424 WORKS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [HOMILY V.. his son, his own son, not so much with arbitrary or despotic authority as like a father, he says, " my son Timothy." The "committing," however, implies that it is to be diligently kept, and that it is not our own. For we did not obtain it for ourselves, but God conferred it upon us ; and not it only, but also " faith and a good con science." What He hath given us then, let us keep. For if He had not come, the faith had not been to be found, nor that pure life which we learn by education. As if he had said, " It is not I that charge thee, but He who chose thee," and this is meant by " the prophecies that went before on thee." Listen to them, obey them. And say, what chargest thou ? " That by them thou shouldest war a good warfare." They chose thee, that then for which they chose thee do thou, " war a good warfare." He named " a good warfare," since there is a bad warfare, of which he says, " As ye have yielded your mem bers instruments 1 to uncleanness and to in iquity." (Rom. vi. 19.) Those men serve under a tyrant, but thou servest under a King. And why calls he it a warfare ? To showhow mighty a contest is to be maintained by all, but es pecially by a Teacher ; that we require strong arms, and sobriety, and awakenedness, and con tinual vigilance : that we must prepare ourselves for blood and conflicts, must be in battle array, and have nothing relaxed. " That thou shouldest war in them," he says. For as in an army all do not serve in the same capacity, but in their different stations ; so also in the Church one has the office of a Teacher, another that of a dis ciple, another that of a private man. But thou art in this. And, because this is not sufficient, he adds, Ver. 19. " Holding faith, and a good con science." For he that would be a Teacher must first teach himself. For as he who has not first been a good soldier, will never be a general, so it is with the Teacher ; wherefore he says elsewhere, " Lest when I have preached to others, I my self should be a cast-away." (i Cor. ix. 27.) " Holding faith," he says, " and a good con science," that so thou mayest preside over others. When we hear this, let us not disdain the exhor tations of our superiors, though we be Teachers. For if Timothy, to whom all of us together are not worthy to be compared, receives com mands and is instructed, and that being himself in the Teacher s office, much more should we. " Which some having put away, have made ship wreck concerning the faith." 2 And this follows naturally. Forwhen the life is corrupt, it engen- 1 The word used, Rom. vi. 13, which may mean " arms " (b^Ao).2 [This is the order of the R. V.] ders a doctrine congenial to it, and from this circumstance many are seen to fall into a gulf of evil, and to turn aside into Heathenism. For that they may not be tormented with the fear of futurity, they endeavor to persuade their souls, that what we preach is false. And some turn aside from the faith, who seek out every thing by reasoning ; for reasoning produces ship wreck, while faith is as a safe ship. They then who turn aside from the faith must suffer shipwreck ; and this he shows by an ex ample. Ver. 20. " Ofwhom are Hymenaeus and Alex ander." And from them he would instruct us. You see how even from those times there have been seducing Teachers, curious enquirers, and men holding off from the faith, and searching out 3 by their own reasonings. As the shipwrecked man is naked and destitute of all things, so is he that falls away from the faith without resource, he knows not where to stand or where to stay himself, nor has he the advantage of a good life so as to gain anything from that quarter. For when the head is disordered, what avails the rest of the body? and if faith without a good life is unavailing, much more is the converse true. If God despises His own for our sakes, much more ought we to despise our own for His sake. 4 For so it is, where any one falls away from the faith, he has no steadiness, he swims this way and that, till at last he is lost in the deep. " Whom I delivered to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme ! " Thus it is blas phemy to search into divine things by our own reasonings. For what have human reasonings in common with them? But how does Satan instruct them not to blaspheme ? can he instruct others, who has not yet taught himself, but is a blasphemer still? It is not that "he should instruct," but that they should be instructed. It is not he that does it, though such is the result. As elsewhere he says in the case of the fornicator : " To deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh." Not that he may save the body, but " that the spirit may be saved." (i Cor. v. 5.) Therefore it is spoken impersonally. How then is this effected? As executioners, though themselves laden with numberless crimes, are made the correctors of others ; so it is here with the evil spirit. But why didst thou not punish them thyself, as thou didst that Bar-Jesus, and as Peter did Ananias, instead of delivering them to Satan ? It was not that they might be punished, but that they might 3 a!. " searching into divine Mysteries by." 4 i.e. ifGod regards not ourfaith, which is most towards Him of all we do, unless we perform the duties of life, much more ought we not to pride ourselves on any such duties, while we neglect that duty to Him. See St. Chrys. on Rom. iv. i, 2, Horn. viii.