HOMILY IX.] HOMILIES ON THESSALONIANS. 363 Because in the first place the vicious man is inactive with respect to virtue : again, because he sees everything as a vision, he views nothing in its true light, but is full of dreams, and often times of unreasonable actions : and if he sees anything good, he 1 has no firmness, no fixed ness. Such is the present life. It is full of dreams, and of phantasy. Riches are a dream, and glory, and everything of that sort. He who sleeps sees not things that are and have a real subsistence, but things that are not he fancies as things that are. Such is vice, and the life that is passed in vice. It sees not things that are, that is, spiritual, heavenly, abiding things, but things that are fleeting and fly away, and that soon recede from us. But it is not sufficient to watch and be sober, we must also be armed. For if a man watch and is sober, but has not arms, the robbers soon dispatch him. When therefore we ought both to watch, and to be sober, and to be armed, and we are unarmed and naked and asleep, who will hinder him from thrusting home his sword ? Wherefore showing this also, that we have need of arms, he has added : Ver. 8. " Putting on the breastplate of faith and love : and for a helmet the hope of sal vation." " Of faith and love," he says. Here he glances at life and doctrine. He has shown what it is to watch and be sober, to have " the breastplate of faith and love." Not a common faith, he says, but as nothing can soon pierce through a breastplate, but it is a safe wall to the breast ; so do thou also, he says, surround thy soul with faith and love, and none of the fiery darts of the devil can ever be fixed in it. For where the power of the soul is preoccupied with the armor of love, all the devices of those who plot against it are vain and ineffectual. For neither wick edness, nor hatred, nor envy, nor flattery, nor hypocrisy, nor any other thing will be able to penetrate such a soul. He has not simply said "love," but he has bid them put it on as a strong breastplate. " And for a helmet the hope of salvation." For as the helmet guards the vital part in us, surrounding the head and cover ing it on every side, so also this hope does not suffer the reason to falter, but sets it upright as the head, not permitting anything from without to fall upon it. And whilst nothing falls on it, neither does it slip of itself. For it is not pos sible that one who is fortified with such arms as these, should ever fall. For " now abideth faith, hope, love." (i Cor. xiii. 13.) Then having said, Put on, and array yourselves, he himself provides the armor, whence faith, hope, and love may be produced, and may become strong. Ver. 9. " For God appointed us not unto 1 Or " it." wrath, but unto the obtaining ofsalvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us." Thus God has not inclined to this,2 that He might destroy us, but that He might save us. And whence is it manifest that this is His will? He has given His own Son for us. So does He desire that we should be saved, that He has given His Son, and not merely given, but given Him to death. From these considerations hope is produced. For do not despair of thyself, O man, in going to God, who has not spared even His Son for thee. Faint not at present evils. He who gave His Only-Begotten, that He might save thee and deliver thee from hell, what will He spare henceforth for thy salvation ? So that thou oughtest to hope for all things kind. For neither should we fear, if we were going to a judge who was about to judge us, and who had shown so much love for us, as to have sacrificed his son. Let us hope therefore for kind and great things, for we have received the principal thing ; let us believe, for we have seen an example ; let us love, for it is the extreme of madness for one not to love who has been so treated. Ver. 10, ii. "That, whether we wake or sleep," he says, " we should live together with Him. Wherefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as also ye do." And again, "whether we wake or sleep"; by sleep there he means one thing, and here another. For here, " whether we sleep " signi fies the death of the body ; that is, fear not dan gers ; though we should die, we shall live. Do not despair because thou art in danger. Thou hast a strong security. He would not have given His Son if He had not been inflamed by vehement love for us. So that, though thou shouldest die, thou wilt live ; for He Himself also died. Therefore whether we die, or whether we live, we shall live with Him. This is a matter of indifference : it is no concern of mine, whether I live or die ; for we shall live with Him. Let us therefore do everything for that life : looking to that, let us do all our works. Vice, O beloved, is darkness, it is death, it is night ; we see nothing that we ought, we do nothing that becomes us. As the dead are un sightly and of evil odor, so also the souls of those who are vicious are full of much impurity. Their eyes are closed, their mouth is stopped, they remain without motion in the bed of vice ; or rather more wretched than those who are naturally dead. For they truly are dead to both, but these are insensible indeed to virtue, but alive to vice. If one should strike a dead man, he perceives it not, he revenges it not, but is like a dry stick. So also his soul is truly dry, having lost its life ; it receives daily num- [The altered text gives, " has not called us to this." J. A. B ]