Blasphemy has a present penalty, and causes our destruction over and above what we have suffered. Have you lost money? If you have given thanks, you have gained your soul and won greater riches for yourself, and propitiated God the more; but, if you have blasphemed, you have destroyed your own salvation without gaining any of those things, and have slain your own soul. The Folly of the Cross. (_Homilies on First Epistle to Corinthians_, xiv., vol. ii., p. 36.) · · · · · · · Showing the power of the Cross, St. Paul says: _The Jews too ask for signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, a scandal to the Jews, a folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God_. There is a deep meaning in these words. For he wishes to say how God conquered by contraries, and that the promulgation of the Gospel does not come from man. What he says amounts to this. When we say to the Jews, ‘Believe,’ they reply, ‘Raise up the dead, cure those who are possessed, show us signs’. How do we answer these things? By saying, that He Whom we preach was crucified and died. This was sufficient not only not to move those who did not wish to be moved, but also to repulse those who had the will; yet still He is not repulsed, but draws men after Him, and conquers and gets the better of them. Again, the Gentiles demand of us eloquent discourses and elaborate reasonings, and we reply to them also by preaching the Cross, and that which seems to be weakness to the Jews, the Gentiles consider folly. Now, when we not only do not offer them what they ask for, but the very contrary, for the Cross not only does not seem to be a sign tested, according to human reason, but the destruction of signs: not only not a manifestation of power, but a proof of weakness: not only not an embodiment of wisdom, but a personification of folly; when, then, those who look for signs and wisdom not only do not receive what they seek, but listen to things which are the exact contrary of their desires, and, furthermore, are persuaded by them, is not the power of Him Who is preached beyond words? It is as if some one were to show those who are tossed on the waves and longing for harbour, not the land, but a more angry sea, would he induce them to follow him? Or if a physician were to tell a man broken by pain and desiring remedies that he will restore health, not by medicine but by again using the knife, would his patient yield himself to his guidance? This implies very great power. So the Apostles made their way not only by signs, but by a line of action seemingly in opposition with signs, as Christ had done in the case of the blind man. For wishing to cure him, He used a course which increased the affliction, as He put clay upon his eyes. Just, then, as He cured the blind man by putting