore him in Bethlehem, shows by reason and providence that the matter was fulfilled. And therefore, he did not come to his own city immediately as he was born, but delayed for forty days in Bethlehem: so that he might offer an occasion for inquiry to those who wished to search for all things concerning him more diligently. For there were many things which would have made manifest what was hidden, if only they had wished to investigate. Since, with the Magi coming for his sake from the extreme East, the whole people was suspended in wonder: but also the king himself with the people, and the prophet was brought into the midst as if a witness, and a great show of judgment took place. But other things also were done then, which Luke carefully weaves together, setting forth the testimonies of Anna the widow, and of Simeon the just, and of Zacharias the priest, and of the angels singing, and of the shepherds exulting in harmony regarding the majesty of the child: all of which were sufficiently suitable for those intending their minds to provide an occasion for discerning what had happened. For if the Magi coming from Persia did not remain ignorant of the place where he was born; how much more could those who were dwelling there learn everything? He showed himself, therefore, from the beginning of his birth, by the testimony of many wonders. But because they did not wish to see such shining things, he hid himself for a certain time: but again he showed himself in another way, and indeed by a testimony of power much clearer. For no longer did the Magi, nor the star, nor the angels declare him, but the Father himself from heaven. For when he was standing at the waters of the Jordan, the Holy Spirit also arrived, bringing that voice of the Father over the head of the baptized one, and John with all freedom of speech, exhorting the multitude of those coming to him, filled the whole of Judea, the inhabited places, and the deserts, with the light of this preaching. The testimony of the signs was also great: for both the earth, and the sea, and all creation resounded with a most clear voice for Christ. At the very time of his virginal birth, miracles were done which could abundantly demonstrate the majesty of the one being born. For lest they should say, "We were ignorant when and in what region he was born": both those things from the Magi were fulfilled, and others, as we have said, many more, so that no color of excuse would remain for those who did not wish to inquire about what had been fulfilled.
2. Furthermore, consider the diligence of the prophet himself. For he does not say that he will remain in Bethlehem: but *he will proceed from Bethlehem,* he says: so that he may be seen to have prophesied significantly that he would only be born there. But some, impudently bold, say that these things were predicted concerning Zorobabel. But by what reasoning is this defended? For it does not fit him that his *goings forth from the beginning, from the days of eternity,* should be said of him. How, moreover, can that which was said before, *From you shall come forth a leader,* agree with Zorobabel, who is taught to have been born not in Judea, but in Babylon? From whence he even received his name, namely, because he was sown there as an offspring? Whoever has a skill in the Syriac language understands indeed what we are saying.
A But regarding this matter, let us proceed to the testimony of the events themselves, which confirms the truth of what was predicted concerning Christ. For what does it say? "You are by no means the least among the princes of Judah." It adds also the cause that made it great and illustrious, saying: "Out of you," it says, "shall come a leader." For no one at all, besides Christ, made that region bright and noble. For after Him, indeed, there comes a strange and admirable birth, and from the furthest ends of the earth they come to visit that dwelling and the place of the manger. This certainly the prophetic word marked long ago, saying: "You are by no means the least among the princes of Judah" (Mich. 5. 2)—that is, among the princes of the tribes. By saying this, He also comprehends Jerusalem as well. But He did not wish to point to the Jews in this way, and certainly the greatest usefulness was to be brought to them. Therefore, in the beginning, He does not speak so much of the dignity of *that* prophet, as of the benefit which it was to bestow upon them to the greatest degree. For when the birth of the Virgin was at hand, it says: "You shall call His name Jesus," and it added, saying: "He shall save His people from their sins." And indeed, even where He is born, he is not called the Son of God; but, "He who is born," they say, "is the King of the Jews." About this, the prophet did not say, "The Son of God shall come forth," but, "A leader," he says, "who shall rule My people Israel." For it was necessary that by condescension—and by the more humble beginning of the sermon of preaching—the truth, suddenly revealed, should not stir up the minds of the uninitiated to scandal. Therefore, those things were preached at first which pertained to their own salvation, so that, by the benefit offered to them in the meantime, they might be enticed to accept the King. Whatever, therefore, are the first testimonies brought forward, and whatever was the time immediately after His birth, they say nothing of that supreme thing, nothing sublime, nothing similar in testimonies shown after the demonstration of signs. For they speak of His power and more certainly, and more clearly. For when, after the incomparable miracles He had done, boys sang hymns to Him, I listen: "Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have perfected praise" (Ps. 8. 3); and again: "For I shall behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers" (Ibid. v. 4): which indeed shows Him to be the Maker of the universe. That testimony, also, by which His assumption into heaven is signaled, shows His equality with the Father. "The Lord," it says, "said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand" (Ps. 109. 1). Isaiah also says: "He who rises up to be a prince of the Gentiles, in Him shall the nations hope" (Is. 11. 10). B How then did He say, "Bethlehem is not the least among the princes of Judah"? Because, in truth, not in all Palestine only, but throughout the whole world, that place became illustrious because of Him. But he added, "Who shall rule My people Israel." Certainly, He became the ruler of the whole world: but, as I have said, not wishing in the meantime to offend the Jews, he concealed the word of the calling of the Gentiles. And how, he says, did He not rule the people of the Jews? And this was indeed properly done: yet here He calls all "Israel" who believed from the Jewish and Gentile people. And about this, the interpreting apostle said: "For not all who are of Israel are Israelites; but whoever are born through the faith of the promise" (Rom. 9. 6). But if He ruled over all, the crime of those who called Him is great. Since it was necessary to adore Him the more, and to glorify God, because such a time is now at hand in which all the sins of theirs are resolved; for in that place they hear nothing of the terror of judgment, nothing of the threat of punishment, but only of a gentle and mild ruler; conversely, they are disturbed and confounded, and a thousand plots are devised after these things. "Then Herod," it says, "having secretly called the magi, diligently learned from them the time of the star which appeared to them": desiring to kill the boy from afar: which was an indication not only of fury, but also of extreme folly. For those things which were done, and those things which were said, were sufficient to deter anyone from such an attempt. For not from men were those things that taught them of this born King. Indeed, that the star called the magi from heaven, and that barbarian men endured the labor of a long journey, and adored in swaddling clothes and set him in a manger; that long ago the prophet predicted all these things, and other things of that kind were far greater than what could be believed to happen according to human power: yet he ignored nothing of all these.
3. For such is the vice of wickedness, that it, impelled by nothing, usually rushes headlong, and strives to accomplish things that are often burdensome and impossible without the effect of the work. Consider, therefore, his singular insanity. For if he believed the prophets themselves, he thought it invincible, and that it was glorious to struggle against impossibilities. But if he did not at all believe that those things would happen which were predicted so long before, he should have feared nothing, nor plotted against the boy. From both sides, therefore, the profitless attempt is proven to be of deceit itself. But the fact that he hoped to be able to destroy the knowledge of the magi, and the same point, shows the insanity of his mind. For it was of extreme insanity, that he should believe the magi to be more estimable than Him in whose honor, though barely born, they had finished the journeys of so many regions. For if he poured himself into a desire for Him even before they had seen Him, and when the prophet had been confirmed by the prediction, how could he believe them to be traitors to the boy? Yet, while there were so many things that could lead him away from the harmful intention, he strives to accomplish things that are by no means desired. Since "having secretly called the magi," he was inquiring from them, not out of concern for the boy's safety, nor to that extent did they burst out into fury, that they would wish to hand over their protector and Savior, and the one following the liberation of his race by force of arms. Therefore, he secretly seeks the magi, and with solicitation asks for the time, not of the boy, but of the star: and being greedy for the most cruel hunt, he lays plots with much pageantry. For it is reasonably concluded that the star itself appeared long before the time of the birth. Because indeed the magi were to be delayed by the length of their journey, so that they might soon be present to the born boy, whom the dignity of the thing, even while still in swaddling clothes, made manifest via miracles.
A For if when the boy was born in Palestine, the star had appeared to them in Persia, they would have spent much time on the journey, and could never have found him still in swaddling clothes. And if Herod killed the infants within a span of two years and under, do not marvel. For as he came to meet that tyrant in fear and fury, from an abundance of caution and the license of persecution, he included even a greater span of time; so that, truly, the one on whose account others were killed, and perhaps he is the one in particular, might escape.
When therefore he had called them, "Go," he says, "and ask diligently of the boy, and when you have found him, tell me, that I also may come and worship him." Indeed, consider the guile of the tyrant mixed with foolishness? For if these things are to be said, by what reasoning are you led to ask secretly? Or if you do not understand this, is not the deception more clearly revealed than by that secret inquiry? But, as we mentioned a little before, the soul caught by malice becomes more foolish than all others. And he did not say, "Go, learn of the king," but, "of the boy," he says; so even then the name of power is made manifest. But the magi, because of their great piety, suspect nothing evil at all. For they did not suppose that he would be emboldened to such malice, as to dare to lay snares against one born by such a marvelous dispensation. They depart, therefore, suspecting nothing evil at all, but judging others by the simplicity of their own minds. And indeed, the star which they had seen in the East went before them. B For this reason, it had withdrawn for some time, so that, by losing their guide, they would be forced to ask the Jews about the boy, and bring the matter to everyone's notice. But when they had asked, and had brought the boys' enemies to know his dignity, his star appeared again.
But consider the truly marvelous order of events: from Persia it leads them all the way to Jerusalem, then the star leaves them to the people of the Jews and King Herod, and it brings in the prophets, that what had appeared might be preached. After the prophet, it receives them again from the angel, and instructs them in all things: formerly as far as Jerusalem, and now to Bethlehem itself it arrives as their guide. For the star had accompanied them from there again: that you might learn from this that it was not one thing and the rest another. For it did not go because of the magi only, but it went before them in a way, as if taking them by the hand and drawing them, and showing the road, while the day was shining, and the sun was brilliant.
4. And what need was there, you ask, of this star, when surely that village had already been found? Without doubt it would be seen and the boy. Nor was there anything else that could point him out, when the house itself was not visible, nor is the mother celebrated as someone famous, or noble. Therefore it was the star, which would stand directly above the roof of the dwelling itself, and because it appeared again to those departing from Jerusalem, and did not cease from its course until they had arrived at the very manger. And two miracles are joined together at once: it was a thing to be marveled at that they should worship the boy, and that the star should lead them to worship him: which surely are such that they can absolutely draw even stony minds to the light of God. C For if the magi had said that they had received this from the prophets, or that angels had spoken to them in particular, certainly faith would not have been placed in them. But now, when the radiance of the star shines from above, even the most shameless are struck dumb. Then, when it was close to the boy, again the star stopped its course: which itself was of greater virtue than the nature of the star inherent, now, namely, to be hidden, now to appear, and where it appeared, to stop its course. Hereupon the magi also received increments of faith. For this reason also they rejoiced, because they had found what they sought, what they desired, because they had been effective messengers of truth, and because they had not labored in vain for a great length of the way: being so inflamed with desire for Christ. For arriving at the place of the star, it stood above the very head of the boy, pointing out indeed that the Son is He who was born. And when it had stopped there, it brings them to worship, not simply as barbarians, but as those who among them were far superior in the dignity of wisdom.
Do you see, therefore, how this star appeared deservedly? For though it had the testimony of the prophets, and after that the interpretation of the scribes, it nonetheless used the magi as teachers. Let Marcion blush, let Paul of Samosata blush, who do not wish to see the magi, the progenitors of the Church. By no means would I now blush for them. Let them be confounded, I say, seeing the Lord worshiped in the assumption of flesh by Marcion: D let Paul be confounded, seeing him worshiped not as a man, whom he only suspected to be a man. For because he shows the swaddling clothes and the manger, what is naked, that is, that not only do they worship a man, he plainly declares, that he bears the honor of gifts, which they are accustomed to offer to God. Let the nation of the Jews be confounded with them, seeing the magi, who are barbarians, arriving at faith in Christ, when they themselves refuse to come even after them: for that which was done then, was to express the figure of the future. Indeed, from the very beginning of the Lord's advent, it was declared that the faith of the Gentiles would anticipate that people. And not from the beginning, he says, but in the end: "Go, teach," he says, "all nations" (Matt. 28.19). Because, as we mentioned a little before, it was a figure of what happened then, and a kind of preaching of future things. Since, then, they who were first called to faith, the Jews, rather rejected the benefit offered to them of their own accord, the opposite happened. Moreover, not even the magi, before the Jews, were owed the right to worship the child. Truly, it is too much that they are convicted of sloth, who, according to him, were settled directly in the place of the Lord's birth, and yet arrive after him who had traversed the spaces of regions: and these who heard nothing at all of Christ, outrun them to accept him, urged by the prophecies of the prophets. Because that famous domestic good was ignored, it is no wonder that from Persia these things
A were snatched away. That is certainly what Paul also says: "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you; but since you thrust it aside, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles" (Acts 13:46). Even though they previously remained unbelieving, nevertheless, after they heard that same word from the Magi, they ought to have flown to Christ immediately. But they certainly did not want to, and therefore, while they slept, the others outran them.
5. Let us, then, at least imitate the devotion of the Magi, and subject our B barbarian custom to the true love of philosophy. Let us run on a long journey, so that we may deserve to see Christ. For even they, had they not left their own region far behind, could by no means have seen Christ. Let us therefore withdraw from earthly businesses and cares. For those Magi, while they still remained in Persia, saw only the star: but because they departed from Persia, they looked upon the Sun of justice himself; for they would certainly not have deserved to see even the star for so long, had they not quickly departed from Persia. Let us arise, therefore, also, and although everyone may be troubled, let us nonetheless be eager and ready to run to the house of the Child. Even if a king, even if a people, even if a tyrant of this world wants to hinder the course of our journey, let us by no means quench the heat of our kindled desire. For thus we shall trample upon all adverse things: since even they, had they not seen the Child, would not have avoided the danger that was being threatened by the king. For before they looked upon the Child, fears, C disturbances, and dangers were set against them on every side. But after they adored, security and tranquility followed. And now it is no longer the star, but an angel that takes them up: because, namely, by adoring they had become priests, with supplication also and offered gifts. And do you, therefore, leaving behind the Jewish people resisting, the city disturbed, the tyrant seeking slaughter, and the deceitful shadow of this age, run hastily to Bethlehem, and enter the house of the spiritual bread. For even if you are a shepherd, and have arrived there, you will see the Child in the inn. Even if you are a king, and have not approached with devotion, it will profit nothing at all to be surrounded by the splendor of purple. Even if you are perhaps a magus, nothing will prohibit you from entering to this King, provided that you come not as one about to trample him, but as one about to adore and honor the Son of God: provided that you offer honor itself with joy and trembling; for both these things can equally meet. But beware lest you be made like Herod, and say, "That I also coming may adore him," D and when you have come, you attempt to kill him. For those are like him who unworthily abuse the communion of the mystery. For "he is guilty," he says, "of the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor. 11:27). For those who are of such a kind have within themselves a tyrant, and one who constantly envies the kingdom of Christ, namely, mammon, who is far more wicked than that Herod. For this one desires to hold sway over men, and feigns that he is their worshiper, and sends them to Christ, so that in appearance indeed they may seem to adore; but as much as is in them, they kill Him, whom they pretend to adore. Let us fear, therefore, lest at any time we wear the appearance of suppliants and adorers, but in deed be enemies. Therefore, let us, about to adore Christ, cast all things from our hands. If we have gold, let us offer it to Him, and not bury it in the earth. For if those barbarians then willingly offered gold in honor of the Lord alone: what will you be, if you do not bestow it upon Him when He is in need? They ran such a long journey so that they might see the One born: but you, by what satisfaction at all will you be able to be absolved, who do not even cross the space of a short street to visit one afflicted with sickness and bound in chains? And surely we are accustomed to pity the sick and the imprisoned, even if they are our enemies: but you are not moved by this affection even toward your own Lord, and Him who is the author of so many good things for you? And those, we read, offered gold, but you barely give even bread. They saw the star, and were glad: but you, looking upon Christ Himself, a stranger and naked, are not moved. For who among you, who are obligated by countless benefits of Christ, has undertaken the labor of such a distant expedition for his sake, as those barbarians did, or rather, truly wiser than the wise? But why do I speak of the space of a long journey, when so many already are dissolved by such softness of mind, that unless they are carried by mules, they are unable to come – even from howsoever small a distance from their homes – to see the Lord in the spiritual manger? But from those also who certainly bear the labor of walking, some prefer the tumults of secular affairs, others theatrical crowds to holy assemblies. And those barbarians indeed, before they saw Christ, overcame such a long way for His sake: but you, not even after you have seen Him, are proved to imitate them. For even when you have seen Him, you leave Him in such a way, that after Him you run to the theaters, and desire rather to see and hear a mime. And so that I may touch again upon the same things that I have attacked before: you abandon Christ placed in the spiritual manger, but you hasten to watch a harlot lying on the stage. Of what punishments at length do we think this is worthy? 6. Answer me, I beg, if someone promised to introduce you to a king, and showed him to you gleaming on every side, and sitting among various ornaments of his own royal procession, would you think of preferring a theatrical spectacle to the dignity of the court, since certainly not even from this would any profit be sought by you? But truly, from this table, the fountain of spiritual goods emanates, and you, immediately abandoning this, run to the theater so that you may gaze upon swimming women, and that sex exposed to public eyes: so that, I say, you may gaze upon that, [leaving] Christ seated beside the heavenly gifts.
A And you suffer the shipwreck of your soul. That water, in truth, is a certain vast sea of luxury, in which bodies are not submerged, but shipwreck is brought upon souls. For she, indeed, plays naked, swimming in the midst of the waters, while you, looking down from a high vantage point, are plunged into the depths of lust. For these are the nets of the devil; they catch people not so much by their descending into that water and wallowing there, as by their sitting above. For these are suffocated much more cruelly than that Pharaoh of old, who was drowned with his chariots and horsemen. B Indeed, if there were any way that I could show you the souls floating upon those waves, they would surely appear no differently than those bodies of the Egyptians were seen rolling in the flood. But this is much more dangerous: that they call such great destruction "pleasure," and term that vast sea of perdition a "channel of delight"—when truly one could cross the Aegean or the Tyrrhenian Sea more easily and safely than the appalling perils of that spectacle. For, to begin with, the devil tempts the hearts of such men throughout the entire night with extreme anxiety and expectation; then he exhibits what had been so eagerly awaited, by which he immediately binds them and leads them away captive. Nor, if you do not have sexual relations with a harlot, should you think yourself immune from sin, when you have committed the whole thing in your will. C For if you are possessed by such concupiscence, you will surely be kindled by a greater flame. But if, on the other hand, you suffer nothing while beholding these things, you are nonetheless held accountable for the sin, having become a scandal to others, and by encouraging such pleasures, you confuse your own vision, and your soul along with your face. But so that we may not seem to act only by rebuke, let us now suggest remedies for correction. What, then, is this method of amendment? I entrust you to be taught by your wives, though surely it ought to be, according to the apostle, that you should rather be the teachers of your wives. D But because the order has been overturned through sin, and the body has been made superior and the head inferior, let it at least not be shameful to return by this path to what is honorable. But if you blush at the tutelage of a woman, flee from sin, and you will quickly be able to ascend to the throne of a teacher, which is ordained for you by God. As long as you continue to sin, Scripture refers you not only to a woman, but even to irrational and most base animals. For it does not blush, having been gifted with the honor of reason, to make one a disciple of the bee and the ant; yet this is not the fault of Scripture, but of those who have lost their own nobility. Therefore, we also will take care to do this. And for now, we assign you to be taught by your wife; but if you contemptuously disregard her admonitions, we will relegate you to the teaching of irrational creatures. For we will show you how many birds and fish, and how many kinds of cattle and reptiles, surpass you in honor and chastity. But if you feel ashamed to be compared to such animals, return to the badge of your own nobility, and remembering that vast sea of Gehenna and the fiery river, flee that pestilent pool of the theater. For this is what plunges its spectators into that flaming sea, and what kindles the depth of that fire.
7. For if he who sees a woman even without these incitements is sometimes drawn to covet, and by merely coveting commits adultery—he who not only sees, but sees her altogether naked and acting wantonly, how is he not rendered a captive of libido a thousand times over? A That flood which we read of under Noah did not so extinguish the race of men, as these female swimmers suffocate all their spectators with great disgrace. For while that rain of old brought death to bodies, it nevertheless simultaneously destroyed the vices of souls. This water, however, does the opposite: it works the destruction of souls while the bodies remain in life. But you, if any struggle arises regarding honor, contend with all ambition so that you might preside over the whole world: flattering yourselves with that privilege, that this first city imposed the name of Christians upon the faithful (Act. 11. 26). When, however, it is time to struggle for honor and chastity, is it not shameful to be surpassed even by the vilest characters? "Certainly," you say. What, then, do you bid us do? To go into remote mountains and become monks? And what else do I lament, than that you alone think that an honorable and ordered life is fitting for them? B And yet Christ established precepts common to all. For where He says, *If anyone has looked at a woman to lust after her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart* (Matth. 5. 28), it is said not only to the monk, but also to the husband. For that mountain, on which Christ was teaching these things, was filled with almost all such people. Consider, therefore, that theater and those diabolical assemblies, and do not blame the discourse as if it were too burdensome. For I do not forbid marriages, nor do I impede free pleasure: but I wish it to be done with honor, not with obscenity or crime. I do not order you to go into mountains and solitudes: but to be kind, and honorable, and constantly modest, even while living in the midst of the city if you please. C For all the commands of the law are common to us and to the monks, except only for the bond of marriage: although the blessed Paul admonishes even here, desiring to equate us in all things with the monks. *The time*, he says, *is short: it remains that those who have wives should be as though they had none: for the figure of this world is passing away* (1 Cor. 7. 29). As if to say: I do not order you to dwell on the mountain tops, although I would indeed wish even that, because the cities imitate those things which were perpetrated in Sodom: yet I do not by any means compel you to that. Remain having a house, a wife, and children, only do not make them spectators...
of things that are not to be named, and do not prioritize such foul acts over all honest and holy things. Therefore, lest I seem too burdensome, I will bring my discourse to a close here. But if you persist in the same, I shall cut deeper with sharper iron and a more profound incision: nor shall I ever rest, until I have scattered that diabolical theater, so that the world may return pure and holy to the Church. For thus we shall be freed from present shame, and shall acquire the life to come, by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.
HOMILY EIGHT, ON CHAPTER II
A *And when they had entered the house, they found the child with Mary his mother: and falling down they adored him: and when they had opened their treasures, they offered to him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.*
1. How then, one might ask, was he placed in a manger? Truly, because when he was born, he immediately laid him there. For it was very difficult to find a vacant house anywhere, due to the gathering and multitude of the Jews, whom the census had collected in one place at that time; which Luke certainly expressed clearly, saying: *And he laid him in a manger, because there was no room for him in the inn* (Luke 2:7). But afterwards he took him up and placed him in his own bosom. For as soon as she entered Bethlehem, she quickly completed the childbirth: that you might from this also recognize the whole dispensation: that these things did not occur by chance, nor simply, but according to the providence of God, and all things were completed in accordance with the prophets. But what is it that persuaded them to adore the child B more? For neither was the Virgin herself noble, nor was the house in which he dwelt illustrious, nor was there anything of all those things which appeared of such a kind that it should cause more admiration and draw them to adore the child. But yet they not only adore, but also, having opened their treasures, they offer gifts—and gifts certainly more fitting for God than for a man. For incense and myrrh were most appropriate to him. What then is that which persuaded them, having abandoned both house and country, to traverse the distances of such a journey? That, without doubt, was done by the star they had seen and by the light bestowed from God, which had shone in their minds like another star, and gradually led them on to more perfect knowledge. For since all other things were mean, if that had not excited their minds, surely they would never have offered so much honor to the little child. Therefore, nothing great is seen there in those sensible things, but a narrow hovel, and a mean manger, and a poor mother, so that the philosophy of the Magi might shine forth even more nakedly: and that you might learn that they worshiped not as to a man only, but also as to God, the author of all good things. Therefore, they were offended by nothing of those things which were seen externally, but both faithfully adored the child and suppliantly offered gifts, C which nevertheless were very widely removed from the crudity of the Jews, and were in accordance with ecclesiastical philosophy. For they offered knowledge, and obedience, and charity, in a symbolic manner: not sheep, not calves. *But having received an answer*, it says, *in sleep, that they should not return to Herod, they returned by another way to their own country.* Consider, therefore, also in this place the admirable faith of the Magi, who are moved to no scandal by this: but remain obedient and flexible to all the acts, and are not in the least troubled, nor do they dispute among themselves, saying: "If this child were something great, and possessed some power, what need would there be for us, his adorers, to flee and make a secret departure? Why, indeed, are we, who have come openly and freely, and who fear neither the tumult of such a great people, nor the fury of a tyrant, driven away from the city by an angel like some exiles and fugitives?" But they neither utter nor conceive any such thing in their mind. For this is the mark of faith, to obey him who commands without any controversy, and not to demand any reason for the command. When they had departed, *behold an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, saying: Arise, and take the child, and his mother, and fly into Egypt.* I deem it worthy in this place to confess a certain trepidation of mind, and to doubt concerning the Magi, as well as the child. For although they were not troubled, but faithfully accepted all things, it is nevertheless worthy for us to scrutinize why the Magi are not preserved while also present, and the child: but they indeed return to Persia, while he, with his mother, flees into Egypt: although it would seem that he was much more likely to fall into the hands of Herod: yet he would not have been killed if he had fallen, but would have been vindicated by the clear aid of divinity. D Yet, with things fulfilled in this way, it would not have been believed that he had truly assumed flesh, and the sacraments of so great a mystery would waver even today. For if, even when these things have been done, and things have been dispensed according to the reason of human nature; yet some have dared to say that the assumption of flesh was a certain fable: into what precipices of impiety would they not have fallen, if all things had been done according to what is worthy of God, and according to the power of his own virtue. He sends the Magi away quickly, and at the same time sends teachers to the region of the Persians, rendering the fury of the tyrant ineffective: that he may learn that he is attempting impossible things, and...
and may remove himself from the pursuit of vain labor. Moreover, it is worthy of the divine power not only to crush enemies openly, but even to deceive them with complete ease. For thus He also beguiled the Egyptians for the benefit of His own people; and although He could have transferred their riches into the hands of the Jews openly, He preferred to do this secretly, and commanded them to deceive [the Egyptians]: a thing which certainly made Him no less terrible to these enemies than other signs. And having been struck by the plague, they persuaded their fellow citizens not to resist the hand of God; and along with other miracles, they brought this forth into the midst, saying: Why do you harden your hearts, as Egypt and Pharaoh hardened their heart? Did they not, after He had mocked them, send away His people, and he departed (1 Kings 6:6)? These things they said, indeed, when—the signs having been made more manifest as a proof of the virtue of God—they deemed that this was by no means inferior. Therefore, in the present case, too, this has occurred, which certainly could easily strike terror into the tyrant. B Therefore, consider what it is likely that Herod suffered; for he could certainly have been suffocated even by the magnitude of his indignation, when he grieved at having been so mocked and ridiculed. And if there is no better result from this, it is not God, who dispensed these things, who is in fault, but the excessive insanity of the envious man, who did not yield even to these things, which were truly able to console him and lead him away from such great malice. But through another approach and malice, he proceeded to further depths, so that he might receive a much heavier punishment for his folly.
And for the sake of what, you may ask, is the child sent into Egypt? The first reason, indeed, is that which the evangelist has indicated: That it might be fulfilled, he says, what is written: Out of Egypt have I called my son (Osee 11:1). At the same time, also, the beginnings of the best hope for the future are proclaimed to the whole world. For since Babylon and Egypt were burning with the flame of impiety above all lands, from the very beginnings He showed that He was about to amend both, and to kindle them rather with the fire of faith, thereby persuading them to hope for better things for other parts of the world as well. C For He sends the Magi to Persia, but He Himself descends into Egypt with His mother. But beyond these things which we have said, something else is also learned from this, which is surely taught to pertain not a little to philosophy. What then is this? That we ought to be prepared for temptations and snares from the very beginnings of life. Discern, therefore, that this was accomplished from the very cradle of Christ. For as soon as He was born, the tyrant rages against Him, and He flees into Egypt, and is carried out of His native soil, and His innocent mother is driven into the region of the barbarians: so that you, indeed, hearing these things, when you are worthy to become a minister of some spiritual work and see yourself enduring various tribulations and a thousand dangers, may not be troubled at all, nor argue within yourself, and say: "What is this that is brought upon me undeservedly?" when to such a man praise and a crown are all the more appropriate, and when I ought to be illustrious and noble, as one fulfilling the Lord’s precepts; but that, armed with this example, you may manfully endure all things, knowing that the greatest tribulations are indeed inseparable companions of the virtues. D Observe, therefore, that this was fulfilled not only in the mother of the child, but even in those barbarians. For they too flee secretly in the manner of exiles; and she who had never departed from her home is ordered to complete so wretched a journey, on account of that wondrous birth and spiritual birth-pains.
But consider a matter entirely new and marvelous. Palestine lays snares; Egypt receives and preserves Him against whom the snares are stretched. For not only in the sons of the patriarch, but even in the Lord Himself, the figures of those who were to follow preceded [Him]. For indeed, many things that were then done in Him were foreshadowings of things that were to be later. Which was also fulfilled in the donkey and the colt. An angel, therefore, did not appear to Mary, but speaking to Joseph; and what does he say? Arise, and take the child and his mother (Matt. 1:20). Here he no longer says "your wife," but "his mother": because with the birth having taken place, the suspicion was dispelled, and the man believed without any ambiguity; the angel now speaks freely and openly, calling Him neither his son nor his wife, but: Take, he says, the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt. He also adds the cause of the flight: For it will come to pass, he says, that Herod will seek the child's life.
A For it would have been doubted, without a doubt, that he was truly a man. For this reason the temple is not formed simply, but the swelling of the womb is seen, and the time of nine months rolls by, and the birth itself is completed, and the nourishment of milk is applied; and for several years such a great affair is hidden in silence, and a manly age is awaited, so that through all these things the sacrament of the man assumed might be rendered credible. For what reason, then, you ask, were these signs given immediately from the beginning? For the sake of the mother, for the sake of Joseph, for the sake of Simeon who was about to die, for the sake of the shepherds, for the sake of the Magi, and for the sake of the Jews themselves; if indeed they had wished to weigh carefully the things that were happening, they would have had some profit for the things that were to follow. But if the prophets do not speak of everything, do not be at all disturbed: for they did not predict everything, nor were they silent about everything. For just as if humans had seen the deeds that were to come to pass, they would have had much perturbation and astonishment: so, on the other hand, if they had learned of everything beforehand, the hearers would subsequently have become negligent and secure, nor would anything have been left for the evangelists. But if the Jews should doubt concerning the prophecy, saying: "Out of Egypt I have called my son," saying that it was said rather of the people than predicted of Christ: we shall reply that this is indeed the custom of prophecy, that many things are often said of some and fulfilled in others: as that which is said concerning Simeon and Levi: "I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel" (Gen. 49. 7). For this did not happen in them, but also in those who proceeded from their lineage. And that which was said by Noah of Canaan is fulfilled in the Gibeonites. It is understood that the same thing happened concerning Jacob also: since the blessing "Be lord of your brothers, and let the sons of your father bow down before you" (Gen. 27. 29) did not have effect in him, (for how could it be understood, when on the contrary he feared his brother, and trembled, and bowed down before him a thousand times?) but it is understood in those who were of his lineage. B This, therefore, can also be defended in the present question. For who is more appropriately called the Son? Is it that people who worshipped the calf, who initiated Beelphegor, and sacrificed their own sons to demons: or is it the Lord Jesus Christ, who is such by nature, and honors the Father with every honor? And so, unless he had arrived, it could by no means have had a worthy conclusion.
4. Consider, therefore, how the evangelist himself designates this, saying: "That it might be fulfilled." For he shows that unless this one had come, it would not have been fulfilled. Which indeed makes the blessed Virgin not a little illustrious and noble: for she held that which was glorious to the whole people, who were acting more proudly and insolently, because they had returned under the guidance of God from Egypt, and often boasted of this to their own glory. For the prophet also points out this, saying: "Have I not brought up the aliens from Cappadocia, and the Syrians from the pit" (Amos 9. 7)? He also points out this as the primacy of the Virgin. Nay, both the people and the patriarch C, when they went down into Egypt and returned again from there, were marking an image of this reversion. For they, fleeing death, which famine was threatening, went down into Egypt: and here he fled death, which was imminent from the snares. But they, indeed, were delivered from the famine that had occurred at that time: but he, even while descending into Egypt, sanctified that whole region by his entry. But weigh carefully, moreover, how the loftiness of divinity shines forth with the humble things of humanity. For when the angel said, "Flee into Egypt," he by no means promised that he would be a companion of the journey, either to those going or returning: but without a doubt [he indicates] that the little ones, for whose sake they were fleeing, were fortified by his maximum company, who when he arrived, transformed everything for the better, and caused enemies to serve him greatly in this. For both those Magi and barbarians, abandoning their ancestral superstition, come to adore the true Lord: and Augustus himself, for the sake of the birth that was to take place in Bethlehem, orders the world through the census, and Egypt receives and protects him who is fleeing the snares of the tyrant. For by the touch of the Lord itself it obtains a certain taste of sanctification: so that when it heard him preached by the apostles, it might be decorated with the honor of this privilege, because it was the first to receive the Lord. And surely, at first, here the primacy seemed to be to Palestine: but afterwards this one became more fervent. Finally, if anyone should now come to the solitudes of Egypt, [he will find that] it is more worthy than any paradise, and [he will see] innumerable hosts of angels shining in mortal bodies, and peoples of martyrs, and choirs of virgins: and indeed every tyranny of the devil dissolved, but the kingdom of Christ flashing, and that parent of poets and magicians of old and of every kind of imposture, and [the land] which had handed down those inventions, [he will see] rejoicing in the instruction of fishermen, and with all those things now repudiated, carrying everywhere the publican and the leather-stitcher, and bearing before the cross of the Lord to the greatest glory of faith. And all these good things do not flourish in the cities alone, but even more in the desert places than in the cities themselves. For it is to see the whole army of Christ diffused in that region, and that admirable royal flock, D
5. If anyone knows that ancient Egypt, raging with rebellion against God and possessed by a magnitude of superstition, worshipping irrational animals, and furthermore even fearing onions: he can best know the virtue of Christ, through whom this change is so admirable. Nor do we indeed need ancient witnesses; for the remnants of that most foolish people still exist in testimony of their previous madness. But those who were once carried headlong into such insanity, and philosophize about heaven and the things in heaven, and speak against the customs of their fathers, and often lament their own ancestors, and count the philosophers as nothing. For they were educated by those very words of theirs, which say that the inventions of their teachers are old wives' tales: but the true philosophy, and the one descending from heaven, is that which was preached to them by fishermen. Therefore, because of this truth of doctrine, they are adorned with the greatest study of virtue: for being stripped of all present things, and crucified to the world, they nonetheless strive for further perfection: for they use the produce of their own bodies for the sustenance of the needy. And it is not because they are fasting, or keeping watch, that they therefore indulge themselves in daily leisure: but they spend the nights in sacred hymns and vigils, and the days in prayers and manual labors, imitating the course of apostolic virtue. For they say: even if the whole world looks almost to him, and he has professed to be a craftsman, and has practiced the use of his former art, and has done this without indulging in sleep by night: how much more do we enjoy the secret of the desert, having nothing in common with the din of the city, and it is proper that we occupy ourselves with this spiritual work? A Let not all the wealthy be discouraged by this place, but in those very riches be poor: when they truly possess nothing beyond their own body, they bring a certain strength to their hands, striving and contending entirely to find fruits for the needy here: but we, although we hide most of our wealth, do not touch even a superfluity for works of mercy. What, therefore, I ask, what excuse can we find? Or what pardon? And certainly consider, that while those were once lovers of money, they were serving the other vices of the belly: there were the pots of meat (Exod. 16:3), which the Jews in the desert remember: there were many tyrannies of the belly and throat: but yet because they willed, they were suddenly changed in the opposite direction, and receiving the fire of Christ, they suddenly took flight into heaven. Those who were previously more prone to anger than all, and more inclined to the lusts of the body, now imitate incorporeal powers in temperance and the other species of virtues. Who, if he is acquainted with that region, does not recognize these things which we say? But if he does not yet know those dwellings, let him consider the man who has traveled from all quarters until today, whom the apostles brought forth to the nearest Egypt, I speak of that blessed and great one, of whom you have often heard, Antony: B and let him regard that this man was also a native of this region, of which even Pharaoh was, whose race is in no way vicious. For he was held worthy of the vision of God, and showed himself in such a way, as the laws of Christ require. But anyone who has read his book will easily have known this, in which he will also see a shining prophet. For he most manifesty prophesied of those whom the Arian plague invaded; and he taught what plagues threatened the churches, God himself revealing these things, and portraying them all as figures before his eyes. Which is certainly a preeminent document of the Catholic faith, that not even one heretic can be shown to be such. But do not seek these things from me, but rather reading the book itself, learn everything more diligently, that you may grasp the greatest incitements of philosophy. I beseech you, not only to meditate on those writings, but also to imitate those things which are expressed: lest we more diligently read them, only to neglect the vices of those very authors. For if we have had an impious father, yet he is not the heir of his impiety. And Hezekiah, indeed, was the son of the most profane Achaz, yet he proved to be a friend of God. And Joseph served in the midst of Egypt, but he wove the glorious garment of chastity. Also in the midst of the home of the Chaldeans, among those delights, the three children stood, yet they stood in the height of philosophy: and Moses in Egypt, and Paul in the whole world: and none of these things was an impediment for them to hinder them from being fulfilled with virtue. And we, therefore, seeing all these examples, let us cut off from within ourselves superfluous figments and the various occasions of sinning, and let us embrace the labor through which virtue is prepared. For thus we shall provoke God to greater benevolence toward us, and we shall merit that He cooperate with us in the spiritual contest, and we shall obtain eternal goods: which may it befall all of us to attain, by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen.
ORDER OF MATTERS
WHICH ARE CONTAINED IN THE TWO PARTS OF VOLUME VII.
Frid. FIELD Preface to his edition of the Homilies on Matthew. 1–IX D. Bern. DE MONTFAUCON Preface to the same Homilies 1–12 Homily I.—Whether the Scriptures were given; the law when and how given; when and how the New Testament was given. How the Gospels seem to disagree among themselves; the consensus of the Evangelists is upheld; and that the fishermen and illiterate were able to philosophize by divine power.
A
ORDER OF SUBJECTS
PLATO’S ridiculous republic. Moral conclusion: it attempts to keep listeners away from spectacles and to excite them to the study of the divine word. 15-25
HOMILY II on chapter one. — Having excited the attention of the listeners, he begins a description of the heavenly kingdom. How stupendous is the Incarnation; how Christ exalts us; He joined the Old Testament to the New; in the Old Testament is the figure, in the New the truth; the splendor of David; certain questions about the genealogy of Christ are solved. The rule for moderating the tongue. The reading of the Gospels is necessary. 25-51
HOMILY III on the same chapter. — Why the genealogy is traced through Joseph, not Mary. Not to blush at the wickedness of ancestors. Why Zara and Phares are named in the genealogy of Christ. The wickedness of parents does not harm the righteous: the righteousness of parents does not profit the wicked. Humility is commended; sins are to be committed to oblivion, good works to memory; a secure storehouse of things well done is to forget them. Humility is the principle of all philosophy. 51-59
HOMILY IV on the same chapter. — Why Mary did not conceive before her betrothal: the operation of the Spirit in the Virgin is not to be explored. The praises of Joseph, the husband of Mary; he is to be recognized as faithful from his works. The life of the saints is a mirror. He inveighs against anger; the blood of Christ extinguishes the maladies of the soul; affection for creatures diminishes the love of Christ. He who despises glory attains glory. 59-65
HOMILY V on the same chapter. — The tumult of external affairs takes away the fruit of the sermon. What is the power of those words of Isaiah, "This whole thing has happened"; why Joseph is referred to Isaiah; why Christ was not commonly called Emmanuel. Mary remained a virgin after childbirth. Just kinsmen profit only the repentant; one should not trust in the prayers of the saints [without one's own]. The invocation of the saints; the fruits of almsgiving. Against usury. 65-71
HOMILY VI on chapter II. — Those who took the occasion of the Magi’s star to assert astrology are refuted. The star which appeared was not of the number of other stars. Why the star appeared. Why Scripture accurately describes the time and place of the nativity and the king reigning at that time; free will; why Jerusalem was troubled when it heard that Christ was born. He excites the fervor of the listeners by the example of Paul and the first believers; the spiritual fire consumes all cupidity. What tears are good and useful; dissolute laughter is forbidden. What the gifts of God are; how useful is vigilance; how harmful are the spectacles of the theater. 71-75
HOMILY VII on the same chapter. — Marcion and Paul Samosatenus are refuted from the star. A moral exhortation that they take up mysteries, similar to Herod; the obscenities of the theaters. 75-81
HOMILY VIII on the same chapter. — What more he persuaded them to adore Christ, born in such great poverty; they themselves held Christ to be God. That the power of God shone forth in deceiving the enemies was confessed long ago. Ascalonites; God willed to deceive Herod rather than terrify him; why Christ was sent into Egypt. The praise of Joseph. In Egypt, the monks and the chorus of virgins. The praises of Antony the Great, the father of the monks. 81-178...
B
HOMILY XV on chapter V. — What the modesty of Christ is and how it should be imitated, from Christ’s manner of acting. The Manichaeans are incidentally refuted; Christ, addressing the disciples, speaks to the whole world. Many modes of humility. To call those blessed who mourn is full of philosophy; how great is the consolation which comes from God. These words, "Hunger and thirst for righteousness," what power they have; who are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers; how great is their reward; all virtue is the philosophy of the soul. That it is not enough to hear to be made blessed; Christ brought forth one and the same reward under various names; the Son is equal to the Father in honor. The power of Christ is asserted. Virtue cannot lie hidden; even the wicked praise it in their own conscience; the Son is equal to the Father. He rebukes those who do not intercede for those quarreling; then, the quarreling ones themselves. 225-238
HOMILY XVI on the same chapter. — Why Christ asserted that He did not dissolve the law and why He does not do everything by His own authority. Why Christ sometimes does not clearly call Himself God; against the Manichaeans. The precepts of Christ are a fulfillment of the Old Law. The Old Law is confirmed by the Gospel; the creation of the world is vindicated to Christ as Father; there is no cruelty in the Old Law, but it decrees necessary punishments for crimes. The precepts of the ancient law are benign; the legislator of both Testaments is one and the same. Why anger is to be restrained; nothing is more intolerable than insult. With what goodness Christ commanded reconciliation; reconciliation with a brother is a true sacrifice; the sacrifices of those not yet initiated [are for what?]. Why Paul before nightfall, and Christ before the sacrifice, commanded reconciliation; how much zeal Christ used in ending enmities; in the practice of good one must not delay. The hope of the heavenly crown distracts from evil habit; our works are necessary with the help of God. 237-254 C
HOMILY XVII on the same chapter. — Christ forbids only illicit lust; why He restrains the glance itself; the harms of an unchaste gaze. Against the luxury of women; the conversation of those who scandalize us is to be avoided, whoever they may be; against the spectacles of the theaters. The species of adultery is reproved; why the Old Law permitted a bill of divorce. Why Christ seems to depreciate the Old Law; why an oath is forbidden in the New Law; whether things are good or bad according to the times; there is more rigor in the New than in the Old Law. A moral exhortation on removing the habit of swearing; the way of eliminating a bad habit. 255-266
HOMILY XVIII on the same chapter. — What the eye that scandalizes means, which Christ commands to be plucked out; why the precepts of the Old Law were not so sublime. Christ extends what he says about abuse to every insult; one ought to conquer by enduring. What great perfection Christ has taught us; perfect men emerge the stronger for their troubles. Nine degrees of the Christian duty towards enemies. The pinnacle of virtue is to pray for enemies. 263-274
HOMILY XIX on chapter VI. — Vain glory also invades the righteous. Ostentation prohibited by Christ; the fruit of humility; prayer must be sent up with the zeal of the will; the benefit of him who prays is the utility of prayer; the fruit of divine adoption. How the coming of the kingdom of God is to be desired; virtue is not only by our study, but it also depends on divine grace. As we forgive, so we are forgiven. How much the forgetting of injuries is pleasing to God in heart; how much it is grace, even if we are children of God through our works; God loves the Son more than father and mother. To pray against enemies is a bad thing. 275-286
HOMILY XX on the same chapter. — Virtue sometimes [is produced?] before men; that it produces simulated virtue. How Christ brings in almsgiving; money is burdensome to the soul; [but it is] for the man. The cupidity of riches is defended; in what way riches produce fruit. 285-294
HOMILY XXI on the same chapter. — To serve money is a great evil; to neglect the greatest good; Christ takes away [it] from the contrary. By what means one speaks for Christ; what punishments are born from riches. The precepts of God can be followed. 293-300
HOMILY XXII on the same chapter. — Why Christ brings forward the lily as an example among animals; it is vain to be proud of luxury; the beauty of creatures is preached. Anxiety profits nothing; of providence, trusting in Christ; we do all things with the help of God. Malice is sometimes accepted for trouble. Nor does it yield because God is not mocked; how we ought to be heard; how much we owe to assiduity. That the charity of God is ours; and that it is never unimportant. 299-308
HOMILY XXIII on chapter VII. — The explanation, Christ does not forbid judging, but He forbids acting [unjustly]; the explanation of that, "Do not give what is holy to the dogs," etc., why mysteries were celebrated with closed doors. The precepts of the Gospel... D
we must make heavier by prayer; we must persevere in prayer. Narrow is the way that leads to life; how it is easy to avoid it. How great an evil it is to fall out of the kingdom of God is proven by example. Our own labor must be added to divine grace; the apostles and the Jews; 331–328 [sic; 328–331] D HOM. XXVI on the same chapter. — The faith of the centurion. We must walk along the narrow way with trust and fear; we are taught by the example of David’s vigilance, trust, and repentance; how great was David’s virtue after his fall. 335–344 HOM. XXVII on the same chapter. — Christ quickly took away diseases. Sin is the cause of diseases; Christ’s modesty and beauty. Things that belong to salvation are to be preferred to things that are swift; a man living in wickedness is worse than a dead man. 343–350 HOM. XXVIII on the same chapter. — There is no inconsistency among the evangelists. Christ as Lord, Moses as servant, worked miracles; the evangelists never fight against one another. Souls after death do not remain here, but are led into another region; there is no one who is outside the providence of God. The story of the pigs delivered to the devil is explained; a description of the lascivious and the covetous. 349–358 HOM. XXIX on chapter IX. — Two paralytics in the Gospels; how the Son demonstrates that He is equal to the Father. It is for the one God to know and reveal the secrets of the heart. 357–362 HOM. XXX on the same chapter. — How we ought to conduct ourselves toward those who lie in wait for us; the calling and virtue of Matthew. The manner of Christ’s acting while feasting with Matthew is explained; those who desire to gain fame for themselves by fasting are rebuked. The moderation of Christ in other matters, and especially in the correction of luxurious women, is to be imitated. 361–370 HOM. XXXI on the same chapter. — The manner of acting of the woman suffering from an issue of blood is discussed; Christ did not love the man [as a man]. The faith of the woman suffering from an issue of blood. How Christ was wont to build up the truth of the resurrections which He worked; pride and vainglory are to be avoided by everyone; death is not to be feared; the evils of the present life. The dead are not to be mourned without measure. 369–376 HOM. XXXII on the same chapter. — The modesty of Christ; boasting is to be shunned. It is demonstrated that nothing is common to Christ and the devil; curses are to be refuted not by curses, but by benefits. The peace of God is not given except to good will; how great an evil it is to be cheated of it; reverence is commended in the church; the holiness of the church is described. Moral exhortation to reverence in church and to mutual charity; why God has ceased to perform signs. The excellence of virtue. 377–388 HOM. XXXIII on chapter X. — Christ’s sheep conquer, the wolves are conquered. Why Christ left the apostles with the infirmity of sheep; what the prudence of the serpent is. Who the ancient philosophers were. Not a fugitive fervor, but perseverance is needed. How Job’s fortitude shines forth from our weakness. 387–396 HOM. XXXIV on the same chapter. — By His own example, Christ urges the apostles to endure insults. Death is to be despised, with Christ persuading us of this through hope and fear; he who confesses, confesses through divine grace; God more willingly brings good things than punishments. Death, with Christ warning us, is not to be feared; the corruption of bodies is useful; how many evils would occur if bodies did not decay. The beauty and excellence of the soul. 397–404 HOM. XXXV on the same chapter. — How great are the good things they shall obtain who receive the apostles. Alms are to be given; vain excuses are refuted. The poor are defended from the charge of impudence; how they are to be received. 405–412 HOM. XXXVI on chapter XI. — The prophets knew that Christ was to be crucified. The justice of God, and the manner of punishing. 413–420 HOM. XXXVII on the same chapter. — How Christ confirmed and defended the fame of John the Baptist; John called more than a prophet by Christ, in which he excels the other prophets; Christ can be compared neither with John nor with any other man. The scope of Christ and John was the same. Hospitality is commended; against meretricious songs. How harmful and shameful are the spectacles of the theaters. 417–428 HOM. XXXVIII on the same chapter. — The Son is of the same substance as the Father; Marcion is refuted in passing; humility is the mother of all philosophy. How an angry man is tormented; clemency is the mother of all good things. 427–434 HOM. XXXIX on chapter XII. — How Christ broke the Sabbath. The usefulness of the Sabbath in the old law, its uselessness in the new law is proven. Our labor must be added to divine grace; the apostles and the Jews; 435–438 HOM. XL on the same chapter. — How great an evil is envy. Christ, in bestowing benefits, rouses the envy of the Pharisees; envy is a remedy for no evil; but rather its own punishment. 439–446 HOM. XLI on the same chapter. — Christ declares His divinity through the knowledge of hidden things. How blasphemy against the Spirit is not forgiven. How we ought to judge ourselves; an examination of conscience. 447–456 HOM. XLII on the same chapter. — A condition of the one who does injury is much worse than that of the one who suffers it. The thesis is confirmed; toward a neighbor, even if it is true, it is not to be revealed. 451–456 HOM. XLIII on the same chapter. — Christ shows that He is from the Father. Christ suffered, and He suffered not in appearance, as Marcion contended. The Jews are joined with Christ through damnation; the Jews joined with Julian the Apostate among the Gentiles. Regarding His consolation of His companions. 455–464 HOM. XLIV on chapters XII and XIII. — We are related by spiritual kinship, and we ought to be united; how pure and blessed is the preacher. How Christ departed. He did not sow a fault; Christ allegorically designated the souls disposed for it. The food [which they] are rebuked [for eating], as being destructive to bodies and souls. 463–472 HOM. XLV on chapter XIII. — The prudence and charity of a disciple. The will is not taken away by grace. The mercy of the Lord toward the Jews; sin is not from nature, or from necessity. Alms are commended. 471–476 HOM. XLVI on the same chapter. — The difference between the two parables of this chapter; the craftiness of the devil leading into error; the necessity of watchfulness; it is not right to kill a heretic. How we ought to act toward heretics; the gentleness of Christ; how a grain of mustard seed is a figure of the preaching of the apostles; hardships are not to be feared by preachers. It was not miracles, but virtue that conferred true greatness upon the apostles and other saints. The good life. 475–482 HOM. XLVII on the same chapter. — To renounce all is a business, not a loss. The reading of the Scriptures is commended; humility is the head of virtue. The virtues of Matthew the evangelist; a description of the miser and the voluntary pauper. 481–486 HOM. XLVIII on chapters XIII and XIV. — Envy often fights with itself. The evils of rash oaths and fornication. Wickedness looks only to the present time; sin is not covered by another sin, but by repentance; how odious are banquets prepared from thefts. 487–496 HOM. XLIX on chapter XIV. — Christ, acting now in His own name, now in the name of the Father, proved the divinity of His nature and mission; grace is to be said before meals; against Marcion and Manichaeus. The sincerity and modesty of Christ in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves; boasting is to be shunned; in what manner one ought to approach the holy table. Mercy is a most precious art; against the pleasure of meats. Against luxury in footwear. 495–501 HOM. L on the same chapter. — Solitude is the mother of tranquility. Peter stumbled upon the waters only when his faith failed; Christ confirmed the faith of His divinity, lest it be destroyed; in the Eucharist the very body of Christ is eaten. Almsgiving is more pleasing to God than gifts, which are consecrated without the utility of the neighbor. 503–510 HOM. LI on chapter XV. — Christ rebukes the Jewish tradition. The difficulty of the abrogated circumcision; with what reason one ought to pray. Gentleness is to be applied in prayer; no one is injured except by himself; against those who steal the goods of others. 509–518 HOM. LII on the same chapter. — Why Christ went to the Gentiles. How great a thing assiduous prayer is; what true almsgiving is. Individual arts have need of other arts; the [works] of almsgiving. 517–526 HOM. LIII on chapters XV and XVI. — Rebuking with gentleness is useful. This life is mixed with good and evil. 525–532 HOM. LIV on chapter XVI. — Why Peter is called blessed; the consubstantiality [of the Son] is demonstrated; the Anomoeans and Arians are rebuked. Why Christ did not wish to be known as Christ before the passion; Peter’s infirmity after the cross. The cross of Christ is not to be ashamed of; how often the cross is applied both publicly and privately. 531–540 HOM. LV on the same chapter. — We ought to be prepared for death by the example of Christ; Christ invites one to follow Himself, He does not compel; what it means to deny oneself. Those who neglect the salvation of the soul; the glory and substance is one of the Father and the Son. The praise of monks and their way of life. 539–550 HOM. LVI on chapters XVI and XVII. — The transfiguration of Christ. Why Moses and Elias were present at the transfiguration.
A His miracles converted the entire world. The second coming of Christ is still more glorious. Easy is virtue; wickedness is full of toil; against usury. The evils of usury. 549-558
HOM. LVII on chapter XVII. — Why John the Baptist is called Elias. Why lunatics are so called; that certain holy men have removed mountains. The power of the Spirit; fasting and prayer are necessary to cast out demons. One must not indulge in luxuries; the evils of gluttony and intemperance. It is not wine that is to be censured, but drunkenness. 557-568
HOM. LVIII on chapters XVII and XVIII. — The didrachma. We should not boast of nobility of birth; riches are to be lightly esteemed. 555-574
HOM. LIX on chapter XVIII. — How free will and the liberty of the will can be reconciled with prophetic truth. Man becomes evil through his own deeds and by himself. Evils proceed from sloth, and are not in us by nature. Evils are not from necessity. How much God cares for the salvation of men; we ought to care for the salvation of our neighbor. Charity and tolerance toward one's neighbor are commended; our brothers often warn us. Moral exhortation; the impulses of youth must be restrained from the beginning. 573-584
HOM. LX on the same chapter. — How prayers draw great strength from concord; why we are not always heard; the cause that should underlie love for one's neighbor; the vanity of friendship without God; the rationale of Christian love. 583-588
HOM. LXI on the same chapter. — How great a cause of good things was Adam's fault; the ways of soldiers; the frauds of craftsmen. Iniquitous possessors of goods. The parable of the unforgiving servant, and how it is interpreted. 587-596
HOM. LXII on the same chapter. — The craftiness of the Pharisees. How Christ persuades us to virginity; that to mutilate one's own body is a sin; the doctrine of fate and necessity is pernicious. Great virginity needs grace. Envy is a snare to the good. 595-604
HOM. LXIII on the same chapter. — The love of money is the root of all evils. The wealthy are more desirous of more than those who possess a modest fortune; how the avaricious are to be cured, like the feverish, in the same manner. 605-610
HOM. LXIV on chapters XIX and XX. — A good life and right faith are necessary for salvation; a neglected portion of virtue brings damnation; in what way one should not judge others. 609-618
HOM. LXV on chapter XX. — What the sons of Zebedee truly asked for. The apostles are compared with themselves, before and after the coming of the Holy Spirit; humility increases greatness and glory. Nothing is more sublime than humility, nothing more abject; a comparison of the proud with the humble. 617-626
HOM. LXVI on chapters XX and XXI. — The question regarding Christ’s journey brought into the middle; the history of the two blind men is commented upon, and perseverance is commended. What the bringing of the donkey and the colt, with no one resisting, proves; Christ’s life is an example for us. The abject mind of the Jews; for what reason Christ willed to triumph thus; almsgiving is commended; the alms of the Antiochenes are contributed from their means. 625-634
HOM. LXVII on the same chapter. — The history of the fig tree cursed by Christ is commented upon; why Christ cursed the fig tree. The history of a certain harlot who afterwards led a holy life. Despair and presumption are to be avoided. Moral exhortation to endure the labors of life patiently. 633-640
HOM. LXVIII on the same chapter. — Future things are to be preferred to present things; against stage spectacles; the life of monks; monastic exercises. 639-648
HOM. LXIX on chapter XXII. — A comparison of this homily with the preceding; the casting out of the Jews; the calling of the Gentiles; the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem. The life of the Hamaxobii and Nomads; how holy is the life of monks. 647-654
HOM. LXX on the same chapter. — The victory of temperance; the delicacies of secular tables. 653-662
HOM. LXXI on the same chapter. — Christ proves His divinity. Vain glory is sought both from evils and from goods; it extends beyond this life. Against those who give alms for the sake of ostentation. Just as God bestows and signifies His mercy under the veil of a mystery, so we ought to hide our own almsgiving. 661-668
HOM. LXXII on chapter XXIII. — What phylacteries were. The very way of life of monks inclines toward humility; examples of humility handed down by the saints, which bring not pride but destruction. 667-674
HOM. LXXIII on the same chapter. — He refutes the vanity of women because of their age, the contracts made for money, and the ways of parasites. 673-680
HOM. LXXIV on the same chapter. — It is not a harm to have wicked fathers, but to consent to them with a perverse will. Those who neglect to care for their own are censured, and the mode of their care is taught. 679-686
HOM. LXXV on chapter XXIV. — How difficult times [there will be for] the preaching of the gospel. How many wars [were] brought upon the apostles during the time of [their] preaching; against genethlialogy and the revolution of the times. The gravity of sins and the increase or decrease of the penalty are determined by the difference of circumstances and persons. 685-694
HOM. LXXVI on the same chapter. — For the Jews, after the death of Christ, all hope is cut off; how great their calamity was; the death of Christ was the cause of it. Christ predicts His second coming. Christ describes His second coming; then the cross will appear. In Christ all things are provided. 693-702
HOM. LXXVII on the same chapter. — Why Christ left the end of the age uncertain. With the words of Christ and of God brought into the middle, which seem to suggest ignorance, it is explained why God spoke thus repeatedly. He commends almsgiving. All things are to be postponed for the edification of one’s neighbor; the foolish virgins were excluded from the bridal chamber because they had not given alms. 701-710
HOM. LXXVIII on chapter XXV. — The parable of the virgins is compared with others similar to it in some respect, then it is explained; nothing is of any value without almsgiving; death is sleep; the future resurrection; there is no defender on the day of judgment. The Lord’s flesh in the Eucharist; the imitation of Christ, moderation, and modesty are commended. 709-718
HOM. LXXIX on chapters XXV and XXVI. — Works of mercy are necessary, easy, and obligatory from many chapters. The remission and oblivion of injuries are desired. Love itself is opposed to the remembrance of injuries; it can suffer no evil. 717-724
HOM. LXXX on chapter XXVI. — The woman who washes the feet of Christ, who she is; why the leprosy of Simon and the name of the city are mentioned; the way of acting of the sinful woman toward Jesus, and of Jesus toward the sinful woman, is commented upon. The image of the avaricious; wickedness is weak, virtue is strong; losses which pertain only to the body are to be made of no account; the soul is then poor when it possesses riches, and then rich when it is needy. 723-730
HOM. LXXXI on the same chapter. — The motions of anger are to be calmed. Why God permits the wicked to be born. How much the love of money affects the soul. The avaricious are worse than the demon-possessed. A healthy faith is of no profit without works. 729-738
HOM. LXXXII on the same chapter. — The will does not act without grace, just as grace does not [act] without the will; we eat Christ in the Eucharist. How great a sin is an unworthy communion; charity and the magnificence of Christ in the Eucharist. 737-746
HOM. LXXXIII on the same chapter. — Christ is neither subject to sin, nor compelled by necessity, but He underwent His passion of His own accord; the wicked mind of the traitor. Avarice is refuted. The miserable condition of the avaricious. What is the true glory of houses, what is true disgrace. 745-752
HOM. LXXXIV on the same chapter. — Why Christ permitted the disciples to have swords. Falsity is solved by itself. True victory is reported through patience. 751-758
HOM. LXXXV on chapters XXVI and XXVII. — The abject cruelty of the Jews; the truthfulness of the evangelists is admirable. Judas is proposed as an example to the avaricious. The chief priests [are] condemned by their own conscience; almsgiving made from robberies is rejected; the goods of the Church of Antioch... 757-764
HOM. LXXXVI on chapter XXVII. — The false faith of those accusing Christ; in what sense Christ calls Himself a king. Entrance for vices is to be blocked at the beginning; the wiles of the devil in tempting men. 763-770
HOM. LXXXVII on the same chapter. — How many and how great [are the trials]...
HOM. LXXXVIII on the same chapter. — How much and how great [was] the suffering Christ endured; what is the utility of the public and private reading of the passion; what it signifies. The conclusion of [it]. 769-774
HOM. LXXXIX on chapters XXVII and XXVIII. — Almsgiving to the poor, [the need] to provide to Christ. Why Chrysostom frequently [speaks] of almsgiving, and not [out] of conflict against the adversaries of the faith; he discourses on the virtues of Christians; [he] rebukes the hearers, in that what is not revealed in the church, he describes their irreverence. 773-782
HOM. XC on chapter XXVIII. — The resurrection of Christ is proven [as] certain. Against women. Light in the darkness. 781-788
HOM. XC on chapter XXVIII. — Nothing is difficult in the precepts of Christ. The desire for money and an excessive [estimation of it] are refuted; [and that] they bring ruin. The praises of poverty. 787-794
MONITUM on the following fragment. 793-794
FRAGMENT in which are explained those fourteen generations which are numbered before the captivity; as also the other fourteen which are recounted after the captivity. 795-798
Frid. Field notes. 795-974
Indices. 975
ANIANI INTERPRETATIO. 973-1078
FINIS TOMI QUINQUAGESIMI OCTAVI.