and one sentence often times affords to those who receive it a sufficient source of provision for the whole journey of life.1002 4. Since then its riches are so great, let us arouse ourselves, and receive that which is spoken with a watchful mind; for I am preparing to plunge our discussion to an extreme depth. The admonition itself hath no doubt seemed beside the purpose, and superfluous to many: and they are apt to talk much in this way, “Was Timothy of himself not able to judge what it was needful to make use of, and did he wait to learn this of his teacher.1003 And then did the teacher not only give directions, but also set them down in writing, graving it there as on a column of brass in his Epistle to him? and was he not ashamed to give directions about things of this nature, when writing in a public manner, to his disciple?” For this end then, that thou mayest learn that the admonition, so far from being beside the purpose, was a necessary and highly profitable one; and that the thing proceeded not from Paul, but from the grace of the Spirit, viz, that this should have been (I say) not a spoken precept, but one deposited in letters, and to be handed down to all future generations through the Epistle, I shall proceed at once to the proof. 5. For besides the subjects which have been mentioned, there is another, about which some are no less perplexed, enquiring within themselves on what account God permitted a man possessing such confidence towards Him,1004 whose bones and relics expelled demons,1005 to fall into such a state of infirmity; for it is not merely that he was sick, but constantly, and for a length of time; and by these recurring and prolonged infirmities he was not permitted to have even a brief respite. “How does this appear,” it may be asked? From the very words of Paul, for he does not say, on account of the “infirmity,” but on ac- count of the “infirmities;” and not merely “infirmities,” but he clearly speaks of these as being constant, when he says “thine often infirmities.” Let those then attend to this, whoever they are, who being given over to a lingering1006 sickness are querulous and dejected under it. 333 6. But the subject of enquiry is not only, that being a holy man he was sick, and sick so continually, but that he was at the same time entrusted with the public affairs of the world. For if he had been one of those who have retreated to the tops of mountains; who have fixed their cells in solitude, and who have chosen that life which is free from all business, the 1002 Socr. H. E. iv. 23. Pambos was nineteen years in learning Ps. xxxix. 1. He excelled even St. Antony in exactness of speech. Pall. Hist. Laus. c. 10. 1003 Or, the teacher, as he is called emphatically, Doctor Gentium, see 1 Tim. ii. 7. 1004 Or, “claims,” παῤῥησίαν. See 1 Tim. iii. 13. Suicer misinterprets the word as used by St. Chrysostom in Gen. Hom. IX. sec. 4, of what man lost in the fall; it means there not power, but confidence before God. 1005 See on Rom. xvi. 5, Hom. XXXI. 1006 An old translation has “slight,” as if it were μικρŽ. 456 Homily I