286 WORKS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [HOMILY VT, God is able to raise, and so ye were raised. Then note also His worthiness of belief, " Who raised Him," he saith, " from the dead." He now shows the Resurrection. " And you who sometime were dead through your tres passes and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did He quicken together with Him." For ye lay under judgment of death. But even though ye died, it was a profitable death. Ob serve how again he shows what they deserved in the words he subjoins : Ver. 13, 14, 15. "Having forgiven us all our trespasses ; having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was con trary to us : and he hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the Cross ; having put off from him self the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, 1 triumphing over them in it." " Having forgiven us," he saith, " all our tres passes," those which produced that deadness. What then? Did He allow them to remain? No, He even wiped them out ; He did not scratch them out merely ; so that they could not be seen. "In doctrines" 2 [ordinances], he saith. What doctrines? The Faith. It is enough to believe. He hath not set works against works, but works against faith. And what next? Blotting out is an advance upon remission; again he saith, "And hath taken it out of the way." Nor yet even so did He pre serve it, but rent it even in sunder, " by nailing it to His Cross." " Having put off from himself the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." Nowhere has he spoken in so lofty a strain. Seest thou how great His earnestness that the bond should be done away? To wit, we all were under sin and punishment. He Himself, through suffering punishment, did away with both the sin and the punishment, and He was punished on the Cross. To the Cross then He affixed it ; as having power, He tore it asunder. What bond ? He means either that which they said to Moses, namely, " All that God hath said will we do, and be obedient" (Ex. xxiv. 3), or, if not that, this, that we owe to God obedi ence ; or if not this, he means that the devil held possession of it, the bond which God made for Adam, saying, " In the day thou eatest of the tree, thou shalt die." (Gen. ii. 17.) This bond then the devil held in his possession. And Christ did not give it to us, but Himself tore it in two, the action of one who remits joyfully. and the simplifying group of documents changed it into " He hath well said so, for," &c. J. A. B.] 1 e&fiynaTicrtv ev TrappTjaio, so commented on below as seemingly to require to be thus translated, " He inflicted disgrace on them through His confidence in dying." 2 TOIS &6yfjLOi(TLv. Theodoret also takes it so, but the use of &oy- fiari(e(Tde, in ver. 20, agrees better with E. V. " The handwriting [bond] in ordinances," and the Vulgate, Chirographum decreti. " Having put off from himself the principali ties and the powers." He means the diabolical powers; because human nature had arrayed itself in these, or because they had,3 as it were, a hold, when He became Man He put away from Himself that hold. What is the meaning of " He made a show of them " ? And well said he so ; never yet was the devil in so shameful a plight. For whilst expecting to have Him, he lost even those he had ; and when That Body was nailed to the Cross, the dead arose. There death received his wound, having met his death- stroke from a dead body. And as an athlete, when he thinks he has hit his adversary, him self is caught in a fatal grasp ; so truly doth Christ also show, that to die with confidence * is the devil s shame. For he would have done everything to per suade men that He did not die, had he had the power. For seeing that of His Resurrection indeed all succeeding time was proof demon strative ; whilst of His death, no other time save that whereat it happened could ever furnish proof; therefore it was, that He died publicly in the sight of all men, but He arose not pub licly, knowing that the aftertime would bear wit ness to the truth. For, that whilst the world was looking on, the serpent should be slain on high upon the Cross, herein is the marvel. For what did not the devil do, that He might die in secret? Hear Pilate saying, "Take ye Him away, and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him" (John xix. 6), and withstanding theni in a thousand ways. And again the Jews said unto Him, " If Thou art the Son of God, come down from the Cross." (Matt, xxvii. 40.) Then further, when He had received a mortal wound, and He came not down, for this reason He was also committed to burial ; for it was in His power to have risen immediately : but He did not, that the fact might be believed. And yet in cases of private death indeed, it is possible to impute them to a swoon, but here, it is not possible to do this either. For even the soldiers brake not His legs, like those of the others, that it might be made manifest that He was dead. And those who buried The Body are known ; and therefore too the Jews themselves seal the stone along with the soldiers. For, what was most of all attended to, was this very thing, that it should not be in obscurity. And the wit nesses to it are from enemies, from the Jews. Hear them saying to Pilate, "That deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I rise again. Command therefore that the sep- 3 All copies of St. Chrys. read " had them as a hold," which makes no sense. The Catena omits " them," which has been adopted, though the authority is slight. Compare John xiv. 30. * fj.era Trappri<Tia.<;, referring to eSeiy/xaricrei ev jrappr)<ria. "Con fidence " sometimes has the meaning of " standing without fear be fore God." Here he refers also to publicity.