Homilies on Acts 1.6–1.8

For it is not possible, it is not possible to enjoy grace without being sober. Or do you not hear what Elijah too says to his disciple? “If you see me being taken up, it shall be so for you”; that is, “what you ask will happen for you.” And Christ too everywhere said to those who came to him, “Do you believe?” For if we are not made ready for what is given, we do not much feel the benefit either. So too in Paul's case grace did not come at once, but three days passed in between, during which he was blind. For just as those who dye purple first prepare with other substances the material that is to take the dye, so that its bloom may not fade, so here too God first makes the soul anxious and prepares it, and then pours out the grace. That is why he did not send the Spirit at once either, but at Pentecost. And if someone says, “Why do we too not baptize at this season [of Pentecost]?”, I would say that the grace is the same then and now, but the mind becomes loftier now, prepared beforehand by fasting. And the season of Pentecost too has a reason that is not unfitting. What is it? The Fathers thought that baptism was a sufficient bridle on evil desire and a great lesson in being self-controlled even in a time of festivity. Since, then, we are, as it were, eating with Christ himself and sharing his table, let us do nothing carelessly, but live in fasting and prayer and great self-control. For if a man who is about to enter on a worldly office arranges his whole life for it, and to obtain some rank spends money and expends time and endures countless toils, what should we deserve, who approach the kingdom of heaven with such indolence, neither eager before we receive it, and careless after receiving it? Indeed the reason we are careless after receiving is that we were not watchful before receiving. That is why many, immediately after receiving it, have gone back to their former vomit and become worse, and have drawn on themselves a heavier punishment: set free from their former sins, they provoked the Judge the more by this very thing, that after being freed from so great a sickness they did not even so become self-controlled, but suffered what Christ threatened to the paralytic, saying, “See, you have been made well; sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you”; and what he foretold about the Jews, that “the last state will be worse than the first.” For “if I had not come and spoken to them,” he says, “they would not have sin.” So the sins committed afterward become double and fourfold. How so? Because after the honor we become ungrateful and wicked. And for this reason the washing no longer helps us toward obtaining a milder punishment. Consider: someone had grievous sins, having murdered, or committed adultery, or done something else more grievous still; these were forgiven through the washing. For there is not, there is not any sin or impiety that does not yield and give way to the gift; for the grace is divine. Again, someone committed adultery and murder: the former adultery is undone, and that murder is forgiven and not recalled (“for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”); but for the sins after baptism we pay as great a penalty as if those too had been recalled, and much worse. For the sin is no longer single, but double and triple. And that the penalty for these sins is greater, hear what Paul says: “Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses; how much worse punishment, do you think, will he deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and regarded as common the blood of the covenant, and outraged the Spirit of grace?”

Perhaps we have now turned many away from receiving baptism. But that is not why we have said these things, but so that those who receive it may remain in self-control and great reasonableness. “But I am afraid,” someone says. If you were afraid, you would have received it and kept it. “But it is for this very reason,” he says, “that I do not receive it: because I am afraid.” And are you not afraid to depart in this state? “God is merciful,” he says. Then receive baptism, for he is merciful and helps. But where you ought to be zealous you do not put forward this mercy; it is when you want to put things off that you remember it. And yet that is when this mercy would have its proper place, and we shall obtain it the more when we also contribute our own part. For the man who has cast everything on God, and after baptism sins, as is likely since he is human, will obtain mercy by repenting; but the man who, as it were, plays the sophist with God's mercy, and departs without a share in grace, will have a punishment from which there is no appeal. Why do you put forward such arguments against your own salvation? For it is impossible, impossible, in my judgment, for one who puts things off on such hopes to achieve anything noble and good. Why do you take on so great a fear, and put forward the uncertainty of the future? Why do you not change this fear into labor and zeal, so that you may become great and admirable? Which is better, to fear or to labor? If someone seated you, idle, in a dilapidated house, saying, “Expect the roof, which is rotten, to fall on your head (perhaps it will fall, perhaps it will not); but if you do not want this, work, and live in the safer room,” which would you choose rather: that idleness with fear, or this work with confidence? Do the same now, then. For the uncertainty of the future is like a rotten house, always threatening to fall; but this work, which involves toil, guarantees safety.

May we never fall into such necessity as to sin after the washing! Yet even if something of the kind should happen, let us not despair even so. God is merciful, and he has given us many ways of forgiveness even after this. But just as those who sin after the washing are punished more than the catechumens for this reason, so those who know that there are remedies of repentance and refuse to use them will suffer worse things. For the more God's mercy is extended, the more the punishment increases, if we do not use the mercy as we ought. What are you saying, man? You were full of so many sins and given up as lost; suddenly you became a friend and were raised to the highest honor, not by your own labors but by God's gift; and then you went back to your former disgrace; and when you ought to have been severely punished, he did not turn away from you even so, but gave you countless occasions of salvation, through which you may become a friend. God does this, and even so you would not labor. What pardon will you deserve after that? And how will the Greeks not rightly laugh at you, as at a drone living idly and in vain? “For if your philosophy is powerful,” they say, “show us: what does the crowd of the uninitiated mean?” The mysteries are good and … For that is not the time for the mysteries, but for wills; the time for the mysteries is soundness of mind and self-control of soul. For tell me: if no one would choose to write a will in such a condition, and if he does write one, he gives a handle to those who come after him (that is just why they put these words at the head, saying, “Living, of sound mind and in good health, I make disposition concerning my property”), how could someone out of his senses be initiated into the mysteries with exactness? For if the laws of those outside would not allow a man who is not fully in health to make dispositions when deliberating about worldly affairs, and that when he is about to make law over his own things, how will you be able to learn everything clearly when you are learning about the kingdom of heaven and those ineffable good things, when sickness has often made you delirious? And when will you say those words to Christ, being buried together with him, when you are about to leap off? For one must show one's good will both by deeds and by words. But you are doing the same as if a soldier wanted to enlist when the war was about to end, or an athlete to strip when the spectacle was already breaking up. For you take up arms for this purpose, not so as to leap away at once, but so as to take them and set up a trophy over the enemy. Let no one think this discourse untimely because it is not now Lent. That is just what stings me: that you watch for a season in such matters. And yet that eunuch, a barbarian, on a journey, in the middle of the highway, did not look for a season; nor did the jailer, though he was among prisoners and saw the teacher scourged and bound, and was going to keep him inside for a while yet. But here many put it off, though they do not live in a prison nor are on the road, and that when they are at their last breath.

If, then, you still doubt that Christ is God, stand outside, and do not even hear the divine words, nor count yourself among the catechumens. But if you are confident and know this clearly, why do you delay? Why do you shrink back and hesitate? “I am afraid I may sin,” he says. And are you not afraid of the worse thing, that you may depart there with such burdens? For it is not the same thing to fail to obtain grace when it is set before you, and to fall short while trying to do right. Tell me, if he charges you, “Why did you not come? Why did you not do right?”, what will you say? For the second, perhaps, you can plead the burdensomeness of the commandments and of virtue; but for the first, nothing of the kind. For it is grace, giving freedom as a free gift. But are you afraid you may sin? Say this after baptism. Then have the fear, so as to keep the deposit. But as it is, before baptism you are cautious, after baptism careless. But are you waiting for the season of Lent? Why? Does that season have anything more? The apostles, at any rate, were not counted worthy of the grace at Pascha, but at another season; and when the three thousand and the five thousand were baptized, it was not the season of Pascha; nor for Cornelius, nor the eunuch, nor many others. Let us not, then, wait for a season, lest by delaying and putting off we depart empty and destitute of such great good things. How do you think I grieve when I hear that someone was carried off from here uninitiated, when I think of those unbearable punishments, that penalty from which there is no appeal? How stung I am again when I see others reaching their last breath and not brought to their senses even by this! That is why many things unworthy of this gift take place. For when one ought to be glad and dance and rejoice and wear a crown when another is being initiated, the sick man's wife, when she hears that the physician has ordered this, beats her breast as at some misfortune and laments, and there are wailings and groanings throughout the house, as over condemned men led away on their last road. And then he too grieves the more; and even if he recovers from the sickness, he is pained the more, as though he had been ill-used. For since he had not prepared himself for virtue, from then on he hesitates and shrinks from the contests that follow. Do you see what devices the devil contrives, how great the shame, how great the laughter? Let us then rid ourselves of this laughter; let us live as Christ commanded. He gave baptism for this purpose, not that we might receive it and depart, but that we might live on and show fruits. How will you say “Bear fruit” to one who is departing, to one who has been cut down? Have you not heard that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace”? How then does the opposite happen? For the wife stands by mourning, when she ought to rejoice; the children weeping, when they ought to share the gladness; the man himself lying there in darkness, full of confusion and trouble, when he ought to be keeping festival, filled with great dejection because of the orphanhood of his children, the widowhood of his wife, the desolation of his house. Is this how one comes to the mysteries? Tell me, is this how one touches the holy table? Are these things to be borne? If a king sends letters releasing those in prison, there is gladness and joy; but God sends down the Spirit from heaven, forgiving not arrears of money but sins entire, and do you all lament and weep? What incongruity is this? I do not yet say that water has even been poured on the dead, and the holy things thrown on the ground; but we are not the cause of these things, but the ungrateful. So I exhort you to leave everything, gather yourselves together, and come to baptism with all eagerness, so that, having shown great zeal in the present life, we may obtain confidence in the life to come. May we all obtain it, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.