also do so in the fast.” But there was yet another thing which they aimed at in this act, which
the prophets also are wont to do. For these, when they see some dreadful chastisement
proceeding from heaven, and those who are to be punished without anything to say for
themselves;—laden with shame,—unworthy of the least pardon or excuse:—not knowing
what to do, nor from whence they may procure an advocacy for the condemned, they have
recourse to the things irrational; and describing their death in tragical fashion, they make
intercession by them, putting forward as a plea their pitiable and mournful destruction.
When therefore, aforetime, famine had seized upon the Jews, and a great drought oppressed
their country, and all things were being consumed, one of the prophets spoke thus, “The
young heifers leaped in their stalls; the herds of oxen wept, because there was no pasture;
all the cattle of the field looked upward to Thee, because the streams of waters were dried
up.”1153 Another prophet bewailing the evils of drought again speaks to this effect: “The
hinds calved in the fields and forsook it, because there was no grass. The wild asses did stand
in the forests; they snuffed up the wind like a dragon; their eyes did fail, because there was
no grass.”1154 Moreover, ye have heard Joel saying to-day, “Let the bridegroom go forth of
his chamber, and the bride out of her closet;—the infants that suck the breast.”1155 For what
reason, I ask, does he call so immature an age to supplication? Is it not plainly for the very
same reason? For since all who have arrived at the age of manhood, have inflamed and
provoked God’s wrath, let the age, saith he, which is devoid of transgressions supplicate
Him who is provoked.
10. But, as I said before, we may see what it was that dissolved such inexorable wrath.
Was it, forsooth, fasting only and sackcloth? We say not so; but the change of their whole
life. Whence does this appear? From the very language of the prophet. For he who hath
discoursed of the wrath of God, and of their fasting,1156 himself too, when speaking of the
reconciliation, and teaching us the cause of the reconciliation, speaks to this effect; “And
1153 Joel i. 17.
1154 Jer. xiv. 5.
1155 Joel ii. 16. This passage of scripture is read for the epistle in the service of our Church on Ash Wednesday
as it also stands in the Roman Missal, it is read in the Greek Church on the same day. Ash Wednesday was not,
however, constituted the first day of Lent till a later period, see Bingham, vol. vi. p. 456, b. xxi., c. 1, sec. 5. This
Homily seems to have been preached on Quinquagesima Sunday, called by the Greeks, κυριακὴ τῆς ‡ποκρ™ου
[Lat. carnelevale, or in dimissione carnium, hence carnival] as the next is τῆς τυροφ€γου (›βδ), denoting degrees
of abstinence. See note near the end of the next Homily.
1156 διὰ τὴν νηστείαν, with the article it is “the Fast,” or here Lent, without it “fasting.”
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Homily III