Then let us not seek after this. For if we will consider which has the pleasanter life, he that is toiled and hardworked, or he that lives in luxury, we shall find it to be the former. For in the first place, [831] the bodily senses are neither clear nor sound, but dull (chhaunai) and languid; and when those are not right, even of health there is plainly no enjoyment. Which is the useful horse, the pampered or the exercised? which the serviceable ship, that which sails, or that which lies idle? which the best water, the running or the stagnant? which the best iron, that which is much used, or that which does no work? does not the one shine bright as silver, while the other becomes all over rusty, useless, and even losing some of its own substance? The like happens also to the soul as the consequence of idleness: a kind of rust spreads over it, and corrodes both its brightness and everything else. How then shall one rub off this rust? With the whetstone of tribulations: so shall one make the soul useful and fit for all things. Else, how, I ask, will she be able to cut off the passions, with her edge turned (anakloses) and bending like lead? How shall she wound the devil?--And then to whom can such an one be other than a disgusting spectacle--a man cultivating obesity, dragging himself along like a seal? I speak not this of those who are naturally of this habit, but of those who by luxurious living have brought their bodies into such a condition, of those who are naturally of a spare habit. The sun has risen, has shot forth his bright beams on all sides, and roused up each person to his work: the husbandman goes forth with his spade, the smith with his hammer, and each artisan with his several instruments, and you will find each handling his proper tools; the woman also takes either her distaff or her webs: while he, like the swine, immediately at the first dawn goes forth to feed his belly, seeking how he may provide sumptuous fare. And yet it is only for brute beasts to be feeding from morning to night; and for them, because their only use is to be slaughtered. Nay, even of the beasts, those which carry burdens and admit of being worked, go forth to their work while it is yet night. But this man, rising from his bed, when the (noon-tide) sun has filled the market-place, and people are tired of their several works, then this man gets up, stretching himself out just as if he were indeed a hog in fattening, having wasted the fairest part of the day in darkness. Then he sits there for a long time on his bed, often unable even to lift himself up from the last evening's debauch, and having wasted (still) more time in this (listlessness), proceeds to adorn himself, and issues forth, a spectacle of unseemliness, with nothing human about him, but with all the appearance of a beast with a human shape: his eyes rheumy from the effect of wine, [832] * * * while the miserable soul, just like the lame, is unable to rise, bearing about its bulk of flesh, like an elephant. Then he comes and sits in (various) places, and says and does such things, that it were better for him to be still sleeping than to be awake. If it chance that evil tidings be announced, he shows himself weaker than any girl; if good, more silly than any child; on his face there is a perpetual yawn. He is a mark for all that would do harm, if not for all men, at least for all evil passions; and wrath easily excites such a man, and lust, and envy, and all other passions. All flatter him, all pay court to him, rendering his soul weaker than it is already: and each day he goes on and on, adding to his disease. If he chance to fall into any difficulty of business, he becomes dust and ashes, [833] and his silken garments are of no help to him. We have not said all this without a purpose, but to teach you, that none of you should live idly and at random. For idleness and luxury are not conducive to work, to good reputation, to enjoyment. [834] For who will not condemn such a man? Family, friends, kinsfolk (will say), He is indeed a very encumbrance of the ground. Such a man as this has come into the world to no purpose: or rather, not to no purpose, but to ill purpose against his own person, to his own ruin, and to the hurt of others. But that this is more pleasant--let us look to this; for this is the question. Well then, what can be less pleasant than (the condition of) a man who has nothing to do; what more wretched and miserable? Is it not worse than all the fetters in the world, to be always gaping and yawning, as one sits in the market-place, looking at the passers by? For the soul, as its nature is to be always on the move, cannot endure to be at rest. God has made it a creature of action: to work is of its very nature; to be idle is against its nature. For let us not judge of these things from those who are diseased, but let us put the thing itself to the proof of fact. Nothing is more hurtful than leisure, and having nothing to do: indeed therefore hath God laid on us a necessity of working: for idleness hurts everything. Even to the members of the body, inaction is a mischief. Both eye, if it perform not its work, and mouth, and belly, and every member that one could mention, falls into the worst state of disease: but none so much as the soul. But as inaction is an evil, so is activity in things that ought to be let alone. For just as it is with the teeth, if one eats not, one receives hurt to them, and if one eats things unfitting, it jars them, and sets them on edge: [835] so it is here; both if the soul be inactive, and if inactive in wrong things, it loses its proper force. Then let us eschew both alike; both inaction, and the activity which is worse than inaction. And what may that be? Covetousness, [836] anger, envyings, and the other passions. As regards these, let us make it our object to be inactive, in order that we may obtain the good things promised to us, through the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with Whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, honor, now and ever, world without end. Amen.
[818] mss. and Edd. place hou en. proseuche einai after apo tou topou, so that it reads, "See Paul again judaizing both from the time and from the place." Chrys. here explains the enomizeto (in the sense "was thought"): viz. St. Paul expected to find a congregation assembled for prayer, both because the place was set apart for that purpose, and because it was the sabbath.
[819] Two variations of text occur in v. 13, which materially affect the meaning. Modern critics read pules St. poleos--"they went outside the gate" and enomizomen instead of enomizeto--"where we supposed there was a place of prayer." (So B. C. ', R.V., Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort.) If the reading enomizeto is retained, it more probably means; "where a place of prayer was wont to be" rather than (as Chrys.) "where, it was thought, that prayer would be." The proseuchai were places of prayer situated often in the open air, and chosen in the neighborhood of streams on account of the custom of washing the hands before prayer. They served the purposes of synagogues in places where they did not exist.--G.B.S.
[820] all' autous apheke kurious einai, kai. Mod. text, ouk apheke k. e. alla kai.
[821] 'Alla di oikonomian epoioun, B. Cat. "their seeming reluctance was economy.'" A. C., Ola di oik. ep. Mod. text, Oste panta di oik. ep.
[822] Most critical editions read in v. 16. puthona st. puthonos (following A. B. C. '). In this case the word is in apposition with pneuma and has the force of an adjective, "having a Pythonic spirit," in allusion to the serpent which was said to have guarded Delphi and to have been slain by Apollo. From this feat the God was called Pythius, and in his temple the priestess was called "the Pythian," as being inspired by Apollo. Hence the term became equivalent to a daimonion mantikon. In later times the power of the ventriloquist was attributed to such a Pythonic spirit (as by Plutarch) and the LXX. render the word 'vv by engastrimuthos in accordance with this view. Meyer maintains that this damsel had the power of ventriloquism which the people attributed to a pneuma puthona. The apostle did not share this opinion but treated the case as one of demoniacal possession.--G.B.S.
[823] B. and Cat. ebouleto loipon axiopiston heauton (B. auton) poiein. The other mss. ebouleto (ebouleueto A.C.) gar me ax. auton poiein: wished to make him (Paul) not credible. That the former is the true reading, is shown by what follows: hina stese ta huper heautou: i.e., to gain credit with the believers in order to deceive them afterwards. In the next clause, we read with Cat. and Sav. ta kath' heautou, our mss. heautous, and so the other Edd.
[824] The scribe has copied the parts in the order 1, 3, 5: 2, 4, 6. See p. 213, note 5.
[825] Edd. have 'Epeide gar, and join this sentence with the following. The compiler of the Catena perceived that the Recapitulation begins with the next sentence, which he therefore gives to v. 13, though he repeats it wrongly under v. 24.--Mod. text, inserts the 'All' idomen k. t. l. before Gnue, ph., porphuropolis.
[826] This is the first recorded instance of the persecution of Christians by the Roman power. Hitherto the persecutions have proceeded from the Jews and here it is inflicted upon the Christians because they are considered to be Jews who were now under special disfavor, having been shortly before banished from Rome by Claudius.--G.B.S.
[827] Here mod. text. "But let us look over again what has been said. A woman,' it says, a seller of purple,'" etc.
[828] mss. and Edd. to gar keruttein ouk anthropon alla Pn. 'Epei oun alazonikos epoioun boontes k. t. l. The passage needs emendation. We read ouk for oun. "They did not catch at praise, least of all from a demon: for they were no braggarts, knowing that the power to preach was not of men," etc.
[829] hina meizonos thaumatos aitioi genontai. B. Cat. Sav. marg. The other mss. read hina meizonos axioi thaum. g., "They forbear to answer, so as to become worthy of more admiration." Hence this clause has been transposed. We refer it to v. 23. "The magistrates give order for their safe custody, thereby becoming the means of a greater miracle."
[830] B. C , kai choris tes aletheias, en auto to pragmati. A. and mod. text, kai ch. tes boetheias auto. to. pr., "even without the Divine succour, even though that had been withheld, yet their sufferings were ipso facto a benefit." But this alteration is not necessary. "Even apart from the Truth which they preached,--irrespectively of the fact that they were preachers of the Truth--their sufferings were a benefit. Even though they were deceived, and not preachers of the Truth, they gained by suffering: it made them strong," etc.
[831] As no "secondly" follows this "first," the scribes have supplied the seeming deficiency: thus N. (Sav. marg.) proton men hoti to soma anepitedeion pros panta kai ekneneurismenon esti; deuteron de hoti kai--. Mod. text Pr. men gar tou toioutou to soma auto ekluton kai pepladekos; epeita kai--.
[832] Mod. text, "his eyes watery, his mouth smelling of wine." It is evident that Chrys. is very imperfectly reported here.
[833] tephra kai konis ginetai. Unless there be an hiatus here, the meaning is, he has no more solidity in him than so much ashes and dust.
[834] Mod. text, pros doxan monon, pros hedonen: "but only to vainglory, to pleasure."
[835] poiei autous bruchein kai omodian (r. omodian). In Jer. xxxi. (Gr. xxxviii.) 29, the phrase is odontes ton teknon hemodiasan and so Hippocrat. uses the verb. haimodian. But as Ed. Par. Ben. 2, remarks, the passage of Jer. is sometimes cited with omodiasan; Synops. Athanas. t. ii. 167. Isidor. Pelus. iv. Ep. 4.
[836] Here, Edd. before Par. Ben. 2, adopt the amplified peroration of D. F. "Covetings, wrath, envyings, strifes, grudgings, emulations, and all the other passions. In these we ought to aim at being inactive, and with all earnestness to do the work of the virtues, that we may attain," etc.