Homilies on First Corinthians

“And every man that strives in the games is temperate in all things.”

What is, “all things?” He does not abstain from one and err in another, but he masters entirely gluttony and lasciviousness and drunkenness and all his passions. “For this,” says he, “takes place even in the heathen games. For neither is excess of wine permitted to those who contend at the time of the contest, nor wantonness, lest they should weaken their vigor, nor yet so much as to be busied about any thing else, but separating themselves altogether from all things they apply themselves to their exercise only.” Now if there these things be so where the crown falls to one, much more here, where the incitement in emulation is more abundant. For here neither is one to be crowned alone, and the rewards also far surpass the labors. Wherefore also he puts it so as to shame them, saying, “Now they do it receive to a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.”