THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
Then he adds something clearer than what has been said: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises” (Heb 11:13). Here two questions arise. How, after saying that Enoch “was taken away so that he did not see death,” does he now say, “These all died in faith”? And again, how, after saying, “not having received the promises,” does he say that Noah received as a reward the salvation of his household, Enoch was taken away, Abel “still speaks,” and Abraham received the land? “They died in faith,” he says, “not having received the promises.” What do his words mean? We must resolve one question first, and then the other. “These all,” he says, “died in faith.” He says “these all” here not because absolutely all of them died, but because, except for Enoch, all whom we know to have died did indeed die. The words “not having received the promises” are also true, since the promise given to Noah did not concern this. What promises, then, does he mean? The land was promised to Isaac and Jacob. But what promises did Noah, Abel, and Enoch receive? He is speaking either of these last three, or of them together with the others. It was not a promise that Abel became an object of admiration, that Enoch was taken away, or that Noah was saved from the flood. All this was given to them for virtue, and was a kind of foretaste of the future. God, knowing from the beginning that the human race needs great condescension, grants us not only future things, but present things also. So Christ said to the disciples: “Everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life” (Mt 19:29). And again: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Mt 6:33). Do you see that this too is given by Him as an addition, so that we may not grow despondent? Combatants receive relief even while they are engaged in the contest. Yet, being subject to the rules, they do not have full rest, but enjoy it afterward. So God does not grant us complete repose here. Though He grants it in part, He preserves it fully for the life to come. That this is so, the Apostle himself explains by adding what follows: “but having seen them afar off, and embraced them” (Heb 11:13). Here he hints at something mystical. He shows that they had a foreknowledge of all that was said about the future, the resurrection, the kingdom of heaven, and the rest, which Christ proclaimed when He came to earth. This is what he means by the promises. Either he means this, or that, though they did not receive such promises, they ended life while hoping in them. They hoped by faith alone. “Having seen them afar off,” that is, after four generations. After so many generations they came out of Egypt. “And embraced them,” he says. They were so assured of these promises that they even greeted them. So sailors, seeing from afar the cities toward which they are striving, salute them before they enter them and already count them as their own. The first virtue, and the universal virtue, is to be a stranger and sojourner in this world. It is to have nothing in common with things here, but to stand toward them as things foreign to us. So it was with those blessed disciples of whom the Apostle says: “They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb 11:37-38). They called themselves strangers, but Paul said something still greater about himself. He not only called himself a stranger, but said that he was dead to the world and the world was dead to him: “The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). But we conduct ourselves like citizens here, and arrange all our affairs in life as living citizens. What the righteous were to the world, namely strangers and dead men, we are to heaven. What they were to heaven, namely living citizens, we are to the world. We are dead because we have turned aside from the true life and chosen the temporal one. By this we provoke God to anger, because we do not wish to withdraw from earthly goods, though heavenly blessedness has been prepared for us. We crawl from one patch of earth to another and then return again, and in general have no desire to come to our senses and withdraw from human affairs. As though sunk in deep sleep or stupefied by drunkenness, we are carried away by dreams. Those who give themselves to sweet sleep lie in bed not only at night, but even when morning has come and the bright day has appeared. They are not ashamed to indulge such pleasure, turning the time of labor and activity into a time of sleep and sloth. So we also, when day draws near and night has passed, or rather when day has already come, do the works proper to night. For it is said, “Work while it is day” (Jn 9:4). We sleep, see dreams, and delight in fantasies. Our eyes, both noetic and bodily, are closed. We speak empty words and talk nonsense. We would not notice if someone inflicted a deep wound on us, seized all our property, and set fire to the house itself. Or rather, we do not even wait for others to do this, but do it ourselves. Every day we wound and strike ourselves. We act shamelessly and know no propriety or honor. We neither hide our shameful deeds ourselves nor allow others to do so. With complete shamelessness we make ourselves a laughingstock and an object of countless insults to all who see and pass by. Do you not know that even wicked men laugh at and condemn those like themselves? God has placed within us an incorruptible tribunal that never changes, even if we fall into the depths of evil. Therefore wicked men condemn even themselves. If someone calls them what they truly are, they are ashamed, angry, and offended. Thus, if not in deed, then in word, they condemn their actions in conscience. Or rather, they condemn them also in deed. For if they do their works secretly and in hiding, they give clear proof of the opinion they have about those works. Evil is so manifest that all condemn it, even those who commit it. Virtue is such that even those who do not follow it admire it. The fornicator praises chastity. The covetous man condemns injustice. The irritable man admires freedom from malice and censures faintheartedness. The corrupt man condemns debauchery. Why then, you ask, do they do these things themselves? Because of extreme negligence, not because they think them good. Otherwise they would not be ashamed of their deeds or deny them when someone else exposes them. Many, when exposed, could not bear the shame and killed themselves. So strong within us is the witness to what is good and seemly. So much brighter than the sun are good deeds, and so vile are their opposites. The saints were strangers and sojourners. How and in what way? Where does Abraham confess himself a stranger and sojourner? Perhaps he too confessed it. But that David confessed himself such is beyond doubt. Listen to what he himself says: “I am a stranger with You, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were” (Ps 38:13). Those who lived in tents and bought burial places with money were clearly such strangers that they did not even have a place to bury their dead. What then? Did they call themselves strangers only with respect to the land of Palestine? No, with respect to the whole world, and rightly so. They saw nothing in it that they desired. Everything was strange and foreign to them. They wished to practice virtue, but here there was a multitude of vices. Therefore everything here was foreign to them. They had not one friend or close companion, except a few. And how were they strangers? They did not care for things here and proved this not by words, but by deeds themselves. How and in what way? God said to Abraham, “Leave your supposed fatherland and go to a foreign land” (Gen 12:1). He did not remain there from love for his kin, but left it without regret, as though it were a foreign land. God said to him, “Offer your son in sacrifice” (Gen 22:2), and he offered him as though he had no son at all. He offered him as though he were not clothed with human nature. He regarded his possessions as common to all who came to him and counted this as nothing. He yielded first place to others, underwent dangers, and endured countless calamities. He did not build splendid houses, live luxuriously, care for clothing, or care for anything else that belongs to this world. On the contrary, he lived the life of the city above. He was hospitable, brother-loving, merciful, long-suffering, and contemptuous of possessions, present glory, and all else. His son was the same. When he was persecuted and attacked, he did not resist, but yielded as one living in a foreign land. For strangers, whatever they suffer, endure everything because they are not in their homeland. He endured the loss of his wife as a stranger. He lived a higher life, preserving chastity and every continence. After begetting a son, he had no relations with his wife. He had married her only when the flower of youth had passed, showing that he did this not from passion, but to serve the fulfillment of God’s promise. And Jacob? Did he not seek only bread and clothing, the needs proper to true strangers who have fallen into extreme poverty? When persecuted, did he not yield as a stranger? Did he not labor for wages? Did he not endure countless calamities, journeying everywhere as a stranger? By enduring all this, they showed that they were seeking another homeland. O what a difference! They were daily consumed with longing to be freed from here and to return to their homeland. We are the opposite. When some burning fever occurs, we cast everything aside and weep like little children. We fear death, and we rightly suffer this, because we do not live here as strangers. We do not hasten there as to a homeland, but go as to execution. Therefore we grieve, because we do not use things as we ought, but have overturned the order of things. Therefore we are tormented, though we ought to rejoice. Therefore we tremble, like murderers and robbers when they are about to appear before the court, remembering all their deeds and therefore fearing and trembling. Those men were not like this, but hastened there of themselves. Paul even groaned for it, as he himself says: “We who are in this tent groan, being burdened” (2 Cor 5:4). Abraham and those like him were such. They were, the Apostle says, strangers to the whole world and sought a homeland. What homeland? The one they had left? No. What prevented them from returning there and being its citizens, if they had wished? They sought a heavenly homeland. So eager were they to depart from here, and so did they please God. Therefore God Himself is not ashamed to be called their God. O what honor! He was pleased to be called their God. But what, you ask, is great in His not being ashamed to be called their God, when He is called God of earth and God of heaven? It is great, truly great, and a sign of great blessedness. Why? Because He is called God of heaven and earth just as He is called God of the nations. He is God of heaven and earth as their Creator and Maker. But He is called the God of those saints not in this sense, but as their close friend. I will explain this to you by an example. In great houses, when some of the chief servants are distinguished above the others, and greatly distinguished, and manage everything with great boldness before their masters, the master is called by their name. Many are so called. But what am I saying? Just as He could be called not the God of the nations, but the God of the universe, so He could also be called the God of Abraham. You do not know what honor lies in this, because we do not have it. Now God is called Lord of all Christians, though even this is beyond our worth. But if He is called the God of one man, consider how great this is. The God of the universe is not ashamed to be called the God of three men.