Homilies on First Corinthians 12 part 2/2

in the eager ambition of insults and shameful words, by which they put to shame those who come together; and those went off victorious who flung out the more numerous insults and the greater obscenities.

And I know indeed that I am a burdensome and irksome and troublesome fellow, as one who cuts off some pleasure of life.

For on this account I mourn, that the distasteful things have been reckoned to be a kind of pleasure.

For how is it not distasteful, tell me, to be insulted and reviled, to be dishonoured by all together with the bride? And if one man of the market-place speaks ill of your consort, you set ten thousand things in motion, and think life not worth living;

but when in the presence of the whole city you behave unseemly together with her who is to dwell with you, you rejoice and preen yourself? And of how great madness is this? But the thing is a custom, he says.

For this above all is worthy of lamentation, that the devil has shut up the matter under the guise of custom.

For since marriage is a solemn thing, which holds our race together and is the cause of many blessings, that wicked one, stung by it and knowing that it stands as a bulwark raised against fornication, brings in through another door every kind of fornication.

Indeed, many virgins have been put to shame amid such assemblies;

and even if this does not happen everywhere, it suffices meanwhile for the demon that there be those words and those wicked songs, and that the bride be made a public spectacle, and the bridegroom paraded through the marketplace.

Then, since these things take place in the evening, so that not even the darkness may serve as a curtain over these evils, many torches are brought in, which do not allow the shamefulness to lie hidden.

For what does the great crowd want? What does the drunkenness want? What do the pipes want? Is it not perfectly clear that it is so that not even those who are indoors and plunged in deep sleep may be ignorant of these things, but, roused by the pipe and leaning down from above over the railings, may become witnesses of that comedy? And what should one say of the songs themselves, which are full of every wantonness, ushering in monstrous loves and unlawful unions and the overthrow of households and countless tragedies, and having much of the name of the lover and the beloved man, and of the loving and the beloved woman? And what is yet harder, that virgins too take part in these, having stripped off all modesty, in honor—or rather in outrage—of her who is being wed, drinking away their own salvation, and behaving unseemly amid wanton youths with disorderly songs, with shameful words, with satanic music.

Do you then still ask me, tell me, whence come adulteries? whence fornications? whence the ruin of marriages? But the well-born and the respectable, he says, do not do these things.

How then do you laugh me to scorn, when you yourself, before me, know this law? For if the things done are good, then let those women also do them.

For because these women live in poverty, are they therefore not also virgins, and ought they not also to take care of chastity? But now a virgin dances in a public theater of wanton youths—tell me—and does she not seem to you more dishonorable than the harlot? And if you say that it is serving-maids who do these things, not even so do I release you from the accusation;

for neither ought it to have been permitted to these either.

For from these very things all the evils are born—that we take no account of our household servants;

but it suffices, as an excuse for contempt, to say, 'He is but a slave,' and 'They are but serving-maids;'

and this, though every day we hear that in Christ Jesus there is neither slave nor free.

But you do not despise a horse or an ass, but do everything so that they may not turn out worthless;

yet do you overlook slaves who share the same soul with you? And why do I speak of slaves, when it is even a matter of sons and daughters? What then comes after these things? Grief must straightway come in, since all those first things are being pulled down;

and often the greatest loss is also brought about, when amid the throng and the tumult certain precious pieces of gold are lost.

Then after the wedding, if ever a child is born, here again we shall see the same folly, and many signs full of laughter.

For indeed, when the child must be named, letting go of naming it after the saints—as the ancients did at the first—they light lamps and give them names, and make the child namesake of the one that has lasted longest, thereby conjecturing that it will live a long time.

But if the child chances to meet an untimely death (as often happens), great will be the laughter that follows from the devil, because he has made sport of them as of foolish children.

And what should one say of the amulets and the little bells hung from the hand and the scarlet thread and the other things full of great folly, when one ought to hang nothing else about the child but the safeguard that comes from the cross? But now this cross is despised—the cross that turned the whole world about, and dealt the devil a grievous blow, and overthrew all his power;

yet to weft and warp and the other such charms the safety of the child is entrusted.

Shall I tell you something else more laughable than this? But let no one condemn us for untimeliness, if our discourse proceeds even as far as these matters.

For he who wishes to cleanse away the rottenness will not shrink from first soiling his own hands.

What then is this laughable thing? That which seems to be nothing at all (for this is why I groan), yet is the beginning of madness and of the utmost derangement.

The women in the bath—nurses and serving-maids—taking up mud, and smearing it with their finger, mark it upon the child's forehead;

and if one asks, 'What does the mud mean? what does the clay mean?' 'It turns aside the evil eye,' she says, 'and witchcraft and envy.'

Bless me, the strength of the mud and the power of the clay—how great is the might it has!

It turns aside the whole battle-array of the devil.

Will you not hide your faces for shame, tell me? Will you not understand at long last the snares of the devil—how from the earliest age, little by little, the devil introduces his own contrivances? For if the mud does this, why do you not also do the same upon your own forehead, being a man and come to full stature, and having more of those who envy you than the child does? Why do you not also besmear your whole body with mud? For if upon the forehead it has such strength, why do you not smear your whole self with mud? These things are laughter and satanic buffoonery, overturning those who are deceived not only into mockery but even into hell.

And that these things should be done among the Greeks is nothing to wonder at;

but that among those who worship the cross, and who have partaken of ineffable mysteries, and who profess so lofty a philosophy, this shamefulness should prevail—this is what is worthy of many lamentations.

God has honored you with spiritual chrism, and do you defile the child with mud? God has honored you, and do you dishonor yourself? And when you ought to inscribe the cross upon the forehead, which affords an invincible safeguard,

yet you, forsaking these things, fall down into satanic folly? And if to some these things seem trifling, let them learn that they are the cause of great evils, and that not even the small things did it seem right to Paul to overlook.

For what, tell me, is a smaller matter than a man's covering his head? Yet see how great zeal he shows about it, and with what vehemence he forbids it, saying many other things, and that a man dishonors his head.

And if he who covers his head dishonors his head, does not he who smears it with mud also make the child an abomination? For how, tell me, does he bring it to the hands of the priest? How do you deem it fit that a seal be set upon the forehead by the presbyter's hand, where you have smeared the mud? Not so, brethren, not so; but from the earliest age fence them about with spiritual weapons, and train them to seal the forehead with the hand;

and before they are able to do this with their own hand, do you yourselves imprint the cross upon them.

And what should one say of the other satanic observances at the time of birth-pangs and childbirths, which the midwives bring in to the hurt of their own head? And those at death and at each funeral—the wailings, the irrational lamentations, the folly at the tombs, the fuss about the graves, the untimely and ridiculous swarm of the mourning women, the observance of days, of comings-in and goings-out? Is it, then, the glory that comes of these things, tell me, that you hunt after? And how is it not the utmost folly, that men so corrupt in their judgments, and doing everything at haphazard, should seek after glory,

when one ought always to flee for refuge to the sleepless Eye, and, looking to His verdict, to do and to say all things? For these men, even if they praise, will be able to profit us nothing;

but He, if He approve of what is done, will both make us glorious here, and in the day to come will impart to us the ineffable good things;

which may it be for us all to attain, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, dominion, honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.