On the Duties of the Clergy 2.22–3.1

It is fitting too that there be a measure in our words themselves and in our commands, lest there seem to be either too much laxity or too much severity. For many prefer to be more lax, so as to seem good; but it is certain that nothing feigned and false belongs to true virtue; indeed it is not usually lasting. In the beginning it blooms; in its course, like a little flower, it scatters and dissolves; but what is true and sincere is founded on a deep root. And to prove our assertions by examples—since what is feigned cannot last but, flourishing for a time, quickly falls—let us bring forward one example of feigning and fraud from that family from which we have drawn very many examples for progress in virtue. Absalom was the son of King David, distinguished in comeliness, outstanding in form, excelling in youth, so that no such man was found in Israel, spotless from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. He made himself chariots and horses and fifty men to run before him. He rose at dawn and stood before the gate on the road, and if he noticed anyone seeking the king’s judgment, he would go up to him, saying: “From what city are you?” He would answer: “Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel.” Absalom would reply: “Your words are good and right, but there is no one given you by the king to hear you. Who will make me judge, so that I may do justice to whoever comes to me, whoever needs judgment?” With such words he charmed each one. And when they came near to bow to him, stretching out his hands, he would take hold of them and kiss them. Thus he turned the hearts of all to himself, for flatteries of this kind touch the feeling of the inmost heart. But these soft and ambitious men chose what was honourable, pleasing, and agreeable for the moment; and when a little delay came, which the prophet, most prudent of all, thought should be interposed by yielding for a while, they could not tolerate and bear it. Indeed David, not doubting the victory, commended his son to those about to fight, that they should spare him. And so he would not even take part in the battle, lest he seem to bear arms against one who, though a parricide, was still his son. It is clear, then, that those things are lasting and solid which are true and which are gathered sincerely rather than by guile; but those which are acquired by feigning and flattery cannot last long.

Who, then, would think faithful to himself either those who are bought to obedience with money or those who are enticed by flattery? For the former often want to sell themselves, and the latter cannot bear hard commands. They are easily caught by a little flattery; if you graze them with a word, they murmur, desert, go off hostile, leave in indignation; they prefer to command rather than obey; as if they had put you in their debt by a favour, they think that those whom they ought to have set over them ought to be subject to them. Who, then, would think faithful to himself those whom he believed he must bind to himself by money or by flattery? For he who has received money judges himself cheap and despised unless he is often bought again. So he often waits for his price; and he who seems to have been courted by entreaty always wants to be asked.

I think, then, that one must strive for honour, and especially for ecclesiastical honour, by good acts and sincere purpose, so that there is neither supine arrogance nor slack negligence, nor shameful affectation and unseemly ambition. A straightforward simplicity of mind suffices for all things and commends itself enough. In the office itself it is fitting that there be neither harsh severity nor excessive laxity, lest we seem either to be exercising power or not to be fulfilling the office we have undertaken. We must strive also to bind very many to us by benefits and services, and to preserve the favour conferred, lest those who grieve that they have been seriously wronged rightly forget the benefit. For it often happens that those whom you have cherished with favour or raised to some higher rank you alienate, if you judge someone unworthy fit to be put above them. But it is fitting that the bishop show favour in his benefits and judgments so as to keep equity, and defer to a presbyter or a minister as to a parent. Nor should these be arrogant because they have once been approved, but rather, as mindful of the favour, keep humility; nor should the bishop be offended if a presbyter or minister or anyone of the clergy increases his own esteem by mercy, by fasting, by integrity, or by teaching and reading. For the grace of the Church is the praise of the teacher. It is good that someone’s work be praised, provided it is done with no zeal for display. Let the lips of his neighbours praise each one, and not his own mouth; and let his works commend him, not his pursuits. But if anyone does not obey the bishop and desires to exalt and raise himself, to overshadow the bishop’s merits by a feigned affectation of learning or humility or mercy, he, straying from the truth, is proud; since this is the rule of truth, that you do nothing to commend yourself by which another is made less, and if you have some good, you do not use it to disfigure and blame another. Do not defend a wicked man, and do not think holy things should be entrusted to an unworthy man; nor again press and attack one whose crime you have not detected. For while injustice quickly offends in all things, it does so most of all in the Church, where there ought to be equity, where it is fitting that there be equality; so that the more powerful claims nothing more for himself, and the richer usurps nothing more. For whether poor or rich, they are one in Christ. Let the holier claim nothing more for himself; for it is right that he be the more humble. But neither let us respect anyone’s person in judgment: let favour be absent, let the merits of the cause decide. Nothing so burdens reputation, indeed faith, as if in judging you give the cause of the lower to the more powerful, or accuse the innocent poor man and excuse the rich man guilty of fault. Mankind is indeed prone to favour those more honoured, lest they think themselves injured, lest they grieve at being beaten. But first, if you fear giving offence, do not undertake judgment; if you are a priest, or anyone else, do not press it. You may keep silent, at least in a money matter, though it belongs to constancy to stand by equity. But in the cause of God, where there is danger to communion, even to pretend not to see is no light sin.

And what profit is it to you to favour the rich man? Is it because he repays one who loves him more quickly? For we favour more often those from whom we hope for a return of favour. But we ought rather to be eager for the weak and needy, because for him who has nothing we hope for a reward from the Lord Jesus, who, under the image of a banquet, set forth a general pattern of the virtues: that we should confer our benefits rather on those who cannot repay them to us, teaching that not the rich but the poor should be invited to a banquet and feast. For the rich seem to be invited so that they too may return a banquet to us; the poor, because they have nothing to give back when they have received, make the Lord our rewarder, who offered himself to be bound in place of the poor man. Even for the very practice of the world a benefit conferred on the poor rather than on the wealthy helps more; for the rich man disdains a benefit and is ashamed to be a debtor for a favour. Indeed he claims for his own merits what has been conferred on him, as if he had received it as a debt, or as if it was given because the giver reckoned that the rich man would return it more abundantly. So in receiving a benefit, by the very fact that they have received it, the rich think they have given rather than received; but the poor man, even if he has nothing with which to repay money, returns gratitude. In this it is certain that he returns more than he received; for money is paid with coin, but gratitude is never exhausted. Money is emptied by repaying; but gratitude is both paid by having it and kept by paying it. Further, what the rich man shuns, the poor man acknowledges, that he is bound by a debt; and he thinks he has been helped, not that honour has been paid to him; he thinks his children given back to him, his life restored, his family saved. How much better, then, to place a benefit with the good than with the ungrateful! Hence the Lord said to the disciples: “Do not possess gold or silver or money”; for as with a sickle he cuts down the avarice that sprouts in human breasts. Peter too said to the lame man who had been carried from his mother’s womb: “Silver and gold I have not; but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk.” So he did not give money; he gave health. How much better it is to have health without money than money without health! The lame man rose, which he did not hope for; he did not receive money, which he did hope for. But these things are scarcely found even among the saints of the Lord, that riches are held in contempt.

But the characters of men have so bent to the admiration of riches that no one but the rich is thought worthy of honour. Nor is this a recent practice; rather, what is worse, this vice has long since grown into human minds. For when the great city of Jericho had fallen at the sound of the priestly trumpets, and Joshua son of Nun had won the victory, he learned that the strength of the people had been weakened by avarice and the desire for gold. For when Achan had taken from the spoils of the burned city a golden garment, two hundred didrachms of silver, and a golden tongue, brought before the Lord he could not deny it, but disclosed the theft. Avarice, then, is old and ancient: it began with the very oracles of the divine law; indeed the law was given to restrain it. Because of avarice Balak thought that Balaam could be tempted by rewards to curse the people of the fathers; and avarice would have won if the Lord had not commanded him to abstain from cursing. Because of avarice Achan, cast down, had led the whole people of the fathers to ruin. So Joshua son of Nun, who could make the sun stand still so that it did not go on, could not stop the avarice of men from creeping on. At his voice the sun stood still; avarice did not stand still. With the sun standing still Joshua completed his triumph; but with avarice advancing he nearly lost the victory. What of Samson, the bravest of all: did not the avarice of the woman Delilah deceive him? He who tore apart a roaring lion with his hands, who, bound and handed over to foreigners, with no helper, alone broke his bonds and killed a thousand of them, who broke ropes woven of sinews as if they were soft threads of broom—he, with his neck bent on a woman’s knees, was shorn of the ornament of his unconquered hair, the prerogative of his strength. Money flowed into the woman’s lap, and grace departed from the man. Deadly, then, is avarice, alluring is money, which defiles those who have it and does not help those who have not. Granted that money sometimes helps, it helps only the poorer man, and him only if he desires it. What is it to him who does not desire it, who does not seek it, who does not need its help, who is not bent by zeal for it? What is it to others if he who has it is wealthier? Is he therefore more honourable because he has that by which honour is usually lost, because he has what he must guard rather than possess? For we possess what we use; but what is beyond use certainly has not the fruit of possession, but the danger of guarding.

In sum, we know that contempt of money is the form of justice; and so we ought to avoid avarice and strive with all zeal never to do anything against justice, but to keep it in all our deeds and works. If we wish to commend ourselves to God, let us have love, be of one mind, and follow humility, each esteeming the other better than himself. For this is humility: if one claims nothing for oneself and thinks oneself lower. Let the bishop use the clergy as his members, and especially the ministers, who are truly his sons; and let him assign to each the office he sees him fit for. Even a part of the body that has rotted is cut off with pain, and it is treated for a long time, if it can be healed with medicines; if it cannot, then it is cut off by a good physician. So it is the disposition of a good bishop to wish to heal the sick, to remove spreading ulcers, to cauterize some things, not to cut off; and finally to cut off with pain what cannot be healed. Hence that most beautiful precept stands out the more, that we think not of our own things but of others’. For in this way there will be nothing in which we either indulge our feelings when angry or, when favouring, grant something more than is just to our own will.

This is the greatest incentive to mercy, that we suffer with the calamities of others and help the needs of others as far as we can, and sometimes more than we can. For it is better to supply grounds for mercy, or to suffer odium, than to show unkindness; as we once fell into odium because we broke up the mystic vessels to redeem captives, which could have displeased the Arians; and it was not so much the deed that displeased them as that there was something in us to blame. But who is so hard, so cruel, so iron-hearted as to be displeased that a man is redeemed from death, a woman from the impurities of barbarians, which are worse than death, and young girls or little boys or infants from the defilements of idols, by which they were being polluted through fear of death? Though we did this not without some reason, yet we so set it out before the people as to acknowledge it and to maintain that it was much better to keep souls for the Lord than gold. For he who sent the apostles without gold also gathered the churches without gold. The Church has gold, not to keep it, but to pay it out and to help in necessities. What need is there to guard what is of no help? Or do we not know how much gold and silver the Assyrians carried off from the temple of the Lord? Is it not better that priests melt it down for the sustenance of the poor, if other means are lacking, than that a sacrilegious enemy carry it off defiled? Will not the Lord say: “Why did you allow so many needy to die of hunger? You certainly had gold; you should have provided sustenance. Why were so many captives led away into trade and, not redeemed, killed by the enemy? It would have been better for you to keep the vessels of the living than those of metal”? No answer could be given to this. For what would you say? “I feared that the temple of God would lack its ornament”? He would answer: “The sacraments do not seek gold; nor do things please by gold that are not bought with gold. The ornament of the sacraments is the redemption of captives.” Those are truly precious vessels which redeem souls from death. That is the true treasure of the Lord which works what his blood has worked. Then is the vessel of the Lord’s blood recognized, when one sees redemption in both, so that the chalice redeems from the enemy those whom the blood redeems from sin. How fine, when columns of captives are redeemed by the Church, that it be said: “These Christ has redeemed!” Behold gold that can be approved, behold useful gold, behold Christ’s gold that frees from death, behold gold by which modesty is redeemed and chastity kept. These, then, I preferred to hand over to you free rather than to keep the gold. This number of captives, this company, is more excellent than the beauty of cups. The gold of the Redeemer ought to serve this office, to redeem those in danger. I recognize that the blood of Christ poured into gold not only shone red in it but also impressed on it, by the office of redemption, the power of divine operation. Such gold the holy martyr Lawrence kept for the Lord: when the treasures of the Church were demanded of him, he promised to show them. The next day he brought the poor. Asked where the treasures were that he had promised, he showed the poor, saying: “These are the treasures of the Church.” And truly treasures, in whom Christ is, in whom faith is. Indeed the Apostle says: “We have a treasure in earthen vessels.” What better treasures has Christ than those in whom he said he is? For thus it is written: “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.” And below: “For what you did to one of these, you did to me.” What better treasures has Jesus than those in whom he loves to be seen? These treasures Lawrence showed, and he conquered, because the persecutor could not take them away. So Joachim, who kept his gold during the siege and did not dispense it to buy food, saw his gold seized and himself led into captivity. Lawrence, who preferred to pay out the Church’s gold to the poor rather than keep it for the persecutor, received the sacred crown of martyrdom for the singular liveliness of his understanding. Was it said to holy Lawrence: “You ought not to have paid out the treasures of the Church and sold the vessels of the sacraments”? This office must be fulfilled with sincere faith and keen foresight. Certainly if anyone diverts it to his own profit, it is a crime; but if he pays it out to the poor and redeems a captive, it is mercy. For no one can say: “Why does a poor man live?” No one can complain that captives were redeemed; no one can accuse because the temple of God was built; no one can be indignant because space has been enlarged for burying the remains of the faithful; no one can grieve because in the burial places of Christians the dead have rest. For these three purposes it is permitted to break, melt down, and sell the vessels of the Church, even consecrated ones. It is necessary that the form of the mystic cup not go out of the Church, lest the service of the sacred chalice be transferred to wicked uses. Therefore within the Church vessels were first sought which had not been consecrated; then they were broken up, finally melted down, and dispensed to the needy in small portions, and they served also for the ransom of captives. But if new ones are lacking, and such as do not seem to have been consecrated, I think all can piously be converted to such uses as we have said.

This must certainly be carefully watched, that the deposits of widows remain inviolate and are kept without any loss, and not only those of widows but of all; for good faith must be shown to all, but the cause of widows and orphans is the greater. Indeed by this name of widows alone, as we read in the books of the Maccabees, all that was entrusted to the temple was kept safe. For when information had been given of the money which the wicked Simon betrayed to King Antiochus as being found in very great amounts in the temple at Jerusalem, Heliodorus, sent for the purpose, came to the temple and disclosed to the high priest the odious information and the cause of his coming. Then the priest said that the deposits were the provisions of widows and orphans, and some belonged to Hyrcanus son of Tobias, a holy man, and he showed them. There were forty talents of silver and two hundred of gold. When Heliodorus wished to seize them and claim them for the king’s advantage, the priests threw themselves before the altar, clothed in priestly robes, and weeping called upon the living God, who had given a law about deposits, to show himself guardian of his own commandments. The changed face and colour of the high priest declared the pain of his soul and the anxiety of his intent mind. All wept that the place would come into contempt if the safe keeping of trust was not preserved even in God’s temple; women girded at the breast, and virgins kept shut away, beat on the doors; some ran to the walls, others looked out through the windows; all stretched their hands to heaven, praying that the Lord would stand by his laws. But Heliodorus, not frightened even by these things, pressed on with what he had intended, and had surrounded the treasury with his guards, when suddenly a terrible horseman appeared to him, shining with golden arms; and his horse was adorned with a splendid covering. Two other young men also appeared, of glorious strength, pleasing beauty, splendid in glory, and fair in dress, who stood around him and scourged the sacrilegious man from either side with continuous blows without any pause. In short, surrounded with darkness he fell to the ground and lay senseless by the evident sign of divine operation, and no hope of life remained in him. Joy arose for those who feared, fear for the proud; and some of Heliodorus’s friends, cast down, begged Onias, asking life for him, since he was breathing his last. So at the high priest’s request the same young men appeared again to Heliodorus, clothed in the same garments, and said to him: “Give thanks to Onias the high priest, for whose sake your life has been given back to you. And you, having experienced God’s scourges, go and announce to all your people how great you have found the sanctity of the temple and the power of God.” Having said this, they vanished. So Heliodorus, recovering his breath, offered a victim to the Lord, gave thanks to Onias the priest, and returned with his army to the king, saying: “If you have any enemy or plotter against your affairs, send him there, and you will receive him back scourged.” Good faith, then, my sons, must be kept with deposits, and diligence applied. Your ministry shines out splendidly from this, if the pressure of a powerful man, which a widow or orphans cannot endure, is restrained by the help of the Church; if you show that the command of the Lord counts more with you than the favour of the rich. You yourselves remember how often we have entered the contest against royal assaults on behalf of the deposits of widows, indeed of all. This I have in common with you. I shall bring forward the recent example of the church of Ticinum, which was in danger of losing a widow’s deposit that it had received. For when the man who wished to claim it for himself by an imperial rescript pressed his demand, the clergy did not keep their authority; the dignitaries too, and the intercessors appointed, said that the emperor’s orders could not be resisted. The text of the rescript was read, quite explicit; there was the decree of the master of offices; an imperial agent was pressing. In short, it had been handed over. Yet, having taken counsel with me, the holy bishop occupied the rooms to which he had learned that the widow’s deposit had been moved. When it could not be carried off, it was taken back under a written receipt. Afterwards it was demanded again on the strength of the receipt; the emperor had repeated the command, intending to meet us in person. It was refused; and when the authority of the divine law had been set out, with the course of the reading and the danger of Heliodorus, the emperor at last, with difficulty, accepted the reason. Later a surprise attempt was also made; but the holy bishop forestalled it by returning to the widow what he had received. Good faith meanwhile is safe: the pressure is not to be feared, because now it is the property, not good faith, that is in danger.

My sons, flee the wicked, beware of the envious. Between the wicked and the envious there is this difference: the wicked man delights in his own good, the envious man is tormented by another’s; the one loves evil, the other hates good; so that he who wishes himself well is almost more tolerable than he who wishes ill to all. My sons, think before acting; and when you have thought long, then do what you approve. When the occasion of a praiseworthy death is given, it must be seized at once. Put off, glory flees and is not easily caught again. Love faith, since through faith and devotion Josiah gained great love for himself even from his adversaries; since he celebrated the Lord’s Passover when he was eighteen years old, as no one had before him. As he surpassed his predecessors in zeal, so you too, my sons, take up zeal for God. Let the zeal of God search you out and devour you, so that each of you may say: “The zeal of your house has searched me out.” An apostle of Christ was called the Zealot. What do I say of an apostle? The Lord himself says: “The zeal of your house has eaten me up.” Let it be, then, the zeal of God, not that human zeal which envy begets. Let there be among you the peace that surpasses all understanding. Love one another. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more pleasing than peace. And you yourselves know that I have always loved and love you above others: as sons of one father you have grown together into the affection of brothers. Hold fast what is good, and the God of peace and love will be with you in the Lord Jesus, to whom be honour, glory, majesty, and power, with the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

The prophet David taught us to walk about in our heart as in a spacious house and to converse with it as with a good companion, so that he spoke to himself and talked with himself, as in that saying: “I said, I will guard my ways.” Solomon too, his son, says: “Drink water from your own vessels and from the springs of your own wells,” that is, use your own counsel. For “counsel in the heart of a man is deep water.” “Let no stranger,” he says, “share it with you. Let the fountain of your water be your own; and rejoice with the wife who is yours from your youth. Let the hart of friendship and the foal of your graces converse with you.” So Scipio was not the first to know that he was not alone when he was alone, nor less at leisure when he was at leisure. Moses knew it before him: when silent he was crying out; when he stood at leisure he was fighting; and not only fighting, but triumphing over enemies he had not come into contact with; so much at leisure that others held up his hands, and no less busy than the rest, since with idle hands he overcame an enemy whom those who fought could not conquer. So Moses both spoke in silence and worked at leisure. Whose business was greater than this man’s leisure, who, set on the mountain for forty days, received the whole Law, and in that solitude did not lack one to speak with him? Hence David too says: “I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me.” And how much more it is if God speaks with someone than if he speaks with himself! The apostles passed by, and their shadow healed the sick. Their garments were touched, and health was given. Elijah spoke a word, and the rain stopped and did not fall on the earth for three years and six months. Again he spoke, and the jar of meal did not fail, and the vessel of oil was not emptied during the whole time of the famine. And since warlike things delight many: what is more excellent, to have finished a battle by the arms of a great army, or by merits alone? Elisha sat in one place, and the king of Syria brought a great mass of war against the people of the fathers, heaped up various deceits of counsel, and tried to surround them with ambushes; but the prophet detected all his preparations, and, present everywhere by vigour of mind through the grace of God, he announced the enemies’ thoughts to his own people and warned them in what places to beware. When this was made known to the king of Syria, he sent an army and shut in the prophet. Elisha prayed, made them all struck with blindness, and made those who had come to besiege him enter Samaria as captives. Let us compare this leisure with the leisure of others. For others, for the sake of rest, are accustomed to withdraw their minds from business and to remove themselves from the assembly and company of men, and either seek the seclusion of the countryside and the solitude of the fields, or within the city give their minds to leisure and indulge in quiet and tranquillity. But Elisha either divides the Jordan in the wilderness by his passing, so that the lower part flows down and the upper runs back to its source; or on Carmel, removing the difficulty of begetting, makes the barren woman fruitful by an unexpected conception; or raises the dead; or tempers the bitterness of food and makes it sweet by mixing in meal; or, distributing ten loaves, gathers leftovers after the people are filled; or, when the iron of an axe has flown off and sunk into the depth of the river Jordan, makes it float by throwing wood into the water; or changes leprosy by cleansing, drought by rains, famine by plenty. When, then, is the just man alone, who is always with God? When is he solitary, who is never separated from Christ? “Who,” he says, “will separate us from the love of Christ? I am confident that neither death nor life nor angel…” And when is he idle from business, who is never idle from merit, by which business is completed? In what places is he confined, whose possession of riches is the whole world? By what estimate is he defined, who is never caught by opinion? For he is as unknown and yet well known; as dying, and behold he lives; as sorrowful, yet always more joyful; as needy, yet generous; as having nothing, and possessing all things. For the just man looks to nothing but what is constant and honourable. And so, even if he seems poor to another, he is rich to himself, since he is rated not by the estimate of perishable things but of eternal ones.