Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew

⁵ All this might be seasonably said, not of them only, but of us also, when after having been enlightened, and delivered from our former ills, we again cleave unto the same wickedness, for more grievous also thenceforth will be the punishment of our subsequent sins. Therefore to the sick of the palsy also Christ said, “Behold, you are made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you;” and this to a man who was thirty-eight years in his infirmity. And what, one might ask, was he to suffer worse than this? Something far worse, and more intolerable. For far be it from us, that we should endure as much as we are capable of enduring. For God is at no loss for inflictions. For according to the greatness of His mercy, so also is His wrath.

With this He charges Jerusalem also by Ezekiel. “I saw you,” says He, “polluted in blood; and I washed you, and anointed you; and you had renown for your beauty; and you poured out your fornications,” says He, “on those who dwell near you,” wherefore also the more grievous are His threatenings to you when you sin.

But from hence infer not your punishment only, but also the boundless longsuffering of God. How often at least have we put our hands to the same evil deeds, and yet He suffers long! But let us not be sanguine, but fear; since Pharaoh too, had he been taught by the first plague, would not have experienced the later ones; he would not afterwards have been drowned, his host and all together.

And this I say, because I know many, who like Pharaoh are even now saying, “I know not God,” and making those that are in their power cleave to the clay and to the bricks. How many, though God bids them assauge their “threatening,” cannot bear so much as to relax the toil!

“But we have no Red Sea now, to pass through afterwards.” But we have a sea of fire, a sea not like that, either in kind or in size, but far greater and fiercer, having its waves of fire, of some strange and horrible fire. A great abyss is there, of most intolerable flame. Since everywhere fire may be seen roving quickly round, like some savage wild beast. And if here this sensible and material fire leaped like a wild beast out of the furnace, and sprang upon those who were sitting without, what will not that other fire do to such as have fallen into it?

Concerning that day, hear the prophets, saying, “The day of the Lord is incurable, full of anger and wrath.” For there will be none to stand by, none to rescue, nowhere the face of Christ, so mild and calm. But as those who work in the mines are delivered over to certain cruel men, and see none of their friends, but those only that are set over them; so will it be then also: or rather not so, but even far more grievous. For here it is possible to go unto the king, and entreat, and free the condemned person: but there, no longer; for He permits it not, but they continue in the scorching torment, and in so great anguish, as it is not possible for words to tell. For if, when any are in flames here, no speech can describe their sharp pangs, much less theirs, who suffer it in that place: since here indeed all is over in a brief point of time, but in that place there is burning indeed, but what is burnt is not consumed.

What then shall we do there? For to my self also do I say these things.