If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, I have not seen you.
Read Chapter 8
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
Therefore, pay attention. Because they are called “rocks” but are not in any wise called “living stones,” the lost and the elect may be mixed together by the bare appellation of “stones.” Therefore this plant, “which lives among stones, wraps its roots around the heap of rocks,” in that every hypocrite multiplies the thoughts of his heart in seeking out human admiration. For in all that hypocrites do, seeing that in their secret thoughts they look out for the applauses of their fellow-creatures, like rushes, as it were, they “send out roots into the heap of the rocks.” For when they are about to act, they imagine the praises of others, and when applauded, they dwell upon these praises secretly within themselves in the thoughts of their heart. They rejoice that they have distinguished themselves first and foremost in the esteem of people; while they are puffed up and swollen in themselves by human applause, they often secretly wonder what they are. They long to appear day by day higher ...
85. The hypocrite is ‘destroyed from his place,’ when he is parted from the applause of the present life, by death intervening. But the interior Witness ‘denieth’ him, thus destroyed, and asserts that He knows him not, in that in justly condemning the life of the pretender, ‘Truth’ knows him not, nor recognises the good works he has done, in that he never put them forth in a right purpose of mind. And hence when He cometh to Judgment, He will say to the foolish virgins, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. [Matt. 25, 12] In which same whilst He sees corruptness of mind, He condemns even incorruptness in the flesh. But would that their own ruin alone were enough for hypocrites, and that their wicked pains did not vehemently urge others to a life [al. ‘a way’] of duplicity. For it is the way with everyone, to wish that, such as he is himself, others of a like sort should be joined with him, and to avoid difference in life, and to inculcate as a pattern for imitation the thing tha...
