Homiliae

Therefore the Gospel also proclaims that widow as generous, the one who gave the obol, since she kept back nothing of what she had. And he who offered a cup of cold water receives as the reward of so easy a welcome the kingdom; for he ministered to the need of the thirsty with what he had, even if he had no fragrant wine because of poverty. But I say these things by way of concession, since not everyone who is a fisherman is also poor. Do you not know that a fisherman is a hunter of pearls? And pearls are the flower of proud and stiff-necked wealth, with which kings are adorned, in which wealthy and ornament-loving women exult. A fisherman dyes the much-famed purple consecrated to royalty; fishermen dye the gold-tinged wools, hunting the tawny pinna. One must not, then, pay attention to the instruments of their craft as though they were cheap and contemptible—the net, I mean, and the hooks; for the wealth of each is not judged from the cheapness of the instruments, but from the work that is accomplished; since, at any rate, by that account you would find nothing poorer than agriculture in the first place, if its wealth were judged by the mattock and the spade. And those who dig gold, the king of wealth, are utterly resourceless; for one axe assists them—a wooden board, the thing that separates the gold from the earth. Let the Gentiles and Hebrews be silent, then, who reproach Peter with poverty and try to diminish the great man by reason of the fisherman; and leaving off such clever quibbling, let them tell me, as I ask: Who of fishermen, or of all men, ever sailed upon the sea?

Who set his foot upon the standing water, as that man did upon the waves shaken by the winds? For when our good God had accomplished many wonders through his own servants, both in the ancient commonwealth of Israel and in later times, in which the loving-kindness of our Savior's dispensation appeared to the world, no one of the saints from the beginning to the end is shown to have performed by his own faith and the grace from above such a deed as this. Moses is wonderful, having crossed a sea without ships; but he trod upon land, which is a law for men, the water having been drawn back on this side and on that upon itself. Great also is Jesus his successor, because he crossed the Jordan

when it was overflowing beyond its banks; but in like manner he also, dividing the Red Sea and checking its stream, gave the people who were crossing over the dry ground bare for their stepping. But no man ever before set his foot upon water. For neither does the law of nature accept that the moist substance, ever flowing, should withstand the solid and pressing. And it seems to me that the Lord and Master of all, greatly delighting at that time in the man's overflowing eagerness with which he cried out saying, Command me to come to you upon the waters, gave him as the reward of his great love and faith that new and marvelous grace, of which Peter alone appeared receptive from Adam until the end of men. For true and exceptional is God's display of such mighty working, surpassing the lowliness of creation, as also seems good to David, the best of the prophets.

For he too, in one of the psalms, hymning God and expounding his ineffable and incomprehensible power, said these things which you know as you customarily sing them: In the sea is your way, and your paths in many waters, and your footsteps shall not be known. What therefore the Master had as his own among the exceptional marks of the Godhead, this he made common to the servant, judging him worthy of so great an honor. Zealous indeed is the great John also, resting upon the breast of the Lord; great too is James, named a son of thunder; radiant in honors is Philip also, who was snatched away by the Spirit when he initiated the Ethiopian into the knowledge of the Savior; but nevertheless let them all yield to Peter and confess that they are second, when the comparison of gifts approves the one more preferred. Reviewing all things one by one and considering them, I find this man, both in rational discourses and in practical activities, everywhere leaping ahead of the other disciples and bounding out in front and leaving behind those running the same course of life.

For once when the Lord was questioning the twelve and making a test of how they stood in regard to full assurance and conviction about the opinion they held concerning him, and was commanding them to say plainly whom they said he was, while all the others were deliberating in silence and delaying and showing that they were in labor with the answer, as it were, through some consideration, he who carried in his soul the living spark of faith, the coal with which Isaiah too had his lips purified beforehand, opened his mouth quickly and confessed that blessed and truly wise saying: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Which of these words would one worthily admire, having become a trustworthy interpreter of the greatest of the apostles? For see first how unadorned and brief the word is, setting forth in a short utterance the power of ten thousand great things. For every word is best in which the expression is to the point and does not flow over on a small and paltry thought; on the contrary, it signifies a multitude of things in brevity, like the mustard seed, which is the smallest when it is held and seen, but if you bring it to the sense of the mouth, it draws the whole animal from foot to head to its own heat. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Every word that contributes to the knowledge of God and our Savior is contemplated and turned toward these two things:

One is the matter of the primordial Godhead, which is the Word in the beginning, who always is and is with the Father and is God, just as the great John the theologian initiated us into, lying like a sponge at the breast of the Only-begotten and from there drawing the knowledge of the hidden truth; and another is the matter of the economy, which God in his goodness accepted for condescension to our weakness. Worthily, then, should one consider the answer, how in brevity and fewness of words he indicated the meaning entirely and accurately in brief, beginning from the lower things and leading the thought up by degrees to the lofty things. You are the Christ. This is a declaration of the economy and an exposition of the incarnate theophany. For this is not a name of the pre-eternal Word, but a proclamation of the grace of those who are anointed. Therefore our Lord also, having wholly accepted becoming man and all the other things that revolve around the flesh, condescends also to be called Christ as one anointed to be king, not with the oil of the horn as Samuel and David and the men after them, but by the energy of the Spirit, according to which the Lord's man—for thus it is dear to the many to address Jesus—was wonderfully conceived and paradoxically in the womb of the virgin. But having confessed Jesus who became man for our sake, he did not stop the account at this point, but ascending through the intelligible ladder of Jacob to heaven and coming to the contemplation of the Word of God in the beginning, he adds to him the excellent and true dignity, calling him Son of the living God. And precisely thus and not otherwise:

He himself, having confessed the straight and unbending rule of faith and having handed down to us all the word of piety as an inviolable law, did not depart without reward or honor; but having been called blessed by the truly blessed One, he is called the rock of faith and the foundation and base of the Church according to Christ. Through the promise of the kingdom he receives the keys and becomes lord of its gates, so as to open them to whomever he wishes and to close them to whomever it is just—certainly to the profane and unholy and to those who deny that confession for which he himself, as a precise guardian of good things, was appointed to preside over the entrances of the kingdom. O the darkness and the mist that has been poured out in great measure before human eyes, through which the heretics do not see the footprints of the fathers, nor are they able to walk in that way which the feet of the apostles trod.

For behold, Peter, the genuine disciple of Christ by election, who everywhere received the first vote both of honors and of achievements, that great man, the renowned one, whose fame filled the whole inhabited world—when he was commanded to say how he believed concerning our God and Savior, he did not begin from some far-fetched subtlety, nor did he wrap himself in a circle of syllogisms and arguments and answer the question as the clever sophists and technicians of the faith are accustomed to do now, but in simplicity of heart he set forth the truth concisely, not dividing the unbegotten from the begotten, not triflingly splitting hairs about like and unlike, not busying himself with the difference that surpasses all substance, nor measuring the immeasurable divinity with syllogisms—such as the playthings of Arius and the meddlings of Eunomius. Let us therefore be zealous, O Christians, for the faith of the fisherman, whose mark is not much speaking—the uncurious one, the old man from Bethsaida, the first catch of Christ. Let us practice saying: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, and let us leave the more than these to the word-fighters, whose work is strife and whose end is destruction. Does the apostle's wonder, then, stop at what has been said? Or, on the contrary, do we not seem even to have begun, if one were to set aside the remaining things from what has been said? But I, leaving the many things to your understanding—for you know Peter and his deeds, even if no one chooses to praise the man—wish to say a few things about his rest and how he migrated from earth to heaven, so that I may cease speaking there where he also ended his life.

When our Savior was about to draw near to his voluntary death, he entrusted to this man, as a kind of chosen deposit, the universal and worldwide Church, asking him a third time, "Do you love me?" And when he had very eagerly set forth confessions equal in number to the questions, he received the world into his care as one flock under one shepherd, having heard, "Feed my lambs." And the Lord gave, almost in place of himself, his most faithful disciple to the converts as father, shepherd, and teacher. Having heard this voice, then, he did not live his life in ease, nor did he love a life free from danger, but going around the whole inhabited world he revealed Christ to those who were blind, guiding those who were wandering, strengthening those who had tasted salvation, fighting against enemies, encouraging his own, enduring persecutions, bearing the burden of prisons, in many ways risking danger for the gospel. As time went on, having reached the city that rules over men, from there he ran up to the kingdom. For Nero, inflamed to anger as once Herod was in Palestine when the magi announced Christ as king, surpassed all other forms of punishment and voted that the thrice-blessed man be nailed to the wood of the cross, so that Peter might imitate his Master not only by walking on the sea, but also by hanging on the wood.

Nevertheless, as a devout and wise man, even in the hour of his agony, knowing what difference there is between a Lord and a servant, he asked one favor of his enemies: that they not bring him to the wood in the same posture, but that they nail his head to the lower part of the cross. For it was not fitting that even in suffering the servant should meet with the same treatment as the Master. He spoke and obtained what he wished, and through the cross he departed to the one who was crucified and rose again, himself having taken up the crown of martyrdom, and leaving to us the reasons for these festivals. These things, then, we too have rendered to you, O beloved and sacred head, according to our ability, as thank-offerings for your many achievements. But it is time now to turn our discourse to another champion, the partner of your virtue, the man of Tarsus, who by a different manner of punishment, but with one aim of piety, departed to Christ together with you. Paul, the inspired, the loud-voiced trumpet of the gospel, formerly a bitter enemy of Christians, but finally a strong advocate of the church, was born, though younger, to the apostles by grace; and in time he was second among the disciples of Christ, but equal in the proven excellence of his virtue—to say nothing more—having reverenced the gray hairs of the twelve; a zealous imitator of Moses, if ever there was one, a wall of the law, a tower of the Old Testament, steadfast and unshaken; and as long as he kept his mind unchanged, he was a great danger to those who spoke of Christ, and everywhere he terrified our people and put them to flight.

Truly, according to Jacob's foretelling, Benjamin is a ravening wolf, tearing apart the lambs of the New Testament and scattering the flocks. And when he had also carried out the drama against Saint Stephen, and with his hands still defiled with blood, he was rushing toward Damascus, desiring to join persecution to persecution and murders to murders, and to tear Christianity up by the root, just then blooming with its first growth. Our God saw well what He had made, that the strong enemy might become a noble friend; and shining upon him suddenly with light, He strikes him with amazement and changes him to humility, halting him from his course by fear, and chastening with darkness the eyes that looked with fire and fury. And He punishes him not in silence, but added speech to the deed, saying that which is written: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads—not as though He Himself needed conversation (for why should He need words when the deeds were sufficient?), but in order to give him an occasion to ask and to learn that the Christ who was thought to have died and to lie buried lives and appears from heaven and thus by authority defends those who are wronged. And nothing is so good as to set forth the very words themselves that explain to us the hunt of the Hebrew wolf. But Saul, still breathing threats

and murder. The account sketches for me a man bursting with rage from the preceding bloodshed, still gasping after the volleys of stones, looking bloodshot and savage, as a murderer necessarily would, preserving at the beginning of the patriarch's prophecy the symbols. For he, when he was about to die, having stationed his sons from every side around the bed, foretold by the Spirit. Thus, then, blessing Judah, he spoke to him, but allegorically he sang of the Christ who would come from him. Next, after foretelling to all what would happen later, he came last to Benjamin, as also younger in time; and ostensibly he spoke to the son, but in reality he signified Paul, who, as we know, was descended from that tribe. Benjamin is a ravening wolf; in the morning he will devour, and in the evening he will distribute food. Let us examine what is being said—or rather, this altogether: that having first eaten, that is, persecuted, killed, shed blood, scattered the church like a flock, he finally became a herdsman and good shepherd, setting aside the persecutor and putting on the apostle, distributing the Word to all as food and establishing for us this holy table. For such is the power of the Lord, disarming those who rebel in rage and impious thoughts, and leading them on skillfully and taming them and making them gentle sheep instead of biting beasts. Concerning these things, what does the Scripture say? That he came to the high priest and asked from him letters for Damascus to the synagogues, so that he might bring the Christians to Jerusalem.

O what a battle and difference between the letters sought from Paul at that time and those he later wrote when he proclaimed Christ! The former used to bind Christians, but the latter placed chains upon the persecutor for Christ's sake—many and heavy and hard to bear. And there it had been written: "Saul the Hebrew, champion of the law, enemy of the cross, foe of the gospel"; but in the later and sound letters: "Paul, slave of Jesus Christ." Of what sort of one? Add: of the crucified one. O the wonder! What was recently a reproach has now become a boast, and what was despised is today remembered as glory. For no glory-seeking and exulting king ever paraded so in the splendor of his rule as Paul, writing himself to all as a prisoner of the cross and adorned more by iron than maidens are by the gold that beautifies them. And suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. Why does he not appear to him in the form of a man, as also to Stephen from heaven, but in the appearance of fire or light? Because to Stephen, as one perfect and knowing the mystery of the incarnation and harmed by nothing from the lowliness that is ours, he showed himself rightly in this way, just as he also ascended into heaven; but to Paul, as one who for this reason did not accept calling Jesus God, since he had come to us in a body, he does not appear as a man, lest he confirm the stumbling block for the unbeliever, but rather in the form of lightning and light, so that from the law and from Moses he might draw him. For there also this same God, revealing himself to Moses in fire, spoke.

And when he was giving the law on Sinai, blazing with fire, he handed the tablets to the Hebrew. He shines around him, then, so that, applying his mind to the likeness of what happened then and now, and as if rousing himself from some forgetfulness, he may recognize that the divine manifestations belong to one power. And he sends the radiance from heaven, so that Paul, no longer turning his mind about Bethlehem and Galilee, may not name Christ "son of David" and "man" and all the other names of the economy, but may be taught clearly that being God from above he came to us, whence he also now appears. Then he adds wisely: "I am Jesus." He did not say, "I am God" or "the Son of God," but "Jesus"—the name of condescension, so that he might confirm the faith of the incarnation, at which the Jews took offense. "I am the one whom you slapped, whom you scourged, whom you dragged and brought now to Caiaphas, later to Pilate, whom you continually called the son of the carpenter, whom you counted among the dead, laughing greatly at those who proclaimed the resurrection. To them I now speak and do not appear; present, I am not seen; enlightening the soul, I bring blindness upon the eyes. Believe, then, that I also appeared to Stephen when he said this to you and was disbelieved. It is hard, then, for you to kick against the goads." He calls the nails of the cross "goads." For just as one who dashes himself against sharpened iron does not destroy it—how could he destroy what is hard?—but wounds himself, so too the one who strives against God draws down upon himself self-chosen destruction.

Be sober-minded, then, for the rest of your life, and now that you have lost your sight through that wondrous radiance, understand above all that it was for this reason that I put on a body and became a man, so that not all who converse with the Godhead without a veil might be blinded. So much for that; and Paul, being led by the hand, was led away—a pitiable sight, or rather a gracious one and worthy of delight. The wolf was bound, the robber was brought to his senses, the savage was tamed, the runner walked meekly, the tyrant of the disciples was led away as a disciple, and he who had defiled his hands with the blood of Stephen was led to drink the blood of the other. And for three days he continued living in blindness. And very reasonably so. For he who had erred concerning the Trinity was justly condemned to a punishment equal in number to his sin. In this way, then, the divinely inspired man was initiated into piety. But when he had tasted the truth and learned through experience that Christ lives and exists and reigns over all things, and that he was neither destroyed by death nor stolen away by the disciples, he quickly transferred from the law to the gospel and proclaimed to all that Christ is God—he whom yesterday and the day before he had reviled with blasphemies—and he was as strong an ally as he had been an enemy; for he was mighty in both. And suddenly and unexpectedly entering the synagogues of Damascus, he expounded the words of the law and the prophets, not strengthening the law, but from it establishing Christ and comparing the declarations of the prophets with the events that came to pass, and by the law casting out the law. As, then, he also says concerning himself in his letter to the Romans: For I through the law died to the law.

That is, guided by the letters of Moses I came to recognize the piety of the gospel. Astonishment therefore seized Damascus, and all were amazed among themselves: Come, behold the man of Tarsus, a Hebrew, the zealous disciple of the ancestral law, now a vehement advocate of Jesus, calling him God and proving from our own writings that this is the promised Savior. There is fear, then, that he may persuade the whole city, that he may win over the entire people and turn them away from the law. For he is a student of the Scripture, sharp in mind, quick in speech, resourceful in manner, and possessing much credibility; from these things, knowing our affairs accurately, he does not seem to wander in ignorance, but by testing and judgment to have found the truth. Into this perplexity he cast a great city, a populous people—the first preaching of the noble convert—and Damascus was then more disturbed than the Christians were formerly in Jerusalem, when Paul stoned Stephen. For just as the wonderful heroes, wherever they transfer their allegiance, transfer the victory there, so that inspired man made those to whom he gave his own weight altogether great. Having thus proclaimed the gospel in Phoenicia and having sown there the first seeds of his apostleship, where he himself was also enlightened by knowledge, he came to Jerusalem, a strange and beautiful sight to those there. For those who had sent him forth and given him the chains to carry against the Christians, not knowing what had happened in the meantime, when they saw

At first they were pleased and demanded the hunt, hoping to see a multitude of Christian prisoners and seeking the fulfillment of their many promises. But when, as the account proceeded, they found that Paul—formerly Saul—had joined his resolve to his calling and was a slave of Christ and a more fervent disciple of the other apostles, at first they regarded what was said as sport and mockery; but when they had tested it and found his resolve in agreement with his voice, they resolved on one thing only: that the young man should perish, since it was impossible for the religion of the Hebrews to stand and for Paul to bear the name and speak while alive. And all the later time clearly showed this. For while many, even if they were Christians, were not sufficient to live purely according to the gospel, but were double-minded and in some places even made use of circumcision, so that by doing things partly pleasing to the Hebrews they might soften their anger, this man alone with an undaunted mind taught nothing that was inferior, but with a pure voice proclaimed the word unadulterated, and advanced so far in free-mindedness that once, when the Galatians in their own levity and contempt for their teachers were running back to the life according to the law, writing to them his wonderful epistle, through which he taught them to be pious and to worship in the newness of the citizenship according to Christ, no longer paying attention to the letters from the stone tablets, he clashed through what was said to him with the very chief of the apostles and continued everywhere attacking and skirmishing with Peter, as one who was muddying the new citizenship by his use of the old and abolished doctrines.

He respected neither the gray hair of the old man nor the dignity of the apostleship, when he saw the truth in danger. But he stood up vigorously against the Galatians, and often struck him, as was possible, tempering his frankness with propriety. And everywhere he continued speaking and persuading; but if ever, encountering wicked dispositions, he suffered something terrible, or dwelt in a prison, or received lashes, or was struck with stones, he did not abandon his zeal because of the failure that occurred; but after pausing a little he again drew near to his enemies and went over the same arguments and devised many modes of attack, and adapting himself very ingeniously to the needs that arose, he always departed having persuaded either all or the many. Often, then, he was found after incurable blows and was cast out in the suburbs of that city which he was initiating into piety, and was thought even to be dead because of the magnitude of his sufferings; on the next day he reached the marketplace and, stretching out his right hand, he again taught those who had brought him near to death. Thus he cared nothing for his body; but looking toward the goal of the upward calling, he struggled steadfastly, exchanging land for land, city for city, laboring amid toils on land, arraying himself against dangers from the sea, speaking wisely before inflamed assemblies, defending himself before angry judges; leading Hebrews to the knowledge of Christ through the writings honored among them, and persuading Greeks by external arguments and the unwritten laws of nature.

confirming Christians, building up converts and nourishing them with fitting instruction, like gardeners tending the young plants with a measured and sparing flow of water. But let us learn what most of all displays his strength in words. Athens is a city presiding over Achaia, a hearth of eloquence, as those who praise it have called it before me, an ancient workshop of wise men and of those who live by words. When, then, Paul had run through Illyricum and everywhere scattered the sparks of the faith, which the Spirit, receiving them, fanned into flame and kept unquenched, he came, according to the need of his circuit, also to the wise Athenians. And it was a matter worthy of great concern, how the tentmaker would declaim to them his words about God, to those who claim by their education to rule over all men together. But he, lifted up by the greatness of his nature and the wealth of the gift from above, did not enter one of the roofed houses, nor did he sit in a single workshop and hold a discourse, as the foremost of their philosophers were accustomed to converse with those who approached them, but he ran up to the Areopagus, where there was a harsh and fearful council judging cases of murder, and finding there a great multitude gathered, he stood and declaimed beyond the customary orators, those who contended daily among them.

Taking his starting point from the inscription that had been affixed to an altar, and from there proclaiming to them the unknown God in a way well suited to them, and bringing his whole discourse to its conclusion, he was so far from erring in his words like a layman in secular wisdom that he persuaded the foremost of the Areopagites, Dionysius, together with his wife, converted them, and made them servants of Christ, leading many away from many altars by means of one altar and a small inscription. Having come down from there as a victor—from the place where the warlike demon of the Greeks was strongest—and having departed from there to the neighboring city of Corinth, which is the metropolis of Achaia, and having spoken the saving teaching in the synagogues, he went away leading a convert, not one of the many nor one of those who happened along, but the chief synagogue ruler himself with his entire household, and having conquered the law from its very top and magnified the cross as a lofty trophy, thus he also left that city subject to Christ. As time went on and the word of piety advanced, he continued like some general daily acquiring cities, villages, and fields for the King, cutting the sinews of the tyrant who had previously held power. He therefore moved on from Corinth to the land of the Pisidians, then, having reached Lycaonia and the cities of Phrygia, and from there having visited Asia, then Macedonia, he was a common teacher of the inhabited world, benefiting those present by his tongue and turning back those absent through his letters.

For his alone, neither did his knee ever grow weary as he journeyed, nor his tongue grow numb as he set forth unceasingly, to enemies and friends alike, the mysteries of the gospel. Such was he in his teaching; but what kind of man was he in the rest of his philosophy of life? Always and continually devoting himself to the word and serving the gospel, he did not even receive the bread he ate as a gift from anyone, but day brought the struggle against ten thousand enemies, and night brought the chisel and the leather and the work of his craft, so that from there he might have his sustenance, and might appear to all an unburdensome apostle, a herald who cost nothing, sparing even to the point of bread those who showed him hospitality. Let us hear these words, priests—we who do not merely share in the altars, but also grow rich from them and live in luxury, making the sacred property our own possession, and laying burdensome commands on our subordinates as though on slaves for Christ's sake. The priesthood is not a lordship, but rather a servitude for the one who understands; not the dignity of an official's self-will, but the stewardship of a reverent ministry. Did not the inspired Paul have the right to eat and drink from the sacred things, and to receive at least a small reward for his countless labors, for the care of a body beaten daily? But he did not use the right, so that, having received nothing on earth, he might claim all things in heaven. Therefore he was deemed worthy of things beyond human nature even while still bound to corruptible flesh.

And so that he might behold a foretaste of the good things to come and of the honors there, he is taken up as far as the third heaven, he sees visions surpassing the lot here below, and he hears words ineffable, as he himself says—and this too with moderation, and everywhere fleeing boastfulness and making a show of his own advantages. But in order that he might alone bring down the proud thoughts of those puffed up over small gifts, of necessity he lays bare a few of his own, and these too by putting them on another person and leading suspicion about himself far away. Elijah the Tishbite, then, since he was carried up on high in the form of a fiery chariot, is sung everywhere and left a great wonder to life; but how far he reached, no account has explained. For perhaps, having been lifted a little from the earth, he was restored by the power that led him to the place which he received to dwell in. But the translation of Paul was found far more brilliant and glorious, since the measure also is added—how far he was taken up. For when seven heavens are sung of, he came well-nigh to the half. And from now on let the Hebrews lay down their pride, who think greatly of Moses, because he alone reached the summit of Sinai and came within the darkness and the clouds. For my Paul, instead of a mountain, ascended to the heavens; and instead of a cloud, he drove beyond the air that is above the cloud. And very reasonably. For it was fitting that the man according to Christ should surpass Moses by as much as the gospel exceeds the law.

But in the divine manifestations and the things spoken by God, and how, though bound, he was loosed, and though disheartened, he was strengthened, God giving him oracles both awake and in dreams—why need one even speak of it, since he himself did not conceal his own grace, but clearly revealed it to all together, saying: "If you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me?" For the other prophets or apostles had the divine workings from above set before them and limited in time, and sometimes the divine was with them, and sometimes it was not present. But this wondrous man, as if once for all appointed as a chosen temple of God for his indwelling, thus always had Christ both as finder of counsel and teacher of word and co-worker of his deeds. And John the son of Zebedee seemed great because, beyond the other disciples, with boldness toward the Lord he reclined on his breast; and for this especially he is celebrated above all. But this man—how would he not justly be thought even above men, since he gave rest not to Jesus in the body, but to the bare Word without the flesh, daily making himself a useful and pure vessel for the Creator? And though I have many and varied things to say—all that this wondrous man, instructing the whole world, said and did on earth and sea, in courts, in marketplaces, among peoples, in the halls of kings—I willingly pass over their number. For I did not set out to make a written record of his achievements, so that nothing be lacking, but to produce a eulogy, and this as far as my power reaches. And having mentioned only the last thing, I will end my discourse.

For when he had gone around the whole inhabited world and, placing the word upon the lampstand, had kindled a great torch of the gospel knowledge, he came also to the Romans, as to the ruling city, so that, having initiated and persuaded and won as disciples those who ruled over all men, he might from his abundance also converse with the rest of mankind. And finding Peter there also, a worker of the same zeal, and having yoked a certain sacred and God-inspired pair, he taught those under the law in synagogues and won over the Gentiles in marketplaces; and he was a manifold teacher of good things, revealing the pure and unadulterated knowledge of God, laying down precise rules of ethical virtue, driving far away from men dancing and drunkenness and every dissolute pleasure, in which especially both the whole multitude and the one then reigning were involved. The introduction of the best and most temperate way of life therefore sharply attacked Nero; and he grieved more at the destruction of pleasure than if he were being cast out of his very kingdom. For he was, if ever any man was, a sophist of pleasures, luxuriating and piping to the flute, a sluggard and effeminate, a supervisor of prostitutes, not a king of men. For how would he have ruled others, who had not learned to rule himself? He set one

his concern was how he might cut off from the city the teacher of piety and chastity. And, emulating Herod's purpose, he led the apostles away into prison, as that man had led John; and having, in like manner, another Herodias—the dissolute and pleasure-loving purpose seeking the head of Peter and Paul—he bound them both with the crown of martyrdom: nailing the one to the wood, and cutting off the head of Paul, and leaving behind for us and for the world the suffering of the saints as a festival and an occasion of so great a feast. These things, O thrice-blessed ones, the yearly law has brought to you, proclaiming you everywhere as the common athletes of the inhabited world, and improving the minds of men through your honor. For virtue, when honored, rouses many to zeal; in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the power, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Encomium of Asterius, bishop of Amaseia, on the holy hieromartyr Phocas. Beautiful and profitable for those who practice the serious things is the memory of the saints. For it does not only teach by word those who desire virtue and piety, but also sets before them the deeds of those who have lived rightly as clear teachers. Therefore also our Lord, giving the precepts of the best achievements, says: Whoever shall do and teach, this one shall be called great; and elsewhere: Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. For rational instruction is weaker and a feebler teacher than practical action.

And to whatever degree we say that sight is more accurate than hearing, to that same degree it is acknowledged that action prevails over word. This is how we learn sciences; this is how we are trained in crafts—first being led to learning by word, then confirming the faint impression by hand and experience. And the geometer, having labored much over the book and having his hearing filled by the teacher, will not otherwise grasp the power of the varied figures unless he learns thoroughly the centers and the lines and the circles on the tablet. Nor, indeed, does discourse alone teach the one who desires astronomy the object of his zeal, unless the teacher, having skillfully spun the sphere for him, delivers the motion of the pole to his eyes. And the medical art, though one has labored much over Hippocrates and the other teachers, is an unskilled healer until, having gone to the many sick, he learns healing from the sick themselves. So indeed we also, the disciples of the martyrs, making the deeds of the steadfast men our teachers before their confession, learn to guard piety even to the last dangers, looking upon their very sacred tombs as pillars engraved with letters and declaring precisely the struggle of martyrdom.

Just as those who approach the oak of Mamre or the purchased cave, which Ephron the Hittite sold for the burial of Sarah, where indeed the patriarch himself lies with his children, immediately, with the sight of those places, renew the image in their thoughts and see with their mind the faithful patriarch, the firstfruits of piety, the circumcision that was in him; and they reckon also those who sprang from his root, Isaac, Jacob, and with the memory of the men they become spectators of the whole history concerning them—so I too today, having reached the honored shrine of the thrice-blessed Phocas, am filled from the place with the memory of all the accounts told about him at once. I see the gardener by profession, the one unformed in soul, the lover of strangers, the distinguished one of the coast, the benefactor of the inland, the holy one of the saints and more glorious than those glorified through Christ. For sacred and divine is the whole catalogue of the noble martyrs, who by suffering rendered grace for suffering, and by blood fulfilled the recompense for blood to the Savior of all. Nevertheless, even among these, the glory of all is not one, nor have all been allotted equal honors by a single measure, but the first and the second do not escape even the catalogue of the saints. And I think the cause of this is the judge's great exactness and impartiality. For he observes both the magnitudes of punishments and the steadfastness of endurance, and testing the contest, he distributes to the athletes the recompenses according to worth.

And it is in no way surprising if righteousness is thus honored by God, since even among us generals and judges of contests are not equal to those who excel or to the contestants, but indeed they proclaim gifts proportionate to each one according to the measure of his achievement. I have gone through these things so that I might show that the one who today provided us the occasion for this gathering is more illustrious than his companions and fellow contestants. For the others are not all known among all, nor do they have their valor celebrated; but Phocas—there is no one who does not know him. Rather, just as the ray of the sun is spread out before all eyes, so also the fame of this martyr has resounded through every ear. And to speak concisely, as many as have come to know Christ the Master, these have also come to know the faithful servant. Or rather, if it seems good, setting aside the common encomia directed toward others, I will recount to you who love the martyrs the exceptional deeds of the martyr. The neighboring Sinope, then, an ancient and well-known city, wealthy in steadfast men and lovers of wisdom, brought forth this holy man, the great benefit of Christians. For let no one now reckon to me the difference of religion, but whether it was shown to be a nurse and mother of earnest men at all. His pursuit in life was garden cultivation and care, which he possessed somewhere before the gate of the city at the mouth of the isthmus and practiced diligently, providing for himself and for those in need a consolation of life. And he opened his small and impoverished hearth to strangers very eagerly. Living beside the highway, he set out his possessions as common to those who sojourned there; and he was a new Lot—not of the Sodomites, but of the Sinopeans.

But as time went on, he found that the commandment was not without reward; for from his hospitality he gained the occasion of life-giving death. Hear now how and in what manner he took it up for a little while. When the word of our piety had been proclaimed and the divine message had gone out to every ear, making Christ and his mysteries known, the nations raged, as the psalm says, and the kings and rulers gathered together against him; and the peoples of error were enraged because Jesus had become king. Every Christian was sought out as a criminal, and the one near at hand was punished, and the one far off was hunted down. Therefore neither the lowliness of his occupation nor his role as a gardener hid Phocas, but he too was reported as a most genuine initiate of Christ. And indeed those commanded to drag him away—men of this wretched and fleeting life—came upon him without trial, without defense. For such was the charge, which the noble man confessed with a clear voice; and though no one asked, he showed it by his deeds, and when questioned he cried it out with great joy. So then, the executioners of his punishment and the cause of our feast came and lodged with the very man who was being sought, neither knowing nor being known. For a time they kept secret the reason for their visit, so that, first being instructed by those outside the city as to who Phocas was and where he lived, they might suddenly fall upon him and seize him, as the Hebrews once did in the garden with Judas the

They had been unaware that they held their prey within their nets—the dogs the ram, the wolves the lamb, the ravenous and hook-clawed birds the dove; just as the prophet Isaiah says: the kid rested together with the leopards, and the lamb fed together with the wolves, and the lions shared their dwelling with the calf. But since, as commonly happens, the table and familiarity gave them confidence in one another, the martyr inquired of them who they were and for what reason they had come to his city. And they, ashamed before the man's eager welcome and hospitality, and having charged them to tell no one what was about to be said, made known to him the secret and disclosed the drama of the plot—that they were seeking Phocas for punishment; and they asked him to add this benefit to his hospitality, that he would labor with them in the hunt for the one being sought. The servant of the Lord heard this and, receiving the word with an unwavering soul, suffered nothing base or cowardly, nor did he, in fear of the danger, resolve to flee—and this though he had great and unhindered power to escape—but quite the contrary, he consented to their request. "And I," he says, "will join you in the matter at hand. For I know the man, and having sought him out easily I will point him out; and this not after long, but after one day. Only do you rest in this poor lodging of mine." Having thus given them a firm guarantee of his promise, he divided himself between two things: the welcoming of his own murderers and the preparation of his tomb.

Having prepared the pit and the necessities for burial, he came to them on the following day and said, "I have carefully sought out Phocas, and the prey is ready; and if it seems good, let him be seized." But when they said out of great joy, "And where is the man?" he said, "Not far off, but with you; and I myself am this very man before you. Use the command and fulfill the goal of your journey and toil." The men were struck in their souls and at the hearing grew numb, thinking of the salt and the table and the host who in poverty was generous. But he urged them on to the boldness of the murder and commanded them not to hesitate even for a little, saying that the killing was not the work of their hand but of those who had given the order. He spoke, he persuaded, he suffered; and having been beheaded, he was brought near to God as a pleasing sacrifice. From that time until now we have this man as a pillar and support of the churches of God, O men; and he is the most illustrious of the martyrs, holding the first place among the best and most blessed. For star differs from star in glory, both according to common opinion and according to the voice of the vessel of election; and especially is he the most renowned among the saints everywhere in the inhabited world. And he draws and gathers all to his own dwelling; and the highways are full of those from every land hastening to the place of prayer. That magnificent temple is therefore a relief for the oppressed, a resource for the poor, a healing place for the afflicted, an Egypt for the hungry. And Phocas, having died, feeds more abundantly than Joseph while living.

For that man exchanged grain for silver, but this one grants it freely to those in need. And just as doves in the winter season, when food is hard to find, fly over newly sown lands and settle in their furrows, so the tribes of all the poor and the wandering run together to the isthmus of Sinope as to a common treasury. And if anywhere else too, through small remnants, as it were a colony of a mother-city, the martyr has established a place for himself, that place too is wondrous and eagerly sought by all Christians, just as indeed this place among us is a sacred lodging for those who celebrate. For precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his holy ones; and the relics, divided in many places, preserve whole everywhere the good report of the thrice-blessed one. So then also in the imperial city, the head of Italy and queen of the world, he has a great escort and honor and a splendid house, adorned to beauty. And the Romans honor Phocas no less than Peter and Paul. And, as the account teaches, they eagerly acquired the head of the martyr, choosing a purpose the reverse of that of the foul Herodias. For she, thirsting for righteous blood, sought a head for outrage; but they procured it for their own honor and benefit.

But sailors and voyagers everywhere—not only those who sail across the Euxine Sea, but those who cut through the Adriatic and are carried over the Aegean, and all who sail the western ocean and ply the eastern gulfs—have changed their customary commands, by which they ease the toil of the voyage, into a new theme through the acclamation of the noble one; and on their tongue is the thrice-blessed one, since he also provides manifest proofs of his help. Often, indeed, he was seen by night, when a storm was expected, rousing the helmsman who was dozing at the rudder; and at another time again stretching the rope and tending the sail and watching the reefs from the prow. So it became a custom for sailors to have Phocas as a fellow-feaster. And since it is impossible to have him now as an incorporeal companion of life, learn how with pious reasoning they devised a way around the impossibility. Each day they allot to the martyr a portion of the food, for an equal share with those who eat. And one of the feasters buys this out, depositing the silver, and on the next day another, and at another time another; and thus the lot of the purchase, spreading through all, gives each day the buyer of the portion. And when the harbor receives them and they disembark onto land, the silver is distributed to the hungry; and this is the portion for Phocas, a benefaction of the poor. Kings too marvel at this most steadfast and God-loving man and adorn the sanctuary of God with honor-loving treasures. And those who come after strive to surpass their elders.

And it is not yet surprising if the men who govern the Roman empire, being pious and reared on statutes and laws, are so reverently disposed toward the servant of Christ, when the wonder has reached even barbarians; and all the most savage Scythians, as many as inhabit the continent opposite the Euxine Sea, neighbors of the Maeotic lake and the river Tanais, and as many as dwell about the Bosporus and stretch as far as the river Phasis—all these form a bodyguard for the gardener; and though they differ from us in all customs and practices, in this alone they become of one mind, their savagery of manners tamed by the truth. At any rate, one ruler and king from that region, having taken off the crown from his head, which shone with gold and flowers of stones, and having stripped off his war breastplate, which had materials of wealth—for the panoply of barbarians is boastful and luxurious—sent both as offerings through the martyr to God, consecrating the firstfruits both of power and of rank. For it is evident that the crown was a thank-offering of kingship, and the breastplate of strength in wars. But the energies that continually ensue upon these things through visions in dreams and the healings which the sick enjoy—how could anyone recount it, when it is impossible for speech to keep pace with the energies in each case? Nevertheless this much may be said to those who worship the polytheistic error: that one servant of Christ and our fellow-servant fulfills the energies of many of those who are considered gods among you.

And let the oracles be silent, just as they have in fact been silenced, defeated by the predictions of the righteous man among us. Let the workshops of medicine be idle, and let Asclepius not be worshiped; and let the Dioscuri not be thought to fight alongside sailors; for those who sail know the helper in dangers. Where is the Pythia, the woman who is a false prophetess, giving to those who inquire responses that are crooked and unclear, so that by the ambiguity of her oracles she may prepare in advance a defense for her failure and falsehood? Where is the spring that is thought to produce prophetic water? Are not all these things nonsense and drivel, which led the wretched peoples by mob-appeal into error? Worship God, whose faithful servants have been deemed worthy of such great grace, not acting of their own authority, but doing good to their fellow servants according to the gift given to them. And these things after their departure from here and the separation of the body. Recognize from the servants the magnificence of the Lord; glorify the God who is truly over all, to whom worship is due, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

An Encomium by Asterius, Bishop of Amaseia, on the Holy Martyrs. It is possible, it seems, to be greatly benefited even by the most hostile and implacable enemies; and this is shown both by other experience of life and by what has just now been accomplished. For if the devil had not persecuted Christians and waged war against the church, we would not have martyrs; and if there were no martyrs, our life would have become gloomy and without festival. For what is comparable to these festivals? What is so venerable and altogether beautiful as to see an entire city, with all its people, going out from the town and occupying a holy place of piety to celebrate pure mysteries? And true piety is to worship and honor God, and to honor those who for his sake endured sufferings with endurance and drew up in battle line against the final danger of death, whose leaders and foremost champions are those who today have led us as a public assembly: men immortal through a noble death, ever living because they despised life, who exchanged their blood for the kingdom and made the treacherous flesh a benefactor of the soul. Thus, when a good purpose stands over a man like a charioteer, and yokes to itself all impulses and motions, and carefully stretches out the reasonings like reins, goading on sluggishness and restraining immoderate sharpness, it is not possible for the course of life to become disorderly or dangerous. We have, then, the martyrs of Christ not only as teachers of good conduct, but also as accusers of sin. But how could a martyr become an accuser? Listen.

If that man conquered the flame of fire by endurance, how do you not subdue fornication by chastity? If the martyr did not spare the wealth and money that he was leaving behind, why do you not despise a little silver for the sake of righteousness? If the martyr did not prefer his family to God, but was separated from wife, children, and dearest ones, how do you not chastise your attachment, but for the sake of persons who perhaps have a bond of kinship with you, do you leap over justice and evade the fear of God? If the martyr stripped off his body for God, how do you not despise a single tunic for the covering of your nakedness? These things, when compared with one another, convict our perversity. Either, then, let us respect the saints as teachers, or let us fear them as accusers, and let us show our own life to be in accord with those who are honored; and let us also be persuaded toward God in this way, as the saints obeyed the commandments and firmly hoped in the promises. For a very good teacher of courage and endurance is the hope of the good things that are understood, which, lying within our thoughts as a trustworthy pledge and a sure guarantee, exhorts us to look upon every danger undauntedly and to bear it nobly in experience; and this follows naturally. For by some natural lot we humans are disposed to grow soft and slack toward those labors that are without honor, but on the contrary to take hold vigorously of those whose end is prizes and honors. Therefore all the martyrs

Applying our mind to the Gospel text, in which the Lord, exhorting the sacred athletes and lovers of God, says, "If anyone confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father," it was for this confession that with unwavering reason they endured sharpened iron and stepped onto pyres and handed over their bodies to the mouths of beasts, and each submitted his back to scourges and was torn in the sides by the points of claws, and they endured bonds of iron and bore the dark dwellings of prisons; they were pressed by hunger and parched with thirst, they offered their faces like stones to those who struck them, they heard insults like the deaf, they were silent before those who reproached and reviled them like the mute, they were paraded in public assemblies and theaters, they were led around markets and alleyways with bodies wholly stripped, not men only but also women—the most grievous thing. Others were consumed by fire, others were frozen by winter; in various ways they apportioned their exploits to us, so that by falling they might conquer. For this reason, having reverently wrapped the pious bodies—the vessels of election, the instruments of blessed souls, the dwellings of philosophic inhabitants—we guard them as treasures of great price for the whole of life, and we keep watch over them as our own advantages, and by the martyrs the church is walled as a city by brave soldiers, and public festivals are gathered together and we enjoy the gladness of the feasts.

But those who are pressed by human circumstances or calamities hasten to the resting-places of the thrice-blessed as to a place of refuge, making them ambassadors of their prayers and petitions because of the exceeding greatness of their boldness. Hence poverty is loosed and diseases are healed and the threats of rulers are put to rest; and the sacred shrines of the martyrs are calm harbors from all the disturbances and storms of life. Thus a father or a mother, taking up a sick child and wrapping it in her arms, runs past clinics and physicians and flees to the artless help; and coming to one of the martyrs, through him she brings her petition to the Master, using such words as these to the mediator: "You who suffered for Christ, intercede for suffering and disease. Having boldness, lend a word to your fellow servants. Even if you have left our life, yet you know the sufferings of humanity; you too once comforted martyrs before you became a martyr. Then you received when you were seeking; now that you have, grant. For your own honor, ask for our gain. May we be healed by your wound, as the world was by the wound of Christ." Another, hastening to marriage, makes the prayer in the martyrs' shrines the prelude to his bridal chamber; and one eager for a voyage does not first loose the ship's cables until he has invoked the Master of the sea through the martyrs; and the tribes of the poor and the swarms of the needy possess as their common hearth and food the resting-place of the martyrs; and the martyrs are sung throughout the whole earth and sea. Rightly and worthily so. For not as many did they set righteousness aright, but with their own body they bore the cross;

They did not scatter money, but poured out blood; they did not pity the poor, but did not spare themselves; they did not visit the afflicted in prison, but themselves wore chains. Therefore they reaped glory and honor as a counterbalance to their endurance and ill-treatment. So much, then, for the martyrs; but where are their tyrants and murderers, those who thought lofty thoughts and threatened arrogant threats, who sat on lofty thrones and did not recognize their own ruler? They raged more than lions, they ran more than leopards, they tore more than bears, they shed blood like wolves, they did mischief like foxes. They lie more loathsome than dead donkeys; forgetfulness has covered their life; they have Hades as their tomb, impiety as their monument, and dishonor as their memory.

They repent without profit, they groan without effect. But those who were tortured by them were succeeded by unceasing memory and ageless praise. For the more advanced, receiving the accounts and the honors from the elders, and a grandfather handing down to a grandchild or a father to a child, make their veneration immortal, and their praise; and as though an inviolable inheritance, life preserves these festivals in successive generations—or rather, a possession more precious than an inheritance. For a good inheritance a robber has taken away, or an enemy has seized as plunder, or a circumstance of affairs has emptied; but a festival of holy men no one will cut off from the year, as long as there are years and time runs and heaven holds the sun and earth feeds its own creatures and sea its exceptional ones.

To speak more truly, even when these elements have ceased—even if it seems so to some—the glory of the martyrs and the righteous will not be extinguished, nor will the things concerning them come to an end together with creation; but then all the more will they flourish unto incorruptible life, when humanity has been refashioned. It is possible for the unbelieving and for those who doubt concerning our future hope to take from the things done in this present life sure pledges of our good expectation. For behold, the whole circle of the inhabited world has been filled with the athletes of Christ, and every place has the memory of the saints; and all seasons bestow upon those who celebrate the narratives of the contestants things better than the gifts and produce of the earth. So that if anyone were a zealous friend of the martyrs and set his care upon celebrating the sufferings of the whole company, he would not let a single day of the year pass unfeasted. For all the days have, as their adornment, the brave deeds of the noble, better than the circuit of the sun. For since the one who is set against good things raged fiercely against the mystery of the Christians, and eagerly sought to bury all things in the dust by his own thoughts and to occupy them to no purpose with the pursuits of clay, God, having anointed a multitude of excellent men with his commandments and trained them for endurance and strength, set them against the shameless and treacherous enemy of humanity. These men contended a new contest and not the customary one. For they did not prevail by striking or breaking, but by suffering they won the prize, and by being slain. And what kind of strength of war will you name, O hearer?

What kind of distinction is this—to be racked and scourged, and to end one's life through fire or sword or the affliction of prisons? But learn that the wars waged on behalf of piety are won in the opposite way from others. For the one side has its valor in killing, but the other side wins the victory through suffering and falling. The boldness of the righteous accomplishes their intercessions on behalf of the world; and the enemy did not notice that he fell into the opposite of what he wished. For as many as he slaughtered as martyrs, so many helpers of men he prepared. And in every deed he is found to suffer this same thing: whence he thinks he is hindering piety, from there he builds up the increase of piety. For the wise God turns the counsels of the foolish and senseless to the contrary. And this we find by following the events of each time: the exposure of Moses, the sale of Joseph. At the very beginning he killed Abel, the second man, in order to cut off the seed of the pious, and the opposite happened. For from that time murderers are fiercely hated, since Cain was cursed by God. What happened in the case of Christ, because Satan worked among the Jews so that they might crucify him. The same thing has indeed befallen the martyrs, whom many despise, belittling their worth out of their own folly. Is he not a man? Was the body not consumed? Is their memory not in a few remains, and these buried? Especially do Greeks and Eunomians say these things; but let us speak to both. We do not worship martyrs, but we honor them as genuine worshipers of God; we do not reverence men, but we marvel at

those who in the time of trials have piously revered God. We place them in beautiful tombs and raise up for them houses of rest, magnificent in their construction, so that we may emulate the honors of those who have ended their lives well; and we do not show our zeal toward them without reward, but we enjoy their protection before God. For since our own prayer is not sufficient to persuade God in a time of necessity or misfortune—for our petition is not a plea but a reminder of sins—for this reason we flee to our fellow servants who are beloved by the Master, so that they, by their own good deeds, may heal our transgressions. What charge, then, is there in that, while honoring martyrs, we ourselves also strive to please God? What accusation is it to flee to patrons? Let us now examine your own case as well, to see whether you, the accuser of this charge, are yourself clean of it. And how could you be, when you honor countless dead human beings and worship them as gods? Was it not you who, in your folly, made Demeter and Kore into gods, and built two temples to them as goddesses, and honor them with sacrifices and worship them with every kind of service? Is not the chief point of your religion the mysteries at Eleusis, where the Attic people and all Greece flock together to perform vanity? Is it not there that the dark descent is, and the solemn meetings of the hierophant with the priestess, one alone with one alone? Are not the torches extinguished, and the great and countless multitude think that their salvation consists in what is done in the darkness by the two?

Are you not the one who worships the Theban Dionysus as a god—for I mention his homeland so that you may recognize the man—a man who was a cultivator of vines and fond of wine, a reveler drunk at the feast, dragging along a crowd behaving shamefully in their drunkenness, doing those things which he censures in dissolute young men who live licentiously, drunk together with the old man Silenus and living with the capering Satyrs and being a story of drunkenness for his life? Are you not the one who brings sacrifices to the man Heracles as to a god, a robust man, allotted a powerful and courageous body, and you revere him because he excelled in many contests and overcame wild beasts? And again, why do you not revere and marvel at Asclepius, who traveled much with the narthex and in the iron chest? And you would not deny that you do this. For the temples standing everywhere throughout the inhabited world—I mean the Asclepieia and the Heracleia and the Dionysia—stand as lofty proofs of your vanity. And so I shall depart innocent of the charge, for I do not worship martyrs nor do I consider them gods; but you have been shown to be caught in the charges, and that while accusing others, just like those who through a bad conscience accuse beforehand those who are blameless. For you have been shown to worship humans as gods. These things, a few from many, against the pagan. But the Jews of the new faction—what wonder is it if you dishonor the martyrs, rejecting Christ and in your own words separating him from the likeness to the Father, and guarding as profane the places in which holy bodies have been laid to rest?

But you who do not come to a realization of what is happening—you who are called Christians, fear—yet alongside the Greeks you hate the martyrs. Do you not know that Christ is the chief martyr, who suffered first and left the zeal to his servants? Then after him Stephen, whose name means the contender for the glory that is according to God; and all the disciples and apostles after them. And consider in a single insult how many you dishonor: John the Baptist, James who is called the brother of the Lord, Peter, Paul, Thomas—these I name as the foremost of the martyrs—and then the countless multitude of those who died for the sake of life. Is it a small thing for you to offend against these? Is the danger of enmity slight? Each of these conquered the devil together with the band of demons, and was enrolled among the angels and is kept as an approved athlete at the proclamation of the resurrection, and will stand by at the manifestation of our God and Savior, opening his mouth with boldness, rejoicing in the sight of the angels, in the glory of God, counting himself blessed for the scourges, the bonds, the tortures, the profitable death, because it has become for him the bringer of unending life. But when you hear these things, I know what you think and say: "I too am capable of the same things. If I live according to virtue, I will be no worse nor more dishonored than those now admired." Indeed, then, these words are the words of a boaster who justifies himself like the boastful Pharisee, and are alien to all humility. But it is evident that the one who has not first been humbled does not ascend to the height; for this is the Master's decree.

But why should anyone forgive you, because you do not wish to become such a person? Tell me, are you not ashamed before those who cut the road of piety for you, the guides to good things, the teachers of virtue, those who trained you in endurance and contempt for death? Learn a lesson in gratitude from the disciples of this life: though they become like their teachers and fall short in nothing of the craft, nevertheless they love the breasts of their teachers, they respect them, they speak well of them, they yield the first place to them, they serve them as fathers. Many saints, even after death, have power, and having departed from this life they benefit people; and Elisha is a witness to what is said—long ago he departed from life and fell asleep, yet he received the immortal and inseparable grace of God, which attended his mound and his lifeless bones. For you know, diligent student of the Scriptures, that a certain dead man, being carried out for burial by his own people, when robbers or enemies suddenly attacked—as tends to happen in confinement and confusion—was thrown into the tomb of the thrice-blessed prophet and at once came to life and returned to the living. What then shall we say about what happened? Did the righteous man have no perception of what was being done? Did he not send up a prayer on behalf of the dead man, as he did for the child of the Shunammite woman? But the truth of the matter gives us no such thing to think. For the righteous man had lain there many years before, his body having been dissolved into kindred dust and native earth.

It is evident that God, always glorifying his own people even after death, works wonders around their tombs and resting places, so that the living, who are ever advancing in age and hold the honors paid to the departed as a pledge of their good hope, may eagerly complete the life of the best conduct. In the same way, Elijah, the leader of this prophet, after the fiery horses and the chariot of fire, living in another life and departing from among men to the place allotted to him, left his mantle as a sufficient symbol of his power. And yet, of what worth was that thing? For it was nothing other than a dead and worthless skin, worn out from age. Nevertheless, the Jordan drew back before it, and the water was divided in two and stood apart, just as of old it had done before Jesus, who was a type of the one to come. The Tishbite was present even though absent, and the philosopher's garment received the disciple, granting him a safe crossing of the river, since God's love for humanity honored the garments of the saints as though they were living beings. And so that it might be shown clearly that the miracle at the river did not happen because of the one who struck the water, but because of the honor due to the one who had departed and been taken up, when Elisha struck the water, the water flowed as usual, having suffered nothing new. But when, having failed, he cried out, "Where indeed is the God of Elijah?" and cried out a second time and struck it, immediately the river, parting its stream, showed the dry ground bare, and the prophet, walking on foot, arrived at the other side.

But Joseph, when Jacob had died, honoring him not so much because he loved him peculiarly as a father, as because he revered him as the common patriarch of the nation, carried the remains out of Egypt with that far-famed attendance of which we hear, so that Moses, along with the creation of the world and the rest of the history, recorded this also as a narrative for life. And Joseph again, while Israel was journeying, was stolen, as one might say, from the eyes of Pharaoh; yet everywhere the body was present with the people and was carried with care as a good and evil-averting safeguard, a secure protection for the sixty myriads. And they had as much reverence for the coffin of the forefather as for the holy ark that bore the law of God. Therefore David also, when somewhere entreating God to be merciful and gracious to the people, and imploring him with countless supplications, that having stopped the continuous and successive plague of calamities he might again govern Jerusalem in good providence as before, speaks thus: "You who shepherd Israel, give heed, you who lead Joseph like a sheep." For he persuades God by the names of the beloved and the friends, and very ingeniously handles his supplication, as it were concealing and covering the sins of the impious multitude with the appellations of the holy fathers. The same meaning is suggested to us by the account concerning Sodom that was saved. For Abraham, interceding for the Sodomites when God, being hostile to them, brought punishment with forewarning, deemed it right that the whole people be saved by sparing the righteous.

For having begun from fifty, he came down to ten, and God immediately nodded assent to the supplication, as if setting the worth of ten righteous men against the myriads of sinners on some balance and scales. And to show us all still more plainly that even one righteous man is a precious thing and dear to God—since the number of ten had failed and the people of sinners was found destitute of this small company of the holy—and since those who had transgressed the law had to pay the penalty for their audacity, Lot is driven violently from the condemned places and is saved with his whole family as the prize of his own righteousness, receiving all his own from God. Great, then, is the possession of a righteous man: first a benefit to himself, then a lasting treasure for those who come after in his line, unknown to sight and always present, silent and instructing others by deeds, long laid to rest and yet living in his good repute. Good and inviolable is the inheritance of children, which time does not consume and a thief does not take away. For it is incorporeal and immaterial, dwelling in incorporeal souls. You see how the glorious and celebrated Israelites, though stripped of all things and fallen from their ancestral land itself, were not deprived of that august title nor stripped of being called after their God-loving forefather, but even while enslaved to barbarians they were set free because of the righteousness of their fathers, and living in the wilderness they were nourished because of the good repute of those who begot them.

And sinning continually and blaspheming often and deemed worthy of the destroying punishment, they were spared for Abraham's sake and obtained forgiveness for Israel's sake, bold-hearted children saved by the honors of their fathers. And you know, O lover of learning, that God, in the first place, when he was calling Moses from the shepherd's life to the leadership of the peoples, says these things at once to his servant: I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And coming a little further in the account, he adds these things: Gather the elders of the sons of Israel and you shall say to them: The Lord, the God of your fathers, has appeared to me, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And thus in the prefaces God seals the descendants, as it were with a certain seal, by the name of the righteous fathers, knowing it to be good and beneficial to be known by them. But as time went on, when the people rushed into insolence against their benefactor and contempt of the Savior, and they stumbled at the making of the idol of the calf and were worshiping a lifeless skull, having lost their living and rational understanding, Moses then, not having

So that he might propitiate the Master on behalf of the disciples, the much-toiling pedagogue flees to the remembrance of the fathers and, together with them, puts forward his supplication, and speaks thus: Be propitious for the wickedness of the people, remembering Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, your suppliants, to whom you swore by yourself to multiply their seed as the stars of heaven. Great is the wrath and the fury inexorable; but the wise and resourceful suppliant, putting on the masks of the saints and casting the gray hairs of the elders before God through remembrance, quenched the punishment like a flame, healing the wounds of the frenzied sons with the fatherly oil. Leaving the Mosaic book, pass over to the books of the Kings. For you will see there also a child deemed worthy of sparing, because he was the offspring of a God-loving father. And this is Solomon, the much-renowned; who, since as time went on he was not master of his passions, but rather a slave and a more intemperate lover of the body, and through the carelessness of his life changed even his ancestral piety, fashioning idols, the stumbling-blocks of the law—God says to him: I will surely tear asunder your kingdom and give it to your servant; nevertheless in your days I will not do these things, for David your father's sake; from the hand of your son I will take it. History teaches us these things; the song of the psalms teaches similar things: I was younger—for indeed I have grown old and I have not seen a righteous man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread.

But, it seems, once a soul has grown bold against the truth and has chosen to innovate astonishingly instead of living in order, nothing is sufficient to turn it back to the straight and ordered road; but having bitten the bit like some hard-mouthed colt, it is carried toward the precipice, conquering its rider, the mind, by its rush toward evil, just as one may see these Eunomians themselves. For thus they love to be called rather than men of Christ, blaspheming God, dishonoring the men of God, and indeed reverencing the resting-places of the saints less than those of sound mind reverence the altars and the profane and polluted places. But those practitioners of that madness, who consider their recklessness against all things a virtue, ought at least to have respected the voices of the demons crying out and loudly proclaiming the power of the martyrs and calling each by name as though present and driving away and putting to flight those who are tyrannized. And whether one wishes the spirits of the athletes of piety to be active against the unclean spirits, or angels attending in honor of those who have fallen asleep at the holy shrines, it makes no difference; whichever is said, it is the glory of those who suffered for love of Christ. And the benefactions of the martyrs are plainly evident day by day, at different times and in different ways, which free the deranged from satanic workings.

For those who once barked and were caught up in the indescribable evils of madness are now seen to be of sound mind, and we see the boldness of the saints' intercession attested by the very facts themselves. And just as unmistakable proofs of our Savior's power walked about in the midst of the Hebrews—those cleansed of leprosy, the blind whose eyes were healed, and any paralytic whose joints were strengthened and who walked unhindered—so too now those who have taken up the cross on behalf of the Crucified provide clear demonstrations of the grace that comes from the Master, healing the faithful among their fellow servants in various and diverse ways. And Paul and Peter—the one who drove out the spirit of Python, the other who raised up the lame man from the temple's forecourt—through practical powers turned Hebrews and Greeks to obedience to the gospel. But the wicked company of heretics, which now grievously troubles our life, does not reverence the martyrs even by the greatness of their wonders; they call their burial places and tombs and resting places, and they recoil from their very entrances as defiled by pollution, not even remembering that God-inspired saying sung by every mouth: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Let us therefore pray to God, and let us entreat the martyrs to appease the common Master, that a spirit of compunction may be given to those who are worked upon by heretical error, and that, once dissension is dissolved like some dividing wall or fence, we may all come together into brotherly unity.

in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

11. An exposition by Asterius, bishop of Amaseia, on the holy martyr Euphemia. Previously, men, I had in my hands Demosthenes, that formidable man, and those speeches of Demosthenes where he assails Aeschines with bitter arguments; but having lingered over the text and grown dense in mind, I needed relaxation and a walk, so that the troubled part of my soul might be loosened a little. So I went out of my room and walked a short way with acquaintances through the marketplace, and from there I arrived at the sanctuary of God to pray in the portico. And when I had obtained this too and was walking along one of the covered colonnades, I saw there a certain painting, and the sight seized me completely. You would have said it was the work of Euphranor, or of one of those ancients who raised the art of painting to greatness by making their panels almost alive. But come, if you wish—for there is now leisure for a narrative—I will tell you the painting; for we children of the Muses surely have remedies no less effective than those of the painters. A certain woman, a sacred virgin, who had consecrated to God her chastity undefiled—they call her Euphemia—when a tyrant was once driving out the pious with great zeal, chose the danger that leads to death. And the citizens and those who shared the religion for which she died, marveling at the virgin as both brave and holy, built her tomb near the sanctuary, deposited the casket, and perform honors for her and make the annual festival a common and public assembly.

So then, the hierophants of the mysteries of God honor the memory always both in word and in purpose, and they carefully teach the assembled peoples how she accomplished the contest of endurance. But the painter too, himself pious, through his art having sketched the whole story on a linen cloth as far as he was able, dedicated it as a sacred spectacle somewhere near her shrine; and the artistic work is as follows. A judge is seated high on a throne, looking bitterly and hostilely at the virgin; for art, when it wishes, grows angry even in lifeless materials. And there are guards of the magistracy and many soldiers, some of them recorders of the minutes carrying tablets and pens, one of whom, having suspended his hand from the wax, looks at the accused, turning his whole face intently, as if urging her to speak more loudly, so that, growing weary in hearing, he may not write things erroneous and open to censure. And the virgin stands in a gray tunic and cloak, signifying philosophy, as it seemed to the painter, and fair in appearance, but, as it seems to me, adorned in soul with virtues. And two soldiers lead her to the governor, the one dragging her forward, the other pressing her from behind. The virgin's appearance is tempered with modesty and firmness; for she inclines toward the ground as if blushing at the eyes of men, but she stands undaunted, nothing

suffering cowardice in the face of the contest. Indeed, I used to praise the other painters for a time, until I beheld the drama of that woman of Colchis, how, when she was about to bring the sword upon her children, she divides her face between pity and wrath, and the one of her eyes displays anger, while the other reveals the mother sparing and shuddering. But now I have transferred the wonder from that conception to this painting; and I greatly admire the craftsman, because he blended the flower of the colors more fully, mingling shame and courage together—passions that by nature war against each other. As the imitation advanced toward the face, certain executioners in tunics, now stripped bare, began the work; and one, seizing her head and bending it backward, offered the face of the virgin to the other, ready for punishment; and the other, standing by, cut out the pearl-like substance of her teeth; and a hammer and a drill appear as the instruments of the punishment. From this point I weep, and the suffering cuts short my speech; for the painter colored in the drops of blood so vividly that you would say they truly poured from her lips, and you would go away lamenting. After this, a prison; and again the venerable virgin sits alone in dark garments, stretching out her hands to heaven and calling upon God as helper in her terrors; and as she prays, there appears above her head the sign which it is the custom for Christians to venerate and to inscribe—a symbol, I think, of the suffering that awaited her.

Immediately, then, and shortly after, the painter kindled a fierce fire elsewhere, giving the flame bodily form with red color smeared on this side and that. And he sets her in the middle, her hands spread out toward heaven, displaying no distress in her face, but on the contrary rejoicing that she was departing to the incorporeal and blessed life. Up to this point the painter stayed his hand, and I my discourse; but it is time for you too, if you wish, to complete the painting, so that you may see clearly whether we have not come far behind the explanation.

12. An encomium by Asterius, bishop of Amaseia, on Saint Stephen the protomartyr. How truly sacred and beautiful is the cycle of things that gladden us! For feast succeeds feast and festival overtakes festival; we are called from prayer to prayer, and the honor of the servant follows upon the Lord's Theophany. And whether one looks to the birth of him who was born yesterday through the flesh and always exists according to divinity, or to that man's martyrdom, which the noble servant endured today, one will find many and varied events, but one aim: that we might be taught piety. Yesterday, then, we learned through the customary and ordinary feast that the Savior of the world was born, and that the fleshless one clothed himself with flesh and the bodiless one put on a body, and then that he also accepted sufferings for our sake and was lifted up on the wood for no other reason than for our providence. Today we see the noble contestant being stoned for his sake, so that by blood he might pay the debt for the grace that came by blood.

Stephen, then, the convener of this festival, the one who called us to the visible joy, the one who led the city as a single people, a man who is the firstfruits of the martyrs, the teacher of labors for Christ, the foundation of the noble confession. For before Stephen no one shed blood for the gospel. But just as that Cain, the fratricide—as the history of Moses teaches me—worked fratricide, for taking up strife instead of natural friendship, he first defiled the earth with murder, so also Stephen, the thrice-blessed, first sanctified the earth with his own blood through his pious struggles, a man second to the apostles in time, but first in deeds of valor. And do not be vexed with me, Peter; do not be annoyed, James; do not be displeased, John, if I not only compare the man with your philosophy but even wish to assign him something more; rather, rejoice, for you are fathers free from envy and exult in the achievements of your sons and are gladly conquered by your children in virtue. For if there is anything noble and great in Stephen, it is entirely yours, his teachers and initiators. For the good repute of athletes becomes the glory of the trainer. Therefore, having briefly excused myself before you, I will speak with boldness what the subject gives me for the advocacy of the champion according to Christ. You are the elder of the disciples, holy Peter, and before all you proclaimed Jesus Christ.

While you were still proclaiming the word of the Gospel and going from city to city and passing from region to region and laboring in the preaching, this man entered the stadium and seized the crown of the contests, and passing over into heaven was glorified while you were still turning about upon the earth—and, what is greater, while his Father and the Son were calling him through the wondrous vision. Thus, then, both Peter and what has been said is sufficient. For it is bold to strive at greatest length over primacies among the fathers. But let us also look at your own contests, James, brother of John. You are an evangelist of Christ, the second catch after Peter. And who would not marvel at your faith? For you were called alone, and without delaying at all you obeyed. You left, along with the boat, even your father Zebedee, and you followed Christ as a genuine disciple. You suffered eagerly for piety, I confess; for Herod the tyrant put you to death with the sword, but after Stephen, many years later. And why do I name each one individually, when he took up the prize of martyrdom against all the saints together, first arrayed against the devil and first victorious, imitating David—even if by the reverse of the matter? David conquered Goliath with stones, and Stephen conquered the devil with stones; but the one with the stones he threw, the other with the stones he was struck by. And let us, the people of Christ, as the army of Israel then, cry out and acclaim the victory songs, seeing them as present, marveling at them as standing before us. For every champion of piety is noble, even if he comes second or third after those who contended before him.

Yet he is not worthy of the same wonder as the first. The second, driven by zeal for the one who came before him to imitation, was thus drawn to earnestness; but the one who had no guide and became the discoverer of the good rightly receives the verdict of the first place. Great, then, was the man's eagerness, and therefore great also was his honor; and immortal is his memory, which neither forgetfulness covered nor time obscured, but generation succeeding generation through the accounts, we celebrate this feast unfailingly—priests, people, children, men, women. But we must also consider the account itself, so that, coming into close contact with the facts, we may marvel at the man all the more. Stephen was the first of the deacons in Christ, sanctified by grace, a vessel filled with the Spirit, daily strengthening his own and turning back those who were led astray to the straight way. And since he clung more vehemently to the teaching, he grieved the enemies more than the rest of the apostles, and before them the first enemy, the devil. For that one fixes his fiery eyes, and savage-looking, upon those who stand more firmly in piety. So he raised up against him a faction of the Alexandrian race, swift-flowing toward sedition. And surely you have heard how the men of the city are hot and boiling for whatever they readily

they rushed. But when he saw the multitude of those streaming toward him, he was at a loss how to deal with the present situation; nevertheless he found a resourceful device: a fitting and gentle word. For there is no remedy for the healing of anger and agitation such as a mild and harmonious exhortation. And he said to them, "Tell me the reason for your hatred, and for what cause you raise your hands against me and are plainly ready to tear me apart." And when they said, "Because you destroy the ancestral laws and are an introducer of foreign doctrines," the blessed man stood in their midst, an artless and extemporaneous orator—for he did not speak what he had learned by art, but what he was inspired with by the Spirit—and said, "Men, brothers and fathers, hear me." Wise was the introduction, and the beginning of his address was most excellent against a heated crowd. For the soothing and gentle quality of his words, partaking as it were of honey or resembling soft oil, checked the inflammation of the beasts. Then he ascends by memory to Abraham, so that, beginning from ancient times and stretching out a long discourse, he might in the great interval unnoticed expend their anger as it relaxed. And having worked out that long speech, he shows that Moses too foretold Christ, so that through the credibility of the lawgiver he might cunningly, as if stealing in, introduce the word of faith. And he spoke everything knowledgeably, all that contributed to the benefit of his hearers.

But when he saw that their wickedness was unyielding and their resolve unsoftened, then at last, filled with boldness and having renounced the life here below and abandoned every art that flatters, he addressed them openly, calling them stiff-necked, uncircumcised in heart, fighting against the law, warring against the Spirit. And what followed from this? Many dogs and fat bulls surrounded him, as their master, and according to the psalmody they encompassed the righteous man. And he stood alone, encircled on every side by the mob of murderers. And there was no one near at that hour, no friend, no household member, no kinsman. For seeing someone of one's acquaintances close at hand brings some consolation to those in danger. But the lofty judge of the great contest, having perceived that the man needed a supporter—for even if he was exceedingly noble, he was certainly suffering human things—suddenly appears to him as he looked intently toward heaven, and shows him also the Son standing at his right hand in the form of his humanity. O the love of humanity! O the goodness! They appeared to the athlete for whose sake he was contending, and the God of all all but uttered such a voice to him: Suffer nothing ignoble, O Stephen; you have no man as an ally, none of your friends stands by you in the time of terrors, but I with the Beloved watch over what is being done. The rest is ready, the gates of paradise are opened wide. Endure a little, leave behind this fleeting life, and hasten to the life that is eternal and unending. While still in the flesh you see God, a thing greater than every earthly nature.

You were initiated by the elder apostles into the mystery that the Father has a genuine and beloved Son. Behold, I reveal myself to you as you are able to bear. And my Son stands at my right hand, so that by the position of the place you may know the honor. It was a stumbling block to many at that time that God should clothe himself in flesh on earth; but look now at him on high with me, heavenly and above the heavens, bearing the form of a man for the confirmation of the accomplished dispensation. For his sake, when you are being stoned, do not falter, do not grow faint. But looking at the judge of the contest, do not fear the struggle. Let the body go, despising it as an earthly bond, as a crumbling house, as a fragile vessel of clay. Run back as a free man to the portion here, for the crown of your valor is ready for you. Depart from the earth to heaven. Leave the body to the murderers as food for dogs. Abandon the raving mob and come to the choir of angels. With this purpose God appeared to the steadfast man, so that he might not suffer anything cowardly and relax his great zeal through the magnitude of fear. Therefore he sent him neither an angel as a helper, as later to the apostles in the prison, nor any ministering and fellow-servant power, but he himself appeared. For at that time he was the firstfruits of martyrdom, and it was necessary that the first work be completed, so that the martyrs built up afterward might receive a strong foundation of zeal and not become imitators of cowardice, which indeed also happens in ordinary wars.

For one soldier, a champion, who gave the signal for the deed, after conquering and playing the man, strengthened all his own and struck terror into the enemy, but when he suffered some weakness, immediately breaks them and fills the souls of his kinsmen with cowardice and becomes a signal for flight. For this reason God appeared from heaven. But the one deemed worthy of the great vision, such as no other, did not hold in silence what he saw, but immediately cried out: Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. For he thought that declaring the vision would draw the unbelievers to agreement. But they, making what was said an occasion of greater anger and madness, and stopping their ears against the word as blasphemous, immediately took up the murder. And dragging the Christ-bearing man outside the city, bearing endurance as the Lord bore the cross, they heal evil with evil and defend murder by murder and join stones to the cross. And having set the thrice-blessed one in a certain level place, that long and tall body, the trophy of the martyrs, and having surrounded him in a circle, the people of blood and anger, and imitating what is called in wars a dragnet, they threw stones at the servant of the cornerstone, and every Hebrew hand worked the murder; and the target of those throwing was the martyr standing in the middle like a marksman's sign.

But when his body, crushed on every side and bathed in blood, was now failing in its upright stance, and was being shaken and threatening to fall like some tall plane tree worked upon by many craftsmen—yet he did not suffer the fall in the unseemly manner of the many. For he was not stretched out prone, nor was he brought down on his side, nor was he reclined in a supine posture, but setting his knees in the comely posture of one who prays, he departed, hastening by his prayer the separation of the flesh from the soul, and crying out to the Lord whom he saw: Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit. For he was hastening as to a migration, as from a foreign land to his homeland, as to a radiant city from a desert and parched land. And he added to his petition also the prayer on behalf of those who were stoning him. For they were benefiting him unwillingly, and while stoning they were saving, and while killing they were giving life, and separating him from the clay they were sending him on to the kingdom. Let us therefore also consider the word of the prayer—to what goal it brings the phrase Lord, do not hold this sin against them. For it is not, as some wrongly reckon, that he prays the sin of his enemies may become unpunished and unaccountable. For that would be manifestly to oppose the ordinance of God and to correct the judgment and legislation of the righteous One, which allotted to murderers their due. But what does he say? Lord, do not hold this sin against them—that is: Give them a spirit of compunction, lead them to repentance for what they have now dared, do not permit them to die in their circumcision, draw them through repentance to the knowledge of yourself, kindle in their hearts the flame of the Spirit.

For if they are improved in this way, it is clear that you will not hold their sin against them, but having washed both your blood and mine in the bath of grace, they will be free of the charges. These things happened and the drama was completed. And hosts of angels rejoiced, marveling at the contest, and with great escort were leading Stephen into his own inheritance; but the devil was turned back empty,

deeply at a loss—but that I may speak somewhat more bodily about the aerial spirit, imitating a prophetic word, bearing his face like the scorching of a pot, and having accomplished the opposite of what he expected, and through those things by which he thought to diminish the Christians, through those very things he multiplied the roll of the martyrs. But what also concerning the holy Paul? For he too was one of the murderers, a true Benjamin, a ravening wolf. For even if he did not stone, yet he kept the garments of those who stoned and served the murderous mob. However, I shall see you after a little while, you who now are swelling and breathing wild fury, led by the hand like some weak old woman, when you are about to be led to Ananias, having tasted of the truth. And I shall laugh very sweetly when I hear you recounting your afflictions for the gospel and saying among the other dangers: "Once I was stoned." For it is necessary that you make defense through stones for the stones and by the same suffering loose the charge of sin. But it is fitting not to leave even the vision of Stephen unexamined.

For always the God of all, taking forethought for what comes next, prepares the remedy beforehand by way of precaution against the sins of men that are about to come upon life, which indeed he has also done here. For if the divine manifestations were being accomplished only for the athlete's benefit, it would have sufficed for a voice to come from the heavens, as at the baptism earlier, or at later times at the transfiguration, or also as in the case of this Paul, when he was journeying to Damascus. But now, because the evil from Libya, Sabellius, was about to grow upon the churches and to introduce into life the evil-doctrine confusion of the hypostases, for this reason God, as it were cutting off the future in advance and securing beforehand the souls of those who come later, shows himself to Stephen in his own and independent glory, and shows the Son also in a complete person, and sets him at his right hand, in order that by the clear distinction of the persons he might interpret the hypostases. And perhaps someone will say: The matters concerning the Father and the Son have been philosophized by you in this way, but where is the Holy Spirit? For if, for the sake of the security of the faith, the Father appeared from heaven together with the Son, the Holy Spirit ought also to have been present with them, so that some practical initiation might be accomplished for men through the vision. It is necessary, then, to say to the one who brings this thought against us, that, O most wise one, the examiner of the readings must have both a right understanding and a strong memory, so that he may thus be able to grasp all the things written at once.

For if you also seek the presence of the Spirit, go a little above the stones and the murder, and you will find the Spirit spoken of before the vision, and present with Stephen, and preparing the athlete beforehand. For immediately at the beginning of the narrative he proclaimed this voice to us beforehand: Stephen, full of grace and truth and power, was doing great signs and wonders among the people. But some rose up from the synagogue called of the Libertines and Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia, disputing with Stephen, and they were not able to withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking. Behold, then, the narrative has clearly set before us also the person of the Spirit. But if this was written first, and last the Father and the Son, the departure from order does no harm to the faith. For this is customary for Scripture to do: sometimes to name the Son alone, sometimes the Spirit together with the Son, or also to begin from the Father and end in the Spirit; and the reverse, with the beginning coming from the Spirit through the Son, to travel in word to the Father. And this peculiarity of custom can be seen especially in the great Paul, happening without careful arrangement. And the debt has been fulfilled by us also in the case of Stephen: if one looks to the magnitude, not sufficiently; but if to the

...of the one who says, with power sufficient: "To our God be the glory unto the ages of ages. Amen."

13. Of Asterius, bishop of Amaseia, an exhortation concerning repentance. A Pharisee, as we have just heard Luke saying, invites the Lord to a banquet and brings him under his roof and sets before him a common table. But he neither refuses the invitation nor shuns the man, who was neither a disciple nor a believer, but was bound to the letter of the law and had not yet opened his eyes to the knowledge of the truth, and was dimly seeing the promises of the prophets with difficulty. Why, then, has Luke recorded this passage for us? Is it so that we may have knowledge of what Jesus did while living in the body, and receive the knowledge of a useful history? Or are these writings full of some useful and instructive meaning, setting our life in order toward what is right and undeviating? I for my part think this is so, and that you too ought to be persuaded of it. For many are those who justify themselves, lovers of self and self-satisfied, puffed up in their own estimation by empty conceit, calling sinners those who draw near, and before the true judgment has come separating themselves as lambs from the goats, and looking upon the door of the kingdom as open to them, not deeming the many worthy of sharing roof or food, but loathing all those who walk not the extreme but the middle path of life.

Luke, then, a physician of souls more than of bodies, wrote the account now in hand not as a mere discourse but as a medicine for those sick with stubbornness, showing forth our very God and Savior, the incomparably pure and only righteous one, associating with great forbearance with those already condemned and living together with those not yet purified—not in order to take on any of their wickedness, but in order to impart his own righteousness, after the manner of this visible activity of the sun, so far as it is possible from the creation to set forth the providence of the Creator. For we know that the sun shines not only on the open plains but also on all those places that are lower and have received a cavernous position. Let us therefore cease, if any of us think in this way, as the saying goes; and let us imitate the Master's merciful and philanthropic disposition, condescending for this reason to the lowly—not so that we might bring ourselves down to the level of those who lie low, but so that we might raise them up, like divers in the water drawing those who are drowning up to this life-giving air. And since the Gospel text leads us by the hand to the best understanding, come, let us direct ourselves to the point that has fallen to us. I greatly marvel at those who wear this passionate and pleasure-loving flesh, who are defeated daily by sleep and the belly, and who are not at all without experience of the other provocations—all those that are familiar to all of us who share one and the same nature—how they are harsh judges of those who sin and yet indulgent to themselves.

Weak combatants and inexorable lawgivers, so as to do away with the hope of God's love for humanity and, as they think, to block up the abundant fountain of mercy and with great authority to shut the entrance of the kingdom against those who have gone astray. But this is in no way a matter of good stewardship—to produce despair in souls seeking healing. For the servant who has despaired of a cure becomes wholly a slave of the disease and estranged from every promise of our Scriptures, since not even there, for the one who examines intelligently, is there anything such that grace does not bestow it and forgiveness does not heal it. And who is so dull of hearing and deaf to the words of Job, who cries out plainly to all that No one is pure from defilement, not even if his life be a single day? And who, being of sound mind, would think such a thing, that one who is subject to accounts and these in the court of God should consider forgiveness superfluous and mercy useless? But even if they had been driven to the utmost peak of righteousness and exactness, and had truly trodden, as it is written, upon serpents and scorpions, and had been proclaimed victors and crowned conquerors over sin, not even so ought they to measure the life of all others by their own courage, but to acknowledge the grace of their own good repute to God who gave it, because they both guided their nature with mastery and did not become worse than satanic temptations, and to extend the right hand of brotherly love to the weak and to raise them from the mire and cleanse them from their defilements.

For in that way they would have won a double praise, receiving the rewards both of their own valor and of their brother-loving and kindly compassion. But as it is, being humans and of those who walk on the earth, and living a life not angelic nor near to the incorporeal beings, but such as one might bring to scrutiny and mock, they judge severely and with great authority bring forth the condemning vote, so that I, often suffocated by their pride and arrogance, have said against them the Gospel sayings: not seeing the beams in your own eyes, you blow away the specks from others' eyes. And binding the heaviest burdens for others, you go about as heavy judges and weak burden-bearers, anticipating the judgment seat of Christ and snatching the verdict of the Judge, contemptuous servants and inexorable judges of your fellow servants. If you are zealous for God as created in his image, imitate your archetype; O Christians, the humane name, be zealous for the love of Christ, look to the wealth of his love for humanity. For when he was about to appear to humans through a human, he sent John before him, a herald of repentance, an introducer of remorse, and all the prophets before John as teachers of conversion. Then he himself, appearing a little later, cries aloud in his own voice in his own person: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. And those who were persuaded by the call, how did he receive them? He gave painless forgiveness of sins, an instantaneous and swift release from things that grieve; the Word sanctified, the Spirit sealed.

The old man was buried in the water, the new man was born, renewed in youth by grace. What follows? The man became a member of the household instead of a stranger, a son instead of a foreigner, an initiate instead of an uninitiated outsider, a saint instead of a sinner. Therefore the one who was enriched with such magnificent and unsurpassable gifts, having sinned against the generous and good benefactor, before you harsh and implacable judges would not even have been granted a hearing, but would certainly have been led away to destruction, cut off from this present life and punished in the world to come. But since the Lord of the verdict is different—he who shows mercy to thousands and myriads, who does not desire the death of the sinner but awaits his turning back—not even so were those who insulted the former grace punished, but again a second mercy follows the first, and forgiveness is joined to forgetfulness, and a falling tear is of equal power to the bath, and a laborious groan brings back the grace that had withdrawn for a little while. If you do not believe the account, ask Peter, who was sitting in the courtyard of the high priest, and he will tell you how, having bitterly lamented the transgression of his denial, he was cleansed and did not revert to Simon, but remained Peter the apostle. And I think that Judas the Iscariot also, had he not quickly become his own executioner, judging his sin unforgivable, but instead had fallen upon the mercy

He asked, and he would not have missed the mercies that pour out over the whole inhabited world. And the proof of this account is all the Hebrews who believed after the cross and washed their souls and their hands together in the bath. But if those who crucified him were shown mercy, how would the betrayer not have enjoyed amnesty? Paul too once bound Christians, but later, bearing chains for Christ, from the same experience he loosed the charges. He sinned by stoning Stephen and consenting with those who killed him, but by being stoned he wiped away the offense. Matthew and Zacchaeus once collected taxes, but by despising money they trampled on tax-collecting: the one received Jesus into his house and more into his soul, and the other was shown to be an evangelist and writer of wonderful deeds. The tax collector who is with the Pharisee is necessary for remembrance, and the woman who lost the drachma and found it. And from beginning to end, if one were to reckon up men throughout the whole of life in the successive times, he will find that the many were first held fast in sins, and then by a turning toward the better changed their mind. For it belongs to God and is his alone and exceptional to set all things right without offense. But man, brought under birth and corruption and being capable of so many passions, would never be shown without accusation if pardon were cut off. Look to David, the king of Israel, whom God elected and appointed, and adorned with the praises of testimony, saying: I have found a man after my heart, David the son of Jesse.

This man, after that brilliant proclamation of praises, when he was caught by the passion of the love of the body and fell into those things which we all know, and came after the prophet's rebuke to a reckoning of his evil, left behind in writing for those who would come afterward the toil of his repentance. And we behold, as in an image, the man in the Psalter, now wasting his body with grief, and again making the night a time of lamentation, the common rest from labors; and letting the tear flow upon his bed as from springs of his eyelids, and again producing for us the fiftieth psalm, a type of the God who is propitiated. Nor was his lamentation wrought in vain, but his heavy groans drew down mercy, and he received back both the authority of royal sovereignty and the boldness of supplication toward God. Likewise that man also who was allotted to reign over Nineveh was driven together with the peoples under his rule toward destruction by the multitude of his sins, and the rebuke of sin proclaimed that the appointed time of punishment was drawing near after a little while. But when they had wisely afflicted themselves and escaped the experience of disaster, he was grieved that the prophet of evils had not spoken truly and was harshly displeased at the mercy of God. But he who everywhere, both through words and deeds, makes known to us how great is his goodwill toward men, causes the gourd to grow over the head of the prophet as a shelter from the distressing ray, and while he slept beneath its shade, suddenly dried it up. Then, when he was vexed after awakening at what had happened, he reproaches and rebukes him.

If he grieved so passionately over the withered vegetable, would God not have been moved to compassion for so great a city when it came near to danger? Learn, then, you harsh and unyielding ones, the goodness of our Creator, and do not become bitter and severe judges of your fellow servants, until he comes who reveals the secrets of hearts and by lordly authority assigns to each the state of the life that is hoped for. Do not pronounce gloomy verdicts, lest you be subjected to the same and be pierced by the words of your own mouths as by the sharpest teeth. For it seems to me that the Gospel's forewarning is also a safeguard against this offense, saying: Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For it does not cast out judgment and fair-mindedness, but it calls judgment the

harsher condemnation. So make the weight light, if you please, if indeed you wish not to be dragged down toward the condemning scale along with your own deeds, when our life is weighed in the judgment of God as in a balance. Clothed in a body and living in the flesh, never cast out from your life the healing that comes from medicine. For even if you live for the longest time in vigor and health, you will not continue so free from sickness as never to need the care of the physician. And since you have a soul that lies prone toward earthly things, whenever, forgetting itself, it is filled with the passions of the body, do not take away mercy, so that you may not be deprived of forgiveness when you come to need it. There is a certain priest, and he has obtained the lot of leading the people;

Let him look with compassion on the falls of his subjects, knowing that even if the order of his life differs from that of the many, yet in the nature of those who are shepherded he differs in nothing, and sharing that nature he may perhaps one day share also in their transgression. Moses too knew this—for he was a man and he recognized nature—and he ordained that the calf be sacrificed on behalf of the priest, since he too had surely sinned and needed purifications, and more of them. And what the calf in the flesh was then, that now is incorporeal repentance and bloodless supplication; in our lofty speech and boasting let us not nullify its benefit, knowing that even Aaron, the most approved priest, was carried away with the people when they sought gods, and along with his sister Maria was caught in the murmuring, and had he not supplicated the one against whom the murmuring was directed, he would not have escaped punishment. Another it is, not a priest but one of the many: let him fear to lay on a heavy yoke. For if the one appointed to purify the people himself needs purifications at times, what would he suffer who does not even have the power of ordination? Let us imitate the shepherdly care of the Master; let us stoop into the Gospels and, as in a mirror, learn the form of his solicitude and goodness. For I see there in parables and in the veiled words of the discourses a man, a shepherd of a hundred sheep; who, when one creature was separated from the flock and went astray, did not remain with those that were pastured in order and without wandering, but set out in pursuit of the search, and traversed many hollows and ravines, and passed over great and lofty crags, and toiled strenuously in the wildernesses, until he tracked down the one that had gone astray.

And when he found it, he did not strike it, nor indeed did he drive it violently, pressing it toward the flock, but placing it on his neck and carrying it with forbearance, he restored it to its fellow-pastured sheep, rejoicing over it more than over the multitude of the others. Let us then understand the matter that is hidden in these riddles. For the sheep is not really a sheep, and the shepherd is certainly something else—not the herdsman of irrational beasts—but these are instructive figures of priests, so that we neither hastily despair of men nor grow careless when they are in danger. Let us seek the one who has suffered, and let us bring him back to order, and let us rejoice with those who turn back, and let us mingle them into the fullness of those who live rightly. And so far ought the priest to practice love of humanity instead of severity, that even if the Master commands someone to be cut down as a useless plant, he himself, as a gardener, must ask for forbearance and delay. For the word presents to us this meaning in the barren fig tree: when the Lord wished to cut it down because of its barrenness, the vinedresser entreats him and asks for postponement and delay, holding out to him good hopes through his own care. Do not, then, cut down hastily—you who ought to prevent the cutting that is brought on by the Lord—nor quickly condemn the uselessness, but labor in care. Dig with reproofs, warm as with manure by exhortations, water with the stream of teachings, fence it round with the protective precepts as with a palisade. Yours let it be to plead, the judge's to decide. Let us strive to be called that which the Lord also is called; for the Paraclete

he is named as propitiating the Father on behalf of the human race; and likewise the Spirit of truth has received a name for his zeal on our behalf. For that one too is called Paraclete; and intercession and advocacy on behalf of those who have sinned is surely undertaken with zeal, but not on behalf of the blameless and unaccused. Be zealous, O priest, for the guardianship of Moses; imitate his disposition toward those under his rule, who, entreating God that he not be hostile to the people when they sinned, since he perceived that grace was being drawn back a little, at least begged this: that he depart from the people beforehand, so that he might not behold the destruction of those he shepherded. And nothing is like recalling the very wording: I beseech you, the people has sinned a great sin and has made for themselves gods of gold. And now, if you forgive them their sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of the book which you have written. Do you see how he places the salvation of the multitude before his own, and seeks to be blotted out, if he does not achieve forgiveness for the community? But those now who are embittered against sinners drive away those who approach, pass by those who fall at their feet, overlook those seeking healing, and do not incline their face to those who weep. What then does Luke—or rather the Holy Spirit—record for me concerning the prodigal son, who by his first departure insulted the one who begot him, then, reveling in pleasures and drunkenness and becoming a lover of women, emptied all his father's wealth?

But since after a considerable time, having toiled hard in labors, so as even to become a hired swineherd and to share the same food as the pigs, he returned to his father's house, having come to his senses, the father did not turn away from him nor shut the doors against him when he returned, but quite the contrary, he ran to meet him as he drew near and fell upon his neck and compassionately dropped a tear upon his neck, and made him again, instead of wretched, blessed, clothing him in a garment of freedom and putting a ring on his hand and celebrating the day with a feast and preparing a splendid banquet. All these things are a parabolic account that half-opens to those who repent, as it were, the father's house—the Church—and receives them kindly, so that they may not be companions of the pigs, that is, of the demons, but may be born again as sons from strangers, so that they may live together with the will of God as with a father's purpose, and with holy men as with brothers. But do not envy the elder brother's purpose, nor murmur against the father's love for humanity, because he has brought the prodigal and insolent one back into the house. Rather, marvel at his goodness and imitate God's benevolence, and embrace and clasp those returning from their wandering; for thus you will be a guide of the blind and a teacher of those who wander. To those, then, who are harsher in purpose and practice severity before compassion, we have said enough, and there is no need of longer words. But hear now also you who need conversion, how it befits you to grieve over your sins and to bewail the failings of your heart.

But rather, if you please, consider the sinful woman who was read to us just now in Luke. Imitate her humility and her ready understanding, and take her as a rule of exact repentance. For when she came to the house of the Pharisee, she was not ashamed before the crowd of those reclining at table, nor did she shrink from the time of the feast as inopportune for confession, but, held by grief and having a vehement mourning for her transgressions, she did not let go even for the briefest moment the physician of sins. Indeed, she did not come face to face to supplicate him, but, expressing her unworthiness and her lack of boldness through her posture, she took her place behind him—and not merely standing, but having taken hold of his feet from behind—and, loosening her hair and by her actions making public the mourning of her soul, and pouring her tears over the feet of Jesus, with great compassion she asked for mercy; and pouring them out so abundantly as even to wet his feet and again wiping away all the moisture with her hair, she displayed all humble reverence. And to speak briefly in sum, with all her senses and members that had sinned the woman labored out her repentance; but what she, who thus publicly and openly bewailed her sins, did in private at leisure, it is possible by inference to perceive. But our promise professes repentance, yet our action shows nothing laborious, but we have the same condition of life as we lived even before sin.

For the cheerfulness is the same, the clothing the same, the lavish enjoyment of the table and long, fully relaxed sleep; but occupations and successive cares produce in the soul forgetfulness of its own proper care. We inscribe upon ourselves only the name of repentance, fruitless and without effect, separating ourselves from the mysteries and from the communion of the ineffable sanctifications, yet making no earnest effort of turning back toward them, but despising their enjoyment as something cheap. Consider, O man, of how great things you were deemed worthy, and from the participation in them you have separated yourself. If you had been a partaker of a king's table, and then, having offended, had been cast out from that honor, how much money would you have paid to become a friend and table-companion again? Whose doors would you not have importuned, beseeching, at a loss, groaning, deeming life unlivable, revealing the pain of your grief in the depths by the wasting and the look of your face, moving every stone, as the saying goes, until you had repaired the misfortune for yourself? But he who has been separated from intimacy with God and has fallen from the truly high honor—what great and notable thing must he do to display the humility of a soul that has been afflicted? It is not consistent for one who says he is sick to pursue the same life as those who are healthy. For the regimen of the sick man is one thing, and the life of the healthy man another. Do you see how great is the change from the condition of the healthy man to the manner of life of the sick man? For the latter, perceiving the sickness of his condition, lies down in a small room, having withdrawn from every customary care; he neglects farming, though he is very much a farmer; the businessman and merchant lets go of his concern for wealth.

He is fed on water and a morsel of bread, even though previously he set before himself a table full of luxury and Sybaritic excess. Separated from his wife, he takes no delight in the customary pleasures of children; he is in the company of physicians night and day, and at great expense he hastens toward health as a beloved gain. Such is the man sick in body. But the man who is in a bad state as regards his soul, having gone around to the incorporeal physician and falsely confessing and displaying his weakness, leaves the disease to feed and fester, so that it may spread into the whole mass? But be sober-minded, know yourself: you have grieved God, you have provoked your Creator, who has authority over the present life and is Lord and Judge of the life to come. Were you made ill by luxury? Heal your indulgence with fasting. Did licentiousness harm your soul? Let self-control become the medicine of the sickness. Did greed, full of matter, produce the spiritual fever? Let almsgiving empty out the fullness, for the distribution of what one has filled is a purgative. Did the seizing of others' goods harm us? Let the plunder return to its own master. Did falsehood bring us near to destruction? For you will destroy, it says, those who speak falsehood; let truth, when practiced, halt the danger. Has a broken oath brought the flying sickle of Zechariah through the air, threatening the cut? Let us put on the whole armor of repentance, so that we may beat back the sharp edge of the sickle. Has someone impiously enslaved himself to heretical doctrines? Let him put superstition to flight by the mind of right belief. For this is repentance: the dissolution and obliteration of what was formerly done in deed or conceived in disposition.

But the one who recognizes the benefit of repentance, yet always wallows in the mire of lawlessness, is like a slave who knows his master's anger but does evil in his sight and triples his sin. Be sensitive to the disease that surrounds you. Crush yourself as much as you can; seek also the mourning of like-minded brothers to help you toward freedom; show me your tears, bitter and abundant, so that I may mingle mine with them; take the priest as a companion of your affliction, as a father. For who is so falsely named a father, or so adamantine in soul, as not to grieve with his children when they are sorrowful, or again to rejoice with them when they rejoice? A priest grieves over the sin of his son in religion as Jacob grieved over Joseph's bloodstained tunic, as David over Absalom's destruction, as Eli over Hophni and Phinehas fallen in battle, as Moses over the people innovating the godless making of the calf. Before your bodily fathers, have confidence in the one who begot you according to God; show him without shame the things hidden, lay bare the secrets of your soul, displaying a covered passion to a physician; he will take care both of your dignity and of your healing; the shame of parents touches those who have suffered more. For their glory belongs to those who begot them, and their shame likewise. Unknown, brothers, is the appointed limit of life. Let us overtake the departure by our diligence.

For it is absurd that those who take prudent forethought for the flesh should purge themselves of material things before the rising of the so-called Dog Star, lest the moisture, thoroughly rotted by excessive heat, produce a disease-causing putrefaction, while those who need care in respect of the mind should not forestall the uncertainty of death and the seething of the punitive fire, which burns unceasingly and is never cooled. You had the Gospel drachma and were rightly rich with the treasure, and then through sloth you lost it. Kindle the lamp of repentance, stoop down diligently, seek the treasure hidden in earthly passions. When you have found it, take it up and save it, so that we, your neighbors, may rejoice with you with the joy that is in Christ, to whom be glory, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

14. A discourse of Asterius, bishop of Amaseia, on the entrance of the holy fast. Man is a composite living being, having received to be what he is from the visible body and from the rational and incorporeal soul. But the nature and worth of these two just mentioned are not of equal honor; rather, the one was created as an instrument, moved for the management of the ruling part, while the other was appointed to govern and reign as the better over the worse. And this soul, having received the power of discernment from the mind and reason, and having discovered the difference between good things and things not of that sort, recognizes God as maker and craftsman of these things at our feet and graspable by sense, and indeed also of the invisible things, as many as the incorporeal mind sees by forming images.

But she, practicing righteousness and virtue, as one dear to God, aspires to philosophy, and being obedient to its laws and precepts, she withdraws herself as far as possible from fleshly desires, and draws near to God, and to the extent of her power endeavors to be made akin to the good. Now the greater and more essential part of this sacred philosophy itself is concerned with what is called self-control; for from this source the mind, remaining undimmed and admitting no admixture of the things that come from the belly or of other defilements, has its activity unimpeded, and its contemplation of heavenly things and of those akin to itself. Therefore, as many as are nurslings of philosophy and lovers of lofty things and disciples of the Word, love the present season, and receive the holy Forty Days with joy as a teacher of chastity and a mother of virtue and a nurse of the sons of God and a paedagogue of the unruly and a calm of souls and a stability of life and a peace bound by treaty and untroubled. For its austerity and solemnity lulls the passions to sleep, quenches angers and rages, cools and checks every surge that boils up from gluttony. And just as in summer, when the sun shines fiercely upon the earth, the north wind benefits those who are heated, driving away the stifling heat with gentle breezes, so also fasting bestows the same, driving out the burning of the bodies that comes from gluttony. And while it benefits the soul to such a degree, it no less profits the body also.

For it thins out even the coarseness of material things and strips away the bulk of the body, and it relaxes the veins that are bursting from the abundance of blood and gives a little room to the narrowness, so that they do not suffer the affliction of pipes. For those too, whenever the water is channeled into them in great and immoderate quantity beyond their capacity, burst, not containing the mass pushed in by the force. And the head has a gentle and calm condition, neither the arteries throbbing nor the brain being darkened through the rising of vapors. And the freedom of the stomach is self-control. For then it is released from compelled slavery and from boiling like a cauldron, laboring in its digestions. The eyes see clearly and without any dimness, all the mist being removed which satiety is accustomed to pour over the eyes, and the walk of the feet is steady, and the activity of the hands unshaken. And the breath is ordered and moderate, pressed by none of the winds that trouble from within. The speech of the faster is clear and well-articulated, the mind pure and then truly having the Godlike form, when, as in a bodiless flesh, it accomplishes its own activity without pain and without disturbance. Sleeps are painless and free of fantasies; and to pass over many things in brief, fasting is the common peace of soul and body, a tranquil life, a well-ordered citizenship, a life that gladdens God and grieves the enemy.

For just as an enemy, when he sees his opponent vigilant and sober, arming himself carefully and practicing courage, regards that man's diligent preparation as his own defeat, so too the plotter against our salvation hates all our exactness in virtue as his own misfortune. And for this reason, know that angels are guardians of the house of the one who fasts and guards stationed beside him, but that the one who revels in pleasures against the forty-day fast has demons as his own companions, lovers of the savor of fat and lovers of blood and attendants of drunkenness. For indeed, of the spirits, whether holy or unclean, each one goes to its own and its friends, just as one may see also in the case of birds. For the dove loves to dwell in clean places and turns about the fields, gathering seed for itself and its young; and the turtle-dove sits pleasantly in the leaves of trees, cooing something sweet and delicate. But the gluttonous crow sits by the butcher shops, croaking something heavy and unpleasant at those who carve the meat. Therefore let us love self-control, so that we may be loved by angels, and let us hate unbridled luxury, so that with it we may cast out fellowship with demons. No one who lives in luxury has become earnest, nor one who devotes himself to feasts a disciple of virtue, nor a lover of pleasure a saint, nor one who lives according to the flesh a partaker of the kingdom. Come in memory to the beginning of our race, and you will find experience as a witness of what we censure. For a law of fasting would not have been laid down for us, if the law of the first self-control had not been transgressed; nor would the belly have been named

the plotter, unless the pretext of pleasure had introduced sin. There was no need of a plow and plowing oxen and a furrow being cut, nor indeed of seeds and watering water and the cycle of seasons and winter thickening and summer loosening and all this cyclical drudgery, unless because of our forefather's ready enjoyment this cycle of labors had been decreed for us; but we were going to live out some other condition of life than the one seen, which again we hope to attain when we strip off the passionate life through the resurrection. For this is the beneficence of God's condescension toward us, that we might be restored to the ancient worth; which we, having partaken of in a humane way, did not guard with sensitivity. Let us therefore be gladdened at the coming fast; the fast is an image of the coming life, a imitation of the incorruptible way of life. There are no drinks there nor enjoyments. Leave the first man, and in order count those after him. What made the righteous Noah behave shamefully in insensibility, stripped naked of the members which it is a law to cover, and prepared the rash Ham to laugh at his father's drunkenness, so that two evils might come about through one transgression? For one drunkenness stripped both the father of his decent covering and the son of his freedom. But when again I look toward the sons of Eli the priest and occupy my mind with that story, I find a chain of disasters linked to one another from one beginning, the one through the belly and satiety.

For those men too, making their father's priesthood an occasion for self-indulgence and pleasure, were profaning the sacrifices and, before God, were taking the first portions of the victims for their belly. And fornication followed as well, a sin sister to luxury, and upon all these things the judgment from God brought a strict and severe penalty. For a hostile nation marched against Jerusalem on their account. And to cut short the account of the multitude of gloomy tales: the licentious young men fell in the battle, and the fatherland shared the danger with those who had sinned, and the ark of God was carried off captive by the enemies, and the old priest died together with the reports of the calamities, and so great a swarm of evils was brought upon the city through the throat's pleasure. Let us all therefore fast—and especially those of the priests' household, as having dwelling with them the school of self-control and, from the hearth itself, the philosophical precepts. For it is absurd that the sons of money-changers should be assayers of silver, and the relatives of smiths should busy themselves around the fire and the anvil, while the relatives of priests—whether kinsmen or otherwise of the household—should bolt away from the mark by which the leader and master of the hearth was allotted to live. The greatest harms have come about through the belly, and so too for the elder son of Isaac. For since he was a hunter by trade and once, after a long run, having returned to the house, with ungovernable hunger he gaped open-mouthed at the food set before him, he sold his birthright to his brother for the lentil dish.

From there, in short, he stole even his father's blessing, and thus, little by little, becoming estranged from virtue and from God, he lost the patriarchal glory and, separated from Israel in his own household, he himself became a barbarian and an alien, and he begot a people from himself of such a kind. This disease also led the people of the Old Covenant out into transgression of the divine and sacred laws. For when Moses was occupied with the promise of the giving of the law, the people, having changed their ways, turned to luxury and dancing, and the devil drew them, as they slipped little by little and trampled on the good order of life, toward impiety. And from there, in short, came the demonic pursuit of calf-making, and Aaron sharing in the pollution, and the corruption of the law, and the breaking of the tablets, and Moses' second run up the mountain, and all these things that the history, in its indignation, laments—all had their beginning and their cause from immoderate eating. I wish to set before you another narrative as well, second in time to the one just mentioned, but equal in force to the deed. Saul the king was drawn up for battle and conducted the war with great care; he forbade the people to partake of food on that day, sealing the judgment with an oath, and death was the penalty for the one who disobeyed. But while the whole army obediently accepted the command, only the king's son Jonathan, coming upon a swarm and overcome by the honey, fixed his scepter into the honeycombs and tasted of the sweetness.

He came near to danger, had not the whole multitude with one accord resisted the impulse of the father and king, who had determined to bring the threat to action. In addition to what has been said, one may clearly see countless such examples gathered from the Scriptures, that self-control is good and, by contrast, the intemperate enjoyment of drinks and delicacies is grievous. Fasting is the companion of the saints, fasting is the leader of every good deed. And just as craftsmen do not practice their crafts without tools, so neither did the zealous, who were aided in spiritual graces, ever accomplish any of the wonders and marvels without self-control. Fasting, Elisha raised the dead and restored him to life; fasting, Moses saw God; fasting, Daniel prevailed over the sorcery and deceit of the Assyrians; fasting, the Lord also endured the temptations of the devil; fasting, the apostles also performed their petitions for matters of zeal; by fasting the Ninevites conquered the threat of death; and, to speak generally, this is the advocate before God, worthy of reverence, and a trustworthy intercessor, quickly persuading in behalf of whatever supplication it brings before God. Therefore let every pious man, and whoever is a lover of God rather than a lover of pleasure, come with joy and gladness to the days of self-control. For no one who is sullen at the beginning of the contests is a noble athlete.

Do not be sullen like an infant dragged off to school; do not grumble against the purity of the days; do not seek the end of the week as one seeks, after winter, the bitter onset of spring; do not long for the Sabbath for the sake of drunkenness, like a Jew; do not count the days of the forty-day fast like a hired laborer waiting idle for the end of the paid term; do not be grieved that from the first hour your house is not smoking, nor the cook standing at the fire. Grant something also to the soul, not everything to the body. For abstinence from food nourishes the one, while stuffing nourishes the other. But since the two have been yoked together, and things that are by nature far separated have been bound together by the Creator's providence and skill, let us take counsel how both may pass through life without lacking what is fitting for each. You are composed of two, O man, and for now I say nothing of how much more precious the soul is and how it is fitting to assign to it the greater share of goodwill. But judge for both as a rational and grateful person. Bear with me a little, and if you wish, I will make the case for the soul, as one pleading on behalf of a woman who has believed, in the matters of which she says she is wronged and insulted. She, then, is sacred and incorporeal, immortal and imperishable, having kinship not with earth and the things here below but with God. Being pure, she rejoices in pure things, and having an immaterial origin, she flees from material things. Nevertheless, since it has been commanded her to manage the vessel molded from earth, as an obedient servant of the Master she attends to the clay and keeps watch and takes thought for it, until a command comes permitting the separation.

Abstinence from foods benefits the one who gives life to the body, but for the earthly instrument the enjoyment of food is necessary. It seeks nothing more, as being superior. "Divide for me," he says, "the time of the year; give the six months for enjoyment to the one who is steered, and the remaining ones to the steersman." The request is just, and no one is so fond of the body, a judge leaning to one side, as not to vote in favor of what is said. But I will even go to excess; I do not insist on an equal share. I condescend to the weakness of the body. I yield the ten months to the body and a little more besides. Let it grant me the forty days without insult, so that I may be released a little from the mire, the clay having been cooled by self-control. These things, O Christians, are just and undeniable, whether God judges or man. And you too, O judge, vote with me—for you have come at the right time, when the soul is disputing with the body. Then away with luxury for me, O Christian, as childish. You are a man; do not think the thoughts of infants. Those infants, if they do not get their honey, wail; if you do not offer them meat or wine, they twitch as they fall, and they wear everyone out with their endless whimpering. I blush at the dejection of gluttons, at how they mourn their fasting; they yawn continually, they lie down a little, they rise up again, they sleep under compulsion. In their insensibility they are eager to spend the days, and they are vexed at the sun for delaying toward its setting. They call the days longer than usual. And for the rest they fabricate stomach pains and tensions of the breath and heaviness of the head and a disturbance of their condition.

And yet these things are marks of surfeit, not of fasting. They come reluctantly to the solemn table, they murmur against the vegetables, they revile the legumes as having been introduced into creation in vain; for the lovers of pleasure become, as it were, natural philosophers against the delicacies of continence. They gulp down water without breathing, as though they had received a disagreeable medicine from physicians to drink. And most of them even devise wine by counterfeit preparations, soothing their love of pleasure. And so others likewise cultivate the use of vegetables and become varied sophists of enjoyment. But this is very foolish and senseless. For continence is the contest of a self-governing and free mind, not a slavish contrivance seeking to accomplish its purpose not as is fitting, but to contrive it in a servile manner. You demand a reward for the things in which you live according to the law of virtue. But a reward and prize has been announced to guileless workers, not to evildoers. Do not adulterate your fasting, lest you suffer the fate of the hucksters. For if those who mix water with wine are punished, how will you pass unpunished, introducing sophisticated pleasures into the austerity of fasting? Do not imitate fabricated illnesses, do not falsely accuse the forty-day fast as causing sickness; for on the contrary it is productive of health. Do not put forward pretexts in sins with men who work for pleasure. Through evil habit, continence is considered by you an enemy; yet it is not by nature burdensome.

All barbarians are proof of this argument—those who neither plant vines nor drink wine, but draw for themselves the spontaneous and uncultivated drink, water—and they are recognized as noble and valiant in wars, and they prevail over those who drink much wine, as is likely, the sober over the drunken. Their bodies are light and hardy, and such men are swift to mount a horse, naturally gifted and bold, and accurate archers. They are steadfast along with their boldness, and able to find a plan in difficult circumstances. Do not, then, accuse water of making those who use it feeble and weak; for experience refutes your slander. Why do I speak of wine? The nomadic Scythians, those who dwell near the Bosporus and those who sit by the river Rhine, are without houses and without hearths. They live as tent-dwellers, fixing their shelter for themselves from felt and hides and whatever coverings they find at hand. They do not know the plow, nor do they cut into the earth; therefore they do not bring bread to the table—for how could those who have not learned the farming of grain and the rest of the seeds? Nevertheless, living without bread and wine, they are brave and a match for whole nations in war, prevailing over and surpassing the many; and nothing

Bread and wine did not harm them by their absence, but ancestral custom became a nature for humans. And why did the account mention these things? So that we may learn that upbringing and training form a person toward whatever we wish and practice. Accustom yourself to self-control, and in time it will become a pleasant companion for you. But if, on the contrary, you have pleasures and feasts as your foster-brothers and friends, you will never love fasting, but it will appear burdensome to you as something strange and unfamiliar. A self-controlled life is an image of the life to come and imperishable. For just as then, having stripped off this passionate flesh, we will live free, having no necessity to serve the belly and be slaves to the other passions, so also now, if we cast off our great necessity and material excess, we will be near the imperishability we hope for. And to speak briefly, let us flee love of pleasure as far as we can; for it is impossible for the same person to be a lover of pleasure and a lover of God. For the lover of the body will necessarily also be a lover of money, and the lover of money is unjust, and the one who has fallen into injustice will easily transgress the ordinances of piety and trample on the laws of the wise, and will readily attempt forbidden things, gathering for himself from there the material of pleasure and offering all the spoils of injustice as gifts to pleasure as his mistress. Do not flee the hardship of self-control, but set your hopes against the present toil, and you will pass lightly through the abstinence from partaking. Say to yourself words of piety: Fasting is bitter, but paradise is sweet; thirst is burdensome, but near is the spring, from which the one who drinks will not thirst forever.

The body is slack, but the soul, being incorporeal, is stronger. The power is dead, but the resurrection is near. Speak to the importunate belly, and you too will have the word of the Lord: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. It is not famine, but a brief postponement; not an unavoidable punishment, but a voluntary abstinence; not a servile compulsion, but a free philosophy. Pray and you will be strong; call upon him and the helper stands ready at your side. Take up the ancient story in your memory, and you will learn how those who for the sake of piety afflict the body are neither weaker in strength than those who live in luxury and pour out much unmixed wine, nor yet more sullen in appearance or withered in complexion. For that king of the Assyrians, who lived wholly for the flesh and was bound to a life of luxury as to a manger, when he ordered his cupbearers and table-servants and, in short, all the attendants of his pleasure to be chosen for their natural bodily fitness and to appear graceful, so that not only his mouth and taste but his eye too might revel in what was seen—then indeed the three young men from the captivity of Israel, having been enrolled in the list of servants, abstaining from the delicacies of the royal table as being defiled by contact with things offered to idols, ate only seeds. And wine too was to be avoided because of the libation, and all flesh because of the reason already stated.

But when they were compelled by the one set over them to partake of what was set before them, so that at no time their beauty should be changed into ugliness from their continence, and the boys' repulsiveness and incurability should become that man's accusation and punishment, he says, "Let it be, and forgive; we shall not appear more dishonored to the king than those who live in luxury, nor shall our faces wither, nor should you be anxious as though bringing to him ugly servants. For the craftsman of our formation will give the grace, and you will learn from experience that God is the overseer of our beauty and fasting is the adorner of the comeliness that is earnestly sought." And so it came to be. For the young men bloomed exceedingly and surpassed all the flesh-eaters. But what of Samson? Was he not taught to fast straight from milk, when the Spirit declared to his mother, as was fitting, that the child should be kept from tasting wine and every luxury? And who was strong like him? And who was a warrior so renowned? He alone was a match for every battle line of enemies, and by his authority he routed a countless multitude; he who once, lacking a sword or spear, took up an ass's jawbone and laid low warrior men, slaying them with the bone alone. So then do you also hope, and you will be strong; be zealous, and you will be empowered; give your ear to the learning of hidden things, and you will forget food, as the people who followed Jesus, who taught by word and deed. Let us be ashamed, we who are incontinent and lovers of pleasure, at Greeks and Jews who fast—though in vain and for no end—

For those men are punished to no purpose for what they do not eat, except insofar as the matter is to be pursued as something enviable and fitting for the zealous. For Christians, exactness of conduct and the dignity of philosophy are fitting, since they possess the pure and true account of piety. But those who cultivate moral discipline without this seem to me to be doing the same as those who build a house without a foundation or construct a ship without the keel having been laid down. Such are the Hebrews, slow to learn. And laughter falls upon me violently whenever I behold them going about the streets unshod in white cloaks, a reproach of Moses, a shame of the prophets, abortive offspring of Abraham, slaves of folly though sons of freedom, ignorant and lawless though supposedly disciples of the law, having destroyed the hope of their exodus, since they did not receive the types of what was to come with understanding. For Moses, everything he did prefigured in advance as images of what would later come to be: whether you speak of the fast, or the tabernacle-festival, or the memorial of the trumpets, likewise circumcision, the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs. All those things were tokens of the conduct in Christ, images sketched beforehand for those being initiated by stages toward perfection. For I, the Christian and slave of the one who was crucified, fast well, whether purifying myself beforehand for the hope of the resurrection or grieving as a slave who loves his master over the sufferings of my Lord.

But you, the son of murderers and descendant of those who slaughtered the lamb, who received the inheritance of the shed blood from the voice of your fathers—of those who thus invoked curses upon themselves and their children—tell me, for what reason do you fast? If indeed as one repenting for the sins you have committed, I embrace your intention, and leaving the assembly of those who do evil, hasten to the church of the pious. Come to the blood of the lamb and be sprinkled. For from there purification will belong to you, from the very source where you established your sin. But if even now you are still bound to the same things, what does abstaining from food mean to you except to imitate the crocodiles of the Nile, which they say lament over the heads of the men they have eaten and weep for the slaughter—not taking repentance for what has been done (for how could irrational and aquatic beasts?), but, as it seems to me, grieving over the fleshless state of the head as unsuitable for food? What a spectacle, too, is the appearance surrounding fasting. Dances and leapings are the interludes and episodes of abstinence—things at war with the outward appearance. For fasting is understood as a guide to compunction and orderly attire, but dancing interprets what is dissolved in unrestrained and abundant pleasures. Remember here the Mosaic saying that declares it necessary to fast on the tenth day of the seventh month. For the seventh month signifies the seventh day, and the tenth day the tenth hour, in which the Lord on the cross gave up the spirit. And for each matter there are also distinctive outward forms, revealing from visible appearance the invisible disposition of the soul.