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No greater torture than rancorous feelings. HOMIL.tempest. What is more grievous than this madness, to be XLI. always smarting with pain, and ever swelling and inflamed? [5.] For such are the souls of the resentful: when they see him on whom they wish to be revenged, straightway it is as if a blow were struck them: if they hear his voice, they cower and tremble: if they be on their bed, they picture to themselves numberless revenges, hanging, torturing that enemy of theirs and if, beside all this, they see him also to be in renown, O! the misery they suffer! Forgive him the offence, and free thyself from the torment. Why continue always in a state of punishment, that thou mayest once punish him, and take thy revenge? Why establish for thyself a hectic disease? Why, when thy wrath would fain depart from thee, dost thou keep it back? Let it not Eph. 4, remain until the evening, says Paul. For like some eating rot or moth, even so does it gnaw through the very root of our understanding. Why shut up a beast within thy bowels? Better a serpent or an adder to lie within thy heart, than anger and resentment: for those indeed would soon have done with us, but this remains for ever fixing in us its fangs, instilling its poison, letting loose upon us an invading host of bitter thoughts. "That he should laugh me to scorn," say you, "that he should despise me"!" O wretched, miserable man, wouldest thou not be ridiculed by thy fellow-servant, and wouldest thou be hated by thy Master? Wouldest thou not be despised by thy fellow-servant, and despisest thou thy Master? To be despised by him, is it more than thou canst bear, but thinkest thou not that God is indignant, because thou ridiculest Him, because thou despisest Him, when thou wilt not do as He bids thee? But that thine enemy will not even ridicule thee, is manifest from hence, (that) whereas if thou follow up the revenge, great is the ridicule, great the contempt, for this is a mark of a little mind; on the contrary, if thou forgive him, great is the admiration, for this is a mark

Patience under wrongs is true magnanimity:

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of greatness of soul. But, you will say, he knows not this. Acts Let God know it, that thou mayest have the greater reward. 8-20. For He says, Lend to those of whom ye hope not to receive. Luke 6, So let us also do good to those who do not even perceive 34. that one is doing them good, that they may not, by returning to us praise or any other thing, lessen our reward. For when we receive nothing from men, then we shall receive greater things from God. But what is more worthy of ridicule, what more paltry, than a soul which is always in anger, and wishing to take revenge? It is womanly, this disposition, it is babyish. For as the babes are angry even with lifeless things, and unless the mother beats the ground, they will not let go their anger*: so do these persons wish to revenge themselves on those who have aggrieved them. Why then, it is they who are worthy of ridicule: for to be overcome by passion, is the mark of a childish understanding, but to overcome it, is a sign of manliness. Why then, not we are the objects of ridicule, when we keep our temper, but they. It is not this that makes men contemptible-not to be conquered by passion: what makes them contemptible is this-to be so afraid of ridicule from without, as on this account to choose to subject oneself to one's besetting passion, and to offend God, and take revenge upon oneself. These things are indeed worthy of ridicule. Let us flee them. Let a man say, that having done us numberless ills, he has suffered nothing in return: let him say that he might again franticly assault us, [and have nothing to fear.] Why, in no other (better) way could he have proclaimed our virtue; no other words would he have sought, if he had wished to praise us, than those which he seems to say in abuse. Would that all men said these things of me: "he is a poor tame creature; all men heap insults on him, but he bears it: all men trample upon him, but he does not avenge himself." Would that they added, " neither, if he should wish to do so, can he:" that so I might have praise from God, and not from men. Let him say, that it is for want of spirit that we do not avenge ourselves.

* Καθάπερ γὰρ ἐκεῖνα (meaning τὰ βρέφη) καὶ πρὸς (om. B. C.) τὰ ἄψυχα ὀργίζεται, κἂν μὴ πλήξῃ τὸ ἔδαφος ἡ

μητὴρ, οὐκ ἀφίησι τὴν ὀργήν. -Mod. t,
and Edd. except Sav. omit ἡ μητήρ

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To endure wrongs is to be like God.

HOMIL. This does us no hurt, when God knows (all): it does but cause XLI. our treasure to be in greater safety. If we are to have

regard to them, we shall fall away from every thing. Let us not look to what they say, but to what becomes us. But, says he, "Let no man ridicule me," and some make a boast of this. O! what folly! “No man," says he, “having injured me, has ridiculed me:" that is, "I had my revenge." And yet for this thou deservest to be ridiculed, that thou didst take revenge. Whence came these words among us-being, as they are, a disgrace to us and a pest, an overthrow of our own proper life and of our discipline? It is in downright opposition to God that thou (so) speakest. The very thing which makes thee equal to Godthe not avenging thyself-this thou thinkest a subject for ridicule Are not we for these things worthy to be laughed at, both by ourselves, and by the heathen, when we thus speak against God? I wish to tell you a story of a thing that happened in the old times, (which they tell) not on the subject of anger, but of money. A man had an estate in which there was a hidden treasure, unknown to the owner: this piece of ground he sold. The buyer, when digging it for the purpose of planting and cultivation, found the treasure therein deposited, and came and wanted to oblige the seller to receive the treasure, urging that he had bought a piece of ground, not a treasure. The seller on his part repudiated the gift, saying, "The piece of ground (is not mine), I have sold it, and I have no concern whatever with this (treasure).” So they fell to altercation about it, the one wishing to give it, the other standing out against receiving it. So chancing upon some third person, they argued the matter before him, and said to him, "To whom ought the treasure to be

y Mod. t. followed by Edd. perverts the whole story, making the parties contend, not for the relinquishing of the treasure, but for the possession of it, so making the conclusion (the willing cession of it by both to the third party) unintelligible, and the application irrelevant. The innovator was perhaps induced to make this alteration, by an unseasonable recollection of the Parable of the Treasure hid in a field.-"The seller having learnt this, came and wanted to compel the purchaser àwo

λaßeiv rdv Onσavpòv,” (retaining àæoλ., in the unsuitable sense "that he, the seller, should receive back the treasure.) "On the other hand, the other (the purchaser) repulsed him, saying, that he had bought the piece of ground along with the treasure, and that he made no account of this (kal ovdéva λóyov ποιεῖν ὑπὲρ τούτου). So they fell to contention, both of them, the one wishing to receive, the other not to give, &c."

A heathen story, and its application.

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assigned?" The man could not settle that question; he said, Acrs however, that he would put an end to their dispute he would 9-20. (if they pleased) be master of it himself. So he received the treasure, which they willingly gave up to him; and in the sequel got into troubles without end, and learnt by actual experience that they had done well to have nothing to do with it. So ought it be done likewise with regard to anger; both ourselves ought to be emulous' not to take revenge, and those who have aggrieved us, emulous to give satisfaction. But perhaps these things also seem to be matter of ridicule for when that madness is widely prevalent among men, those who keep their temper are laughed at, and among many madmen, he who is not a madman seems to be mad. Wherefore I beseech you that we may recover (from this malady), and come to our senses, that becoming pure from this pernicious passion, we may be enabled to attain unto the kingdom of heaven, through the grace and mercy of His only-begotten Son, with Whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, honour, now and ever, world without end. Amen.

· καὶ ἡμᾶς φιλονεικεῖν μὴ ἀμύνασθαι, ἐφιλονείκουν, the one μὴ λαβεῖν τὸν θ., καὶ τοὺς λελυπηκότας φιλονεικεῖν δοῦναι the other δοῦναι.

dikny: as in the story, the parties

HOMILY XLII.

ACTS xix. 21-23.

After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome. So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus and Erastus; but he himself stayed in Asia for a season. And the same time there

arose no small stir about that way.

HE sends Timothy and Erastus into Macedonia, but himself remains at Ephesus. Having made a long enough stay in that city, he wishes to remove elsewhere again. But how is it, that having from the first chosen to depart into Syria, he turns back to Macedonia? He purposed, it says, in the Spirit, shewing that all (that he did) was done not of his own power. Now he prophesies, saying, I must also see Rome: perhaps to comfort them with the consideration of his not remaining at a distance, but coming nearer to them again, and to arouse the minds of the disciples by the prophecy. At this point, I suppose, it was that he wrote his Epistle to 2 Cor. 1, the Corinthians from Ephesus, saying, I would not have you ignorant of the trouble which came to us in Asia. For

8.

'EVTEûdev. If St. Chrys. is rightly reported, he means the second Epistle, which he proceeds to quote from. But that Epistle was plainly not written ἀπὸ Ἐφέσου. Perhaps what he said was to this effect: "At this point I suppose it wasviz. after the mission of Timothy and Erastus-that he wrote (his first Epistle) to the Corinthians

from Ephesus: and in the second Epistle he alludes to the great trial which ensued in the matter of Demetrius. He had promised to come to Corinth sooner, and excuses himself on the score of the delay." But d κατὰ Δημήτριον διηγούμενος can hardly be meant of St. Paul: it should be alvITTÓμEVOS.