know whether it would be food for fishes, or for dogs, or for other beasts that prey in the sea; and this they did, knowing as yet nothing of the Kingdom, nor of the Resurrection. But suppose it is not an only child; but that after thou hast lost many, this also hath de- parted. But not so sudden is thy calamity as was Job’s, and (his was) of sadder aspect?856 It is not when a roof has fallen in, it is not as they are feasting the while, it is not following on the tidings of other calamities. But was it beloved by thee? But not more so than Joseph, the devoured of wild beasts; but still the father bore the calamity, and that which followed it, and the next to that. He wept; but acted not with impiety; he mourned, but he uttered not discontent, but stayed at those words, saying, “Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and will ye take Benjamin away? all these things are against me.”857 (Gen. xlii. 36.) Seest thou how the constraint of famine prevailed with him to be regardless of his children? and doth not the fear of God prevail with thee as much as famine? Weep: I do not forbid thee: but aught blasphemous neither say nor do. Be thy child what he may, he is not like Abel; and yet nought of this kind did Adam say; although that calamity was a sore one, that his brother should have killed him. But I am reminded of others also that have killed their brothers; when, for instance, Absalom killed Amnon the eldest born (2 Sam. 13.), and King David loved his child,858 and sat indeed in sackcloth and ashes, but he neither brought soothsayers, nor enchanters, (although there were such then, as Saul shows,) but he made supplication to God. So do thou likewise: as that just man did, so do thou also; the same words say thou, when thy child is dead, “I shall go to him, but he will not come to me.” (2 Sam. xii. 23.) This is true wisdom, this is affection. However much thou mayst love thy child, thou wilt not love so much as he did then. For even though his child were born of adultery, yet that blessed man’s love of the mother was at its height,859 and ye know that the offspring shares the love of the parents. And so great was his love toward it, that he even wished it to live, though it would be his own accuser, but still he gave thanks to God. What, thinkest thou, did Rebecca suffer, when his brother threatened Jacob, and she grieved not her husband, but bade him send her son away? (Gen. xxvii. 46; xxviii. 1.) When thou hast suffered any calamity, think on what is worse than it; and thou wilt have a sufficient consolation; and consider with thyself, what if he had died in battle? what if in fire? And whatsoever our sufferings may be, let us think upon things yet more fearful, and we shall have comfort sufficient, and let us ever look around us on those who have undergone 856 [This abrupt sentence was expanded as usual, in what came to be the common printed text.—J.A.B.] 857 Or (Gr.), “are come upon me.” 858 He passes on to the child of Bathsheba. 859 ἤκμαζεν. 2 Sam. xii. 24 gives the impression that David laid the crime to his own charge, and regarded her as wronged. 529 Colossians 3:5-7