Homilies on Genesis, 1–17

Homily 11

HOMILY 11 On the theme that it is necessary to place great store by virtue and to imitate the saints, who while being of the same nature as ourselves live up to its precise obligations; and that sloth on our part will have no excuse. AM AWARE THAT in these past days I have challenged your thinking with some quite profound notions, (gla) hence today I intend to put to you a simpler instruction . You see, just as the body wasted by fasting needs a slight respite so that once more to the same degree it may gird itself for the rigors of fasting at the prompting of a renewed enthusiasm, so too the soul needs to stop and rest. After all, you can't always be straining or always resting; instead, you must do one at this time, the other at that time, and in this fashion regulate the condition of the soul and the impulses of the body. I mean, just as unremitting tension leads to wearing out through effort and to collapse, so, too, constant resting brings on sloth. You could see this happening in the case both of the soul and of the body. Accordingly, moderation in all things is excellent.I (2) This very thing the God of all teaches us, even through the very creatures he produced for our sustenance. (glb) To help you grasp this, let us take the example of the day and the night-I mean light and darkness. You see, when he determined the day for the labor of the human race, on the one hand, and, on the other, the dark of night for their rest and pause from toil, he set measures and limits to each, with the result that we all enjoy the benefit from this arrangement. As 1. A lesson learnt by bitter experience in Chrysostom's case, as we have seen (cf. Homily 10, note 6). 143 144 ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM proof that the light is, after all, the appropriate time for the day's labor, listen to David's words: "People will go off to their work and their labor until evening."2 He well said "until evening ," since with the onset of evening light disappears: darkness falls to put the human race to sleep, gives rest to the weary body and repose to all its senses, and, just like an excellent nurse, refreshes all the faculties (gIC) from labor and effort by the care it provides. But when the period of night is completed, the arrival of the sun takes effect and awakens us: it provides our refreshed senses with an encounter with the sun's rays and leads us to embrace our customary employment with fresh and vital enthusiasm. (3) You can see this happening also in the seasons of the year: spring takes over from winter, and in the same way autumn succeeds the passing of summer, so that our bodies may find relief with the alternation of the mingling of the air, without, on the one hand, perishing through being frozen with ice beyond the normal, or, on the other hand, melting with excessive heat under the ferocity of summer. Accordingly , he ensures that we are adjusted to winter by the coming of autumn, and to summer by spring. (4) And if you had a mind to survey everything else with a right mind, you would find (gld) in all created things a certain order and reason, nothing being done idly or to no purpose. Likewise in the case of the plants springing from the earth you would notice it: the earth doesn't produce them all at once, nor is the one time suited to tending the plants growing from it; instead, the farmer knows the appropriate time, having learnt it from God's evident design, and he realizes when he must sow the seed, when plant the trees and the vine in the earth's bosom, when sharpen the sickle for harvesting, when pick the fruit of the vine and cut the bunches of grapes, and at what time pick the fruit of the olive trees. (g2a) And if you wanted to study everything in detail, you would find great wisdom also in people tilling the soil. And this can be seen not only on land but also at sea, where it is in fact possible to ob- HOMILY 11 serve in turn a remarkable wisdom...