Superstitious Tokens contrasted with the Sign of the Cross. 165

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Must I mention another thing yet more ridiculous than 1COR.4. this? Only let no one tax us with speaking out of season, should our argument proceed with that instance also.

For

he that would cleanse an ulcer will not hesitate first to pollute his own hands. What then is this so very ridiculous custom? It is counted indeed as nothing; (and this is why I grieve;) but it is the beginning of folly and madness in the extreme. The women in the bath, nurses and waiting-maids, take up mud, and smearing it with the finger make a mark on the child's forehead; and if one ask, What means the mud, and the clay; the answer is, "It turneth away an evil eye, witchcraft and envy." Astonishing! what power in the mud! what might in the clay! what mighty force is this which it has? It averts all the host of the devil. Tell me, can ye help hiding yourselves for shame? Will ye never come to understand the snares of the devil, how from earliest life he gradually brings in the several evils which he hath devised? For if the mud hath this effect, why dost thou not thyself also do the same to thine own forehead, when thou art a man and thy character is formed; and thou art likelier than the child to have such as envy thee? Why dost thou not as well bemire the whole body? I say, if on the forehead its virtue be so great, why not anoint thyself all over with mud? All this is mirth and stage-play to Satan, not mockery only but hell-fire being the consummation to which these deceived ones are tending.

προσκυ

2 τοσαῦ

τα φιλο

[14.] Now that among Greeks such things should be done is no wonder: but among the worshippers of the Cross', andò, partakers in unspeakable mysteries, and professors of such raug high morality, that such unseemliness should prevail, this is I. especially to be deplored again and again. God hath honoured thee with spiritual anointing; and dost thou defile. thy child with mud? God hath honoured thee, and dost thou dishonour thyself? And when thou shouldest inscribe on his forehead the Cross, the mean of that invincible security; dost thou forego this, and cast thyself into the madness of Satan? If any look on these things as trifles, let them know and a shame. Nay,' says she, an evil eye has caught hold of the child! How long will you go on with these diabolical fancies ?'" &c.

f So on Col. ubi supra. "What is all this folly? Here we have ashes, and soot, and salt, and the silly old woman again brought into play. Truly it is a mockery

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XII.

11. 4.

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Men's Tendency to Superstition,

HOMIL. that they are the source of great evils; and that not even unto Paul did it seem right to overlook the lesser things. For, tell me, what can be less than a man's covering his head? Yet observe how great a matter he makes of this, and with how great earnestness he forbids it; saying, among 11 Cor. many other things, He dishonoureth his head'. Now if he that covers himself dishonoureth his head; he that besmears his child with mud, how can it be less than making it abominable? For how, I want to know, can he bring it to the hands of the Priest? How canst thou require that on that forehead the Seals should be placed by the hand of the Presbyter, where thou hast been smearing the mud? Nay, my brethren, do not these things, but from earliest life encompass them with spiritual armour, and instruct them to 2x seal the forehead with the hand': and before they are able pay to do this with their own hand", do you imprint upon them To the Cross.

παιδεύετε

μέτωπον.

Why should one speak of the other satanical observances in the case of travail-pangs and childbirths, which the midwives introduce with a mischief on their own heads? Of the outcries which take place at each person's death, and as he is being carried to his burial; the irrational wailings, the folly enacted at the funerals; the zeal about men's monuments; the importunate and ridiculous swarm of the mourning women'; the observances of days; the days, I mean, of entrance into the world and of departure?

[15.] Are these then, I beseech you, the persons whose good opinion thou followest after? And what can it be but the extreme of folly to seek earnestly the praise of men, so corrupt in their ideas, men whose conduct is all at random? when we ought always to resort to the unsleeping Eye; and look

i. e. the Sign of the Cross in Baptism, made with consecrated balm or ointment, and called gays in the Apostolical Constitutions, iii. 17; vid. Bingham xi. 10. 5. St. Chrysostom, it may be remarked, takes for granted, 1. that infants would be brought to Baptism; 2. that they would be brought to the Priest.

Compare the well-known passages in Tertullian and St. Cyprian: the first, "At all our goings out and comings

in, &c. we wear our foreheads with the Seal of the Cross;" de Cor. Mil. 3. the other, "Arm your foreheads with all boldness, that the Sign of the Cross may be safe." Ep. 50: both in Bingham ubi supra.

i About this custom, of hiring heathen women as mourners, he speaks very strongly elsewhere: Hom. 32. in Matt.; Hom. 4. in Heb.: both which are quoted in Bingham, xxiii. 18.

a Warning against trusting to their Judgment. 167

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to His sentence in all that we do and speak? For these, even 1COR.4. if they approve, will have no power to profit us. But He, should He accept our doings, will both here make us glorious; and in the future day will impart to us of the unspeakable good things: which may it be the lot of us all to obtain, through the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ; with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, power, honour, now and always, and unto everlasting ages. Amen.

HOMILY XIII.

1 COR. iv. 10.

We are fools for Christ's sake: [for it is necessary from this point to resuine our discourse:] but ye are wise in Christ: we are weak, but ye are strong: ye are honourable, but we despised.

HAVING filled his speech with much severity, that point which conveyed a sharper blow than any direct charge, he here handles with his own peculiar dignity; and whereas he had said, Ye have reigned as kings without us; and, God hath set forth us last, as it were, appointed unto death. By what comes next he signifies how they are appointed unto death; saying, We are fools, and weak, and despised, and hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place, and labour, working with our own hands which were very signs of genuine teachers and apostles. Whereas the others valued themselves on the things which are contrary to these, on wisdom, glory, wealth, consideration.

Desiring therefore to take down their self-conceit, and to point out that in respect of these things, so far from taking credit to themselves, they ought rather to be ashamed; he first of all mocks them, saying, Ye have reigned as kings without us. As if he had said, "My sentence is, that the present is not a time of honour, nor of glory, which kind of things you enjoy, but of persecution and insult, such as we are suffering. If however it be not so; if this rather be the time of remuneration: then as far as I see," (but this he saith in irony,) "ye, the disciples, for your part have become no less than kings: but we the teachers, and apostles, and before

Persecution, a Token of God's Approbation.

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all entitled to receive the reward, not only have fallen very 1COR.4. 10, 11. far behind you, but even, as persons appointed unto death, that is, condemned convicts, spend our lives entirely in dishonours, and dangers, and hunger: yea insulted as fools, and driven about, and enduring all intolerable things."

Now these things he said, that he might hereby cause them also to consider, that they should zealously affect the condition of the Apostles; their dangers and their indignities, not their honours and glories. For these, not the former, are what the Gospel requires. But to this effect he speaks not directly, not to shew himself disagreeable to them: rather in a way characteristic of himself he takes in hand this rebuke. For if he had introduced his address in a direct manner, he would have spoken thus; "Ye err, and are beguiled, and have swerved far from the apostolical mode of instruction. For every apostle and minister of Christ ought to be esteemed a fool, ought to live in affliction, and dishonour; which indeed is our state whereas you are in the contrary case."

But thus might his expressions have jarred on them yet more, as containing but praises of the Apostles; and might have made the other party fiercer, censured as they were for indolence, and vain-glory, and luxuriousness. Wherefore he conducts not his statement in this way, but in another, more striking but less offensive; and this is why he proceeds with his address as follows, saying ironically, But ye are strong and honourable; since, if he had not used irony, he would have spoken to this effect; "It is not possible that one man should be esteemed foolish, and another wise; one strong, and another weak; the Gospel not requiring either the one or the other. For if it were in the nature of things that one should be this, and another that, perchance there might be some reason in what you say. But now it is not permitted, neither to be counted wise, nor honourable, nor to be free from dangers. If otherwise, it follows of necessity that you are preferred before us in the sight of God; you, the disciples, before us the teachers, and that after our endless hardships. If this be too bad for any one to say, it remains for you to make our condition your object.

[2.] Aud "let no one," saith he, "think that I speak of things passed only:"