Homilies on Hebrews 6.1–6.2

“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me, proved me, and saw my works forty years … and I said, They always go astray in their heart; and they did not know my ways. As I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.” Having discoursed about hope, and having said, “whose house we are, if we hold fast the boldness and the boast of the hope firm to the end,” Paul now shows that one must expect with firmness, and he confirms this from the Scriptures. But pay attention; for he expressed it in a rather difficult and hard-to-grasp way. So we must first say what is ours, and having briefly taught you the whole subject, then let the discourse loose on what is written; for you will no longer need us if you learn the apostle’s aim. His discourse was about hope: that one must hope for the things to come, and that there will certainly be for those who have toiled here some reward and fruit and rest. This, then, he shows from the prophet. And what does he say? “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, They always go astray in their heart; and they did not know my ways. As I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.” He says that there are three rests: one, that of the Sabbath, on which God rested from his works; a second, that of Palestine, into which the Jews, having entered, were to rest from their great misery and toils; a third, which is truly rest, the kingdom of heaven, whose attainers truly rest from their labors and toils. He mentions all three here, then. And why, discoursing about one, did he mention the three? To show that the prophet speaks about this one. For he did not speak about the first, he says; how could he, about one that had happened long ago? Nor about the second, that in Palestine; how could he, since that too had already received its fulfillment? It remains, then, that he speaks about the third. And it is necessary to unfold the history too, so as to make the discourse clearer. For when they had come out of Egypt and had traveled a long way, and had received countless proofs of God’s power, in Egypt, in the Red Sea, in the wilderness, [they sent spies to] … the nature of the land. And those who went came back, admiring the country and saying that it bore fine fruits, but that it was a country of invincible and strong men. And the ungrateful and senseless Jews, when they ought to have remembered God’s former benefits, and how, when they were caught in the midst of so many Egyptian armies, he not only snatched them out of the dangers but even made them masters of their spoils, and how again in the wilderness he broke open the rock and granted an abundance of water, and provided the manna, and, remembering these and the other wonders he had worked, to have believed God, thought of none of these things, but, as if nothing had happened, being so struck with terror, wished to return again to Egypt, saying, “God has brought us out here to kill us with our children and wives.” God, then, angered that they had so quickly cast out the memory of what had happened, swore that the generation that had said these things should not enter into the rest; and all perished in the wilderness. Since, then, David afterwards, after the generation of those men, said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation,” why? So that you may not suffer the same things as your forefathers, and be deprived of the rest. Clearly he said these things as though there were some rest. For if they had received the rest, he says, why does he say to them again, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation”? What other rest is there, then, but the kingdom of heaven, of which the Sabbath is an image and type? Then, having set down the whole testimony (it is this: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, They always go astray in their heart; and they did not know my ways. As I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest”), he then adds, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God.” For unbelief comes from hardness; and just as the calloused and hardened parts of the body do not yield to the physicians’ hands, so also souls that have been hardened do not yield to the word of God; for it is likely that some were by now even disbelieving, as though what had happened were not true. That is why he says, “Take care lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God.” For since the account of things to come is not so persuasive as that of things past, he reminds them of a history in which they needed faith. For if your fathers, he says, suffered these things because they did not hope as they should have hoped, much more you; for this word is addressed to them too. For “today,” he says, is always, as long as the world stands. “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today.” That is, build one another up, set one another upright, so that the same things may not happen. “So that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

Do you see that sin produces unbelief? For just as unbelief gives birth to a wicked life, so too the soul, when it comes into the depth of evils, becomes contemptuous; and having become contemptuous, it will not even bear to believe, so as to free itself from fear. “For they said,” it says, “The Lord will not see, nor will the God of Jacob understand”; and again, “Our lips are our own; who is Lord over us?” and again, “The fool said in his heart … in their practices.” And again, “There is no fear of God before his eyes”; and again, “He has dealt deceitfully before him, so as to find his iniquity and hate it.” And Christ too makes this very thing plain, saying, “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light.” Then he adds, “For we have become partakers of Christ.” What is “we have become partakers of Christ”? We share in him, he says; we and he have become one, since he is the head and we the body, fellow heirs and of one body. “We are one body, of his flesh,” he says, “and of his bones.” “If we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end.” What is “the beginning of our confidence”? He means faith, through which we have come to subsist and have been brought into being and made one in substance [with him], as one might say. Then he adds, “While it is said, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation.” This is by transposition; the sequence runs thus: “Let us fear, then, lest any of you should seem to have come short of his rest. For we have had the good news preached to us, just as they did, while it is said, Today, if you hear his voice.” For “today” is always. Then he adds, “But the word they heard did not profit them, since it was not mixed with faith in those who heard”; showing how the word did not profit; they were not profited because it was not mixed. Then, wishing to frighten them, he shows this very thing by saying, “For some, when they heard, provoked; yet not all who came out of Egypt through Moses. And with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they should not enter into his rest, but to those who disobeyed? And we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” Having again cited the testimony, he adds the question too, making the discourse clear. For he said, he says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the …” … and who disobeyed? Was it not the Jews? What he says is this: they too heard, he says, as we hear, but it was of no profit to them. Do not think, then, that you will be profited by hearing the preaching, since they too heard but gained nothing, because they did not believe. Caleb and Joshua, then, since they were not mixed with those who disbelieved, that is, did not agree with them, escaped the punishment brought upon those. And see something wonderful: he did not say “they did not agree,” [but] “they were not mixed,” as though they stood apart, while all the others held one and the same mind. Here he seems to me to hint at a faction too. “For we who have believed enter into the rest,” he says. Then, confirming this, he added, “As he has said, As I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest; although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.” Since someone would likely say, “But this does not show that we shall enter, but that they did not enter,” what does he do? He is eager to show for the present that, just as that rest does not prevent another rest from being spoken of, so this one does not prevent that of heaven. For the present, then, he wishes to show that they did not obtain the rest. For that he says this is clear from what he adds: “For he has spoken somewhere about the seventh day thus: And God rested on the seventh day from all his works; and in this place again, They shall not enter into my rest.” Do you see how that one does not prevent this from being a rest? “Since, then, it remains,” he says, “for some to enter into it, and those to whom the good news was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again he sets a certain day, Today, saying through David after so long a time, as it has been said before.” What is it that he says? Since some must certainly enter, he says, and they did not enter, he again sets a third, other rest. And that one must enter, and that some must enter, let us hear from what he establishes it. Because after so many years, he says, David says again, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation.” “For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after these things.” It is plain, then, that he says this as though some were going to obtain some reward. “So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” From where? From the command, “Do not harden your hearts.” For he would not [have said this] unless they were to do the same things, so that they should not suffer the same things, unless they were going to suffer the same things. But how were those who held Palestine going to suffer the same things, unless there were some other rest?

3. And he rightly concluded the argument. For he did not say “rest,” but “Sabbath rest,” calling the kingdom a Sabbath rest, the proper name, and one in which they rejoiced and which they eagerly pursued. For just as on the Sabbath he commands abstaining from all evil things, and only those things to be done which are for the worship of God, which the priests performed, and all that profits the soul, and nothing else, so too then. But he did not say it so; how then? “For he who has entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his own.” Just as God rested, he says, from his works, so too he who has entered into his rest. For since his discourse to them was about rest, and they very much desired to hear when it would be, to this he [turned] the discourse … And he said “today” so that they should never despair. “Exhort one another every day,” he says, “as long as it is called today.” That is, even if someone has sinned, as long as it is today, he has hopes. Let no one, then, despair while he lives. Above all, he says, let there not even be an evil heart of unbelief; but if there should be, let no one despair, but let him recover himself; for as long as we are in this world, the “today” has its season. And here he speaks not of unbelief only, but also of the murmurings. “Whose bodies,” he says, “fell in the wilderness.” Then, so that no one may think that he will simply be deprived of the [rest] only, he adds punishment too, saying, “For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Here he discourses about gehenna and about punishment. It penetrates, he says, into the secret places of our heart, and cuts through the soul. Here it is not bodies falling, nor being deprived of land, as there, but of the kingdom of heaven, and being handed over to eternal gehenna and to undying punishment and vengeance. “But exhort one another.” See the gentleness and kindness; he did not say “rebuke,” but “exhort.” So must we deal with those who are hard pressed by affliction. This he says writing to the Thessalonians too: “Admonish the disorderly.” But about the fainthearted, not so; but what? “Encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all.” What is “exhort”? In place of “do not despair, do not give up hope”; for whoever does not exhort one hard pressed by affliction makes him harder. “So that none of you,” he says, “may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Either he means the deceit of the devil; for it is truly deceit to expect nothing about things to come, to think that our deeds will be without account, and that we shall not pay the penalty for what we have done here, and that there will be no resurrection; or, in another sense, deceit is insensibility, or despair; for to say, “What is left now? I have sinned once; I have no hope of restoring myself,” is deceit. Then he puts hopes in them, saying, “We have become partakers of Christ”; all but saying, he who so loved us, who counted us worthy of so much as to make us his own body, will not overlook us as we perish. Let us consider what we have been counted worthy of: we and Christ are one. Let us not, then, distrust him. And again he hints at what was said elsewhere: “If we endure, we shall also reign with him”; for this is “we have become partakers”: we share in the same things as Christ. He urged them on from the good things: “For we are partakers,” he says, “of Christ.” Then again from the gloomy things: “lest any of you should seem to have come short of entering into his rest”; for that is clear and agreed. “They proved me,” he says, “and saw my works forty years.” Do you see that we must not demand an account from God, but believe him whether he protects us or not? For this is what he now charges against them, that they tested God. For he who wishes to receive proofs of his power, or of his providence, or of his care, does not yet believe either that he is powerful or that he loves mankind. This he hints at in writing to these too, who perhaps wished already to receive in their trials the examination and proof of his power and of his providence on their behalf. Do you see that provocation and anger everywhere come from unbelief? What then does he say? “So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” And see how he has reasoned out the whole argument. He swore, he says, to the former generation that they should not enter into the rest, and they did not enter. Then, speaking to the Jews long after them, he says, “Do not harden your hearts, as your fathers did.” Clearly there is another rest; for one cannot say it of Palestine, since they had it; nor can one say it of the seventh day, for surely he was not discoursing about that which had happened long ago. So he hints at some other, the true rest.

4. For that is truly rest, where pain and sorrow and sighing have fled away, where there are neither cares nor toils nor anguish nor fear that shakes the soul, but only the fear of God, which is full of pleasure. There one does not hear, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread,” nor, “It shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you”: no more thorns and thistles. There is no “In pain you shall bear children,” nor, “Your turning shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.” All is peace there, joy, gladness, pleasure, goodness, gentleness, uprightness, love. There is no jealousy there, nor envy, no sickness, no death, neither this of the body nor that of the soul; there is no darkness, nor night; all is day, all light, all ease; there is no growing weary, no becoming sated, but we shall continue always in desire of the good things. Do you wish me to give you some image too of the state there? It is not possible; but nevertheless, as far as possible, I will try to give you some image. Let us look up to heaven, when, with no cloud troubling it, it shows its own crown; then, having spent a long time on the beauty of its appearance, let us consider that we too shall have a floor, not such as this, but as much more beautiful as gold is than roofs of clay; then again the higher roof beyond that; then the angels, the archangels, the countless hosts of the bodiless powers, the very palace of God, the Father’s throne. But speech, as I said, cannot set forth the whole; there is need of experience and of the knowledge that comes through experience. How do you think, tell me, Adam was in paradise? This way of life is far better than that, by as much as heaven is better than earth. But shall we seek another image too? If it happened that the one who now reigns ruled the whole world, and then were troubled neither by wars nor by cares, but were only honored and lived in luxury, and had many tributes, and gold flowed in to him from every side, and he were the object of all eyes, what kind of soul do you think he would have, if he saw wars everywhere on earth at an end? Something of this kind it will be then too; or rather, I have not yet reached even an image of it; so another must be sought. Consider, then, a royal child, which, as long as it is in the womb, perceives nothing; but if it happened that, coming out from there suddenly, it went up to the royal throne, receiving everything not gradually but all at once; so is this state compared with that; or as if some prisoner, after suffering countless ills, were suddenly caught up to the royal throne. But not even so have I exactly reached the image. For here, whatever good things one obtains, even if you speak of the kingdom itself, on the first day one has the longing at its height, and on the second and third; but as time goes on, he remains in pleasure, yet not so great; for it always fades through habit, whatever it may be. But there, it not only does not lessen, but even increases. For consider how great a thing it is for a soul that has gone there no longer to expect an end of those good things, nor a change, but an increase, and a life that has no end, freed from all danger, from all despondency and care, full of cheer and of countless good things. For if, going out to a plain where we see tents of soldiers made of curtains, and shields gleaming, we are lifted up with wonder, and if it happens that we see the king too riding in the midst, or driving his horse with golden arms, we think we have everything, what do you suppose, when you see the eternal tents of the saints pitched in heaven? “For they will receive you,” he says, “into their eternal tents”; when you see each of them shining beyond the rays of the sun, not from bronze and iron, but from that glory whose flashing the human eye cannot look upon? And these things are about men; what could one say of the thousands of angels, of archangels, of the cherubim, of the seraphim, of the thrones, of the dominions, of the principalities, of the powers, whose beauty is beyond conception and surpasses all understanding? But how long shall I not stop, pursuing what cannot be overtaken? “For eye has not seen,” he says, “nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.” Nothing, then, is more pitiable than those who fail of it, nor more blessed than those who attain it. And may we too be among the blessed, so that we may obtain the eternal good things, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, honor, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.