It is time that I should begin the journey to which the law of our order compels me, desire incites me, and affection calls me. But how, even for so short a time, can I be separated from my beloved ones? Separated, I say, in body, and not in spirit; and I know that in affection and spirit I shall be so much the more present by how much in body I am the more absent. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of my flesh; my wish is, that I may lay down among you the tabernacle of my flesh, that I may breathe forth my spirit in your hands, that ye may close the eyes of your father, and that all my bones should be buried in your sight! Pray, therefore, O my beloved ones, that the Lord may grant me the desire of my soul. Call to mind, dearest brethren, that it is written of the Lord Jesus, when he was about to remove his presence from his Disciples, that he, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem. Following, therefore, his example, since, after our sweet banquet, we have now risen from the table, I, who in a little while am about to go away, command you, beseech you, warn you, not to depart from Jerusalem. For Jerusalem signifies peace. Therefore, we commend peace to you, we enjoin peace to you. Now, Christ himself, our Peace, who hath united us, keep you in the unity of the spirit and in the bond of peace; to whose protection and consolation I commend you under the wings of the Holy Ghost; that he may return you to me, and me to you in peace and with safety. Approach now, dearest sons, and in sign of the peace and love which I have commended to you, kiss your father; and let us all pray together that the Lord may make our way prosperous, and grant us when we return to find you in the same peace, who liveth and reigneth one God, through all ages of ages. Amen.
A SERMON AFTER ABSENCE
Behold, I have returned, my beloved sons, my joy and my crown in the Lord! Behold! I have returned after many labors, after a dangerous journey; I am returned to you, I am returned to your love. This day is the day of exultation and joy, which, when I was in a foreign land, when I was struggling with the winds and with the sea, I so long desired to behold; and the Lord hath heard the desire of the poor. O love, how sweetly thou inflamest those that are absent! How deliciously thou feedest those that are present; and yet dost not satisfy the hungry till thou makest Jerusalem to have peace and fillest it with the flour of wheat! This is the peace which, as you remember, I commended to you when the law of our order compelled me for a time to be separated from you; the peace which, now I have returned, I find (Thanks be to God!) among you; the peace of Christ, which, with a certain foretaste of love, feeds you in the way that shall satisfy you with the plentitude of the same love in your country. Well, beloved brethren, all that I am, all that I have, all that I know, I offer to your profit, I devote to your advantage. Use me as you will; spare not my labor if it can in any way serve to your benefit. Let us return, therefore, if you please, or rather because you please, to the work which we have intermitted; and let us examine the Holy Ghost enduing us with the light of truth, the heavenly treasures which holy Isaiah has laid up under the guise of parables, when he writes that parable which the people, freed from his tyranny, shall take up against the king of Babylon. "And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon." Let us, therefore, understand the parable as a parable. Not imagining that it was spoken against Nebuchadnezzar, the prince of that earthly Babylon, but rather against him who is from the North, the prince of confusion. … If any one of us, then, who was once set in the confusion of vices, and oppressed by the yoke of iniquity, now rejoices that he rests from his labors, and is without confusion for that which is past, and has cast off the yoke of that worst of slaveries, let him take up this parable against the king of Babylon. There is labor in vice, there is rest in virtue; there is confusion in lust, there is security in chastity; there is servitude in covetousness, there is liberty in charity. Now, there is a labor in vice, and labor for vice, and labor against vice. A labor in vice, when, for the sake of fulfilling our evil desires, the ancient enemy inflicts hard labor upon us. There is a labor for vice, when any one is either afflicted against his will, for the evil which he has done, or of his will is troubled by the labor of penance. There is a labor against vice, when he that is converted to God is troubled with divers temptations. There is also a confusion in vice, when a man, distracted by most evil passions, is not ruled by reason, but hurried along confusedly by the tumult of vices; a confusion for vice, when a man is found out and convicted of any crime, and is therefore confounded, or when a man repenting and confessing what he has done is purified by healthful confusion and confession; and there is a confusion against vice, when a man, converted to God, resists the temptation from which he suffers, by the recollection of former confusion.
Wonder not if I have kept you longer to-day than my wont is, because desirous of you, after so long a hunger, I could not be easily satiated with your presence. Think not, indeed, that even now I am satiated; I leave off speaking because I am weary, not because I am satisfied. But I shall be satisfied when the glory of Christ shall appear, in whom I now embrace you with delight, you, with whom I hope that I shall be happily found in him, to whom is honor and glory to ages of ages. Amen.
ON MANLINESS
Fortitude comes next, which is necessary in temptation, since perfection of sanctity cannot be so uninterruptedly maintained in this life that its serenity will be disturbed by no temptations. But as our Lord God seems to us, in times when everything appears peaceful and tranquil, to be merciful and loving and the giver of joy, thus when he exposes us either to the temptations of the flesh, or to the suggestions of demons, or when he afflicts us with the troubles, or wears us out with the persecutions of this world, he seems, as it were, a hard and angry master. And happy is he who becomes valiant in this his anger, now resisting, now fighting, now flying, so as to be found neither infirm through consenting, nor weak through despairing. Therefore, brethren, whoever is not found valiant in his anger cannot exult in his glory. If we have passed through fire and water, so that neither did the fire consume us, nor the water drown us, whose is the glory? Is it ours, so that we should exult in it as if it belonged to us? God forbid! How many exult, brethren, when they are praised by men, taking the glory of the gifts of God as if it were their own and not exulting in the honor of Christ, who, while they seek that which is their own and not the things of Jesus Christ, both lose that which is their own and do not gain that which is Christ's! He then exults in Christ's glory, who seeks not his glory but Christ's, and he understands that, in ourselves, there is nothing of which we can boast, since we have nothing that is our own. And this is the way in which, in individual men, the City of Confusion is overthrown, when chastity expels luxury, fortitude overthrows temptations, humility excludes vanity. Furthermore, we have sanctification from the faith and sacraments of Christ, fortitude from the love of Christ, exultation in the hope of the promises of Christ. Let us each do what we can, that faith may sanctify us, love strengthen us, and hope make us joyful in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be honor and glory forever and forever. Amen.
AESCHINES (389-314 B.C.)
Professor R. C. Jebe says of Aeschines, the rival of Demosthenes for supremacy at Athens, that when the Rhodians asked him to teach them oratory, he replied that he did not know it himself. He took pride in being looked upon as a representative of natural oratorical genius who had had little help from the traditions of the schools. "If, however, Aeschines was no rhetorical artist," writes Doctor Jebb, "he brought to public speaking the twofold training of the actor and the scribe. He had a magnificent voice under perfect musical control. 'He compares me to the sirens,' says Aeschines of his rival."
First known as an actor, playing "tritagonist" in the tragedies of Sophocles and the other great Athenian dramatists, Aeschines was afterwards clerk to one of the minor officials at Athens; then secretary to Aristophon and Eubulos, well-known public men, and later still secretary of the ekklesia or assembly.
The greatest event of his life was his contest with Demosthenes 'De Corona' (Over the Crown). When Ktesiphon proposed that Athens should bestow a wreath of gold on Demosthenes for his public services, Aechines, after the bill proposing it had come before the assembly, challenged it and gave notice of his intention to proceed against Ktesiphon for proposing an unconstitutional measure. One of the allegations in support of its unconstitutionally was that "to record a bill describing Demosthenes as a public benefactor was to deposit a lying document among the public archives." The issues were thus joined between Aeschines and Demosthenes for one of the most celebrated forensic contests in history. Losing the case Aeschines went into banishment. He died at Samos, B.C. 314, in his seventy-fifth year. He is generally ranked next to Demosthenes among Greek orators. For the following from the oration of Aeschines, the reader is under obligations to Professor Jebb's admirable translation.