The Book of Ecclesiastes warns to impart wisdom to a young man that how his time is spent matters; whatever he sets his eyes on will look back at him later in judgment. The Last Judgment begins in this life is an Orthodox teaching. We have a moral responsibility to others and ourselves. Mercy and forgiveness are the main criteria. Without love for others there is no belief in God. A 16th c. icon of the Last Judgment in northern Russia depicts Christ surrounded by all people and angels, seated in glory and light with books opened by his angels as well as the demons thrown into the eternal fire. The scene is not a “threat” to be good, but a revelatory reality that Christ has been given the authority to judge by God the Father. This teaching is not a fear tactic to manipulate us into being good. Mercy flows out of the heart, not a coercive act of kindness. We too are images like icons that can be read visually like books, imprinted with letters of our lives.
The religious authorities in the New Testament prefigure foolish disbelief. The Apostle John says, “He who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment.” Hearing and believing involve both physical sight and ears as well as the noetic activity of the heart and our soul. The sheep and goats are already being separated based on who rejects the Gospel and who has apostatized. John Chrysostom teaches that “our thoughts will stand forth…[to] condemn … exonerate us.” Christ is the judge, but not the condemner. He reveals each person’s nous, their heart, and He reveals humanity. Orthodoxy teaches that all have been given enough of their own judgment to decide what is right or wrong. For Jews, they will be held to the words of the Law. For Gentiles, they will be held to their inner law, what we call a conscience, or inner knowledge. Christians are judged by the Gospel of Christ. All of these moral criteria come from the Most Holy Trinity, not merely a theory of natural law. They are lamps to enlighten our path in this life. To know is to see the other mercifully. The Greek word for “I know” comes from the root verb that means “I have seen” (oida). For the Latins, morals came from their forefathers that they called the mos maiorum. That can be translated as ancestral way or the way of the elders. They followed this unwritten ancestral way alongside the written legal documents. It was a highly interpersonal web of social relationships that was treasured by them up until Roman citizens began converting to Christianity. Gaius Lucillius, for example, said that virtus meant that a man was able to know what was right or wrong, upright or disgraceful, useful or useless. All cultures follow a way of behaving, a code of mores that have been given to understand God the Creator in our actions toward others, no matter what level of light is given to our minds. Whether by Law, Conscience or Christ, the soul is assumed to exist. Basil the Great teaches that our bodily actions become imprinted on our soul like a painting, and that we are all judged by people who lived in similar situations and positions as we did, since cultures vary, and we are born into different times and places. There is no room for rebuttal of unfairness.
We will also be judged by books. Our decisions and actions will be written down, Cyril of Jerusalem teaches. We will see an image of ourselves and our relation to others “in an instant.” We can also see this kind of icon of ourselves even now in our behavior toward our neighbors, foreigners and family. Like icons that are painted with shades of light and symbolism of divine fire, we will experience the Light of the Trinity at the Last Judgment. If we struggle against the passions and acquired belief, we feel the warmth of Light and see His Glory without fear of judgment. If we knowingly turn from repentance, apostatize and are still obscured by passions, we become blinded by the light of love, as even now we are not able to see this light in ourselves or others. The Day of the Lord is not so much overshadowed by the coming doom of “dies irae” – a hymn on the Last Judgment written by Thomas Celano in the 13th c. as a prayer for the dead – but in Orthodox theology it is more of a joyful daylight that has already come for people who have pursued God’s commandments and have shown kindness, as Symeon the New Theologian taught. Christians who wash themselves in the baptism of death and add to that tears of repentance will have no fear or mourning. In stanza 18 of the Latin hymn dies irae, it says, “That tearful day, from which glowing embers will arise the guilty man to be judged. Then spare him, O God.” People who sought out “the blessing of the world” experience the Divine Light as a love that wounds their soul and body; their appearance will be as if they were surrounded by these loving flames. No one is deprived of God’s love after death, even in Gehenna, teaches Isaac the Syrian in his Ascetical Homily 18. The next chapter, then, discusses the justice that each person receives posthumously and hopefully.