Numbers And Salvation

Multi enim sunt vocati, pauci vero electi... Quia et ad fidem plures veniunt, et ad coeleste regnum pauci perducuntur. Ecce enim ad hodiernam festivitatem quam multi convenimus, Ecclesiae parietes implemus, sed tamen quis sciat quam pauci sunt qui in illo electorum Dei grege numerentur? Ecce enim vox omnium Christum clamat, sed vita omnium non clamat. Plerique Deum vocibus sequuntur, moribus fugiunt. Hinc etenim Paulus dicit: Qui confitentur se nosse Deum, factis autem negant. Hinc Jacobus ait: Fides sine operibus mortua est. Hinc per Psalmistam Dominus dicit: Annuntiavi et locutus sum, multiplicati sunt super numerum. Vocante enim Domino, super numerum multiplicantur fideles, quia nonnunquam etiam hi ad fidem veniunt, qui ad electorum numerum non pertingunt. Hic enim fidelibus per confessionem admisti sunt, sed propter vitam reprobam illic numerari in sorte fidelium non merentur. Hoc ovile sanctae Ecclesiae haedos cum agnis recipit; sed, attestante Evangelio, cum judex venerit, bonos a malis separat, sicut pastor segregat oves ab haedis. Neque etenim possunt qui hic carnis suae voluptatibus serviunt, illic in ovium grege numerari. Illic eos a sorte humilium judex separat, qui se hic in superbiae cornibus exaltant. Regnum coelorum percipere nequeunt qui hic et in coelesti fide positi toto desiderio terram quaerunt. Sanctus Gregorius Magnus, Homiliarum in Evangelia Liber I, Homilia XIX Source: Migne PL 76.1157a-c

Many are called but few are chosen... 1 Because many come to the faith and few are led to the heavenly kingdom. Behold, even at this feast today where many have gathered, filling the church to the walls, yet who knows how few there are in the flock who are numbered among the elect of God? For, behold, the voices of all cry to Christ, but their lives do not. Many follow Him with their voices, but they flee him with their conduct. Hence Paul says: 'They who confess themselves to know God but with their deeds they deny it.' 2 Hence James says: 'Faith without works is dead.' 3 Hence the Lord says to the Psalmist: 'I have proclaimed and I have spoken, they are multiplied beyond number.' 4 For by the voice of the Lord the faithful are multiplied beyond number, because not a few come to the faith who are not reckoned among the number of the elect. Here the faithful have been admitted by confession, but there on account of a depraved life they shall not merit to be numbered among the lot of the faithful. Here the sheepfold of the holy Church receives goats and lambs, but there, by the testimony of the Gospel, when the judge comes, He shall separate the good from the wicked, just as a shephed separates the sheep from the goats. 5 For they who serve the pleasures of their flesh here are not able to numbered among the flock of the sheep there. There the judge separates them from the lot of the humble, those who lift up their horns in pride here. No one is able to obtain the kindgom of heaven, who here established in the heavenly faith yet with every desire seek the earth. Saint Gregory the Great, Homiles On The Gospels, Book 1, from Homily 19 1 Mt 22.14 2 Titus 1.16 3 James 2.20,26 4 Ps 39.6 5 Mt 25.32