[6.] Tell me, I pray thee, if some poor man has taken away clay thrown out of thy yard, wouldst thou for this have summoned a court of justice? Surely not. Why? Lest thou shouldst disgrace thyself; lest all men should condemn thee. The same also happens in this case. For the rich man is poor, and the more rich he is, the poorer is he in that which is indeed poverty. Gold is clay, cast out in the yard, not lying in thy house, for thy house is Heaven. For this, then, wilt thou summon a Court of Justice, and will not the citizens on high condemn thee? Will they not cast thee out from their country, who art so mean, who art so shabby, as to choose to fight for a little clay? For if the world were thine, and then some one had taken it, oughtest thou to pay any attention to it?
Knowest thou not, that if thou wert to take the world ten times or an hundred times, or ten thousand times, and twice that, it is not to be compared with the least of the good things in Heaven? He then who admires the things here slights those yonder, since he judges these worthy of exertion, though so far inferior to the other. Nay, rather indeed he will not be able to admire those other. For how [can he], whilst he is passionately excited towards these earthly things? Let us cut through the cords and entanglements: for this is what earthly things are.
How long shall we be stooping down? How long shall we plot one against another, like wild beasts; like fishes? Nay rather, the wild beasts do not plot against each other, but [against] animals of a different tribe. A bear for instance does not readily kill a bear, nor a serpent kill a serpent, having respect for the sameness of race. But thou, with one of the same race, and having innumerable claims, [3276] as common origin, rational faculties, the knowledge of God, ten thousand other things, the force of nature, him who is thy kinsman, and partaker of the same nature--him thou killest, and involvest in evils innumerable. For what, if thou dost not thrust thy sword, nor plunge thy right hand into his neck, other things more grievous than this thou doest, when thou involvest him in innumerable evils. For if thou hadst done the other, thou wouldst have freed him from anxiety, but now thou encompassest him with hunger, with slavery, with feelings of discouragement, with many sins. These things I say, and shall not cease to say, not [as] preparing you to commit murder: nor as urging you to some crime short of that; but that you may not be confident, as if you were not to give account. "For" (it says) "he that taketh away a livelihood" ( Ecclus. xxxiv. 22 ) and asketh bread, it says. [3277]
[7.] Let us at length keep our hands to ourselves, or rather, let us not keep them, but stretch them out honorably, not for grasping, but for alms-giving. Let us not have our hand unfruitful nor withered; for the hand which doeth not alms is withered; and that which is also grasping, is polluted and unclean.
Let no one eat with such hands; for this is an insult to those invited. For, tell me, if a man when he had made us lie down on tapestry [3278] and a soft couch and linen interwoven with gold, in a great and splendid house, and had set by us a great multitude of attendants, and had prepared a tray [3279] of silver and gold, and filled it with many dainties of great cost and of all sorts, then urged us to eat, provided we would only endure his besmearing his hands with mire or with human ordure, and so sitting down to meat with us--would any man endure this infliction? Would he not rather have considered it an insult? Indeed I think he would, and would have gone straightway off. But now in fact, thou seest not hands filled with what is indeed filth, but even the very food, and yet thou dost not go off, nor flee, nor find fault. Nay, if he be a person in authority, thou even accountest it a grand affair, and destroyest thine own soul, in eating such things. For covetousness is worse than any mire; for it pollutes, not the body but the soul, and makes it hard to be washed. Thou therefore, though thou seest him that sitteth at meat defiled with this filth both on his hands and his face, and his house filled with it, nay and his table also full of it (for dung, or if there be anything more unclean than that, it is not so unclean and polluted as those viands), dost thou feel as if forsooth thou wert highly honored, and as if thou wert going to enjoy thyself?
And dost thou not fear Paul who allows us to go without restraint to the Tables of the heathen if we wish, but not even if we wish to those of the covetous? For, "if any man who is called a Brother" ( 1 Cor. v. 11 ), he says, meaning here by Brother every one who is a believer simply, not him who leads a solitary life. For what is it which makes brotherhood? The Washing of regeneration; the being enabled to call God our Father. So that he that is a Monk, if he be a Catechumen, is not a Brother, [3280] but the believer though he be in the world, is a Brother. "If any man," saith he, "that is called a Brother." ( 1 Cor. v. 11.) For at that time there was not even a trace of any one leading a Monastic life, but this blessed [Apostle] addressed all his discourse to persons in the world. "If any man," he says, "that is called a Brother, be a fornicator, or covetous or a drunkard, with such an one, no not to eat." But not so with respect to the heathen: but "If any of them that believe not," meaning the heathen, "bid you and ye be disposed to go, whatsoever is set before you eat." ( 1 Cor. x. 27.)
[8.] "If any man that is called Brother be" (he says) "a drunkard." Oh! what strictness! Yet we not only do not avoid drunkards, but even go to their houses, partaking of what they set before us.
Therefore all things are upside down, all things are in confusion, and overthrown, and ruined. For tell me, if any such person should invite thee to a banquet, thee who art accounted poor and mean, and then should hear thee say, "Inasmuch as the things set before me are [the fruit] of overreaching, I will not endure to defile my own soul," would he not be mortified? Would he not be confounded? Would he not be ashamed? This alone were sufficient to correct him, and to make him call himself wretched for his wealth, and admire thee for thy poverty, if he saw himself with so great earnestness despised by thee.
But we "are become" (I know not why) "servants of men" ( 1 Cor. vii. 23 ), though Paul cries aloud throughout, "Be not ye the servants of men." Whence then have we become "servants of men"? Because we first became servants of the belly, and of money, and of glory, and of all the rest; we gave up the liberty which Christ bestowed on us.
What then awaiteth him who is become a servant (tell me)? Hear Christ saying, "The servant abideth not in the house for ever." ( John viii. 35.) Thou hast a declaration complete in itself, that he never entereth into the Kingdom; for this is what "the House" means. For, He says, "in My Father's House are many mansions." ( John xiv. 2.) "The servant" then "abideth not in the House for ever." By a servant He means him who is "the servant of sin." But he that "abideth not in the House for ever," abideth in Hell for ever, having no consolation from any quarter.
Nay, to this point of wickedness are matters come, that they even give alms out of these [ill-gotten gains], and many receive [them]. Therefore our boldness has broken down, and we are not able to rebuke any one. But however, henceforward at least, let us flee the mischief arising from this; and ye who have rolled yourselves in this mire, cease from such defilement, and restrain your rage for such banquets, if even now we may by any means be able to have God propitious to us, and to attain to the good things which have been promised: which may we all obtain in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Ghost, be glory, power, honor, now and for ever, and world without end. Amen.
[3263] Mr. Field's text omits Abraam, and has dexamenos for a nadexamenos
[3264] ta tou Theou, the acts and words of God.
[3265] logisamenos. The cognate word logismos is used throughout for our "reasoning," "calculation."
[3266] ouk onta echarisato, i.e. Isaac. See Rom. iv. 17 , "Before God, in whom he believed, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were" (ta me onta hos onta); and for the next clause, see ib. ver. 19 , "He considered not his own body, now dead, nor yet the deadness of Sarah's womb" : to which, so to say, life was restored.
[3267] [See St. Cyr. Alex. Glaph. 87.]
[3268] conviction [?].
[3269] e n parabole
[3270] e n hupodeigmati, see c. ix. 9, 23
[3271] e n ainigmati, where one thing is said, and another covertly meant: as the expression is used 1 Cor. xiii. 12 , of our present knowledge of the Blessedness of Heaven.
[3272] te proairesei
[3273] e dikethes
[3274] This reading, adopted by Mr. Field, is found only in one ms. followed by Savile and the later editions: the other authorities, including Mutianus' version, have, "Seest thou that thou hast not been injured, but injurest?" Perhaps this may be the true reading, St Chrys. in these words turning his address to those who are suffering worldly wrong: and saying that if they patiently endure, they are not the sufferers, but inflict suffering on their oppressors, though the expression a dikeis is very strong.
[3275] or, "respects [another], respects," &c.
[3276] dikaiomata
[3277] kai arton aiton, phesi. There is great variation in the mss. of this passage: and possibly the true reading is lost. St. Chrys. partly quotes Ecclus. xxxi. 22 of the Septuagint ( xxxiv. 22 of our Version), "He that taketh away his living slayeth his neighbor, and he that defraudeth the hireling of his hire is a blood-shedder." As the text stands we must suppose that he is alluding to sayings which had become proverbial, and that his hearers would supply the words, "is a murderer" ; or " is the same."
[3278] tapeton
[3279] pinaka
[3280] It will be observed that the word pistos, "believer," means "one who believes and is baptized" : as opposed to the unbaptized, even though they believed and were so religious as to devote themselves to an ascetic life. Also, that at this time there were those who had given themselves up to an ascetic life and still deferred their Baptism, see St. Greg. Naz. Hom. xl. 18. In the later form of the text, this clause has been altered to "So that a Catechumen, even though he be a Monk, is not a brother."