cease from mentioning them. For if the prophets, though stoned, did not keep silence, much more ought we to bear with enmities, and not to discourse to you with a view to please, that we may not, for having deceived you, be ourselves cut in sunder. There is punishment, deathless, unallayed, and no one to stand up for us. “Who will pity,” he says, “the charmer that is bitten by a serpent?” (Ecclus. xii. 13.) When we pity not our own selves, tell me, who will pity us? If you see a man piercing himself with a sword, will you be able to spare his life? By no means. Much more, when having it in our power to do well we do not do well, who will spare us? No one! Let us pity ourselves. When we pray to God, saying, “Lord, have mercy1035 upon me,” let us say it to ourselves, and have mercy upon ourselves. We are the arbiters1036 of God’s having mercy upon us. This grace He has bestowed upon us. If we do things worthy of mercy, worthy of His loving-kindness towards us, God will have mercy upon us. But if we have not mercy on ourselves, who will spare us? Have mercy on thy neighbor, and thou shalt find mercy of God Himself. How many every day come to thee, saying, “Have pity on me,” and thou dost not turn towards them; how many naked, how many maimed, and we do not bend toward them, but dismiss their supplications. How then dost thou claim1037 to obtain mercy, when thou thyself dost nothing worthy of mercy? Let us become compassionate, let us become pitiful, that so we may be well-pleasing to God, and obtain the good things promised to those that love Him, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, &c. 1035 [It is the word above rendered “pity,” but the other rendering is made familiar in this phrase by the Litany. “Have pity,” just below, is still the same word.—J.A.B.] 1036 Gr. “We are lords,” but the phrase is more familiar in Greek. 1037 [The verb translated “claim” is based on the adjective meaning “worthy.” Chrys. is somewhat fond of the play upon words.—J.A.B.] 645 1 Thessalonians 5:1,2