Homilies on the Statues, Homily 19

1. You have been celebrating the Holy Martyrs these last few days! You have had your fill of the spiritual feast! You have all rejoiced with rightful joy! You have seen their ribs laid bare and their loins torn open; blood flowing everywhere; ten thousand kinds of torture! You have seen human nature display what is beyond nature, and crowns woven with blood! You have danced a beautiful dance throughout the whole city, with this noble captain of yours leading you; but sickness forced me to stay home against my will. Yet although I did not take part in the festival, I shared in its pleasure. Although I could not enjoy your public gathering, I still shared your gladness. For love has such power that it makes those who are not actually enjoying something rejoice as much as those who are, persuading them to regard their neighbor’s good things as their own. So even while I sat at home, I was rejoicing with you; and now, although I have not yet fully recovered from my sickness, I have gotten up and hurried to meet you, so that I may see the faces I have so longed to see and take part in the present festival. 2. For I consider today a very great festival indeed because of our brothers, whose presence beautifies our city and adorns the Church: a people whose language is foreign to us, but who agree with us in faith, a people who spend their time in peace and lead an upright and sober life. Among these men there are no spectacles of wickedness—no horse races, no prostitutes, none of the disorderly revelry found in a city. Every kind of immorality is banished, and great sobriety flourishes everywhere. The reason is that their lives involve hard work, and in cultivating the soil they have a school of virtue and sobriety. They practice the craft that God introduced into our lives before all others. For before Adam’s sin, when he enjoyed great freedom, he was assigned a certain cultivation of the ground—not hard or troublesome work, but work that gave him much good training, for he was appointed, it says, “to cultivate the garden and keep it.” You can see each of these men at one time yoking the working oxen, guiding the plow, and cutting a deep furrow, and at another ascending the sacred platform and cultivating the souls of those under their authority; at one time cutting thorns from the soil with a pruning hook, at another clearing sins from the soul through the Word. Unlike the inhabitants of our city, they are not ashamed of work. They are ashamed of idleness, knowing that it has taught every kind of wickedness and has been a teacher of evil from the beginning to those who love it. 3. These are our philosophers, and theirs is the best philosophy: they display their virtue through their minds, not through their outward appearance. In character, the pagan philosophers are no better than those who perform onstage and take part in actors’ entertainments; they have nothing to show beyond a threadbare cloak, a beard, and a long robe! These men, on the contrary, have said goodbye to the staff, the beard, and the other accessories, and have adorned their souls with the teachings of true philosophy—not only with its teachings, but also with its actual practice. If you were to question any one of these men, who live a country life with spade and plow, about the doctrines on which the pagan philosophers have talked endlessly and spent countless words without being able to say anything sound, he would give you an accurate answer from his store of wisdom. And what is remarkable is not only this, but that their actions confirm the trustworthiness of these doctrines. For they are thoroughly convinced that we have an immortal soul, that in the life to come we will give an account of what we have done here, and that we will stand before a terrifying Tribunal. They have also ordered their entire lives by these hopes and have risen above all worldly display, having learned from the sacred Scriptures that “all is vanity, yes, vanity of vanities.” They do not greedily long for any of those things that seem so splendid. 4. These men also know how to think and speak about God as God has directed. Suppose you took one of them and brought forward a pagan philosopher—or rather, you could not find one now! But if you took one of these men, opened the books of their ancient philosophers, went through them, and compared what these men now answer with what those philosophers taught in their day, you would see how much wisdom the former have and how much foolishness the latter had. For some of those philosophers asserted that existing things were without providence and that creation did not originate with God; that virtue was not enough by itself, but needed wealth, noble birth, outward splendor, and other things still more ridiculous. These men, on the other hand, would speak wisely about Providence, the future Tribunals of judgment, God’s creative power in bringing everything out of nothing, and every other point, even though they had no worldly schooling at all. Who could fail to learn from this the power of Christ, which has made these uneducated and simple people as much wiser than those who boast so much of their wisdom as sensible adults are wiser than little children? For what harm can their lack of education do them when their thoughts are so full of wisdom? And what advantage do those philosophers gain from their learning when their understanding lacks sound thoughts? It is just as if someone had a sword with a silver hilt but a blade weaker than the poorest lead. For these philosophers really do adorn their tongues with words and names, but their understanding is utterly weak and useless. With these philosophers of ours, it is exactly the reverse. Their understanding is full of spiritual wisdom, and their way of life reflects their teachings. Among them there are no women devoted to luxury, no ornamental clothing, no dyes or cosmetics; all such corruption of conduct is disapproved of. As a result, the people in their care are more easily trained in sobriety, and they observe most strictly the law Paul gave when he directed that they should have food and covering and seek nothing more. Among them there are no perfumed ointments to captivate the senses; instead, the earth produces plants and prepares for them a varied fragrance of flowers beyond all the perfumers’ skill. For this reason, their bodies as well as their souls enjoy good health, since they have banished every luxury from their diet and driven away all the evil floods of drunkenness. They eat only enough to live on. So let us not look down on them because of their outward appearance, but admire their minds. For what advantage is outward clothing when the soul is more miserably dressed than any beggar? A person should be praised and admired for his soul, not for his clothes—or even for his bodily form. Lay bare the souls of these men, and you will see their beauty and the wealth they possess in their words, their teachings, and their entire way of life! 5. Then let the Gentiles be ashamed, hide their heads, and slink away because of their philosophers and their wisdom, which is more wretched than all foolishness! For during their lifetimes, their philosophers could barely teach their doctrines to a very few people, easily counted; and when any slight danger overtook them, they lost even these. But Christ’s disciples—the fishermen, tax collectors, and tentmakers—brought the whole world over to the truth in a few years. And although ten thousand dangers have constantly arisen since then, the preaching of the Gospel has been so far from being suppressed that it still flourishes and grows. They taught simple people, who tilled the ground and tended cattle, to love wisdom. These are the people who, besides all their other virtues, have deeply rooted within them that love which is the source of all good things, and have hurried to us, undertaking so long a journey so that they might come and embrace their fellow members. 6. Come, then, in return for these favors (I mean their love and kindness), let us give them something to sustain them and send them home. Let us take up the question of oaths again, so that we may pull this evil habit out of everyone’s mind by the roots. But first, today I want to remind you briefly of what we discussed recently. When the Jews had been released from Persia, freed from that tyranny, and returned to their own country, “I saw,” someone says, “a flying sickle, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.” They also heard the Prophet give them this instruction: “This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land and enters the house of anyone who swears falsely; it will remain inside it and tear down the timber and all the stones.” When we read this passage, we also asked why it would destroy not only the person who swore but also his house, and we gave this reason: God wants the punishments for the most serious sins to remain continually visible, so that everyone afterward may learn good judgment. Since the perjurer had to be buried when he died and entrusted to the bosom of the earth, his house was made a heap of ruins so that his wickedness would not be buried with him. Everyone passing by could see it, learn the reason for its destruction, and avoid imitating the sin. 7. This also happened at Sodom. For when they burned with lust for one another, the very earth itself was burned up, set ablaze by the fire from above. For He intended the punishment of this sin to remain permanently. And notice God’s mercy! He did not make those who had sinned go on burning to this day. Once they had been consumed by the flames, He buried them; and by burning up the surface of the ground, He set it visibly before everyone who would later wish to look at these things. Now, through all the generations since, the sight of that land has given a warning beyond anything words could express, as though crying out and saying, “Do not dare to do the deeds of Sodom, or you will suffer the fate of Sodom!” For an instruction usually does not impress the mind as deeply as a terrifying sight that carries the traces of disaster through all time. People who have visited these places bear witness to this. Often, when they hear Scripture speak of these things, they are not very frightened; but when they have gone and stood on the site, seen its whole surface disfigured, and witnessed the effects of the fire, with no soil visible anywhere but everything dust and ashes, they come away stunned by the sight, carrying with them a powerful lesson in chastity. For the very nature of the punishment truly reflected the nature of the sin! Just as they devised barren intercourse that did not aim at producing children, so God brought on them a punishment that made the womb of the land forever barren and without any fruit! For this reason He also threatened to destroy the homes of those who swear, so that their punishments might make others more self-controlled. 8. But today I am ready to show you the destruction caused by oaths, not of one, two, or three houses, but of an entire city and a people beloved by God: a nation that had always enjoyed great divine care, a people that had escaped many dangers. For Jerusalem herself, the city of God, which had the holy ark and all that divine worship—where there had once been prophets, the grace of the Spirit, the ark, the tablets of the covenant, and the golden pot; where angels were frequent visitors—this city, I say, through countless wars and attacks by many foreign nations, always laughed at them all with contempt, as though surrounded by a wall of diamond. While the land was utterly destroyed, she suffered no harm! And what is remarkable is not only this, but that in driving out her enemies she often dealt them a heavy blow. She enjoyed so much of God’s providential care that God Himself said, “I found Israel like a bunch of grapes in the desert, and I saw your fathers like the earliest fruit on the fig tree.” And again, of the city itself: “Like olive berries at the tip of the highest branch, and they will say, Do them no harm.” Nevertheless, this city beloved by God, which had escaped so many dangers, had been granted pardon amid its many sins, and alone had been able to escape captivity while all the rest were carried away—not once or twice, but very often—was ruined solely by an oath. I will now explain how. 9. One of their kings was Zedekiah. This Zedekiah swore an oath to Nebuchadnezzar, king of the barbarians, that he would remain his ally. Later he rebelled and went over to the king of Egypt, scorning the obligation of his oath, and suffered the things you will hear about shortly. But first we must mention the prophet’s parable, in which he represented all these matters in a riddle: “The word of the Lord,” he says, “came to me, saying, Son of man, put forward a riddle and tell a parable, and say, This is what the Lord God says: A great eagle, with great wings, stretching far out, full of claws.” Here he calls the king of the Babylonians an eagle and describes him as “great and long-winged.” He calls him far-reaching and “full of claws” because of his vast army, his great power, and the speed of his invasion. For just as wings and claws are an eagle’s armor, so horses and soldiers are the armor of kings. This eagle, he goes on to say, “has the plan to enter Lebanon.” What does “the plan” mean? Counsel—design. And Judea is called Lebanon because it lies near that mountain. Then, intending to speak of the oaths and treaties, he says, “He took some of the seed of the land and planted it in a fruitful field, so that it might take root beside abundant waters. He placed it where it could be seen; and it grew and became a weak vine, small in size, and it stretched its branches toward him, and its roots were under him.” Here he calls the city of Jerusalem a vine. By saying that it stretched its branches toward the eagle and that its roots were under him, he refers to the treaties and alliances made with him, and to its placing itself in his hands. Next, intending to explain the wrongdoing involved, he says, “And there was another great eagle,” (speaking of the Egyptian king), “with great wings and many claws; and the vine bent toward him, and its tendril toward him, and sent out its branches so that it might be watered. Therefore I said, This is what the Lord God says: Will it prosper?” That is, “After breaking the oath and the treaties, will it be able to survive, remain safe, or avoid falling?” Then, to show that this will not happen, but that it will certainly be destroyed because of the oath, he describes its punishment and states the cause: “For its tender roots and its fruits will decay, and everything that springs from it will wither.” And to show that it will be destroyed not by human strength, but because it has made God its enemy through these oaths, he adds, “Not by a mighty arm or by many people, to pull it up by its roots.” Such is the parable, but the prophet explains it again when he says, “Look, the king of Babylon comes against Jerusalem.” Then, after saying some other things in between, he mentions the oaths and treaties. “For,” he says, “he will make a covenant with him.” Shortly afterward, speaking of the departure from it, he goes on to say, “And he will break away from him by sending messengers to Egypt, so that they might give him horses and many people.” Then he proceeds to show that all this destruction will take place because of the oath: “Surely in the place where the king who made him king lives, he who has despised My curse and broken My covenant will die, in the midst of Babylon; and not by great power or by a multitude, because he despised the oath by breaking this covenant of Mine. I will surely bring down on his own head this oath of Mine that he has dishonored and My covenant that he has broken, and I will spread My net over him.” Do you see that it says, not once or twice but repeatedly, that he was to suffer all these things because of the oath? For God is unyielding when oaths are treated with contempt. We can see how much God cares that oaths remain unbroken not only from the punishment the oath brought on the city, but also from the delay and postponement. “For it happened,” we are told, “in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with his entire army against Jerusalem, camped against it, and built a wall all around it. The city remained under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah and the ninth day of the month, and there was no bread for the people to eat, and the city was breached.” He could indeed have handed them over from the very first day and given them into their enemies’ hands. But He allowed them first to waste away for three years and endure a terribly distressing siege, so that during this interval, humbled either by the terror of the forces outside or by the famine that oppressed the city within, they might force the king, however unwilling he was, to submit to the barbarian, and the sin they had committed might receive some leniency. To prove that this is true, and no guess of my own, listen to what He says to him through the prophet: “If you go out to the king of Babylon’s princes, your soul will live, and this city will not be burned with fire; you and your household will live. But if you will not go out to the king of Babylon’s princes, this city will be handed over to the Chaldeans, and they will burn it with fire, and you will not escape their hands. And the king said, I am afraid of the Jews who have deserted to the Chaldeans, in case they hand me over to them and they mock me. But Jeremiah said, They will not hand you over. Please obey the word of the Lord that I speak to you; then things will go better for you, and your soul will live. But if you refuse to go out, this is the word that the Lord has shown me. All the women left in the king of Judah’s house will be brought out to the king of Babylon’s princes, and those women will say, The men who are at peace with you have deceived you and overpowered you; they will prevail when your feet slip; they have turned away from you. And they will bring out all your wives and children to the Chaldeans, and you will not escape their hands, for you will be captured by the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned with fire.” 10. But when He did not persuade him with these words, and he persisted in his sin and transgression, after three years God handed over the city, displaying both His own mercy and that king’s ingratitude. They entered with the greatest ease and “burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and the houses of Jerusalem; every great house the captain of the guard burned, and he tore down Jerusalem’s wall.” Everywhere there was the barbarian’s fire, with the oath conducting the blaze and carrying the flames in every direction. “And the captain of the guard carried away the rest of the people left in the city and the deserters who had gone over to the king of Babylon. And the Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars in the house of the Lord, and the Chaldeans smashed the bases and the bronze sea in the house of the Lord. They took away the pots, meat hooks, bowls, censers, and all the bronze vessels used in the service. They also took away the firepans and all the gold and silver bowls. Moreover, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, took away the two pillars, the bases, and the sea that Solomon had made in the house of the Lord. They took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers; and from the city one eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, five men who served in the king’s presence, Shaphan the chief commander, the principal scribe, and sixty men. He took these and brought them to the king of Babylon, and the king struck them down and killed them.” 11. So remember now, I ask you, the “flying sickle” that “remains in the swearer’s house” and “destroys the walls and the timber and the stones.” Remember, I ask you, how this oath entered the city, demolished houses, temple, walls, and splendid buildings, and made the city a heap of ruins; and how neither the Holy of Holies, nor the sacred vessels, nor anything else could ward off that punishment and vengeance, because the oath had been broken! The city, then, was miserably destroyed. But the king endured something still more wretched and pitiful. Just as the flying sickle demolished the buildings, it also cut him down as he fled. For “the king,” it says, “went out at night by way of the gate, and the Chaldeans surrounded the city, and the Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook him. They captured the king and brought him to the king of Babylon, and the king of Babylon passed judgment on Zedekiah, killed his sons before his eyes, put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon.” What does the expression “he spoke judgment with him” mean? He demanded an account of his conduct and argued the case against him. First the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s two sons, so that Zedekiah would witness his household’s disaster and see that pitiful tragedy; then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes. Why, I ask again, did this happen? So that he might go as a teacher to the barbarians and to the Jews living among them, and those who had eyes might learn from the man deprived of sight how great an evil an oath is! Nor was it only for them: everyone living along the way, seeing the man chained and blinded, could learn from his disaster how great his sin was. Therefore one of the prophets declares, “He will not see Babylon.” And another, “He will be carried away to Babylon.” The prophecy does seem contradictory. But it is not, for both statements are true. He did not see Babylon, although he was carried away to Babylon. How, then, did he not see Babylon? Because his eyes were put out in Judea; for where the oath had been scorned, there it was also vindicated, and he himself was punished. And how was he carried away to Babylon? As a captive. Since the punishment had two parts, loss of sight and captivity, the prophets took them separately. One says, “He will not see Babylon,” speaking of the loss of his eyes; the other says, “He will be carried away to Babylon,” indicating his captivity. 12. Knowing these things, then, brothers, and bringing together what has just been presented and what was said before, let us finally stop this evil habit—yes, I beg and plead with you all! For if under the old order, when the Jews were not required to practice the strictest moral wisdom but were treated with great leniency, one oath brought such anger, such conquest and captivity, what punishment are those who swear likely to face now, after an explicit law forbidding the practice and so many additional commands? Is coming to the assembly and hearing what is said really all that is required? In fact, our continually hearing without doing what we are commanded is grounds for greater condemnation and more inevitable punishment! What excuse or pardon will we have if, gathering here from earliest youth to extreme old age and benefiting from so much instruction, we remain just like them and make no effort to correct a single fault? From now on, let no one plead habit as an excuse. For this is exactly what makes me angry and indignant: that we cannot overcome habit. And tell me, if we do not overcome habit, how can we overcome lust, which is rooted in the very foundations of our nature? For feeling desire is natural, but desiring wickedly comes afterward, by choice. Yet this practice of swearing does not even have its starting point in nature, but in sheer negligence. 13. To help you understand that this sin has reached such a height because of our inattention, rather than because the task is difficult, let us recall how many much harder things people accomplish, even without expecting any reward. Let us consider the services the Devil imposes, how laborious and troublesome they are; and yet their difficulty has not stopped people from performing them. For what could be harder, I ask, than for a young person to hand himself over to those who undertake to make his limbs supple and flexible, and strain with all his might to bend his whole body into the exact shape of a wheel and turn over on the pavement? At the same time, he strains his abilities through his eyes, through movements of his hands, and through other contortions meant to make him resemble women. Yet no one thinks about either the difficulty of these feats or the degradation they involve. Again, who can see those who are dragged onto the dancing stage and use their limbs as though they were wings without being struck with wonder? And those who toss knives into the air one after another and catch them all by the handle—whom would they not put to shame among those who refuse to undertake any work for virtue’s sake? And what can anyone say about those men who balance a pole on their forehead and keep it as steady as a tree rooted in the ground? Nor is this the only marvelous part: they put little children at the top of the tree to wrestle with one another. Without help from the hands or any other part of the body, the forehead alone holds the pole unshaken, more steadily than any fastening could. Again, another person walks on the thinnest rope as fearlessly as people run across level plains. Yet these things, which seem impossible even to imagine, have become possible through skill. What comparable difficulty can we claim concerning oaths, I ask? What hardship? What toil? What skill? What danger? All we need is a little determination, and our whole task will soon be done. 14. And do not tell me, “I have accomplished most of it.” If you have not accomplished all of it, consider that you have accomplished nothing yet; for this little part, if neglected, destroys all the rest. Often, after people have built a house and put on the roof, they have ruined the whole structure by failing to attend to a single tile that has come loose. You can see the same thing happen with clothes: if a small hole is made and left unrepaired, a large tear follows. This also often happens with floods: if they find even a small opening, they let in the whole torrent. So even if you have fortified yourself all around and only a small part remains undefended, block that too against the devil, so that you may be strong on every side! You have seen the sickle! You have seen John’s head! You have heard the story about Saul! You have heard how the Jews were taken captive! And besides all this, you have heard Christ’s judgment declaring that not only committing perjury, but swearing in any way, is a diabolical thing, and that the whole practice is a device of the evil one. You have heard that perjury follows oaths everywhere. Put all these things together, then, and write them on your mind. Do you not see how women and little children hang Gospels around their necks as a powerful amulet and carry them everywhere they go? In the same way, write the Gospel’s commands and laws on your mind. This requires no gold or property or purchase of a book, but only the will and the awakened affections of the soul. Then the Gospel will guard you more surely, because you will carry it not outside you but treasured within—yes, in the soul’s secret chambers. So when you get out of bed and when you leave your house, repeat this law: “I say to you, Do not swear at all.” The saying will train you, for it requires no great effort, only a moderate degree of attention. Here is how we can prove this is true. Call your son, frighten him, and threaten to give him a few blows if he does not properly observe this law, and you will see how immediately he gives up this habit. Is it not truly absurd, then, that little children should carry out this commandment out of fear of us, while we do not fear God as our sons fear us? 15. I now repeat what I said before. Let us set a law for ourselves in this matter: to take part in neither public nor private affairs until we have fulfilled this law. Then, surely, the pressure of this obligation will make victory easy, and we will at once adorn ourselves and beautify our city. Consider what it would mean to have people everywhere in the world say, “A practice worthy of Christians has been established at Antioch, and you will hear no one utter an oath, even under the greatest pressure!” The neighboring cities will certainly hear this; indeed, the report will travel not only to neighboring cities but to the ends of the earth. For both the merchants who interact with you and others who arrive from here will probably report all these things. So when many people praise other cities for their harbors, markets, or abundance of goods, enable those who come from here to say that Antioch has something seen in no other city: the men who live there would sooner have their tongues cut out than let an oath leave their mouths! This will be your ornament and defense, and beyond that it will bring a rich reward. For others, too, will certainly seek to follow your example and imitate you. But if someone who has won over just one or two people will receive so great a reward from God, what reward will you receive when you are the teachers of the whole world? It is your duty, then, to stir yourselves to action, to be watchful and sober, knowing that we will receive the greatest reward and enjoy great favor with God not only for our own good works, but also for those we have brought about in others. May He grant that we all continually enjoy this favor, and afterward obtain the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord; to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory and power now and always, forever and ever. Amen.