Homilies on the Statues, Homily 21

1. Today I will begin with the very same saying I have always used to open my address to you during this time of danger, and together with you I will say, “Blessed be God,” Who has granted us this day to celebrate this holy Feast with so much joy and gladness, and has restored the head to the body, the shepherd to the sheep, the master to the disciples, the general to the soldiers, the High Priest to the Priests! Blessed be God, “Who does far more abundantly than we ask or think!” For we would have thought it enough simply to be delivered from the evil that had been hanging over us, and this was the whole object of our prayers. But God, who loves humanity and always gives us far more than we pray for out of His overflowing generosity, has also brought our Father back sooner than we could possibly have expected. Who, indeed, would have thought that in so few days he would go, gain an audience with the Emperor, free us from the calamity, and return to us so quickly that he could arrive before the Holy Passover and celebrate it with us? Yet look: this event, so contrary to our expectations, has come true! We have received our Father back, and our pleasure is all the greater because his return now was beyond our hopes. For all these things, let us thank the merciful God and marvel at the power, lovingkindness, wisdom, and tender care He has shown toward the city. For the devil tried to destroy it completely through the outrageous crimes committed, but God, through this very calamity, has adorned the city, the Priest, and the Emperor, and made them all more glorious. 2. The city has won renown because, when such danger overtook her, she immediately passed over everyone in power, everyone surrounded by great wealth, and everyone with great influence over the Emperor, and fled for refuge to the Church and the Priest of God. With great faith, she rested entirely on the hope that comes from above! After our common Father left, many people tried to terrify those in prison by saying, “The Emperor is not letting go of his anger. He is even more provoked and is planning the city's complete destruction.” But while they were whispering all this and much more, the prisoners were not frightened in the least. When we said, “These things are false. They are a scheme of the devil, who wants to fill you with terror,” they answered us, “We do not need you to console us, for we know where we took refuge from the beginning and what hope we have rested on. We have anchored our safety to the sacred anchor! We have entrusted it to Almighty God, not to a man. So we are completely confident that the outcome will be favorable, for it is impossible, truly impossible, that this hope should ever disappoint us!” How many crowns, how many tributes of praise does this amount to for our city? How much of God's favor will it also bring down upon us in our other affairs! For it is not, indeed it is not, the mark of a petty soul to stay alert against the assault of temptations, look to God, and, scorning all human help, long for that Divine aid. 3. This is how the city has won renown, and the Priest has won no less than the city, for he risked his life for everyone. Though many things stood in his way—the winter, his age, the feast, and, no less than these, his sister, who was then at her last breath—he rose above all these obstacles. He did not say to himself, “What is this? Our only surviving sister, who has pulled the yoke of Christ beside me and shared my home for so long, is now at her last breath. Are we to desert her and go away without seeing her die or hearing her parting words? She prayed every day that we might close her eyes, close and arrange her mouth, and attend to everything else needed for her burial. But now, abandoned and deprived of a protector, she will receive none of these services from her brother, the very person she especially wanted to perform them. But when she breathes her last, she will not see the one she wanted beside her more than anyone else! Will this not be harder for her than dying many times over? Yes, even if I were far away, would it not be right to hurry back and do and endure anything to show her this kindness? And now that I am nearby, am I to leave her, go away, and abandon her? How, then, will she endure the rest of her days?” 4. Yet he was so far from saying any of these things that he did not even think them. Valuing the fear of God above every family tie, he recognized that, just as storms reveal the pilot and dangers reveal the general, a time of trial also reveals the Priest. “Everyone,” he says, “is watching us closely, Jews as well as Greeks. Let us not disappoint their expectations of us. Let us not stand by and watch so great a shipwreck. Instead, entrusting all our own affairs to God, let us risk our very lives as well!” Consider, too, the Priest's greatness of soul and God's lovingkindness! Everything he set aside, he came to enjoy, so that he might both receive the reward for his willingness and find greater pleasure in enjoying these things against all expectation! For the city's safety, he chose to celebrate the festival in a foreign place, far from his own people. But God restored him to us before the Paschal feast so that he could join us in conducting the festival, receiving the reward for his choice and enjoying greater gladness! He did not fear the season of the year, and throughout his journey it was summer. He did not take his age into account, and he completed this long journey as easily as if he had been young and full of energy! He did not dwell on his sister's death or let it weaken his resolve, and when he returned he found her still alive. Everything he had set aside was granted to him! 5. Thus the priest has indeed won renown with both God and humanity! This affair has also adorned the Emperor with a splendor greater than his crown: first, because it became clear that he would grant the priests what he would grant no one else; and second, because he granted the favor without delay and subdued his resentment. But to help you understand more clearly the Emperor's greatness of soul, the priest's wisdom, and, more than either, God's lovingkindness, let me tell you a few details of their meeting. What I am about to tell you I learned from someone inside the palace, for the Father has told us absolutely nothing about the matter. Always imitating Paul's greatness of soul, he conceals his own good deeds. People on every side asked what he had said to the Emperor, how he had persuaded him, and how he had completely turned away his anger. He answered, “We contributed nothing to the matter. The Emperor himself (God having softened his heart) let go of his anger and subdued his resentment before we had even spoken. He discussed what had happened as though someone else had been insulted, and in this way went over all the events without anger.” But what he concealed out of humility, God has brought to light. 6. And what were these things? I will tell you by going a little farther back in the story. When he left the city, leaving everyone in such deep despair, he endured something far more painful than we ourselves suffered in the midst of these calamities. First, during his journey, he met the men the Emperor had sent to investigate what had happened. He learned from them what their orders were and reflected on the terrible things awaiting the city: the riots, the confusion, the flight, the terror, the anguish, the dangers. He wept a flood of tears, and his very insides were torn with compassion. For fathers usually grieve much more when they cannot be present with their suffering children. That was exactly what this tenderhearted man now endured: he mourned not only the calamities awaiting us but also his distance from us while we endured them. Yet this served our safety. For as soon as he learned these things from them, the fountain of his tears poured out even more intensely. He turned to God in more fervent prayer and spent his nights without sleep, begging Him to help the city in its suffering and make the Emperor more willing to show mercy. As soon as he reached that great city and entered the royal palace, he stood at a distance before the Emperor—speechless, weeping, his eyes lowered, his face covered—as though he himself had committed all the crimes. He did this because he wanted first to move him to mercy through his posture, his appearance, and his tears, and then to begin his plea on our behalf. For those who have done wrong have only one hope of pardon: to remain silent and say nothing in defense of what they have done. He wanted one feeling to give way to another: anger to be driven out and sadness brought in, so that he could prepare the way for his plea. And that is exactly what happened. Just as Moses, going up the mountain when the people had sinned, stood speechless until God called to him, saying, “Leave me alone, and I will wipe out this people,” so he acted now. When the Emperor saw him shedding tears and bending toward the ground, he himself came closer. His words to the priest showed what he felt at the sight of those tears. They were the words of someone grieving, not someone provoked or inflamed; of someone downcast and weighed down by extreme pain, not someone enraged. 7. You will understand that this is true when you hear his words. He did not say, “What does this mean? Have you come at the head of a delegation on behalf of godless and abominable people who do not even deserve to live—on behalf of rebels and revolutionaries who deserve the severest punishment?” Setting all such words aside, he instead offered a defense of himself, full of respect and dignity. He listed the benefits he had bestowed on the city throughout his reign, and after each one he said, “Was this how I should have been repaid? What injuries had I done them that they should take such revenge? What complaint did they have, great or small, that they had to insult not only me but the dead as well? Was it not enough to vent their resentment against the living? Yet they thought they had done nothing great unless they insulted those already in their graves. Granted that I had injured them, as they suppose, surely they should have spared the dead, who had done them no wrong. They could not have had the same complaint against them. Did I not always value this city above everything and hold it dearer than my birthplace? Did I not constantly pray that I might visit this city, and make this the subject of my oath to everyone?” 8. At this, the priest sobbed bitterly and shed still more fervent tears. He no longer kept silent, for he saw that the Emperor's defense was making our crime even greater. He drew a deep and bitter sigh from the bottom of his heart and said, “We must acknowledge, O Emperor, the love you have shown our country! We cannot deny it! This is the chief reason we mourn: a city so beloved has been bewitched by demons, and we have proved ungrateful to her benefactor and provoked her ardent lover. Even if you were to destroy us, even if you were to burn us, even if you were to put us to death, or do anything else, you would still never have taken the revenge on us that we deserve. We have already inflicted on ourselves something worse than a thousand deaths! For what can be more bitter than to be found to have unjustly provoked our benefactor, who loved us so much, while the whole world knows it and condemns us for the most monstrous ingratitude? If Barbarians had invaded our city, torn down its walls, burned its houses, captured us, and carried us away, the evil would have been less. Why? Because while you lived and continued to show us such generous kindness, there would be hope that we might be restored to our former condition and regain a more glorious freedom. But now, deprived of your favor, having extinguished your love, which gave us greater security than any wall, whom do we have left to flee to? Where else can we look when we have provoked so kind a lord, so indulgent a father? So while they seem to have committed the most intolerable offenses, they have also suffered the most terrible evils. They dare not look anyone in the face or lift their eyes freely to the sun. Everywhere shame weighs down their eyelids and forces them to hide their heads! Stripped of their confidence, they are now more miserable than any captives and endure the deepest disgrace. As they think of the greatness of their troubles and the height of insolence to which they have rushed, they can scarcely breathe. For they have brought harsher reproaches on their own heads from everyone in the world than even from the one who has visibly suffered the insult. 9. Yet, O Emperor, if you are willing, there is a remedy for the wound and a medicine for these evils, great as they are! Even among private individuals, great and intolerable offenses have often become the foundation of great affection. So it also happened with our human race. When God made man, placed him in Paradise, and bestowed great honor on him, the devil could not bear his great prosperity. He envied him and cast him out of the dignity he had been given. But God was so far from abandoning him that He even opened Heaven to us in place of Paradise. In doing so, He both showed His own lovingkindness and punished the devil more severely. You too should do the same now! The demons have recently done everything they could to tear away from your favor the city dearest of all to you. Knowing this, demand whatever penalty you wish, but do not cast us out of your former love! Indeed, strange as it is, I must say this: show us even greater kindness now than ever, and once again write this city's name among those you love most—if you truly want revenge on the demons who instigated these crimes! For if you pull down, overthrow, and raze the city, you will be doing exactly what they have long wanted. But if you let go of your anger and declare again that you love it as you did before, you will have dealt them a deadly blow. You will have taken the fullest revenge on them by showing not only that they have gained absolutely nothing from their evil schemes, but that everything has turned out exactly opposite to what they wanted. And you would be right to act this way and show mercy to a city the demons envied because of your affection. If you had not loved her so greatly, they would not have envied her so deeply! So, extraordinary as my claim may be, it is nevertheless true that the city has suffered because of you and your love! What burning, what devastation could be as bitter as those words you spoke in your own defense? 10. You now say that you have been insulted and suffered wrongs such as no Emperor has ever suffered before. But if you choose, O most gracious, most wise, and most devout Sovereign, this contempt will earn you a crown more honorable and splendid than the crown you wear! For this crown displays your royal virtue, but it also marks the generosity of the one who gave it. The crown woven from this kindness of yours, however, will be entirely your own good work and the work of your own love of wisdom. Everyone will admire you less for these precious stones than they will applaud you for mastering this anger. Were your Statues thrown down? You have the power to set up others still more splendid. For if you forgive the offenses of those who injured you and take no revenge on them, they will erect a statue to you: a statue clothed in the robe of kindness and tender mercy, more precious than any material, rather than one of bronze or gold or inlaid with gems in the public square! Each person will set you up in his own soul, and you will have as many statues as there are people who now live, or will ever live, in the whole world! For we, those who come after us, and their successors will all hear of these things and admire and love you just as though they themselves had received this kindness! 11. To show that I am saying this because it will certainly happen, without flattery, I will tell you a story from the past. Then you will understand that armies, weapons of war, money, multitudes of subjects, and all such things do less to make rulers glorious than wisdom of soul and gentleness. It is said of the blessed Constantine that once, when a statue of him had been pelted with stones, many people urged him to take action against those responsible for the outrage. They said that the stones had battered and disfigured his whole face. He stroked his face with his hand, smiled gently, and said, “I cannot feel any wound on my face at all. My head seems unharmed, and my face is quite unharmed too.” Overwhelmed with shame, these people abandoned their unjust advice. Everyone repeats this saying to this very day, and the passing of time has neither weakened nor extinguished the memory of such exalted wisdom. How much more glorious is such an action than any number of trophies of war! He built many great cities and conquered many barbarian tribes, none of which we now remember. But this saying is repeated over and over to this very day, and those who follow us, as well as those who come after them, will all hear it. Nor is the mere fact that they will hear it the only remarkable thing. When people speak of it, they do so with approval and applause, and those who hear it receive it in the same way. No one who hears it can remain silent. Each immediately cries out, applauds the man who said it, and prays that countless blessings may be his, even now that he is dead. But if this saying has won him so much honor among people, how many crowns will he receive from the merciful God! 12. And why should I speak of Constantine and other people's examples when I ought to appeal to something closer to home, your own praiseworthy actions? You remember how recently, as this feast approached, you sent a letter to every part of the world, ordering that prisoners be set free and their crimes pardoned. And as though this were not enough to prove your generosity, you said in your letters, “If only I could call back and restore the dead and bring them back to the life they once had!” Remember those words now. Here is the moment to call back and restore the dead and bring them back to their former life! For these people are already dead, even before the sentence has been pronounced, and the city has now pitched its tent at the very gates of Hades! Raise it up again, then. You can do this without money, expense, loss of time, or labor! You need only open your lips, and you will restore to life the city that now lies in darkness. Grant that from now on it may bear a name drawn from your love for humanity. For it will owe more to your sentence than to the kindness of its original founder. And this is entirely reasonable: he merely gave it its beginning and departed, but you will have restored it when it had grown up and become great and then fallen after all that prosperity. Delivering it from danger after enemies had captured it and barbarians had overrun it would not have been as wonderful as sparing it now. Many Emperors have often done the former. But if you alone accomplish this, you will be the first to do it, and it will be beyond all expectation. The former good deed, protecting your subjects, is neither wonderful nor extraordinary; it happens continually. But the latter, letting go of anger after enduring such provocations, is something beyond human nature. 13. Reflect that the matter before you now concerns more than this city alone. It concerns your own glory—or rather, the cause of Christianity as a whole. Even now the Gentiles, the Jews, the entire empire, and the barbarians (for they too have heard of these events) are watching you closely, waiting to see what sentence you will pronounce on these events. If you decree a humane and merciful sentence, everyone will applaud the decision, glorify God, and say to one another, “Heavens! How great is the power of Christianity! It restrains and bridles a man who has no equal on earth, a sovereign powerful enough to destroy and devastate everything, and teaches him to practice a philosophy that even a private individual would be unlikely to display! The God of the Christians must indeed be great: He makes angels out of human beings and raises them above every compelling force of our nature!” 14. Surely you should not entertain that groundless fear or put up with those who say that other cities will grow worse and more contemptuous of authority if this city goes unpunished. If you were unable to take revenge, and after doing these things they had defied you by force, with the two sides equally matched in power, such suspicions would be reasonable. But they are terrified and half dead with fear. Through me they run to throw themselves at your feet. Every day they expect nothing but the pit of slaughter and join together in prayers, looking up to heaven and calling on God to help them and favor this delegation of ours. Each has given instructions about his private affairs as though he were at his last breath. How, then, can such a fear be anything but needless? Had they been sentenced to death, they would not have suffered as much as they do now, having lived so many days in fear and trembling. When evening approaches they do not expect to see the morning, and when day comes they have no hope of reaching the evening! Many have also encountered wild beasts as they made their way through deserted places and moved into spots no one travels through. And these include little children and women as well as men, freeborn people of high standing, hiding for many days and nights in caves, ravines, and holes in the wilderness! A new kind of captivity has indeed overtaken the city. While its buildings and walls remain standing, its people suffer worse calamities than when cities have been set on fire! With no barbarian foe present and no enemy in sight, they are more miserable than if they had actually been captured, and every day the mere rustling of a leaf frightens them all! These things are known everywhere. Even if everyone had seen the city razed to the ground, it would not have taught them such a lesson in self-restraint as hearing about the calamities that have now overtaken it. So do not suppose that other cities will grow worse in the future! Even if you had overthrown other cities, you would not have corrected them as effectively as you have now by keeping the Antiochenes in suspense about their fate and chastising them more severely than any punishment could! 15. Do not carry this calamity any further. Let them breathe again from now on. Anyone could easily punish the guilty and exact the penalty for these deeds. But to spare those who have insulted you and pardon those whose offenses deserve no pardon is something only one or two people can do, especially when the person insulted is the Emperor. It is easy to make the city submit through fear. But to make everyone a loving subject, persuade them to be devoted to your government, and lead them to pray for your empire both together and individually is difficult. A monarch might spend his treasures, move countless troops, or do whatever else he pleased, and still be unable to win the affection of so many people as easily as you can now. For both those who have been treated kindly and those who hear of it will be devoted to you, the latter just as much as those who received the benefit. How much money and effort would you have been willing to spend to win over the whole world in a short time and persuade everyone now alive, as well as all future generations, to call down on your head the same blessings they pray for their own children! And if you will receive such a reward from people, how much greater a reward will you receive from God! This will come not merely from what is happening now but also from the good deeds others will perform in the future. For if anything like the present event should ever happen again (which God forbid!), and someone who has suffered an insult is considering taking action against the rioters, your gentleness and moral wisdom will take the place of every other lesson and warning. With such an example of wisdom before them, they will blush and be ashamed to fall short. In this way you will teach all future generations and win the victor's palm among them, even if they reach the highest point of moral wisdom! For setting the first example of such meekness yourself is different from looking at others and imitating the good deeds they have performed. That is why, whatever love for humanity or meekness those who come after you may show, you will share their reward. For whoever supplies the root must be considered the source of the fruit. For this reason, no one can share with you now the reward that will follow your generosity, since the good deed has been entirely your own. But you will share the reward of everyone who comes after you, if any such people appear. You will be able to share equally with them in the merit of their good work and receive as great a portion as teachers receive with their students. And even if no such person should ever appear, the tribute of praise and applause will keep accumulating for you through every age. 16. Consider what it means for all future generations to hear this story: so great a city had become liable to punishment and vengeance; everyone was terrified; its generals, magistrates, and judges were all filled with horror and alarm and dared not say a word for its wretched people. Yet a single old man, invested with God's priesthood, came and moved the Monarch's heart simply by his appearance and conversation. The favor he bestowed on none of his other subjects he granted to this one old man out of reverence for God's laws! For in sending me here on this mission, O Emperor, the city has done you no small honor. They have passed the best and most honorable judgment on you: that you respect God's priests, however insignificant they may be, more than any office under your authority! 17. But now I have come not only from them, but rather from One who is the common Lord of angels and human beings, to address these words to your most merciful and gentle soul: “If you forgive people their debts, your heavenly Father will forgive you your trespasses.” Remember, then, that Day when we will all give an account of our actions! Consider that if you have sinned in any way, you will be able to wipe away all your offenses by this sentence and this decision, without difficulty or toil. Some people bring gold, silver, and other gifts of that kind when they come on a mission. But I have come into your royal presence with the sacred laws, and I present these in place of every other gift. I urge you to imitate your Lord, who, though we insult Him daily, never stops bestowing His blessings on everyone! Do not disappoint our hopes or prevent our promises from being fulfilled. I also want you to understand that if you resolve to be reconciled, restore your former kindness to the city, and let go of this just displeasure, I will return with great confidence. But if you decide to cast off the city, I will never return to it or see its soil again. I will completely disown it from now on and enroll as a citizen of another city. For God forbid that I should ever belong to a country that you, the gentlest and most merciful of all people, refuse to admit to peace and reconciliation!” 18. By saying this and much more to the same effect, he so moved the Emperor that what once happened to Joseph happened again. Just as Joseph, when he saw his brothers, wanted to weep but restrained his feelings so as not to spoil the role he was playing, so the Emperor wept inwardly but concealed it for the sake of those present. At the end of the meeting, however, he could no longer hide his feelings and revealed them against his will. When this speech was over, no further words were needed. He expressed just one thought, which brought him far more honor than his crown. What was it? “How,” he said, “can it be anything wonderful or great for us, who are only human ourselves, to let go of our anger against those who have insulted us, when the Lord of the universe came to earth, became a servant for us, and, crucified by those who had received His kindness, pleaded with the Father for His crucifiers, saying, ‘Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’? What wonder is it, then, if we too forgive our fellow-servants!” Everything that followed proved these words were sincere. One circumstance in particular, which I will now mention, proved it. Our priest wanted to remain there and celebrate the feast with the Emperor. But the Emperor, despite his own wish to have him stay, urged him to make every effort to hurry back to his fellow citizens. “I know,” he said, “that their souls are still troubled and that much remains of the calamity. Go and comfort them! Once they see the helmsman, they will no longer remember the storm that has passed. Every recollection of these sorrowful events will be erased!” And when the Priest pressed him to send his own son, the Emperor, wishing to give the most convincing proof that he had completely wiped every angry feeling from his soul, answered, “Pray that these obstacles may be removed and these wars brought to an end, and then I will certainly come myself.” 19. What soul could be gentler than this? Let the Gentiles be ashamed from now on—or rather, instead of being ashamed, let them learn. Let them leave the error in which they were raised and return to the strength of Christianity, having learned what our philosophy is from the example of the Emperor and the Priest! For our most devout Emperor did not stop there. After the Bishop had left the city and crossed the sea, he sent people there as well, taking the greatest care and trouble to prevent any delay, so that the city would not lose half its pleasure by having the bishop celebrate the feast outside its walls. What kindhearted father would have taken such trouble for people who had insulted him? But I must mention another circumstance that brings praise to the righteous man. Having accomplished this, he did not, as someone eager for glory might have done, try to deliver in person the letters that would free us from our dejection. Since he was traveling too slowly for that, he decided to send someone ahead in his place, a skilled horseman, to bring the good news to the city, so that its sadness would not be prolonged by his slow arrival. For this was his one earnest desire: that our country might breathe freely again as soon as possible, rather than that he himself should arrive bearing this favorable news, so full of everything delightful. 20. What you did then—decorating the public square with garlands, lighting lamps, spreading couches of green leaves in front of the shops, and celebrating a great festival as though the city had just come into existence—keep doing for all time, though in another way: wear crowns of virtue instead of flowers, kindle in your souls the light that comes from good works, and rejoice with spiritual gladness. Let us never stop thanking God continually for all these things, both because he freed us from these calamities and because he allowed them to happen. Let us acknowledge his abundant goodness! For He has adorned our city through both. Now tell all these things according to the prophet's words: “Tell your children, and let your children tell their children, and their children in turn tell another generation.” Then everyone who comes after us, even to the end, may learn of this act of God's lovingkindness toward the city and call us blessed for having received such a favor. They may marvel at our Sovereign, who raised up the city when it was falling so disastrously, and may themselves benefit, encouraged toward piety by everything that has happened! For the history of what has recently happened to us will have the power to benefit both ourselves, if we constantly remember it, and those who come after us. With all these things in mind, let us always thank God, who loves humanity, both for delivering us from these fearful evils and for allowing them to overtake us. Let us learn from the divine Scriptures, as well as from the recent events that have overtaken us, that He always arranges everything for our benefit with the lovingkindness that belongs to Him. May God grant that we may continually enjoy it and so obtain the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.