thyself, O man, in going to God, who has not spared even His Son for thee. Faint not at
present evils. He who gave His Only-Begotten, that He might save thee and deliver thee
from hell, what will He spare henceforth for thy salvation? So that thou oughtest to hope
for all things kind. For neither should we fear, if we were going to a judge who was about
to judge us, and who had shown so much love for us, as to have sacrificed his son. Let us
hope therefore for kind and great things, for we have received the principal thing; let us
believe, for we have seen an example; let us love, for it is the extreme of madness for one
not to love who has been so treated.
Ver. 10, 11. “That, whether we wake or sleep,” he says, “we should live together with
Him. Wherefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as also ye do.”
And again, “whether we wake or sleep”; by sleep there he means one thing, and here
another. For here, “whether we sleep” signifies the death of the body; that is, fear not dangers;
though we should die, we shall live. Do not despair because thou art in danger. Thou hast
a strong security. He would not have given His Son if He had not been inflamed by vehement
love for us. So that, though thou shouldest die, thou wilt live; for He Himself also died.
Therefore whether we die, or whether we live, we shall live with Him. This is a matter of
indifference: it is no concern of mine, whether I live or die; for we shall live with Him. Let
us therefore do everything for that life: looking to that, let us do all our works. Vice, O be-
loved, is darkness, it is death, it is night; we see nothing that we ought, we do nothing that
becomes us. As the dead are unsightly and of evil odor, so also the souls of those who are
vicious are full of much impurity. Their eyes are closed, their mouth is stopped, they remain
without motion in the bed of vice; or rather more wretched than those who are naturally
dead. For they truly are dead to both, but these are insensible indeed to virtue, but alive to
vice. If one should strike a dead man, he perceives it not, he revenges it not, but is like a dry
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stick. So also his soul is truly dry, having lost its life; it receives daily numberless wounds,
and has no feeling of any, but lies insensible to everything.
One would not err in comparing such men to those who are mad, or drunk, or delirious.
All these things belong to vice, and it is worse than all these. He that is mad is much allowed
for by those who see him, for his disease is not from choice, but from nature alone; but how
shall he be pardoned, who lives in vice? Whence then is vice? whence are the majority bad?
Tell me, whence have diseases their evil nature? whence is frenzy? whence is lethargy? Is it
not from carelessness? If physical disorders have their origin in choice, much more those
which are voluntary. Whence is drunkenness? Is it not from intemperance of soul? Is not
frenzy from excess of fever? And is not fever from the elements too abundant in us? And is
not this superabundance of elements from our carelessness? For when either from deficiency
or excess we carry any of the things within us beyond the bounds of moderation, we kindle
that fire. Again, if when the fire is kindled, we continue to neglect it, we make a conflagration
for ourselves, which we are not able to extinguish. So is it also with vice. When we do not
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1 Thessalonians 5:1,2