Let not any one therefore expect that he shall see heaven with ease. For it cannot be. Let no one hope to travel the narrow road with luxury, for it is impossible. Let no one traveling in the broad way hope for life. When therefore thou seest such and such an one luxuriating in baths, in a sumptuous table, or in other matters having troops of attendants; think not thyself unhappy, as not partaking of these things, but lament for him, that he is traveling the way to destruction. For what is the advantage of this way, when it ends in tribulation? And what is the injury of that straitness, when it leads to rest? Tell me, if any one invited to a palace should walk through narrow ways painful and precipitous, and another led to death should be dragged through the midst of the market-place, which shall we call happy? which shall we commiserate? Him, shall we not, who walks through the broad road? So also now, let us think happy, not those who are luxurious, but those who are not luxurious. These are hastening to heaven, those to hell.
And perhaps indeed many of them will even laugh at the things that are said by us. But I most of all lament and bewail them on this account, that they do not even know what they ought to laugh at, and for what they ought especially to mourn, but they confound and disturb and disorder everything. On this account I bewail them. What sayest thou, O man, when thou art to rise again, and to give an account of thy actions, and to undergo the last sentence, dost thou pay no regard indeed to these, but give thought to gratifying thy belly, and being drunken? And dost thou laugh at these things? But I bewail thee, knowing the evils that await thee, the punishment that is about to overtake thee. And this I most especially bewail, that thou dost laugh! Mourn with me, bewail with me thine own evils. Tell me, if one of thy friends perishes, dost thou not turn from those who laugh at his end, and think them enemies, but love those who weep and sympathize with thee? Then indeed if the dead body of thy wife were laid out, thou turnest from him that laughs: but when thy soul is done to death, dost thou turn from him that weeps, and laugh thyself? Seest thou how the devil has disposed us to be enemies and adversaries to ourselves? For once let us be sober, let us open our eyes, let us watch, let us lay hold on eternal life, let us shake off this long sleep. There is a Judgment, there is a Punishment, there is a Resurrection, there is an Inquisition into what we have done! The Lord cometh in the clouds "Before Him," he says, "a fire will be kindled, and round about Him a mighty tempest" (Ps. l. 3, Sept.) A river of fire rolls before him, the undying worm, unquenchable fire, outer darkness, gnashing of teeth. Although you should be angry with me ten thousand times for mentioning these things, I shall not cease from mentioning them. For if the prophets, though stoned, did not keep silence, much more ought we to bear with enmities, and not to discourse to you with a view to please, that we may not, for having deceived you, be ourselves cut in sunder. There is punishment, deathless, unallayed, and no one to stand up for us. "Who will pity," he says, "the charmer that is bitten by a serpent?" (Ecclus. xii. 13.) When we pity not our own selves, tell me, who will pity us? If you see a man piercing himself with a sword, will you be able to spare his life? By no means. Much more, when having it in our power to do well we do not do well, who will spare us? No one! Let us pity ourselves. When we pray to God, saying, "Lord, have mercy [1035] upon me," let us say it to ourselves, and have mercy upon ourselves. We are the arbiters [1036] of God's having mercy upon us. This grace He has bestowed upon us. If we do things worthy of mercy, worthy of His loving-kindness towards us, God will have mercy upon us. But if we have not mercy on ourselves, who will spare us? Have mercy on thy neighbor, and thou shalt find mercy of God Himself. How many every day come to thee, saying, "Have pity on me," and thou dost not turn towards them; how many naked, how many maimed, and we do not bend toward them, but dismiss their supplications. How then dost thou claim [1037] to obtain mercy, when thou thyself dost nothing worthy of mercy? Let us become compassionate, let us become pitiful, that so we may be well-pleasing to God, and obtain the good things promised to those that love Him, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, &c.
[1026] [This is obscure as to the exact purport. Does "then" mean the end of the individual life, or the time of Christ's coming? The expanded text understood it in the former sense.--J.A.B.]
[1027] to ergon, i.e. is not what is now doing part of That Day's work? Or it might be rendered "reality."
[1028] i.e. as we say loosely, "every one." St. Greg. Naz. complains of this practice, Or. XL., preached at Constantinople, A.D. 381.
[1029] diephtharesan.
[1030] [This may be considered a mere slip of memory, or Chrys. may have inserted "the thief" as representing our Lord. The Rev. Ver. properly reads "on what day," in ver. 42, "at what hour" having been drawn from ver. 44, where all documents have it. Chrys. has, as so often, the reading which passed into the Textus Receptus.--J.A.B.]
[1031] [To this "since" answers "see then," below. He digresses to quote the Prophets, and then returns in a way very natural to free speaking.--J.A.B.]
[1032] Or "it."
[1033] [The altered text gives, "has not called us to this."--J.A.B.]
[1034] [All the mss. examined for Field give not hoti, "because," but ti, "what," "to what extent," "how." This more difficult reading of Matt. vii. 14 is quite probably correct. See Margin of Rev. Ver. Observe also that Chrys. seems to omit "the gate," connecting "narrow and straitened" with the way, as do several other Fathers (see Tisch.). Many now speak of the "strait and narrow way," and often imagine that it means "straight." Chrys. has a different text of this passage in his Homilies on Matthew, though some mss. there also give ti. See Amer. ed. of Tr. p. 162.--J.A.B.]
[1035] [It is the word above rendered "pity," but the other rendering is made familiar in this phrase by the Litany. "Have pity," just below, is still the same word.--J.A.B.]
[1036] Gr. "We are lords," but the phrase is more familiar in Greek.
[1037] [The verb translated "claim" is based on the adjective meaning "worthy." Chrys. is somewhat fond of the play upon words.--J.A.B.]