Again, when it has been in men's power to purchase either gainful offices, or some other such thing, by some trifling meanness they have lost all. For because they know not how to sow, but have ever practised reaping, they of course continually fail of their harvest. For no man can be always reaping, as neither can he be always gaining. Therefore since they are not willing to spend, neither do they know how to gain. And should they have to take a wife, the same thing again befalls them; for either they are deceived into taking a poor wife for a rich one, or when they have brought home one that is rich, but full of faults without number, here too they have incurred more loss than gain. For it is not superfluity but virtue, that causes wealth. For what profit is there of her wealth, when she is expensive and dissolute, and scatters all abroad more vehemently than any wind? What if she be unchaste, and bring in numberless lovers? what if she be drunken? Will she not quickly make her husband the poorest of men? But they do not only marry, but also buy at great risk, from their great covetousness, laboring to find not good slaves, but cheap ones.
Consider then all these things (for the words concerning hell and the kingdom ye are not yet able to hear), and bearing in mind the losses which ye have often undergone from your love of money, in loans, and in purchases, and in marriages, and in offices of power, and in all the rest; withdraw yourselves from doating on money.
For so shall ye be able to live the present life in security, and after a little advance to hear also the words that treat on self-government, and see through and look upon the very Sun of Righteousness, and to attain unto the good things promised by Him; unto which God grant we may all attain, by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.
[1178] Luke viii. 22.
[1179] See Mark iv. 35. [But Mark is very specific as to time. This event is placed very much out of chronological position in Matthew's account. But Chrysostom does not discuss such questions with any fullness. Indeed, the order of Matthew seems to have been accepted up to his time. The earliest harmonies were based upon Matthew. Comp. even Augustin, Harmony, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. vi., first series, pp. 67-69, and elsewhere.--R.]
[1180] i.e., the miracle at the Red Sea, afterwards mentioned.
[1181] See Mark iv. 38.
[1182] philosophan.
[1183] Matt. viii. 25.
[1184] pragmton, "of things."
[1185] 2 Cor. i. 8, 10.
[1186] Exod. iv. 3, 4.
[1187] Matt. xv. 16. ["For" is part of the citation, in the Greek text of the Homily, but does not occur in the Gospel narratives. The order, "the sea and the winds," is also peculiar to the text of the Homily. The Oxford translator gives the order of the A.V., which is well attested, but not followed here.--R.]
[1188] Matt. viii. 27.
[1189] Matt. viii. 26.
[1190] Ps. cvii. 25, LXX.
[1191] [R.V., "demons," and so the translator in many places in this Homily.--R.]
[1192] Matt. viii. 29.
[1193] Mark v. 10; Luke viii. 31.
[1194] o per tn Loukn.
[1195] timoroumnou .
[1196] So St. Augustin de Civitate Dei, ix. 11. "Plotinus says that the souls of men are demons, and of men become Lares, if they are of good desert; if of bad, Lemures or Larvæ." Mr. Field refers to St. Chrys. 2 Hom. on Lazarus, vi. 235, 6 (Savile). "Many of the simpler sort imagine that the souls of such as die violent deaths are turned into demons, whereas the souls which really become such are theirs who are yet living in their sins, not by change of substance, but by imitating their evil mind....Why did the devil introduce this wicked doctrine? He tried to undermine the glory of the martyrs. I mean, because they die violent deaths, he wishing to diffuse an evil impression of them, did this. This, however, he could not do, but another very grievous result he did accomplish. He induced, by these doctrines, the sorcerers that minister to him to butcher the bodies of many tender youths, in the hope that they would become demons, and in return minister to them." He proceeds to argue against the superstition much as in the text here.
[1197] Wisd. iii. 1.
[1198] Luke xii. 20.
[1199] Acts vii. 59.
[1200] Phil. i. 23.
[1201] Gen. xv. 15, in LXX.
[1202] Luke xvi. 27, 28.
[1203] Matt. x. 30.
[1204] Matt. viii. 34. [R.V., "from their borders."]
[1205] kat nagogn. [Comp. the "analogical" sense of Scripture in the later Hermeneuties. But Origen and others had already made the term anagog familiar and technical in the usage of ecclesiastical Greek.--R.]
[1206] ["demons."]
[1207] somat.
[1208] Matt. vi. 24.
[1209] [ou sopsronzei.]
[1210] Perhaps the chpussea chaleion, of which Erasmus says, "Conveniet uti, quoties officium aut munus longe impari munere pensatur Admissus est in *principis, sed excitit ex amicitia Christi." Adag. 1, Cent. ii. Prov. 1.