On Naboth 44–73

How clearly the custom of the rich is expressed! They are saddened if they do not seize others' goods; they renounce food, they fast, not to lessen sin but to commit crime. You may see them then coming to church, dutiful, humble, assiduous, so that they may deserve to obtain the accomplishment of their crime. But God says to them: 'I have not chosen this fast, not if you bend your neck like a hoop and spread ashes and sackcloth beneath you; not even so will you call it an acceptable fast. Not such a fast have I chosen, says the Lord. But loose every bond of injustice, undo the obligations of violent bargains, let the broken go free, and tear up every unjust contract. Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the needy who have no roof into your house. If you see one naked, clothe him, and do not despise those of your own seed. Then your morning light will rise for you, and your health will rise quickly, and righteousness will go before you, and the majesty of God will surround you. Then you will cry, and God will hear you; while you are still speaking he will say: Behold, I am here.'

Do you hear, rich man, what the Lord God says? And you come to church not to give something to the poor but to take away. You fast, not so that the cost of your banquet may benefit the needy, but so that you may obtain spoil from the needy. What do you want with a document and paper and seal and contract and bond of law? Have you not heard: 'Loose every bond of injustice, undo the obligations of violent bargains, let the broken go free, and tear up every unjust contract'? You offer me tablets; I recite to you the law of God. You write with ink; I repeat to you the oracles of the prophets inscribed by the Spirit of God. You compose false testimonies; I ask for the testimony of your conscience, which you will not be able to flee or avoid as your judge, whose testimony you will not be able to reject on the day when God will reveal the secrets of men. You say: 'I will pull down my barns'; the Lord says: 'Rather let whatever is in the barn be assigned to the poor, let these storerooms profit the needy.' You say: 'I will make bigger ones, and there I will gather all that has grown for me'; the Lord says: 'Break your bread to the hungry.' You say: 'I will take from the poor man his house'; but the Lord says that you should bring the needy who have no roof into your house. How do you want God to hear you, rich man, when you do not think God should be heard? If the rich man's will is not complied with, a scene is staged; if the rich man's request is refused, it is reckoned an injury to God.

'He blessed God and the king,' it says, the persons of course being equal, so that the insult may be equal. 'He blessed,' it says, 'God and the king.' Lest the word of cursing offend the rich man and he be hurt by the very sound of the word, 'blessing' is said in place of 'cursing.' Two witnesses of iniquity are sought. Susanna too was attacked by two witnesses; the synagogue too found two witnesses to throw false charges against Christ; by two witnesses the poor man is killed. 'So they brought Naboth out and stoned him.' Would that he had at least been allowed to die on his own land! The rich man begrudges the poor man even burial.

'And it came to pass,' it says, 'when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he tore his garments and covered himself with sackcloth. And it came to pass after this that he rose and went down to the vineyard of Naboth the Israelite to take possession of it.' The rich are angry and bring false charges in order to do harm if they do not obtain what they desired. But when by false charges they have done harm, they pretend to grieve; yet, sad and as it were mournful not in heart but in face, they go forth to the place of the property seized and enjoy the iniquity of their assault.

Divine justice is moved by this and condemns the greedy man with fitting severity, saying: 'You have killed and taken possession of the inheritance. Therefore in the place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, there the dogs will lick your blood, and harlots will wash in your blood.' How just, how severe a sentence, that the bitterness of death he inflicted on another he himself should be prevented from dissolving by the horror of his own death! God sees the poor man unburied, and therefore decrees that the rich man shall lie unburied, so that even in death he may pay the hardship of his iniquity, who thought that not even the dead should be spared. So his corpse, drenched in the blood of his wound, by the form of its funeral betrayed the cruelty of his life. When the poor man suffered these things, the rich man was convicted; when the rich man received them, the poor man was avenged.

And what does it mean that harlots washed in his blood, unless perhaps to show that there was something harlot-like in the treachery of that savage king, or a bloody luxury, he who was so luxurious that he desired vegetables, so bloody that for vegetables he killed a man? A fitting punishment consumes the greedy man, fitting for avarice. Indeed dogs and the birds of heaven ate Jezebel herself, to show that the burial of the rich man becomes the prey of spiritual wickedness. Flee, then, rich man, such an end. But you will flee such an end if you flee such a crime. Do not be Ahab, so as to covet a neighboring property. Let not that Jezebel, deadly avarice, dwell with you, which may persuade you to bloody deeds, which does not call back your desires but drives them on, which makes you sadder even when you have possessed what you desired, which makes you naked when you were rich.

For everyone who abounds judges himself poorer, because he thinks that whatever is possessed by others is lacking to himself. He lacks the whole world whose desires the world cannot hold; but for him who is faithful the whole world is full of riches. He flees from the whole world who, considering his conscience, fears to be caught. And therefore Ahab, according to the story, but according to the figure the rich man to the poor man, says to Elijah: 'You have found me, my enemy.' How wretched the conscience that grieved at being betrayed!

And Elijah said to him: 'I have found you, because you have done evil in the sight of the Lord.' He was a king, and Ahab king of Samaria; Elijah a poor man in need of bread, who would have lacked the means of living had not the ravens provided his food. So cast down was the sinner's conscience that he was not lifted up even by the pride of royal power. So, as one base and degenerate, he says: 'You have found me, my enemy,' and you have detected in me what I believed was hidden. No secrets of my mind escape you; you have found me, my wounds lie open to you, captivity is at hand. The sinner is found when his iniquity is betrayed; but the just man says: 'You have tested me with fire, and no iniquity was found in me.' Adam, when he hid, was found; but the burial place of Moses was by no means found. Ahab was found; Elijah was not found; and the wisdom of God said: 'The wicked will seek me and will not find me.' Hence in the gospel too Jesus was sought and not found. Guilt, then, betrays its author. Hence too the Tishbite says: 'I have found you, because you have done evil in the sight of the Lord,' because the Lord hands over those guilty of sin, but does not hand over the innocent into the power of their enemies. Indeed Saul sought holy David and could not find him, but holy David found King Saul, whom he was not seeking, because the Lord handed him over into his power. Wealth, then, is captive, poverty free.

You serve, you rich, and a wretched servitude indeed, you who serve error, serve desire, serve avarice, which cannot be filled. It is a kind of insatiable whirlpool, more violent when it swallows what is brought into it; and, like a well when it overflows, it is fouled with mud, and wears away the earth to no profit for itself. You should be admonished at least by this example. For a well, if you draw nothing from it, is easily spoiled by idle inaction and degenerate stagnation; but when it is used it becomes clear to look at and sweet to drink. So too a heap of riches is fine in use, but in idleness is held useless. Draw off something, then, from this well. Water will quench a burning fire, and almsgiving will resist sins; but standing water quickly breeds worms. Let your treasure not stand idle, nor your fire stand. It will stand in you, unless you turn it away by works of mercy. Consider, rich man, in how great fires you are. Yours is the voice of one saying: 'Father Abraham, tell Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.'

Whatever you give to the needy, then, profits you; whatever you diminish grows for you. You feed yourself with the food you have given the poor man, since he who has pity on the poor is himself fed, and the fruit is already in this. Mercy is sown on earth and sprouts in heaven; it is planted in the poor man and shoots up with God. 'Do not say,' God says, 'Tomorrow I will give.' He who does not let you say 'Tomorrow I will give,' how does he let you say 'I will not give'? You are not giving the poor man from what is yours, but returning to him from what is his; for what is common, given for the use of all, you alone usurp. The earth belongs to all, not to the rich; but those who do not use what is theirs are fewer than those who do. You are paying a debt, then, not bestowing what is not owed. And therefore Scripture says to you: 'Incline your soul to the poor man, and pay your debt, and answer him peaceably with gentleness.'

Why are you proud, rich man? Why do you say to the poor man: 'Do not touch me'? Were you not conceived in the womb and born from the womb just as the poor man was born? Why do you boast of the lineage of your nobility? You are accustomed to recount the pedigrees of your dogs as of rich men, and to proclaim the nobility of your horses as of consuls. This one was begotten of that sire and born of that dam; this one rejoices in that grandsire; that one boasts of his great-grandsires. But none of this helps the runner; the palm is given not to nobility but to the race. The loser is more disgraced, in whom nobility too is put at risk. Beware, then, rich man, lest the merits of your ancestors blush in you, lest perhaps it be said to them too: 'Why did you raise such a one, why did you choose such an heir?' The merit of the heir is not in gilded ceilings nor in panels of porphyry. That praise belongs not to men but to metals, in which men are punished. Gold is sought by the needy and denied to the needy. They labor to seek it; they labor to find what they do not know how to have.

I wonder, though, why you rich think you should boast of it, since gold is rather a material of stumbling than a grace of commendation; for gold is a wood of stumbling, and woe to those who pursue it. Indeed the rich man is blessed who has been found without blemish and has not gone after gold nor hoped in treasures of money. But as though such a one could not be known, he wishes him pointed out to him. 'Who is he?' he says, 'and we will praise him; for he has done' what we ought rather to admire as new than recognize as usual. So whoever can be proved in riches is truly perfect and worthy of glory. 'Who could transgress,' it says, 'and did not transgress, and do evil and did not do it.' Gold, then, in which there is so great an enticement of error, commends itself to you not so much by its own grace as by the punishment of men.

Or do spacious halls exalt you, which ought rather to prick your conscience, because, though they hold multitudes, they shut out the voice of the poor man? Although it profits nothing for it to be heard, since even when heard it achieves nothing. Then the very hall does not admonish you of shame, you who by building wish to surpass your riches and yet do not surpass them. You clothe walls and strip men. A naked man cries before your house, and you neglect him; a naked man cries, and you are anxious with what marbles to clothe your floors. The poor man seeks money and does not have it; a man asks for bread, and your horse champs gold under its teeth. But precious ornaments delight you, while others have no grain. How great a judgment, O rich man, you take upon yourself! The people are hungry, and you shut your barns; the people lament, and you turn your jewel. Unhappy man, in whose power it is to defend the lives of so many from death, and there is no will to do it! The jewel of your ring could have saved the life of a whole people.

Hear plainly what kind of praise befits a rich man. 'I delivered the poor man from the hand of the powerful, and the orphan who had no helper I helped. The blessing of the one about to perish came upon me, and the mouth of the widow blessed me. I put on righteousness, I was eye to the blind and foot to the lame; I was father of the weak.' And further on: 'No stranger lodged outside my doors, but my door was open to everyone who came. And if I sinned unwittingly, I did not hide my fault, nor did I fear the multitude of the people so as not to declare it before them; if I let a weak man go out my door with an empty lap.' He also records that he returned to a debtor the bond he held, torn up, without recovering the debt. Why should I also go over how he says he wept and groaned over every weak man, when he saw a man in need and himself in plenty, and that those were rather days of evil for him, when he saw himself having and others in want? If he says this, who never made the eye of a widow waste away, who never ate his bread alone without giving to the orphan, whom from his youth he nourished, fed, and taught with a parent's affection, who never despised the naked, who covered the dying, who warmed the shoulders of the weak with the fleeces of his sheep, did not oppress the orphan, never delighted in riches, never rejoiced at the fall of his enemies; if he who did these things began to be in need after the greatest riches, if he carried away nothing from so great an estate except only the fruit of mercy, what will become of you, who do not know how to use your estate, who in the greatest riches endure days of beggary, because you give to no one, help no one?

You are the guardian, then, not the master of your means, you who bury gold in the earth; surely its servant, not its arbiter. But where your treasure is, there is your heart too. So in that gold you have buried your heart in the earth. Sell gold rather and buy salvation; sell a stone and buy the kingdom of God; sell a field and redeem for yourself eternal life. I allege true things, because I set forth the words of truth. 'If you wish to be perfect,' he says, 'sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.' And do not be saddened when you hear this, lest it be said to you too: 'How hard it is for those who have money to enter the kingdom of God!' Rather, when you read these things, consider that death can snatch them from you, the power of a superior take them away; then that you are asked for small things in exchange for great, perishable for eternal, treasures of money for treasures of grace. Those are corrupted; these remain.

Consider that you do not possess these alone. The moth possesses them with you, rust possesses them, which consumes money. These partners avarice has given you. But see what debtors grace gives you: 'The lips of the just will bless one who is generous in bread, and the testimony of his goodness will be sure.' It makes God the Father your debtor, who for the gift by which the poor man was helped pays interest as the debtor of a good creditor. It makes the Son your debtor, who says: 'I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me.' For what is given to each of the least he says is given to himself. You do not know, O man, how to build riches. If you wish to be rich, be poor to the world, so that you may be rich to God.

One rich in faith is rich to God; one rich in mercy is rich to God; one rich in simplicity is rich to God; those rich in wisdom, rich in knowledge are rich to God. There are those who abound in poverty and those who are needy in riches. The poor abound, whose deep poverty has abounded in the riches of their simplicity; but the rich have been in need and gone hungry. For not idly is it written: 'The poor will be set over the rich, and slaves will lend to their own masters,' because the rich and the masters sow superfluous and evil things, from which they do not gather fruit but reap thorns. And therefore the rich will be subject to the poor, and slaves will lend spiritual things to their masters, as the rich man begged that the poor man Lazarus might lend him a drop of water. You too, rich man, can fulfill this saying. Give to the poor, and you have lent to the Lord; for he who gives to the poor lends to God.

Beautifully, too, holy David in the seventy-fifth psalm, singing a hymn to God written against the Assyrian, that is, against the Assyrian of spiritual wickedness, the empty and vain prince of this world, began thus: 'God is known in Judah,' that is, not among the rich, not among the noble and powerful, but in the confessing soul God is known. 'And in Israel,' he says, 'his name is great,' not among princes and consuls, but in the one who sees God; for he is Israel, in whom deep faith has been able to come to the knowledge of God.

'And his place has been made in peace,' where a quiet disposition is stirred by no waves of various desires, troubled by no storms of avarice, inflamed by no fires of seeking riches. He it is who contemplates eternal things and dwells in Zion, breaking all the instruments of spiritual wars, shattering the bows with which the devil, aiming fiery darts, is accustomed to burn grave passions into men's breasts. But those darts cannot harm the just man, for whom God is light; and he is so far from the horror of those in darkness that the adversary can have no place in him, who is accustomed to pour himself even into princes. So he poured himself even into Judas the betrayer, cutting down the doors of faith as in a forest of trees, so as to have entrance into his heart and possess the tabernacle of the eternal name, dedicated by the gift of the apostleship conferred on him. So he, like a wicked usurper, cuts down the doors to enter by violence; but the Lord, as one devoted, illumines his servants and enlightens the darkness of this world with their shining merits and the brightness of their virtues. This grace with God the peaceable and meek have, grounded in the sober tranquillity of their mind; but the foolish are troubled in heart and are themselves the authors of their own agitation, because they are rolled by the surge of their desires and toss on a kind of sea.

Who these are he showed expressly by saying: 'all the men of riches.' He said all, he excepted none. And he rightly called them men of riches, not riches of men, to show that they are not possessors of their riches but are possessed by them; for the possession ought to belong to the possessor, not the possessor to the possession. Whoever, then, does not use his estate as a possession, who does not know how to give to the poor and distribute, is the slave of his goods, not the master of his means, because he guards others' goods like a servant, does not use them as his own like a master. In such a disposition, then, we say that he is a man of riches, not that the riches are the man's. For 'good understanding is to those who use it'; but he who does not understand surely cannot claim the grace of understanding, and therefore, lulled by the sleep of drunkenness, he has fallen asleep. Men of this kind, then, sleep their own sleep, that is, they sleep their own sleep, not Christ's. And those who do not sleep the sleep of Christ do not have Christ's rest and do not rise by Christ's resurrection, who says: 'I slept and rested and rose, because the Lord will sustain me.'

In this world too those deserve heavenly rebuke and slumber who have mounted horses they could not rein in. We read elsewhere, the church or the soul saying: 'He set me as the chariots of Aminadab.' If, then, the soul is a chariot, see whether the horse is not the flesh, and the driver the vigor of the mind, which rules the flesh and restrains its motions like horses with the reins of prudence. So 'those who mounted' the pleasures of the body, governing them with no restraint, 'slumbered.' Hence he preferred to call them mounters rather than riders or drivers. For a driver, with discipline and art, drives the horses at his will, so as to urge them on when running, turn back the untamed, call back the weary, or turn the gentle at his will. Hence when Elijah was taken up and carried as in a chariot to heaven, Elisha cried to him: 'Father, father, driver of Israel and its horseman,' that is: you who ruled the Lord's people with good guidance have, by the merit of constancy, received these chariots, these horses running to divine things, because the Lord approved you as governor of human minds, and therefore, like a good charioteer victorious in the contest, you are crowned with an eternal prize. In the prophet Habakkuk too it is read as said to the Lord himself: 'You will mount upon your horses, and your cavalry is salvation'; for he drove his apostles, whom he sent in various directions to preach the gospel in the whole world. 'You will mount,' he says, as to a ruler of horses, not a mere mounter. For a horseman too mounts, but in order to rule, not only to sit, because the slothful and lazy cannot bring forth the movement of a sleepy mind.

But of the horseman it is read: 'And the horseman will fall backward, awaiting the salvation of the Lord.' For since no one is without a fall, even if a horseman has fallen and been bent by some earthly vices, yet if he does not cast away the hope of rising again, relying on the divine mercy he comes to salvation. But of the mounter there is a plain sign that he is held blameworthy, since Moses himself says in the song of Exodus: 'Horse and mounter he threw into the sea.' And in Zechariah the Lord spoke, saying: 'I will strike every horse with madness and its mounter with folly.' He did not say the horse alone, but also the mounter, as you have in Exodus too: 'horse and mounter.' For where there is a mounter who cannot govern his own horse, the horse too is carried headlong and snatched in untamed fury into steep and dangerous places. Why, then, do you trust in horses, you rich? 'A horse is a false hope for safety.' Why do you clap in chariots? 'Some in chariots and some in horses, but we will be magnified in the name of the Lord. They have been bound and have fallen, but we have risen and stand upright.' Do not love neighing horses, do not, you rich, be roused by the snorting of lust. The Lord is terrible, and no one, powerful and rich, can resist him; he hurls heavenly judgment.

It is good that you should now be at rest and, taking holiday from crimes, revere the Lord's power. Therefore it was said to the fratricide Cain: 'You have sinned; be still,' so that he might set a limit to his sin. Let your thoughts confess to the Lord. Do not say: 'We have not sinned.' Paul said: 'Though I am conscious of nothing against myself,' yet he added: 'but I am not thereby justified.' You too, even if you are conscious of nothing, still confess to the Lord, lest there be something that escapes you. For he who confesses to the Lord and brings even the remnants of his thought to confession will celebrate a feast day in the secret of his mind and will feast not with the leaven of malice and wickedness,

but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So in conclusion the prophet, turning to you, says: 'Pray and render to the Lord your God,' that is: do not dissemble, you rich — the day presses on — pray for your sins, render gifts for the benefits you have. From him you have received what you offer; what you pay him is his. 'My gifts,' he says, 'and my presents,' that is, the gifts you offer me are mine, given; I gave and bestowed them on you. Indeed the prophet says: 'You have no need of my goods'; therefore I offer you your own, since I have nothing that you did not give. It is faith that commends gifts, humility that commends offerings. By faith Abel offered God a greater sacrifice; Abel's gift pleased above his brother Cain's gifts, because he won by faith. For why does the poor man's sacrifice please more than the rich man's? Because the poor man is richer in faith, wealthier in sobriety. And though he is poor, he is of those of whom it is said: 'Kings will offer you gifts.' For the Lord Jesus delights not in purple-clad offerers but in those who rule their own motions, who by the command of the mind govern bodily wantonness. Pray, then, you rich! You have nothing in your works that pleases. Pray for your sins and crimes, and render gifts to the Lord your God. Render them in the poor man, pay them in the needy. Lend in that needy one, whom you cannot otherwise appease for your crimes. Make him your debtor whom you fear as avenger. 'I will not take,' he says, 'calves from your house nor goats from your flocks, for all the beasts of the forest are mine.' Whatever you offer, he says, is mine, because the whole world is mine. I do not demand what is mine; there is what you can offer of your own: the zeal of devotion and faith. I do not delight in a display of sacrifices; only, O man, 'offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High.'

Or certainly, if you prefer, let us take it thus: since he said that the rich slept their sleep, he set first the Lord's rebukes against them. He added terror, proclaimed the power that not even the rich can resist. Turning to all, he says: Let the rich slumber, let the rich be rebuked; 'you, pray and render to the Lord your God, all who are around him offering gifts,' that is, give thanks, you poor, because God is no respecter of persons. Let them build up riches, store up money, heap up treasures of gold and silver; you pray, who have nothing else; you pray, who have only this, which is more precious than gold and silver. You render gifts, who do not depart from the Lord, who are around him, since you who were far off have been made near. But those who think themselves near through riches and power have been made far off because of avarice. For no one is outside except one whom guilt has shut out, as it cast Adam out of paradise and shut out Eve; no one is far off except one whom his own crimes have banished.

You, then, who are placed near, pray and render gifts 'to the terrible one, to him who takes away the spirit of princes, terrible among the kings of the earth,' because he is bought off by no reward of the rich, bent by no haughtiness of the powerful; he distinguishes the prices of guilt; the more he has given anyone, the more he demands from him. He gave Saul, a private man, a kingdom, but because he did not keep the command, he lost both kingdom and spirit. Many kings of the nations he made captives of the people of the fathers because of faithlessness; and, to speak now of the story before us, he who commanded King Ahab, ungrateful for heavenly benefits, to be killed so that dogs licked his wounds. For because he had coveted a poor man's vineyard, though he was not satisfied with such great wealth of empire, he was reduced by the Lord below all want. No one was found to wash his wounds, no one to cover his body. The humanity of men failed him; the harshness of dogs took its place. The greedy man found fitting ministers of his funeral.

At this point the question arises how we read that the Lord said to Elijah: 'Have you seen how Ahab was moved before my face? I will not bring the evils in his days, but in the days of his son I will bring the evils'; or how we say that repentance avails with the Lord. Behold, the king was moved before the face of the Lord and went weeping and tore his garments and covered himself with haircloth and was clothed in sackcloth from the day he killed Naboth the Israelite, so as to move God to mercy and change his sentence. So either repentance did not avail or bend the merciful Lord, or the oracle is false. For Ahab was defeated and killed. But consider that he had Jezebel as wife, by whose will he was inflamed, who turned his heart and made him execrable by excessive sacrileges. And so she called back that disposition of his repentance; and the Lord cannot be thought changeable if he did not think he should keep for one who forgot his confession what he had promised to one who confessed.

Take another, truer explanation. The Lord kept the tenor of his sentence even for the unworthy man, but Ahab himself did not keep the divine benefits toward himself. The king of Syria had made war. He was defeated and preserved for pardon; and, though a captive, he was given freedom and sent back to his kingdom. So Ahab not only escaped what had been the divine sentence but even triumphed, in that by his own cowardice he armed for himself an enemy by whom he would be defeated. And certainly he had been warned by the prophet, who said: 'Know and see what you do'; he had been warned, I say, that the help of heavenly grace was due against the servants of the king of Syria, because they had said: 'The God of Israel is a God of the mountains and not the God of the valleys; therefore they prevailed over us.' And therefore, he says, 'if we do not fully prevail over them, set satraps in place of the king of Syria,' so as to take from them the strength and power of the king.

Indeed in the first encounter he conquered so as to put the enemy to flight; in the second he conquered, when he restored the captive to his rule. For this reason a clear oracle about his conquering rang out, when one of the sons of the prophets said to his neighbor: 'Strike me.' And the man would not strike him. And he said: 'Because you did not obey the word of the Lord, behold, you are going away from me, and a lion will kill you.' And he went away from him, and a lion found him and killed him. And after this another prophet stood before the king of Israel and said to him: 'Thus says the Lord: Because you have let go out of your hand a man of destruction, behold, your life for his life, and your people for his people.'

It is clear, then, from these oracles that the Lord keeps his promises even toward the unworthy, but that the ungodly are either crushed by their own folly or condemned for another transgression, even if they have escaped the snares of the first transgression. But we must act in such a way that, being worthy by good work, we may deserve to receive the promises of almighty God.