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

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ence for the Lord’s honour 1337 nor fear of His threats, what kind of defence will they have<br />

for their blasphemy? It is for them to make up their mind about their own action or even<br />

now to change it. For my own part I would pray most earnestly that the good God will make<br />

His peace rule in the hearts of all, 1338 so that these men who are swollen with pride <strong>and</strong> set<br />

in battle array against us may be calmed by the Spirit of meekness <strong>and</strong> of love; <strong>and</strong> that if<br />

they have become utterly savage, <strong>and</strong> are in an untamable state, He will grant to us at least<br />

to bear with long suffering all that we have to bear at their h<strong>and</strong>s. In short “to them that<br />

have in themselves the sentence of death,” 1339 it is not suffering for the sake of the Faith<br />

which is painful; what is hard to bear is to fail to fight its battle. <strong>The</strong> athlete does not so<br />

much complain of being wounded in the struggle as of not being able even to secure admission<br />

into the stadium. Or perhaps this was the time for silence spoken of by Solomon the<br />

wise. 1340 For, when life is buffeted by so fierce a storm that all the intelligence of those who<br />

are instructed in the word is filled with the deceit of false reasoning <strong>and</strong> confounded, like<br />

an eye filled with dust, when men are stunned by strange <strong>and</strong> awful noises, when all the<br />

world is shaken <strong>and</strong> everything tottering to its fall, what profits it to cry, as I am really crying,<br />

to the wind?<br />

1337 <strong>The</strong> Benedictine version for τὰς τιμὰς τοῦ κυρίου is honorem quem Dominus tribuit Spiritui. <strong>The</strong><br />

reading of one ms. is τὰς φωνάς. <strong>The</strong>re is authority for either sense of the genitive with τιμή, i.e. the honours<br />

due to the Lord or paid by the Lord.<br />

1338 cf. Col. iii. 15.<br />

1339 2 Cor. i. 9.<br />

1340 Eccl. iii. 7.<br />

Enumeration of the illustrious men in the <strong>Church</strong> who in their writings have…<br />

245

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