June: Day 19: Teaching 1:
Holy Apostle Jude
(On Eternal Torment)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
Holy Apostle Jude
(On Eternal Torment)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. About the Holy Apostle Jude, whose memory is celebrated today, the Church historian Nikephoros writes: “The divine Judas, not Iscariot, but another, who was also called Thaddeus and Lebbaeus, the son of Joseph, the brother of James, who was thrown from the roof of the Temple, cast the net of the holy gospel first in Judea, Galilee, Samaria, Idumea, then the cities of Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia; finally he came to the city of Edessa, which belonged to King Abgar, and where another Thaddeus, one of the 70 Apostles, preached Christ even before him.”
According to tradition, it is also known that the Apostle Jude preached the gospel in Persia, from where he wrote a Catholic Epistle to believers, short but edifying, in which he protects against false teachers and threatens that as it was with Sodom and Gomorrah, “so it will be with these dreamers, speaking evil of what they know not, grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts (ungodly and lawlessly); whose mouth utters pompous words.” “These are stains in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” The Holy Apostle Jude further writes in his epistle that the Lord, who did not spare even the angels, will punish every sinner who does not try to correct his life.
The Holy Apostle Jude died a martyr in Mesopotamia (around 80 A.D.); he was crucified on a cross. His burial place remains unknown.
II. Let us pay attention, my beloved brethren, to those terrible threats to sinners of eternal torment, which are spoken in a prophetic spirit in the epistle of the Holy Apostle Jude, and let us talk at this time about the eternal torment of sinners in hell.
Imagine a dark underground dungeon, the deepest abyss, a joyless place of weeping or the most terrible furnace of unquenchable fire, and look there at the sinner imprisoned and burning in the flames! He is constantly wounded there by the sovereign right hand of the Most High with three terrible arrows and inflicts three terrible wounds on him: eternal repentance without benefit, immeasurable torment without consolation, extreme desire without hope.
a) The first arrow of God's wrath is a living recollection of the past life, a bitter recollection which produces an even more bitter but useless repentance. An unrepentant sinner will never forget his sins! And they will torment his conscience forever. He will repent of them forever, but to no avail; he will shed tears forever, but they will no longer wash away his sins: no! they will kindle the flame of torment even more. There is no place for repentance in hell: the doors of the kingdom of heaven have already been closed and will be locked forever and ever! Poor sinful soul! What have you done that you are tormented so terribly? In what have you sinned that you are tormented here forever? - "I tasted a drop of honey and for this I am tormented forever!" says the sinner. These feasts and rejoicings, this impure carnal love, games and amusements - what was it if not a drop of honey? And this satanic joy, when I saw my neighbor in misfortune, when I took revenge on him, reviled him out of envy and malice - what was it if not a drop of honey! And all these riches, for the sake of which I burdened my conscience with countless offenses, lawless deeds - after all, all this was only a drop of honey! And glory, and nobility, and honor and peace, everything that I enjoyed without the fear of God - everything, everything was a drop of honey, and even that mixed with poison, with vanities and illnesses! And even if my whole life had passed only in earthly happiness - what is all this in comparison with eternal torment? One drop of honey, nothing, "like yesterday that passed by!"
Who would give me now even one minute for repentance! But there is no longer "time": it is over; now "eternity" has come, and forever I will weep in vain. But this is only the first arrow of God's wrath, striking the sinner.
b) The second arrow is the most tormenting of hell. "I will heap evil upon them," God threatens sinners (Deut. 32:20). The gathering, the unification of all evils, all troubles and torments together - this is the state of those tormented in hell! All kinds of sorrows are gathered in one cup, all the flames of the unquenchable fire are united in one flame, all eternal torments - in one torment! Eternal torment - without weakening, without end! "Father Abraham," the rich man of the Gospel cries out, "you are the father of mercy, show mercy to me, burning in the unquenchable fire! Oh, send this fortunate Lazarus, so that he can dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my flaming tongue." And what does Abraham say to him? "No, my child, you have already received everything in your life, do not expect anything more."
c) The third arrow of God's wrath that wounds the heart of a sinner is desire without hope, desire for God, without hope in God! Have you ever seen the waves of the sea that rush onto the shore as if they wanted to flood the whole earth with themselves, but then, striking the rocks, break into a thousand splashes and return with foam? In the same way, the soul of a sinner will rush to communion with God, but having met the heart of God, like a solid rock, it will be broken by a fierce illness! To desire God always and never hope to see Him - this is such a torment that we cannot even explain! Just think that if the most beautiful and most holy face of God were hidden from the eyes of the righteous for one minute, then paradise itself would become hell for them; and if it seemed to be tormented in hell for one minute, then hell itself would become paradise. Just think, if sinners had hope of ever seeing the face of God, then the torment of millions of centuries would seem like nothing to them! What is their torment when they will forever desire without hope to see the face of God!
III. Brethren! Let us remember eternal torment, in order to escape it. In ancient times, a holy hermit suffered temptation from the flesh; then one day the devil presented him with the likeness of a woman, in order to tempt him more quickly to sin. What did the hermit do? He stretched out his finger to the fire of a burning candle, but since he could not bear the suffering, he immediately pulled his hand back and said to himself: “If I cannot endure one minute for my finger to burn in the fire, then how will I endure eternal torment, when I will burn with all my body and soul in the flames of Gehenna? Get away from me, Satan!” – And immediately the woman disappeared, the hermit conquered the flesh, shamed the devil, escaped sin, saved his soul... Oh, if each of us, when the flesh, the world or the devil tempts him, would say to himself: “After all, for what I do, I will have to suffer in hell; suffer forever,” – think: what kind of desire would there be to sin then? No! I repeat: he who remembers eternal torment will not suffer. But how many remember it?
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
