Homilies on the Statues, Homily 11

1. When I think of the storm we have been through and the calm we now enjoy, I keep saying, “Blessed be God, who makes all things and changes them; who has brought light out of darkness; who leads to the gates of hell and brings back; who disciplines but does not kill.” I want you too to repeat this constantly and never stop. For if He has benefited us by His deeds, what pardon will we deserve if we do not repay Him even with words? So I urge you never to stop thanking Him, since if we are grateful for His earlier benefits, we will clearly enjoy others that are even greater. Let us say continually, Blessed be God, who has allowed us to spread the customary table before you in safety, while also allowing you to hear our message with confidence that you are safe! Blessed be God, that we no longer run here to escape the danger outside, but only from a desire to hear; that we no longer meet one another in anguish, trembling, and anxiety, but with great confidence, having shaken off all our fear. In those earlier days, our condition was no better than that of people tossed about in the middle of the sea, expecting shipwreck at any moment. Countless rumors frightened us all day long, and we were disturbed and shaken on every side. Every day we were eagerly trying to find out who had come from the court, what news he had brought, and whether the reports were true or false. We spent our nights without sleep too, and as we looked at the city, we wept over it as though it were about to be destroyed. 2. This is why you too kept silent in those earlier days: the whole city was empty, everyone had fled to the wilderness, and those left behind were overshadowed by a cloud of discouragement. Once the soul is filled with discouragement, it is not ready to listen to anything anyone says. That is why, when Job’s friends came and saw the tragedy of his household and the righteous man sitting on the dung heap, covered with sores, they tore their clothes, groaned, and sat beside him in silence. They showed that at first nothing suits the afflicted so well as quiet and silence. The calamity was too great for consolation. So too, when the Jews were enslaved to work with clay and make bricks, and saw Moses come to them, they could not pay attention to his words because of their broken spirits and their suffering. And why should we be surprised that fainthearted people felt this way, when we find that the Disciples fell into the same weakness? After that mystical Supper, when Christ took them aside and spoke with them, the disciples at first asked Him more than once, “Where are You going?” But when He told them what evils they would soon encounter—the wars, the persecutions, the hatred of everyone, the beatings, the prisons, the courts, the appearances before magistrates—their souls were weighed down as though by a heavy burden, with dread of what He had said and sadness over these approaching events. From then on they remained stunned. Christ, seeing their dismay, rebuked it by saying, “I am going to My Father, and none of you asks Me, Where are You going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.” For this reason we too have been silent for some time, waiting for the present opportunity. Someone about to ask another person a favor, even a reasonable one, waits for a suitable moment to make the request, so that the person who is to grant it will be in a gentle and willing frame of mind, and the favorable occasion will help him obtain the benefit. How much more necessary, then, is it for a speaker to look for a suitable time, so that he can address a listener who is receptive and free from all anxiety and discouragement! And that is what we have done. 3. Now that you have shaken off discouragement, we want to remind you of what we discussed before, so that our message may be clearer to you. We said that God made creation not only beautiful, wonderful, and vast, but also weak and subject to decay; and that He has provided various proofs of this. He arranged both conditions for our benefit, leading us by its beauty to admire Him who made it, and by its weakness drawing us away from worshiping the creature. We can see the same thing in the body. For many enemies of the truth, as well as many in our own ranks, ask why the body was created subject to decay and frail. Many Greeks and heretics even claim that God did not create it. They declare it unworthy of God’s creative skill and dwell on its impurities, its sweat, its tears, its labors and sufferings, and everything else that happens to the body. For my part, when people say such things, I would first give this reply: Do not tell me about man in his fallen, degraded, and condemned condition. If you want to learn what kind of body God gave us at first, let us go to Paradise and look at the Man created in the beginning. That body was not subject to decay and death as it is now. Like a gold statue fresh from the furnace, shining brilliantly, that body was free from all decay. Labor did not trouble it, nor did sweat spoil it. Anxieties did not conspire against it, sorrows did not besiege it, and no other condition of that kind distressed it. But man failed to enjoy his happiness with moderation. He treated his Benefactor with contempt and thought a deceiving demon more trustworthy than God, who cared for him and had raised him to honor. He expected to become a god himself and entertained thoughts above his proper dignity. Then—then indeed—God humbled him through decisive acts, making him mortal and subject to decay, and binding him with so many different needs. He did this out of care for him, without hatred or aversion, to restrain that evil and destructive pride at its very beginning. Instead of allowing it to go any further, He taught him through actual experience that he was mortal and subject to decay, to convince him never again to think or dream of such things. For the devil’s suggestion was, “You will be like gods.” Wanting to root out this idea completely, God subjected the body to much suffering and disease, so that its very nature would teach man never to entertain such a thought again. What happened to him makes the truth of this quite clear: after entertaining such an expectation, he was condemned to this punishment. Consider with me God’s wisdom in this matter too. He did not allow man to be the first to die, but allowed his son to suffer this death, so that, seeing the body rotting and decaying before his eyes, he might learn a striking lesson in wisdom from that sight, understand what had happened, and be properly disciplined before he himself departed this life. 4. As I said, this point is clear from what has already happened, but what remains to be said will make it just as clear. We are bound by these bodily needs, and everyone must die, decay, crumble before everyone’s eyes, and dissolve into dust. Indeed, the Gentile philosophers gave the whole human race one comprehensive definition (for when asked what man was, they answered that he is a rational and mortal animal). Yet even when everyone acknowledged this, some dared to make themselves immortal in the eyes of the public. Although the very evidence of sight testified to their mortality, they aspired to be called gods and were honored as such. How far, then, would many people have gone in impiety if death had not kept teaching everyone that our nature is mortal and subject to decay? Listen, for example, to what the prophet says about a barbarian king seized by this madness. “I will raise,” he says, “my throne above the stars of heaven; and I will be like the Most High.” Afterward, mocking him and speaking of his death, he says, “Decay is beneath you, and the worm is your covering.” His meaning is, “Do you, a mere man, dare to entertain such thoughts when an end like this awaits you?” Again, concerning another man, the king of the Tyrians, who conceived similar ambitions and aspired to be considered a God, he says, “You are not a God, but a man, and those who pierce you will say so.” Thus, by making this body of ours as it is, God has from the beginning completely removed every occasion for idolatry. 5. But why are you surprised that this has happened with the body, when it is clear that something similar has happened with the soul? God did not make it mortal, but allowed it to be immortal. Yet He made it subject to forgetfulness, ignorance, sadness, and anxiety, so that, considering its own noble origin, it would not form an opinion of itself above its proper dignity. For if, even under these conditions, some have dared to assert that it is of the Divine essence, what height of madness would they have reached if it had been free of these imperfections? What I said about creation, however, I also say about the body: both these things make me admire God—that He has made it subject to decay, and that in its very decay He has revealed His own power and wisdom. He has shown through the substance of the heavens and the sun that He could have made it from some better material. For He who made them as they are could also have made the body like them, if He had chosen to. But the reason for its imperfection is the one I mentioned before. This in no way lessens the admiration due to the Creator’s workmanship; it increases it. The lowliness of the material reveals the resourcefulness and adaptability of His skill, since in clay and ashes He has brought together parts in such harmony, and senses so varied and numerous and capable of such spiritual wisdom. 6. So the more you find fault with the lowliness of the material, the more amazed you should be at the greatness of the skill displayed. That is also why I admire the sculptor who makes a beautiful figure out of gold less than the one whose skill allows him to produce a form of marvelous and inimitable beauty even in crumbling clay. In the first case, the material gives the artist some help; in the second, his skill is displayed on its own. If you want to learn how great the Creator’s wisdom is, consider what is made out of clay. What else is there but bricks and tiles? Yet God, the Supreme Artist, has taken the same material used only for bricks and tiles and made an eye so beautiful that it amazes everyone who sees it. He has given it such power that it can survey the high expanse of the air all at once, and through a tiny pupil take in mountains, forests, hills, the ocean, yes, even heaven—through so small a thing! Do not tell me, then, about tears and discharges, for these are the fruit of your sin. Consider its beauty and its power of sight, and how, as it ranges over such a vast expanse of air, it feels no weariness or distress! The feet grow tired and weak even after traveling only a short distance, but the eye feels no weakness as it crosses a space so high and wide. Since it is the most necessary of all our bodily parts, He has not allowed it to be burdened with fatigue, so that it may serve us freely and without restriction. 7. Or rather, I should say, what words could fully describe all the excellence of this bodily part? And why do I speak of the pupil and the power of sight? If you investigated what seems the least important of all our bodily parts, the eyelashes, you would see even in them the many-sided wisdom of God the Creator! On heads of grain, the beards project like spears, driving birds away and preventing them from settling on the grain and breaking the stalk, which is too tender to support them. So it is with the eyes. The hairs of the eyelids stand in rows in front, serving as beards and spears, keeping dust and light particles away from the eyes, along with anything that might interfere with sight, and preventing irritation of the eyelids. Another equally remarkable example of wisdom can be seen in the eyebrows. Who can help being struck by their position? They do not project so far that they obscure sight, nor are they set too far back. Like the eaves of a house, they stand out above, catching the sweat that runs down from the forehead and keeping it from bothering the eyes. For this purpose too, hair grows on them; its roughness holds back what runs down from above, provides exactly the protection needed, and also adds greatly to the beauty of the eyes. Nor is this the only wonder! There is another equally wonderful thing. How is it, I ask, that the hair on the head grows and is cut, while the hair of the eyebrows does not? Even this did not happen without design or by chance. It keeps them from growing so long that they darken our sight too much, a problem suffered by those who reach extreme old age. 8. And who could possibly trace all the wisdom revealed in the brain! First, He made it soft, since it serves as a fountain for all the senses. Next, to keep its particular nature from leaving it vulnerable to injury, He fortified it on every side with bones. Then, to keep the hard bones from injuring it through friction, He placed a membrane between them—and not just one, but a second as well. The first spreads along the underside of the skull, while the second surrounds the upper substance of the brain, and the first is harder than the second. This was done both for the reason just mentioned and so that the brain would not be the first to receive blows to the head. These membranes meet the blows first, keeping the brain free from all injury and preserving it unharmed. Moreover, the bone covering the brain is not a single continuous piece, but has many sutures on every side, and this contributes greatly to its safety. The vapors surrounding it can easily escape outward through these sutures, keeping it from suffocating; and if a blow strikes any particular point, the damage does not spread to the whole. For if the bone were one continuous piece, a blow to even one part would injure the whole. But now, because it is divided into many parts, this can never happen. If one part happens to be wounded, only the bone near that part is injured, while all the rest remain unharmed. The division between the bones interrupts the force of the blow and prevents it from spreading to the neighboring parts. This is why God has constructed a covering of many bones for the brain. Just as someone building a house puts on a roof with tiles on top, God has placed these bones on top of the head and arranged for hair to grow and serve as a kind of cap for it. 9. He has done the very same thing with the heart. The heart holds first place among all the parts of our body, and supreme power over our whole life is entrusted to it; even a slight blow to it causes death. So He has fenced it in on every side with rigid, hard bones, surrounding it with the protection of the breastbone in front and the shoulder blades behind. What He did with the membranes of the brain, He has done here too. In anger and similar emotions, the heart throbs and beats rapidly. To keep it from rubbing painfully against the hard bones around it, He placed many membranes between them and set the lungs beside it to serve as a soft bed for these pulsations, so that the heart can cushion the force of its beating against them without injury or distress. But why do I speak of the heart and the brain, when anyone who investigates even the nails will see God’s many-sided wisdom displayed in their form, their substance, and their position? I could also have discussed why our fingers are not all equal, and many other details besides. But what has been said will make the wisdom of God Who created us clear enough to those willing to pay attention. So I will leave this field for diligent investigation by those who want to pursue it, and turn to another objection. 10. Besides what has already been mentioned, many people raise this objection: If man is king of the animals, why do many animals have an advantage over him in strength, agility, and speed? The horse is faster, the ox has greater endurance, the eagle is lighter, and the lion is stronger than man. What, then, should we say in reply? This very circumstance allows us to see especially clearly God’s wisdom and the honor He has given us. A horse is indeed faster than a man, but a man is better equipped than a horse to make a swift journey. Even the fastest and strongest horse can scarcely travel two hundred stadia in a day, but a man, harnessing a succession of horses, can cover two thousand stadia. Thus intelligence and skill give man a far greater advantage than speed gives the horse. It is true that a man’s feet are not as strong as the horse’s, but he has the horse’s feet to serve him as well as his own. No animal has ever been able to subject another to its own use, but man has them all at his disposal. With the varied skills God has given him, he puts each animal to the work best suited to it. If human feet had been as strong as horses’ feet, they would have been useless for other purposes: for rough ground, for mountaintops, for climbing trees. Hooves usually hinder movement in such places. So although human feet are softer than theirs, they are suited to more varied uses and are no worse for their lack of strength, since they have the horse’s power to help them and at the same time have the advantage over it in the variety of places they can tread. Again, the eagle has its light wing, but I have reason and skill, which enable me to bring down and master all winged animals. But if you want to see my wing too, I have one much lighter than the eagle’s, one that can soar not merely ten or twenty stadia, or even as high as heaven, but above heaven itself and above the heaven of heavens, to the very place “where Christ sits at the right hand of God!” 11. Again, irrational animals have their weapons in their own bodies: the ox has its horns, the wild boar its tusks, and the lion its claws. But God has not equipped my body with natural weapons. He has made them external to it, to show that man is a gentle animal and that I do not always need to use my weapons: sometimes I put them aside, and sometimes I take them up again. So that I could be free and unrestricted in this matter, without being forced to carry my weapons at all times, He made them separate from my nature. For we surpass the animals not only in having a rational nature, but also in our bodies. God has made the body correspond to the soul’s nobility and fitted it to carry out the soul’s commands. He has made the body as it is for a reason: it is just as it should be to serve a rational soul. If it were not as it is, the soul’s activities would be greatly hindered. Diseases make this clear. If this delicate balance of the body is disturbed even slightly, many of the soul’s powers are hindered—for example, if the brain becomes too hot or too cold. So the body makes it easy to see much of Divine Providence, not only because He originally made it better than it is now, or because even now He has changed it for a beneficial purpose, but also because He will raise it again to far greater glory. 12. But if you want another way to learn what wisdom God has shown in the body, I will mention what seems to strike Paul especially and repeatedly. What is it? That He has made the bodily parts excel one another, though not in the same things. He has appointed some to surpass the rest in beauty, and others in strength. The eye is beautiful, but the feet are stronger. The head is honored, but it cannot say to the feet, “I have no need of you.” We can see this among irrational animals too, and in all the relationships of life. The king, for example, needs his subjects, and the subjects need the king, just as the head needs the feet. Again, among animals, some are more powerful than the rest, and some more beautiful. Some delight us, some feed us, and some clothe us. The peacock delights us; poultry and pigs feed us; sheep and goats provide us with clothing; and the ox and donkey share our labor. Others provide none of these things but put our abilities to work. Wild animals increase hunters’ strength, teach our race through the fear they inspire, and make us more cautious. Their bodies also make considerable contributions to medicine. So if someone says to you, “How are you lord of the animals when you are afraid of the lion?” answer him, “Things were not arranged this way in the beginning, when I enjoyed God’s favor and lived in Paradise. But when I offended my Master, I fell under the power of those who had been my servants! Yet even now I am not entirely under their power, since I have skills by which I overcome wild animals.” The same thing happens in great households: while the sons are still children, they are afraid of many of the servants, and when they have done something wrong, their fear grows much greater. We may say the same of serpents, scorpions, and vipers: they are fearsome to us because of sin. 13. This diversity can be seen not only in our bodies and the various conditions of life, nor only among animals, but also in trees. Even the humblest tree can be seen to excel greater trees in some way. Thus not all things have the same qualities, so that all may be necessary to us and we may recognize the Lord’s many-sided wisdom. So do not blame God because the body is subject to decay. Honor Him all the more for this, and admire His wisdom and tender care: His wisdom, because He has been able to display such harmony in a body so subject to decay; His tender care, because He has made it subject to decay for the soul’s benefit, to restrain her vanity and subdue her pride! Why, then, someone asks, did He not make it this way from the beginning? I reply that it was to justify Himself before you through these very works, as though saying through the outcome itself, “I called you to greater honor, but you made yourself unworthy of the gift by banishing yourself from Paradise! Nevertheless, even now I will not despise you. I will correct your sin and bring you back to heaven. So for your own sake, I have allowed you to decay and waste away for so long, so that in the fullness of time your training in humility might be firmly established, and you might never return to your former conceit.” 14. For all these things, then, let us thank God who loves mankind. In return for His tender care for us, let us repay Him in a way that will also benefit us, and make every effort to keep the commandment I so often discuss with you! I will not stop urging you until you have changed. Our aim is not to speak to you rarely or often, but to keep speaking until we have persuaded you. God said to the Jews through the prophet, “If you fast for strife and argument, what purpose does your fasting serve Me?” And through us He says to you, “If you fast while swearing oaths and committing perjury, what purpose does your fasting serve?” For how will we look upon the sacred Passover? How will we receive the holy Sacrifice? How will we share in those wonderful mysteries with the same tongue with which we have trampled on God’s law, the same tongue with which we have polluted the soul? If no one would dare to receive the royal purple with filthy hands, how will we receive the Lord’s Body with a tongue that has become polluted! For the oath comes from the wicked one, but the Sacrifice comes from the Lord. “What fellowship, then, does light have with darkness, and what harmony does Christ have with Belial?” 15. I know well that you want to be rid of this impiety. But since each person may find it difficult to accomplish this alone, let us form fellowships and partnerships for this purpose. Let us act as the poor do at their feasts: no one alone could provide a complete banquet, but when they all come together, each brings a contribution to the feast. Since we are too sluggish on our own, let us form partnerships with one another and pledge to contribute advice, correction, encouragement, rebuke, reminders, and threats, so that each person’s diligence may help us all change. Since we watch our neighbors’ affairs more closely than our own, let us watch over the safety of others and entrust them with watching over us. Let us engage in this godly rivalry, so that by overcoming such an evil habit we may approach this holy feast with confidence and share in the holy Sacrifice with good hope and a good conscience, through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom may glory be to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.