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for the reason of fornication, causes her to commit adultery. For if intercourse makes one body, he who has intercourse with a prostitute must become one body. How then will the modest woman receive this man, being a member of Christ? or how will she join to herself the member of a prostitute? And see the excess: She who lives with an unbeliever is not unclean (For the unbelieving husband, he says, has been sanctified by the wife); but with the prostitute it is not so; but what? Shall I then take 59.354 the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? For there the sanctification remains even when he lives with her, and does not depart; but here it withdraws. For fornication is a terrible thing, terrible, and procuring immortal punishment. And here it draws on countless evils. For such a man is forced to live a wretched and laborious life, and is in no better condition than those who are punished, entering another's house with fear and much trembling, and suspecting everyone, both servants and free. Therefore, I beseech you, be diligent to be delivered from this disease. But if you are not persuaded, do not set foot in the sacred vestibules. For sheep full of scab, and teeming with disease, must not be herded with the healthy, but driven from the flock until they get rid of the disease. For we have become members of Christ; let us not then become members of a prostitute. This is not a brothel, but a church. But if you have the members of a prostitute, do not stand in the church, lest you insult the place. For if there were no Gehenna, if there were no punishment, after those covenants and the marriage torches, after the lawful bed, after the begetting of children, after the communion, how can you bear to be joined to another? how are you not ashamed nor blush? Do you not know that those who, after the death of their own wife, bring in another, are condemned by many, although the matter does not entail punishment? But you bring in another while she is still living. And of how much lewdness is this not, Learn what has been said about such things: Their worm, it says, will not die, and the fire will not be quenched. Shudder at the threat, fear the punishment. There is not so much pleasure here, as there is punishment there. But may it not be that anyone become liable to that punishment; but practicing holiness to see Christ, and to obtain the promised good things; of which may we all be deemed worthy to enjoy, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father be glory together with the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

59.353 HOMILY 64. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. And I knew that you always hear me: but because of the people who stand by I said it, and what follows.

1. What I have often said, this I will also say now, that Christ does not so look to his

own dignity, as to our salvation; nor that he might say something great, but that which is able to draw us to himself. For this reason the lofty and great things are few, and these hidden; but the humble and lowly things abound in his words. For since they were more drawn by these, he dwells on these, and neither utters them altogether, lest those after them be harmed, nor is he silent about them, lest those then be scandalized. For those who have departed from humility, and from one lofty dogma will be able to perceive the whole; but those who are always humble, if they had not heard these things often, would not have come at all. Assuredly then, not even after so many things do they remain, but they also stone and persecute, and attempt to kill, and call him a blasphemer; and when he makes himself 59.354 equal to God, they say thus: This man blasphemes; but when he says, Your sins are forgiven you, they even call him possessed by a demon; just as also when he says that the one who hears his words is greater than death, or even when he says, I am in the Father, and the Father in me,

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λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι. Εἰ γὰρ ἡ συνουσία σῶμα ἓν ποιεῖ, τὸν συγγινόμενον πόρνῃ ἀνάγκη ἓν σῶμα γίνεσθαι. Πῶς οὖν δέξεται ἡ κοσμία τοῦτον, Χριστοῦ μέλος οὖσα; ἢ πῶς ἑαυτῇ συνάψει τὸ μέλος τῆς πόρνης; Καὶ ὅρα τὴν ὑπερβολήν· Ἡ μὲν τῷ ἀπίστῳ συνοικοῦσα, οὐκ ἔστιν ἀκάθαρτος (Ἡγίασται γὰρ, φησὶν ὁ ἀνὴρ ὁ ἄπιστος ἐν τῇ γυναικί)· ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς πόρνης οὐχ οὕτως· ἀλλὰ τί; Ἄρας οὖν 59.354 τὰ μέλη τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ποιήσω μέλη πόρνης; Ἐκεῖ μὲν γὰρ ὁ ἁγιασμὸς μένει κἀκείνου συνοικοῦντος, καὶ οὐκ ἐξίσταται· ἐνταῦθα δὲ ἀναχωρεῖ. ∆εινὸν γὰρ ἡ πορνεία, δεινὸν, καὶ ἀθάνατον προξενοῦσα κόλασιν. Καὶ ἐνταῦθα δὲ μυρία ἐπισπᾶται κακά. Βίον γὰρ ταλαίπωρον καὶ μοχθηρὸν ἀναγκάζεται ζῇν ὁ τοιοῦτος, καὶ τῶν κολαζομένων οὐδὲν ἄμεινον διάκειται, εἰς τὴν ἀλλοτρίαν οἰκίαν ὑπεισιὼν μετὰ δέους καὶ τρόμου πολλοῦ, καὶ πάντας ὁμοῦ ὑποπτεύων, καὶ οἰκέτας, καὶ ἐλευθέρους. ∆ιὸ, παρακαλῶ, σπουδάσατε ἀπηλλάχθαι τοῦ νοσήματος τούτου. Εἰ δὲ μὴ πείθεσθε, τῶν προθύρων μὴ ἐπιβαίνετε τῶν ἱερῶν. Καὶ γὰρ τὰ ψώρας ἐμπεπλησμένα πρόβατα, καὶ νόσου γέμοντα, οὐ δεῖ μετὰ τῶν ὑγιαινόντων ἀγελάζεσθαι, ἀλλ' ἀπελαύνειν τῆς ποίμνης, ἕως ἂν τὴν νόσον ἀποθῶνται. Μέλη γὰρ Χριστοῦ γεγόναμεν· μὴ δὴ μέλη πόρνης γενώμεθα. Οὐκ ἔστι τὰ ἐνταῦθα πορνεῖον, ἀλλ' ἐκκλησία. Τὰ δὲ μέλη τῆς πόρνης ἂν ἔχῃς, μὴ στῇς ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἵνα μὴ ἐξυβρίσῃς τὸν τόπον. Εἰ γὰρ μὴ γέεννα ἦν, εἰ γὰρ μὴ κόλασις ἦν, μετὰ τὰς συνθήκας ἐκείνας καὶ τὰς γαμηλίους λαμπάδας, μετὰ τὴν εὐνὴν τὴν δικαίαν, μετὰ τὴν παιδοποιίαν, μετὰ τὴν κοινωνίαν, πῶς ἀνέξῃ προσκολλᾶσθαι ἑτέρᾳ; πῶς οὐκ αἰσχύνῃ οὐδὲ ἐρυθριᾷς; Οὐκ οἶδας ὅτι οἱ μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν τῆς ἑαυτῶν ἑτέραν ἐπεισαγόμενοι, παρὰ πολλῶν καταγινώσκονται, καίτοι οὐ κόλασιν ἔχει τὸ πρᾶγμα; Σὺ δὲ καὶ ζώσης ἑτέραν ἐπεισάγεις. Καὶ πόσης οὐχὶ ταῦτα λαγνείας, Μάθε τί περὶ τῶν τοιούτων εἴρηται· Ὁ σκώληξ, φησὶν, αὐτῶν οὐ τελευτήσει, καὶ τὸ πῦρ οὐ σβεσθήσεται. Φρίξον τὴν ἀπειλὴν, φοβήθητι τὴν κόλασιν. Οὐκ ἔστιν ἐνταῦθα τοσαύτη ἡ ἡδονὴ, ὅση ἐκεῖ τιμωρία. Ἀλλὰ μὴ γένοιτό τινα ὑπεύθυνον γενέσθαι τῆς κολάσεως ἐκείνης· ἀλλὰ τὴν ἁγιωσύνην ἀσκοῦντας ἰδεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν, καὶ τῶν ἐπηγγελμένων τυχεῖν ἀγαθῶν· ὧν γένοιτο πάντας ἡμᾶς ἀπολαῦσαι, χάριτι καὶ φιλανθρωπίᾳ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, μεθ' οὗ τῷ Πατρὶ ἡ δόξα ἅμα τῷ ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι, εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ἀμήν.

59.353 ΟΜΙΛΙΑ Ξ∆ʹ. Ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἦρε τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἄνω, καὶ εἶπε· Πάτερ, εὐχαριστῶ σοι, ὅτι ἤκουσάς μου. Ἐγὼ δὲ ᾔδειν ὅτι πάντοτέ μου ἀκούεις· ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν ὄχλον τὸν περιεστῶτα εἶπον, καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς.

αʹ. Ὃ πολλάκις εἶπον, τοῦτο καὶ νῦν ἐρῶ, ὅτι ὁ Χριστὸς οὐχ οὕτω πρὸς τὴν

ἀξίαν ὁρᾷ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ, ὡς πρὸς τὴν σωτηρίαν τὴν ἡμετέραν· οὐδ' ὅπως τι μέγα φθέγξηται, ἀλλ' ὅπως δυνάμενον ἡμᾶς ἐπισπάσασθαι. ∆ιὰ τοῦτο τὰ μὲν ὑψηλὰ καὶ μεγάλα, ὀλίγα, καὶ αὐτὰ δὲ κεκρυμμένα· τὰ δὲ ταπεινὰ καὶ εὐτελῆ, πολλὰ περιῤῥεῖ τοῖς αὐτοῦ λόγοις. Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ τούτοις ἐνήγοντο μᾶλλον, τούτοις καὶ ἐνδιατρίβει, καὶ οὔτε αὐτὰ διόλου φθέγγεται, ὥστε μὴ τοὺς μετὰ ταῦτα βλαβῆναι, οὔτε αὐτὰ ἀποσιωπᾷ, ὥστε μὴ τοὺς τότε σκανδαλισθῆναι. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ τῆς ταπεινότητος ἐξελθόντες, καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς ὑψηλοῦ δόγματος τὸ πᾶν δυνήσονται κατιδεῖν· οἱ δὲ ἀεὶ ταπεινοὶ ὄντες, εἰ μὴ πολλάκις ταῦτα ἤκουον οὐδ' ἂν ὅλως προσῆλθον. Ἀμέλει γοῦν οὐδὲ μετὰ τοσαῦτα μένουσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ λιθάζουσι καὶ διώκουσι, καὶ ἀναιρεῖν ἐπιχειροῦσι, καὶ βλάσφημον ἀποκαλοῦσι· καὶ ὅταν μὲν ἴσον ἑαυ 59.354 τὸν ποιῇ τῷ Θεῷ, οὕτω λέγουσιν· Οὗτος βλασφημεῖ· ὅταν δὲ εἴπῃ, Ἀφέωνταί σου αἱ ἁμαρτίαι, ἔτι καὶ δαιμονῶντα καλοῦσιν· ὥσπερ καὶ ὅταν θανάτου κρείττονα εἶναι τὸν ἀκούοντα αὐτοῦ τῶν ῥημάτων, ἢ καὶ ὅταν λέγῃ, Ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ Πατρὶ, καὶ ὁ Πατὴρ ἐν ἐμοὶ,