great advantage even to him, if he will. And that thou mayest not think that this is said with respect to the faithful, therefore he has said, “both one toward another and toward all.” Ver. 16. “Rejoice alway.” This is said with respect to the temptations that bring in affliction. Hear ye, as many as have fallen into poverty, or into distressing circumstances. For from these joy is engendered. For when we possess such a soul that we take revenge on no one, but do good to all, whence, tell me, will the sting of grief be able to enter into us? For he who so rejoices in suffering evil, as to requite even with benefits him that has done him evil, whence can he afterwards suffer grief? And how, you say, is this possible? It is possible, if we will. Then also he shows the way. Ver. 17, 18. “Pray without ceasing; In every thing giving thanks: for this is the will of God.” Always to give thanks, this is a mark of a philosophic soul. Hast thou suffered any evil? But if thou wilt, it is no evil. Give thanks to God, and the evil is changed into good. Say thou also as Job said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever.”1044 (Job i. 21.) For tell me, what such great thing hast thou suffered? Has disease befallen thee? Yet it is nothing strange. For 368 our body is mortal, and liable to suffer. Has a want of possessions overtaken thee? But these also are things to be acquired, and again to be lost, and that abide here. But is it plots and false accusations of enemies? But it is not we that are injured by these, but they who are the authors of them. “For the soul,” he says, “that sinneth, itself shall also die.” (Ezek. xviii. 4.) And he has not sinned who suffers the evil, but he who has done the evil. Upon him therefore that is dead you ought not to take revenge, but to pray for him that you may deliver him from death. Do you not see how the bee dies upon the sting? By that animal God instructs us not to grieve our neighbors. For we ourselves receive death first. For by striking them perhaps we have pained them for a little time, but we ourselves shall not live any longer, even as that animal will not. And yet the Scripture commends it, saying that it is a worker, whose work kings and private men make use of for their health. (Ecclus. xi. 3.) But this does not preserve it from dying, but it must needs perish. And if its other excellence does not deliver it when it does injury, much less will it us. For indeed it is the part of the fiercest beasts, when no one has injured thee, to begin the injury, or rather not even of beasts. For they, if thou permittest them to feed in the wil- derness, and dost not by straitening them reduce them to necessity, will never harm thee, nor come near thee, nor bite thee, but will go their own way. But you being a rational man, honored with so much rule and honor and glory, do not1045 even imitate the beasts in your conduct to your fellow-creature, but you injure your 1044 [“For ever” is not in the common Vatican text of the Septuagint, but is in the Codex Alexandrinus.—J.A.B.] 1045 [This negative, given in the printed editions, though wanting in the known mss., seems a necessity to the sense.—J.A.B.] 649 1 Thessalonians 5:12,13