Homilies on Exodus — Homily 8 (Exod. 20 — the beginning of the Decalogue)
Latin source: Origen's Greek homilies on Exodus, surviving only in Rufinus of Aquileia's Latin translation (c. 400), from the reading text of W. A. Baehrens (ed.), Origenes Werke VI (GCS 29, Leipzig, 1920), pp. 145–279. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the beginning of the Decalogue.
1. Everyone who has learned to despise the present age, which "is figuratively called Egypt", and who through the word of God has—to speak according to the Scriptures—"been translated, and is not found", because he hastens and presses on toward the age to come: concerning a soul of this kind God says, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt". These things, therefore, are not said only to those who set out from Egypt, but much more to you who now hear them, if only you set out from Egypt and no longer serve the Egyptians; to you God says these things: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage". See whether the affairs of the world and the deeds of the flesh are not a "house of bondage", just as, on the contrary again, to leave behind worldly things and to live according to God is a house of liberty, as the Lord also says in the Gospels: "if you abide in my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free". Therefore Egypt is a "house of bondage", but Judaea and Jerusalem are a house of liberty. Hear also the Apostle proclaiming concerning these things "according to the wisdom which had been given to him in his ministry": "but the Jerusalem" he says "which is above is free, which is the mother of us all". Just as, therefore, Egypt, that earthly region, is called for the children of Israel a "house of bondage" in comparison with Judaea and Jerusalem, which are made for them a house of liberty, so in comparison with the heavenly Jerusalem, which is, so to speak, the mother of liberty, this whole world and all things that are in this world are a "house of bondage". And since from the paradise of liberty, as a penalty for sin, there had been a coming into the bondage of this world, for that reason the first utterance of the Decalogue, that is, the first voice of God's commandments, is brought forth concerning liberty, saying: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage". This voice, while set in Egypt, you could not hear, even if it be enjoined upon you to keep the Passover, even if you "gird your loins" and take "sandals on your feet", even if you hold "a staff in your hand" and "eat unleavened bread with bitterness". And why do I say that, set in Egypt, you could not hear these things? Nay, not even having set out from there could you hear these things at your very first halting-place, nor at the second, nor at the third, nor when you crossed the Red Sea; even if you come to Marah and the bitterness be turned for you into sweetness, even if you come to Elim to the "twelve fountains of waters and seventy palm trees", even if you pass Rephidim and ascend through the remaining stages, you are not yet judged fit for words of this kind—but only when you come to Mount Sinai. Therefore, after many labors have first been accomplished, after many hardships and temptations have been overcome, hardly at length will you be made worthy to receive the precepts of liberty and to hear from the Lord: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage". Yet this utterance is not yet the utterance of a commandment, but it shows who it is that commands. Now, therefore, let us see what is the beginning of the ten commandments of the law, and, if we do not reach them all, let us at least unfold the beginnings, according as the Lord may grant.
2. The first commandment, then, is: "there shall be for you no other gods besides me". And after this there follows: "you shall not make for yourself an idol nor any likeness, whatever things are in heaven above and whatever are in the earth below and whatever are in the waters under the earth; you shall not adore them nor worship them. For I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, who repay the sins of the fathers upon the sons, unto the third and fourth generation, upon those who hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands to those who love me and who keep my precepts". All these things together some suppose to be one commandment. But if it be so supposed, the number of ten commandments will not be filled out—and where then will be the truth of the Decalogue? But if it be divided in the manner in which we too distinguished it in the utterance above, the whole number of ten commandments will appear. Therefore the first commandment is: "there shall be for you no other gods besides me", and the second: "you shall not make for yourself an idol nor any likeness", and the rest. Let us begin, then, with the first commandment. But I too have need of the help of the very God who gave these precepts, in order to speak, and you have need of purer ears in order to hear. If, therefore, any of you has "ears to hear", let him hear how it was said: "there shall be for you no other gods besides me". If he had said: there are no gods besides me, the utterance would seem more absolute. But now, since he says: "there shall be for you no other gods besides me", he did not deny that they exist, but he restrained them from being gods for him to whom these precepts are given. From this, I think, the Apostle Paul also took what he writes to the Corinthians, saying: "for even if there are those that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth". And he adds: "as indeed there are many gods and many lords, but for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things and we unto him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him". But in many other places of Scripture also you will find gods named, as there too: "for the Lord is most high, terrible, a great king over all gods", and: "the God of gods, the Lord, has spoken", and: "in the midst he distinguishes gods". Concerning lords the same Apostle says: "whether thrones, or dominions, or powers, all things were created through him and in him". But dominions are nothing other than a certain order and multitude of lords. In which, as it seems to me, the Apostle Paul made the sense of the law clearer. For what he says amounts to this: although there are "many lords" who rule over other nations, and "many gods" who are worshiped by others, "yet for us there is one" "God and one Lord". But what is the cause of there being "many gods" or "many lords", if you listen intently and patiently, Scripture itself will be able to teach us. For the same Moses says in the canticle of Deuteronomy: "when the Most High divided the nations" he says "and scattered abroad the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. And the Lord's portion became his people Jacob, the cord of his inheritance, Israel". It is established, then, that the angels to whom the Most High committed the nations to be governed are called either gods or lords: gods, as though given by God, and lords, as being those who received their power by lot from the Lord. Hence the Lord too said to the angels who did not keep their princedom: "I said: you are gods, and all sons of the Most High. But you shall die as men, and shall fall like one of the princes"—imitating, that is, the devil, who was made prince of all unto ruin. Hence it is established that transgression, not nature, made those accursed. To you, therefore, O people of Israel, who are "the portion of God", who have been made "the cord of his inheritance", he says: "there shall be for you no other gods besides me", because truly the "one God" is God and truly the "one Lord" is Lord. But upon the rest, who were created by him, he conferred that name not by nature, but by grace. Yet, lest you suppose these things are said only to that "Israel" which is "according to the flesh", much more are they said to you, who have been made Israel by seeing God in mind and have been circumcised in heart, not in flesh. For even if in the flesh we are Gentiles, in the spirit we are Israel, on account of him who said: "ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession", and on account of him who again said: "Father, all that is mine is yours and yours mine, and I have been glorified in these"—if only you so act that you may be worthy to be "the portion" of God and to be measured in "the cord of his inheritance". Otherwise, if you act unworthily, let those be an example to you who had been called to this, that they should be "the portion" of God, and by their sins earned this, that they should be "scattered among all nations". And those who had first been led out "from the house of bondage", now once again—because "he who sins is the slave of sin"—serve not the Egyptians alone, but all nations. Therefore it is said to you also, who through Jesus Christ came out of Egypt and were led out "from the house of bondage": "there shall be for you no other gods besides me".
3. After these things let us see what the second commandment also seems to contain: "you shall not make for yourself an idol nor any likeness of the things that are in heaven or that are in the earth or that are in the waters under the earth". Idols are one thing, and gods far another, as the Apostle himself likewise teaches us. For concerning gods he said: "as there are many gods and many lords"; but concerning idols he says: "for an idol is nothing in the world". Hence it seems to me that he read what the law says not carelessly. For he saw the difference between gods and idols, and again the difference between idols and likenesses; for he who said of idols that they do not exist did not add that likenesses also do not exist. But here it says: "you shall not make for yourself an idol nor a likeness of any things". It is one thing, then, to make an "idol", another to make a "likeness". And if indeed the Lord deign to enlighten us as to the things that must be said, I think it should be understood thus: that, for example's sake, if someone in any metal of gold or silver, or of wood or of stone, make the shape of some quadruped, or of a serpent, or of a bird, and set it up to be adored, he has made not an idol, but a likeness; or even if he set up a painting for this very purpose, he must nonetheless be said to have made a likeness. But that man has made an "idol" who, according to the Apostle who says that "an idol is nothing", makes what is not. And what is it that is not? A shape which the eye has not seen, but which the mind itself fashions for itself. For example's sake: as if one should form, upon human limbs, the head of a dog or of a ram, or again should fashion two faces on one human form, or join to a human breast the hinder parts of a horse or of a fish. He who makes these things and things like them makes not a likeness, but an idol. For he makes what is not, nor has it anything like itself. And therefore, knowing this, the Apostle says: "for an idol is nothing in the world"; for the shape is not taken from any of the things that exist, but is what the idle and curious mind has itself devised for itself. But a likeness is when something is formed from those things which are "either in heaven or in earth or in the waters", as we said above. Nevertheless, it is not as ready at hand to pronounce concerning heavenly things as concerning the likenesses of those things which are in the earth or in the sea—unless one should say that this can be perceived concerning the sun and moon and stars; for indeed the heathen are wont to express the forms of these too. But because Moses "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians", he desired to prohibit also those things which among them were among their hidden and secret matters; as, for example's sake, so that we too may use their own appellations, the one they call Hecate and other forms of demons, which the Apostle calls "the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places". Concerning which perhaps the prophet also says: "my sword has been made drunk in heaven". For with these forms and likenesses it is the custom to invoke demons for those who have such matters as their concern, whether to repel or even to invite evils; all of which the word of God, embracing them all together, at once abjures and casts away, and forbids not only that an idol be made, but also "a likeness of all things that are in the earth, and in the waters, and in heaven".
4. He adds, moreover, and says: "you shall not adore them nor worship them". To worship is one thing, to adore another. A person can sometimes adore even unwillingly, as some, flattering kings, when they have seen them given over to devotions of this kind, feign that they adore idols, though in their heart it is certain that an idol is nothing; but to worship is to be enslaved to these things with the whole affection and zeal. Both, therefore, the divine word cuts away, so that you neither worship with affection nor adore in outward show. Yet it must be known that, when you have resolved to keep the charge of this precept and to repudiate all the other gods and lords, and to have besides the one God and Lord no one as either god or lord, this is to have declared war without treaty upon all the rest. When, therefore, we come to the grace of baptism, renouncing all other gods and lords, we confess God the Father alone and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But confessing this, unless we "love the Lord our God with the whole heart and with the whole soul" and cleave to him "with the whole strength", we have not been made "the Lord's portion", but, set as it were on a certain border, we both suffer offense from those we have fled, and do not render favorable the Lord to whom we have fled, whom we do not love "with the whole and entire heart". And therefore the prophet mourns over us, whom he sees wavering with inconstancy of this kind, and says: "woe to the double-minded", and again: "how long do you go lame on both your knees?" But the Apostle James also says: "a double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways". We are, then, we who follow our Lord with a faith neither whole nor perfect, and have withdrawn from alien gods, set as it were in a certain middle border, and by those we are struck at as fugitives, and by our own Lord, as unstable and doubtful, we are not defended. Or is this not what the prophets too spiritually figure concerning the lovers of Jerusalem, when they say: "your lovers themselves have become your enemies"? So, then, understand that your soul too has had many lovers, who delighted in her beauty, with whom she played the harlot. Concerning whom she also said: "I will go after my lovers, who give me my wine and my oil", and the rest. But now she has come to that time when she says: "I will return to my former husband, because it was better for me then than now". You have returned, then, to your former husband; without doubt you have given offense to your lovers, with whom you were committing adulteries. Unless, therefore, you now abide with your husband in whole faith, and are glued to him with your whole love, out of the many crimes which you have committed every movement of yours and glance of yours is suspect to him, and your very gait, if it be too careless. He can see nothing further in you that is wanton, nothing dissolute and prodigal. But when you turn your eyes even a little away from your husband, at once there must needs come a remembrance of former things. Therefore, that you may both blot out former things and that trust may be able to be had in you for the rest, you must not only do nothing unchaste, but not even think it. For see what is written: "When" it says "an unclean spirit has gone out from a man, it goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. And then it says: I will return into my house, whence I came out. And if, coming, it finds it empty, swept, and adorned, it goes and brings with it seven other spirits worse than itself, and entering into that house it dwells therein. And the last state of that man shall be worse than the first". If we heed these things, how can we give even in a small matter a place to negligence? For an unclean spirit dwelt in us before we believed, before we came to Christ, when still, as I said above, our soul was fornicating away from God and was with its lovers, the demons. But after she said: "I will return to my former husband" and came to Christ, who from the beginning "created her according to his own image", the adulterous spirit necessarily gave place when it saw the lawful husband. We have been received, then, by Christ, and our house has been "cleansed" from former sins and "adorned" with the ornaments of the sacraments of the faithful, which those who have been initiated know. But this house does not at once merit to have Christ as its inhabitant, unless its life and conduct be so holy, so pure and undefiled, that it may merit to be a "temple of God". For it must be no longer a house, but a temple, in which God may dwell. If, then, it neglect the grace received and entangle itself in worldly affairs, straightway that unclean spirit returns and claims for itself the empty house. And, that it may not be able to be expelled again, it brings "with it seven other spirits worse", and "the last state of a man of this kind becomes worse than the first", because it had been more tolerable for a soul that once played the harlot not to have returned to its former husband than, having returned after the confession of the husband, to become an adulteress again. There is, then, no "fellowship", as the Apostle says, "of the temple of God with idols", no "concord of Christ with Belial". If we are God's, we ought to be such that there may be fulfilled that which God says concerning us: "for I will dwell in them and walk among them, and they shall be to me a people", and as in another place the prophet says: "go out from the midst of them and be separated, says the Lord, you who bear the vessels of the Lord. Go out and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be to you a father, and you shall be to me sons and daughters, says the Lord almighty". For this reason, therefore, he says: "there shall be for you no other gods besides me, nor shall you make for yourself an idol nor any likeness, whatever things are in heaven, and whatever are in the earth, and whatever are in the waters; neither shall you adore them nor worship them".
5. "For I am the Lord your God, a jealous God". See the kindness of God, how, in order to teach us and make us perfect, he himself does not refuse the frailty of human affections. For who, hearing of a "jealous God", would not straightway wonder and think it a fault of human frailty? But God both does and suffers all things for our sake, and, that we may be able to be taught, he speaks in affections known and familiar to us. Let us see, then, what this is that he says: "I am a jealous God". But that we may more easily be able to contemplate things divine, let us be taught by human examples, according to those things we discoursed of above. Every woman is either under a husband and subject to the laws of the husband, or is a harlot and uses the liberty of sinning. He, therefore, who goes in to a harlot knows himself to have gone in to a woman who is prostituted and lies open to all who wish; and therefore he cannot be indignant if with her he sees other lovers also. But he who uses lawful marriage does not suffer his wife to use the power of sinning, but is kindled with jealousy to preserve the chastity of the marriage, whereby he may become a lawful father from her. By this example, then, let us understand that every soul is either prostituted to demons and has very many lovers—so that at one moment there enters into her the spirit of fornication, and when that departs there enters the spirit of avarice, after this comes the spirit of pride, then of wrath, then of envy, then also of vainglory, and very many others with these. All these so play the harlot with the unfaithful soul that the one does not envy the other, nor are they moved to jealousy toward one another. And why do I say that the one does not exclude the other? Nay, they even invite one another and of their own accord summon one another, as we already said a little before, that it is written in the Gospel concerning that spirit which "went out from a man, and returning brought with it seven other spirits worse than itself, that they might dwell together in one soul". So, then, the soul that is prostituted to demons suffers no jealousy from her lovers. But if she be joined to a lawful husband, to that husband to whom Paul joins and unites souls in marriage, as he himself says: "for I have determined to present you as a chaste virgin to one husband, to Christ", and concerning whom it is written in the Gospels that "a certain king made a marriage for his son"—into the marriage, then, of this husband when the soul has given herself, and has obtained by lot a lawful matrimony with him, even if she was once a sinner, even if she played the harlot, yet if she has handed herself over to this husband, he suffers her to sin no further. He cannot bear that the soul which has obtained a husband by lot should again dally with adulterers: his jealousy is aroused over her, he defends the chastity of the marriage. And "God" is called "jealous" because he does not suffer the soul made his own to mingle with demons. Otherwise, if he see her violating the rights of the marriage and seeking occasions for sin, then, as it is written, he gives her "a bill of divorce" and dismisses her, saying: "where is the bill of divorce of your mother, by which I dismissed her?" To which he adds also and says: "behold, for your sins you have been sold, and for your iniquities I have dismissed your mother". He who speaks these things is "jealous" and, moved with jealousy, says these things; for after the acknowledgment of himself, after the illumination of the divine word, after the grace of baptism, after the confession of faith, and the marriage confirmed by sacraments so many and so great, he does not wish us to sin any further, he does not suffer the soul, of which he is himself called either the bridegroom or the husband, to sport with demons, to fornicate with unclean spirits, to wallow in vices and uncleannesses; and if perhaps it sometime unhappily happen, at least that she may be converted and return and repent. For this is a new kind of his goodness, that even after adultery he receives the soul, provided she returns and repents from the heart; as he himself also says through the prophet: "if a woman go out from her husband and sleep with another man, shall she return again to her husband? Shall she not be defiled with defilement? But you have fornicated with many shepherds, and yet you were returning to me". Likewise elsewhere he says: "and after you had fornicated in all these things, I said: return to me; and not even so did you return, says the Lord". This "jealous God", then—if he requires and desires your soul to cleave to him, if he keeps you from sin, if he rebukes, if he chastises, if he is indignant, if he is angry and, as it were, uses a certain jealousy toward you—recognize that there is for you hope of salvation. But if, chastised, you do not come to your senses, if, rebuked, you are not amended, if, scourged, you despise it, know that, if you have so far advanced in sinning, his jealousy will depart from you, and that will be said to you which through the prophet Ezekiel is said to Jerusalem: "therefore my jealousy shall depart from you, and I will be angry over you no more". See the mercy and the loving-kindness of the good God. When he wishes to have mercy, he says that he is indignant and angry, as through Jeremiah he says: "with grief and with scourge you shall be chastised, Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from you". If you understand these things, it is the voice of a God who has mercy, where he is angry, where he is jealous, where he applies griefs and scourges. "For he scourges every son whom he receives". But do you wish to hear the terrible voice of an indignant God? Hear what he says through the prophet: when he had enumerated the many wicked things which the people had committed, he adds also these: "and for this reason" he says "I will not visit upon your daughters when they fornicate, nor upon your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery". This is the terrible thing, this the extremity: when we are no longer rebuked for our sins, when we are no longer corrected when we transgress. For then, when we have exceeded the measure of sinning, the "jealous God" turns his jealousy away from us, as he said above: "for my jealousy shall be taken away from you, and I will be angry over you no more". So much concerning that which was said: "a jealous God".
6. Let us now see also what follows, how the "sins of the fathers" are said to be repaid "upon the sons unto the third and fourth generation". For in this saying the heretics are wont to jeer at us, that it is not the saying of a good God, who says that one is punished for the sins of another. But even according to their own reasoning, who say that the God who commanded these things in the law is, though not good, yet just, not even they can show how, according to their own sense of justice, it seems to accord that one should be punished when another sins. It remains, therefore, that we beseech the Lord to show us how these precepts accord with a just and good God. We have often said already that the divine Scriptures speak not everything to the outer man, but very much to the inner. Our inner man, therefore, is said either to have God as father, if he lives according to God and does the things that are God's, or the devil, if he be in sins and does his wills; as the Savior evidently shows in the Gospels, when he says: "you are of your father the devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth". Just as, then, the seed of God is said to remain in us, when, keeping the word of God, we do not sin in ourselves, as John says: "but he who is of God does not sin, because the seed of God remains in him", so also, when we are persuaded by the devil to sin, we receive his seed. But when we even fulfill in deed what he has counseled, then indeed he has also begotten us; for we are born his sons through sin. But since it scarcely almost happens that we who sin should sin without a helper, but we always require either ministers or helpers of sin—for example's sake, if someone contrives adultery, he cannot accomplish this alone, but there must needs be also an adulteress as partner and companion of the sin; and moreover, even if not several, yet there must needs be some man or some woman in the services and companionship of the sin; all of whom, begotten as it were one from another according to the order of persuasion, "from their father the devil" draw the progeny of a harmful birth. And, to come to the things that are written, the "Lord of majesty", Jesus Christ our Savior, was crucified. The author of this crime and the father of the wickedness is without doubt the devil. For thus it is written: "but when the devil had entered into the heart of Judas Iscariot, that he should betray him". The father of the sin, then, is the devil. He, in this wickedness, first begets a son, Judas; but Judas alone could not accomplish this. What, then, is written? "Judas went" it says "to the scribes and Pharisees and to the chief priests, saying to them: What will you give me, and I will betray him to you?" There is born, then, from Judas a third and fourth generation of sin. And you will be able to detect this order in each single sin as well. Now, therefore, let us see, according to this progeny of which we have spoken, how God "repays the sins of the fathers upon the sons and unto the third and fourth generation", and does not repay upon the fathers themselves; for he said nothing about the fathers. The devil, then, who has already exceeded the measure of sinning—as the prophet says, "as a garment congealed in blood shall not be clean", so he too shall not be clean in this age, nor is he rebuked for his sin, nor scourged; for all things are reserved for him unto the future. Hence he himself too, knowing that a set time of punishments is appointed for him, said to the Savior: "why have you come to torment us before the time?" While, therefore, this world stands, the devil, who is the father of those who sin, does not receive his sins; but they are repaid upon the sons, that is, upon those whom he begot through sin. For men, set in the flesh, are rebuked by the Lord, are beaten, are scourged. For "the Lord does not wish the death of the sinner, but that he should return and live". And therefore the "kind and merciful Lord" repays the sins of the fathers upon the sons, so that—since the fathers, that is, "the devil and his angels", and the rest, "the princes of the world and rulers of these darknesses" (for these too are made fathers of sin, just as the devil is)—since, I say, these fathers are unworthy to be rebuked in the present age, but in the future receive what they deserve, their sons, that is, those whom they have persuaded to sin and who nonetheless have been enlisted by them into the partnership and companionship of sin, these receive what they have done, so that they may pass more purified to the age to come and no longer be made companions of the devil in punishment. Because, therefore, God is merciful and "wishes all men to be saved", for this reason he says: "I will visit their misdeeds with a rod of iron and their sins with scourges. But my mercy I will not take away from them". The Lord, then, visits and requires the souls which this most evil father has begotten by persuasion to sin, and says to each one of them: "hear, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and the house of your father". He visits you, then, after sin, and admonishes you, and with scourge and rod he visits you for the sin which the devil your father put upon you, that he may repay it to you "into your bosom", that is, while you dwell in the body. And thus it is fulfilled that the "sins of the fathers" are repaid "into the bosoms of the sons, unto the third and fourth generation". For "God" is "jealous" and does not wish the soul which he has betrothed to himself in faith to remain in the defilement of sin, but wishes her quickly to be purged, wishes her swiftly to cast off all her uncleannesses, if perhaps anything has stolen upon her. But if she remain in sins and say: we will not hear the voice of the Lord, but doing we will do our own wills and will burn offerings "to the queen of heaven", as is reproached through the prophet: then she too is reserved for that sentence of wisdom which says: "since indeed I called and you would not hear, but mocked my words; therefore I too will laugh at your destruction", or for that which is set before them in the Gospel, the Lord saying: "depart from me into eternal fire, which God has prepared for the devil and his angels". I desire that, while I am in this age, the Lord may visit my sins and here repay them to me, so that there he may say also concerning me, Abraham, as he said concerning poor Lazarus to the rich man: "remember, son, that you received your good things in your life, and Lazarus likewise evil things. But now here he is at rest, but you are tormented". For this reason, therefore, when we are rebuked, when we are chastised by the Lord, we ought not to be ungrateful, but let us understand that we are rebuked in the present age for this, that in the future we may obtain rest, as the Apostle also says: "but when we are chastised by the Lord, we are rebuked, lest we be condemned with this world". Finally, for this reason too the blessed Job willingly received all torments and said: "if we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not also endure evil things?" "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it been done. Blessed be the name of the Lord". But he also repays "mercy unto thousands to those who love him". For those who love do not need rebuke, nor indeed do they sin, as the Lord too says: "he who loves me keeps my commandments". And therefore "perfect love casts out fear". On this account, then, for those who love, mercy alone is set; for "blessed are the merciful, for God will have mercy upon them" in Christ Jesus our Lord, "to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen".