HOMILY
I
(1)
TODAY I HAD INTENDED to complete my discussion on the topic on which I spoke to
you a few days ago; I wished to present you with even clearer proof that God's
nature is more than our minds can grasp. Last Sunday I spoke on this at great
length and I brought forward as my witnesses Isaiah, David, and Paul. For it
was Isaiah who exclaimed: "Who shall declare his generation?" David
knew God was beyond his comprehension and so he gave thanks to him and said:
"I will praise you for you are fearfully magnified: wonderful are your
works". And again it was David who said: "The knowledge of you is to
wonderful for me, a height to which my mind cannot attain". Paul did not
search and pry into God's very essence, but only into his providence; I should
say rather that he looked only on the small portion of divine providence which
God had made manifest when he called the gentiles. And Paul saw this small part
as a vast and incomprehensible sea when he exclaimed: "O the depth of the
riches and of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are
his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways!"
(2)
These three witnesses gave us proof enough, but I was not satisfied with
prophets nor did I settle for apostles. I mounted to the heavens and gave you
as proof the chorus of angels as they sang: "Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good will among men". Again, you heard the Seraphim as
they shuddered and cried out in astonishment:
"Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of
hosts, all the earth is filled with his glory".
And
I gave you also the cherubim who exclaimed:
"Blessed be his glory in his
dwelling".
(3)
So there were three witnesses on earth and three in Heaven who made it clear
that God's glory cannot be approached. For the rest, the proof was beyond
dispute; there was great applause, the audience warmed with enthusiasm, you
assembly came aflame. I did rejoice at this, yet my joy was not because praise
was coming to me but because glory was coming to my Master. For that applause
and praise showed the love you have for God in your souls. If a servant loves
his master and hears someone speak in praise of that master, his heart comes
aflame with a love for him who speaks. This is because the servant loves his
master. You acted just that way when I spoke: by the abundance of your applause
you showed clearly your abundant love for the Master.
(4)
And so I wanted again today to engage in that contest. For if the enemies of
the truth never have enough of blaspheming our Benefactor, we must be all the
more tireless in praising the God of all. But what am I to do? Another very
serious illness calls for any cure my words can bring, an illness which has
become implanted in the body of the Church. We must first root this ailment out
and then take thought for matters outside; we must first cure our own and then
be concerned for others who are strangers.
(5)
What is this disease? The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon
to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession: the feast of
Trumpets, the feast of Tabernacles, the fasts. There are many in our ranks who
say they think as we do. Yet some of these are going to watch the festivals and
others will join the Jews in keeping their feasts and observing their fasts. I
wish to drive this perverse custom from the Church right now. My homilies
against the Anomians can be put off to another time, and the postponement would
cause no harm. But now that the Jewish festivals are close by and at the very
door, if I should fail to cure those who are sick with the Judaizing disease. I
am afraid that, because of their ill-suited association and deep ignorance,
some Christians may partake in the Jews' transgressions; once they have done
so, I fear my homilies on these transgressions will be in vain. For if they
hear no word from me today, they will then join the Jews in their fasts; once
they have committed this sin it will be useless for me to apply the remedy.
(6)
And so it is that I hasten to anticipate this danger and prevent it. This is
what physicians do. They first check the diseases which are most urgent and
acute. But the danger from this sickness is very closely related to the danger
from the other; since the Anomians impiety is akin to that of the Jews, my
present conflict is akin to my former one. And there is a kingship because the
Jews and the Anomians make the same accusation. And what charges do the Jews
make? That He called God His own Father and so made Himself equal to God. The
Anomians also make this charge-I should not say they make this a charge; they
even blot out the phrase "equal to God" and what it connotes, by
their resolve to reject it even if they do not physically erase it.
II
But
do not be surprised that I called the Jews pitiable. They really are pitiable
and miserable. When so many blessings from heaven came into their hands, they
thrust them aside and were at great pains to reject them. The morning Sun of
Justice arose for them, but they thrust aside its rays and still sit in
darkness. We, who were nurtured by darkness, drew the light to ourselves and
were freed from the gloom of their error. They were the branches of that holy
root, but those branches were broken. We had no share in the root, but we did
reap the fruit of godliness. From their childhood they read the prophets, but
they crucified him whom the prophets had foretold. We did not hear the divine
prophecies but we did worship him of whom they prophesied. And so they are
pitiful because they rejected the blessings which were sent to them, while
others seized hold of these blessing and drew them to themselves. Although
those Jews had been called to the adoption of sons, they fell to kinship with
dogs; we who were dogs received the strength, through God's grace, to put aside
the irrational nature which was ours and to rise to the honor of sons. How do I
prove this? Christ said: "It is no fair to take the children's bread and
to cast it to the dogs". Christ was speaking to the Canaanite woman when
He called the Jews children and the Gentiles dogs.
(2)
But see how thereafter the order was changed about: they became dogs, and we
became the children. Paul said of the Jews: "Beware of the dogs, beware of
the evil workers, beware of the mutilation. For we are the circumcision".
Do you see how those who at first were children became dogs? Do you wish to
find out how we, who at first were dogs, became children? "But to as many
as received him, he gave the power of becoming sons of God".
(3)
Nothing is more miserable than those people who never failed to attack their own
salvation. When there was need to observe the Law, they trampled it under foot.
Now that the Law has ceased to bind, they obstinately strive to observe it.
What could be more pitiable that those who provoke God not only by
transgressing the Law but also by keeping it? On this account Stephen said:
"You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, you always resist the Holy
Spirit", not only by transgressing the Law but also by wishing to observe
it at the wrong time.
(4)
Stephen was right in calling them stiff-necked. For they failed to take up the
yoke of Christ, although it was sweet and had nothing about it which was either
burdensome or oppressive. For he said: "Learn from me for I am meek and
humble of heart", and "Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is sweet
and my burden light". Nonetheless they failed to take up the yoke because
of the stiffness of their necks. Not only did they fail to take it up but they
broke it and destroyed it. For Jeremiah said: "Long ago you broke your
yoke and burst your bonds". It was not Paul who said this but the voice of
the prophet speaking loud and clear. When he spoke of the yoke and the bonds,
he meant the symbols of rule, because the Jews rejected the rule of Christ when
they said: "We have no king but Caesar". You Jews broke the yoke, you
burst the bonds, you cast yourselves out of the kingdom of heaven, and you made
yourselves subject to the rule of men. Please consider with me how accurately
the prophet hinted that their hearts were uncontrolled. He did not say:
"You set aside the yoke", but "You broke the yoke" and this
is the crime of untamed beasts, who are uncontrolled and reject rule.
(5)
But what is the source of this hardness? It come from gluttony and drunkenness.
Who say so? Moses himself. "Israel ate and was filled and the darling grew
fat and frisky". When brute animals feed from a full manger, they grow
plump and become more obstinate and hard to hold in check; they endure neither
the yoke, the reins, nor the hand of the charioteer. Just so the Jewish people
were driven by their drunkenness and plumpness to the ultimate evil; they
kicked about, they failed to accept the yoke of Christ, nor did they pull the
plow of his teaching. Another prophet hinted at this when he said: "Israel
is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer". And still another called the Jews
"an untamed calf".
(6)
Although such beasts are unfit for work, they are fit for killing. And this is
what happened to the Jews: while they were making themselves unfit for work,
they grew fit for slaughter. This is why Christ said: "But as for these my
enemies, who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and slay
them". You Jews should have fasted then, when drunkenness was doing those
terrible things to you, when your gluttony was giving birth to your
ungodliness-not now. Now your fasting is untimely and an abomination. Who said
so? Isaiah himself when he called out in a loud voice: "I did not choose
this fast, say the Lord". Why? "You quarrel and squabble when you
fast and strike those subject to you with your fists". But if you fasting
was an abomination when you were striking your fellow slaves, does it become
acceptable now that you have slain your Master? How could that be right?
(7)
The man who fast should be properly restrained, contrite, humbled-not drunk
with anger. But do you strike your fellow slaves? In Isaiah's day they
quarreled and squabbled when they fasted; now when fast, they go in for
excesses and the ultimate licentiousness, dancing with bare feet in the
marketplace. The pretext is that they are fasting, but they act like men who
are drunk. Hear how the prophet bit them to fast. "Sanctify a fast",
he said. He did not say: "Make a parade of your fasting", but
"call an assembly; gather together the ancients". But these Jews are
gathering choruses of effeminates and a great rubbish heap of harlots; they
drag into the synagogue the whole theater, actors and all. For there is no
difference between the theater and the synagogue. I know that some suspect me
of rashness because I said there is no difference between the theater and the
synagogue; but I suspect them of rashness if they do not think that this is so.
If my declaration that the two are the same rests on my own authority, then
charge me with rashness. But if the words I speak are the words of the prophet,
then accept his decision.
III
Many,
I know, respect the Jews and think that their present way of life is a
venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion.
I said that the synagogue is no better than a theater and I bring forward a
prophet as my witness. Surely the Jews are not more deserving of belief than
their prophets. "You had a harlot's brow; you became shameless before
all". Where a harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the
synagogue is not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and
a lodging for wild beasts. Jeremiah said: "Your house has become for me
the den of a hyena". He does not simply say "of wild beast", but
"of a filthy wild beast", and again: "I have abandoned my house,
I have cast off my inheritance". But when God forsakes a people, what hope
of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the
dwelling of demons.
(2)
But at any rate the Jews say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say
that. No Jew adores God! Who say so? The Son of God say so. For he said:
"If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither
know me nor do you know my Father". Could I produce a witness more
trustworthy than the Son of God?
(3)
If, then, the Jews fail to know the Father, if they crucified the Son, if they
thrust off the help of the Spirit, who should not make bold to declare plainly
that the synagogue is a dwelling of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven
forbid! From now on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay
it honor as a holy place.
(4)
Let me tell you this, not from guesswork but from my own experience. Three days
ago-believe me, I am not lying-I saw a free woman of good bearing, modest, and
a believer. A brutal, unfeeling man, reputed to be a Christian (for I would not
call a person who would dare to do such a thing a sincere Christian) was
forcing her to enter the shrine of the Hebrews and to swear there an oath about
some matters under dispute with him. She came up to me and asked for help; she
begged me to prevent this lawless violence-for it was forbidden to her, who had
shared in the divine mysteries, to enter that place. I was fired with indignation,
I became angry, I rose up, I refused to let her be dragged into that
transgression, I snatched her from the hands of her abductor. I asked him if
were a Christian, and he said he was. Then I set upon him vigorously, charging
him with lack of feeling and the worst stupidity; I told him he was no better
off than a mule if he, who professed to worship Christ, would drag someone off
to the dens of the Jews who had crucified him. I talked to him a long time,
drawing my lesson from the Holy Gospels; I told him first that it was
altogether forbidden to swear and that it was wrong to impose the necessity of
swearing on anyone. I then told him that he most not subject a baptize believer
to this necessity. In fact, he must not force even an unbaptized person to
swear an oath.
(5)
After I talked with him at great length and had driven the folly of his error
from his soul, I asked him why he rejected the Church and dragged the woman to
the place where the Hebrews assembled. He answered that many people had told
him that oaths sworn there were more to be feared. His words made me groan,
then I grew angry, and finally I began to smile. When I saw the devil's
wickedness, I groaned because he had the power to seduce men; I grew angry when
I considered how careless were those who were deceived; when I saw the extent
and depth of the folly of those who were deceived, I smiled.
(6)
I told you this story because you are savage and ruthless in your attitude
toward those who do such things and undergo these experiences. If you see one
of your brothers falling into such transgressions, you consider that it is
someone else's misfortune, not your own; you think you have defended yourselves
against your accusers when you say: "What concern of mine is it? What do I
have in common with that man"? When you say that, your words manifest the
utmost hatred for mankind and a cruelty which benefits the devil. What are you
saying? You are a man and share the same nature. Why speak of a common nature
when you have but a single head, Christ? Do you dare to say you have nothing in
common with your own members? In what sense do you admit that Christ is the
head of the Church? For certainly it is the function of the head to join all
the limbs together, to order them carefully to each other, and to bind them
into one nature. But if you have nothing in common with your members, then you
have nothing in common with your brother, nor do you have Christ as your head.
(7)
The Jews frighten you as if you were little children, and you do not see it.
Many wicked slaves show frightening and ridiculous masks to youngsters-the
masks are not frightening by their nature, but they seem so to the children's
simple minds-and in this way they stir up many a laugh. This is the way the
Jews frighten the simpler-minded Christians with the bugbears and hobgoblins of
their shrines. Yet how could their ridiculous and disgraceful synagogues
frighten you? Are they not the shrines of men who have been rejected,
dishonored, and condemned?
IV
Our
churches are not like that; they are truly frightening and filled with fear.
God's presence makes a place frightening because he has power over life and
death. In our churches we hear countless homilies on eternal punishments, on
rivers of fire, on the venomous worm, on bonds that cannot be burst, or
exterior darkness. But the Jews neither know nor dream of these things. They
live for their bellies, they gape for the things of this world, their condition
is not better than that of pigs or goats because of their wanton ways and
excessive gluttony. They know but one thing: to fill their bellies and be
drunk, to get all cut and bruised, to be hurt and wounded while fighting for
their favorite charioteers.
(2)
Tell me, then, are their shrines awful and frightening? Who would say so? what
reasons do we have for thinking that they are frightening unless someone should
tell us that dishonored slaves, who have no right to speak and who have been
driven from their Master's home, should frighten us, who have been given honor
and the freedom to speak? Certainly this is not the case. Inns are not more
august then royal palaces. Indeed the synagogue is less deserving of honor than
any inn. It is not merely a lodging place for robbers and cheats but also for
demons. This is true not only of the synagogues but also of the souls of the
Jews, as I shall try to prove at the end of my homily.
(3)
I urge you to keep my words in your minds in a special way. For I am not now
speaking for show or applause but to cure your souls. And what else is left for
me to say when some of you are still sick although there are so many physicians
to effect a cure?
(4)
There were twelve apostles and they drew the whole world to themselves. The
greater portion of the city is Christian, yet some are still sick with the
Judaizing disease. And what could we, who are healthy, say in our own defense?
Surely those who are sick deserve to be accused. But we are not free from
blame, because we have neglected them in their hour of illness; if we had shown
great concern for them and they had the benefit of this care, they could not
possibly still be sick.
(5)
Let me get the start on you by saying this now, so that each of you may win
over his brother. Even if you must impose restraint, even if you must use
force, even if you must treat him ill and obstinately, do everything to save
him from the devil's snare and to free him from fellowship with those who slew
Christ.
(6)
Tell me this. Suppose you were to see a man who had been justly condemned being
led to execution through the marketplace. Suppose it were in your power to save
him from the hands of the public executioner. Would you not do all you could to
keep him from being dragged off? But now you see your own brother being dragged
off unjustly to the depth of destruction. And it is not the executioner who
drags him of, but the devil. Would you be so bold as not to do your part toward
rescuing him from his transgression? If you don't help him, what excuse would
you find? But your brother is stronger and more powerful than you. Show him to
me. If he will stand fast in his obstinate resolve, I shall choose to risk my
life rather than let him enter the doors of the synagogue.
(7)
I shall say to him: What fellowship do you have with the free Jerusalem, with
the Jerusalem above? You chose the one below; be a slave with that earthly
Jerusalem which, according to the word of the Apostle, is a slave together with
her children. Do you fast with the Jews? Then take off your shoes with the
Jews, and walk barefoot in the marketplace, and share with them in their
indecency and laughter. But you would not chose to do this because you are ashamed
and apt to blush. Are you ashamed to share with them in outward appearance but
unashamed to share in their impiety? What excuse will you have, you who are
only half a Christian?
(8)
Believe me, I shall risk my life before I would neglect any one who is sick
with this disease-if I see him. If I fail to see him, surely God will grant me
pardon. And let each one of you consider this matter; let him not think it is
something of secondary importance. Do you take no notice of what the deacon
continuously calls out in the mysteries? "Recognize one another", he
says. Do you not see how he entrusts to you the careful examination of your
brothers? Do this in the case of Judaizers, too. When you observe someone
Judaizing, take hold of him, show him what he is doing, so that you may not
yourself be an accessory to the risk he runs.
(9)
If any Roman soldier serving overseas is caught favoring the barbarians and the
Persians, not only is he in danger but so also is everyone who was aware of how
this felt and failed to make this fact known to the general. Since you are the
army of Christ, be overly careful in searching to see if anyone favoring an
alien faith has mingled among you, and make his presence know-not so that we
may put him to death as those generals did, nor that we may punish him or take
our vengeance upon him, but that we may free him from his error and ungodliness
and make him entirely our own.
(10)
If you are unwilling to do this, if you know of such a person but conceal him,
be sure that both you and he will be subject to the same penalty. For Paul
subjects to chastisement and punishment not only those who commit acts of
wickedness but also those who approve what they have done. The prophet, too,
brings to the same judgment not only thieves but also who run with the thieves.
And this is quite reasonable. For if a man is aware of a criminal's actions but
covers them up and conceals them, he is providing a stronger basis for the
criminal to be careless of the law and making him less afraid in his career of
crime.
V
But
I must get back again to those who are sick. Consider, then, with whom they are
sharing their fasts. It is with those who shouted: "Crucify him, Crucify
him", with those who said: "His blood be upon us and upon our
children". If some men had been caught in rebellion against their ruler
and were condemned, would you have dared to go up to them and to speak with
them? I think not. Is it not foolish, then, to show such readiness to flee from
those who have sinned against a man, but to enter into fellowship with those
who have committed outrages against God himself? Is it not strange that those
who worship the Crucified keep common festival with those who crucified him? Is
it not a sign of folly and the worst madness?
(2)
Since there are some who think of the synagogue as a holy place, I must say a
few words to them. Why do you reverence that place? Must you not despise it,
hold it in abomination, run away from it? They answer that the Law and the
books of the prophets are kept there. What is this? Will any place where these
books are be a holy place? By no means! This is the reason above all others why
I hate the synagogue and abhor it. They have the prophets but not believe them;
they read the sacred writings but reject their witness-and this is a mark of
men guilty of the greatest outrage.
(3)
Tell me this. If you were to see a venerable man, illustrious and renowned,
dragged off into a tavern or den of robbers; if you were to see him outraged,
beaten, and subjected there to the worst violence, would you have held that
tavern or den in high esteem because that great and esteemed man had been
inside it while undergoing that violent treatment? I think not. Rather, for
this very reason you would have hated and abhorred the place.
(4)
Let that be your judgment about the synagogue, too. For they brought the books
of Moses and the prophets along with them into the synagogue, not to honor them
but to outrage them with dishonor. When they say that Moses and the prophets
knew not Christ and said nothing about his coming, what greater outrage could
they do to those holy men than to accuse them of failing to recognize their
Master, than to say that those saintly prophets are partners of their impiety?
And so it is that we must hate both them and their synagogue all the more
because of their offensive treatment of those holy men.
(5)
Why do I speak about the books and the synagogues? In time of persecution, the
public executioners lay hold of the bodies of the martyrs, they scourge them,
and tear them to pieces. Does it make the executioners' hands holy because they
lay hold of the body of holy men? Heaven forbid! The hands which grasped and
held the bodies of the holy ones still stay unholy. Why? Because those
executioners did a wicked thing when they laid their hands upon the holy. And
will those who handle and outrage the writings of the holy ones be any more
venerable for this than those who executed the martyrs? Would that not be the
ultimate foolishness? If the maltreated bodies of the martyrs do not sanctify
those who maltreated them but even add to their blood-guilt, much less could
the Scriptures, if read without belief, ever help those who read without
believing. The very act of deliberately choosing to maltreat the Scriptures
convicts them of greater godlessness.
(6)
If they did not have the prophets, they would not deserve such punishment; if
they had not read the sacred books, they would not be so unclean and so unholy.
But, as it is, they have been stripped of all excuse. They do have the heralds
of the truth but, with hostile heart, they set themselves against the prophets
and the truth they speak. So it is for this reason that they would be all the
more profane and blood-guilty: they have the prophets, but they treat them with
hostile hearts.
(7)
So it is that I exhort you to flee and shun their gatherings. The harm they
bring to our weaker brothers is not slight; they offer no slight excuse to
sustain to the folly of the Jews. For when they see that you, who worship the
Christ whom they crucified, are reverently following their rituals, how can
they fail to think that the rites they have performed are the best and that our
ceremonies are worthless? For after you worship and adore at our mysteries, you
run to the very men who destroy our rites. Paul said: "If a man sees you
that have knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not his conscience,
being weak, be emboldened to eat those things which are sacrificed to
idols"? And let me say: If a man sees you that have knowledge come into
the synagogue and participate in the festival of the Trumpets, shall not his
conscience, being weak, be emboldened to admire what the Jews do? He who falls
not only pays the penalty for his own fall, but he is also punished because he
trips others as well. But the man who has stood firm is rewarded not only
because of his own virtue but people admire him for leading others to desire
the same things.
(8)
Therefore, flee the gatherings and holy places of the Jews. Let no man venerate
the synagogue because of the holy books; let him hate and avoid it because the
Jews outrage and maltreat the holy ones, because they refuse to believe their
words, because they accuse them of the ultimate impiety.
VI
That
you may know that the sacred books do not make a place holy but that the purpose
of those who frequent a place does make it profane, I shall tell an old story.
Ptolemy Philadelphus had collected books from all over the world. When he
learned that the Jews had writings which treated of God and the ideal state, he
sent for men from Judea and had them translate those books, which he then had
deposited in the temple of Serapis, for he was a pagan. Up to the present day
the translated books remain there in the temple. But will the temple of Serapis
be holy because of the holy books? Heaven forbid! Although the books have their
own holiness, they do not give a share of it to the place because those who
frequent the place are defiled.
(2)
You must apply the same argument to the synagogue. Even if there is no idol
there, still demons do inhabit the place. And I say this not only about the
synagogue here in town but about the one in Daphne as well; for at Daphne you
have a more wicked place of perdition which they call Matrona's. I have heard
that many of the faithful go up there and sleep beside the place.
(3)
But heaven forbid that I call these people faithful. For to me the shrine of
Matrona and the temple of Apollo are equally profane. If anyone charges me with
boldness, I will in turn charge him with the utmost madness. For, tell me, is not
the dwelling place of demons a place of impiety even if no god's statue stands
there? Here the slayers of Christ gather together, here the cross is driven
out, here God is blasphemed, here the Father is ignored, here the Son is
outraged, here the grace of the Spirit is rejected. Does not greater harm come
from this place since the Jews themselves are demons? In the pagan temple the
impiety is naked and obvious; it would not be ease to deceive a man of sound
and prudent mind or entice him to go there. But in the synagogue there are men
who say they worship God and abhor idols, men who say they have prophets and
pay them honor. But by their words they make ready an abundance of bait to
catch in their nets the simpler souls who are so foolish as to be caught of
guard.
(4)
So the godlessness of the Jews and the pagans is on a par. But the Jews
practice a deceit which is more dangerous. In their synagogue stands an
invisible altar of deceit on which they sacrifice not sheep and calves but the
souls of men.
(5)
Finally, if the ceremonies of the Jews move you to admiration, what do you have
in common with us? If the Jewish ceremonies are venerable and great, our are
lies. But if ours are true, as they are true, theirs are filled with deceit. I
am not speaking of the Scriptures. Heaven forbid! It was the Scriptures which
took me by the hand and led me to Christ. But I am talking about the
ungodliness and present madness of the Jews.
(6)
Certainly it is the time for me to show that demons dwell in the synagogue, not
only in the place itself but also in the souls of the Jews. As Christ said:
"When an unclean spirit is gone out, he walks through dry places seeking
rest. If he does not find it he says: I shall return to my house. And coming he
finds it empty, swept, and garnished. Then he goes and takes with him seven
other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter into him and the last
state of that man is made worse than the first. So shall it be also to this
generations".
(7)
Do you see that demons dwell in their souls and that these demons are more
dangerous than the ones of old? And this is very reasonable. In the old days
the Jews acted impiously toward the prophets; now they outrage the Master of
the prophets. Tell me this. Do you not shudder to come into the same place with
men possessed, who have so many unclean spirits, who have been reared amid
slaughter and bloodshed? Must you share a greeting with them and exchange a
bare word? Must you not turn away from them since they are the common disgrace
and infection of the whole world? Have they not come to every form of
wickedness? Have not all the prophets spent themselves making many and long
speeches of accusation against them? What tragedy, what manner of lawlessness
have they not eclipsed by their blood-guiltiness? They sacrificed their own
sons and daughters to demons. They refused to recognize nature, they forgot the
pangs, of birth, they trod underfoot the rearing of their children, they
overturned from their foundations the laws of kingship, they became more savage
than any wild beast.
(8)
Wild beasts oftentimes lay down their lives and scorn their own safety to
protect their young. No necessity forced the Jews when they slew their own
children with their own hands to pay honor to the avenging demons, the foes of
our life. What deed of theirs should strike us with greater astonishment? Their
ungodliness or their cruelty or their inhumanity? That they sacrificed their
children or that they sacrificed them to demons? Because of their
licentiousness, did they not show a lust beyond that of irrational animals?
Hear what the prophet says of their excesses. "They are become as amorous
stallions. Every one neighed after his neighbor's wife". He did not say:
"Everyone lusted after his neighbor's wife", but he expressed the
madness which came from their licentiousness with the greatest clarity by
speaking of it as the neighing of brute beasts.
VII
What
else do you wish me to tell you? Shall I tell you of their plundering, their
covetousness, their abandonment of the poor, their thefts, their cheating in
trade? the whole day long will not be enough to give you an account of these
things. But do their festivals have something solemn and great about them? They
have shown that these, too, are impure. Listen to the prophets; rather, listen
to God and with how strong a statement he turns his back on them: "I have
found your festivals hateful, I have thrust them away from myself".
(2)
Does God hate their festivals and do you share in them? He did not say this or
that festival, but all of them together. Do you wish to see that God hates the
worship paid with kettledrums, with lyres, with harps, and other instruments?
God said: "Take away from me the sound of your songs and I will not hear
the canticle of you harps". If God said: "Take them away from
me", do you run to listen to the trumpets? Are these sacrifices and
offerings not an abomination? "If you bring me the finest wheaten flour,
it is in vain: incense is an abomination to me". The incense is an
abomination. Is not the place also an abomination? Before they committed the
crime of crimes, before they killed their Master, before the cross, before the
slaying of Christ, it was an abomination. Is it not now all the more an
abomination? And yet what is more fragrant than incense? But God looks not to
the nature of the gifts but to the intention of those who bring them; it is
this intention that he judges their offerings.
(3)
He paid heed to Abel and then to his gifts. He looked at Cain and then turned
away from his offering. For Scripture says: "For Cain and his offerings he
had no regard". Noah offered to God sacrifices of sheep and calves and
birds. The Scripture say: "And the Lord smelled a sweet odor", that
is, he accepted the offerings. For God has no nostrils but is a bodiless
spirit. Yet what is carried up from the altar is the odor and smoke from
burning bodies, and nothing is more malodorous than such a savor. But that you
may learn that God attends to the intention of the one offering the sacrifice
and then accepts or rejects it, Scripture calls the odor and the smoke a sweet
savor; but it calls the incense an abomination because the intention of those
offering it reeked with a great stench.
(4)
Do you wish to learn that, together with the sacrifices and the musical
instruments and the festivals and the incense, God also rejects the temple
because of those who enter it? He showed this mostly by his deeds, when he gave
it over to barbarian hands, and later when he utterly destroyed it. But even
before its destruction, through his prophet he shouted aloud and said:
"Put not your trust in deceitful words for it will not help you when you
say: "This is the temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord"! What
the prophet says is that the temple does not make holy those who gather there,
but those who gather there make the temple holy. If the temple did not help at
a time when the Cherubim and the Ark were there, much less will it help now
that all those things are gone, now that God's rejection is complete, now that
there is greater ground for enmity. How great an act of madness and derangement
would it be to take as your partners in the festivals those who have been
dishonored, those whom God has forsaken, those who angered the Master?
(5)
Tell me this. If a man were to have slain your son, would you endure to look
upon him, or accept his greeting? Would you not shun him as a wicked demon, as
the devil himself? They slew the Son of your Lord; do you have the boldness to
enter with them under the same roof? After he was slain he heaped such honor
upon you that he made you his brother and coheir. But you dishonor him so much
that you pay honor to those who slew him on the cross, that you observe with
them the fellowship of the festivals, that you go to their profane places,
enter their unclean doors, and share in the tables of demons. For I am
persuaded to call the fasting of the Jews a table of demons because they slew
God. If the Jews are acting against God, must they not be serving the demons?
Are you looking for demons to cure you? When Christ allowed the demons to enter
into the swine, straightway they plunged into the sea. Will these demons spare
the bodies of men? I wish they would not kill men's bodies, that they would not
plot against them. But they will. The demons cast men from Paradise and
deprived them the honor from above. Will they cure their bodies? That is
ridiculous, mere stories. The demons know how to plot and do harm, not to cure.
They do not spare souls. Tell me, then, will they spare bodies? They try to
drive men from the Kingdom. Will they choose to free them from disease?
(6)
Did you not hear what the prophet said? Rather, did you hear what God said
through the prophet? He said that the demons can do neither good nor evil. Even
if they could cure and wanted to do so-which is impossible-you must not take an
indestructible and unending punishment in exchange for a slight benefit which
can soon be destroyed. Will you cure your body and destroy your soul? You are
making a poor exchange. Are you angering God who made your body, and are you
calling to your aid the demon who plots against you?
(7)
If any demon-fearing pagan has medical knowledge, will he also find it easy to
win you over to worship the pagan gods? Those pagans, too, have their skill.
They, too, have often cured many diseases and brought the sick back to health.
Are we going to share in their godlessness on this account? Heaven forbid! Hear
what Moses said to the Jews. "If there arise in the midst of you a prophet
or one that says he has dreamed a dream and he foretell a sign and a wonder,
and that sign or wonder which he spoke come to pass, and he say to you:
"Let us go and serve strange gods whom our fathers did not know, you shall
not hear the words of that prophet or dreamer".
(8)
What Moses means is this. If some prophet rises up, he says, and performs a
sign, by either raising a dead man or cleansing a leper, or curing a maimed
man, and after working the wonder calls you to impiety, do not heed him just
because his sign comes to pass. Why? "The Lord your God is trying you to
see whether you love him with all your heart and all your soul". From this
it is clear that demons do not cure. If ever God should permit demons to cure,
as he might permit a man to do, his permission is given to test you-not because
God does not know what you are, but that he may teach you to reject even the
demons who do cure.
(9)
And why do I speak of bodily cures? If any man threatens you with Gehenna
unless you deny Christ, do not heed his words. If someone should promise you a
kingdom to revolt from the only-begotten Son of God, turn away from him and
hate him. Be a disciple of Paul and emulate those words which his blessed and
noble soul exclaimed when he said: "I am sure that neither death nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to
come, no height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ our Lord".
(10)
No angels, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other
creature separated Paul from the love of Christ. Do you revolt to cure your
body? And what excuse could we find? Certainly we must fear Christ more than
Gehenna and desire him more than a kingdom. Even if we be sick, it is better to
remain in ill health than to fall into impiety for the sake of a cure; for even
if a demon cures you, he has hurt more than he has helped. He has helped the body,
which a short time later will altogether die and rot away. But he has hurt the
soul, which will never die. Kidnappers often entice little boys by offering
them sweets, and cakes, and marbles, and other such things; then they deprive
them of their freedom and their very life. So, too, the demons promise cure of
a limb and then dash the whole salvation of the soul into the sea.
(11)
Beloved, let us not put up with that; in every way let us seek to keep
ourselves free from godlessness. Could Job not have heeded his wife, blasphemed
against God, and been free from the disaster which beset him? "Curse God
and die" she said. But he chose to suffer the pain and to waste away; he
chose to endure that unbearable blow rather to blaspheme and be free from the
evils which beset him. You must emulate him. If the demon shall promise you ten
thousand cures from the ills which beset you, do not heed him, do not put up
with him-just as Job refused to heed his wife. Chose to endure your illness
rather than destroy your faith and the salvation of your soul. God does not
forsake you. It is because he wishes to increase your glory that oftentimes he
permits you to fall sick. Keep up your courage so that you may also hear him
say: "Do you think I have dealt with you otherwise than that you may be
shown to be just"?
VIII
I
could have said more than this, but to keep you from forgetting what I have
said, I shall bring my homily to an end here with the words of Moses: "I
call heaven and earth to witness against you". If any of you, whether you
are here present or not, shall go to the spectacle of the Trumpets, or rush off
to the synagogue, or go up to the shrine of Matrona, or take part in fasting,
or share in the Sabbath, or observe any other Jewish ritual great or small, I call
heaven and earth as my witnesses that I am guiltless of the blood of all of
you.
(2)
These words will stand by your side and mine on the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ. If you heed them, they will bring you great confidence; if you heed
them not or conceal anyone who dares to do those things, my words shall stand
against you as bitter accusations. "For I have not shrunk from declaring
to you the whole counsel of God".
(3)
I have deposited the money with the bankers. It remains for you to increase the
deposit and to use the profit from my words for the salvation of your brothers.
Do you find it an oppressive burden to denounce those who commit these sins? It
is an oppressive burden to remain silent. For this silence makes you an enemy
to God and brings destruction both to you who conceal such sinners and to those
whose sins go unrevealed. How much better it is to become hateful to our fellow
servants for saving them to provoke God's anger against yourselves. Even if
your fellow servant be vexed with you now, he will not be able to harm you but
will be grateful later on for his cure. But if you seek to win your fellow
servant's favor, if you remain silent and hurt him by concealing his sin, God
will exact from you the ultimate penalty. Your silence will make God your foe
and will hurt your brother; if you denounce him and reveal his sin, you will
make God propitious and benefit your brother and you will gain as a friend one
who was crazed but who learned from experience that you served him well.
(4)
Do not think, then, that you are doing your brothers a favor if you should see
them pursuing some absurdity and should fail to accuse them with all zeal. If
you lose a cloak, do you not consider as your foe not only the one who stole it
but also the man who knew of the theft and refused to denounce the thief? Our
common Mother (the Church) has lost not a cloak but a brother. The devil stole
him and now holds him in Judaism. You know who stole him; you know him who was
stolen. Do you see me lighting, as it were, the lamp of my instruction and
searching everywhere in my grief? And do you stand silent, refusing to denounce
him? What excuse will you have? Will the Church not reckon you among her worst
enemies? Will she not consider you a foe and destroyer?
(5)
Heaven forbid that anyone who hears my words of advice should commit such a sin
as to betray the brother for whom Christ died. Christ poured out his blood on
his account. Are you too reluctant to utter a word on this account? I urge you
not to be so reluctant. Right after you leave here, stir yourselves to the
chase and let each of you bring me one of those suffering from this disease.
(6)
But heaven forbid that so many be sick with it. Let two or three, or ten or
twenty of you bring me one man. One the day you do and when I see in your nets
the game you have caught, I will set before you a more plentiful table. If I
see that the advice I gave today has been put to work, I shall be more zealous
in undertaking the cure of those men, and this will be a greater boon both for
you and them.
(7)
Do not regard my words lightly. Be scrupulous in hunting out those who suffer
from this sickness. Let the women search for the women, the men for the men,
the slaves for the slaves, the freemen for the freemen, and the children for
the children. Come all of you to our next meeting with such success that you
win praise from me-and, before any praise of mine, that you obtain, from God a
great and indescribable reward which in abundant measure surpasses the labors
of those who succeed. May all of us obtain this by the grace and
loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory
to the Father together with the Holy Spirit now and forever, world without end.
Amen
