以弗所書講道集 第 12 章

This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding.

The teacher must not only counsel and teach,

equipping and setting straight the souls of those being discipled, but also making them fear and committing them to God.

For since the things spoken by men, as coming from fellow-servants, are not sufficient to take hold of the soul, it is necessary thereafter to commit them to the Lord.

This, then, is what Paul also does.

For having discoursed concerning humility and unity, and that one ought not to rise up against another, hear what he says:

'This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles also walk.'

He did not say, 'that you no longer walk as you walk';

for the saying would have been too cutting;

but he indicated the same thing, while drawing the example from others.

And writing to the Thessalonians also, he does this very same thing, saying:

'Not in the passion of lust, even as the rest of the Gentiles.'

'You have parted ways,' he says, 'from their doctrines, but the whole has become God's;

yet I seek what is from you — the life and the walk that is according to God.'

'And I call the Lord as witness of the things spoken by me, that I did not shrink back, but told how one ought to walk.'

'In the vanity,' he says, 'of their mind.'

What is vanity of mind? To be occupied about vain things.

And what are vain things, but all present things? Concerning which the Preacher says:

'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'

If they are vain and vanity, for what purpose have they come to be? If they are God's works, how are they vain? And much is the discussion concerning these things.

He did not call God's works vain — far from it!

The heaven is not vain, nor is the earth vain — far from it!

not the sun, nor the moon and the stars, nor our body;

for all these things are very good;

but what is vain? Let us hear the Preacher himself as he speaks:

'I planted myself vineyards, I made me singing men and singing women, I made me pools of water, I had flocks and herds, I gathered together silver and gold.'

'And I saw that all was vanity.'

And again: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'

Hear also the Prophet as he says:

'He heaps up riches, and knows not for whom he shall gather them.'

In this sense are 'vanity of vanities': the splendid buildings, the abundant and overflowing gold, the droves of slaves bustling through the marketplace, the pride and vainglory, the haughtiness and the pomp.

For these have not come to be from God, but have been fashioned by ourselves.

But why exactly are they vain? Because nothing about them has any good end.

Riches are vain when they are squandered on luxury;

but they do not become vain when they are scattered among the poor.

But when you have spent them on luxury, let us see what their end at last may be:

the grease of the body, belchings, breaking wind, an abundance of dung, heaviness of the head, softness of the flesh, and feverish heat and languor.

For just as one who keeps pouring into a leaky cask toils in vain, so also he who lives in luxury draws for a leaky cask.

In another sense, that is called vain which was expected to have value but had none;

this too men call empty, and empty hopes, and that which is done to no purpose.

And, quite simply, that is called vain which is useful for nothing.

Let us see, then, whether human things are not of this kind.

What, then, is the end, tell me? Corruption.

Let us clothe and array ourselves, and what is the outcome? Nothing.

Certain of the Greeks philosophized in this manner, but to no purpose;

they made a display of a rigorous life, but merely so, not looking toward any useful end, but toward vainglory and the honor that comes from the many.

But what is the honor that comes from the many? Nothing.

For if those very men who bestow the honor perish, much more does the honor itself.

He who bestows honor on another ought first to bestow it on himself;

and if he cannot bestow it on himself, how should he bestow it on another? But as it is, we even seek honors from cheap and contemptible men, who are themselves without honor and worthy of reproach.

Do you see that all is vanity of vanities? Therefore he said:

'In the vanity of their mind.'

But is their religion not of this sort? What then? Are not the things they worship wood and stones? He made the sun to shine for us in place of a lamp;

who worships his own lamp? The sun provides light;

why then do you not worship the lamp? 'Yes,' he says, 'I worship the fire.'

So great is the outrage, and are you not ashamed? But consider yet another point:

Why do you quench the thing you worship? Why do you destroy it? Why do you make away with your god? Why do you not allow your house to be filled with it? For if fire is a god, let it feed upon your body; do not thrust the god beneath the bottom of the pot and the cauldron;

bring it into your storerooms, bring it in among your silken garments.

But you not only do not bring it in, but even if by some mischance it makes its way in, you drive it out on every side, you call everyone together, and as though some wild beast had broken in, you wail and groan, and you call the affair a calamity surpassing all others—that your god should be present.

I have a God, and I do everything to embrace Him to my bosom, and I count it my blessedness, not when He visits my house, but when I draw Him into my heart.

Do you also draw the fire into your heart.

These things are laughable, and vanity.

Fire is good for use, not for worship;

for ministry, for service, for serving me, not for ruling over me;

it came into being for my sake, not I for its sake.

If you worship the fire, why do you yourself recline upon your couch, while you command a cook to stand beside your god? Take up the cook's task yourself, and become a baker, if you wish, and a smith.

For none of these crafts is more honorable, since it is these that your god attends upon.

Why do you count the craft an outrage, there where your god is so much present? Why do you enjoin it upon your slaves, but do not deem yourself worthy of it? Fire is good, since it is also the work of a good Craftsman, but it is not a god;

for it was called a work of God, not a god.

Do you not see its unruliness? How, whenever it lays hold of a house, it nowhere stands still? But if it gets some continuous fuel, it pulls everything down, and unless the hands of carpenters or of certain others quench its frenzy, it knows neither friends nor foes, but treats all alike.

Is this then a god, and are you not ashamed? Truly he spoke well:

'In the vanity of their mind.'

For tell me, whence comes this, and on what account? Because it sends forth much light? But do you not see it overcome by the clouds, and enslaved to the necessity of nature, and failing, and hidden both by the moon and by the cloud? And yet a cloud is weaker than the sun, but nevertheless in many places it prevails; and this too is a work of the wisdom of God.

God ought to be all-sufficient, but this one is in need of many things;

for it needs air in order to shine, and thin air at that;

since, when the air is very dense, it does not let the ray pass through;

it needs water also, and something else to hold it in check, so that it may not burn everything up.

For if springs and lakes and rivers and seas did not maintain a certain moisture through the giving off of vapors, nothing would prevent all things from being consumed by fire.

'Do you see, then,' he says, 'that it is a god?' O the madness!

'Since,' he says, 'it is able to do harm, it is a god.' And yet for this very reason it is not a god, that in the things by which it harms it needs nothing, but in the things by which it helps it requires many other things;

but with God, to harm is far removed, while to benefit is proper to Him.

When, then, the contrary is the case, how is it a god? Do you not see that deadly drugs do harm, and need nothing, but when they benefit, they need many things? For your sake, then, it is such as it is, both good and weak;

good, that you may recognize the Master;

weak, that you may not call it the Master.

'But it nourishes,' he says, 'the plants and the seeds.'

Why then, on this ground, is not dung also a god? For that too nourishes.

Why, on this ground, is not the sickle also, and the hands of the farmer? Only show me the sun nourishing by itself, and needing nothing, neither earth, nor water, nor husbandry;

but let the seeds be cast down, and let it, merely emitting its ray, produce the ears of grain.

But if this belongs not to it alone, but also to the rains, why is not the water also a god? But not yet concerning this.

Why is not the earth also a god? Why not dung too, and the mattock? Shall we then worship everything, tell me? O the absurdity!

And yet an ear of grain could sooner come to be without the sun than without earth and water, and so too plants and all other things.

For if there were no earth, none of these things could ever appear;

but if someone, in an earthen vessel—such as children and women make—

having placed earth within, should set it beneath the roof, having filled the vessel with much dung, the plants, though weak, do nevertheless spring up.

So that the contribution from the earth and the dung is the greater, and these rather than that ought we to worship.

It has need of heaven, it has need of air, it has need of these waters, so as not to do harm—as though bridles held back the fierceness of its power, and did not permit it to send forth its ray in every direction, like some wild horse.

Tell me, then, where is this sun of ours during the night? Where has the god departed to? For to be enclosed and bounded is not a mark of God; this belongs truly to bodies alone.

For to be enclosed and bounded belongs truly to bodies alone.

But there is also, he says, a certain power in it, and it moves.

This power, then, tell me—is it God? Why then does it have need, and why does it not restrain the fire? For again the same argument returns to me.

But what is that power? Is it something illuminating, or does it give light through this body, itself partaking of none of these things? In that case the sun is greater than it.

How long shall we go on unwinding this labyrinth? 3.

And what of the water? Is not this too a god, they say? This is truly again a matter for contentious laughter.

Is it not a god, he says, seeing that we use it for so many purposes? And concerning the earth again likewise.

Truly, In the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding.

But he is now speaking about their manner of life.

The Greeks commit fornication and adultery.

For those who portray for themselves such gods do everything in keeping with them;

and even if they are able to escape the eyes of men, there is no one to hold them back.

For what force will the doctrine of the resurrection have, when it seems to them to be a myth? But what of the things in Hades? These too are myths to them;

and behold the satanic conception.

When men tell them that their gods are fornicators, they do not say that these are myths, but they believe;

but when men discourse to them about punishment, They are poets, they say, and they make up everything as fable—so that on every side the whole framework of easy living may be overturned.

But the philosophers, he says, surely discovered something dignified, and better than these things.

How so? Those who brought in fate, and said that all things are without providence, and that no one cares for anything, but that all is composed of atoms? Or others, who said that God is a body? But who, tell me? Those who make human souls into the souls of dogs, and persuade men that someone once became a dog, and a lion, and a fish? How long will you not cease your babbling, being darkened in your understanding? For like men who are in darkness, they both say and do everything—both in matters of doctrine and in matters of life.

For he who is in darkness sees nothing of the things lying before him, but often, seeing a rope, has thought it a serpent moving of itself;

or, being caught again by a fence, has thought that some man or demon was holding him fast;

and great is the uproar, great the confusion.

They shall fear a fear, he says, where no fear was;

but the things that are worthy of fear, they do not dread.

But just as little children, being carried by their nurses, thoughtlessly and boldly put their hands to the fire and to the lamp, yet are frightened at a man clothed in sackcloth;

so too these Greeks, being truly always children (as even one of their own said,

'The Greeks are always children'), dread the things that are not sins—such as bodily defilement, mourning for the dead, the marriage bed, and the observance of days, and all such things;

but the things that are truly sins—pederasty, adultery, fornication—of these they take no account at all.

But you may see one of them washing himself after touching a corpse, yet no longer after dead works;

and making great haste for the sake of money, yet supposing that everything is undone by a single cock's crow;

so darkened are they in their understanding.

Their soul is full of many terrors; for instance, So-and-so, he says, met me first as I went out of my house;

surely ten thousand evils must befall.

Just now the filthy house-slave, in handing me my shoes, held out the left one first;

dreadful calamities, and insults.

I myself, as I went out, stepped forward with my left foot first;

and this is a sign of calamities.

And these are the evils connected with the house;

but when I had gone outside, my right eye twitched from below;

And the women too, whenever the reeds clatter as they strike against the loom-beam, or whenever they themselves beat with the comb, make a sign of it;

again, whenever they beat down the woof with the comb, and do this more vigorously, and then the reeds above clatter from the forceful blow as they strike against the loom-beam, this too they make into a sign;

and ten thousand other things worthy of laughter.

If an ass brays, if a cock crows, if someone sneezes, if anything whatever happens, then—as I said—as though bound by ten thousand fetters, as though held fast in darkness, they suspect everything, and are more slavish than ten thousand bondsmen.

But let us, laughing all these things to scorn, inasmuch as we live in the light, and have our citizenship in heaven, and have nothing in common with the earth—let us consider one thing alone to be fearful: sin, and the giving of offense to God.

And this not being present, let us laugh to scorn all other things, and the devil who introduced them.

For these things, then, let us give thanks to God;

let us be diligent never ourselves to be caught in this bondage; and if any of our friends has been caught, let us break his bonds, let us strip him of this most grievous and ridiculous prison, let us make him nimble for the race that leads to heaven, let us set upright his weighed-down wings, and teach him to pursue wisdom both in life and in doctrine.

Let us give thanks to God for all things;

let us entreat him not to declare us unworthy of the gift that has been bestowed;

and let us ourselves, together with these things, be diligent to contribute what is our own, so that we may teach not only by speaking, but also by doing.

For so shall we be able to obtain the ten thousand good things;

which may it be granted us all to obtain, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, honor, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.