538 WORKS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [HOMILY V grace of God. For if He had not called thy forefathers, thou wouldest have been disobedient. See here how he mentions every sort of wicked ness. How many things has not God dispensed by the Prophets and all other means ? have we heard ? " For we," he says, " were once deceived." Ver. 4. " But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared." How ? " Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing ofthe Holy Ghost." Strange ! How were we drowned 1 in wicked ness, so that we could not be purified, but needed a new birth? For this is implied by " Regeneration." For as when a house is in a ruinous state no one places props under it, nor makes any addition to the old building, but pulls it down to its foundations, and rebuilds it anew ; so in our case, God has not repaired us, but has made us anew. For this is " the renew ing of the Holy Ghost." He has made us new men. How ? " By His Spirit " ; and to show this further, he adds, Ver. 6. "Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." Thus we need the Spirit abundantly. " That being justified by His grace " again by grace and not by debt " we may be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." At the same time there is an incitement to humility, and a hope for the future. For if when we were so abandoned, as to require to be born again, to be saved by grace, to have no good in us, if then He saved us, much more will He save us in the world to come. For nothing was worse than the brutality of mankind before the coming of Christ. They were all affected towards each other as if enemies and at war. Fathers slew their own sons, and mothers were mad against their children. There was no order settled, no natural, no written law ; everything was subverted. There were adul teries continually, and murders, and things if possible worse than murders, and thefts ; indeed we are told by one of the heathen, that this practice was esteemed a point of virtue. And naturally, since they worshiped a god 2 of such character. Their oracles frequently required them to put such and such men to death. Let me tell you one of the stories of that time. One Androgeus, the son of Minos, coming to Athens, obtained a victory in wrestling, forwhich he was punished and put to death. Apollo therefore, remedying one evil by another, or dered twice seven youths to be executed on his account. What could be more savage than this - Mercury. tyrannical command ? And it was executed too. A man undertook to atone the mad rage of the demon, and slew these young men, because the deceit of the oracle prevailed with them. But afterwards, when the young men resisted and stood upon their defense, it was no longer done. If now it had been just, it ought not to have been prevented, but if unjust, as undoubtedly it was, it ought not to have been commanded at all. Then they worshiped boxers and wres tlers. They waged constant wars in perpetual succession, city by city, village by village, house by house. They were addicted to the love of boys, and one of their wise men made a law that Paedrasty, as well as anointing for wres tling, 3 should not be allowed to slaves, as if it was an honorable thing ; and they had houses for this purpose, in which it was openly prac ticed. And if all that was done among them was related, it would be seen that they openly out raged nature, and there was none to restrain them. Then their dramas were replete with adultery, lewdness, and corruption of every sort. In their indecent nocturnal assemblies, women were admitted to the spectacle. There was seen the abomination of a virgin sitting in the theater during the night, amidst a drunken mul titude of young men madly reveling. The very festival was the darkness, and the abominable deeds practiced by them. On this account he says, " For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures." One man loved his step mother, 4 a woman her step-son, and in conse quence hung herself. For as to their passion for boys, whom they called their " Paedica," it is not fit to be named. And would you see a son married to his mother ? This too happened among them, and what is horrible, though it was done in ignorance, the god whom they wor shiped did not prevent it, but permitted this outrage to nature to be committed, and that though she was a person of distinction. And if those, who, if for no other reason, yet for the sake of their reputation with the multitude, might have been expected to adhere to virtue ; if they rushed thus headlong into vice, what is it likely was the conduct of .the greater part, who lived in obscurity? \Vhat is more diversified than this pleasure ? The wife of a certain one fell in love with another man, and with the help of her adulterer, slew her husband upon his re turn. The greater part of you probably know the story. The son of the murdered man killed the adulterer, and after him his mother, then he himself became mad, and was haunted by furies. 3 Lit. "dryly," i.e. without the bath, as in the case of wrestling, which was practiced by all that were free. 4 Downes may be right in taking this of Phcenix, II. ix. 432. What follows refers to Hippolytus, ofwhom Montfaucon seems to forget that this could not be said.