Homilies on Colossians 2.5–2.6

But let us not suffer the same; for there will be no flood any more, nor will the punishment last only until death; but death is the beginning of punishments for those who do not believe that there is a judgment. “And who has come from there,” he says, “and told these things?” If you say this in jest, even so it is not right, for one must not jest in such matters; for we are jesting not harmlessly but dangerously. But if you are really so minded and do not think there is anything after this, how do you say you are a Christian? For I have no concern with those outside. Why do you receive the bath? Why do you set foot in the church? Do we promise offices? All our hope is in the things to come. Why then do you come, if you do not believe the Scriptures, if you do not believe Christ? I would not call such a man a Christian — God forbid! — but worse even than the Greeks. In what respect? In this, that while thinking Christ to be God you do not believe him as God. Their impiety at least is consistent, for one who does not think that Christ is God must also not believe him; but this impiety has not even consistency: to confess him God, and not to think him trustworthy in what he said. These are the words of drunkenness, of luxury, of self-indulgence: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Not tomorrow: when you say these things, you are already dead. Shall we then differ in nothing from swine and asses, tell me? For if there is neither judgment nor recompense nor court, why have we been honoured with such a gift, reason, and have all things subjected to us? Why do we rule and they are ruled? See how the devil presses from every side to persuade us to be ignorant of God's gift. He mixes the slaves with the masters; like a kidnapper and an ungrateful servant, he forces the free man down to the same cheapness as the one who has offended. He seems to abolish the judgment, but he abolishes the existence of God. For such is the devil always: he puts everything forward by craft and not directly, so that we may not be on our guard. If there is no judgment, God is not just (I speak in human terms); if God is not just, he is not God either; if he is not God, everything simply drifts at random, virtue is nothing, vice is nothing. But he says none of this openly. Do you see the intent of the satanic argument? How he wants to make irrational animals out of men, or rather wild beasts, or rather demons? Let us not then … I know where you come from to these words: you have sinned much, you have offended, you have no confidence before God, and you think the nature of things will follow your words. “For the present,” he says, “I will not pain my soul with the expectation of Gehenna; and even if there is a Gehenna, I will persuade my soul that there is none; for the present I will live in luxury here.” Why do you add sins to sins? If, having sinned, you believe that there is a Gehenna, you will depart paying the penalty only for your sins; but if you add this impiety too, you will pay the utmost punishment both for the impiety and for this reasoning, and the brief consolation you got will become for you the ground of continual punishment. Granted, you have sinned: why do you also urge others to sin, saying there is no Gehenna? Why do you deceive the simpler? Why do you weaken the hands of the people? As far as it depends on you, everything is overturned: neither will the earnest become more earnest, but slack, nor will the wicked leave their wickedness. For if we corrupt others, do we gain pardon for our sins? Do you not see how the devil tried to bring Adam down? Did he gain pardon for this? No, it was the occasion of greater punishment. For he contrives everything so that we may be punished not only for our own sins but also for others'. Let us not think, then, that bringing others down into the same destruction with us makes the court gentler for us; rather it will make it more severe. Why do we push ourselves over the edge and destroy ourselves? This is wholly satanic. Man, have you sinned? You have a loving Master: entreat, beseech, weep, groan, and frighten the others, and beg them not to fall into the same things. If in a house a slave who is among those who have offended says to his own son, “Child, I have offended the master; be eager to please him, so that you do not suffer the same things,” will he not gain some pardon, tell me? Will he not soften and bend the master? But if he leaves these words and says those others — for example, that the master will not give each according to his deserts, that everything is simply mixed up, good and bad, that there is no gratitude in this house — what do you think the master will think of him? Will he not pay a greater penalty than for his own sins? Rightly; for there his passion will make some defence, even if a weak one, but here none. If no one else, then imitate at least the rich man in Gehenna, who said, “Father Abraham, send Lazarus …” “… into this place,” since he himself could not go, so that they would not fall into the same things. Let us keep away from these satanic words.

“What then,” he says, “when Greeks question us, do you not want to heal them?” No: by throwing the Christian into perplexity under the pretext of healing the Greek, you want to confirm the satanic doctrine. For since, reasoning about these things with your own soul alone, you do not persuade it, you want to bring in others as witnesses. But if one must reason with a Greek, the discussion does not begin here, but with whether Christ is God and the Son of God, and whether the gods they worship are demons. If these points are established, all the rest follows; but before laying the foundation it is vain to argue about the end; before learning the first elements it is superfluous and useless to go on to the end. The Greek disbelieves the judgment: he too suffers the same as you. Yet even he has many who have philosophized about these things, even if they said this after separating the body from the soul; but nevertheless they set up a court. And so evident is the matter that almost no one is ignorant of it, but even the poets and all agree with one another about a court and a judgment. So not even the Greek disbelieves his own teachers, nor does the Jew dispute about these things, nor, in short, does any man. Why then do we deceive ourselves? Look, you say these things to me; what will you say to God, who fashioned our hearts one by one, who knows everything in the mind, who is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword? Tell me truly: do you not condemn yourself when you sin? Is there anyone among men who does not blame himself when he is slack? And how could such wisdom have come about by chance, that the sinner himself condemns himself? For this belongs to great wisdom. You condemn yourself; and will he who gave you such a mind let everything simply drift? This, then, will be a universal rule and definition: no one who lives in virtue disbelieves the doctrine of the judgment, even if he is a Greek, even if a heretic; no one who lives in much wickedness, except a few, accepts the doctrine of the resurrection. And this is what the Psalmist says: “Your judgments are removed from his sight.” Why? “Because his ways are defiled at every time.” “For let us eat,” he says, “and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do you see that it belongs to base men to say these things? These words that overturn the resurrection come from eating and drinking. For the soul does not bear, it does not bear the tribunal of conscience. The same happens as with a murderer: he first assumes that he will not be caught, and so commits murder; for if his conscience were judging him, he would not have come so quickly to the deed. He knows, then, and pretends not to know, so as not to be tormented by conscience and fear; otherwise he would have been weaker for the murder. So too sinners both know that sinning is evil and, wallowing every day in the same evils, do not want to know it, although their conscience lays hold of them. But let us not heed them; for there will be, there will surely be a judgment and a resurrection, and God will not let so many works go for nothing. Therefore, I beg you, let us keep away from wickedness and hold to virtue, so that we may receive the true doctrine in Christ Jesus our Lord. And yet which is easier, to accept the doctrine of the resurrection, or that of fate? The latter is full of injustice, of irrationality, of cruelty, of inhumanity; the former of justice, assigning to each according to his deserts; and yet they do not accept it. The cause is idleness; for no one with sense accepts the other. For among the Greeks too, those who define pleasure as the end accepted fate; but those who loved virtue did not, but rejected it as irrational. And if this is so among the Greeks, much more is it so with the doctrine of the resurrection. See how the devil has contrived two opposite things: so that we might neglect virtue and serve demons, he brought in necessity, and through both he persuaded men of both. What account then will he be able to give who disbelieves so wonderful a thing, and is persuaded by the nonsense those people talk? Let not even this consolation nourish you, that you will obtain pardon; but let us gather ourselves together and rouse ourselves to virtue, and live truly for God, in Christ, and so on.