HOMILIES AGAINST PAGANS AND JEWS—CONDITION OF THE JEWS IN
ANTIOCH—JUDAISING CHRISTIANS—HOMILIES ON CHRISTMAS DAY
AND NEW YEAR’S DAY—CENSURE OF PAGAN SUPERSTITIONS. A.D.
386, 387.
In dealing with the Arians, the contest mainly turned, as has been
pointed out in the previous chapter, on the interpretation of
Scripture; but in doing battle with Pagans and Jews, with the former
especially, Chrysostom had of course to take up a different attitude.
The method which he adopts towards the Jew is to demonstrate the
fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy in the person and work of Jesus
Christ, and to insist on the consequent abrogation of the Jewish
dispensation. The ground on which he mainly relies against the Pagan is
the miraculous establishment and progress of Christianity in the face
of unprecedented opposition, as an evidence of its divine origin.
The treatise addressed to Jews and Gentiles combined exhibits a
powerful application of both these methods.[234] “He would first of
all enter the lists against the Pagan. And here caution was requisite.
He would not say, when the Pagan asked how the divinity of Christ was
to be proved, that Christ created the world, raised the dead, healed
the sick, expelled demons, promised a resurrection and a heavenly
kingdom, because these were the very questions upon which they joined
issue. But he would start from a ground which even the Pagan would
accept: no one would venture to deny that the Christian religion was
founded by Jesus Christ, and from this simple fact he would undertake
to prove that Christ could be no less than God. No mere man could, in
so short a time, with such feeble instruments, and in the face of such
opposition arising from inveterate custom and forms of faith, have
subdued so many and such various races of mankind.[235] How contrary
to the common course of events, that He who was despised, weak, and
put to an ignominious death, should now be honoured and adored in all
regions of the earth! Emperors who have made laws, and altered the
constitution of states, who have ruled nations by their nod, in whose
hands was the power of life and death, pass away; their images are in
time destroyed, their actions forgotten, their adherents despised,
their very names buried in oblivion:—present grandeur is succeeded by
nothingness. In the case of Jesus Christ all is reversed. During his
lifetime, all seemed failure and degradation, but a career of glory
and triumph succeeded his death.[236] Before his death Judas betrayed
him, St. Peter denied him; after his death, St. Peter and the rest
of the Apostles traversed the world to bear witness to his truth,
and thousands of people have died rather than utter what the chief
of the Apostles once uttered from fear of a maid-servant’s taunts.
‘His rest shall be glorious:’—this was true, not only of the Master,
but also of his disciples. In that most royal city of Rome, monarchs,
prefects, generals, flocked to the sepulchres of the fisherman and the
tent-maker; and in Constantinople they who wore the diadem were content
to lay their bones in the porch of the Apostles’ Church, and to become
as it were the door-keepers of humble fishermen.[237] Christ had made
the most ignominious death, and the instrument of it, glorious. It
was written, ‘Cursed is he that hangeth on a tree,’ yet the cross had
become the object of desire and love; it was more honourable than the
whole world, for the imperial crown itself was not such an ornament
to the head: princes and subjects, men and women, bond and free, all
delighted to wear it imprinted on the brow. It was conspicuous on the
Holy Table, and in the ceremony of ordaining priests; in houses, in
market-places, by the wayside, and on mountain sides, on couches and
on garments, on ships, on drinking vessels, in mural decorations, the
cross was depicted. Whence all this extraordinary honour to a piece of
wood, unless the power of him who died upon it was divine?”[238]
Christ had declared that the gates of hell should not prevail against
his Rock-founded Church. How far had this prediction been verified? In
a short space of time Christianity had abolished ancestral customs,
plucked up deeply-rooted habits, overturned altars and temples, caused
unclean rites and ceremonials to vanish away. Christian altars had been
erected in Italy, in Persia, in Scythia, in Africa. “What say I? even
the British Isles, which lie outside the boundaries of our world and
our sea, in the midst of the ocean itself, have experienced the power
of the Word, for even there churches and altars have been set up.”
Thus the world had been, so to say, cleared of thorns, and purified to
receive the seed of godliness. What a proof of superhuman power! The
progress of the Church had been encountered by customs which were not
only venerated but pleasant; yet these traditions, handed down through
long lines of ancestors, were abandoned for a religion far more severe
and laborious, a religion which substituted fasting for enjoyment,
poverty for money-getting, temperance for lasciviousness, meekness for
wrath, benevolence for ill-will. Men who had long been enervated
by luxury, and accustomed to the broad way, had been converted into
the narrow, rugged path, not by tens or twenties, but by multitudes
under the whole heaven. By whose agency had these mighty results been
wrought? By a few unlearned obscure men, without illustrious ancestors,
without money, without eloquence.[239] And all this in the teeth
of opposition of the most varied kind. For where the new doctrine
penetrated, it excited divisions and strife; children were set at
variance with parents, brother with brother, husband with wife, master
with servant. Yet, in spite of persecution and disruption of social
ties, the new faith grew and flourished. How could such unprecedented
marvels have come to pass but through the divine power, and in
obedience to that Word of God which is creative of actual results? Just
as, when He said “Let the earth bring forth grass,” the wilderness
became a garden, so when the expression of His purpose had gone forth,
“I will build my Church,” straightway the process began, and though
tyrants and people, sophists and orators, custom and religion, had been
arrayed against it, yet the Word, going forth like fire, consumed the
thorns, and scattered the good seed over the purified soil.[240]
In attempting to convince the Jews of the divinity of Jesus Christ by
proving the exact fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy in his person
and work, Chrysostom displays that intimate familiarity with every part
of Scripture which is his eminent characteristic.
The passages are, on the whole, most judiciously selected; some
corresponding passage from the New Testament being placed, if possible,
against each, with a careful attention even to verbal parallelism. For
instance, against the passage in Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord shall
_rest_ upon him,” he places the verse from St. John i. 32, “I beheld
the Spirit descending like a dove, and it _abode_ upon him.”[241] He
refers each event in Christ’s life, his Incarnation, his rejection by
the Jews, his betrayal, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, the descent
of the Holy Ghost, and the beginning of the Apostolic labours to some
corresponding prediction.[242] He sometimes, however, falls into the
error, less common in him than in other patristic interpreters, of
seeing direct references to the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom, to
the almost total exclusion of any other meaning. For instance, such
passages as “Their sound is gone out into all lands,” “That thou mayest
make princes in all lands,” are cited as if exclusively predictive of
the propagation of Christianity. In such words as “The virgins that be
her fellows shall bear her company,” he sees a distinct foreshadowing
of the honour to be paid to virginity under Christianity.[243] In other
passages, again, he is misled by ignorance of the Hebrew, and a too
literal adherence to the Septuagint translation. In the passage, “I
will make thy officers peace,” thine “exactors” being rendered in the
Septuagint bishops or overseers, he extracts from this word a direct
reference to the Christian priesthood.[244] “He shall descend like rain
into a fleece of wool” is interpreted as significant of the extreme
secrecy of Christ’s birth, and the noiseless gentleness with which his
kingdom was founded.[245] Whereas, the strict translation being “like
rain upon new-mown grass,” it is rather illustrative of the fruitful
results of Christ’s advent.[246]
Such occasional defects, however, will not prevent us from according
the praise due to the great skill with which, on the whole, he has
worked out this method of argument, and the noble vindication of
Christianity in this treatise has seldom if ever been surpassed by
Chrysostom elsewhere. The several parts of his argument are unfolded in
orderly procession, and expressed with an eloquence at once luminous
and earnest, and which, though at times copious and ornate, does not
degenerate into the mere redundancy, still less into the affectations
and flowery artifices, of rhetoric; he is always real and earnest, he
is sometimes sublime.
Closely connected with this treatise in subject, and not far distant
in time of composition, are the Homilies directed against Jews and
Judaising Christians. The Jews, ever since the time of Antiochus the
Great, were a considerable body in Antioch, and over the Christian
population exerted a seriously pernicious influence. Their position,
indeed, in the Empire at large had been increasingly favourable from
the reign of Hadrian to Constantine. Though they were not permitted
to approach Jerusalem, yet the worship in their synagogues was freely
tolerated; they were permitted to circumcise their own children though
not the children of proselytes; and their religious organisation
in the Empire was held together under the sway of the Patriarch of
Tiberias.[247] After the recognition of Christianity by the Empire,
the Jews, as a natural consequence, were less favourably treated. The
statutes of Constantine and Constantius were severe. Those Jews who
attempted the life of a Christian were to be burned. No Christians were
to become Jews, under pain of punishment. Jews were forbidden to marry
Christian women or to possess Christian slaves. The national character
of the Jew seems to have deteriorated, as the race became more widely
dispersed, and as their wealth and importance increased. They were no
longer indeed so morosely and sullenly proud as when they gloried in
the possession of a holy city and distinct religious ordinances, and
a geographical position which isolated them from the rest of mankind,
but neither were their faith or morals so pure. Self-indulgence,
sensualism, and low cunning corrupted their life; a superstitious and
material cast of thought depraved their faith. Their habits harmonised
too well with that propensity to luxury and licentiousness which was
the besetting vice of the people of Antioch; their materialism worked
hand in hand with the prevailing Arianism, if, indeed, Arianism may
not be regarded as in some sort its product. Certainly, whenever
popular insurrections caused by religious dissensions occurred either
in Antioch or in Alexandria, the Jews ranged themselves on the Arian
side, as if the spirit and character of the Arian sect were the most
congenial to their own.[248]
Allowing for some exaggerations in the preacher, carried away by the
impulse of the moment, the invectives of Chrysostom must be permitted
to prove that the Jewish residents in Antioch were of a low and vicious
order. They seem to have been regarded by the common people with a
mixture of dislike and awe; the age was superstitious, and the Jews
availed themselves of superstitious terrors to make a livelihood,
especially through a kind of quackery in medicine. Their quarters
are denounced by Chrysostom as dens of robbers and habitations of
demons.[249] A whole day would not suffice to tell the tale of their
extortions, their thefts, their deceptions, their base methods of
traffic, such as the sale of amulets and charms.[250] Their priests
were no better than counterfeits, because they had not gone through all
the elaborate rites of consecration. They had no sacred ephod, no Urim
and Thummim, no altar, no sacrifice, no prophecy.
The Festival of Trumpets was a scene of great debauchery, more
iniquitous than the proceedings in the theatre. Any catechumen who was
detected attending that festival was to be excluded from the porch of
the church; any communicant so detected was to be denied access to the
Holy Table. The booths erected at the Feast of Tabernacles were like
taverns, crowded with flute-players and ill-conditioned women. The
synagogues were frequented by the most abandoned characters of both
sexes, and dancers, actors, and charioteers were largely drawn from
the Jewish population. In spite of this, many Christians were seduced
to attend the Jewish festivals and fasts, and even to swear Jewish
oaths in the synagogues, under the superstitious impression that such
were more solemn and binding than any Christian forms. He had himself,
only three days ago, rescued a woman being dragged off, against her
will, to take an oath of this kind, by a man who professed himself
a Christian. On stopping to rebuke him in the sternest language,
Chrysostom was shocked to learn that the practice was extremely common
among Christians. He passionately exhorts the faithful to reclaim their
deluded brethren from these pernicious ways:—If twelve Apostles had
converted the larger part of the world, it would be a shame that the
Christians, who were the majority in the population of Antioch, should
fail to allay the plague of Judaism. What treason! what inconsistency,
that they, who worshipped the Crucified One, should associate with
the race which crucified Him.[251] The synagogue ought not to be an
object of reverence because it contained the Books of the Law and the
Prophets, but rather of abhorrence, because those who possessed the
Prophets refused to recognise Him of whom their writings spoke. Was the
temple of Serapis holy because it contained the Septuagint, deposited
there by Ptolemy Philadelphus?[252]
Christians seem to have attended Jewish services much in that spirit
of curiosity with which Protestants sometimes go to Roman Catholic
churches, to be entertained by music, incense, and a grand ritual. They
maintained that the effect was solemnising; but, observes Chrysostom,
the value of the offering to God depends not on the nature of the
offering, but on the heart of the offerers. The worshippers sanctify
the temple, not the temple the worshippers. You would not touch or
address the murderer of your own son, and will you court the society
of those who slew the Son of God?[253] Let them consider that cry
uttered by the deacon from time to time in the celebration of the holy
mysteries: “Discern one another.”[254] So let them do. “If you discern
any one Judaising, hold him fast and expose him, that you may not
yourself participate in the danger.”
“In military camps, if any soldier be detected sympathising with the
barbarian or the Persian, not only does he himself run a risk of his
life, but also any of his comrades who were conscious of his defection,
but did not represent it to the general. Since, then, you are the army
of Christ, search diligently whether any stranger has intruded into
your camp, and expose him, not that we may put him to death, but that
we may punish him, deliver him from his error and impiety, and render
him wholly our own; but if you willingly conceal him, be well assured
that you will sustain the same punishment with him.” This homily is
concluded by a solemn adjuration: “In the words of Moses, I call heaven
and earth to record against you this day, that if any of you now
present or absent attend the Feast of Trumpets, or enter a synagogue,
or observe a fast, or a sabbath, or any Jewish rite whatever, I am
guiltless of your blood. These discourses will rise up for both of
us in the great day of our Lord: if you shall have obeyed them, they
will give you confidence; but if otherwise, they will stand as severe
accusers against you.” Therefore he implored them to institute the most
rigorous search after the Judaising brethren. When their mother the
Church had lost a child, it was criminal to conceal either the captor
or the captured; let the men seek out the men, the women the women, the
slave his fellow-servant, and present the culprit to him before the
next assembly.
Another Judaising practice, which he condemns in the severest
language, was the custom of keeping Easter on the 14th day of the
month, according to Jewish calculation, irrespective of the week-day
on which it might fall; thus sometimes feasting when the rest of
the Church was fasting, or fasting when the rest was feasting. The
existence of such a practice at this time was a remarkable instance of
the increasing influence of the Jews in Antioch and the neighbouring
regions. For up to the year A.D. 276, the Antiochene patriarchate had
observed Easter in conformity with the Catholic usage; the adoption
of the Jewish calculation was made after that date, when most of the
rest of Christendom had dropped it, and was therefore the subject of
special condemnation at the Council of Nice.[255] Such a discrepancy
in practice was regarded as a most serious rent in the unity of the
Church. Chrysostom denounces it especially as a contumacious disregard
of the Council of Nice, which had distinctly ordained by the mouths
of three hundred bishops that Easter should be kept at one and the
same time throughout Christendom. He implores the Judaisers to desist
from the idle inquiry into the exact dates of seasons; to follow the
Church, and to place harmony and charitable peace before all things.
It was impossible, in fact, to fix the actual day on which Christ
rose; therefore let them observe that day which the Church through her
bishops had prescribed. It was a less offence to fast on the wrong
day than to rend the unity of the Church. “How long halt ye between
two opinions?” if Judaism be true, embrace it altogether, and “cease
to annoy the Church; if Christianity be true, abide in it, and follow
it.”[256]
The Jews themselves could not, in Chrysostom’s opinion, legally perform
sacrifices, or observe festivals of any kind. Jerusalem was the only
place in which such observances were commanded; and Jerusalem being
destroyed they became void.[257] They had been suspended during
the Captivity, to be resumed when the people returned to the holy
soil. If the Jews of the present day also expected restoration, let
them likewise suspend their rites; but, in fact, this never would
occur. The Temple never would be rebuilt, and restoration was a
vain hope. Jerusalem was to be trodden down of Gentiles till the
times of the Gentiles were fulfilled; and by the fulfilment of those
times Chrysostom understood the end of the world.[258] All four
Captivities of the Jews—their subjection to the Egyptians, Babylonians,
Antiochus, and the Romans—had been distinctly foretold. To each of
the _first three_ prophecy had assigned a limit; but to the last
_none_—it reached into all time; there was no sign or intimation of
any probable cessation.[259] The revolt of the Jews under Hadrian,
and under Constantine,[260] had ignominiously failed; the attempt of
Julian to rebuild the Temple had been frustrated by portents: fire
issuing from the foundations had consumed some of the workmen, and
scared the spectators; the naked substructions, left just as they
were when the work was abandoned, presented a visible monument of the
divinely-arrested work.[261]
The eager exhortation reiterated in his last homily, that the faithful
should seek out their brethren who had been caught in the Jewish
snare, is a powerful rush of indignant eloquence, and a wholesome
admonition on the responsibility of all for the spiritual welfare of
their fellow-men. “Say not within thyself, I am a man of the world;
I have a wife and children; these matters belong to the priests and
the monks. The Samaritan in the parable did not say, Where are the
priests? where are the Pharisees? where are the Jewish authorities?
but seized the opportunity of doing a good deed, as if it was a great
advantage. In like manner, when you see any one requiring bodily or
spiritual care, say not within thyself, Why did not this or that man
attend to him?—but deliver him from his infirmity. If you find a piece
of gold in your path, you do not say, Why did not some other person
pick it up? but you eagerly anticipate others by seizing it yourself.
Even so, in the case of your fallen brethren, consider that you have
found a treasure in them and give the attention necessary for their
wants.” He besought them not to proclaim the calamity of the Church by
idly gossiping about the numbers of those who had observed some Jewish
custom, but to search them out; and, if necessary, to enter their
houses, tax them with their guilt, and solemnly warn them against the
iniquity of consorting with the enemies of Jesus Christ. “Listen not
to any excuses which they may plead on the ground of cures effected by
the Jews; expose their impostures, their incantations, their amulets,
their charms, their drugs.” Even if they really effected cures, it
would be better to die and save the soul, than resort to the enemies of
Christ to heal the body. Let them rather appeal to the assistance of
the martyrs and saints who were His friends, and had great confidence
in addressing Him. “Why did the Son of Man Himself enter the world? Was
it not to seek and to save wandering sheep? This do thou, according to
thy ability. I will not cease to speak, whether you hear or whether you
forbear. If you heed not, I shall do it, but with grief; if you listen
and obey, I shall do it, but with joy.”[262]
It is difficult for us, in our altered position towards Jews and
heretics of all kinds, to sympathise with the vehemence of Chrysostom’s
feelings and language. Yet there can be no doubt that such dabbling,
if the word may be used, in the customs, the observances, the ritual of
an obsolete dispensation, and a debased people, did seriously imperil
purity of faith and morals, and unity of discipline, in the Christian
Church.
Towards dissentient Christians, not infected by Judaism, Chrysostom
adopts a milder tone, and indeed restrains the immoderation of
party feeling in others with wholesome censure. He laments[263] the
distracted state of the Church in Antioch, which was now divided
into the three sections of Meletians, Eustathians, and Arians; but
he denounces the practice of anathematising. It was uncharitable and
presumptuous. St. Paul anathematised once only; the casting off of a
heretic ought to be as painful as plucking out an eye or cutting off
a limb. A holy man before their times, one of the successors of the
Apostles, and judged worthy of the honour of martyrdom, used to say,
that to assume the right to anathematise was as great a usurpation of
Christ’s authority as for a subject to put on the Imperial purple.
In dealing with erring brethren, the Christian should “in meekness
instruct those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will
give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” “If a man
accepts your counsel and confesses his error, you have saved him, and
delivered your own soul also; but if he will not, do you nevertheless
continue to testify with long-suffering and kindness, that the Judge
may not require his soul at thy hand. Hate him not; turn not from him;
persecute him not, but catch him in the net of sincere and genuine
charity. The person whom you anathematise is either living or dead;
if living, you do wrong to cut off one who may still be converted;
if dead, much more you do wrong; ‘to his own master he standeth or
falleth;’ and ‘who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been
his counsellor?’ You may anathematise heretical dogmas, but towards
the persons who hold them show the greatest possible forbearance, and
pray for their salvation.”
In the winter of 386, Chrysostom preached a sermon on Christmas Day,
which, though not distinguished by any unusual merit, possesses an
interest of its own. We learn from it, that this festival was not
originally celebrated in the Eastern Church; it had been adopted from
the West, and, in Antioch at least, less than ten years before the year
of Chrysostom’s discourse. It had gradually increased in popularity,
and this year Chrysostom rejoiced to observe that the church was
crowded to overflowing. Rome had fixed the observance of the 25th of
December, and this was the day kept throughout Christendom from Thrace
to Gades; but the propriety of the date was much debated in the Eastern
Churches, and the observance of the festival at all was considered by
some as a questionable innovation. Chrysostom energetically vindicates
the dignity of the festival and the correctness of the date.[264] It
was the metropolis, so to say, of all other festivals, and as such
it was the most solemn and awful. For the incarnation of Christ was
the necessary condition of all the succeeding events of His career
on earth, and in the profundity of its mystery it exceeded them all.
That Christ should die was a natural consequence of human nature once
assumed; but that He, being God, should have stooped so low as to
assume that nature, was a mystery unfathomable to the mind of man!
“Wherefore I specially welcome and belove this day, and desire to make
you partakers in my affection. I pray and implore you all to come with
zeal and alacrity, every man first purging his own house, to behold
our Lord wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger; for if we
come with faith, we shall indeed behold Him lying in the manger; for
this Table supplies the place of the manger, and here also the body
of the Lord will lie, not wrapped in swaddling clothes, but invested
on all sides by the Holy Spirit. The initiated (or the baptized)
understand what I mean.”[265] But he warns his hearers against crowding
in a tumultuous and disorderly manner to partake of the holy feast.
“Approach with fear and trembling, with fasting and prayer, not making
an uproar, hustling and jostling one another: consider, O man, what
kind of sacrifice thou art about to handle; consider that thou, who
art dust and ashes, dost receive the body and blood of Christ.”[266]
This irreverent conduct at the reception of the Eucharist frequently
provoked the indignation and censure of Chrysostom. It occurred
especially at the greater festivals, because on those days multitudes
received the Eucharist who did not enter the church at other times.
“How,” he cries in the homily on the Epiphany, “shall we teach you what
is necessary concerning your soul, immortality, the kingdom of heaven,
the long-suffering and mercy of God, and a future judgment, when you
come to us only once or twice in the year?” Many of those who pushed
and kicked one another in the eagerness of each to get foremost to the
holy Table, withdrew from the church before the final thanksgiving.
“What,” Chrysostom cries, “when Christ is present, and the angels are
standing by, and this awe-inspiring Table is spread before you, and
your brethren are still partaking of the mysteries, will you hurry
away?” Too often they who thronged the church on these great occasions
led worldly and even vicious lives; they hurried away before the sacred
feast was ended, like Judas, to do the devil’s work.[267] Such is one
among many examples which may be elicited from Chrysostom’s works
of that Pagan grossness and superstition which was mingled with the
faith and the most solemn observances of Christianity. The vitality
of superstitious customs, the subtlety with which they have grafted
themselves upon Christianity, the tenacity with which they have clung
to men in spite of it late into modern times, is indeed extraordinary;
but for centuries their existence and influence were not appreciably if
at all affected by Christianity. A half Oriental, half Greek, partly
Jewish population, like that of Antioch, whose purer feelings and
nobler reason were seriously impaired by habits of licentiousness and
luxury, was naturally liable to superstitious terrors, and addicted
to superstitious practices of all kinds. Chrysostom is frequently
reproving his people for being anxious and afraid where there was no
cause, while they abandoned themselves to vice, the only worthy cause
for fear, without scruple or alarm. If Christmas Day was observed as a
Christian festival, though without becoming reverence, New Year’s Day
was given up to riotous festivity, thoroughly Pagan in character. The
houses were festooned with flowers, the inns were scenes of the most
disgraceful intemperance; men and women drinking undiluted wine there
from an early hour in the morning; auguries and omens were consulted
by which the horoscope of the year was cast. Good luck in the coming
year was supposed to depend (how is not clearly stated) on the manner
in which the first day was spent. This is the theme of the preacher’s
righteous indignation. The real happiness of the year was determined,
not by the observation of particular feasts, but by the amount of
goodness which we put into it. Sin was the only real evil, virtue the
only real good; therefore, if a man practised justice, almsgiving,
and prayer, his year could not fail to be propitious; for he who had
a clean conscience carried about with him a perpetual holy day, and
without this, the most brilliant and joyous festival was obscured by
darkness. “When thou seest the year completed, thank God that He has
brought thee safely to the conclusion of the cycle: prick thine heart,
reckon up the time of thy life, and say to thyself, The days are
hurrying along, the years are being fulfilled, I have advanced far on
the road, the judgment is at the doors, my life is pressing on towards
old age: well! what good have I done? shall I depart hence destitute
and empty of all righteousness?”[268]
There is a fuller notice, in some of his homilies on the Epistle to
the Ephesians, of the many gross and senseless forms of superstition
which prevailed even among the communicants in the Christian Church.
He laments the decay of discipline, by which a more rigorous scrutiny
was once instituted into the characters of those who came to the holy
feast. If any one were to examine the lives of all those who partake
of the mysteries on Easter Day, he would find amongst them persons
who consulted auguries, who used drugs, and omens, and incantations;
even the adulterer, curser, and drunkard, dared to partake. Iniquitous
men had crept into the Church, the highest places of command were
bought and sold, till the pure livers had betaken themselves to the
mountains to escape from the contamination.[269] Some of the vulgar
superstitions of the day were ludicrously puerile. “This or that man
was the first to meet me as I walked out; consequently innumerable
ills will certainly befall me: that confounded servant of mine, in
giving me my shoes, handed me the left shoe first; this indicates dire
calamities and insults: as I stepped out, I started with the left foot
foremost; this too is a sign of misfortune: my right eye twitched
upwards as I went out; this portends tears.”[270] To strike the woof
with the comb in a particular way, the braying of a donkey, the crowing
of a cock, a sudden sneeze,—all these were indications of something
or other. “They suspect everything, and are more in bondage than if
they were slaves many times over. But let not us, brethren, fear such
things, but laughing them to scorn as men who live in the light, and
whose citizenship is in heaven, and who have nothing in common with
this earth, let us regard one thing only as terrible,—and that is,
sin.”[271]