of God! Dost thou grieve that the dignity of the city is taken away? Learn what the dignity of a city is; and then thou wilt know clearly, that if the inhabitants do not betray it, no one else will be able to take away the dignity of a city! Not the fact that it is a metropolis; nor 456 that it contains large and beautiful buildings;1708 nor that it has many columns, and spacious porticoes and walks, nor that it is named in proclamations before other cities, but the virtue and piety of its inhabitants; this is a city’s dignity, and ornament, and defence; since if these things are not found in it, it is the most insignificant in the world, though it may enjoy un- limited honour from Emperors! Dost thou wish to learn the dignity of thy city? Dost thou wish to know its ancestry? I will tell it exactly; not only that thou mayest know, but that thou mayest also emulate. What then is after all the dignity of this city of ours? “It came to pass, that the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.”1709 This dignity, none of the cities throughout the world possesses, not even the city of Romulus herself! For this it can look the whole world in the face; on account of that love toward Christ, that boldness and virtue.1710 Dost thou wish farther to hear of a different dignity and commendation belonging to this city? A grievous famine was once approaching, and the inhabitants of Antioch de- termined, as far as each person had the means, to send relief to the Saints dwelling at Jerus- alem.1711 Behold a second dignity, charity in a time of famine! The season did not make them niggardly, nor the expectation of the calamity backward in helping; but when all are apt to be scraping up what is not their own, then they distributed their own, not merely to those who were near, but also to those who were living afar off! Seest thou here the faith towards God, and the love towards their neighbour? Wouldest thou learn another dignity of this city? Certain men came down from Judæa to Antioch, defiling1712 the doctrine preached, and introducing Jewish observances.1713 The men of Antioch did not bear this novelty in silence. They did not hold their peace, but having come together, and made an assembly, they sent Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem, and caused the Apostles to provide that pure doctrines, cleared from all Jewish imperfection, might be distributed throughout all parts of the world! This is the dignity of the city! this is its precedence! this makes it a metropolis, not in the earth, but in heaven; forasmuch as that all other honours are corrupt- ible, and fleeting, and perish with the present life, and often come to their end before the 1708 For such topics of praise, see the Antiochicus of Libanius, who however also extols the virtue of the citizens. 1709 Acts xi. 26. 1710 These expressions imply that the name Christian was fastened on the disciples of Jesus by way of derision and reproach. 1711 Acts xi. 28, 29. 1712 Making turbid, i.e., by additions, ἐπιθολοῦντες. 1713 See Acts xv. 1. 671 Homily XVII