Psalms 147:17

"Who sends His crystal like morsels of bread" [Psalm 147:17]. We need not spend our toil again in saying what crystal is. We have already said it, and I do not think that you, beloved, have forgotten it. What is then, "He sends His crystal like morsels of bread"? What is "crystal"? It is very hard, it is very tightly congealed; it can not, like snow, be easily melted. Snow, hardened by many years' duration, and by the succession of ages, is called "crystal," and this "He sends like morsels of bread." What means this? They were too hard, no longer fit to be compared to snow, but to crystal; but they too are predestinated and called, and some of them even so as to feed others, to be useful to others also. And what need is there to enumerate many, whom we happen to know, this one and that one? Every one when he thinks can recall to mind how hardened and obstinate some of those whom he knows have been, how they have struggled against the truth; yet now they preach the truth, they have been made morsels of bread. Who is that one Bread? "We being many," says the Apostle, "are one Body in Christ;" [Romans 12:5] he says also, "we being many are one Bread and one Body." [1 Corinthians 10:17] If then the whole Body of Christ is one Bread, the members of Christ are morsels of Bread. Of some that are hard He makes members of Himself, and useful for feeding others....Behold, the Apostle Paul was a crystal, hard, resisting the truth, crying out against the Gospel, hardening himself, as it were, against the sun....Since then he was crystal, he appeared clear and white, but he was hard and very cold. How was he bright and white? "An Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee." Behold the brightness of crystal. Now hear the hardness of crystal. "As touching zeal, persecuting the Church" [Philippians 3:5-6] of Christ. Among the stoners of the holy martyr Stephen, was he, hard, perhaps harder than all. "For he kept the raiment of all who were stoning," [Acts 22:20] so that he stoned by the hands of all.

He sends his crystal like morsels. As his loaves are broken and become morsels, so too this crystal is broken and turned into morsels. Crystal has this nature: it forms whenever waters are frozen — what we call ice. Between crystal and water, then, there is the same difference as between water and ice: for water is poured out, as it were, very broadly, whereas crystal is, as it were, compacted into itself, and reduced into one form. Whenever water freezes, it makes crystal. Since, then, we cannot grasp the flesh with the whole word, it is broken, so that we may grasp it through those parts. The matters are obscure, and the difficulty of interpretation does not allow us to speak more broadly. Before the face of his cold, who shall stand? Whose? Some say the crystal's, but others say God's. To me, however, it seems that Before the face of his cold, who shall stand? is said of God. Of God I say it, Before the face of his cold, who shall stand? What torments are said in the holy Scriptures to be prepared for the sinner? Nothing is hotter than Gehenna, and yet it itself is cold. Gehenna is of fire: but if anyone has grown sufficiently cold, he is cast into the fire of Gehenna. It is written that in the last days the love of many shall grow cold. Whoever, then, has grown cold in this way, this man is cast into the fire. May the Lord grant to us that cold may never enter our hearts: we do not sin unless love has first grown cold. Then, what does the apostle also say? Fervent in spirit. Our God is a fire. If, then, God is fire, he is fire for this reason: to cast out the cold of the devil. The north wind, the coldest wind; but by name it is called "the right." Beautifully he said, is called: it has taken to itself a name, though it is on the left. If, then, anyone's soul has grown cold, like the north wind, the coldest wind — if ever the warmth of love grows cold in our heart, if it has sinned, if it has grown cold, if it has died... Attend diligently to what I say: if it has grown cold, if it has died. To grow cold belongs to the dead, to be warm to the living.