Homilies on First Corinthians 39 part 2/2

How then shall He be subjected at that time? Do you see that in removing the absurd suspicion he set this down, and set it down too with a fitting sense? For He obeys as it becomes a Son and God to obey, not after the manner of men, but in freedom and possessing all authority.

Since how else is He seated on the same throne? How, as the Father raises up whom He will, does He Himself also raise up whom He will? How are all things that are the Father's His, and His the Father's? For these things declare to us a perfectly equal authority with Him that begot Him.

But what does it mean, 'When He shall deliver up the kingdom'? The Scripture knows two kingdoms of God: the one according to appropriation, and the other according to creation.

For He reigns over all, both Greeks and Jews and demons

and demons and the adversaries, according to the principle of creation;

but He reigns over the faithful, and the willing, and those who have submitted themselves, according to the principle of appropriation.

This kingdom is also said to have a beginning;

for concerning this He speaks also in the second Psalm:

'Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance';

concerning this too He Himself said to the disciples:

'All authority has been given to Me by My Father,' ascribing all things to Him that begot Him, not as though He Himself were insufficient, but showing that He is a Son and not unbegotten.

This kingdom, then, He delivers up, that is, He brings it to perfection.

'Why then,' one says, 'has he said nothing about the Spirit?' Because his discourse was not now about this, nor does he confound all things together;

since when he says, 'One God the Father, and one Lord Jesus,' it is by no means because he leaves the Spirit to be less that he is silent on this, but because for the present it was not urgent, that he said this.

For he knows how to make mention of the Father alone, and we shall not on that account cast out the Son;

he knows how to mention the Son and the Spirit alone, and we shall not on that account set aside the Father.

But what does it mean, 'That God may be all in all'? That all things may be dependent upon Him, that no one may suspect two principles without beginning, nor another kingdom severed apart.

For when the enemies lie subdued under the feet of the Son, and He who has them cast beneath His feet does not rise up in faction against Him that begot Him, but is of one mind with Him in perfect accord, then shall He Himself be all in all.

But some say that he spoke this to signify the abolition of wickedness, as when all henceforth yield and none resists nor does evil.

For when sin is no more, it is quite plain that God will be all in all.

But if the bodies do not rise, how are these things true? For death, the most grievous enemy of all, remains, having accomplished what it wished.

'For they shall no longer sin,' he says.

And what of this? For he is not here discoursing about the death of the soul, but about that of the body.

How then is it abolished? For this is victory: to receive back the things that were taken away and held in captivity.

But if the bodies are going to be held fast in the earth, then his tyranny remains, since these are held, and there is no other body wherein he shall be vanquished.

But if that which Paul said comes to pass—as indeed it will—then the victory of God will appear glorious, He being able to raise up the bodies held fast by him.

Since one conquers an enemy at that time, when he takes the spoils, not when he lets them remain with him;

but if one should not dare to take his own, how could we say that he had been vanquished? (7)

This manner of victory Christ also says in the Gospels that He has conquered, thus speaking:

'When he binds the strong man, then also will he plunder his goods.'

For unless this comes to pass, neither would the victory be clear.

For just as in the case of the death of the soul, he that has died is justified from sin, and yet we would not call this a victory;

for he is the conqueror, not who ceases to add to his evils, but who dissolves the captivity of the passions already come to pass;

even so also here, I would not say that the halting of death as it preys upon the bodies is a glorious victory, but rather the tearing away of what has already been held fast by him.

But if they should still contend and say that these things were spoken concerning the death of the soul, how is this destroyed last? For in each one being baptized it has been perfectly abolished already.

But if you speak concerning the body, that which is said has room, namely that it is destroyed last.

And if anyone should be at a loss why, in discoursing about the resurrection, he did not bring forward into the midst the bodies that rose in the case of the Lord, we would say this: that this was not to speak on behalf of the resurrection.

For to point to those who rose again dying afterwards was not the act of one demonstrating that death is utterly abolished.

For this reason too he said that it is abolished last, that you may no longer suspect it to rise up again.

For when wickedness is done away, much more will death cease.

For it would have no reason, when the fountain is dried up, that the river issuing from it should hold together, and when the root has vanished, that the fruit should remain.

Since, therefore, in the last day the enemies of God are abolished together with death and the devil and the demons,

let us not be vexed at the enemies of God who prosper.

For the enemies of the Lord, at the very moment of being glorified and exalted, failing, have vanished like smoke.

When you see anyone who is an enemy of God rich, attended by a bodyguard, having many flatterers, do not be cast down, but groan, weep, entreat God, that He may enroll him among His friends;

and the more he prospers while being an enemy, the more do you mourn for him.

For sinners must always be lamented, but most of all when they enjoy wealth and much prosperity, just as we lament the sick when they gorge themselves and are drunken.

But there are some who, even hearing these words, are so wretchedly disposed that they groan bitterly over themselves and say, 'Worthy of tears am I, who have nothing.'

You have said well, 'He who has nothing'—not because you do not have what that man has, but because you count the thing to be blessed;

wherefore you would be worthy of ten thousand lamentations.

For if one who lives in health should count blessed the man who is sick and lies upon a soft bed, this man is far more miserable and wretched than that one, because he has no perception of his own good things.

Which indeed one may see happening in the case of these men also;

whence our whole life has been confounded and thrown into disorder.

For these words have destroyed ten thousand, and betrayed them to the devil, and made them more pitiable than those wasting away with hunger.

For that those who covet more are more wretched than the beggars, inasmuch as they are held by a greater and sharper despondency than these, is plain from the following.

A drought once seized our city, and all trembled for the last extremity, and besought God to loose this terror;

and it was possible then to see that which was spoken by Moses, the heaven become as brass, and a death more grievous than all deaths expected each day.

But afterwards, it seeming good to the God who loves mankind, beyond all hope a great and boundless rain was borne down from above, and all were henceforth in festival and celebration, as having ascended from the very gates of death.

But amid so many good things and the common gladness of all, one of these exceedingly rich men went about gloomy and downcast, dead with despondency; and when many asked the cause why, in the common pleasure of all mankind, he alone was in pain, he could not even keep this grievous passion within, but, goaded by the tyranny of his malady, brought forth the cause into the midst:

'For having in my possession,' he says, 'ten thousand measures of grain, I now have no way to dispose of them.'

Shall we then, tell me, count this man blessed for these words—for which he ought rather to be stoned—him who is more savage than any wild beast, the common enemy? What are you saying, O man? Do you grieve that not all perished, that you might gather gold? Have you not heard what Solomon says, 'He that withholds grain to raise its price is cursed by the people'? But you go about as the common enemy of the good things of the world, and a foe to the bounty of the Master of the world, and a friend of Mammon—nay rather a slave? Ought not that tongue to have been cut out? Ought not the heart that gave birth to these words to have been quenched? (8)

Do you see how gold does not permit men to remain men, but makes them wild beasts and demons? For what could be more pitiable than the rich man, who prays each day for a famine to come, that gold may accrue to him? For his passion in the end turns round upon him to his own harm.

For he does not rejoice in the abundance of his stores of produce; nay, for this very reason he is henceforth in pain—because he possesses beyond measure.

And yet he who possesses much ought to have rejoiced;

but this man, for this very reason, is downcast.

Do you see that, as I was saying, the rich do not reap so great a pleasure from what they possess as they endure dejection over what has not yet accrued to them? For the man who possessed countless myriads of measures of grain was in greater pain and groaned more than the man who was hungry;

and he who had his necessary food was crowned, and leaped for joy, and gave thanks to God;

while he who possessed much was vexed and thought himself ruined.

It is not, then, abundance that produces pleasure, but a mind schooled in wisdom;

for without this, even if a man take and hold all things, he will be so disposed as one bereft of everything, and will lament.

Since even this man, of whom we now speak, even if he had sold all he had at as high a price as he wished, would again have been in pain that it was not for more; and if he had managed to get more, he would again have sought some further excess; and if he had disposed of the bushel for a single gold piece, even there he would again have been cut through by dejection, because the half-bushel was not worth so much.

But if from the beginning the price is not so high, do not be surprised;

for even drunkards are not inflamed from the outset, but when they have been filled with much unmixed wine, then they kindle a more grievous flame.

So these men too: the more they wrap about themselves, the greater the want in which they are placed; and those who gain more are themselves most of all the ones who are poor.

These things I have said not with reference to this man alone, but also to every one who is sick with such maladies, and who raises the price of wares, and who trades upon the poverty of his neighbors.

For of love toward mankind there is nowhere any account;

but everywhere the lust of covetousness, at the season of selling, leads many astray; and grain and wine the one sold sooner, the other later, yet neither out of concern for others, but the one that he might get more, the other that he might not get less, when the crop had taken a turn.

For since the majority, making no great account of God's laws, keep all shut up within, God, leading them to love of mankind by another way—so that even if by necessity they should do something good—cast in a fear of greater loss, not suffering the fruits of the earth to last for a long time, in order that, dreading the harm that comes from spoilage, they might set forth their goods to the needy even against their will, the very things which, by burying them at home, they keep to their own hurt.

And yet, even after these things, some are so insatiable that they are not even instructed thereby.

Many, at all events, have emptied whole casks, giving to the poor not so much as a ladleful, nor a piece of silver to the needy, but when the wine turned sour they poured it all out upon the ground, and destroyed their casks along with the produce.

Others again, not sharing so much as a single barley-cake with the hungry, flung whole granaries into the river;

and since, when God commanded to give to the needy, they did not hearken, when the moth gave the order they, even against their will, drained out all that was within unto destruction and utter ruin, drawing down upon their own head, along with this loss, much laughter and many curses.

And the things here are of such a kind;

but the things there—what word shall set them forth? For just as these men cast into the rivers the moth-eaten grain that has become useless here, so those who have done such things, having for this very reason become useless, God casts into the river of fire.

For just as the moth and the worm eat up the grain, so cruelty and inhumanity devoured the souls of these men.

And the cause of these things is the being nailed to present goods, and gaping only after this present life;

whence also such men become full of countless dejections.

For whatever pleasant thing you may name, the fear of death is able to blot it all out, and such a man is dead while yet living.

And that the unbelievers should suffer these things is nothing to wonder at;

but when those who have enjoyed so many mysteries, and have philosophized so much concerning things to come, cleave to present things, of what pardon could they be worthy? Whence, then, comes this cleaving to present things? From giving heed to luxury, and fattening the flesh, and enervating the soul, and making the burden heavy, and the darkness deep, and the veil thick.

For in luxury the better part is enslaved, and the worse prevails;

and the one is blinded on every side and dragged along maimed, while the other leads and leads about everywhere, though it ought to lie in the rank of those that are led.

For great is the bond of the soul toward the body, this the Creator having contrived, that none might be persuaded to hate it as though it were something alien.

For God commanded us to love our enemies;

but the devil had such power that he even

persuaded some to hate their own body.

For when he says that it belongs to the devil, he establishes nothing other than this;

which is the utmost folly.

For if it belongs to the devil, whence this great harmony, that it should be adapted on every side for the operations of the wisdom-loving soul? 'And if it is well-adapted,' he says, 'how does it blind her?' It is not the body that blinds the soul—away with the thought, O man!—but luxury.

And whence do we crave luxury? Not from having a body—by no means—but from an evil choice.

For the body needs nourishment, not luxury; the body has need of being fed, not of being cut through and dissolved.

For not to the soul only, but even to the very body that is fed, luxury is an enemy.

For it becomes weaker instead of strong, and softer instead of firm, and diseased instead of healthy, and heavier instead of light, and looser instead of compact, and unsightly instead of comely, and more foul-smelling instead of fragrant, and unclean instead of clean, and full of pain instead of at ease, and useless instead of useful, and old instead of young, and rotten instead of strong, and slow and sluggish instead of swift, and lame instead of sound.

And yet if it belonged to the devil, it ought not to be injured by his things—by wickedness, I mean.

But neither the body nor the food belongs to the devil, but luxury alone.

For through this that wicked demon accomplishes his countless evils;

thus he broke the neck of a whole people.

'For the beloved,' it says, 'waxed fat, and grew thick, and was enlarged, and kicked.'

And for Sodom, too, from this source came the beginning of those thunderbolts.

And Ezekiel, making this plain, said:

'Yet this was the iniquity of Sodom: in pride and in fullness of bread and in prosperity they lived wantonly.'

For this reason also Paul said:

'But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.'

Why ever so? Because she carries about her body like a tomb, bound with countless evils.

But if the body is thus destroyed, how will the soul be disposed? Of how great a tumult, of how many waves, of how great a storm will it be full? For this very reason it becomes useless for all things, and will not easily be able either to speak, or to hear, or to deliberate, or to do any of the things that are needful;

but just as a helmsman, when the storm has overpowered his skill, is sunk beneath the waves together with the very ship and the passengers,

so also the soul together with the body is plunged down into the grievous abyss of insensibility.

For just as some mill, God set the belly within us, giving it a power proportioned to itself, and appointing a fixed measure which it must grind each day.

If, then, one throw in more, becoming undigested it harms the whole.

Hence come diseases and infirmities and deformities;

for luxury makes what is beautiful not only diseased, but also ugly.

For when a woman belches unpleasant things continually, and reeks of putrid wine, and is flushed more than is fitting, and destroys the rhythm proper to a woman, and loses all decency of form, and her flesh becomes flabby, and her eyelids bloodshot and swollen, and there is fatness beyond what is fitting, and superfluous corpulence;

consider how great is the unpleasantness that thence arises.

And I have even heard physicians say that luxury has especially hindered many from shooting up to their proper height.

For the breath being obstructed by the multitude of the things thrown down, and being occupied about the working-up of these, that which ought to have gone forward for growth is spent upon the working-up of the superfluous matter.

Why should one speak of the gout, of the rheum that wanders everywhere, of the other diseases that come thence, of all the loathsomeness? For nothing is so unpleasant as a woman who eats much.

For this reason among poor women one may see greater comeliness of form, the superfluities being consumed away and not being plastered upon them, like some superfluous clay, idly and to no purpose.

For the daily exercise, and the labors, and the hardships, and the moderate table, and the frugal manner of life, furnish them much good health, and thence also much bloom.

But if you speak of the pleasure of luxury, you will find it reaching only as far as the throat.

For at the same moment it has passed the tongue and flown away,

leaving behind many unpleasantnesses.

For do not look at the luxurious only when they are reclining at table, but when you see them risen and gone, then follow after them, and you will behold bodies more like those of wild beasts and brute animals than of men.

For you will see them with heads heavy and reeling, straining, their limbs bound together, needing a couch and bedding and much quiet, tossed as though upon a great surge of waves, needing others to keep them from sinking, and longing for that former state in which they were before they burst themselves asunder.

For just like women great with child, so they too carry about their bellies weighed down, and can scarcely step, and scarcely see, and scarcely speak, and do everything with difficulty.

And if they happen to doze off a little, again they see strange dreams teeming with a thousand fantasies.

What would one say of that other madness of theirs, I mean the madness of sensual lust? For this too has its springs from this same source.

And like stallions maddened with lust for the mare, so, goaded by the sting of drunkenness, they leap upon everyone, cavorting more irrationally and more frantically than those beasts, and committing many other shameful acts which it is not even lawful to name.

For henceforth they know neither what they suffer nor what they do.

But the man who lives not in luxury is not such a one;

rather, he sits in harbour beholding the shipwrecks of others, and enjoys a pleasure pure and enduring, pursuing the manner of life that befits a free man.

Knowing these things, therefore, let us flee the wicked banquets of luxury, and cling to a frugal table, that being well-disposed in both soul and body, we may work every virtue and attain the good things to come, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, and honour, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.