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Homily
XII.
Ephesians iv. 17
“This I say therefore, and
testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk,
in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their
understanding.”
It is
the duty of the teacher to build up and restore the souls of his
disciples, not only by counseling and instructing them, but also by
alarming them, and delivering them up to God. For when the words spoken
by men as coming from fellow-servants are not sufficient to kindle the
soul, it then becomes necessary to make over the case to God. This
accordingly Paul does also; for having discoursed307
307 [Modern exegesis has made more logical analysis, and indicated
more carefully and correctly the transitions from one thought or branch
of the subject to another, than the ancient. Comp. Meyer, Lightfoot,
Schaff, and especially the paragraphing of the Rev. Ver. On this
passage Meyer says: The exhortation begun at vv. 1–3, and interrupted by the
digression vv. 4–16, is here resumed
by the οὖν, and the “walking worthily” of v. 1 is now followed up in the form, “that ye no longer
walk as the Gentiles also walk,” &c.—G.A.] | concerning lowliness, and concerning
unity, and concerning our duty not to rise up one against another, hear
what he says. “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord,
that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk.” He does not
say, “That ye henceforth walk not as ye are now walking,”
for that expression would have struck too hard. But he plainly
indicates the same thing, only he brings his example from others. And
so in writing to the Thessalonians, he does this very same thing, where
he says, “Not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles which
know not God.” (1 Thess. iv.
5.)
Ye differ from them, he means to say, in doctrine, but that is wholly
God’s work: what I require on your path is the life and the
course of behavior that is after God. This is your own. And I call the
Lord to witness what I have said, that I have not shrunk, but have told
you how ye ought to walk.
“In the vanity,”
saith he, “of their mind.”
What is vanity of mind? It is
the being busied about vain things. And what are those vain things, but
all things in the present life? Of which the Preacher saith,
“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” (Eccles. i. 2.) But a man will
say, If they be vain and vanity, wherefore were they made? If they are
God’s works, how are they vain? And great is the dispute
concerning these things. But hearken, beloved: it is not the works of
God which he calls vain; God forbid! The Heaven is not vain, the earth
is not vain,—God forbid!—nor the sun, nor the moon and
stars, nor our own body. No, all these are “very good.”
(Gen.
i. 31.) But what is vain? Let us hear the Preacher himself, what he
saith; “I planted me vineyards, I gat me men singers and women
singers, I made me pools of water, I had great possession of herds and
flocks, I gathered me also silver and gold, and I saw that these are
vanity.” (Eccles. ii. 4–8.) And again,
“Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity.” (Eccles. xii.
8.)
Hear also what the Prophet saith, “He heapeth up riches, and
knoweth not who shall gather them.” (Ps. xxxix. 6.) Such is
“vanity of vanities,” your splendid buildings, your vast
and overflowing riches, the herds of slaves that bustle along the
public square, your pomp and vainglory, your high thoughts, and your
ostentation.308
308 [“‘Vanity’ here is rather the subjective sphere
in which the walk of the other Gentiles takes place, namely, in
nothingness of their thinking and willing (νοῦς), and is to be
understood of the whole intellectual and moral character of
heathenism.”—Meyer.—G.A.] | For all these are vain; they came
not from the hand of God, but are of our own creating. But why then are
they vain? Because they have no useful end. Riches are vain when they
are spent upon luxury; but they cease to be vain when they are
“dispersed and given to the needy.” (Ps. cxii. 9.) But when thou
hast spent them upon luxury, let us look at the end of them, what it
is;—grossness of body, flatulence, pantings, fullness of belly,
heaviness of head, softness of flesh, feverishness, enervation; for as
a man who shall draw into a leaking vessel labors in vain, so also does
the one who lives in luxury and self-indulgence draw into a leaking
vessel. But again, that is called “vain,” which is expected
indeed to contain something, but contains it not;—that which men
call empty, as when they speak of “empty hopes.” And
generally that is called “vain,” which is bare and
purposeless, which is of no use. Let us see then whether all human
things are not of this sort. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow
we die.” (1 Cor. xv. 32.) What then, tell me,
is the end? Corruption. Let us put on clothing and raiment. And what is
the result? Nothing. Such are the lives of the Greeks. They
philosophized, but in vain. They made a show of a life of hardship, but
of mere hardship, not looking to any beneficial end, but to vainglory,
and to honor from the many. But what is the honor of the many? It is
nothing, for if they themselves which render the honor perish, much
more does the honor. He that renders honor to another, ought first to
render it to himself; for if he gain not honor for himself, how can he ever
render it to another? Whereas now we seek even honors from vile and
despicable characters, themselves dishonorable, and objects of
reproach. What kind of honor then is this? Perceive ye, how that all
things are “vanity of vanities”? Therefore, saith he,
“in the vanity of their mind.”
But further, is not their
religion of this sort, wood and stone? He hath made the sun to shine
for a lamp to light us. Who will worship his own lamp? The sun supplies
us with light, but where he cannot, a lamp can do it. Then why not
worship thy lamp? “Nay,” one will say, “I worship the
fire.” Oh, how ridiculous! So great is the absurdity, and yet
look again at another absurdity. Why extinguish the object of thy
worship? Why destroy, why annihilate thy god? Wherefore dost thou not
suffer thy house to be filled with him? For if the fire be god, let him
feed upon thy body. Put not thy god under the bottom of thy kettle, or
thy cauldron.309 Bring him into thy inner chambers,
bring him within thy silken draperies. Whereas not only dost thou not
bring him in, but if by any accident he has found entrance, thou
drivest him out from every place, thou callest everybody together, and,
as though some wild beast had entered, thou weepest and wailest, and
callest the presence of thy god an overwhelming calamity. I have a God,
and I do all I can to enshrine Him in my bosom, and I deem it my true
bliss, not when He visits my dwelling, but when I can draw Him even to
my heart. Do thou too draw the fire to thine heart. This is folly and
vanity. Fire is good for use, not for adoration; good for ministration
and for service, to be my slave, not to be my master. It was made for
me, not I for it. If thou art a worshiper of fire, why recline upon thy
couch thyself, and order thy cook to stand before thy god? Take up the
art of cookery thyself, become a baker if thou wilt, or a coppersmith,
for nothing can be more honorable than these arts, since these are they
that thy god visits. Why deem that art a disgrace, where thy god is all
in all? Why commit it to thy slaves, and not be ambitious of it
thyself? Fire is good, inasmuch as it is the work of a good Creator,
but it is not God. It is the work of God, it was not called God. Seest
thou not how ungovernable is its nature;—how when it lays hold on
a building it stops nowhere? But if it seizes anything continuous, it
destroys all; and, except the hands of workmen or others quench its
fury, it knows not friends nor foes, but deals with all alike. Is this
then your god, and are ye not ashamed? Well indeed does he say,
“in the vanity of their mind.”
But the sun, they say, is God.
Tell me, how and wherefore. Is it that he sheds abundance of light? Yet
dost thou not see him overcome by clouds, and in bondage to the
necessity of nature, and eclipsed, and hidden by the moon? And yet the
cloud is weaker than the sun; but still it often gains the mastery of
him. And this indeed is the work of God’s wisdom. God must needs
be all sufficient: but the sun needs many things; and this is not like
a god. For he requires air to shine in, and that, too, thin air; since
the air, when it is greatly condensed, suffers not the rays to pass
through it. He requires also water, and other restraining power, to
prevent him from consuming. For were it not that fountains, and lakes,
and rivers, and seas, formed some moisture by the emission of their
vapors, there would be nothing to prevent an universal conflagration.
Dost thou see then, say ye, that he is a god? What folly, what madness!
A god, say ye, because he has power to do harm. Nay, rather, for this
very reason is he no god, because where he does harm he needs nothing;
whereas, where he does good, he requires many things besides. Now to do
harm, is foreign to God’s nature; to do good, is His property.
Where then the reverse is the case, how can he be God? Seest thou not
that poisonous drugs injure, and need nothing; but when they are to do
good, need many things? For thy sake then is he such as he is, both
good, and powerless; good, that thou mayest acknowledge his Lord; and
powerless, that thou mayest not say that he is lord. “But,”
say they, “he nourishes the plants and the seeds.” What
then, at that rate is not the very dung a god? for even that also
nourishes. And why not at that rate the scythe as well, and the hands
of the husbandman? Prove to me that the sun alone does the work of
nourishing without needing the help of either earth, or water, or
tillage; but let the seeds be sown, and let him shed forth his rays,
and produce the ears of corn. But now if this work be not his alone,
but that of the rains also, wherefore is not the water a god also? But
of this I speak not yet. Why is not the earth too a god, and why not
the dung, and the hoe? Shall we then, tell me, worship all? Alas, what
trifling! And indeed rather might the ear of corn be produced without
sun, than without earth and water; and so with plants and all other
things. Were there no earth, none of these things could ever appear.
And if any one, as children and women do, were to put some earth into a
pot, and to fill up the pot with a quantity of dung, and to place it
under the roof, plants, though they may be weak ones, will be produced
from it. So that the contribution of the earth and of the dung is
greater, and these therefore we ought to worship rather than the
sun. He requires
the sky, he requires the air, he requires these waters, to prevent his
doing harm, to be as bridles to curb the fierceness of his power, and
to restrain him from letting loose his rays over the world, like some
furious horse. And now tell me, where is he at night? Whither has your
god taken his departure? For this is not like a god, to be
circumscribed and limited. This is in fact the property of bodies only.
But, say they, there is some sort of power residing in him, and he has
motion. Is this power then, I pray you, itself God? Why then is it
insufficient in itself, and why does it not restrain the fire? For
again, I come to the same argument. But what is that power? Is it
productive of light, or does it by the sun give light, though of itself
possessing none of these qualities? If so, then is the sun superior to
it. How far shall we unwind this maze?
Again, what is water? is not
that too, they say, a god? This again is a matter of truly absurd
disputation. Is that not a god, they say, which we make use of for so
many purposes? And so again, in like manner, of the earth. Truly
“they walk in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their
understanding.”
But these words he is now using
concerning life and conduct. The Greeks are fornicators and adulterers.
Of course. They who paint to themselves such gods as these,310
310 [See
Schaff’s History of the Christian Church, Vol. I., pp.
72–74, with Literature there noted.—G.A.] | will naturally do all these things; and if
they can but escape the eyes of men, there is no one to restrain them.
For what will avail the argument of a resurrection, if it appear to
them a mere fable? Yea, and what that of the torments of
hell?—they too are but a fable. And mark the Satanic notion. When
they are told of gods who are fornicators, they deny that these are
fables, but believe them. Yet whenever any shall discourse to them of
punishment, “these,” they say, “are poets, men who
turn everything into fable, that man’s happy condition may be on
all sides overturned.”
But the philosophers, it is
said, discovered something truly grand, and far better than these. How?
They who introduced fate, and who tell us that nothing is providential,
and that there is no one to care for anything, but that all things
consist of atoms?311
311 [On
Democritus and Leucippus, founders of the Atomistic philosophy, see
Ueberweg’s Hist. of Philosophy (Amer. ed.), Vol. I., pp.
67–71; on Epicurus, Vol. I., pp.
205–207.—G.A.] | Or, others again
who say that God is a body? Or who, tell me, are they? Are they those
who would turn the souls of men into the souls of dogs, and would
pervade mankind that one was once a dog, and a lion, and a fish? How
long will ye go on and never cease trifling, “being darkened in
the understanding”? for they say and do all things as though they
were indeed in the dark, both in those things which concern doctrine,
and those which concern life and conduct; for the man who is in
darkness sees none of the things which lie before him, but oftentimes
when he sees a rope, he will take it for a live serpent;312
312 This
was the instance in the Schools. Vid. Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrh.
Hypot. I. 33. | or again, if he is caught by a hedge, he
will think that a man or an evil spirit has hold of him, and great is
the alarm, and great the perturbation. Such as these are the things
they fear. “There were they in great fear,” it saith,
“where no fear was” (Ps. liii. 5.); but the things
which they ought to fear, these they fear not. But just as children in
their nurses’ arms thrust their hands incautiously into the fire,
and boldly into the candle also, and yet are scared at a man clothed in
sackcloth; just so these Greeks, as if they were really always
children, (as some one also amongst themselves has said,313
313 The
Egyptian priest to Solon. Plat. Tim. p. 22, B. | the Greeks are always children,) fear
those things that are no sins, such as filthiness of the body, the
pollution of a funeral,314
314 Vid.
Theophr. Charact. xvi. περὶ
δεισιδαιμονίας; Guther de Jure Manium in Græv. Thes. 12,
1175; Hes. Opp. et D. 765, sqq. | a bed, or the
keeping of days, and the like: whereas those which are really sins,
unnatural lust, adultery, fornication, of these they make no account at
all. No, you may see a man washing himself from the pollution of a dead
body, but from dead works, never; and, again, spending much zeal in the
pursuit of riches, and yet supposing the whole is undone by the crowing
of a single cock. “So darkened are they in their
understanding.” Their soul is filled with all sorts of terrors.
For instance: “Such a person,” one will say, “was the
first who met me, as I was going out of the house”; of course ten
thousand evils must certainly ensue. At another time, “the wretch
of a servant in giving me my shoes,315
315 Vid.
Plin. N. H. 2, 7; Juv. Sat. 6, 579. These and like
superstitions are condemned also by Clem. Alex. Strom. vii. 4,
pp. 842–844; St. Cyril of Jerus. iv. 37, and St. Aust. de
Doctr. Christ. ii. 20, 21. This series, Vol. II., p. 545. See also
St. Chrys. ad Illum Catech. ii. 5. This series, Vol. IX., p.
170.—G.A. | held out the
left shoe first,”—terrible mishaps and mischiefs! “I
myself in coming out set forth with the left foot foremost”; and
this too is a token of misfortune. And these are the evils that occur
about the house. Then, as I go out, my right eye shoots up from
beneath. This is a sure sign of tears. Again the women, when the reeds
strike against the standards, and ring, or when they themselves are
scratched by the shuttle, turn this also into a sign. And again, when
they strike the web with the shuttle, and do it with some vehemence,
and then the reeds on the top from the intensity of the blow strike
against the standards and ring, this again they make a sign, and ten
thousand things besides, deserving of ridicule. And so if an ass should
bray, or a cock should crow, or a man should sneeze, or whatever else may
happen, like men bound with ten thousand chains, or, as I was saying,
like men confined in the dark, they suspect everything, and are more
slavish than all the slaves in the world.316
316 [Compare Chrysostom’s Commentary on Gal. i.
7.—G.A.] |
But let it not be so with us.
But scorning all these things, as men living in the light, and having
our citizenship in Heaven, and having nothing in common with earth, let
us regard but one thing as terrible, that is, sin, and offending
against God. And if there be not this, let us scorn all the rest, and
him that brought them in, the Devil. For these things let us give
thanks to God. Let us be diligent, not only that we ourselves be never
caught by this slavery, but if any of those who are dear to us have
been caught, let us break his bonds asunder, let us release him from
this most bitter and contemptible captivity, let us make him free and
unshackled for his course toward Heaven, let us raise up his flagging
wings, and teach him to be wise for life and doctrine’s sake. Let
us give thanks to God for all things. Let us beseech Him that He will
not declare us unworthy of the gifts offered to us, and let us
ourselves withal endeavor to contribute our own part, that we may teach
not only by speaking, but by acting also. For thus shall we be able to
attain His unnumbered blessings, of which God grant we may all be
counted worthy, in Christ Jesus our Lord with whom, to the Father and
the Holy Ghost together, be glory, might, and honor, now, henceforth,
and for ever and ever. Amen. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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