THE HOMILIES OF S. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE, ON THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS, TRANSLATED, WITH NOTES AND INDICES. PART II. HOM. XXV.-XLIV. OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER; J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON. MDCCCXXXIX. HOMILY XXV. 1 COR. X. 25. Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no question for conscience sake. HAVING said that they could not drink the cup of the Lord, (1.) and the cup of devils, and having once for all led them away from those tables, by Jewish examples, by human reasonings, by the tremendous Mysteries, by the rites solemnized among the idols; and having filled them with great fear; that he might not by this fear drive them again to another extreme, and they be forced, exercising a greater scrupulosity than was necessary, to feel alarm, lest possibly even without their knowledge there might come in some such thing, either from the market, or from some other quarter; to release them from this strait, he saith, Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question. "For," saith he, "if thou eat in ignorance, and not knowingly, thou art not subject to the punishment: it being thenceforth a matter, not of greediness, but of ignorance." : Nor doth he free the man only from this anxiety, but also from another, establishing them in thorough security and liberty. For he doth not even suffer them to question; i. e. to search and enquire, whether it be an idol-sacrifice, or no such thing but simply to eat every thing which comes from the market, not even acquainting one's self with so much as this, what it is that is set before us. So that even he that eateth, if in ignorance, may be rid of anxiety. For such is the nature of those things which are not in their essence evil, a Savile conj. siwasios, "in the idol Temples:" but idλs is the actual reading. |