452 WORKS -OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [HOMILY XIII. But you still ask, how is the body dissolved whilst it yet eats and drinks? Surely this is no sign of human life, since creatures without rea son too eat and drink. Where the soul lies dead, what do eating and drinking avail? The dead body, that is invested with a flowery garment, is not benefited by it, and when a blooming body invests a dead soul, the soul is not benefited. For when its whole discourse is of cooks, and caterers, and confectioners, and it utters nothing pious, 1 is it not dead ? For let us consider what is man ? The Heathens say that he is a rational animal, mortal, capable of intelligence and knowledge. But let us not take our definition from them, but whence? From the sacred writings. Where then has the Scripture given a definition of man? Hear its words. "There was a man perfect and upright, one that feared God, and eschewed evil." (Job i. 2.) This was indeed a man ! Again, another says, " Man is great, and the merciful man is precious." (Prov. xx. 6, Sept.) Those who answer not to this description, though they partake of mind, and are never so capable of knowledge, the Scripture refuses to acknowledge them as men, but calls them dogs, and horses, and serpents, and foxes, and wolves, and if there be any ani mals more contemptible. If such then is man, he that liveth in pleasure is not a man ; for how can he be, who never thinks of anything that he ought? Luxury and sobriety cannot exist together : they are destructive of one another. Even the Heathens say, " A heavy paunch bears not a subtle mind." 2 Such as these the Scripture calls men without souls. " My Spirit (it is said) shall not always abide in these men, because they are flesh." (Gen. vi. 3, Sept.) Yet they had a soul, but because it was dead in them, He calls them flesh. For as in the case of the virtuous, though they have a body, we say, " he is all soul, he is all spirit," so the reverse is said of those who are otherwise. So Paul also said of those, who did not fulfill the works of the flesh, " Ye are not in the flesh." (Rom. viii. 9.) Thus those who live in luxury are not in the soul or in the spirit. MORAL. " She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." Hear this, ye women, that pass your time in revels and intemperance, and who neglect the poor, pining and perishing with hunger, whilst you are destroying yourself with continual luxury. Thus you are the causes of two deaths, of those who are dying of want, and of your own, both through ill measure. But if out of your fullness you tempered their want, you would save two lives. Why do you thus gorge yourown body with excess, and waste that of the 1 /u.TjSei eti<re|3es, perhaps an euphemism for loose and profane talking. - The English proverb is, " Fat paunches make lean pates." poor with want ; why pamper this above meas ure, and stint that too beyond measure? Con sider what comes of food, into what it is changed. Are you not disgusted at its be ing named? Why then be eager for such accu mulations? The increase of luxury is but the multiplication of dung ! For nature has her limits, and what is beyond these is not nourish ment, but injury, and the increase of ordure. Nourish the body, but do not destroy it. Food is called nourishment, to show that its design is not to injure the body, but to nourish it. For this reason perhaps food passes into excrement, that we may not be lovers of luxury. For if it were not so, if it were not useless and injurious to the body, we should not cease from devour ing one another. If the belly received as much as it pleased, digested it, and conveyed it to the body, we should see wars and battles innumer able. Even now when part of our food passes into ordure, part into blood, part into spurious and useless phlegm, we are nevertheless so ad dicted to luxury, that we spend perhaps whole estates on a meal. What should we not do, if this were not the end of luxury? The more luxuriously we live, the more noisome are the odors with which we are filled. The body is like a swollen bottle, running out every way. The eructations are such as to pain the head of a bystander. From the heat of fermenta tion within, vapors are sent forth, as from a furnace, if bystanders are pained, what, think you, is the brain within continually suffering, assailed by these fumes ? to say nothing of the channels of the heated and obstructed blood, of those reservoirs, the liver and the spleen, and of the canals by which the faeces are discharged. The drains in our streets we take care to keep unobstructed. We cleanse our sewers with poles and drags, that they may not be stopped, or overflow, but the canals of our bodies we do not keep clear, but obstruct and choke them up, and when the filth rises to the very throne of the king, I mean the brain, we do not regard it, treating it not like a worthy king, but like an unclean brute. God hath purposely removed to a distance those unclean members, that we might not receive offense from them. But we suffer it not to be so, and spoil all by our excess. And other evils might be mentioned. To ob struct the sewers is to breed a pestilence ; but if a stench from without is pestilential, that which is pent up within the body, and cannot find a vent, what disorders must it not produce both to body and soul ? Some have strangely com plained, wondering why God has ordained that we should bear a load of ordure with us. But they themselves increase the load. God de signed thus to detach us from luxury, and to persuade us not to attach ourselves to worldly