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3rd c. | Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew

Hear what was the life of the Scythians….No streams of blood are amongst them, nor cutting up of flesh, nor heaviness of head, nor dainty cooking, neither are there unpleasing smells of meat amongst them, nor disagreeable smoke, neither runnings and tumults, and disturbances, and wearisome clamors; but bread and water, the latter from a pure fountain, the former from honest labor. But if any time they should be minded to feast more sumptuously, their sumptuousness consists of fruits, and greater is the pleasure there than at royal tables. There is no fear there, or trembling; no ruler accuses, no wife provokes, no child casts into sadness, no disorderly mirth dissipates, no multitude of flatterers puffs up; but the table is an angel’s table free from all such turmoil. (St. Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, "Homily LXIX. on Matt. XXII")

For the souls of the Saints are very gentle and, loving unto man, both in regard to their own, and to strangers. And even to the unreasoning creatures they extend their gentleness. (St. Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, "Homily LXIX. on Matt. XXII")

3rd c. | Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians

Why need I speak of the sort of charm which is found in the horse races? or in the contests of the wild beasts? For those places too being full of all senseless excitement train the populace to acquire a merciless and savage and inhuman kind of temper, and practise them in seeing men torn in pieces, and blood flowing, and the ferocity of wild beasts confounding all things. Now all these our wise lawgivers from the beginning introduced, being so many plagues! and our cities applaud and admire…but which clearly and confessedly are abominable. (St. Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, "Homily XII. 1 Cor. iv. 6")

"Wherefore if thou desire blood," saith He, "redden not the altar of idols with the slaughter of brute beasts, but My altar with My blood." Tell me, What can be more tremendous than this? What more tenderly kind?…And in the old covenant, because they were in an imperfect state, the blood which they used to offer to idols He Himself submitted to receive, that He might separate them from those idols; which very thing again was a proof of His unspeakable affection: but here He transferred the service to that which is far more awful and glorious, changing the very sacrifice itself, and instead of the slaughter of irrational creatures, commanding to offer up Himself. (St. Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, "Homily XXIV. on 1 Cor. x. 13")

Now the boundary of sufficiency is the using those things which it is impossible to live without. No one debars thee from these; nor forbids thee thy daily food. I say food, not feasting; raiment, not ornament. Yea rather, if one should enquire accurately, this is in the best sense feasting. For, consider. Which should we say more truly feasted, he whose diet was herbs, and who was in sound health and suffered no uneasiness: or he who had the table of a Sybarite, and was full of ten thousand disorders? Very plainly the former. Therefore let us seek nothing more than this, if we would at once live luxuriously and healthfully: and let us set these boundaries to sufficiency. And let him that can be satisfied with pulse and can keep in good health, seek for nothing more; but let him who is weaker and requires to be dieted with garden herbs, not be hindered of this. But if any be even weaker than this and require the support of flesh in moderation, we will not debar him from this either. For we do not advise these things, to kill and injure men but to cut off what is superfluous; and that is superfluous which is more than we need. For when we are able even without a thing to live healthfully and respectably, certainly the addition of that thing is a superfluity. (St. Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, "Homily XIX. on 2 Cor. 1x. 1")

3rd c. | Homilies on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon

A man who liveth in pleasure, is dead whilst he liveth. For he liveth only to his belly. In his other senses he lives not. He sees not what he ought to see, he hears not what he ought to hear, he speaks not what he ought to speak. Nor does he perform the actions of the living. But as he who is stretched upon a bed, with his eyes closed, and his eyelids fast, perceives nothing that is passing; so it is with this man, or rather not so, but worse. For the one is equally insensible to things good and evil, but the latter is sensible to things evil only, but as insensible as the former to things good. Thus he is dead. For nothing relating to the life to come moves or affects him. For intemperance, taking him into her own bosom, as into some dark and dismal cavern, full of all uncleanness, causes him to dwell altogether in darkness, like the dead. For when all his time is spent between feasting and drunkenness, is he not dead, and buried in darkness?…s he then to be numbered with the living? Who can describe that storm that comes of luxury, that assails his soul and body?…so it is when luxury overwhelms the soul; its reasonings within are disturbed…If it were possible to bring the soul into view, and to behold it with our bodily eyes, that of the luxurious would seem depressed, mournful, miserable, and wasted with leanness; for the more the body grows sleek and gross, the more lean and weakly is the soul; and the more one is pampered, the more is the other hampered. (St. Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, "Homily XIII. on 1 Timothy iv. 11–14")

This is the reason why God has formed our bodies in moderate proportions, and so as to be satisfied with a little, from thence at once instructing us that He has made us adapted to another life. And that life He would fain have bestowed upon us even from the very beginning; but since we rendered ourselves unworthy of it, He deferred it; and in the time during which He deferred it, not even in that does He allow us immoderate indulgence; for a little cup of wine and a single loaf is enough to satisfy a man’s hunger. And man the lord of all the brute creation has He formed so as to require less food in proportion than they, and his body small; thereby declaring to us nothing else than this, that we are hastening onward to another life. "Be not drunk," says he, "with wine, wherein is riot"; for it does not save but it destroys; and that, not the body only, but the soul also. (St. Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, "Homily XIX. Ephesians v. 15, 16, 17")

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St. Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Volume 10 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church edited by Philip Schaff (New York, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888; Online at Christian Classics Ethereal Library).

Saint Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans in Volume 11 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church edited by Philip Schaff (New York, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1889; Online at Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2002).

Saint Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians in Volume 12 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church edited by Philip Schaff (New York, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1889; Online at Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2002).

Saint Chrysostom [c347-407], Homilies on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon in Volume 13 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church edited by Philip Schaff (New York, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1889; Online at Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2002).

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