A Yet that man endured all of these things, and in none of the things that happened to him did he sin, nor was deceit found on his lips.
Let the sufferings of that man, therefore, become the cure for our own evils, and let the cruel wave by which he was tossed become the harbor of our own calamities; and in each of the things that happen to us, let us consider that saint. And seeing that one body of the world has drawn in such evils, we shall be strongly disposed in each case. And just as to a most loving mother who extends her hands from every side and receives and revives her frightened children, so let us always take refuge in this book; and even if we are afflicted by the most miserable evils of all, having gained great consolation in all things, so we shall depart. For with the grace of the Spirit, the contests are easier.
But if you say, “That was Job, and for that reason he endured these things; I am not like him,” by saying these things you render yourself worthy of greater blame, and you extol the praise of that just man; for it would have been appropriate for you to endure these things rather than him. Why? Because he was indeed before grace and before the law, when life was not so carefully regulated, when the grace of the Spirit was not so great, when sin was difficult to defeat, when the curse held sway, when death was terrible; but now the contests have been made easier, after the coming of Christ, with all those things removed. Therefore, after so much time, so much growth, and after so many gifts bestowed upon us by God, if we cannot reach the same measure of virtue, no excuse remains for us. B Considering, therefore, all these things—that he was pressed by more serious evils, and that when the contest was more difficult, he then prepared himself for the fight and joined hand-to-hand combat—let us bear all things that happen to us bravely, and with great thanksgiving, so that we may be able to attain the same crowns as he did, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, now and always, and for ever and ever. Amen.
CONCERNING THE HOMILIES ON PENITENCE: A MEMORANDUM
We are undertaking a difficult and laborious task in attempting to establish the order, the time, and occasionally even the authenticity or the actual meaning of the Homilies on Penitence. For those who first turned their hand to this matter either published them scattered about as they presented themselves, without any regard for sequence, authenticity, or order; or, exhausted by the tedium of the difficulty, they restored a part to its own place as best they could, while putting others torn away from here and there, separated from the rest. C Lælius Tifernas, who first applied himself to this work, published ten homilies on penitence in Latin. The first of these is inscribed *On Penitence, Homily I*, the beginning of which in Greek is *Ara memnesth' hemon*. D He placed as the second homily the one that is the first among the homilies on Genesis; the third is the one that begins in Greek, *Ei kai chthes apeleiphthen*; the fourth, the one that begins in Greek, *Oi poimenes ta probata*; the fifth, which begins in Greek, *Pantote men*; the sixth, which is not found in Greek and is supposititious; the seventh, whose beginning in Latin is *Jam ergo turbine*, which is a patchwork stitched together from various places, as Fronto Ducaeus shows in the notes below; the eighth, whose beginning is *Os terpna tes pneumatikes*; the ninth, whose beginning in Greek is *Ara oidate pothen hemin ho logos*; the tenth and last, which begins thus: *Ara emnesthe hemon*. Fronto Ducaeus partly followed and partly rejected the order of Lælius Tifernas: for he retained the first as above; he omitted the second because it was the first in Genesis, and decided to publish it with the others on Genesis; the third, the Greek context of which he had not yet found, he passed over in the series of Homilies on Penitence, but later, when he had found it, he placed it with the title *Third Homily on Penitence* in the fourth volume, far removed from the other Homilies on Penitence; he placed the fourth after the first, with no other intervening, with the title of the fourth, and afterwards the fifth as Lælius published it; he rejected the sixth and seventh for the reason mentioned above; so that he placed the eighth, ninth, and tenth, with the titles of the eighth, ninth, and tenth, after the fifth. Savile followed a far different order: for he placed as the first of the Homilies on Penitence the one that begins thus: *Ara memnesth' hemon*, which in the edition of Fronto Ducaeus is the tenth and last; the second, which begins thus, *Pantote men ho theios apostolos*, which Fronto Ducaeus inscribed as the fifth; the third, *Eideite te protera kyriake*, which in the edition of Fronto Ducaeus was banished outside the series of Homilies on Penitence to the end of the fifth volume; the fourth, *Ei kai chthes apeleiphthen*, the third according to Ducaeus; the fifth, *Hosper tois speirousin drepano[n] ouden*, which in the edition of Fronto is outside the series of Homilies on Penitence, vol. V, p. 488: it is, however, suspect, and seems to be a fragment; the sixth, *Ara oidate pothen hemin ho logos*, which Fronto Ducaeus published as the ninth; the seventh, *Oi poimenes ta probata*, which Fronto placed as the fourth; the eighth, *Phere de kai ton hemeteron*, which does not appear in the edition of Fronto Ducaeus, but is mangled in the Savile edition and gaping in parts; Francis Combefis rendered that one whole and intact in the year 1645. But the discourse which Fronto Ducaeus placed first on Penitence, Savile published as the first on fasting, *peri nesteias*; its beginning is, *Phaidra semeron hemin he panegyris*; he added the second on fasting, *Hos terpna tes pneumatikes*, which is the eighth on penitence in Fronto Ducaeus. Henry Savile published three other homilies on penitence in the same vol. VI, p. 905, which are rightly held to be spurious. The first begins, *Aei men mnemoneuein*; the second, *Basileos men tou epigeiou*; the third, *Diagrapsoymen, agapetoi, ta tes met.* Out of all these Homilies on Penitence, placed together haphazardly, we acknowledge only six as genuine, while we relegate the others as being at the very least suspect, and some even openly spurious, to another place. We place first among the genuine: *Ara memnesth' hemon*; the second, *Eideite te protera kyriake*; the third, *Ara oidate pothen*; the fourth, *Oi poimenes ta probata*; the fifth, *Phaidra semeron hemin he panegyris*; the sixth, *Hos terpna tes pneum.* Here we follow the order of Savile, omitting only those that seem either highly suspect or entirely spurious, as will be proven in its proper place. No one can fail to see that the two homilies which Savile inscribed *Peri nesteias*, On Fasting, deal particularly with penitence, for which reason we have placed them in the series of Homilies on Penitence, just as Fronto Ducaeus did. It remains for us to discuss the order of these homilies among themselves. The one which is placed first with Savile...