flight, for it is said, “Add not more trouble to a heart that is vexed;”1304 nor do I say it because I wish to rebuke; (for the sick man stands in need of consolation); but for the purpose of endeavouring to promote an amendment. Let us not entrust our safety to flight, but flee from sins, and depart from our evil way. If we escape from these things, although we be in the midst of ten thousand soldiers; not one of them will be able to smite us; but not flying from these, though we ascend to the very summit of the mountains, we shall there find in- numerable enemies! Let us again call to mind those three children, who were in the midst of the furnace, yet suffered no evil, and those who cast them into it, how they that sat around were all consumed. What is more wonderful than this? The fire freed those it held possession of, and violently seized those whom it did not hold, to teach thee, that not the habitation, but the habit of life, bringeth safety or punishment. Those within the furnace escaped, but those without were consumed. To each alike were the same bodies, but not the same dispos- itions.1305 For this reason neither were the effects on them the same; for hay, although it lie without the flame, is quickly kindled; but gold, although it remain within, becomes the more resplendent! 11. Where now are those who said, “Let the Emperor take all, and grant us our bodies 386 free?” Let such go and learn what is a free body. It is not immunity from punishment that makes the body free, but perseverance in a life of righteousness. The bodies of these youths, for instance, were free, though they were given over to the furnace, because they had before put off the slavery of sin. For this alone is liberty; and not an immunity from punishment, or from suffering anything fearful. But having heard of the furnace, call thou to mind the “rivers of fire,”1306 which there shall be in that fearful day. For as on the above occasion, the fire seized upon some, but reverenced others, so also shall it be with those rivers. If any one should then have hay, wood, stubble, he increases1307 the fire; but if he has gold and silver, he1308 becomes the brighter. Let us therefore get together this kind of material, and let us bear the present state of things nobly; knowing that this tribulation will both bring us deliverance from that punishment if we understand how to practise true wisdom,1309 and 1304 Ecclus. iv. 3. 1305 φρονήματα. 1306 Dan. viii. 10. The rivers (or as some read river) of fire. This expression is taken from Dan. viii. 10, as appears by the coincidence of œλκεται, Hom. V. on Rom. ii. 16, and εἵλκεν in LXX. In Hom. de Perf. Car. near the end, Ben. vi. 298, E., he speaks of the fabled rivers of the heathen as a shadow of truth. So Greg. Naz. in Jul, inv. ii., Or. v. 38, Ben. (iv. 46, p. 132, Col.). 1307 See on 1 Cor. iii. 12, Hom. IX. (1). 1308 Or it. 1309 φιλοσοφεῖν, which is a favorite word of St. Chrysostom, and which he seems to use in a variety of passages to express the nobler emotions of the mind. 548 Homily VI