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DISCOURSE V OW IS IT THAT we have [883] a larger throng assembled here today? Surely, you have come together to demand that I keep my promise / you are here to receive the silver tried in the fire which I pledged to pay over to you. For as the Psalmist says: "The words of the Lord are pure words: silver tried by the fire, purged from the earth."2 Blessed be God because he has put in your hearts the yearning to hear words good for your souls. (2) When wine-tipplers get up each morning, they start their meddlesome probing to discover where they will find the day's drinking-bouts, carousals, parties, revels, and drunken brawls; they busy themselves searching for bottles, mixing bowls, and drinking cups. But when you get up each day, you go around asking where you will find exhortation and counsel, encouragement, and instruction , the kind of discourse which draws you to give glory to Christ. 1 The promise he will keep is not altogether clear from Discourse IV. "Tomorrow 's service" in 4.7.9 may have meant merely "the next service." "Today" need not necessarily mean the day after Disc. IV was delivered. One or more sermons may have been lost (cf. Introd. III 21). If a promise was made in Disc. IV it must have been vague: e.g., in 4.7.1 Chrysostom says: "Let then my battle with the Jews wait awhile. I did fight a skirmish of words with them today, but I said only what was enough to save our brothers from danger. Perhaps I said much more than that." What he had said was by way of condemning the Jews for observing their ritual at the wrong time and place. He will continue this general theme in Discourse V by showing that they will never have the right place because their temple will never be rebuilt, they will never recover their sacrifice, priesthood, or kings. This could be the fulfillment of his promise. 2 Ps 11 (12).7 (LXX). 97 98 ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM This makes me the more eager to hold fast to my topic and, from the fullness of my heart, to keep the promises I have made. (3) My battle against the Jews did come to a fitting end. The monument marking their rout has been set up, the victory crown belongs to me, and I have captured the prize I sought from my previous discourse. For the task I had undertaken was to prove that what the Jews now do by way of ritual transgresses and violates the Law. It was my desire to show that in these rites we have men doing battle with God, creatures waging war against him. And with God's help, I did give precise proof of this. For even if the Jews were going to recover their own city, if they were about to return to their old commonwealth and way of life and see their temple rebuilt-an event which will never come to pass-even so, they have no defense for their present practices.3 (4) The three boys in Babylon, Daniel, and all the others who spent their days in captivity kept expecting to recover their own city and, after seventy years, to see the soil of their fatherland; they kept looking forward to living again under their ancestrallaws.4 They had a clear pledge and promise that this would come to pass. However, until the prGmise was fulfilled, until they did return, they did not dare to perform any of the prescribed rites the way the Jews of today do.5 (5) This is the way you, too, can silence and gag the Jews. Ask the Jew why he observes the fast when he has no city. If he shall say: "Because I expect to recover my city," you say to him: "Stop fasting, then, until you do recover it. Certainly, until the holy ones of old returned to their own fatherland, they practiced none of the 3 This does summarize much that was said in Discourse IV, of which there are further echoes in the present homily, which also has much in common with the Demonstration. 4 Cf. Dn 1-6. The modern reader must realize that the stories in these chapters are apocalyptic. God possesses the attributes revealed in them; those faithful to his Law and confident in his power may be assured .he will deliver them from their danger...

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