On Naboth

The story of Naboth is old in time, daily in practice. For who of the rich does not daily covet what belongs to others? Who of the very wealthy does not strive to drive the poor man off his little plot and turn the needy man out of the bounds of his ancestral land? Who is content with his own? Whose rich man's soul is not inflamed by a neighboring property? Not one Ahab, then, was born; but, what is worse, Ahab is born daily and never dies to this world. If one dies, very many rise up. There are more who seize than who lose. Not one poor Naboth was killed; daily Naboth is struck down, daily the poor man is killed. Stricken with this fear, the human race now yields its lands; the poor man emigrates with his little ones, burdened with his children; the wife follows in tears, as though she were following her husband to the pyre. Yet she weeps less who mourns the deaths of her own, because, though she has lost her husband's protection, she keeps his tomb; though she does not keep her children, she does not grieve over them as exiles and does not groan over the hunger of her tender offspring, which is worse than death.

How far, you rich, do you extend your mad desires? Will you alone dwell upon the earth? Why do you cast out the sharer of your nature and claim for yourselves the possession of nature? The earth was founded in common for all, rich and poor: why do you rich claim for yourselves a private right over the soil? Nature, which begets all as poor, knows no rich. For we are not born with clothes, nor begotten with gold and silver. Naked it pours them into the light, needing food, clothing, drink; naked the earth receives back those whom it brought forth; it does not know how to enclose the boundaries of estates within a tomb. A narrow sod is equally enough for the poor and the rich, and the earth, which did not hold the living man's desire, now holds the whole rich man. Nature, then, does not know how to distinguish us when we are born, nor when we die. It creates all alike, it shuts all alike in the bosom of the tomb. Who can tell apart the forms of the dead? Uncover the earth again and, if you can, pick out the rich man. Clear away a mound a little later and, if you recognize him, convict the poor man — unless perhaps by this alone, that

more perishes with the rich man. Silk garments and coverings woven with gold, with which the rich man's body is wrapped, are losses to the living, not helps to the dead. You receive ointment, rich man, and you stink; you lose another's grace and do not gain your own. You leave heirs to quarrel. You leave your heirs a hereditary deposit rather than a willing benefit, so that they fear to diminish and violate what has been left. If the heirs are frugal, they guard it; if luxurious, they squander it. So either you condemn good heirs to perpetual anxiety, or you leave bad ones to condemn your deeds.

But why do you think that while you live you abound in everything? O rich man, you do not know how poor you are, how needy you would seem to yourself, you who call yourself rich. The more you have, the more you seek; and whatever you acquire, you are still in need for yourself. Avarice is inflamed by gain, not quenched. Desire has a kind of steps: the more it has climbed, the more it hastens to higher ones, from which the fall will be heavy for one who slips. This man was more bearable when he had less: in view of his means he sought moderate things; with the increase of his estate came the increase of desire. He does not wish to be degenerate in his wishes, poor in his desires. So he joins two unbearable things at once: he increases the ambitious hope of the rich and does not lay aside the disposition of beggary. Indeed divine Scripture teaches us how wretchedly he is in need, how abjectly he begs.

Ahab was king in Israel, and Naboth a poor man. The one abounded in the wealth of a kingdom, the other possessed the sod of a narrow plot. The poor man coveted nothing of the rich man's possessions; the king seemed to himself to be in need because his poor neighbor had a vineyard. Who, then, seems poor to you? The one who is content with his own, or the one who covets what belongs to another? The one certainly seems poor in means, the other is poor in disposition. A rich disposition does not know how to be in need; abundant means cannot fill the breast of the greedy. And therefore the greedy rich man is in envy of possession and in the complaint of poverty.

But now let us consider the words of Scripture. 'And it came to pass after these words. There was a vineyard of Naboth the Israelite in Israel, beside the house of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying: Give me your vineyard, and it will be a vegetable garden for me, since it is near my house, and I will give you another vineyard for it. Or if it please you, I will give you money for this vineyard, and it will be a vegetable garden for me. And Naboth said to Ahab: God forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers. And his spirit was troubled, and he slept on his bed and covered his face and did not eat bread.'

Divine Scripture had set forth above that Elisha, when he was poor, left his oxen, ran to Elijah, killed them, distributed them to the people, and clung to the prophet. These things were placed first, then, to condemn the rich man described in this king, because, having the benefits of God, as this Ahab did, to whom the Lord gave both the kingdom and rain at the prayer of the prophet Elijah, he violated the divine commands.

Let us hear, then, what he says. 'Give me,' he says. What other voice is that of the needy, what other voice is that of one begging public alms, but 'Give me'? That is: give me, because I am in need. Give me, because I can have no other support for living. Give me, because I have no bread to eat, no coin to drink, no means for food, no resources for clothing. Give me, because the Lord has given you something from which you ought to give, and has not given to me. Give me, because unless you give, I shall not be able to have. Give me, because it is written: 'Give alms.' How abject these things are, how base! For they do not have the disposition of humility, but the fire of desire. And in this very abasement, how great an impudence! 'Give me,' he says, 'your vineyard.'

He admits it is another's, so as to demand what is not owed to him. 'And I will give you,' he says, 'another vineyard for it.' The rich man disdains what is his own as cheap and covets what belongs to another as most precious.

'Or if it please you, I will give you money.' He quickly corrects his error by offering money for the vineyard; for he who desires to take up everything with his own possessions wants the other to possess nothing.

'And it will be a vegetable garden for me,' he says. This, then, was all the madness, this all the fury: that space was sought for cheap vegetables. So you do not so much desire to possess something useful yourselves as to shut others out. You care more about the spoils of the poor than about your own profits. You think it an injury to you if the poor man has anything that is thought worthy of a rich man's possession. You believe that whatever belongs to another is your loss. Why do the losses of nature delight you? The world was created for all, which you few rich try to claim for yourselves. For not only the possession of the earth but heaven itself, the air, the sea are claimed for the use of a few rich men. This air, which you enclose in your far-flung estates, how many peoples it can feed! Do the angels have divided spaces of heaven, as you mark off the earth with boundaries set?

The prophet cries: 'Woe to those who join house to house and estate to estate,' and he rebukes them for an ineffective avarice. For they flee living with men and therefore shut out their neighbors; but they cannot flee, because when they have shut out these, they find others again, and when they have driven those away, they must come to the neighborhood of others; for they cannot dwell alone upon the earth. Birds associate with birds; indeed the sky is often covered by the flight of a huge flock; cattle join cattle, fish join fish, and they think it not a loss but a commerce of living when they take up a very large company, and they seek a kind of protection in the comfort of a more numerous society. You alone, O man, shut out your fellow and shut in wild beasts; you build dwellings for beasts and destroy those of men; you bring the sea within your estates so that sea creatures may not be lacking; you extend the boundaries of your land so that you may have no neighbor.

We have heard the voice of the rich man seeking what belongs to others; let us hear the voice of the poor man claiming his own: 'God forbid,' he says, 'that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.' He thinks the rich man's money a kind of contagion, as if to say: 'Your money perish with you; but I cannot sell the inheritance of my fathers.' You have an example to follow, rich man, if you are wise: not to sell your field for a harlot's night, not to transfer your right for the expense of revelry and the costs of delicacies, not to forfeit your house at a game of dice, lest you lose the right of inherited piety.

When he heard these things, the spirit of the greedy king was troubled. 'And he slept on his bed and covered his face and did not eat his bread.' The rich mourn if they cannot plunder what belongs to others; if a poor man does not yield his means, they cannot hide the force of their grief. They wish to sleep, they cover their face, so as not to see anything in the world that belongs to another, so as not to know that anything in this world is not theirs, so as not to hear that a neighbor beside them possesses anything, so as not to hear a poor man contradicting them. Theirs are the souls to whom the prophet says: 'Rich women, arise.'

'And he did not eat,' it says, 'his bread,' because he was seeking another's; for the rich eat another's bread rather than their own, living by robbery and maintaining their expenses by plunder. Or certainly he did not eat his bread because he wished to punish himself with death, since something had been denied him.

Compare now the disposition of the poor man. He has nothing, and he does not know how to fast voluntarily except for God; he knows fasting only from necessity. You snatch everything from the poor, you take away all, you leave nothing; yet it is you, the rich, who rather bear the punishment of the poor. They fast if they have nothing; you, when you have. You exact punishment, then, from yourselves before you inflict it on the poor. So by your disposition you pay the hardships of wretched poverty; and the poor indeed have nothing to use, but you neither use it yourselves nor let others use it. You dig gold out of the veins of the mine and hide it again.

How many lives you bury in that gold! For whom are these things kept, when you have read of the greedy rich man: 'He stores up treasures and does not know for whom he gathers them'? The idle heir waits; the disdainful heir complains that you are slow to die. He hates the increase of his inheritance; he hurries to losses. What, then, is more wretched, when you do not even leave gratitude with the one for whom you labor? For him you endure gloomy hunger all your days, fearing the daily losses of your table; for him you deck out daily fasts.

I myself have known a rich man who, setting out for the country, used to count the smaller loaves brought from the city, so that by the number of loaves it could be reckoned how many days he would be in the country. He would not open the sealed granary, lest anything be taken from his store. One loaf was assigned to a day, which could scarcely satisfy the stingy man. I have also learned on reliable authority that if ever an egg was set before him, he complained that a chick had been killed. I write this so that you may know that the justice of God is an avenger, which avenges the tears of the poor by your fasting.

How devout a fast it would be if you assigned the cost of your banquet to the poor! That rich man was more bearable from whose table the poor man Lazarus gathered what fell, longing to be filled; yet even his table was made up of the blood of many poor people, and his cups dripped with the gore of many whom he had driven to the noose.

How many are killed so that what delights you may be prepared! Deadly is your hunger, deadly your luxury. One falls from the highest roofs while preparing large storehouses for your grain. One falls from the lofty top of a tall tree while searching out kinds of grapes to bring, from which wines worthy of your banquet may be poured. One is drowned in the sea, while he fears that fish or oysters may be lacking to your table. One freezes stiff in the winter cold while tracking hares or trying to catch birds with snares. One, before your eyes, if something has perhaps displeased you, is beaten to death and sprinkles the very dishes with his shed blood. Indeed it was a rich man who ordered the head of a poor prophet to be brought to him at table, and found no other way to pay a dancing girl's reward than to order a poor man to be killed.

I myself have seen a poor man led away, being compelled to pay what he did not have, dragged to prison because wine was lacking at a powerful man's table, putting his sons up for auction so that he might postpone his punishment for a time. Perhaps someone was found to help in that necessity. The poor man returns to his lodging with his family, seeing everything plundered, nothing left him for food, groaning at his sons' hunger, grieving that he had not rather sold them to someone who could feed them. He returns to his plan; he takes the decision to sell. Yet the injury of want and the grace of fatherly love fought each other: hunger pressed toward the price, nature toward duty. Ready to die with his sons rather than be separated from them, he often stepped forward, often drew back. Yet necessity conquered, not will, and love itself yielded to necessity.

Let us consider now the storms of a father's mind, seething over which of his children he should hand over first. 'Which,' he says, 'shall I sell first? For I know that the price of one is not enough to feed the rest. This alone is what fruitfulness is rich in — hardship! Whom shall I offer? Whom will the grain auctioneer look on gladly? I will offer the firstborn. But he first called me father. He is the eldest of the sons, whom I fittingly honor as the senior. But I will give the youngest. But I embrace him with a tenderer love. The one I am ashamed before, this one I pity; I sigh over the rank of the one, the age of the other; the one already feels the hardship, this one does not know it; the one's pain moves me, the other's ignorance. I will turn to the others. One flatters me more, another is more modest; one is more like his parent, another more useful; in the one I sell my image, in the other I betray my hope. Wretched me, I do not find what to do, I have nothing to choose. The faces of calamities, a chorus of hardships, wall me round. It is the madness of a wild beast to choose which one to hand over.'

'Even wild beasts, when they sense danger threatening their young and themselves, usually choose which to save, not which to offer. How, then, shall I set aside the affection of nature, how forget, how put off a father's mind? How shall I set up the auction of my son, with what words bargain over the price, into what hands hand over my son into slavery, with what eyes look on him serving, with what kisses say farewell as he departs, with what words excuse the deed? My son, I sold you for my food. The poor man's table, then, is now more deadly than the rich man's. He consigns others; I sell my own. He imposes necessity; I bring my will. To make the cause more excusable, I will add: My son, you will serve for your brothers, so that food may be sought for them. Joseph too, sold into slavery by his brothers, afterward fed both them and his father. He will answer: But his father did not sell him, but wept for him lost; and afterward he himself came into the power of a rich man and could scarcely be freed; afterward his race served the riches of Egypt for a long age. Sell me last, father, on condition that the rich do not buy me.'

'I have hesitated, I confess; but what shall I do? I will sell none. But while I consider one, I shall see all perishing from hunger. If I hand over one, with what eyes shall I see the others, suspicious of my impiety, lest I sell them too? With what shame shall I return home, how shall I go in, with what feeling shall I dwell there, I who have denied myself a son whom no disease consumed, no death took away? With what conscience shall I look on my table, which so many sons surrounded like young olive shoots?'

The poor man laments these things in your presence, and avarice stops your ear, and your mind is not softened by horror at the pitiable deed. The whole people groans, and you alone, rich man, are not moved, nor do you hear the Scripture saying: 'Lose money for the sake of a brother and friend, and do not hide it under a stone to perish.' And because you do not hear, Ecclesiastes therefore cries out, saying: 'There is a grievous sickness which I have seen under the sun: riches kept to the harm of their owner.' But perhaps you return home and confer with your wife, and she urges you to redeem the one sold. Rather, she will urge you to contribute women's adornment, from which you could free the poor man even with a little. She will impose on you the necessity of expenses, so that she may drink from a jewel, sleep in purple, recline on a silver couch, load her hands with gold and her neck with necklaces.

Women delight even in fetters, provided they are bound with gold. They do not think them burdens if they are precious, they do not consider them chains if treasure gleams in them. Even wounds delight them, so that gold may be inserted in their ears and pearls hang there. Gems too have their weights, garments too their chills. They sweat in gems, they shiver in silks; yet the prices please, and avarice commends what nature turns away from. Emeralds and jacinths, beryl, agate, topaz, amethyst, jasper, sardius they seek with the utmost frenzy. Even if half an estate is asked, they do not spare the expense while they indulge their desire. I do not deny that these stones have a certain pleasing brilliance, but they are stones nonetheless. And they themselves, polished against nature so as to lay aside the roughness of rocks, admonish that the hardness of the mind should rather be polished.

What craftsman has been able to add one day to a man's life? Whom have riches redeemed from hell? Whose sickness has money relieved? 'His life is not in abundance,' it says. And elsewhere: 'Treasures profit the unjust nothing, but righteousness frees from death.' Rightly David cries: 'If riches flow, do not set your heart on them.' For what do they profit me if they cannot free me from death? What do they profit me if they cannot be with me after death? They are gained here, they are left here. We speak, then, of a dream, not an estate. Hence the same prophet says well of the rich: 'They slept their sleep, and all the men of riches found nothing in their hands'; that is: the rich who gave nothing to the poor found nothing in their works. They helped no one's want; they could find nothing that profited themselves.

Consider the very name. The pagans call the ruler of the underworld, the arbiter of death, Dis. They call him dis, as also the rich man (diues), because the rich man knows how to bring nothing but death, he to whom belongs a kingdom over the dead, whose seat is in hell. For what is a rich man but an insatiable whirlpool of riches, an insatiable hunger or thirst for gold? The more he has drunk, the more he burns. 'He who loves silver,' it says, 'will not be satisfied with silver,' and further on: 'And this indeed is a very grievous sickness; for as he came, so he went, and his abundance labors for the wind. And all his days are in darkness and grief and much anger and sickness and wrath'; so that the condition of slaves is more bearable; for they serve men, he serves sin; for 'whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.' Always in snares, always in chains, never free of fetters, because always in crimes. How wretched a slavery, to be a slave to sins!

He does not know the duties of nature itself, nor does he know the alternations of sleep or enjoy the sweetness of food, he whose slavery has no exemption; for 'sweet is the sleep of the servant, whether he eats little or much; but for one sated with riches there is none who lets him sleep.' Desire wakes him, the sleepless care of seizing others' goods harries him, envy tortures him, delay vexes him, barren failure of harvests disturbs him, abundance troubles him. Hence to that rich man whose land brought forth abundant fruits, who thought within himself, saying: 'What shall I do, since I have nowhere to gather my fruits?' And he said: 'This I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will gather all that has grown for me, and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years: rest, eat, drink, feast'; God answered: 'Fool, this night they demand your soul from you; and what you have prepared, whose will it be?' Not even God himself lets him sleep.

He interrupts him as he thinks, he wakes him as he sleeps. But neither does the man let himself be quiet, who is troubled by abundance and in plenty of fruits utters the voice of one in need. 'What shall I do?' he says. Is not this the voice of a poor man, who has no means of living? Lacking everything, he looks here and there, searches his lodging, finds nothing for food. He considers that nothing is more wretched than to be worn out by hunger and to die for want of food; he seeks short cuts to death and searches out more bearable punishments of dying; he seizes a sword, hangs up a noose, kindles a fire, tries poison. And amid these, doubtful what to choose, he says: 'What shall I do?' Then, called back by the sweetness of this life, he wishes to recall his decision, if he can find the means of living. He looks at everything bare, everything empty. He says: 'What shall I do? Where can I get food, where clothing? I want to live, if I have the means to sustain this life; but with what food, with what supplies?' 'What shall I do,' he says, 'since I do not have?'

The rich man cries that he does not have: this is the speech of poverty; abounding in fruits, he complains of want. 'I have nowhere,' he says, 'to gather my fruits.' You would think he was saying: 'I have no fruits on which to live.' Is he happy who is endangered by abundance? Rather this man is more wretched in his fruitfulness than the poor man, whose danger comes from need. That one has something to excuse his hardship; he has injury, certainly, not guilt; this one has no one to accuse but himself.

'And he said: This I will do: I will pull down my barns.' You would think he was still going to say: 'I will open my barns; let those come in who cannot bear hunger; let the needy come, let the poor enter, let them fill their laps. I will pull down the walls that shut out the hungry. Why should I hide what God makes abound for me to give? Why should I shut up with the bars of doors grain with which God has filled the whole circuit of the fields, which grows without a guard and abounds?'

The hope of the greedy man is defeated; the old barns burst with new harvests. 'I had less, and I kept it in vain; more has grown. For whom do I gather? While I hunted for rising prices, I lost the use of kindnesses. How many souls of the poor could I have saved with last year's grain? These prices would delight me more, which are valued not in money but in grace. I will imitate holy Joseph in proclaiming humanity; I will cry with a loud voice: Come, you poor, eat my bread, open your lap, receive grain.' The fruitfulness of the rich man, the abundance of the whole world, ought to be the fertility of all. But you do not say this; you say: 'I will pull down my barns.' Rightly you pull down those from which no poor man returns laden. Barns are receptacles of iniquity, not supports of piety. Rightly he pulls them down, because he does not know how to build wisely. The rich man who does not know eternal things pulls down his own; he pulls down his barns, who does not know how to divide his grain, but only how to shut it up.

'And I will make bigger ones,' he says. Unhappy man, at least distribute to the poor what you spend on the cost of building. While you flee the grace of generosity, you pay the losses of building.

And he added: 'There I will gather all that has grown for me, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have many goods.' The greedy man is always worn out by the abundance of harvests, while he calculates the cheapness of food. For fruitfulness belongs to all; barrenness is profitable only to the greedy man. He delights more in the enormity of prices than in the abundance of supplies, and prefers to have what he alone sells rather than what he sells with everyone. See him afraid lest the heap of grain overflow, lest, running over the barns, it pass to the poor and some occasion of good be gained for the needy. He claims the produce of the earth for himself alone, not to use it himself but to deny it to others.

'You have,' he says, 'many goods.' The greedy man does not know how to call anything goods except what is profitable. But I agree with him that monetary things may be called goods. Why, then, do you make evils out of goods, when you ought to make goods out of evils? For it is written: 'Make friends for yourselves by the mammon of iniquity.' To one who knows how to use them, then, they are goods; to one who does not know how, rightly evils. 'He has scattered, he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains forever.' What is better than this? They are goods if you give to the poor, by which you make God your debtor by a kind of lending of piety. They are goods if you open the barns of your righteousness, so that you may be the bread of the poor, the life of the needy, the eye of the blind, the father of orphaned children.

You have the means to do it; what do you fear? I meet you with your own words. 'You have many goods laid up for many years': you can abound both for yourself and for others; you have a public fruitfulness: why do you pull down your barns? I will show you where you may better keep your grain, where you may fence it well, so that thieves cannot take it from you. Shut it in the hearts of the poor, where no weevil consumes it, no age spoils it. You have as storehouses the laps of the needy, you have as storehouses the houses of widows, you have as storehouses the mouths of infants, so that it may be said to you: 'Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise.' These are the storehouses that remain forever, these the barns which future fruitfulness will not pull down. For what will you do again if more grows for you next year? You will pull down again those which you now prepare to make and will make bigger ones. For God gives you fruitfulness so that it may either overcome or condemn your avarice, so that you can have no excuse; but you keep for yourself alone what he wished to grow through you for many, or rather you take it from yourself; for you would keep it better for yourself if you shared it with others; for the fruits of good gifts return to those who bestowed them, and the grace of generosity returns to its author. Indeed it is written: 'Sow for yourselves unto righteousness.' Be a spiritual farmer; sow what will profit you. Good is the sowing in the hearts of widows. If the earth gives you back richer fruits than it received, how much more will the reward of mercy give back manifold what you have given!

Then, O man, do you not know that the day of death comes before the earth's produce, but mercy shuts out the onset of death? Already those are standing by who demand back your soul, and you still put off the fruits of your works, you still measure out long times of living for yourself? 'Fool, this night they demand your soul from you.' He says well 'night.' At night the soul of the greedy man is demanded back: it begins from darkness and continues in darkness. For the greedy man it is always night; for the just man day, to whom it is said: 'Truly, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.' 'The fool changes like the moon,' but 'the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.' Rightly he is convicted of folly who has placed his hope in eating and drinking. And therefore the time of death presses on him, according to what is said by those who serve the belly: 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.' Rightly he is called a fool who supplies bodily things to his soul, because he stores up what he does not know for whom he keeps.

And therefore it is said to him: 'And what you have prepared, whose will it be?' Why do you daily measure and count and seal? Why weigh gold, weigh silver? How much better it is to be a generous steward than an anxious guard! How much more it would profit you for grace to be called the father of many orphans than to have countless coins sealed in a bag! For money is left here; grace is carried with us to the judge of merit.

But perhaps you say what you are accustomed to say commonly: 'We ought not to give to one whom God has so cursed that he willed him to be in need.' But the poor are not cursed, since it is written: 'Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' Scripture speaks not of the poor man but of the rich man: 'He who hoards up the price of grain will be cursed.' Then, do not ask what each deserves. Mercy is not accustomed to judge of merits but to relieve needs, to help the poor man, not to examine his righteousness; for it is written: 'Blessed is he who considers the needy and the poor.' Who is it who considers? He who has compassion on him, who notices that he is a sharer of his nature, who knows that the Lord made both rich and poor, who knows that he sanctifies his fruits if he sets aside some portion of them for the poor. So since you have the means to do good, do not put it off, saying: 'Tomorrow I will give,' lest you lose the opportunity of giving. Delay about another's life is dangerous; it may be that while you put off, he dies. Rather, run ahead of death, lest perhaps avarice hinder you tomorrow too and your promises be cheated.

But why should I tell you not to put off generosity? Would that you did not hasten to robbery, would that you did not extort what you have coveted, would that you did not seek what belongs to another! Pass over what has been denied, bear patiently what has been excused; do not listen to that Jezebel, which is avarice, saying with a kind of flood of vanity: 'I will give you the property you desire. You are sad because you wish to consider the measure of justice, so as not to snatch what belongs to another: I have my own rights, I have my own laws. I will bring false charges so as to despoil, and so that the poor man's property may be snatched, his life will be attacked.'

For what else is described in that story but the avarice of the rich, which is a vain flood that sweeps everything away like a river and carries it off to profit no use? This is not one Jezebel but many, not of one time but of very many times. She says to all, as that one said to her husband Ahab:

'Rise, eat bread, and return to yourself. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Israelite.' 'And she wrote a letter in Ahab's name and sealed it with his ring and sent the letter to the elders and to the free men who lived with Naboth. And it was written in the letter: Proclaim a fast and set Naboth at the head of the people, and set two men, sons of iniquity, opposite him, to bear false witness against him, saying: He blessed God and the king; and bring him out and stone him.'

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.