Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

makes it out of its wits like wine. Drunkenness, too, is sorrow, and drowns our intelligence.
Another drunkenness is needless fear. In a word, whatever passion makes the soul beside
herself may be called drunkenness.…Dost thou know Whom thou art ordained to receive
as thy guest? He Who has promised that He and His Father will come and make their abode
with thee. 629 Why do you allow drunkenness to enter in, and shut the door on the Lord?
Why allow the foe to come in and occupy your strongholds? Drunkenness dare not receive
the Lord; it drives away the Spirit. Smoke drives away bees, and debauch drives away the
gifts of the Spirit.
Wilt thou see the nobility of fasting? Compare this evening with to-morrow evening:
thou wilt see the town turned from riot and disturbance to profound calm. Would that today
might be like to-morrow in solemnity, and the morrow no less cheerful than to-day.
May the Lord Who has brought us to this period of time grant to us, as to gladiators and
wrestlers, that we may shew firmness and constancy in the beginning of contests, and may
reach that day which is the Queen of Crowns; that we may remember now the passion of
salvation, and in the age to come enjoy the requital of our deeds in this life, in the just
judgment of Christ.” 630
Homily IV. on the giving of thanks (περὶ εὐχαριστίας), is on text 1 Thess. v. 16. Our
Lord, it is remarked, wept over Lazarus, and He called them that mourn blessed. How 631
is this to be reconciled with the charge “Rejoice alway”? “Tears and joy have not a common
origin. On the one hand, while the breath is held in round the heart, tears spontaneously
gush forth, as at some blow, when an unforeseen calamity smites upon the soul. Joy on the
other hand is like a leaping up of the soul rejoicing when things go well. Hence come different
appearances of the body. The sorrowful are pale, livid, chilly. The habit of the joyous and
cheerful is blooming and ruddy; their soul all but leaps out of their body for gladness. On
all this I shall say that the lamentations and tears of the saints were caused by their love to
God. So, with their eyes ever fixed on the object of their love, and from hence gathering
greater joy for themselves, they devoted themselves to the interests of their fellow-servants.
Weeping over sinners, they brought them to better ways by their tears. But just as men
standing safe on the seashore, while they feel for those who are drowning in the deep, do
not lose their own safety in their anxiety for those in peril, so those who groan over the sins
of their neighbours do not destroy their own proper cheerfulness. Nay, they rather increase
it, in that, through their tears over their brother, they are made worthy of the joy of the
Lord. Wherefore, blessed are they that weep; blessed are they that mourn; for they shall
629 cf. John xiv. 23.
630 The sermon seems to have been preached at the beginning of Lent, when Cæsarea was still suffering from
Carnival indulgences. Homily II. may be placed at a similar season in another year.
631 § 4.
Homiletical.
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