Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew

⁸ “But who,” one will say, “has come from those in hell, and has declared these things?” Why, who has arrived here from heaven, and told us that there is a God who created all things? And whence is it clear that we have a soul? For plainly, if you are to believe the things only that are in sight, both God and angels, and mind and soul, will be matter of doubting to you, and in this way you will find all the doctrines of the truth gone.

Yet surely, if you are willing to believe what is evident, the things invisible ought to be believed by you, rather than those which are seen. Even though what I say be a paradox, nevertheless it is true, and among men of understanding is fully acknowledged. For whereas the eyes are often deceived, not in the things unseen only (for of those they do not so much as take cognizance), but even in those which men think they actually see, distance and atmosphere, and absence of mind, and anger, and care, and ten thousand other things impeding their accuracy; the reasoning power of the soul on the other hand, if it receive the light of the divine Scriptures, will prove a more accurate, an unerring standard of realities.

Let us not then vainly deceive ourselves, neither in addition to the carelessness of our life, which is the offspring of such doctrines as these, heap up to ourselves, for the very doctrines themselves, a more grievous fire. For if there be no judgment, and we are not to give account of our deeds, neither shall we receive rewards for our labors. Observe which way your blasphemies tend, when you say, that God, who is righteous, and loving, and mild, overlooks so great labors and toils. And how can this be reasonable? Why, if by nothing else, at any rate by the circumstances of your own house, I bid you weigh these things, and then you will see the absurdity. For though you were yourself savage and inhuman beyond measure, and wilder than the very wild beasts, you would not choose at your death to leave unhonored the servant that had been affectionate to you, but requitest him both with freedom, and with a gift of money; and forasmuch as in your own person hereafter, having departed, you will be able to do him no good, you give charge concerning him to the future inheritors of your substance, beseeching, exhorting, doing everything, so that he may not remain unrewarded.

So then you, who are evil, are so kind and loving towards your servant; and will the Infinite Goodness, that is, God, the Unspeakable Love to man, the kindness so vast: will He overlook and leave uncrowned His own servants, Peter and Paul, and James, and John, those who every day for His sake suffered hunger, were bound, were scourged, were drowned in the sea, were given up to wild beasts, were dying, were suffering so great things as we cannot so much as reckon up? And whereas the Olympic judge proclaims and crowns the victor, and the master rewards the servant, and the king the soldier, and each in general him that has done him service, with what good things he can; shall God alone, after those so great toils and labors, repay them with no good thing great or small? Shall those just and pious men, who have walked in every virtue, lie in the same state with adulterers, and parricides, and manslayers, and violators of tombs? And in what way can this be reasonable? Since, if there be nothing after our departure hence, and our interests reach no further than things present, those are in the same case with these, or rather not so much as in the same. For what though hereafter, as you say, they fare alike? Yet here, the whole of their time, the wicked have been at ease, the righteous in chastisement. And this what sort of tyrant, what savage and relentless man did ever so devise, touching his own servants and subjects?

Did you mark the exceeding greatness of the absurdity, and in what this argument issues? Therefore if you will not any other way, yet by these reasonings be instructed to rid yourself of this wicked thought, and to flee from vice, and cleave to the toils which end in virtue: and then shall you know certainly that our concerns are not bounded by the present life. And if any one ask you, “Who has come from thence and brought word what is there?” say unto him, of men not one; for surely he would have been often disbelieved, as vaunting, and exaggerating the thing; but the Lord of the angels has brought word with exactness of all those things. What need then have we of any man, seeing He, that will demand account of us, cries aloud every day, that He has both made ready a hell, and prepared a kingdom; and affords us clear demonstrations of these things? For if He were not hereafter to judge, neither would he have exacted any penalty here.