[10.] But may ye not be such, O young men! for not even for you is there the excuse for sinning. Why so? Because it is possible to be old in youth: just as there are youths in old age, so also the reverse. For as in the one case the white hair saves no one, so in the other the black is no impediment. For if it is disgraceful for the old man to do these things of which I have spoken, much more than for the young man, yet still the young man is not freed from accusation. For a young man can have an excuse only, in case he is called to the management of affairs, when he is still inexperienced, when he needs time and practice; but no longer when it is necessary to display temperance and courage, nor yet when it is needful to keep his property.
For it sometimes happens that the young man is blamed more than the old. For the one needs much service, old age making him feeble: but the other being able, if he will, to provide for himself, what sort of excuse should he meet with, when he plunders more than the old, when he remembers injuries, when he is contemptuous, when he does not stand forward to protect others more than the old man, when he utters many things unseasonably, when he is insolent, when he reviles, when he is drunken?
And if in the [matter of] chastity he think that he cannot be impleaded, [2845] consider that here also he has many helps, if he will. For although desire trouble him more violently than it doth the old, yet nevertheless there are many things which he can do more than an old man, and so charm that wild beast. What are these things? Labors, readings, watchings through the night, fastings.
[11.] What then are these things to us (one says) who are not monastics? Sayest thou this to me? Say it to Paul, when he says, "Watching with all perseverance and supplication" ( Eph. vi. 18 ), when he says, "Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." ( Rom. xiii. 14.) For surely he wrote not these things to solitaries only, but to all that are in cities. For ought the man who lives in the world to have any advantage over the solitary, save only the living with a wife? In this point he has allowance, but in others none, but it is his duty to do all things equally with the solitary.
Moreover the Beatitudes [pronounced] by Christ, were not addressed to solitaries only: since in that case the whole world would have perished, and we should be accusing God of cruelty. And if these beatitudes were spoken to solitaries only, and the secular person cannot fulfill them, yet He permitted marriage, then He has destroyed all men. For if it be not possible, with marriage, to perform the duties of solitaries, all things have perished and are destroyed, and the [functions] of virtue are shut up in a strait.
And, how can marriage be honorable, which so hinders us? What then? It is possible, yea very possible, even if we have wives, to pursue after virtue, if we will. How? If having "wives," we "be as though we had none," if we rejoice not over our "possessions," if we "use the world as not abusing it." ( 1 Cor. vii. 29, 31.)
And if any persons have been hindered by marriage state, let them know that marriage is not the hindrance, but their purpose which made an ill use of marriage. Since it is not wine which makes drunkenness, but the evil purpose, and the using it beyond due measure. Use marriage with moderation, and thou shalt be first in the kingdom, and shalt enjoy all good things, which may we all attain by the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ with whom to the Father together with the Holy Ghost be glory, might, honor, now and for ever and world without end. Amen.
[2829] [St. Chrys. here understands the logos of the Second Person of the Trinity. It is now generally interpreted as a personification of the spoken or written word sent forth by Him.--F.G.]
[2830] machairan
[2831] rh omphaian
[2832] meta teleiosin, i.e. by Baptism. [The meaning of teleiosis can hardly here be restricted to the baptism of the individual, but rather refers to the perfection of the means of salvation under the Gospel, which the Apostle so often expresses in this Epistle by teleiosis .--F.G.]
[2833] tetrachelismena
[2834] Having a kerux was a special mark of dignity, belonging to certain offices. See Mr. Field's notes.
[2835] i.e. Moses.
[2836] There are two points of superiority over Moses implied in the words "that is passed into the Heavens." 1. That Christ entered into the rest which He promised His people, while Moses did not. 2. That that rest is Heaven, not the earthly Canaan.
[2837] ho mologia used of the Creed [and more generally of the profession of a Christian.--F.G.].
[2838] paraplesios
[2839] The words of Rom. viii. 3 , to which St. Chrys. alludes, are "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh," &c.
[2840] tote, "at the Day of Judgment," opposed to "now." "in this life" ; as e kei, "there," "yonder," is the usual expression for the future state, opposed to e ntautha, "here," "in this world."
[2841] "The throne of grace," as he has said, is that of Christ, on which He sits at the right hand of the Father.
[2842] The Arians maintained that our Lord was Priest in His Divine Nature antecedent to the Incarnation. See the Oxford translation of St. Athanasius against Arianism, p. 292, note m. [add p. 267. note l.; cf. also S. Cyril, Book 3 against Nestorius].
[2843] e skesamen
[2844] [he graphe, the same form of quotation as in the case of the canonical Scriptures.--F.G.]
[2845] that is, if he have fallen into sin in this respect.