then dost thou, who livest a life so exceeding bitter, wish to remain still here? Didst thou not say, I am in dread, “lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected?” (1 Cor. ix. 27.) If for no other cause, yet surely for this, thou oughtest to desire thy release; were the present full of innumerable goods, yet for the sake of Christ thy Desire.561 Oh that spirit of Paul! nothing was ever like it, nor ever will be! Thou fearest the future, thou art compassed by innumerable dreadful things, and wilt thou not be with Christ? No, he answers, and this for Christ’s sake, that I may render more loving unto Him those whom I have made his servants, that I may make the plot562 which I have planted bear much fruit. (1 Cor. iii. 9.). Didst thou not hear me, when I declared that I sought not “that which profited myself” (1 Cor. x. 33.), but my neighbor? Heardest thou not these words, “I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ” (Rom. ix. 3.), that many might come unto Him? I, who chose that part, shall I not much rather choose this, shall I not with pleasure harm myself by this delay and postponement, that they may be saved? “Who shall utter Thy mighty acts, O Lord” (Psa. cvi. 2.), because Thou sufferedst not Paul to be hidden, because Thou madest manifest to the world such a man? All the Angels 199 of God praised Thee with one accord, when Thou madest the stars (Job xxxviii. 7.), and so too surely when Thou madest the sun, but not so much as when Thou didst manifest Paul to the whole world. By this, the earth was made more brilliant than the heaven, for he is brighter than the solar light, he hath shot forth more brilliant rays, he hath shed abroad more joyous beams. What fruit hath this man borne for us! not by making fat our corn, not by nurturing our pomegranates, but by producing and perfecting the fruit of holiness, and when falling to pieces, continually recovering them. For the sun itself can nothing profit fruits that are once decayed, but Paul has called out of their sins those who had manifold decays. And it gives place to the night, but he had mastery over the Devil. Nothing ever subdued him, nothing mastered him. The sun, when it mounts the heavens, darts down its rays, but he, as he rose from beneath, filled not the mid space of heaven and earth with light, but as soon as he opened his mouth, filled the Angels with exceeding joy. For if “there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke xv. 7.), while he at his first address caught multitudes, does he not fill with joy the Powers above? What say I? It sufficeth that Paul should only be named, and the heavens leap for joy. For if when the Israelites “went forth out of Egypt, the mountains skipped like rams” (Psa. cxiv. 4.), how great, thinkest thou, was the joy, when men ascended from earth to heaven! 561 [The editions in Greek, and the Latin translations, without support from any known Greek ms., here repeat, “thou oughtest to desire thy release from these things.” Field retains it as if necessary. Yet it is not necessary, and is in character quite similar to the additions which are so common in the altered text.—J.A.B.] 562 γεώργιον. 353 Philippians 1:22-26