Homilies on Genesis 18–45

Homily 24

HOMILY 24 "Now, Noe had three sons, Shem, Cham, japheth. Now, the earth was corrupt in God's eyes, and was filled with lawlessness. "I HE [206] BENEFIT THAT CAME to us from the good man Noe's genealogy yesterday was not by chance: we recognized the unusual style of a genealogy, and we saw the good man's praise sung not for the celebrity of his forebears but for the virtue of his own behavior, because of which he also received such a wonderful testimony from Sacred Scripture. "Noe was a just person," it said, remember; "he was faultless by comparison with his contemporaries. Noe pleased God."2 We concentrated all yesterday's instruction, you recall, on those brief words. It is, after all, the nature of the divine sayings to reveal great riches of thought in a few words, and to bestow untold treasure on those endeavoring to make a precise study of them. Hence, of course, I beseech you, let us never pass heedlessly by the contents of Sacred Scripture, but even if it is a list of names or an outline of history let us descry carefully the treasure hidden there. For this reason, after all, Christ himself said, "Search the Scriptures ."3 The sense of what is written cannot be discovered on the surface at any point but requires of us careful study if nothing of what is concealed in its depths is to escape our 1. Gen 6.10-11. 2. Gen 6.9. 3. John 5·39-something of a manifesto for Chrysostom and his school, who, unlike the Alexandrian tendency to use the scriptural text as a point of departure, instead stay with the text and subject it to close scrutiny, going below the surface to see what is concealed in its depths, as Chrysostom so often claims. For the difference between the two schools, see D. S. WallaceHadrill 's essay, "The Interpretation of the Biblical Record" in his Christian Antioch (Cambridge, 1982), ch. 2. 104 HOMILY 24 105 notice. Now, if the mere naming of our nature-I mean the word "human being" (avt}QwJto£)-provided the occasion of so much benefit yesterday, how much advantage will we gain if we approach the matters in Scripture with attention and alert mind? (2) We have, you see, a loving Lord, and when he sees us anxious to learn and demonstrating a keen appetite for understanding the divine sayings, he doesn't allow us to want for anything; instead, he immediately enlightens our thinking , bestows illumination from himself, and in his inventive wisdom he implants in our soul the whole of his trustworthy instruction. Hence, to encourage us to this practice and render us more enthusiastic, he declared worthy of blessing those who give evidence of such keen appetite when he said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, because they shall have their fill."4 See the wisdom in the instruction : he did not merely encourage through the blessing, but also in the phrase, "those who hunger and thirst after righteousness," he taught his listeners the great degree of enthusiasm with which they ought proceed to the study of the spiritual sayings. In other words, he is saying, just as those under the impulse of hunger hurry to food with unheard of enthusiasm, and those burning with great thirst come to drink with alacrity, in just the same way ought we, like people starving and thirsting, come to spiritual instruction. [207] Such people, you see, not only prove worthy of blessing but also secure the object of their desire. "They will have their fill," Scripture says, after all-that is, they will be filled: they will fulfil their spiritual desire. Since, therefore, we have such a Lord, so good, so generous, come now, let us have recourse to him and win favor from him so that he may out of fidelity to his own loving kindness enlighten our thinking with a view to discerning the force of the Holy Scriptures, while you for your part should with great enthusiasm, like people starving and thirsting, receive the spiritual teaching. After all, even though we are lowly and of no account, perhaps the good 4· Matt 5.6. 106 ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM Lord, anxious as he is to help, will take steps for your sake and for your salvation to provide us with a sermon in opening our mouth for...