For, tell me, for what other reason do you suppose women are so weak? Is it from their sex only? By no means: but from their way of living, and their bringing up. For their avoiding exposure, [3383] their inactivity, their baths, their unguents, their multitude of perfumes, the delicate softness of their couches, makes them in the end such as they are.
And that thou mayest understand, attend to what I say. Tell me; take from a garden a tree from those standing in the uncultivated [3384] part and beaten by the winds, and plant it in a moist and shady place, and thou wilt find it very unworthy of that from which thou didst originally take it. And that this is true, [appears from the fact that] women brought up in the country are stronger than citizens of towns: and they would overcome many such in wrestling. For when the body becomes more effeminate, of necessity the soul also shares the mischief, since, for the most part, its energies are affected in accordance with the [body]. For in illness we are different persons owing to weakness, and when we become well, we are different again. For as in the case of a string when the tones [3385] are weak and relaxed, and not well arranged, the excellence of the art is also destroyed, being obliged to serve the ill condition of the strings: so in the case of the body also, the soul receives from it many hurts, many necessities. [3386] For when it needs much nursing, the other endures a bitter servitude.
[6.] Wherefore, I beseech you, let us make it strong by work, and not nurse it as an invalid. [3387] My discourse is not to men only but to women also. For why dost thou, O woman, continually enfeeble [3388] [thy body] with luxury and exhaust it? [3389] Why dost thou ruin thy strength with fat? This fat is flabbiness, not strength. Whereas, if thou break off from these things, and manage thyself differently, then will thy personal beauty also improve according to thy wish, when strength and a good habit of body are there. If however thou beset it with ten thousand diseases, there will neither be bloom of complexion, nor good health; for thou wilt always be in low spirits. And you know that as when the air is smiling it makes a beautiful house look splendid, so also cheerfulness of mind when added to a fair countenance, makes it better: but if [a woman] is in low spirits and in pain she becomes more ill-looking. But diseases and pains produce low spirits; and diseases are produced from the body too delicate through great luxury. So that even for this you will flee luxury, if you take my advice.
But, you will say, luxury gives pleasure.' Yes, but not so great as the annoyances. And besides, the pleasure goes no further than the palate and the tongue. For when the table has been removed, and the food swallowed, thou wilt be like one that has not partaken, or rather much worse, in that thou bearest thence oppression, and distension, and headache, and a sleep like death, and often too, sleeplessness from repletion, and obstruction of the breathing, and eructation. And thou wouldest curse bitterly thy belly, when thou oughtest to curse thy immoderate eating.
[7.] Let us not then fatten the body, but listen to Paul saying, "Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof," ( Rom. xiii. 14.) As if one should take food and throw it into a drain, so is he who throws it into the belly: or rather it is not so, but much worse. For in the one case he uses [3390] the drain without harm to himself: but in the other he generates innumerable diseases. For what nourishes is a sufficiency which also can be digested: but what is over and above our need, not only does not nourish, but even spoils the other. But no man sees these things, owing to some prejudice and unseasonable pleasure.
Dost thou wish to nourish the body? Take away what is superfluous; give what is sufficient, and as much as can be digested. Do not load it, lest thou overwhelm it. A sufficiency is both nourishment and pleasure. For nothing is so productive of pleasure, as food well digested: nothing so [productive of] health: nothing [so productive of] acuteness of the faculties, nothing tends so much to keep away disease. For a sufficiency is both nourishment, and pleasure, and health; but excess is injury, and unpleasantness and disease. For what famine does, that also satiety does; or rather more grievous evils. For the former indeed within a few days carries a man off and sets him free; but the other eating into and putrefying the body, gives it over to long disease, and then to a most painful death. But we, while we account famine a thing greatly to be dreaded, yet run after satiety, which is more distressing than that.
Whence is this disease? Whence this madness? I do not say that we should waste ourselves away, but that we should eat as much food as also gives us pleasure, that is really pleasure, and can nourish the body, and furnish it to us well ordered and adapted for the energies of the soul, well joined and fitted together. But when it comes to be water-logged [3391] by luxury, it cannot in the flood-wave, keep fast the bolts [3392] themselves, as one may say, and joints which hold the frame together. For the flood-wave coming in, the whole breaks up and scatters.
"Make not provision for the flesh" (he says) "to fulfill the lusts thereof." ( Rom. xiii. 14.) He said well. For luxury is fuel for unreasonable lusts; though the luxurious should be the most philosophical of all men, of necessity he must be somewhat affected by wine, by eating, he must needs be relaxed, he must needs endure the greater flame. Hence [come] fornications, hence adulteries. For a hungry belly cannot generate lust, or rather not one which has used just enough. But that which generates unseemly lusts, is that which is relaxed [3393] by luxury. And as land which is very moist and a dung-hill which is wet through and retains much dampness, generates worms, while that which has been freed from such moistness bears abundant fruits, when it has nothing immoderate: even if it be not cultivated, it yields grass, and if it be cultivated, fruits: [so also do we].
Let us not then make our flesh useless, or unprofitable, or hurtful, but let us plant in it useful fruits, and fruit-bearing trees; let us not enfeeble them by luxury, for they too put forth worms instead of fruit when they are become rotten. So also implanted desire, if thou moisten it above measure, generates unreasonable pleasures, yea the most exceedingly unreasonable. Let us then remove this pernicious evil, that we may be able to attain the good things promised us, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory now and ever and world without end. Amen.
[3374] or, "accepteth."
[3375] e pistrephei, or, "turns, converts to God."
[3376] to kauchema tou Christou ta pathemata, or, "our glory--our boast--the sufferings of Christ."
[3377] sphodra pneousan
[3378] [There is a paronomasia here To antikatestete, pros tous hestotas eiretai, which cannot easily be reproduced in English.--F.G.]
[3379] to toiauta duneth SPsMBOL 210 \ph SIL Galatia \s 12 nai
[3380] eis paideian eis paideian hupomenete is the reading of the best mss. &c. of St. Chrys. as it is the approved reading of the Epistle. The later [printed] texts have the later reading ei p. hup
[3381] The common texts substitute Jacob for Isaac here, omitting the following clause where Jacob is mentioned (as they also in the preceding sentence have "temptations" instead of "families"); to correct the apparent inaccuracies of the text. But Mr. Field shows from other passages of St. Chrys. that he really means Isaac, having in view Gen. xxvi. 18-22, 27
[3382] St. Chrys. seems to have read this text without the words he pule
[3383] "to the heat," skiatrophia
[3384] e n te eremo, "dry and open part?"
[3385] phthongoi
[3386] a nankas
[3387] noseleuomen
[3388] e kpluneis ... e xitelon, lit. "washed out," and "faded," as when colors are washed out of dresses.
[3389] e kpluneis ... e xitelon, lit. "washed out," and "faded," as when colors are washed out of dresses.
[3390] e rgazetai
[3391] hu perantlon
[3392] gomphous
[3393] pladosa, "wet and soft."