Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 48 part 2/2

but if they accomplish these things, they too will be more at ease in their disposition, and you will feed them the more gladly, seeing that you spend not in vain; and they will be with you with boldness and with fitting freedom, and your house instead of a theatre will become for you a church, and the devil will flee away, and Christ will enter in together with the choir of angels.

For where Christ is, there also are the angels;

and where Christ and the angels are, there is heaven, there is a light brighter than this light of the sun.

And if you wish through them to reap yet another consolation, bid them, when you have leisure, take up the books and read aloud the divine law.

More gladly will they minister these things to you than those others.

For these things make both you and them the more honourable;

but those others put all alike to shame:

you as an insolent and drunken man, and them as wretches and gluttons.

For if you feed them for insult's sake, it is more grievous than if you had slain them;

but if for their benefit and gain, it is more helpful in turn than if you had brought back those being led away to death.

And now you put them to greater shame than your household slaves, and the slaves have more boldness than they, and a freer conscience;

but then you will make them equal to the angels.

Deliver, then, both these men and yourself; and taking away the name of parasites, call them fellow-diners; and casting out the appellation of flatterers, bestow upon them that of friends.

For this reason too did God make friendships—not for the harm of those loved and those loving, but for good and for profit.

But these friendships are more grievous than any enmity.

For from our enemies, if we will, we even gain profit;

but from these there is every necessity of being harmed as well.

Do not, then, keep friends who are teachers of harm;

do not keep friends who are lovers of your table rather than of friendship.

For all such men, if you break off the luxury, break off the friendship also;

but those who are with you for virtue's sake remain continually, bearing every vicissitude.

But the tribe of parasites both often take vengeance on you, and clothe you with an evil reputation.

From this source, at any rate, I know of many free men who have incurred wicked suspicions;

and some were slandered as guilty of sorceries, others of adulteries and the corruption of boys. For when they have no work, but live their life idly, being suspected by many of ministering the same services as the catamites.

Freeing ourselves, therefore, from an evil reputation, and above all from the gehenna to come, and doing the things that seem good to God, let us break off this diabolical custom, that both eating and drinking we may do all things unto the glory of God, and may enjoy the glory that is from Him;

which may it be for us all to attain, by the grace and love toward mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the might, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.