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HOMILY VIII ESTERDAyl WE RETURNED FROM WAR, from a war and battle with the heretics. Our weapons were stained with blood, the sword of my discourse was red with gore. We did not strike down their bodies but we did destroy their arguments and "Every proud pretension which raises itself against the knowledge of God."2 For such is the kind of battle this is and, therefore, such is the nature of the weapons. Paul instructed us on both these points when he said: "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful before God for demolishing strongholds and destroying arguments and every proud pretension that raises itself against the knowledge of God."3 (2) It would be fitting to mention again the fortunes and misfortunes of war which occurred yesterday. At least it would benefit those who were not here then ifwe should again give an account of the battle lines, the conflict, the victory, the trophies of the enemy's rout. But I do not wish to make you more careless: So I shall pass over this account in the hope that those 1 Evidently the present homily was delivered on the day following the delivery of Hom.VII; it also follows Hom.VII in the older MSS and in the edition of Fronton du Duc, as Montfaucon tells us in Notice Il.l above. Chrysostom's description of his battle with the heretics as a bloody one is, of course, rhetorical exaggeration, as he immediately explains. 2 Cf. 2 Cor 10.5. 3 Cf. ibid. 4-5. Paul sees the preaching of the gospel as a warfare. Anything opposed to God and his ways can be called an enemy stronghold. The arguments are the fallacious arguments raised up against Paul's teaching. The knowledge of God is belief in and service of God according to the principles of the gospel, and their application to concrete cases. See J. O'Rourke, JBC 52:33. 4 To recapitulate yesterday's arguments might make more careless those who had preferred the chariot races to Chrysostom's homily and the mysteries. Therefore, the absentees must learn the contents of Hom.VII from those who were present. 212 HOMILY VIII 213 of you who did not come yesterday may feel stung by this loss and become more earnest to hear again, one after another, the topics I shall touch upon today. If anyone of yesterday's absentees is earnest and alert, he will find out what I said then from those who were here. Certainly, those who heard me showed such enthusiasm that they went home only after they had listened to my every word and had let nothing I said escape them. (3) Therefore, you will find out what I had to say from them. But what I have to say today I myself will tell you. I will put before you an objection which the sons ofthe heretics" have advanced against me. What is this objection? Yesterdat I was discussing the power of the only begotten and I showed that his power is equal to the power ofthe Father who begot him. And I spent many a word on this subject. Although they1 were stunned and confounded by the arguments I gave, they have now advanced against me a gospel text spoken in a different place, a text which they suspected had also been spoken with a contradictory meaning. They raised their objection by saying: "Indeed, it is written: 'But as for sitting at my right hand and at my left, that is not mine to give. That is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.' "8 (4) I again give your loving assembly the same exhortation which I always give. Today I warn and advise you not to go 5 "Sons of the heretics" may mean disciples of the heretics or members of some Anomoean guild or association. This conjecture is based on the expression "sons of the prophets" found in the "prediction-fulfillment" stories ofe.g., 1 Kgs (3 Kgs) 20--42. As P. Ellis says OBC 10:41}, the men in these stories are not prophets but disciples or, as the Hebrew expression puts it, "sons ofthe prophets," i.e., men ofstrong Yahwistic faith who lived a common life in loose associations or guilds. See AgainstJudaizing Christians (FOTC 68.74--77 and notes). The "sons of the heretics" may have formed a similar heretical group among the Anomoeans. 6 The word...

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