"If like Adam (or after the manner of men) I covered my transgressions
By hiding mine iniquity in my bosom,
Because I feared the great multitude." [279]
Behold ye a virtuous spirit? I was not ashamed, he saith, to own before the whole multitude my involuntary sins: And if he was not ashamed to confess, much more were it our duty to do so. For saith the prophet, "Set thou forth thy cause, that thou mayest be justified." (Isa. xliii. 26.) Great is the violence of this evil, everything is overturned by it and annihilated. We have forsaken the Lord, and are become slaves of honor. We are no longer able to rebuke those who are under our rule, because we ourselves also are possessed with the same fever as they. We who are appointed by God to heal others, need the physician ourselves. What further hope of recovery is there left, when even the very physicians themselves need the healing hand of others?
I have not said these things without an object, nor am I making lamentations to no purpose, but with the view that one and all, with our women and children, having sprinkled ourselves with ashes, and girded ourselves about with sackcloth, may keep a long fast, may beseech God Himself to stretch forth His hand to us, and to stay the peril. For need is there indeed of His hand, that mighty, that marvelous hand. Greater things are required of us than of the Ninevites. "Yet three days," said the prophet, "and Nineveh shall be overthrown." [280] (Jonah iii. 4.) A fearful message, and burdened with tremendous threat. And how should it be otherwise? to expect that within three days, the city should become their tomb, and that all should perish in one common judgment. For if, when it happens that two children die at the same time in one house, the hardship becomes intolerable, and if to Job this of all things seemed the most intolerable, that the roof fell in upon all his children, and they were thus killed; what must it be to behold not one house, nor two children, but a nation of a hundred and twenty thousand buried beneath the ruins!
Ye know how terrible a disaster is this, for lately has this very warning happened to us, not that any prophet uttered a voice, for we are not worthy to hear such a voice, but the warning crying aloud from on high more distinctly than any trumpet. [281] However, as I was saying, "Yet three days," said the prophet, "and Nineveh shall be overthrown." A terrible warning indeed, but now we have nothing even like that; no, there are no longer "three days," [282] nor is there a Nineveh to be overthrown, but many days are already past since the Church throughout all the world has been overthrown, and leveled with the ground, and all alike are overwhelmed in the evil; nay more, of those that are in high places the stress is so much the greater. Wonder not therefore if I should exhort you to do greater things than the Ninevites; and why? nay more, I do not now proclaim a fast only, but I suggest to you the remedy which raised up that city also when falling. And what was that? "God saw their works," saith the prophet, "that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil which He said He would do unto them." (Jonah iii. 10.) This let us do, both we and you. Let us renounce the passion for riches, the lust for glory, beseeching God to stretch forth His hand, and to raise up our fallen members. And well may we, for our fear is not for the same objects as theirs; for then indeed it was only stones and timbers that were to fall, and bodies that were to perish; but now it is none of these; no, but souls are about to be delivered over to hell fire. Let us implore, let us confess unto Him, let us give thanks unto Him for what is past, let us entreat Him for what is to come, that we may be counted worthy to be delivered from this fierce and most terrible monster, and to lift up our thanksgivings to the loving God and Father with whom, to the Son, together with the Holy Ghost, be glory, might, and honor, now, henceforth, and for ever and ever. Amen.
[277] [Field's text has here pollo de ekeinon beltious instead of pollo de allon beltious, which is clearly better than Field's, because it gives a better sense and is well attested. Indeed, Field, while giving ekeinon in his text, says it is used "durius pro heteron," and mentions Chrysostom's negligent use of pronouns.--G.A.]
[278] [In Field's text the word "many," pollous, is put in the preceding sentence; but it is better where it stands here, to complete the sentence and to make it correspond with the two preceding sentences.--G.A.]
[279] Job xxxi. 33, 34. The verses in the Sept. stand thus: Ei de kai hamarton akousios ekrupsa ten hamartian mou. Ou gar dietrapen poluochlian plethous, tou me exagoreusai enopion auton [but Chrysostom quotes only these words: ei kai hamarton akousios dietrapen poluochlian. The Hebrew is quite different, as shown in rendering of Rev. Ver. (above).--G.A.]
[280] [The Septuagint has yet three days, &c., eti treis hemerai k.t.l. So Chrysostom quotes it. The Hebrew text and the Rev. Ver., following it, have forty days.--G.A.]
[281] Antioch was exposed to earthquakes. One happened A.D. 395, which might be about the date of these Homilies. In A.D. 458 it was almost overthrown from this cause.
[282] [See note on preceding page.--G.A.]