but they were led away to the pit,1179 without reprieve; armed soldiers conducting and guarding them on either side, lest any one should carry off the criminals; whilst mothers also followed afar off, seeing their children beheaded, but not daring to bewail their calamity; for terror conquered grief, and fear overcame nature! And just as when men beholding from the land those who are shipwrecked, are deeply distressed, but are not able to approach and to rescue the drowning, so too here, the mothers restrained through fear of the soldiers, as 362 it were by so many waves, not only dared not go near to their children, and rescue them from condemnation, but were afraid even to shed tears? 18. Assuredly ye gather from thence the mercy of God, how unspeakable, how boundless, how transcending all description! Here indeed the person who has been insulted is of the same nature;1180 and only once in all his lifetime has experienced this; and then it was not done to his face; nor while he was present to see or hear it; and nevertheless, none of those who perpetrated these deeds obtained pardon. But with regard to God nothing of the kind can be said; for the interval between man and God, is so great, as no language can at all ex- press; and throughout every day He is insulted, although present, and seeing and hearing it: and yet He sends not forth the lightning, nor commands the sea to overflow the land, and submerge all men; nor does He bid the earth to cleave asunder and swallow up all the contumelious; but He forbears, and suffers long, and still offers to pardon those who have insulted Him, if they only repent and promise to do these things no more! Truly now is the season to proclaim, “Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? who can show forth all His praise?”1181 How many men have not only cast down, but also trodden under foot the images of God! For when thou throttlest a debtor, when thou strippest him, when thou draggest him away,1182 thou tramplest under foot God’s image. Hear for a certainty Paul saying, that “a man ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God.”1183 And again, hear God Himself saying, “Let us make man in Our Image, after Our likeness.”1184 But if thou sayest that man is not of the same substance as God,—what matters that? For neither was the brazen statue of the same substance as the Emperor; yet nevertheless, they who defied it paid the penalty. Thus also with regard to mankind, if men are not of the same 1179 τὸ β€ραθρον. Xen. Hell. i. 7, 21, seems to imply that criminals at Athens were first put to death, and then thrown into the Barathrum. But they were sometimes thrown in alive, to be killed by the fall. The places so called may have differed both in nature and in use. 1180 οὐσίας. 1181 Ps. cvi. 2. 1182 Some add ὅταν καταβ€λλῃς, lit. “when thou throwest him down;” it may have some special meaning. See on Rom. ii. 18, Hom. XI. Comp. Ja. iii. 9. 1183 1 Cor. xi. 7. 1184 Gen. i. 26. 507 Homily III