For how are those drawn into the service of demons who were once of the company of Christians and partakers in the mysteries? Is it not by the desire of acquiring great wealth, and of becoming masters of what belongs to others? Upon receiving from godless and impious men promises either of official preferment or of wealth from royal treasuries, they quickly put off their religion as a garment. And such examples occurring in previous times, memory and tradition have preserved and handed down to us. And there are also instances which belong to our own generation, and are within the range of our experience. For when that emperor who all at once cast aside the character of a Christian, and disclosed the farce he had long been acting, himself shamelessly sacrificed to demons, and offered many gifts to those who were willing to do the same, how many left the church and ran to pagan altars! How many, taking the bait of emolument, swallowed with it the hook of apostasy, and branded with disgrace are wandering about among the towns, objects of hatred; pointed at as betrayers of Christ, for the sake of a little money; stricken from the list of Christians, as was Judas from the roll of the apostles; known by the name of apostate, as horses are known by the marks branded upon them; who simply allowed themselves to be drawn into the basest of all sins, and promptly followed the teacher of unhallowed and abominable impiety!
Thus, therefore, as the apostle says, covetousness is idolatry also, and is the root of all evils, generating untold iniquities. For as those who seek gold in the bowels of the earth say that the gold?bearing rock lies in great quantities at its very source and the place of its origin, and thence in veins, one running this way and another that, extends to a great distance, and is prolonged in many ramifications, somewhat as the roots of trees diverge from the trunk, so here, while I see many offshoots, I find them all bound together in one root, covetousness. Indeed, with no impropriety does a sermon against covetousness draw its illustration from gold. For gold I see the parricide taking violent steps against his father’s life, reverencing neither the hoary head, nor the paternal dignity, but vexed at the lengthening life of the old man. For seeing everything abundant at home, yet having no authority over what he sees, he longs to be master of this paternal wealth, and finds his father's authority irksome. At first he keeps silent, and represses the malady of covetousness in the depths of his soul; but after his desire has increased with time, and his soul is filled with it, all at once he lets the wickedness break forth, as waters break through their embankments. And thereafter he behaves insufferably to his father, all but driving him to the grave, while he is still alive and well. If he mounts his horse with agility, the son is astounded; if he eats heartily, his son murmurs. If he early arouses the servants to their duties, the son is grieved by the alertness and vigor of the old man. But if he gives away any of his property, or releases a servant from bondage, then indeed as silly and half-witted and living beyond the proper limits of life, and as a squanderer of what belongs to another, he must listen to every impious reproach, and be blackguarded like a drunkard, and upbraided for not dying soon enough.
This is your fruit, O abominable covetousness! Spurred on by you, the child becomes his parent’s enemy. You fill the earth with robbers and murderers, and the sea with pirates, cities with tumult, courts with false witnesses, false accusers, betrayers, advocates, and judges who incline whichever way you draw them. Covetousness is the mother of inequality, unmerciful, hating mankind, most cruel. On account of it, the life of men is full of inequality. Some being surfeited, loathe the abundance of their possessions, as one disgorges food which has been too greedily swallowed; while others are in peril through extreme hunger and want. Some lie down under gilded roofs and live in houses that are like small cities, adorned with sumptuous baths and chambers, and most extensive porches, and every kind of extravagance, while others have not the shelter of two boards. When they cannot live in open air, they either take refuge beside the furnaces of the baths, or, finding the attendants of the baths inhospitable, they dig into the dung like swine, and so contrive to get for themselves the needful warmth. Such is the marked disparity in the conditions of life, between men created equal in worth, and the cause of this disordered and anomalous state of things is nothing else than covetousness. One is. put to shame by his naked limbs; the other, beside having almost countless garments, dresses his walls with purple hangings. The poor man has not on his wooden table any bread to break; while the luxurious man sitting at his broad silver table is delighted with its glitter. How much more just it would be that the poor man should feast to the full on the other's luxury, and that the support of the needy should be the decoration of the rich man's table! One man, aged and unable to walk, or lame by reason of some outrageous mutilation, does not possess the ass that he needs to carry him about, while another does not know his droves of horses for their very multitude. One lacks oil to light his lamps, while another has a fortune simply in lamp-stands. One has only the ground for his bed, while he who is unreasonably rich, is dazzled by the splendor of his couch, with its silver balls and chains instead of cords. These are the results of insatiable covetousness. For had it not introduced inequality into life, these anomalous heights and depths would not have existed, nor would manifold misfortunes have made our life joyless and tearful. On account of covetousness men lose their natural friendship for one another, and whet their swords and array themselves against each other and like wild beasts fight one another with great ferocity. But how can one relate the consequences of these things? Massive walls are thrown down by engines, cities are taken, women led captives, and children enslaved. The land is wasted and ravaged, and the trees are warred against as though they were wrong-doers. There is great slaughter of those who are in the prime of life, and torrents of blood stream from the wretched corpses; and the wealth of the conquered is the victors' prize. There are, moreover, the lamentations of widows, the tears of orphans, who bewail at once both their fathers and their freedom.
He who was day before yesterday possessor of great wealth, stretches forth his right hand to beg a bit of bread, and he who had many slaves at the loom, and houses full of garments, now clothed in rags does the work of a slave, forced to carry water and scrape the dung from the stable, and to perform most menial duties. There are besides countless evils which it is impossible to compass all at once. But of all of these, the beginning and cause and root is greed, unrighteous love of the goods that belong to another. And if any one should extirpate this passion from the human heart, profound peace would be inevitably introduced into our life, and wars and tumults would be banished from among men, and all would return to the natural condition of love and friendliness. On this account, our Lord also carefully heals this disease, once declaring in his teachings; “Ye cannot serve God and mammon;” and on another occasion declaring wretched the rich man who was just about to die, even as he was picturing to himself the protracted enjoyment of luxury; and elsewhere teaching that that man was perfect who divided all that he had among the needy, and went over to a self-denying life, which is the mother and companion of virtue.
But I seem to hear, even though they are silent, those who are wont to say. such things as these to their teachers: “How shall we continue to live, if we do not care for the getting of money? and how shall we satisfy our needs? How are loans to be repaid, and how shall a gift be bestowed upon him who asks it, if we are all to follow your admonition and be poor?” This is the objection of an unbeliever, the speech of one devoid of understanding, who does not know that God is our Master, the director of our life, and that he himself furnishes the living creature what it needs, the means of getting both necessary food and needful clothing. For the providence of God is over all his works, and the misfortune of poverty never overtakes one who is rich in faith. By presenting one of the divine narratives in proof of what I now affirm I shall, I think, offer sufficient evidence of it.
In the history of the kings a widow woman is mentioned who, on account of her solitary condition was greatly oppressed. A greedy and churlish creditor pestered her, threatening to take away as pledges for her debts, her sons who were all she had left. And when the crisis in her affairs came and none of the rich had pity on her, she went to him who had humanity and faith. Now this was Elisha the prophet, a man poor in this world's goods, but abounding in immaterial wealth; an unworldly soul from among the plowmen, houseless, homeless, clad with but one garment; who had just had a legacy, and had received as his inheritance a cheap sheepskin and an invisible blessing, which fell from the chariot of fire. Yet he did not send away the suppliant disappointed, nor did he despair of helping her because he had not what she asked, nor did he utter any sordid and doubting words, as many would have done, such as, “And where am I to get money to pay your debt?” but, like a most excellent physician when there are no medicines to be had, by an unexpected device he found a remedy for the disease and said, “Woman, what have you in the house? Call to mind whether you have anything within, however small. For no one is so poor as to have absolutely nothing.” And when she replied that she had a cruse with a little oil remaining in it, he said, “Prepare me a multitude of vessels.” So she got them ready and filled them from the cruse. Thus the debt was paid to the money-lender, and the woman departed, having found a way out of her difficulties. For the very little oil which she had told the prophet she possessed, contrary to her expectation gushed forth and filled all the jars she had made ready, and it ceased to flow only when there was not another vessel to receive it. And the gift was commensurate with her need. That was indeed oil which no plant, but the mercies of God, produced. Buy yourselves this knowledge, if you can, you kings, rulers, men of wealth, from the rising to the setting sun. You who are rich in worldly wisdom, get the gift of the plowman prophet, which could not be taken away from him who had received it For the possessions which you so eagerly desire are beset with countless risks; thieves who break into houses, tyrants who confiscate, flatterers who plot, the sea that overwhelms, and the earth that quakes and yawns. Therefore let the right hand of God be the hope and treasury of men, — the hand that led his people out of Egypt, and in the desert provided abundance of good things, which brought Habakkuk to Daniel, and preserved Ishmael when he had been cast down from his mother’s arms; which provides for those of every generation; and which, finally, multiplied five barley loaves so that they equaled a great harvest, and one loaf supplied a thousand hungry men and filled a basket with fragments besides.
Now to our God be glory forever and ever. Amen.
IV. ON THE FESTIVAL OF THE CALENDS
YESTERDAY and to-day two feasts, not only unrelated and discordant, but wholly adverse and hostile to each other, have been celebrated. One is of the rabble without, gathering, in large sums, the money of mammon, and bringing in its train bargaining, vulgar and mean. The other is of holy and true religion, inculcating acquaintance with God, and the virtue of the purified life. And since many, preferring the luxury and absorption which arise from vanity, have left off going to church, come, let us with a discourse dispel from your souls this foolish and harmful delight, which as a sort of inflammation of the brain, with laughter and jesting, induces death. And in the treatment of the subject I may fittingly emulate Solomon. For in counseling young men to keep themselves from the snares of licentiousness, in order to make his own admonition cogent and effective, he personifies excess as an abandoned woman, and, by portraying all her wickedness, he thus exposes her to her dupes as deserving of their hatred. Wherefore I, too, after showing the vanity of the human heart in my discourse, will attempt to convert the lovers of pleasure from their misdirected zeal.
Of a public feast, this, then, should be the rule and law: first, that the festival have a distinct object; and then that the mirth be common to all; not that a part enjoy themselves and the rest be left in dejection and pain. For this latter condition is characteristic of war rather than of a feast, since it is inevitable that the victors parade in their victory, while the conquered bewail their misfortune. Now in these days, first, it is not clear for what object this festival is celebrated. For the many legends current concerning it are mutually subversive and disclose nothing certain. Then I see only a few making merry, while the mass of the people are melancholy, even though they try to conceal their dejection by a cheerful demeanor; while all is noise and tumult, the multitude heedlessly jostling one another.
It is a recollection of, and a rejoicing over, the new year. What kind of rejoicing, sir? First, then, I observe the manner of meeting, of what a sort it is, and how suspicious and unfriendly! With a voice feeble and faint the salutation drops from the lips. Then follows the kiss, as a prelude to the New Year’s present. The mouth indeed is kissed, but it is the coin that is loved, — the form of a sale and the deed of covetousness! But where there is pure and frank friendship, kindnesses are freely bestowed with no expectation of gain. So, while on this New Year’s festival many things are carried about everywhere, and money is given, there is no pretext of legitimate barter, nor does any one claim it. It is not a wedding, so that one might call it the prodigality of a haughty bridegroom. Nor am I able to call the expenditure almsgiving, since no poor man is relieved of his misfortune. One cannot call what takes place exchange, for the multitude exchange nothing with one another. But to call it a free gift is still more inappropriate, since the giving is by necessity. What, then, are we to call the festival, or the money spent in it? I cannot make out. But tell me, you who have been wearing yourselves out in preparing for it. Give an account of it, as we do of the festivals which are genuine and according to the will of God. We celebrate the birth of Christ, since at this time God manifested himself in the flesh. We celebrate the Feast of Lights (Epiphany), since by the forgiveness of our sins we are led forth from the dark prison of our former life into a life of light and uprightness. Again, on the day of the resurrection we adorn ourselves and march through the streets with joy, because that day reveals to us immortality and the transformation into a higher existence. Thus we keep these feasts and the rest of them in orderly succession. For every human event there is a reason, but that which lacks reasonable explanation and purpose is stuff and non sense. Oh, the absurdity of it! All stalk about open-mouthed, hoping to receive something from one another. Those who have given are dejected; those who have received a gift do not retain it, for the present is handed on from one to another, and he who received it from an inferior gives it to a superior. The money of this festival is as unstable as the ball of boys at play, for it is passed quickly on from me to my neighbor. It is but a new form of bribery and servility, having inevitably linked with it the element of necessity. For the more eminent and respectable man shames one into giving. A person of lower rank asks outright, and it all moves by degrees toward the pockets of the most eminent men. And you may see just such a thing as happens in the confluence of waters. There a streamlet melts into and mingles its waters with one larger than itself, and it in turn loses itself in one still more copious, and many small streams joined together become part of the neighboring river; this again, of another greater still, and so on, one joining another, until the last one brings the waters to rest in the depth and breadth of the sea.
This is misnamed a feast, being full of annoyance; since going out-of-doors is burdensome, and staying within doors is not undisturbed. For the common vagrants and the jugglers of the stage, dividing themselves into squads and hordes, hang about every house. The gates of public officials they besiege with especial persistence, actually shouting and clapping their hands until he that is beleaguered within, exhausted, throws out to them whatever money he has and even what is not his own. And these mendicants going from door to door follow one after another, and, until late in the evening, there is no relief from this nuisance. For crowd succeeds crowd, and shout, shout, and loss, loss.
Such is this delectable feast, the source of debt and usury, the occasion of poverty, the beginning of misfortunes. And if a man become prosperous by honest industry, incredible as that may seem, and not by the craft of the usurer, even he is dragged along as one who has failed to pay the royal taxes; he weeps like one whose goods are confiscated, and he laments like a man who falls among thieves. He is dogged, he is flogged, and if there be in the house any little thing for the support of his wife and wretched children, this he lets go, and sits him down hungry with his whole family on this glorious feast-day. A new law this, of evil custom, that annoyance be celebrated as a feast, and man’s want be called a festival!
This festival teaches even the little children, artless and simple, to be greedy, and accustoms them to go from house to house and to offer novel gifts, fruits covered with silver tinsel. For these they receive in return gifts double their value, and thus the tender minds of the young begin to be impressed with that which is commercial and sordid.
But as to the sturdy and honest farmers! What things this feast-day brings to them! It renders the city a place to be shunned rather than visited, and they fly from it more timidly than hares from nets. Such as are found within it are flogged, treated with drunken violence, what they have in their hands is snatched from them; they are warred upon in time of peace, are jeered at, and mocked with words and deeds. Even our most excellent and guileless prophets, the unmistakable representatives of God, who when unhindered in their work are our faithful ministers, are treated with insolence. Thus it is, then, with those in office, thus with the poor, thus with the children, thus with the rustics. For some are distressed, some murmur, and some learn what it were better not to know.
And let us consider how the soldiers under arms, too, are benefited by this feast. As to money they are losers. They offer their entire wages as pay for one debauch. As to manners and habits they are made worse. For they learn vulgarity, and the practices of actors. Their military discipline is relaxed and slackened. They make sport of the laws and the government of which they have been appointed guardians. For they ridicule and insult the august government. They mount a chariot as though upon a stage; they appoint pretended lictors and publicly act like buffoons. This is the nobler part of their ribaldry. But their other doings, how can one mention them? Does not the champion, the lion-hearted man, the man who when armed is the admiration of his friends and the terror of his foes, loose his tunic to his ankles, twine a girdle about his breast, use a woman's sandal, put a roll of hair on his head in feminine fashion, and ply the distaff full of wool, and with that right hand which once bore the trophy, draw out the thread, and changing the tone of his voice utter his words in the sharper feminine treble? These are the good uses of the festival, these the advantages of to-day’s public feast!
Even the eminent consuls who have attained the pinnacle of human rewards, spend their money in vanity, scattering large sums for no righteous end, but for the fruit of sin. Their folly is as conspicuous as their throne is high. For being seated on many human thrones, and administering the greatest offices of the kingdom, they take unsparingly from every source the largest possible amounts, some appropriating the provision money of poor soldiers, others oftentimes selling justice and truth, and others extracting untold wealth from royal coffers and greedily gathering together money from all quarters, disdaining no source of income, however unbecoming or unjust. They provoke God: now presiding in public, and, a little later, lavishing their gold upon charioteers, ill-starred flute-players, buffoons, dancers, the effeminate and harlots, who offer their persons for sale to the public. Moreover, they squander their gold upon the beast-fighters, blood-stained and desperate, and even upon the beasts themselves. For it is manifest that their gold supports the wild beasts, too. buying flesh for some, grain for others. And all this money is prodigally spent for one object, that their names may be written upon contracts. What folly! What blindness! God promises to write the names of those who feed the poor in living books, immortal, incorruptible, which moth does not consume, nor time destroy. For these inscriptions you do not care. Do you take no account of the blessed promise, nor seek to be written in the remembrance of God? For this is the Book that abides. But you count it of great importance to have your names written down by the notaries, to be mentioned by those who buy slaves, and to be applauded by vulgar flatterers. You thus show yourselves poor judges of what is truly useful and advantageous. Give to the crippled beggar, and not to the dissolute musician. Give to the widow instead of the harlot; instead of to the woman of the street, to her who is piously secluded. Lavish your gifts upon the holy virgins singing psalms unto God, and hold the shameless psaltery in abhorrence, which by its music catches the licentious before it is seen. Satisfy the orphan, pay the poor man’s debt, and you shall have a glory that is eternal. You empty a multitude of purses for shameful pastime, and ribald laughter, not knowing how many poor men’s tears you are giving, from whom' your wealth has been gathered; how many have been imprisoned, how many beaten, how many have come near death by the halter, to furnish what dancers to-day receive. And what is the end? Vanity. After it all, a little grave, a garment worth a few obols, shrouding the poor body. After a little, forgetfulness, — the inevitable experience of time, veiling all the things striven for. After that, the judgment of God and the inexorable punishment of evil choice.
Where now are the consuls? Consider those of very recent times. Was not one caught in the sudden uprising of an armed multitude and did he not lose his head like a malefactor? And after death he was more paraded than when aforetime riding in his chariot he used to exult in his dignity. And another, with a military command, attaining the same honor, fleeing the penalty of condemnation, perished miserably on the frontiers of Egypt and Libya, at last ending his life on the sands, since all the region through which he fled was waste and without habitation. And what can we say about that one of the generals and consuls who is now living in disgrace in the Colchian country, and who is kept alive only by the generosity of the barbarians there? And that one of the prefects, that man invincible and lion-hearted as was supposed, what an end his life had! For first he beheld his own son beheaded; then he himself also was doomed to die, but when the noose had already been adjusted around his neck, the royal clemency stayed the hand of the executioner. And the old man, after living a short time amid woes and calamities, departed this life in disgrace, having found this the end of his august consulship. And that other, so much discussed by both men and women! how last year he planned greater things than the giants! Escaping his masters’ rods, he aspired to the rods of a consul. He acquired land to an amount not easy to describe; but he was buried in only as much as the pitiful gave him. Are not all such things then, according to the wise Preacher, Vanity of vanities? And are not these political eminences like visions of baseless dreams, delighting for a little, then fleeting away; blooming and withering? Let us therefore end our discourse at this point, and render glory to the Saviour.
V. ON DIVORCE
The Pharisees also came unto him tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? — Matthew 19: 3.
ON the text from the Gospel according to Matthew, whether it is lawful for a man to put away his wife for every reason?
A beautiful lesson is presented to the Christians and the industrious in the conjunction of these two days; I mean the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, which revolving time brings round each week. These days, as mothers or nurses of the church, both assemble the people and seat the priests before them as teachers. And they lead both learners and teachers to care for their souls. So the discourse of yesterday is still ringing in my ears, and the things that concerned us then linger in my memory. I behold the cross set up, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, and the Lord's garments stained with blood, like the garments of one who treads the wine-press; and I see the Saviour bearing in his right hand the reward; and Solomon I behold exactly arranging for us the balances and weights to the best of his ability. And I pity the debtor of the Gospel, who did not share with his fellow servant the clemency which he had received from his Lord, but by thoughtlessness and harshness brought calamity again upon himself. For with those chapters we were yesterday busy as all of you who were not inattentive know.
And to-day again the Spirit lays before us many things, all beautiful, as many as are on the table which you see. And I have fixed my attention on the disputatious and tempting Pharisees; and I have pitied them exceedingly for the depravity of their dispositions, inasmuch as they sought to outwit even the Fountain of wisdom by their questions and failed in their attempt; the divinity of the Only-begotten ever turning their questions against themselves. It was of them, as it seems to me, that Isaiah prophesied, when he said, “I am the Lord that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish; that confirmeth the word of his servant.” And again David says, “They flatter with their tongue. Hold them guilty, O God; let them fall by their own counsels.” But thanks be to them, hostile though they were, that they moved Wisdom to answer, in order that he might leave behind in writing for us, his servants, instruction for our profit. For, behold, marriage, the chief affair of human life, is regulated by him, and the limits of this union and the conditions of its dissolution are exactly determined. Let each one earnestly attend to the two ordinances of marriage, in order that women may be instructed as to their duties and men in the duties which belong to them.
“Whether it is lawful for a man to put away his wife for every reason?” This, then, is the problem of the Jews. I see the aim of their asking this question in the presence of the others. For since women are more ready to believe than men and are more susceptible to the magnificence of miracles, and inclined to the acceptance and belief of the divinity of Christ, (thus even behind the murderers who were dragging the Lord to the cross, was the multitude of women who bewailed his sufferings, and, following the Saviour, piteously lamented him, in order that they might lead him to offend and alienate all women, the Jews, by their crafty question, laid a trap and snare for him. But the Lord, through the power of his divinity, seeing what villainy they were devising, defeating their treachery, and, at the same time, laying down beneficent rules of life, makes reply, pleading the cause of women, and sending away empty those hungry wolves of Pharisees who in vain had snapped at him with their questions. “The creation itself,” says he, “shows its aim to be union, not separation.” The Creator was the first bestower of the bride in marriage, since he joined the first human beings in the marriage bond, giving to those who should come after, the inflexible ordinance of the conjugal life, which must be recognized as the law of God; and they who are thus associated with one another are no longer two, but one flesh, so that “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” These things were spoken to the Pharisees; but do you hear them now, you who do such things as these: you who change your wives as readily as your garments; who build bridal chambers as often and as easily as you build booths for feasts; who marry money, and deal in women; who if provoked a little immediately write a bill of divorcement; you who leave many widows while you are yet alive; believe me, marriage is terminated only by death or adultery. For it is not as in the case of mistresses, a companionship for a few days only, nor a mere quest for pleasure, but like most other things is subject to rule and regulation. But in marriage, O man, both soul and body are united, so that disposition is mingled with disposition, and flesh with flesh. How, then, are you going to sever the bond of marriage without suffering? How can you withdraw from this union easily and without pain, after taking your sister and wife not as a servant of a few days, but as a partner for life, a sister by reason of her formation and creation, — for you were both made of the same element of earth and of the same substance, — and wife because of the conjugal union, because of the law of marriage? What sort of a bond, then, are you about to break, for you are bound by both law and nature; and how will you set at naught the agreements which you made at marriage? What sort of compacts do you think I mean? Those made when the dowry had been agreed upon, when with your own hand you signed the roll, and set your seal to the contract? These are strong indeed, and possess stability enough, but I refer back to the utterance of Adam: “This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones. This shall be called my wife.”
Not without reason is this utterance preserved in writing; for, uttered by the first man, it is the common covenant of men, made with the whole class of women, who are joined by law to their husbands. Do not be surprised if by what one has said, another is bound. For whatever happened in the beginning, in the case of those first created, has become the nature of their posterity.
If, then, the woman you have lightly divorced shall take the book of Genesis and drag you unto the Judge, who is both Judge and witness, tell me, what will you say? How will you repudiate your own utterance which you made in the name of God, which Moses, the servant of God, recorded, instead of some cheap notary? God gave Adam a wife without father and without mother; and for this reason, as a guardian he shielded the orphan. But now daughters strongly assert their mothers’ rights against their unfeeling and undutiful husbands. So that from every point of view it is impossible for you to slight your wife with impunity, bound as you are by the ancient laws of God and the modern laws of men.
Let your wife’s very helpfulness put you to shame. For she is a companion, a helper, a partner with whom to pass your life, and to bring children into the world, an aid in sickness, a comfort in distress, the guardian of the hearth, the custodian of the household goods, having the same sorrows, the same joys, sharing with you your wealth, if wealth be yours, or mitigating hard poverty, resourcefully and sturdily bearing up against its grievous consequences, and because of her marriage with you, enduring the toilsome rearing of children. And if perchance a change of fortune overtakes the husband, he overwhelmed thereby sinks into obscurity, and those who have been considered friends, measuring their friendship by the duration of his prosperity, desert him in his adversity, while the servants run away from both master and misfortunes. Only the wife is left, a partner of his distress, serving her husband amid manifold evils. She wipes away his tears, and heals his stripes if he be smitten. She follows him when he is led to prison; and if permitted to enter with him, she cheerfully shares his confinement. But if even this be forbidden she remains at the door of the prison, like a dog devoted to his master.
I have known a woman who even cut off her hair, and put on man’s attire, — and that gay-colored, in order that when her husband fled and hid himself, she might not be separated from him. And while she seemed to be a slave, in truth she was a slave of love. This life she lived for many years, going from place to place, and from wilderness to wilderness. Such a one, too, we find the wife of most excellent Job to be. For all had left him. With the loss of his wealth his flatterers departed from him. His friends, too, limited their friendship by the duration of his prosperity. If they were present at all, they came to reproach, not to cheer him. Instead of comforting him they aggravated his calamity. By reason of it, indeed, all his “miserable comforters” uttered indignant complaints against him. But she alone, who had before lived in splendor, sat with her husband upon the dunghill, scraping off the discharge, and drawing the worms from his sores. Thus was she the partner of his life, not the sharer of his prosperity only; an inseparable friend, not a mere flatterer during his days of pleasure, — the only blessing that remained of all his good fortune and of all his intimates and kindred. So on account of her lofty and superlative affection for her husband, she fell even into the sin of blasphemy, counseling him to utter a blasphemous word against God so that he might die quickly and not be long punished, and that she might not see him in his ceaseless pains. For she took no account of her own misfortune of widowhood that would follow, but she cared for only one thing, — that her husband might escape from his insupportable existence. These are the lessons which those who outrage the ordinances of marriage should learn from antiquity and from modern experience.
Now what can the man seeking divorce say to this? And what sort of specious defense of his own fickleness can he offer? “My wife’s disposition,” he says, “is mean and hateful, and her tongue is violent, and her tastes are not domestic, and her house is ill-managed.” So be it. Granted. I am so far persuaded, and accept it, like the judges who are not very critical in hearing, but are readily carried away by the invectives of advocates. But tell me, when you first married her, did you not know that you were being joined to a human being? And does anybody fail to see that to a human being sin attaches? For perfection is of God alone. And do you yourself, then, never sin? Do you not cause your wife pain by your conduct? Are you free from all fault? Do you preserve the ordinance of wedlock in purity? Oh, how many times, perhaps, your wife has endured your drunken violence! How many ready insults and shameful reproaches she has patiently suffered! And how many shortcomings of yours are kept secret, because your wife has not published them! She has borne with you when you were angry without reason, and boiling with wrath; and the free woman, your equal in station, has remained silent like a slave from the market. When you failed through poverty or parsimony to furnish the necessaries of life, though grieved, she did not reproach you. Nay, further, when you came once from a banquet, drunken and frenzied, she did not cast you off, hating you for your drunkenness, but with kindly forgiveness she received you, and though you resisted, she led you by the hand, and gently bathed your head, dizzied by the fumes of the wine, and guided you to the marriage bed, alone feeling sympathy, while the domestics were laughing and mocking at their master’s drunken derangement. Yet you stalk about the neighborhood heartlessly accusing and misrepresenting your wife, that you may awaken sympathy for yourself and secure approval of your prospective divorce. Hard is the heart of such men, savage and cruel, sprung, as the proverb says, from oak or rock. For wiping out the memory of all past kindnesses, they unfeelingly seek divorce. But who chops off a diseased limb, instead of healing it, and that, too, when no dangerous malady has attacked it, but when there is bright and certain prospect of restoration? A blister has risen on the hand; let us carefully attend to it. A boil has begun to annoy the foot; let us reduce the swelling with liniment. But if we decline the attendance of physicians and busy ourselves with amputation and the knife in the case of each of the disordered parts, before we have lived long we shall have pruned ourselves of all our limbs. But not so, sirs. Let there be some thought even of the limbs. Let the very services of your wives put you to shame. However much you are provoked, compare the pain of one child-birth with your grounds of complaint, and you will find your crowd of grievances outweighed.
Recall her good deeds of kindness: nursing of the sick, companionship in misfortune, tearful entreaties in court on her husband’s behalf; leaving her parents and the ancestral hearth, and following a stranger; selling her own property to atone for her husband's insolence and relieve his embarrassment Let all this unite you to her and prove a bond of affection, propping up and making secure your unsteady soul, as one braces a dilapidated house. Let pity prevail, and let not intimacy and the association of a long life, which makes even brute beasts inseparable, be trodden under foot For I have seen an ox lowing piteously when he had wandered away from his fellows and found himself alone; and a sheep bleating in a glen and scurrying over the mountains until it rejoined the flock from which, while feeding, it was parted. And a she-goat in this same plight, no matter if as she runs she overtakes many flocks of goats, does not stop until she finds her own flock and her own herdsman.
Let us who are reasonable beings not be found less susceptible to friendship than the brutes. And let us not hold a wife less precious than a fellow traveler, or a man, who on some slight pretext has suddenly become dear to us. You observe how men meeting one another even on the highways, and coming under the roof of the same inn, or under some spreading tree, as a shelter in summer from the noonday heat, make the chance meeting the occasion of genuine friendship; and when they come to the place where their ways diverge, they do not part from one another without emotion, but stand and with tears in their eyes look earnestly upon one another, while each gives mementoes to the other to carry with him. And after going a little way, they turn back again, and call to each other, invoking good fortune upon each other. Does a little time like this cement a friendship so closely that separation becomes difficult and is only effected by absolute necessity, and will you think as lightly of the partner of your life, as of a broken dish, or a cheap cloak spoiled on a journey, or a Maltese lap-dog that has escaped the house? Where is that attachment that was formed at first? Where the sharing of one bed, the bond of law, the power of constant and protracted association, which, as the saying is, and experience proves, — becomes a second nature? You have snapped them all asunder more easily than Samson the cords of the Philistines.
But the man who is wise and guards his attachment does not easily forget his wife even after she has departed this life; but he cherishes the children that she leaves as a trust common to him and her and sees in them the departed one. For one of the children preserves the tones of his mother's voice; another possesses most of her features; another is like her in disposition. Thus the father has impressed upon him, with many living and striking likenesses of his wife before him, the immortal character of his union with her. For this reason, he takes no thought of pleasure. He does not to-day heap up a grave and shortly thereafter furnish a nuptial chamber. He does not hasten from tears and groans to the marriage dance. He does not exchange his black and mourning garb for a wedding suit. He does not lead a second wife to the marriage bed, still warm, of her who is departed, nor does he give a stepmother, hateful name, to his children. But he imitates the strange yet natural devotion of the turtle-dove. For they say that that bird, when separated from its mate, devotes itself to perpetual widowhood, and is very different from the common dove, as far as mating again is concerned. So, then, let reproaches come thick and fast upon the husband who seeks divorce, and let the charges of ingratitude, falling thicker than snowflakes, pelt him.
But if he put forward a charge of adultery, and offer this as the ground of his separation, I will at once become the advocate of the injured man, and directing my discourse against the adulteress, will take my stand beside the husband, no longer his foe, but his valiant ally, commending him who flees the treacherous woman, and severs the tie which bound him to an asp and a viper. For the Creator of all is the first to absolve this man as justly indignant, and right in driving the plague from his house and hearth. For marriage exists for these two things, love and offspring, neither of which is compatible with adultery. For there is no love when affection turns towards another; and honor in bringing children into the world is destroyed, when their parentage is made doubtful. The things that contribute to this sin have been duly mentioned under another head. But pray let both parties to the marriage contract practise self-control, — the unbroken bond of wedlock. For where the honor of marriage is maintained, there is, of necessity, affection and peace, with no vulgar and unlawful desire to excite the soul, and expel legitimate and righteous love.
This law of self-control is not ordained by God for women alone, but for men also. But they who give heed to secular lawgivers, and leave to men the unrestricted license of adultery, while they are stern judges and teachers of the sanctity of women, are themselves shamelessly licentious. Healers of others, according to the proverb, they are yet themselves full of sores. If any one upbraids them with these offenses, they offer a subtle and playful defense. For men, they say, even if they approach many women, do their own hearth no harm; but women, if they sin, introduce alien heirs into their houses and families. But let the sophistical inventors of this frivolous justification of their conduct know that they themselves are overturning other hearths and homes. For the women with whom they associate are surely the daughters or wives of somebody; and in any case there will be found either a marriage plotted against, or a parent wronged who has begotten and reared a daughter, hoping to have a virgin for the bridal chamber, but whose fond expectation has been thwarted by the robbers of her virtue. If the wretch is a father, let him think on the feelings of a father who has been thus disappointed; if a husband, let him imagine himself the injured man. For usually it is well that each one judge the affairs of another as he wishes another to judge his own. And if any, heeding the law of the Romans, consider fornication permissible, they make a dreadful mistake, not knowing that God lays down law in one way, while men make statutes in another. Listen to Moses, as he proclaims the will of God, and utters bitter condemnation against fornicators. Listen to Paul when he says: “Fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” Other teachers will not be able to save you in the time of retribution, but, trembling and filled with consternation, they shall melt away. Plato, the professor of laws, shall appear to you then ignorant and untaught, and that weighty voice, which assumed authority over all lawgivers, will be humbled when he and they shall see the lovers of the body to whom they have wickedly permitted license, dragged forth to punishment. And assuredly they who have not forbidden others, have first involved themselves in the sin, and are found liable to a twofold charge, both for what they themselves have done, and because they have allowed others to be licentious. Let those, therefore, whose purpose it is to live with the very purest wives, make their own manner of life a model for their spouses, in order that they may maintain in the home a worthy rivalry in virtue.