Homilies on Hebrews 20.1–20.4

“[For if we sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer] remains a sacrifice [for sins], but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume [the adversaries].” Trees that have been planted and have enjoyed the farmer's hands and all other care, if they give no return for the labor, are pulled up by the roots and handed over to the fire. Something of this kind happens also with illumination. For when Christ has planted us, and we have enjoyed the spiritual watering, if we then show a fruitless life, the fire of Gehenna awaits us, and unquenchable flame. Paul, then, having exhorted to love and to the bearing of fruit in good works, and having urged them on from the more encouraging considerations (which were these? that we have an entrance into the holy places, which he opened for us as a new way), does this same thing again from the more somber ones, speaking thus. For after saying, “Not abandoning our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near” (for this too is enough for encouragement), he added, “For if we sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth.” Good works are needed, he says, and very much needed: “For if we sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” What he says is this: you were cleansed, you were freed from charges, you became a son. If, then, you return to your former vomit, disinheritance awaits you again, and fire, and all such things; for there is no second sacrifice. Here again those who do away with repentance attack us, and those who hesitate to come to baptism: the latter saying that it is not safe for them to come to baptism, if indeed there is no second forgiveness; the former claiming that it is not safe to give the mysteries to those who have sinned, if indeed there is no second forgiveness. What then shall we say to both? That he does not say this here with such an aim, nor does he do away with repentance or with propitiation through repentance, nor does he push the one who has stumbled down and cast him into despair; he is not so much an enemy of our salvation. But what? He does away with a second washing. For he did not say, “There is no longer repentance,” nor, “There is no longer forgiveness,” but, “There is no longer a sacrifice,” that is, there is no longer a second cross; for this is what he calls a sacrifice. “For by one sacrifice,” he says, “he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified”; not like the Jewish ones, nor many times. For this is why he spoke so much, up and down, about the sacrifice, that it is one and only one: not wishing to make this alone clear, that it differs from the Jewish ones in this, but also to make them more secure, so that they no longer expect another sacrifice in the manner of the Jewish law. “For if we sin willfully,” he says. Do you see how lenient he is? “If we sin willfully,” he says; so that there is pardon for those who sin unwillingly. “After the knowledge of the truth”: he means either of Christ or of all the doctrines. “There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. But what? A fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” By “adversaries” he means not only the unbelievers, but also those who act contrary to virtue; or that the same fire will take hold of the household members as of the adversaries. Then, showing its devouring nature, he as it were gave it a soul, saying, “a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” For just as a wild beast that is provoked and furiously enraged and maddened would not stop until it seized someone and devoured him, so too that fire, as though goaded by jealous fury, does not let go of those it seizes, but gnaws and tears them apart. Then he adds the reason for the threat, that it is fitting, that it is just; which contributes to belief, when we show that it happens justly. “For anyone who has set aside the law of Moses,” he says, “dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” “Without mercy,” he says: so there is no pardon, no pity there; and yet the law is Moses'; for he himself laid down most of it. What is “on the testimony of two or three”? If two or three bear witness, he says, they paid the penalty at once. If, then, under the Old [Testament], where the law of Moses is set aside, there is such punishment, how much more here? That is why he speaks thus: “How much worse punishment, do you think, will be thought due to the one who has trampled on the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant common, and insulted the Spirit of grace?”

And how does someone trample on the Son of God? When one who partakes of him in the mysteries commits sin, tell me, has he not trampled on him? Has he not despised him? For just as we take no account of things trampled underfoot, so also those who sin took no account of Christ; that is why they sinned in this way. You have become the body of Christ, and you give yourself to the devil to trample you? “And counted the blood,” he says, “common.” What is “common”? Unclean, or having nothing more than other things. “And insulted the Spirit of grace.” For whoever does not accept a benefit insults the benefactor. He made you a son, and you want to become a slave? He came to dwell with you, and you bring evil thoughts in upon yourself? Christ wished to be settled with you, and you trample him through gluttony, through drunkenness? Let us listen, we who partake of the mysteries unworthily; let us listen, we who approach that table unworthily: “Do not give what is holy,” he says, “to the dogs, lest they trample it under their feet,” that is, lest they despise it, lest they spurn it. But he did not say this, but what was more fearful than this; for he grips their souls with fear; for this too is able to turn people back, no less than encouragement. And at the same time he both shows the difference and sets the punishment and the judgment before them, as though the matter were plain. “How much worse punishment, do you think,” he says, “will he be thought worthy of?” Here he seems to me to be hinting at the mysteries too. Then he also brings in a testimony, saying, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. For it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’; and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’” “Let us fall,” it says, “into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men.” But if you do not repent, you will fall into the hands of God; that is fearful; to fall into the hands of men is nothing. When we see someone punished here, he says, let us not be afraid at things present, but shudder at things to come. “For as his mercy is, so is his wrath, and his fury will rest upon sinners.” At the same time he also hints at something else here, by saying, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” This is said about the enemies, those who do evil, not those who suffer evil. Here he also comforts them, all but saying: God abides forever and lives, so that even if they do not receive [their due] now, they will receive it later. It is they who ought to groan, not we; for we fall into their hands, but they into God's. For it is not the one who suffers that suffers harm, but the one who does it; nor is it the one who receives a benefit that is benefited, but the benefactor. Knowing this, then, let us be patient in suffering evil and ready in doing good. And this will be, if we despise money and glory. The one who has stripped off these passions is freer than all people, and better off than the very man who wears the purple. Do you not see how many evils arise through money? I do not mean how many through greed, but in the attachment to it; for example, if someone loses money, he lives a life harder than any death. Why do you grieve, O man? Why do you weep? Because God has freed you from excessive guarding? Because you do not sit trembling and afraid? Then, if someone tied you to a treasure, ordering you to sit there continually and keep watch over other people's goods, you grieve; [and when you have bound yourself with the heaviest chains, and then] have been freed from the slavery, you grieve? Truly griefs and joys are matters of opinion; for we guard these things as though we had what belongs to others. Now my words are for the women. Often a woman has had a garment woven of gold, and she shakes it, wraps it in linen, keeps it securely, trembles for it, and does not enjoy it; for either she dies or she is widowed; or, even if none of these things happens, she fears that if she wears it out by constant use she may deprive herself of it; and though no one else deprives her of it, she deprives herself of it by her thrift. “But she hands it on to another.” But not even this is certain; and even if she should hand it on, the other woman again will use it in the same way. And if anyone searches the houses, he will find the most valuable garments and the other choice things held in greater honor, attended like living masters. For she does not use them continually, but fears and trembles, driving away moths and the other things that usually eat them, and [laying] most of them in … [not letting everyone be] thought worthy of the sight of them, but often arranging them carefully herself with her husband. Was it not with good reason, tell me, that Paul called greed idolatry? For as much honor as those people show to their idols, so much these show to their garments, to their gold. How long shall we stir up the mire? How long shall we be nailed to the clay and the brickmaking? For as they toiled for the king of the Egyptians, so we too toil for the devil, and are scourged with much harsher scourges. And do not condemn my words for exaggeration; for as much as the soul is better than the body, so much [are these scourges harder than those]. … every day, we are afraid, anxious, trembling. But if we are willing to groan, if we are willing to look up to God, he sends us not Moses nor Aaron, but his own Word, and compunction. This, then, having come and taken hold of our souls, will free us from the bitter slavery, will lead us out of Egypt, out of the unprofitable and vainly laboring zeal, out of the slavery that has no gain. They, at least, went out having received gold, the wages of their building; but we, nothing. And would that it were nothing! As it is, we too receive, not gold, but the evils of Egypt: sins and punishments and penalties. Let us learn, then, to be wronged, let us learn to be mistreated; this is the mark of a Christian. Let us despise gold garments, let us despise money, so that we may not despise our salvation; [let us despise money, and not despise] the soul; for it is the soul that is punished, the soul that pays the penalty; those things stay here, but the soul departs there. Why, why, tell me, do you cut yourself to pieces and not perceive it? These things I say to the greedy. But it is good to say to those who are cheated too: bear the cheating nobly; they destroy themselves, not you. [You they rob of money, but themselves they strip] of God's goodwill and help; and the one who is stripped of that, even if he clothes himself with all the wealth of the world, is poorer than all; just as, conversely, the one who is poorer than all, if he has this, is better off than all. “For the Lord,” it says, “is my shepherd, and I shall lack nothing.” Tell me now, if you had a husband, a great and admirable man, who loved you and cared for you greatly, and you then knew that he would live forever, and that you would not die before him, and that he would provide you with all his possessions in security, so that you could enjoy them as your own: would you have wished to acquire anything? If you had been stripped of everything, would you not have thought yourself richer for this? Why then do you mourn? Because you have no money? But consider that you have been relieved of the occasion of sins. Because you were deprived of property? But you have gained God's goodwill. “And how have I gained it?” someone says. He said, “Why do you not rather suffer wrong?” He said, “In everything give thanks.” He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Consider, then, how much goodwill you will enjoy if you have shown these things in deeds. For one thing only is required of us: to give thanks to God for everything; and we have everything in abundance. For example: you lost ten thousand pounds of gold? Give thanks to God at once, and you have gained a hundred thousand through that word and that thanksgiving. For tell me, when do you call Job blessed? When he had so many camels, and the flocks and the herds, or when he uttered that word, “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away”? For this is why the devil inflicts losses on us, not merely to take away our money (for he knows that it is nothing), but so that through these things he may force us to say something blasphemous. So too in the case of the blessed Job, this is what he was eager for: not only to make him poor, but to show him a blasphemer. When, at any rate, he had stripped him of everything, see what he says to him through his wife: “Say some word against the Lord, and die.” And yet, you foul one, you stripped him of everything. “But this is not what I was eager for,” he says; “for I have not yet achieved what I did all this for; for I was eager to strip him of God's help; this is why I stripped him of his money too. This is what I want; that is nothing; if I do not have this, not only has he not been wronged at all, he has even been benefited.”

Do you see that even that wicked demon knows how great the loss in this matter is? That is why you also see him stitching the plot together through the wife. Listen, all you men who have wives who are in love with money and who force you to blaspheme God: remember Job. But let us see, if you please, his great gentleness, and how he silenced her. “Why,” he says, “have you spoken like one of the foolish women?” Truly “bad company corrupts good morals.” They always corrupt, but above all in misfortunes; then those who give bad advice have strength. For if even on its own the soul is ready for despair, how much more when there is an adviser too? Is it not pushed into the very pit? A wife is a great good, just as she is also a great evil. And see from where he tried to dig through the strong wall. For since the loss of his money did not overcome him, nor did that loss accomplish anything great, but he was proved to have spoken in vain when he said, “Surely he will bless you to your face,” for this reason he arms the wife against him. Do you see where he breathed [his attack]? But he gained nothing more even from this device. If, then, we too bear things thankfully, we shall also receive them back; and even if we do not receive them back, our reward will be greater. So it happened with that man of adamant too: when he had contended nobly, then [God] gave these things back to him; when he showed the devil that it was not for these things that he served him, then he gave them to him. For such is God: when he sees us not nailed to worldly things, then he gives them to us; when he sees us preferring spiritual things, then he also provides fleshly ones; but he does not give them before, so that we may not be torn away from the spiritual things. Sparing us, then, he does not give the fleshly things, so as to withdraw us from them even against our will. “No,” someone says, “if I receive them, I am filled and give thanks the more.” You lie, O man; for then above all you will become careless. “Why then,” someone says, “does he give to many?” And how is it clear that it is he who gives? “But who else,” someone says, “gives?” Their greed, their robbery. “How then does he allow these things to happen?” Just as he allows murders and thefts and violence. “What then will you say,” someone says, “about those who receive an inheritance from their fathers, who are full of countless evils? How does God let them enjoy these things?” Just as he lets thieves go, and murderers, and the other evildoers; for now is not the time of judgment, but of the best way of life. But what I have already said I say now too: they will pay a greater penalty when, having enjoyed all good things, they do not become better even so. For not all will be punished alike; those who remained wicked even with the benefits will be punished more heavily, but those [who did so] with poverty, not so. And to see that this is true, hear what he says to David: “Did I not give you all that was your master's?” When, then, you see a young man who has received his father's inheritance without labor and has remained wicked, know well that his punishment is increased and the penalty lies heavier on him. Let us not, then, envy these, but anyone who has inherited virtue, anyone who has gained spiritual wealth. “For woe,” it says, “to those who trust in their wealth”; and again, “Blessed are those who fear the Lord.” Which do you wish to be among, tell me? Surely among those who are called blessed. Envy these, then, not those, so that you may attain the good things stored up for them; may we all attain these, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father together with the Holy Spirit be glory, might, honor, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.