Whence is this evident? Because that the men of those times had no other example to look at, neither had they heard the Scriptures, but with us, on the other hand, are countless instances that have happened both in our own, and in former years. But whence arose the unbelief of these persons? From a softened soul; they drank and ate, and therefore they believed not. For, what a man wishes, he thinks, and expects; and they that gainsay him are a jest.
But let it not be so with us; for hereafter it will not be a flood; nor the punishment till death only; but death will be the beginning of punishment for persons who believe not that there is a Judgment. And does any ask, who has come from thence, and said so? If now you speak thus in jest, not even so is it well; for one ought not to jest in such matters; and we jest, not where jesting is in place, but with peril; but if what thou really feelest, and you are of opinion that there is nothing hereafter, how is it that you call yourself a Christian? For I take not into account those who are without. Why do you receive the Laver? Why do you set foot within the Church? Is it that we promise you magistracies? All our hope is in the things to come. Why then do you come, if you believe not the Scriptures? If you dost not believe Christ, I cannot call such an one a Christian; God forbid! But worse than even Greeks. In what respect? In this; that when you think Christ is God, you believe Him not as God. For in that other impiety there is at least consistency; for he who thinks not that Christ is God, necessarily will also not believe Him; but this impiety has not even consistency; to confess Him to be God, and yet not to think Him worthy of belief in what He has said; these are the words of drunkenness, of luxury, of riot. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Not tomorrow; but now you are dead, when you thus speak. Shall we then be in nothing different from swine and asses? Tell me. For if there be neither a judgment, nor a retribution, nor a tribunal, wherefore have we been honored with such a gift as reason, and have all things put under us? Why do we rule, and are they ruled? See how the devil is on every side urgent to persuade us to be ignorant of the Gift of God. He mixes together the slaves with their masters, like some man-stealer and ungrateful servant; he strives to degrade the free to the level of the criminal. And he seems indeed to be overthrowing the Judgment, but he is overthrowing the being of God.
For such is ever the devil's way; he puts forward everything in a wily, and not in a straightforward manner, to put us on our guard. If there is no Judgment, God is not just (I speak as a man): if God is not just, then there is no God at all: if there is no God, all things go on at haphazard, virtue is nought, vice nought. But he says nothing of this openly. Do you see the drift of this satanical argument? How, instead of men, he wishes to make us brutes, or rather, wild beasts, or rather, demons? Let us then not be persuaded by him. For there is a Judgment, O wretched and miserable man! I know whence you come to use such words. You have committed many sins, you have offended, you have no confidence, you think that the nature of things will even follow your arguments. Meanwhile, says he, I will not torment my soul with the expectation of hell, and, if there be a hell, I will persuade it that there is none; meanwhile I will live here in luxury! Why do you add sin to sin? If when you have sinned you believe that there is a hell, you will depart with the penalty of your sins only to pay; but if you add this further impiety, you will also for your impiety, and for this your thought, suffer the uttermost punishment; and what was a cold and shortlived comfort to you, will be a ground for your being punished for ever. You have sinned: be it so: why do you encourage others also to sin, by saying that there is no hell? Why did you mislead the simpler sort? Why unnerve the hands of the people? So far as you are concerned, everything is turned upside down; neither will the good become better, but listless; nor the wicked desist from their wickedness. For, if we corrupt others, do we get allowance for our sins? Do you see not the devil, how he attempted to bring down Adam? And has there then been allowance for him? Nay, surely it will be the occasion of a greater punishment, that he may be punished not for his own sins only, but also for those of others. Let us not then suppose that to bring down others into the same destruction with ourselves will make the Judgment-seat more lenient to us. Surely this will make it more severe. Why thrust we ourselves on destruction? The whole of this comes of Satan.
O man, have you sinned? You have for your Master One that loves man. Entreat, implore, weep, groan; and terrify others, and pray them that they fall not into the same. If in a house some servant, of those that had offended their master, says to his son, “My child, I have offended the master, do thou be careful to please him, that you be not as I”: tell me, will he not have some forgiveness? will he not bend and soften his master? But if, leaving so to speak, he shall say such words as these, that he will not requite every one according to his deserts; that all things are jumbled together indiscriminately, both good and bad; that there is no thanks in this house; what do you think will be the master's mind concerning him? will he not suffer a severer punishment for his own misdoings? Justly so; for in the former case his feeling will plead for him, though it be but weakly; but in this, nobody. If no other then, yet imitate at least that rich man in hell, who said, “Father Abraham, send to my kinsmen, lest they come into this place,” since he could not go himself, so that they might not fall into the same condemnation. Let us have done with such Satanical words.
What then, says he, when the Greeks put questions to us; would you not that we should try to cure them? But by casting the Christian into perplexity, under pretense of curing the Greek, you aim at establishing your Satanical doctrine. For since, when communing with your soul alone of these things, you persuade her not; you desire to bring forward others as witnesses. But if one must reason with a Greek, the discussion should not begin with this; but whether Christ be God, and the Son of God; whether those gods of theirs be demons. If these points be established, all the others follow; but, before making good the beginning, it is vain to dispute about the end; before learning the first elements, it is superfluous and unprofitable to come to the conclusion. The Greek disbelieves the Judgment, and he is in the same case with yourself, seeing that he too has many who have treated these things in their philosophy; and albeit when they so spoke they held the soul as separated from the body, still they set up a seat of judgment. And the thing is so very clear, that no one scarcely is ignorant of it, but both poets and all are agreed among themselves that there is both a Tribunal and a Judgment. So that the Greek also disbelieves his own authorities; and the Jew does not doubt about these things nor in a word does any man.
Source: Homilies on Colossians (New Advent)