Homilies on First Corinthians

“But he pretends,” says one, “this tremor and weakness.” And do you not fear lest a thunderbolt from heaven, kindled by this word, should fall upon you? (For I am bursting with wrath: bear with me.) You, I say, pampering and fattening yourself and extending your potations to the dead of night and comforting yourself in soft coverlets, dost not deem yourself liable to judgment, so lawlessly using the gifts of God: (for wine was not made that we should be drunken; nor food, that we should pamper our appetites; nor meats, that we should distend the belly.) But from the poor, the wretched, from him that is as good as dead, from him do you demand strict accounts, and do you not fear Christ's tribunal, so full of all awfulness and terror? Why, if he do play the hypocrite, he does it of necessity and want, because of your cruelty and inhumanity, requiring the use of such masks and refusing all inclination to mercy. For who is so wretched and miserable as without urgent necessity, for one loaf of bread, to submit to such disgrace, and to bewail himself and endure so severe a punishment? So that this hypocrisy of his goes about, the herald of your inhumanity. For since by supplicating and beseeching and uttering piteous expressions and lamenting and weeping and going about all day, he does not obtain even necessary food, he devised perhaps even this contrivance also, the disgrace and blame whereof falls not so much on himself as on you: for he indeed is meet to be pitied because he has fallen into so great necessity; but we are worthy of innumerable punishments because we compel the poor to suffer such things. For if we would easily give way, never would he have chosen to endure such things.

And why speak I of nakedness and trembling? For I will tell a thing yet more to be shuddered at, that some have been compelled even to deprive their children of sight at an early age in order that they might touch our insensibility. For since when they could see and went about naked, neither by their age nor by their misfortunes could they win favor of the unpitying, they added to so great evils another yet sterner tragedy, that they might remove their hunger; thinking it to be a lighter thing to be deprived of this common light and that sunshine which is given to all, than to struggle with continual famine and endure the most miserable of deaths. Thus, since you have not learned to pity poverty, but delight yourselves in misfortunes, they satisfy your insatiable desire, and both for themselves and for us kindle a fiercer flame in hell.

9. And to convince you that this is the reason why these and such like things are done, I will tell you of an acknowledged proof which no man can gainsay. There are other poor men, of light and unsteady minds and not knowing how to bear hunger, but rather enduring every thing than it. These having often tried to deal with us by piteous gestures and words and finding that they availed nothing, have left off those supplications and henceforward our very wonder-workers are surpassed by them, some chewing the skins of worn-out shoes, and some fixing sharp nails into their heads, others lying about in frozen pools with naked stomachs, and others enduring different things yet more horrid than these, that they may draw around them the ungodly spectators. And thou, while these things are going on, standest laughing and wondering the while and making a fine show of other men's miseries, our common nature disgracing itself. And what could a fierce demon do more? Next, you give him money in abundance that he may do these things more promptly. And to him that prays and calls on God and approaches with modesty, you vouchsafe neither an answer nor a look: rather you utter to him, continually teazing you, those disgusting expressions, “Ought this fellow to live? Or at all to breathe and see this sun?” whereas to the other sort you are both cheerful and liberal, as though you were appointed to dispense the prize of that ridiculous and Satanic unseemliness. Wherefore with more propriety to those who appoint these sports and bestow nothing till they see others punishing themselves, might these words be addressed, “Ought these men to live, to breathe at all, or see the sun, who transgress against our common nature, who insult God?” For whereas God says, “Give alms, and I give you the kingdom of heaven,” you hear not: but when the Devil shows you a head pierced with nails, on a sudden you have become liberal. And the contrivance of the evil spirit pregnant with so much mischief, has wrought upon you more than the promise of God bringing innumerable blessings. If gold were to be laid down to prevent the doing of these things or the looking upon them when done, there is nothing which you ought not to practise and endure, to get rid of so excessive madness; but you contrive every thing to have them done, and look on the doing of them. Still do you ask then, tell me, to what end is hell-fire? Nay, ask not that any more, but how is there one hell only? For of how many punishments are not they worthy, who get up this cruel and merciless spectacle and laugh at what both they and yourselves ought to weep over; yea, rather of the two, you who compel them to such unseemly doings.

“But I do not compel them,” say you. What else but compelling is it, I should like to know? Those who are more modest and shed tears and invoke God, you are impatient even of listening to; but for these thou both findest silver in abundance and bringest around you many to admire them.

“Well, let us leave off,” say you, “pitying them. And do you too enjoin this?” Nay, it is not pity, O man, to demand so severe a punishment for a few pence, to order men to maim themselves for necessary food and cut into many pieces the skin of their head so mercilessly and pitifully. “Gently,” say you, “for it is not we who pierce those heads.” Would it were thou, and the horror would not be so horrible. For he that slays a man does a much more grievous thing than he who bids him slay himself, which indeed happens in the case of these persons. For they endure more bitter pains when they are bidden to be themselves the executors of these wicked commands.

And all this in Antioch, where men were first called Christians, wherein are bred the most civilized of mankind, where in old time the fruit of charity flourished so abundantly. For not only to those at hand but also to those very far off, they used to send, and this when famine was expected.