THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
A teacher must build up and correct the souls of his disciples not only by counsel and admonition, but also by fear and by reminding them of God. When the words of a man, as a fellow servant, cannot affect the soul, it is necessary to remind them of the Lord Himself.
Paul does this. After speaking about humility of mind and unity, and likewise about not rising up against one another, listen to what he then says: “Therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the nations walk.”
He did not say, “that you should no longer walk” as you wish, because this might have wounded them. Instead he pointed to others, though he expressed the same thing.
He does the same in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, when he says: “not in the passion of lust, like the other Gentiles” (1 Thess 4:5).
You have left their pagan beliefs, he says, but this depended wholly on God. I require what depends on you, namely, life and walking according to God. This is your duty.
I call the Lord as witness to my words, that I have not kept silence, but have said how you must conduct yourselves.
“In the vanity,” he says, “of their mind.” What is vanity of mind? Occupation with vain things. And what is vain, if not everything present, of which Ecclesiastes says: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Eccl 1:2)?
But someone will say: if this or that is vain and leads to vanity, why does it exist? If it is also God’s work, how can it be vain? There are many objections concerning this matter.
But listen, beloved. Ecclesiastes did not call God’s works vain. No. Heaven is not vain. Earth is not vain. No. Neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, nor our body. All this is “very good.”
What then is vain? Let us hear what Ecclesiastes himself says: “I planted vineyards for myself... I made pools of water... I acquired herds and flocks... I gathered silver and gold... I acquired male and female singers... And I said in my heart that this also is vanity” (Eccl 2:4, 6-8, 15).
Again: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Hear what the Prophet also says: “A man gathers and does not know who will receive it” (Ps 38:7).
Therefore “vanity of vanities” means splendid buildings, abundance and excess of gold, crowds of servants running noisily through the marketplace, pride and vainglory, arrogance and haughtiness.
All this is vanity, because it did not come from God, but was produced by men. Why, however, is it vain? Because it has no good end.
Money is vain when it is squandered on pleasures. It is not vain when it is used to help the poor.
When you spend it on pleasures, let us see what follows from this: bodily fatness, belching, winds, abundance of filth, headache, bodily relaxation, fever, and exhaustion.
As one who pours water into a perforated vessel labors in vain, so a man who gives himself to pleasures pours water into a perforated vessel.
Unrealizable ambitious designs are also called vain. They are truly vain, unreliable, and futile. In general, what is useful for nothing is called vain.
Let us see, then, whether human affairs are not such. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor 15:32). Tell me, what follows from this? Corruption.
We clothe ourselves in costly garments and adornments. What profit comes from this? None.
Some of the Hellenes also reasoned in this way, but in vain. They lived strictly, yet emptily, having no useful aim in view. They acted from vainglory, to gain honor from the multitude.
But what is the honor which the multitude gives us? Nothing. If those who give us honor themselves perish, then this honor perishes still more.
He who gives honor to another must first acquire it himself. But if he has not acquired it for himself, how will he give it to another?
Yet we seek honor from dishonorable and contemptible men, from men without honor and full of shame. What sort of honor is this?
Do you see that all is vanity of vanities? Therefore the Apostle said of the Gentiles: “in the vanity of their mind.”
But is not their faith also such? Indeed, do they not worship trees and stones? God created the sun so that it might serve us as a lamp. Who worships his lamp?
The sun gives light from itself. When it cannot shine, the lamp shines. Why then do you not worship the lamp?
Yes, someone will say, I worship fire. One cannot keep from laughing when hearing of such dishonor. Are you not ashamed?
Again, why do you extinguish what you worship? Why do you destroy and slay your god? Why do you not let it fill your whole house?
If fire is god, bring your body to it. Do not put god under a pot or kettle. Bring it into your storeroom. Bring it where your silk garments are.
But you not only do not bring it in. On the contrary, if it happens to enter anywhere, you drive it out from everywhere. You call everyone, weep, and groan, as if some beast had entered your house.
When your god visits you in this way, you call it the greatest disaster. I have God, and I do everything to receive Him upon my breast.
I count it blessedness not only when He visits my house, but also when I draw Him into my heart. You too, draw fire into your heart. This is laughable and vain.
Fire is good for use, not for worship. It is good for service and servile obedience to me, not for dominion over me. It was created for me, not I for it.
If you worship fire, why do you yourself rest upon a bed, while you make your cook stand before your god? Take up cooking yourself. Become a baker or, if you wish, a blacksmith.
Nothing should be more honorable for you than these occupations, since your god himself presides over them. Why do you consider dishonorable the occupation in which there is so much of your god?
Why do you entrust it to slaves and not reserve this honor for yourself? Fire is a good thing, since it was created by the good Creator. But it is not god.
It is called a work of God, but not God. Do you not see how untamable it is? When it has seized a house, it stops nowhere.
If it finds an unbroken succession of objects, it destroys everything until the hands of carpenters or other men restrain its fury. It knows neither friends nor enemies, but treats all alike.
And this is your god? Are you not ashamed? Truly the Apostle said well: “in the vanity of their mind.”
But they say, our god is the sun. Tell me, why and on what account? Because it gives much light from itself?
Do you not see how it is overcome by clouds, how it is subject to the law of natural necessity, exposed to eclipses, and covered by the moon and clouds?
Although a cloud is weaker than it, the cloud often prevails. This too is a work of God’s wisdom. God must be all-sufficient, but the sun has need of many things. This is not proper to God.
Thus the sun needs air in order to shine, and indeed thin air, because air that is too dense does not let its rays pass through.
It also needs water, or something else, to limit its action, so that it may not cause a conflagration.
If there were no springs, lakes, rivers, or seas to produce moisture through the vapors that rise from them, the sun could burn everything up.
Do you see what sort of god this is? What madness. What laughter. They say that because it can harm, it is god.
On the contrary, it is not god precisely because, in order to harm, it needs no one’s cooperation, but in order to be useful, it needs many other things.
It is not proper to God to cause harm. Certainly not. It is proper to Him to do good. If the contrary must be said of the sun, how will it be god?
Do you not see that poisonous medicines cause harm, and need nothing else for this? But in order to bring benefit, they need many other things.
The sun was created for you both beautiful and powerless: beautiful, so that by it you might know the Master; powerless, so that you might not call it your master.
But, they say, it nourishes plants and seeds. What then? Is dung also god for that reason? For it too nourishes plants. Why not add the sickle and the farmer’s hands to this?
Show me where the sun alone has made plants grow, without needing earth, water, or the farmer’s labors. Let it sow the seeds by itself and, warming them with its ray, produce ears of grain for us.
If this does not depend on it alone, but also on rain, why is water not god? But this is not yet the point.
Why is the earth not god? Why are dung and spade not gods? Tell me, must all this be worshiped? What madness.
And yet an ear of grain would grow sooner without the sun than without earth and water. The same is true of trees and everything else. Without earth there can be no plant at all.
If someone pours earth into an earthen vessel, as children and women do, and adds the needed amount of dung, then places the vessel under a roof, plants grow, though weakly.
Thus earth and dung have essential importance, and they should be honored more than the sun.
So that the sun may not cause harm, the sky is needed, the air is needed, and so many waters are needed to curb its wild power.
They do not allow its ray to penetrate everywhere, like some untamable horse. But tell me again: where is the sun at night? Where does this god of yours hide?
It is not proper to God to be subject to constraint and limitation. This belongs only to bodies.
But they say that there is some power in it, and that this power moves. Tell me then, is this power god? Why is it insufficient and unable to restrain the fire?
I repeat the former question. What is this power? Is it a shining power, or does it shine through the sun without itself taking part in this? In that case the sun is superior to it.
But it is enough for us to wander in this labyrinth.
And water, they say, is it not also god? Here is another dispute truly worthy of laughter. How is water not god, they say, when we need it in so many cases?
They say the same about the earth. Those who say this are precisely “in the vanity of their mind, darkened in understanding.”
However, here the Apostle spoke in this way about their life. The Gentiles give themselves to fornication and adultery. This is understandable. Having invented such gods for themselves, they act accordingly in everything.
If only they can hide their deeds from human eyes, there is nothing left to restrain them from evil works.
Can the teaching about the resurrection have any force for them, when they consider it a fable? And teaching about torments in Hades? For them this too is fable. Notice here the satanic suggestion.
When they are told about the debauchery of their gods, they do not call this fable, but believe it. But when they are told about punishments, they object: poets invented all this to disturb the happy order of life everywhere.
But philosophers, they say, have invented something fully worthy of attention and better than these fables. Which philosophers?
Are they those who invented fate and assert that all things exist without Providence, that there is no creative Providence, and that everything came together from atoms?
But they say that others acknowledged God as true being (οώμα). Which ones, tell me?
Those who derive human souls from the souls of dogs, and assure men that at a certain time one or another of them was a dog, a lion, or a fish?
How long will you not cease your empty talk, “darkened in understanding”? Truly, both concerning doctrines and concerning life, they say and do everything as if they were in darkness.
A man surrounded by darkness sees nothing before him. He takes a rope for a crawling serpent. Or, entering a narrow place, he thinks that a man or a demon has seized him.
How much fear and anxiety there is in this. The Gentiles fear similar things. “There they feared with fear,” it is said, “where there was no fear” (Ps 13:5).
What they ought to fear, they do not fear. They are like children in their nurses’ arms, who senselessly stretch their hands toward fire and boldly rush toward a burning lamp.
Meanwhile they are afraid of a man clothed in goatskin. So too these Hellenes are true infants, as someone said of them: “The Hellenes are always children.”