your dress? No; the Jews are less scandalous than you in that particular. Tell me in what I can see your Christianity? By what sign can I find that you believe in the resurrection of the body? By the diligence you show in heaping up merits and good works for the next life? No; we see no such thing in you; quite the contrary; all your care is devoted to temporal goods to which your heart is fettered, as if you had to spend a long eternity here on earth. Perhaps in the patience you show in bearing crosses and trials? in the voluntary penances you practise in the hope of receiving an exceeding great reward for them in the next life? By no means; the least discomfort is intolerable to you; you hardly know what it is to mortify your senses. Perhaps in the fortitude with which you await death, hoping by it to obtain a better life? Still less. The bare thought of death fills you with terror, like those of whom St. Paul speaks: “That you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope.”[1] Show me your faith, Christian! Let me see some sign to prove that you believe in the resurrection. Where shall we find it? In the Baptismal Register in which your name is enrolled amongst the names of other Christians? Yes. In the sign of the cross, which you make now and then? Yes. On your lips, by which you profess to be a Christian? Yes. Nothing more? No; that is all. O poor faith! wretched Christianity! How can this dead faith in the resurrection help you, since you live like a beast of the field, whose soul perishes with its body? Such is the sense in which St. Chrysostom speaks. But I have a better opinion of those here present than to think such a sharp reproof necessary for them.
Exhortation and conclusion, founded on the hope of the resurrection, to serve God zealously. I turn then to true Christians, and conclude in the words which St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians after he had explained to them the resurrection of the body: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast and immovable: always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not vain in the Lord,”[2] that it will not perish with this life. I add, moreover, the exhortation that he gave his disciple Titus: “Denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world; looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and Our Saviour Jesus
