In poenitentiam Ninivitarum

Homily 2. Of our Father among the Saints John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Repentance of the Ninevites. Bless, Father. Seeing that the preceding days demanded teaching, and being compelled by weakness to be silent, I was distressed and vexed, like a zealous athlete prevented from entering the stadium for his contests. I saw you desiring spiritual food, and myself unable to provide it. I saw the time for trade, and myself unable to make any contract with you. I saw the prey abundant, and the hunter too weak for the hunt. But, even while greatly pained by this, I considered it better to measure out my labors for myself, so as both to attend church daily and to share in the other liturgy with you, rather than, after toiling for only two or three days, to be nailed again to my bed and again be separated from you. For this reason, having omitted the daily discourses, I have come today, by the grace of the Lord, to discharge my debt to you. Come then, let us draw the ship into the sea of the Ninevites' repentance. For different words are useful to different people, but the remedies of repentance are, I think, beneficial to all; since no one is free from sin, it is clear that no one is without need of repentance. For those who need it, the example of those saved through repentance is necessary, leading them in the same way to health.

We have seen, then, those who lived in wickedness become renowned for virtue. We have seen those resembling beasts receive the rank of angels. We have seen those overturning the city by their deeds set the city aright by a manner of philosophy. We have seen the enemies of God become friends of God, and those who once had the Lord as accuser later gain Him as advocate. We have seen the condemned, after the sentence, contending with the judge and annulling the sentence. We have seen God lying out of love for humanity. We heard earlier how the prophet was proclaiming, and the city was in turmoil, and how, just as a harsh wind stirs up the sea, so the voice of Jonah, falling upon the populace of the Ninevites, filled everything with storm and tempest. We heard how the city, deeming the proclamation trustworthy, did not fall into despair but hastened to repentance; and how, having no confidence concerning its salvation, it set about tending to and reconciling God. And what were the acts performed for the sake of reconciliation? They have been spoken of in part; but we must give you the whole account. For they proclaimed a fast, and they put on sackcloth from their smallest to their greatest. O strange wonder, fearful to men but longed for by angels! Consider for me those many tens of thousands of men, women, and children together wearing sackcloth and gathered in the same place; all pursuits and all human activities idle, no work being accomplished anywhere by anyone, but instead the wailing of all together, and the clamor, and the cry sent up to heaven.

Consider the anomaly of masters and slaves cast aside, of rulers and ruled, the king present with the same appearance as the multitudes, and arranging the service of God like some political formation. For the word, it says, reached the king, and he rose from his throne, and took off his robe, and put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes. O wise king! He himself leads the repentance, so as to make the whole city more zealous. For who would still be weak, seeing the king himself struggling for salvation? He heals the wounds of the purple through sackcloth; he washes away the sins of the throne through sitting on ashes; he cures the disease of pride through the humility of his appearance; he medicates the sores of luxury through fasting; and having shown these things through deeds, he rouses all to equal zeal through a proclamation. For it was proclaimed, it says, by the king: Let the people, and the cattle, and the oxen, and the sheep taste nothing, let them graze nothing, and let them drink no water. A novel legislation of the king: he prescribes fasting to the sick as a physician; rather, the luxurious lawgiver imitates the apostolic teachings of pious fasting, and commands the irrational animals to share in this with the humans, drawing God to greater pity through the sinless nature. And the people and the cattle, it says, put on sackcloth. O heavenly formation! O phalanx terrifying to the devil!

The devil stood lamenting, seeing his own army having moved en masse to God and fighting against the demons; and then this battle was waged by children, women, and infants together with men; and already the nature of beasts was taken as an ally into the formation. And the devil saw a novel spectacle: livestock contributing righteousness to men, and fasting for the salvation of their owners. Let men, oxen, and beasts taste nothing, nor graze. The king, casting off the symbols of his rule, assumed the order of priests. He stood haranguing, teaching the Ninevites to philosophize. "Terrible," he says, "O friends, are the evils surrounding us. Having subdued the whole world, we are being destroyed as wicked by divine decree, and though ruling over all men, as the basest of all we have been condemned to a strange manner of death, and having been deemed blessed by all others, we shall appear more wretched than all, and we shall become a myth and a tale for the whole of life, with our former splendor not allowing our evils to be hidden. Many wars, O Ninevites, we have conquered; now let us contend more nobly for our own salvation. For formerly we did everything to become masters of others; now the prize for us is not to be utterly destroyed with our women and children. Against the uprising of a strange war, let us contend in a strange way: let us shoot the heavens with hymns; let us hurl psalms there instead of spears; let us sling prayers at God; let us appease his wrath with unceasing tears; let us break the phalanx of evil deeds; let us cast down the fortifications of wickedness.

Let us fight with the weapons of virtue. A breastplate of righteousness no missile wounds; a shield of faith no thunderbolt can burn; a helmet of hope God does not suffer to be shattered; wrath from above does not rend a tunic of temperance; a threat of destruction cannot overthrow a wall of confession; a sentence of perdition, when it sees earnest repentance, dissolves like smoke at once. If we thus, O friends, and with such weapons do battle, we shall hold sway over heaven as well as earth. Take courage, Ninevites, take courage; a humane king makes war on us; having cast down his enemies as invincible only, he lays aside his anger and becomes a benefactor of his foes. With such words of encouragement the king roused the people to repentance. And the Ninevites eagerly carried out his commands. For they put on sackcloth, it says, both the men and the beasts, and cried out earnestly to God. Not that speech was ready while the mind was wandering; not that the tongue uttered while the understanding roamed; not that the voice was brought forth while the intention was led astray; but both together earnestly implored God. The coming night, increasing the fear,

He drove out sleep, and sent up more earnest hymn. Again a day showed the sky dark, and struck with unceasing lightning and thunder, it moved all to extraordinary terror and great outcry. The earth, quaking, wrought great turmoil in their souls. All the infants, running to their mothers' bosoms in fear and whimpering in their arms, caused unspeakable lamentation and wailing to those who saw. Herds of cattle and sheep, and all grazing creatures, prevented from pasture and waters, and uttering various cries, moved even adamantine hearts to weeping. And though the threat and fear troubled them from all sides, they did not bear to cast away good hope. For who knows, they said, if God will repent and turn from the anger of his wrath, and we shall not perish? Then from the depth of their heart they cried out to God: O King, Lord of life and death, we are worthy of the sentence you have threatened, and we owe each penalty, having been ignorant of you, the true God, and having lived a corrupt life. But you, using the sea of your compassions, stop the punishment against us; conquer the just mean with goodness, and our ingratitude with philanthropy. If you had suddenly brought the blow, the account of punishment would have held, and you would have killed us as strangers and base; but now, having given a reprieve through kindness, if you kill us after we have changed, you destroy not strangers but your own. Did you preserve us when we were impious, and now destroy us when we become faithful? Did you save us when we were wicked, and now slay us when we do good?

You increased the city that was devoted to idols, and made it a queen, and now you destroy it when it has become yours? Did we not, through you, hold the inhabited world, though we did not know you, and now, worshipping you, are we cast out even from life itself? Spare your name, O King; do not, by exacting punishment from the Ninevites, make piety something to be fled as useless; do not, by justly punishing us, close the door of repentance to men. For if, having received lawgivers and teachers, we advanced into great wickedness, destroy us inexorably, grant no pardon to those who beseech, inflict a penalty more severe than the one you threatened; but if, without learning or instruction, we continued in baseness and impiety, do not, O King, condemn our ignorance to such destruction. You destroyed men by flood long ago justly; for they did not heed Noah when he taught; you foretold the destruction, and they did not flee from sin. You rightly burned the Sodomites, for they refused to accept the counsels of Lot. The Egyptians were swallowed up fittingly with Pharaoh, for they were not persuaded by Moses when he taught, though they were struck many times and experienced your hand. Did we dare to contradict anyone? Now you sent only one man to us, not even as a teacher, but as a herald of evils, and we, believing, honor your worship with the whole people. You gave us a short deadline, and in it we showed a very great change. When destruction was proclaimed to us, we did not despair of your philanthropy. When the prophet announced the overthrow, we hoped in your mercy. Do not, O Good One, falsify our hopes!

Do not stop the tongues that wish to hymn your kindness! Do not kill the men who hasten to proclaim your goodness to all! Do not hinder us from becoming teachers of piety to all our people! Do not remain fixed in the same way toward those who no longer remain the same. We have changed; be reconciled. Stop your anger, just as we stopped our error. Stop the punishment yourself, just as we stopped our wickedness. You have taught us sufficiently through fear; give us now time to show our love for you. Spare the cattle that bellow from hunger; spare the innocent children choked by weeping. Spare the untimely infants weakened by fasting. Do not destroy the guiltless together with the guilty. Have pity on mothers who, because of your anger, do not give milk to their dearest ones; parents have renounced pity for them, that they might draw down your pity. All men endure the same evils as we do; if you do not receive us repenting, you have cut off the hopes of the whole world. With such words, as is likely, the Ninevites spoke at the beginning; and their deeds matched their words: fasting, sackcloth, earnest prayer, tears, flight from wickedness. For it says they cried out earnestly to God, and each turned from his own evil way and from the injustice of their hands. They take hold of philosophy from its very extremities, and make the crown of virtue the foundation of virtue; for each practiced whatever was the most excellent work and most pleasing to God.

They saw a heavenly war rising against them, and they fortified themselves with good works as with a wall. They put on a wondrous panoply of sackcloth. They arrayed from below prayers and supplications against the thunderbolts borne from above. They opposed the sound of their hymnody to the crash of the thunder. Fasting became for them a manifest tower. With streams of tears they quenched the phalanx of their sins. They made friends of their enemies in order to reconcile God to themselves. They themselves forgave the anger of those who had grieved them, in order to stop the Master's anger against them. They tore up the ledger of debts below, so that they might obtain remission of their transgressions from above. They gave freedom to slaves, so that they themselves might receive freedom from punishment. They added their possessions to those of the needy, so that they might securely acquire their own estates. Casting off luxury, they pursued continence. Fleeing licentiousness, they embraced temperance. Hating the pomp of offices, they all transformed themselves into a humble and mournful guise. Ceasing from wares, contracts, and all works, they served God. The malefactors confessed their robberies with no one compelling them. The judges did not exact penalties from those who confessed. All confessed as though dead to life. Wealth lay unguarded and abandoned, and no thief appeared anywhere. Gold was supplied to the needy, and each man fled from possession as from a loss. One thing alone was eagerly sought by all: salvation. One course, for both rich and poor, the labor for life was set before them. Everything that did not contribute to this was cast out as useless and base.

Salvation was uncertain, and yet they pursued it as though it were assured. They could not rely on the outcome of their repentance, and yet, as if they would surely live, they attended to every good deed. O barbarian philosophers! O uneducated sages! They learned what was needful without teaching, were reformed without a lawgiver, were disciplined without teachers, and ran from the depths of wickedness to the heavenly polity. This is the transformation wrought by the right hand of the Most High. One threatening rainstorm, and the Ninevites sprouted a harvest of countless good things; they were recast like old statues. They were remade by repentance: from sinners they became righteous, beloved of angels, desired by God. They set upright the city that was tottering, raised up what was falling, steadied what was shaken. They were changed, yet not overturned; they were transformed, yet not destroyed. For, it says, God saw their works, that they had turned from their evil ways, and He repented of the evil He had spoken of doing to them. O paradoxical events! The judge retried the case, dissolved the death sentence, and decreed the saving one. The Ninevites repented, and God repented. Repentance rent the decree of destruction. They broke through their wickedness; God broke through His verdict. O all-powerful repentance!

It is accomplished on earth, and it reaches into the heavens. So let us also, O friends, repent; let us fast in this manner; let us join good deeds to fasting; let us abstain from evil deeds; let us fear the threat of Gehenna; through repentance we shall obtain salvation from God. Glory to Him, and power, unto the ages of ages. Amen.