323 to hear the word of God than to fast. He then proves that the world could not possibly subsist without a divine Providence, and he ends, at length, by an exhortation to abstain from oaths. The eleventh Homily, Tillemont supposes to have been delivered after that which here has the inscription of the fifteenth, as well as after the sixteenth which follows it. The argu- ment he employs is this; In this Homily he says, the subject is concerning certain dangers and distresses which the city of Antioch had already passed through, which events seem to have taken place after the arrival of Hellebichus and Cæsarius. But that arrival of Hellebichus and Cæsarius is mentioned in the Title of the seventeenth Homily,986 long after the eleventh of which we are now treating. Supported by this argument, Tillemont thinks that not only the fifteenth, but also the sixteenth ought to be placed before the eleventh. But besides that all the Manuscripts, without exception, preserve the very same order as the published Editions, we have not a sufficiently accurate knowledge of all the events, the dangers, terrors, and threats of the time, that for a reason of this sort we should deem there ought to be any change in the order. Chrysostom has spoken of many things, but was perhaps silent on many more. Wherefore, until something more certain be brought to light, we think the ancient order must be adhered to. In this Homily Chrysostom at the beginning gives thanks, because the city breathed again after the terror that had fallen on it, since multitudes had taken flight in consequence of suspicions that had been thrown out among them. For some days Chrysostom was silent (as he himself says) during this season of calamity and terror. But Tillemont assigns this Homily to the Monday of the fourth week in Lent, and indeed with the best reason, as we shall shew when we come to the thirteenth Homily. In the present Homily he treats principally of the wisdom of God in the constitution of man, and at the end concerning the avoiding of oaths. The twelfth, as well as the thirteenth, for the same reason as above, Tillemont makes later than the fifteenth and sixteenth. But I know not in what way he understands that passage in this twelfth Homily, No. (2.) “On the three foregoing days, then, we have investigated one method of acquiring the knowledge of God, and have brought it to a conclusion, explain- ing how ‘the’ visible ‘heavens declare the glory of God,’ and what is the meaning of that which is said by Paul; ‘The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made;’ and we have shewed how from the creation of the world, and how by heaven, and earth, and sea, the Creator is glorified. But to-day,” etc. Here Chrysostom clearly refers to a series of these Homilies in the order in which they were delivered before the twelfth, that is to say, the ninth, the tenth, and the el- eventh. In the ninth (No. 2.) he places as the argument of his discourse the saying of Paul, 986 See note at the beginning of that Homily and the preceding; it is almost certain from the whole character of Hom. XVII. that it was not delivered immediately after the events referred to. Probably many had returned, who St. Chrysostom wished to inform of the events during their absence. 447 Preface to the Benedictine Edition.