HOMILY XII.] HOMILIES ON EPHESIANS. 1 1 1 sun. He requires the sky, he requires the air, he requires these waters, to prevent his doing harm, to be as bridles to curb the fierceness of his power, and to restrain him from letting loose his rays over the world, like some furious horse. And now tell me, where is he at night ? Whither has your god taken his departure ? For this is not like a god, to be circumscribed and limited. This is in fact the property of bodies only. But, say they, there is some sort of power residing in him, and he has motion. Is this power then, I pray you, itself God ? Why then is it insufficient in itself, and why does it not restrain the fire ? For again, I come to the same argument. But what is that power? Is it productive of light, or does it by the sun give light, though of itself possessing none of these qualities? If so, then is the sun superior to it. How far shall we unwind this maze? Again, what is water? is not that too, they say, a god? This again is a matter of truly absurd disputation. Is that not a god, they say, which we make use of for so many purposes? And so again, in like manner, of the earth. Truly "they walk in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding." But these words he is now using concerning life and conduct. The Greeks are fornicators and adulterers. Of course. Theywho paint to themselves such gods as these, 1 will naturally do all these things ; and if they can but escape the eyes of men, there is no one to restrain them. For what will avail the argument of a resurrec tion, if it appear to them a mere fable? Yea, and what that of the torments of hell? they too are but a fable. And mark the Satanic no tion. When they are told of gods who are for nicators, they deny that these are fables, but believe them. Yet whenever any shall discourse to them of punishment, " these," they say, " are poets, men who turn everything into fable, that man s happy condition may be on all sides over turned." But the philosophers, it is said, discovered something truly grand, and far better than these. How ? They who introduced fate, and who tell us that nothing is providential, and that there is no one to care for anything, but that all things consist of atoms? 2 Or, others again who say that God is a body? Or who, tell me, are they? Are they those who would turn the souls of men into the souls of dogs, and would persuade man kind that one was once a dog, and a lion, and a fish ? How long will ye go on and never cease trifling, " being darkened in the understanding " ? for they say and do all things as though they 1 [See SchaflPs History of the Christian Church, Vol. I., pp. 72-74, with Literature there noted. G. A.] 3 [On Democritus and Leucippus, founders of the Atomistic phi losophy, see Uebeiweg s Hist, of Philosophy (Amer. ed.), Vol. I., pp. 67-71; on Epicurus, Vol. I., pp. 205-207. G. A.] were indeed in the dark, both in those thingswhich concern doctrine, and those which con cern life and conduct ; for the man who is in darkness sees none of the things which lie be fore him, but oftentimes when he sees a rope, he will take it for a live serpent ; 3 or again, if he is caught by a hedge, he will think that a man or an evil spirit has hold of him, and great is the alarm, and great the perturbation. Such as these are the things they fear. " There were they in great fear," it saith, "where no fear was" (Ps. liii. 5) ; but the things which they ought to fear, these they fear not. But just as children in their nurses arms thrust their hands incautiously into the fire, and boldly into the candle also, and yet are scared at a man clothed in sackcloth ; just so these Greeks, as if they were really always children, (as some one also amongst themselves has said,4 the Greeks are always children,) fear those things that are no sins, such as filthiness of the body, the pollution of a funeral/ a bed, or the keeping of days, and the like : whereas those which are really sins, unnatural lust, adultery, fornication, of these they make no account at all. No, you may see a man washing himself from the pollution of a dead body, but from dead works, never ; and, again, spending much zeal in the pursuit of riches, and yet supposing the whole is undone by the crowing of a single cock. " So darkened are they in their understanding." Their soul is filled with all sorts of terrors. For instance : "Such a person," one will say, "was the first who met me, as I was going out of the house" ; of course ten thousand evils must certainly en sue. At another time, " the wretch of a servant in giving me my shoes, 6 held out the left shoe first," terrible mishaps and mischiefs! "I myself in coming out set forth with the left foot foremost"; and this too is a token of misfor tune. And these are the evils that occur about the house. Then, as I go out, my right eye shoots up from beneath. This is a sure sign of tears. Again the women, when the reeds strike against the standards, and ring, or when they themselves are scratched by the shuttle, turn this also into a sign. And again, when they strike the web with the shuttle, and do it with some vehemence, and then the reeds on the top from the intensity of the blow strike against the standards and ring, this again they make a sign, and ten thousand things besides, deserving of ridicule. And so if an ass should bray, or a This was the instance in the Schools. Vid. Scxtus Empiricus, Pyrrh. Hypot. I. 33. 4 The Egyptian priest to Solon. Plat. Tim. p. 22, B. r Vid. Theophr. Charact. xvi. irepi icuritotpoitaf i Gather de Jure Manium in Grav. Thei. 12, 1175; Hes. Opp. et D. 765, sqq. Vid. Plin. N. H. 2,7; Juv. Sat. 6, 579. These and like supe: stitions are condemned also by Clem. Alex. Strom, vii. 4, pp. 842- 844; St. Cyril ofJerus. iv. 37, and St. Aust. de Doctr. Christ. 11. 20, 21? This series. Vol. II., p. 545- See also St. Chrys. ad ft!u> Catech. ii. 5. This series, Vol. IX., p. 170. G. A.