the day of the Lord shall come as a thief.”[1] A thief would never dare to break into a house when he knows the inhabitants to be on their guard. No; he who is robbed is not aware of it until he finds his things gone. Like a thief in the night the day of the Lord shall come unexpectedly. From the words of St. Paul, St. Chrysostom concludes that the coming of the Judge shall take place during the night, when men are asleep and not even able to think of it.
As the men of old were surprised by the deluge. Finally, the same truth is confirmed by the similes used by Our Lord in the Gospel of St. Luke to describe the manner in which the men of those times shall live: “And as it came to pass in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” And how did people act then? “They did eat and drink: they married wives and were given in marriage until the day that Noe entered into the ark.” And what then? “And the flood came, and destroyed them all.”[2] Wonderful was the blindness and stupidity of the men of those days; not the least attention did they pay to the oft-repeated warnings of the Patriarch Noe. He was a hundred years engaged in building the ark; the people went to see his work; they doubtless asked him what the huge structure was intended for; why it contained so many divisions, rooms, partitions, and stables. Noe said to them: do penance; sin no more; appease the anger of God; in a few years the whole world shall be destroyed, for the waters shall ascend higher than the highest mountain, and there shall not be dry land enough left for a little bird to stand on; therefore be converted to God. Oh, fool that you are! they said to him; who put that nonsense into your head? Why do you plague yourself so with that useless labor? Enjoy yourself as we do; eat, drink, and be merry. Meanwhile the time for the flood came; the sky was darkened; the clouds began to collect; the sea swelled up and encroached on the dry land. Poor mortals! do you still refuse to believe? Yes; they are not the least disturbed; they go on as before, as if they were still in the golden age and had no danger to dread. They did nothing but eat, drink, dance, and sing; they had marriage-feasts, and sports, and enjoyed themselves to their hearts content: “And the flood came, and destroyed them all;” while they were in the midst of
