therefore any one, if any one has become cold, let him dissolve the frost. For the remembrance of injuries is truly frost and ice. But let us invoke the Sun of Righteousness, let us entreat Him to send His beams upon us, and there will no longer be thick ice, but water to drink. If the fire of the Sun of Righteousness has touched our souls, it will leave nothing frozen, nothing hard, nothing burning,990 nothing unfruitful. It will bring out all things ripe, all things sweet, all things abounding with much pleasure. If we love one another, that beam also will come. Allow me, I beseech you, to say these things with earnestness. Cause me to hear, that by these words we have produced some effect; that some one has gone and thrown both his arms about his enemy, has embraced him, has twined himself around him, has warmly kissed him, has wept. And though the other be a wild beast, a stone, or whatever he be, he will be made gentle by such affectionate kindness. For on what account is he thine enemy? Hath he insulted thee? yet he has not injured thee at all. But dost thou for the sake of money suffer thy brother to be at enmity with thee? Do not so, I beseech you. Let us do away all. It is our season. Let us use it to good purpose. Let us cut asunder the cords of our sins. Before we go away to judgment, let us not ourselves judge one another. “Let not the sun” (it is said) “go down upon your wrath.” (Eph. iv. 26.) Let no one put it off. These puttings off produce delays. If you have deferred it to-day, you blush the more, and if you add to- morrow, the shame is greater, and if a third day, yet worse. Let us not then put ourselves to shame, but let us forgive, that we may be forgiven. And if we be forgiven, we shall obtain all blessings, through Jesus Christ our Lord, with whom, &c. 990 The translator suggests Milton’s sense:— “The parching air Burns frore, and cold performs th’ effects of fire.” The extreme harshness of some fruits without the sun may be meant. In Hom. xvi. on St. Matt. Ben. p. 215 A, τὰ καυστικὰ is used for “combustibles,” but there is a various reading, ὑπαναπτικὰ in one ms.; see Ed. Field, p. 229. 605 1 Thessalonians 3:5-8