brethren. If I, a poor sinner, should go to hell (oh, may God save me from that!), and if you, as I wish from my heart, to heaven, then you will always exult over me in my misfortunes, while I shall always be tortured by your joy. On the other hand, if I go to heaven, and any one of you is lost, then shall I laugh at him for all eternity, although he may have been my best friend, and I shall rejoice at the sight of his sufferings, because thereby the justice of my God is satisfied. What a terrible place hell is! Julian, the apostate emperor, having received a mortal wound from an invisible hand, took a handful of his blood and holding it up to heaven, exclaimed in a very rage of blasphemy: “Satiate Thyself, O Galilean! Thou hast conquered!”[1] So he called our divine Lord.
Hence come curses and blasphemies against God and His saints. Judge from this what will be the horrible curses and blasphemies of the damned in their despairing wrath and madness, when they cry out like mad dogs against God and all who are in heaven. We are burning, they will howl forth, and God laughs at us! We are in the fire of hell, and God and His saints jeer at us! We are suffering extreme torments, and they rejoice at our sufferings! Cruel heaven! Unmerciful God! Barbarous saints, worse than all the demons! Here you must close your ears, pious Christians, in order not to be shocked at the terrible curses and blasphemies that proceed from despairing rage and madness. In this abyss, they howl forth, I am lying in the midst of fire as a holocaust to implacable anger! Who is it that takes such a revenge on me? God. But is it not God who has created me to His own image and likeness? Who has kept me alive for so many years on earth, and given me so many proofs of His goodness? Is it He who now tortures His miserable creature? Alas! He no longer acknowledges me as His creature! Does He not know me? Does He uot think of me? Yes, He does think of me; but it is only to torment me, and to laugh at me in the midst of my sufferings. O accursed God! (Still, my tongue! ) And who has spoken the sentence of my eternal condemnation? Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus Christ? Does He then act so cruelly towards the souls He ransomed with His blood, souls that He gave up His life on the cross to save from hell? Yes; and that He does because by your sins you have trampled His blood under foot. But is He not my Advocate and Mediator? Yes; He was formerly, but is so no longer; now
- ↑ Saturare! vicisti Galilæe!
