The danger of pride and the legacy of the saints

Are you sharing in a life of drunkenness and history? You are not the one offering sacrifices to the man Heracles as if he were a god, but to a Roman man, a body that was lucky and brave, and you revere him because he excelled in many things and became surrounded by beasts.

And again, why do you not revere and have set aside Asclepius, who was in the porch and surrounded by much iron? And you would not deny that you do this. For the temples rising everywhere in the inhabited world—I say the Asclepieia, the Heracleia, and the Dionysia—stand as high indictments of your vanity. And so I shall depart innocent of the reproach, for I do not worship idols nor consider them gods; but you are growing, being held by reproaches, and accusing others of these things, just as those with a guilty conscience accuse the innocent. For you show yourself to be worshipping men as gods. These things are few among the many regarding the pagan.

But you Jews of the new stance, what is wonderful that you dishonor Christ, rejecting the likeness to the Father, separating them in your own words, while guarding the places as sacred, in which holy bodies have rested? But you, who have not come to an understanding of what is happening, fear, you who are called Christians, and yet hate the martyrs along with the Greeks. Do you not know how Christ, the Arch-martyr, first suffered and left zeal to the servants?

Then after him Stephen, the namesake of the orthodox struggle according to God; all the following disciples and apostles. And you have inspected through a single insult how many you dishonor: John the Baptist, James called the brother of the Lord, Peter, Paul, Thomas; these I name as the leaders of the martyrs, and then the infinite multitude of those who died for life. Is it not a small thing for you to stumble over these? Is the danger of your hatred not small?

Each of these conquered the devil with the company of demons, and was inscribed among the angels and is kept as a well-pleasing athlete by the promise of the resurrection; and he shall stand at the appearance of God and our Savior, opening his mouth with boldness, rejoicing in the sight of the angels and in the glory of God, blessing himself for the lashes, the chains, the tortures, the deformities...

It is a profit of the end, because of the eternal life he has become a guest. But when you hear these things, I know what you think and say: 'I too am acceptable to my peers. If I live according to virtue, I shall be no worse or less honored than those now admired.' Truly, such words are the mark of a proud man, following the great Pharisee (Luke 18:11) and stranger to all humility. It is evident that he who has not previously been humbled will not ascend to height; for a decision is a master.

To ensure that no one forgives you for becoming such a person—tell me, do you not wish to feel shame before those who cut the path of piety for you, the guides of the good, the teachers of virtue, who trained you in endurance and contempt for death? You were taught gratitude from the disciples of this life, that becoming like those who taught and lacking nothing of the art, they nonetheless love the hearts of the teachers, respect them, speak well of them, yield to the first ones, and serve them as a father.

Many also, having ended their lives, holy saints are able, even after departing from life, to do good to men; and witness to these things is Elisha, who long ago, having departed from life and fallen asleep, but having received the grace of God immortal and inseparable, was present in the earth and with the lifeless bones (2 Kings 13:21). For you know, as a lover of the Scriptures and a disciple, that someone dead, being carried out by his own people, perhaps being seized by robbers or enemies, such as it is pleasing to happen in commotion and noise, having been thrown upon the tomb of the thrice-blessed prophet, was immediately revived and rose to the living.

What then shall we say regarding what happened? Did the righteous man have no perception of what was being done? Did he not send up a prayer for the dead as for the child of the woman of Samos? But the truth of things gives us nothing of the sort to conceive. For the righteous man lay there long ago, the body having been dissolved into kindred soil and like dust. But it has become evident that God, always glorifying His own people even after their end, performs wondrous paradoxes concerning their tombs and their resting places, so that the living, always having a more intoxicating hold on the good hope, may hold onto those who have departed.