In operarios undecimae horae

Of the same John Chrysostom, on those who come at the eleventh hour. God constructed man from two natures, I mean soul and body. And to each he provided what was suitable for their care: to the body, experienced physicians and various preparations of drugs; to the soul, wise teachers and the aids of the divine scriptures. But there is a great difference between these two things. For scripture is as much superior to art as the soul given from the heavens is superior to the earthly body. Therefore, one who suffers in body goes to the workshops of physicians, showing the ailment before the word, in order to purchase uncertain health. I say uncertain, because often the physicians wish it but are unable. For they are not masters of nature. And the sick man struggles to escape the affliction, and the desired health does not come, not having received the command of the master. For without God's consent, the zeal of both is ineffectual. But one who comes to the church in order to heal the soul, which is much wounded by sins, does not fail in his own purpose. He does not devise money to win over these physicians. For they do not traffic in the gifts of Christ. For they hear him saying, "You received freely, give freely," and they provide healing to each without payment. So they heal and do not fail, because Christ himself, who holds the authority, cooperates with them. O the marvelous swiftness of those healed! O the ineffable goodness of the healer! Someone comes here, given up as hopeless by countless votes, already seeing himself in the very abyss of death.

And having received the bath of grace, he returns immediately healthy and robust, renewed like a noble eagle, having shed the former old age of his life. Another, after baptism, having slipped back again into the passions of the flesh and stained the garment of grace, and having exchanged the freedom of the soul for the slavery of sin, and having become a plaything of licentious pleasures, refraining from no form of baseness, arrives at the healing-place of the church, not daring to look up to heaven like the publican, having his own conscience as an accuser of his deeds, already foreseeing the fearful assembly before the judge of all, the very swift unrolling of the books, the sins of each being trumpeted forth, the violent and unquenchable fire of Gehenna, the all-devouring and endless worm, the cheerless and much-lamenting Tartarus, the dreadful gnashing of teeth, the unceasing wailing of the punished, the inconsolable torment of the outermost darkness.

All these things coming to pass here, for one who is mindful, fearful, and trembling, immediately Christ the philanthropic master meets him, as a father meets a son who has consumed his patrimony, and with words of compassion and kindness calms the storm of the distressed one. What does he say? "Man, are you disheartened? Why do you cast down your reason as if without help? Why, having fallen, do you remain in the fall, sick as one shipwrecked and incurably ill? Does not the one who fall rise again? Or does not the one who turns away return?" You have done many evils and committed countless sins. But the multitude of your transgressions does not overcome the skill of the physician. "I am very philanthropic," he says. "For I was born good from a good nature. If you repent after sinning, I am not angered, being moved by your return. If you seek forgiveness for offenses, I do not prosecute, awaiting your gratitude. I do not investigate what has been done, but cover it with a hand of amnesty. Only show genuine repentance, and receive the rich enjoyment of my compassion. Only do not stand idle in the marketplace of evils the whole day of your life; but come, having repented of your deeds, into the vineyard of my commandments, and you will receive from me the reward of righteousness." For the word hastens to repay the debt which it formerly signed with the pen of the tongue, when the Savior said to the disciples: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man, a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. And having agreed with them for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

Going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them also: "Go you also into the vineyard, and whatever is just I will give you." Going out about the sixth and the ninth hour, he did likewise. About the eleventh hour, going out, he found others standing idle, and says to them: "Why have you stood here idle the whole day?" They say: "Because no one hired us." He says to them: "Go work in the vineyard, and whatever is just you shall receive." When evening came, the master of the vineyard said to his steward: "Call the workers and pay them their wage." This then is the parable of the Savior. We, however, will examine the things said intelligently, so that we may find the unconfused treasure of the faith, and learn who is the master of this house, who is the vineyard and what the wage, and what are the hours and the day, and who are the workers and who the steward. The house, then, is the world. The master of the house is Christ himself, who made the world and everything in it. His vineyard is laws, commandments, ordinances, judgments. "Going out early in the morning," at the beginning of the world, he hired into his vineyard Abel the pious, Enoch the well-pleasing, Noah the righteous, and all those who lived piously up to the flood. "Having agreed with them for a denarius a day." A denarius is the kingdom of the heavens, which bears the royal images of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. And "day" he calls the life of each in this world.

Going out about the third hour," he hired Abraham the most faithful, Lot the hospitable, Isaac the continent, Jacob the patient-hearted, the twelve patriarchs, and all who were pious up to Moses. "Going out about the sixth and the ninth hour," he sent into the vineyard Moses, Aaron, Joshua son of Nun, Samuel, David, the rest of the prophets, and all who were well-pleasing up to the economy. "But about the eleventh hour going out," and having come into the world in the flesh, and saying, "I came forth from the Father and have come into the world," he saw all the gentiles "standing idle." He calls the eleventh hour the end of this age and of the times, concerning which John says, "Children, it is the last hour." About this hour "he saw them," as I said, "standing idle, and says to them: Why have you stood here all day idle? And they say: Because no one hired us"—not fathers, not patriarchs, not Moses the lawgiver, not Isaiah the theologian, not Jeremiah the compassionate, none of the rest of the prophets hired us, no one pointed out to us the vineyard of your ordinances. O the divine philanthropy and goodness! For to those standing idle in the marketplace about the third, the sixth, and the ninth hour, he does not reproach: "Why do you stand idle?" Why? Because having fathers, patriarchs, prophets, guides, teachers for the work of the Lord's commandments, they could not say: "That no one

hired us." And he reproaches the Gentiles, saying, "Why have you stood idle all day long?" so that, having received their most ready and well-suited excuse as labor, he might reveal the voluntary and genuine character of their obedience as a just claim. And what does he say? "Go you also into the vineyard, and whatever is just you shall receive. When evening came," that is, the consummation of the world, "the master of the vineyard says to his steward..." Who is the steward? The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who distributes the master's gifts. Do you possess the unconfused treasure of faith? Secure it. Do not be deceived like many, and ever confess the steward as the master of the house. "The master of the vineyard says to his steward: 'Call the workers and pay them their wages.'" O marvel! He himself agreed upon the wage, he himself sent the workers into the vineyard, and he commands the steward to pay the wage to the workers, so that he might both reveal his own preeminence and show the unconfused order of the Spirit. "Pay them their wages," that which I agreed upon, "beginning from the last to the first," so that even in the payment itself they might not, as last, be disheartened and waver in their thoughts.

Will he also give to us, the last, the wage agreed upon with the first? "And the last came and each received a denarius. And the first also came, thinking they would receive more; and they too each received a denarius, and they grumbled against the master of the house." Not against the steward. For they knew precisely that the steward has no authority to make either an addition or a reduction to the agreed wage. "They grumbled against the master of the house: 'Because these last worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the burden of the day and the burning heat.'" They call the burden of the day the most oppressive conduct in the law, and the burning heat the legal strictness. "And he says to one of the grumblers: 'Friend, I am not wronging you' (I call you friend because of the communion of the body). 'Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go. But I wish to give to this one as to you.'" To you I give back, because I owe you a wage. To this one I give; for he is saved by grace and not by wage. He goes out now too through the prophetic, apostolic, and evangelical proclamations, hiring everyone into the spiritual vineyard. "He goes out at dawn," in the age of infancy. "He goes out about the third hour," in the prime of each one's youth. "He goes out about the sixth and ninth hour," in the middle and decline of age. "He goes out about the eleventh hour," in old age itself and the end of each one's life. He urges you to work even that one hour in the vineyard, so that he may grant you an eternal kingdom and great rest.

Therefore, take up zeal and eagerness, even if late, so that you may cast off your old, much-patched, filthy, and very heavy tunic of sins through baptism or through repentance, and, like an eagle renewed in youth, seize the Lord's exhortation before you are seized by angels into Hades. With tears, groans, and almsgiving, bend the judge of all to pity, who cries out and says, "If you turn back and groan, you will be saved." I do not delay, I do not tarry, I do not put off. "While you are still speaking, I will say, 'Behold, I am present.'" Glory to him for ever and ever. Amen.