Homilies on Colossians

Other women again tie about them the names of rivers, and venture numberless things of like nature. Lo, I say, and forewarn you all, that if any be detected, I will not spare them again, whether they have made amulet, or incantation, or any other thing of such an art as this. What then, says one, is the child to die? If he have lived through this means, he did then die, but if he have died without this, he then lived. But now, if you see him attaching himself to harlots, you wish him buried, and sayest, “why, what good is it for him to live?” but when you see him in peril of his salvation, do you wish to see him live? Heardest thou not Christ saying, “He that loses his life, shall find it; and he that finds it, shall lose it”? Believest thou these sayings, or do they seem to you fables? Tell me now, should one say, “Take him away to an idol temple, and he will live”; would you endure it? No! she replies. Why? “Because,” she says, “he urges me to commit idolatry; but here, there is no idolatry, but simple incantation:” this is the device of Satan, this is that wiliness of the devil to cloak over the deceit, and to give the deleterious drug in honey. After he found that he could not prevail with you in the other way, he has gone this way about, to stitched charms, and old wives' fables; and the Cross indeed is dishonored, and these charms preferred before it. Christ is cast out, and a drunken and silly old woman is brought in. That mystery of ours is trodden under foot, and the imposture of the devil dances.

Wherefore then, says one, does not God reprove the aid from such sources? He has many times reproved, and yet has not persuaded you; He now leaves you to your error, for It says, “God gave them up unto a reprobate mind.” These things, moreover, not even a Greek who has understanding could endure. A certain demagogue in Athens is reported once to have hung these things about him: when a philosopher who was his instructor, on beholding them, rebuked him, expostulated, satirized, made sport of him. For in so wretched a plight are we, as even to believe in these things!

Why, says one, are there not now those who raise the dead, and perform cures? Yes, then, why, I say: why are there not now those who have a contempt for this present life? Do we serve God for hire? When man's nature was weaker, when the Faith had to be planted, there were even many such; but now he would not have us to hang upon these signs, but to be ready for death. Why then do you cling to the present life? Why do you not look on the future? And for the sake of this indeed canst bear even to commit idolatry, but for the other not so much as to restrain sadness? For this cause it is that there are none such now; because that (future) life has seemed to us honorless, seeing that for its sake we do nothing, while for this there is nothing we refuse to undergo. And why too that other farce, ashes, and soot, and salt? And the old woman again brought in? A farce truly, and a shame! And then, “an eye,” say they, “has caught the child.”

Where will these satanical doings end? How will not the Greeks laugh? How will they not gibe when we say unto them, “Great is the virtue of the Cross”; how will they be won, when they see us having recourse to those things, which themselves laugh to scorn? Was it for this that God gave physicians and medicines? What then? Suppose they do not cure him, but the child depart? Whither will he depart? Tell me, miserable and wretched one! Will he depart to the demons? Will he depart to some tyrant? Will he not depart to heaven? Will he not depart to his own Lord? Why then do you grieve? Why do you weep? Why do you mourn? Why do you love your infant more than your Lord? Is it not through Him that you have this also? Why are you ungrateful? Do you love the gift more than the Giver? “But I am weak,” she replies, “and cannot bear the fear of God.” Well, if in bodily evils the greater covers the less, much rather in the soul, fear destroyed fear, and sorrow, sorrow. Was the child beautiful? But be it what it may, not more beauteous is he than Isaac: and he too was an only one. Was it born in your old age? So too was he. But is it fair? Well: however fair it may be, it is not lovelier than Moses, who drew even barbarian eyes unto a tender love of him, and this too at a time of life when beauty is not yet disclosed; and yet this beloved thing did the parents cast into the river. You indeed both see it laid out, and deliver it to the burying, and go to its monument; but they did not so much as know whether it would be food for fishes, or for dogs, or for other beasts that prey in the sea; and this they did, knowing as yet nothing of the Kingdom, nor of the Resurrection.

But suppose it is not an only child; but that after you have lost many, this also has departed. But not so sudden is your calamity as was Job's, and (his was) of sadder aspect? It is not when a roof has fallen in, it is not as they are feasting the while, it is not following on the tidings of other calamities.

But was it beloved by you? But not more so than Joseph, the devoured of wild beasts; but still the father bore the calamity, and that which followed it, and the next to that. He wept; but acted not with impiety; he mourned, but he uttered not discontent, but stayed at those words, saying, “Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and will you take Benjamin away? All these things are against me.” Do you see how the constraint of famine prevailed with him to be regardless of his children? And does not the fear of God prevail with you as much as famine?