371 Homily V. The exhortation of the last Homily is continued in this. The people are exhorted to bear with fortitude the impending wrath of the Emperor. The cases of Job and the Ninevites are referred to as examples. It is shewn that men ought not to fear death, but sin. What it is to die miserably is explained; and the Homily concludes with an earnest dissuasive against the use of oaths. 1. The discourse concerning the three young men, and the Babylonian furnace, did, as it would seem, yesterday give no small comfort to your Charity; and still more the example in the case of Job, and that dunghill more to be venerated than any kingly throne. For from seeing a royal throne no advantage results to the spectators, but only a temporary pleasure, which has no profit; but from the sight of Job’s dunghill, one may derive every kind of benefit, yea, much divine wisdom and consolation, in order to patience. Therefore to this day many undertake a long pilgrimage,1227 even across the sea, hastening from the extremities of the earth, as far as Arabia, that they may see that dunghill; and having beheld it, may kiss the land, which contained the wrestling-ground1228 of such a victor, and received the blood that was more precious than all gold! For the purple shines not so brilliantly, as did that body when dyed1229 not in another’s blood, but in its own! Even those very wounds were more precious than all manner of jewels! For the nature of pearls is of no help to our life; nor do they satisfy any necessary want on the part of those who have them. But those wounds are a consolation for all sadness; and that thou mayest learn this to be the truth, suppose any one were to lose a beloved and only son. Shew him ten thousand pearls, and you will not console his grief, or lighten his anguish; but recall to his mind the wounds of Job, and thou wouldest easily be able to minister comfort by speaking thus: “Why sorrowest thou, O man? Thou hast lost one son; but that blessed man, after he had been bereaved of the whole family of his children, both received a plague in his own flesh, and sat down naked upon the dunghill, streaming with gore from every part, and his flesh gradually wasting away; even he who was just, and true, so devout a man, who stained from every evil deed, and had even God for a witness to his virtue.” By speaking thus thou wouldest extinguish all the sufferer’s sadness, and remove all his distress. Thus the wounds of the just man become more useful than pearls! 2. Figure to yourselves then this wrestler; and imagine that you see that dunghill, and himself sitting in the midst of it! That golden statue! set with gems! I know not how to express it: for I am unable to find any material so precious as to compare it with that body stained 1227 Comp. Hom. I. 23; Hom. XXXI. on Rom. xvi. 4. 1228 τὴν δεξαμ™νην τὰ σκ€μματα, see Hom. IV., this word can only mean the prepared place, not the spectators. 1229 βαπτιζόμενον, perhaps rather “drenched,” but the mention of the purple favors “dyed;” the present tense does not admit “baptized,” though the allusion is well sustained in Ben. tinctum. Homily V 523 Homily V