Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews

If you keep your sins continually in remembrance, you will never bear in mind the wrongs of your neighbor. I do not say, if you are persuaded that you are yourself a sinner; this does not avail so to humble the soul, as sins themselves [taken] by themselves, and examined specifically. You will have no remembrance of wrongs [done you], if you have these things continually in remembrance; you will feel no anger, you will not revile, you will have no high thoughts, you will not fall again into the same [sins], you will be more earnest towards good things.

7. Do you see how many excellent [effects] are produced from the remembrance of our sins? Let us then write them in our minds. I know that the soul does not endure a recollection which is so bitter: but let us constrain and force it. It is better that it should be gnawed with the remembrance now, than at that time with vengeance.

Now, if you remember them, and continually present them before God (see p. 448), and pray for them, you will speedily blot them out; but if you forget them now, you will then be reminded of them even against your will, when they are brought out publicly before the whole world, displayed before all, both friends and enemies, and Angels. For surely He did not say to David only, “What you did secretly, I will make manifest to” all, but even to us all. You were afraid of men (he said) and respected them more than God; and God seeing you, you cared not, but were ashamed before men. For it says, “the eyes of men, this is their fear.” Therefore you shall suffer punishment in that very point; for I will reprove you, setting your sins before the eyes of all. For that this is true, and that in that day the sins of us all are [to be] publicly displayed, unless we now do them away by continual remembrance, hear how cruelty and inhumanity are publicly exposed, “I was an hungered” (He says) “and you gave Me no meat.” When are these things said? Is it in a corner? Is it in a secret place? By no means. When then? “When the Son of Man shall come in His glory”, and “all the nations” are gathered together, when He has separated the one from the other, then will He speak in the audience of all, and will “set” them “on His right hand” and “on” His “left”: “I was an hungered and you gave Me no meat.”

See again the five virgins also, hearing before all, “I know you not.” For the five and five do not set forth the number of five only, but those virgins who are wicked and cruel and inhuman, and those who are not such. So also he that buried his one talent, heard before all, even of those who had brought the five and the two, “You wicked and slothful servant.” But not by words alone, but by deeds also does He then convict them: even as the Evangelist also says, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” For the resurrection shall be of all at the same time, of sinners and of the righteous. At the same time shall He be present to all in the judgment.

8. Consider therefore who they are who shall then be in dismay, who in grief, who dragged away to the fire, while the others are crowned. “Come” (He says), “ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” And again, “Depart from Me into the fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Let us not merely hear the words but write them also before our sight, and let us imagine Him to be now present and saying these things, and that we are led away to that fire. What heart shall we have? What consolation? And what, when we are cut asunder? And what when we are accused of rapacity? What excuse shall we have to utter? What specious argument? None: but of necessity bound, bending down, we must be dragged to the mouths of the furnace, to the river of fire, to the darkness, to then ever-dying punishments, and entreat no one. For it is not, it is not possible, He says, to pass across from this side to that: for “there is a great gulf between us and you”,and it is not possible even for those who wish it to go across, and stretch out a helping hand: but we must needs burn continually, no one aiding us, even should it be father or mother, or any whosoever, yea though he have much boldness toward God. For, it says, “A brother does not redeem; shall man redeem?”

Since then it is not possible to have one's hopes of salvation in another, but [it must be] in one's self after the lovingkindness of God, let us do all things, I entreat you, so that our conduct may be pure, and our course of life the best, and that it may not receive any stain even from the beginning. But if not, at all events, let us not sleep after the stain, but continue always washing away the pollution by repentance, by tears, by prayers, by works of mercy.

What then, you say, if I cannot do works of mercy? But you have “a cup of cold water”, however poor you are. But you have “two mites”, in whatever poverty you are; but you have feet, so as to visit the sick, so as to enter into a prison; but you have a roof, so as to receive strangers. For there is no pardon, no, none for him who does not do works of mercy.

These things we say to you continually, that we may effect if it be but a little by the continued repetition: these things we say, not caring so much for those who receive the benefits, as for yourselves. For you give to them indeed things here, but in return you receive heavenly things: which may we all obtain, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Ghost, now and ever, and world without end. Amen.