222 WORKS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [HOMILY VIII. visions? If it be morning, I say, When will it be evening? " (Job vii. 14, 4), and he murmured not. And there was not only this ; but reputa tion in the eyes of the world was added ; for they forthwith concluded him to be guilty of endless crimes, judging from all that he suffered. And accordingly this is the consideration, which his friends urged upon him ; " Know therefore that God exacteth less of thee than thine iniqui ties deserve." (Job xi. 6.) Wherefore he him self said, " But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock." (Job xxx. i.) And was not this worse than many deaths? Yet though assaulted on all sides by a flood like this, when there raged around him a fearful storm, clouds, rain, lightnings, whirling winds, and waterspouts, he remained himself unmoved, seated as it were in the midst of this surge, thus awful and overwhelming, as in a perfect calm, and no murmur escaped him ; and this before the gift of grace, before that aught was declared concerning a resurrection, before aught concern ing hell and punishment and vengeance. Yet we, who hear both Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists speaking to us, and have innumera ble examples set before us,and have been taught the tidings of a Resurrection, yet harbor dis content, though no man can say that such a fate as this has been his own. For if one has lost money, yet not all that greatnumber of sons and daughters, or if he has, perchance it was that he had sinned ; but for him, he lost them suddenly, in the midst of his sacrifices, in the midst of the service which he was rendering to God. And if any man has at one blow lost property to the same amount, which can never be, yet he has not had the further affliction of a sore all over his body, he has not scraped the humors that covered him ; or if this likewise has been his fate, yet he has not had men to upbraid and reproach him, which is above all things calculated to wound the feelings, more than the calamities we suffer. For if when we have persons to cheer and console us in our misfortunes, and to hold out to us fair prospects, we yet despond, consider what it was to have men upbraiding him. If the words, " I looked for some to have pity, but there was no man, and for comforters, but I found none " (Ps. Ixix. 20), describe intolerable misery, how great an aggravation to find revilers instead of com forters ! " Miserable comforters are ye all " (Job xvi. 2), he says. If we did but revolve these subjects continually in our minds, if we well weighed them, no ills of this present time could ever have force to disturb our peace, when we turned our eyes to that athlete, that soul of adamant, that spirit impenetrable as brass. For as though he had borne about him a body of brass or stone, he met all events with a noble and constant spirit. Taking these things to heart, let us do every thing " without murmuring and disputing." Is it some good work that thou hast before thee, and dost thou murmur? wherefore? art thou then forced ? for that there are many about you who force you to murmur, I know well, says he. This he intimated by saying, " in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation " ; but it is this that deserves admiration, that we admit no such feeling when under galling provocation. For the stars too give light in the night, they shine in the dark, and receive no blemish to their own beauty, yea they even shine the brighter ; but when light returns, they no longer shine so. Thus thou too dost appear with the greater lustre, whilst thou holdest straight in the midst of the crooked. This it is which deserves our admiration, the being " blameless " ; for that they might not urge this plea, 1 he himself set it down by anticipation. What means "hold ing fast the word of life "? i.e. " being destined to live, being of those that are gaining salva tion." - Observe how immediately he subjoins the rewards, which are in reserve. Lights [i.e. luminaries], he says, retain the principle of light ; so do ye the principle 3 of life. What means "the word of life"? Having the seed of life, i.e. having pledges of life, holding life itself, i.e. " having in yourselves the seed of life," this is what he calls " the word of life." Con sequently the rest are all dead, for by these words he signified as much ; for otherwise those others likewise would have held " the word of life." "That I may have whereof to glory," he says ; what is this ? I too participate in your good deeds, he says. So great is your virtue, as not only to save yourselves, but to render me illustrious. Strange kind of " boasting," thou blessed Paul ! Thou art scourged, driven about, reviled for our sakes : therefore he adds, " in the day of Christ, that I did not run," he says, " in vain, nor labored in vain," but I always have a right to glory, he means, that I did not run in vain. "Yea, and if I am offered." He said not, " and if I die even," nor did he when writing to Timothy, for there, too, he has made use of the same expression, " For I am already being of fered." (2 Tim. iv. 6.) He is both consoling them about his own death, and instructing them to bear gladly the death that is for Christ s sake. I am become, he says, as it were a libation and a sacrifice. O blessed soul ! His bringing them to God he calls a sacrifice. It is much, better to present a soul than to present oxen. " If, then, 1 Viz. that they were forced. 2 tria^ofifviav , 3 [The term Adyo?, " word," Chrys. here fancifully takes in the sense of ground, reason, principle, and so quite misinterprets the clause. See Meyer. J. A. B. j