For, by this time, in this respect as well as others, "you are reigning in wealth and satiety" -not making inroads upon such sins as fasts diminish, nor feeling need of such revelations as xerophagies extort, nor apprehending such wars of your own as Stations dispel.
"Know ye not that we are to judge angels? " Again, of how open censure (does) the free expression (find utterance), how manifest the edge of the spiritual sword, (in words like these): "Ye are already enriched! ye are already satiated! ye are already reigning!" and, "If any thinks himself to know, he knoweth not yet how it behaves him to know I" Is he not even then "smiting some one's face," in saying, "For who maketh thee to differ? What, moreover, hast thou which thou hast not received? Why gloriest thou as if thou have not received? " Is he not withal "smiting them upon the mouth," (in saying): "But some, in (their) conscience, even until now eat (it) as if (it were) an idol-sacrifice.
"Already ye are filled, already ye are rich:" that is, ye want nothing henceforth; ye are become perfect; ye have attained the very summit; ye stand, as ye think, in need of no one, either among Apostles or teachers. "Already ye are filled." And well saith he "already;" pointing out, from the time, the incredibility of their statements and their unreasonable notion of themselves. It was therefore in mockery that he said to them, "So quickly have ye come to the end;" which thing was impossible in the time: for all the more perfect things wait long in futurity: but to be "full" with a little betokens a feeble soul; and from a little to imagine one's self "rich," a sick and miserable one. For piety is an insatiable thing; and it argues a childish mind to imagine from just the beginnings that you have obtained the whole: and for men who are not yet even in the prelude of a matter, to be high-minded as if they had laid hold of the end. Then also by means of what followeth he puts them yet more out of countenance; for having said, "Already ye are full," he added, "ye are become rich, ye have reigned without us: yea and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you." Full of great austerity is the speech: which is why it comes last, being introduced by him after that abundance of reproof. For then is our admonition respected and easily received, when after our accusations we introduce our humiliating expressions. For this were enough to repress even the shameless soul and strike it more sharply than direct accusation, and correct the bitterness and hardened feeling likely to arise from the charge brought. It being certain that this more than anything else is the admirable quality of those arguments which appeal to our sense of shame, that they possess two contrary advantages. On the one hand, one cuts deeper than by open invective: on the other hand, it causes the person reprimanded to bear that severer stab with more entire patience. "Ye have reigned without us." Herein there is great force, as concerns both the teachers and the disciples: and their ignorance, too, of themselves is pointed out, and their great inconsideration. For what he saith is this: "In labors indeed," saith he, "all things are common both to us and to you, but in the rewards and the crowns ye are first. Not that I say this in vexation:" wherefore he added also, "I would…
