Homilies on First Timothy

Would you again have another ground for cheerfulness? Go to the public buildings, in which you share equally with others. For the most magnificent private houses, after all, are less splendid than the public edifices. There you may remain, as long as you please. They belong to you as much as to others, since they are common to you with others; they are common, and not private. But those, you say, delight you not. They delight you not, partly because you are familiar with them, and partly from your covetousness. So the pleasantness is not in the beauty, but in the appropriating! So the pleasure is in greediness, and in the wish to make every man's goods your own! How long are we to be nailed to these things? How long are we to be fastened to the earth, and grovel, like worms, in the dirt? God has given us a body of earth, that we might carry it with us up to heaven, not that we should draw our soul down with it to earth. Earthy it is, but if we please, it may be heavenly. See how highly God has honored us, in committing to us so excellent a frame. I made heaven and earth, He says, and to you I give the power of creation. Make your earth heaven. For it is in your power. “I am He that makes and transforms all things”, says God of Himself. And He has given to men a similar power; as a painter, being an affectionate father, teaches his own art to his son. I formed your body beautiful, he says, but I give you the power of forming something better. Make your soul beautiful. I said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, and every fruitful tree.” Do thou also say, Let this earth bring forth its proper fruit, and what you will to produce will be produced. “I make the summer and the cloud. I create the lightning and the wind.” I formed the dragon, that is, the devil, to make sport with him. Nor have I grudged you the like power. You, if you will, canst sport with him, and bind him as you would a sparrow. I make the sun to rise upon the evil and the good: do thou imitate Me, by imparting of that is yours to the good and the evil. When mocked I bear with it, and do good to those who mock Me: imitate Me, as you can. I do good, not to be requited; imitate Me, and do good, not to be repaid. I have lighted luminaries in the heavens. Do thou light others brighter than these, for you can, by enlightening those that are in error. For to know Me is a greater benefit than to behold the sun. You can not create a man, but you can make him just and acceptable to God. I formed his substance, do thou beautify his will. See how I love you, and have given you the power in the greater things.

Beloved, see how we are honored! Yet some are so unreasonable and so ungrateful as to say, “Why are we endowed with free will?” But how in all the particulars which we have mentioned could we have imitated God, if there had been no free will? I rule Angels, He says, and so do you, through Him who is the First-fruits. I sit on a royal throne, and you are seated with Me in Him who is the First-fruits. As it is said, “He has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Through Him who is the First-fruits, Cherubim and Seraphim adore you, with all the heavenly host, principalities and powers, thrones and dominions. Disparage not your body, to which such high honors appertain, that the unbodied Powers tremble at it.

But what shall I say? It is not in this way only that I have shown My love to you, but by what I have suffered. For you I was spit upon, I was scourged. I emptied myself of glory, I left My Father and came to you, who dost hate Me, and turn from Me, and art loath to hear My Name. I pursued you, I ran after you, that I might overtake you. I united and joined you to myself, “eat Me, drink Me,” I said. Above I hold you, and below I embrace you. Is it not enough for you that I have your First-fruits above? Does not this satisfy your affection? I descended below: I not only am mingled with you, I am entwined in you. I am masticated, broken into minute particles, that the interspersion, and commixture, and union may be more complete. Things united remain yet in their own limits, but I am interwoven with you. I would have no more any division between us. I will that we both be one.

Therefore knowing these things and remembering His abundant care for us, let us do all things which may prove us not unworthy of His great gift, which God grant that we may all obtain, through the grace and lovingkindness of Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom, etc.