Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 1 part 2/2

How so? Because after the honor we become thankless and wicked.

And for this reason the laver henceforth helps us not at all toward obtaining a milder punishment.

Did anyone have grievous sins, either having murdered, or committed adultery, or wrought some other more grievous thing? These were remitted through the laver.

For there is not, there is not any sin, nor any impiety, which does not yield and give place to the gift;

Again someone committed adultery and murder;

the former adultery has been loosed, and that murder has been forgiven, and is not recalled (for the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance);

but for the things done after baptism we pay so great a penalty as though even those former things had been recalled, and things far worse.

For the sin is no longer single, but double and threefold.

And that the penalty for these sins is greater, hear what Paul says:

'He that despised Moses' law dies without mercy under two or three witnesses;

of how much worse punishment, think ye, shall he be deemed worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and the blood of the Covenant

counted a common thing, and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace?' Perhaps we have now turned many away from receiving baptism.

But it is not for this reason that we have said these things, but that, having received it, they may abide in temperance and in much forbearance.

'If thou hadst feared, thou wouldst have received it and kept it.'

'But for this very reason I do not receive it,' he says, 'because I am afraid.'

'And to depart thus—art thou not afraid? God is loving to man,' he says.

'For He is loving to man and helps us.'

But thou, where thou oughtest to be diligent, thou dost not put forward this loving-kindness;

yet where thou wouldst delay, then thou dost remember it;

and yet this loving-kindness would have its proper occasion, and we shall the more surely obtain it, when we too have contributed the things that come from ourselves.

For he who has cast the whole upon God, and, sinning after baptism such things as are likely for one who is a man, repenting shall obtain loving-kindness;

but he who, as it were playing the sophist with God's loving-kindness, departs without a share in the grace, shall have punishment past all entreaty.

Why dost thou put forward such things against thine own salvation? For it is impossible, impossible, as I for my part think, that one who puts things off with such hopes should accomplish anything noble and good.

But thou, on what account dost thou take up so great a fear, and put forward the uncertainty of the future? Why dost thou not change this fear into toil and diligence, that thou mayest become great and admirable? Which is better, to fear, or to labor? If someone seated thee, idle, in a dilapidated house, saying, 'Expect that the roof, being rotten, will fall upon thy head' (for perhaps it will fall, and perhaps it will not fall);

'but if thou dost not wish this, work, and dwell in the safer chamber';

which wouldst thou rather have chosen, that idleness with the fear, or this labor with the confidence? Therefore do thou also now do the same.

For the uncertainty of the future is like a certain dilapidated house, ever threatening collapse;

but this labor, which has toil in it, guarantees safety.

May it never be, then, that we fall into so great a necessity as to sin after the laver;

yet even if some such thing should happen, let us not even so despair.

God is loving to man, and has given us many ways of remission even after these things.

Only, just as those who sin after the laver are on this account punished more than the catechumens, so those who know that there are remedies of repentance, and yet are unwilling to use them, shall undergo more grievous things.

For the more the loving-kindness of God is enlarged, so much the more is the punishment increased also, if we do not use that loving-kindness as we ought.

What are you saying, O man? You who were full of so many evils and given up as hopeless, were suddenly made a friend and raised to the highest honour—not by your own labours, but by the free gift of God—and then you returned again to your former disgrace; and though you deserved to be grievously punished, He did not even so turn away from you, but gave you countless occasions of salvation, through which you might become His friend.

And while God does all this, you are not willing even so to labour.

And of what pardon will you henceforth be worthy? And how will the Greeks not justly laugh you to scorn, as a mere drone living idly and to no purpose? For 'If your philosophy is a thing of power,' they say, 'show it: what is the meaning of this multitude of the uninitiated?' Beautiful are the mysteries and to be longed for;

but let no one receive the laver while at the last gasp.

For that is not the season for the mysteries, but for making one's testament;

the season for the mysteries is soundness of mind and sobriety of soul.

For tell me: would anyone in such a condition even choose to draw up a will?

And even if he should write one, he gives to those who come after a handle for dispute (for this is the very reason they preface these words, saying: 'Being alive, and in my right mind, and in health, I give charge concerning my own affairs').

How could one who is out of his senses be initiated with any exactness? For if the laws of the outside world would not permit a man who is not thoroughly in health to make dispositions even when deliberating about the affairs of this life, and when he is about to legislate concerning what is his own—

how, while learning about the kingdom of heaven and those unspeakable good things, will you be able to grasp all clearly, when often you have even been driven distracted by your sickness? And when will you speak

those words to Christ, being buried together with Him, when you are about to leap away? For indeed one must show one's good will both by works and by words.

But you do the same as if someone should wish to enlist as a soldier when the war is about to be dissolved,

or as an athlete to strip for the contest after the theatre has already broken up.

For indeed you receive arms for this purpose, not that you may straightway leap away, but that having taken them you may set up a trophy against the adversary.

Let no one think the discourse about these matters untimely, because it is not now Lent.

For it is on this very account that I am pained, that you watch for a season in such matters.

And yet that eunuch, though a barbarian and on a journey, and in the midst of the highway, did not seek for a season;

nor did the jailer, and that too when he was among prisoners, and saw his teacher scourged and bound, and was for the time about to keep him within.

But here, though dwelling in no prison nor being on the roads, many put it off, and that when they are at their last breath.

If, then, you still doubt that Christ is God, stand outside, and do not so much as listen to the divine words, nor number yourself even among the catechumens;

but if you are confident, and know this clearly, why do you delay? Why do you shrink back and hesitate? 'I am afraid,' you say, 'lest I should sin.'

But do you not fear the more grievous thing, lest you depart thither laden with so many burdens? For it is not the same thing to fail of grace when it is set before you, and to fail while endeavouring to succeed.

Tell me now—for suppose He should call you to account—'Why did you not come forward?'

'Why did you not succeed?'—what will you say? For there, perhaps, you have the burdensomeness of the commandments and of virtue to plead;

but here there is nothing of the sort.

For grace it is that freely bestows freedom.

But you are afraid lest you should sin? Say these things after your baptism.

Then have the fear, so as to guard the boldness which you have received, not so as to keep from receiving such a gift.

But as it is, before baptism you are cautious, and after baptism you are careless.

But you wait for the season of Lent? For what reason? Has that season anything more in it? At least the apostles were not counted worthy of the grace at the Passover, but at another season;

and the three thousand and the five thousand, when they were baptized, it was not the season of the Passover;

and Cornelius, and the eunuch, and many others besides.

Let us not, therefore, wait for a season, lest by delaying and putting it off we depart empty and destitute of so many good things.

How much, do you think, I am pained when I hear that someone has been carried off hence uninitiated, when I consider those intolerable punishments, that inexorable retribution? How again am I stung, when I see others come to their last breath and not even thereby brought to their senses? For this reason many things unworthy of this gift take place.

For whereas one ought to be glad, and to dance for joy, and to rejoice, and to be crowned, when another is being initiated, the wife of the sick man, when she hears that the physician has ordered this, is cut to the heart and wails as if over some calamity, and there are shrieks and lamentations everywhere throughout the house, as though over condemned men led away on their last journey.

And he too, on the other hand, is then the more pained; and even if he should recover from his sickness, he grieves the more bitterly, as though he had been wronged.

For since he had not prepared himself for virtue, he thereafter shrinks back and draws away from the conflicts that follow.

Do you see what devices the devil contrives, how great the shame, how great the ridicule? Let us therefore rid ourselves of this ridicule;

let us live as Christ commanded.

For this reason He gave baptism: not that we should receive it and then depart, but that, living on, we should show forth fruits.

How will you say 'Bear fruit' to one who is departing, who is cut off? Have you not heard that 'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace'? How then do the contrary things come to pass? For indeed the wife stands by mourning, when she ought to rejoice;

the children lamenting, when they ought to rejoice together;

the man himself lying there darkened, full of tumult and confusion, when there ought to be festal celebration;

filled with great despondency, because of the orphanhood of his children, because of the widowhood of his wife, because of the desolation of his house.

Is it thus that one comes forward to the mysteries? Tell me:

is it endurable? If a king sends letters, releasing those in prison, there is gladness and joy;

but when God sends down the Spirit from heaven, remitting not deficiencies of money, but whole sins entire—

and you all mourn and lament? What is this inconsistency? I do not yet mention that water has been poured even upon the dead, and the holy things cast upon the ground;

but we are not the cause of these things, but the thankless and senseless.

Wherefore I exhort you to lay aside all these things, to collect yourselves, and to come forward to baptism with all eagerness, so that, having shown great earnestness even in the present life, we may obtain the boldness that is to come;

which may it be granted us all to attain, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.