glory; and instead of riches, there will be the good things that surpass all power of description.
Did not Job sit naked on a dunghill, sustaining a life more grievous than ten thousand
deaths? Yet since he did not cast away his piety, all his former things came back to him in
greater abundance, soundness and beauty of body; his full band of children; his possessions;
and what was greater than all, the splendid crown of his patience. For as it happens with
trees, should any one pluck away the fruit and the leaves together; should he even cut off
all the branches letting the root only remain; the tree will rise again entire, with greater
beauty, so indeed is it also with us. If the root of piety remain, although wealth be taken
away, although the body destroyed, all things again revert to us with greater glory than before.
Casting away therefore all anxiety and superfluous care, let us return to ourselves; and let
us adorn the body and the soul with the ornament of virtue; converting our bodily members
into instruments of righteousness and not instruments of sin.
11. And first of all, let us discipline our tongue to be the minister of the grace of the
Spirit, expelling from the mouth all virulence and malignity, and the practice of using dis-
graceful words. For it is in our power to make each one of our members an instrument of
wickedness, or of righteousness. Hear then how men make the tongue an instrument, some
of sin, others of righteousness! “Their tongue is a sharp sword.”1212 But another speaks thus
of his own tongue: “My tongue1213 is the pen of a ready writer.”1214 The former wrought
destruction; the latter wrote the divine law. Thus was one a sword, the other a pen, not ac-
cording to its own nature, but according to the choice of those who employed it. For the
nature of this tongue and of that was the same, but the operation was not the same. And
again, as to the mouth likewise, we may see this same thing. For these had a mouth full of
filth and of wickedness, therefore against such it is said by way of accusation, “Their mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness;”1215 not such was his, but “My mouth shall speak of wisdom,
and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.”1216 Again, there were others
who had their hands full of iniquity, and accusing these he said, “Iniquities are in their
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hands, and their right hand is filled with gifts.”1217 But he himself had hands practised in
nothing but in being stretched out towards heaven. Therefore he said of these too, “The
1212 Ps. lvii. 4.
1213 The references in the Psalms are made to the English version, which is divided as the Hebrew, except
that it sometimes varies a verse or two. LXX. and Vulg. annex Ps. x. to ix., and call Ps. xi. Ps. x., and so on till
Ps. cxlvii., which they divide, beginning their Ps. cxlvii. at v. 12.
1214 Ps. xlv. 1.
1215 Ps. xiv. 6.
1216 Ps. xlix. 3.
1217 Ps. xxvi. 10. Or, more perspicuously, according to the usual sense of the Hebrew, bribes.
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Homily IV