FIRST HOMILY AGAINST THE JєωS

"What is this disease? The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jєωs are soon to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession: the feast of Trumpets, the feast of Tabernacles, the fasts. There are many in our ranks who say they think as we do. Yet some of these are going to watch the festivals and others will join the Jєωs in keeping their feasts and observing their fasts. I wish to drive this perverse custom from the Church right now. ...

Stephen was right in calling them stiff-necked. For they failed to take up the yoke of Christ... But what is the source of this hardness? It come from gluttony and drunkenness. Who say so? Moses himself. "Israel ate and was filled and the darling grew fat and frisky". When brute animals feed from a full manger, they grow plump and become more obstinate and hard to hold in check; they endure neither the yoke, the reins, nor the hand of the charioteer. Just so the Jєωιѕн people were driven by their drunkenness and plumpness to the ultimate evil; they kicked about, they failed to accept the yoke of Christ, nor did they pull the plow of his teaching. Another prophet hinted at this when he said: "Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer". And still another called the Jєωs "an untamed calf".

Although such beasts are unfit for work, they are fit for killing. And this is what happened to the Jєωs: while they were making themselves unfit for work, they grew fit for slaughter. ...

Many, I know, respect the Jєωs and think that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion. I said that the ѕуηαgσgυє is no better than a theater and I bring forward a prophet as my witness. Surely the Jєωs are not more deserving of belief than their prophets. "You had a harlot's brow; you became shameless before all". Where a harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the ѕуηαgσgυє is not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts. Jeremiah said: "Your house has become for me the den of a hyena". He does not simply say "of wild beast", but "of a filthy wild beast", and again: "I have abandoned my house, I have cast off my inheritance". But when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons.

But at any rate the Jєωs say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jєω adores God! Who say so? The Son of God say so. For he said: "If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know my Father". Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God?

If, then, the Jєωs fail to know the Father, if they crucified the Son, if they thrust off the help of the Spirit, who should not make bold to declare plainly that the ѕуηαgσgυє is a dwelling of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven forbid! From now on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay it honor as a holy place. ...

Indeed the ѕуηαgσgυє is less deserving of honor than any inn. It is not merely a lodgin place for robbers and cheats but also for demons. This is true not only of the ѕуηαgσgυєs but also of the souls of the Jєωs, as I shall try to prove at the end of my homily. ...

Since there are some who think of the ѕуηαgσgυє as a holy place, I must say a few words to them. Why do you reverence that place? Must you not despise it, hold it in abomination, run away from it? They answer that the Law and the books of the prophets are kept there. What is this? Will any place where these books are be a holy place? By no means! This is the reason above all others why I hate the ѕуηαgσgυє and abhor it. They have the prophets but not believe them; they read the sacred writings but reject their witness-and this is a mark of men guilty of the greatest outrage. ...

For they brought the books of Moses and and the prophets along with them into the ѕуηαgσgυє, not to honor them but to outrage them with dishonor. When they say that Moses and the prophets knew not Christ and said nothing about his coming, what greater outrage could they do to those holy men than to accuse them of failing to recognize their Master, than to say that those saintly prophets are partners of their impiety? And so it is that we must hate both them and their ѕуηαgσgυє all the more because of their offensive treatment of those holy men."