Sermons to the People 37.30–39.6

What fruit does she have? How has she surpassed them? Let it be told me. “I show you,” he says, “a still more excellent way.” What more excellent way? The one by which she has surpassed them, by which she has been set above all. “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not charity, I have become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” He speaks in tongues: flowers belong to that might. “If I know all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all prophecy and all faith, so that I can move mountains” (what great might!) “but have not charity, I am nothing.” Hear still other mighty works, belonging to the flower, not to the fruit: “If I distribute all my goods to the poor, and hand over my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing.” This more excellent way she has, which is why it was said to her, “Many daughters have done mightily.” Many have spoken in tongues, known all mysteries, done many mighty works, driven out demons, distributed their goods to the poor, handed their bodies over to the fire. They are beneath you, because they did not have charity. “But you have surpassed and been set above all”: not only in flower but heavy with fruit, abounding in fruit. See the cluster itself, where it begins. When he had listed the works of the flesh, “acts of sexual immorality,” he says, “impurities, debaucheries, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, quarrels, jealousies, fits of anger, dissensions, heresies, envyings, carousings, drunkenness, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, as I told you before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God”: having listed all the thorns to be thrown into the fire, he says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is charity”; and from this head, from this as from a root, the rest are woven together: “joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control.” Why is this cluster beautiful? Because it hangs from charity. “Many daughters have done mightily; but you have surpassed and been set above all.”

What has remained in them? “False graces and the empty beauty of a woman.” Because “if I do not have charity, I have become sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; I am nothing; it profits me nothing.” False, then, are the graces, and empty the beauty of a woman. “For a wise woman is blessed.” She who sought what to understand, who kept understanding, she is the wise one, she is blessed; not those false beauties, not that empty grace. “A wise woman is blessed. But she herself praises the fear of the Lord.” She who is blessed praises something from which she is blessed, because she is wise. What does she praise? The fear of the Lord, by which she was led to wisdom. For “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” “But she herself praises the fear of the Lord.” Toiling through so many nights, patient among so many scandals, provident in looking ahead, strong in enduring, constant in persevering: when her labors are finished, “Give her of the fruits of her hands.” She has done, she has done; she is worthy to receive. “Give her of the fruits of her hands.” Give what? “Come, you blessed of my Father.” “Give her of the fruits of her hands.” Give what? “Receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” See what to give. From what fruits of her hands? “For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat.” “Give her of the fruits of her hands.”

And what will her business be then, when her labors are finished? “And let her husband be praised in the gates.” This will be the harbor of our labors: to see God and to praise God. It will not be said there, “Rise, work, clothe the servants, clothe yourself, adorn yourself with purple, give food to the household, see that the lamp does not go out, be anxious, rise in the nights, open your hand to the poor, pass the wool from the distaff to the spindle.” There will be no works of necessity where there is no necessity. There will be no works of mercy where there is no misery. You will not break bread for the poor where no one begs. You will not take in the stranger where all live in their own homeland. You will not visit the sick where all are healthy forever. You will not clothe the naked where all are clothed with eternal light. You will not bury the dead where all live without end. And yet, though you do not do these things, you will not be doing nothing: you will see him whom you desired, and you will praise him without tiring. This fruit you will receive. Then there will be that one thing you asked for: “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” And what will you do there? “That I may contemplate the delight of the Lord.” “And let her husband be praised in the gates.” “Blessed are those who dwell in your house; for ever and ever they will praise you.”

There are two things that are commanded us in this life as laborious: to refrain and to endure. For we are commanded to refrain from the things that are called good in this world, and to endure the evils that abound in this world. The first is called continence, the second endurance: two virtues that cleanse the soul and make it capable of God. In curbing lusts and restraining pleasures, so that what wickedly flatters may not seduce us and what is called prosperity may not weaken us, we need continence: not to trust earthly happiness, and to seek to the end the happiness that has no end. And as it belongs to continence not to trust the happiness of the world, so it belongs to endurance not to yield to the unhappiness of the world. Whether, then, we are in abundance or in straits, we must wait for the Lord, who will give what is truly good and sweet and turn away from us what is truly evil.

The good things that God promises the just are kept for the end; and the evils that he threatens the ungodly are kept for the end. The goods and evils that go round and are mixed together in this world neither the good alone have nor the bad alone. Whatever good you name in this world, the good have it and the bad have it too: bodily health itself, for example, both good and bad have. Riches you will find among the good and among the bad. Success in children, we see, is a gift common to good and bad. Long life: some good people live long, and some bad people live long. And whatever other goods of this world you care to count, you find them mixed among good and bad. Again, whatever is harsh, whatever is sad, both good and bad suffer: famine, disease, pain, losses, oppression, bereavement: this is the common stuff of everyone’s tears. It is easy, then, to see both that the goods of the world are with the good and the bad, and that the good and the bad bear the evils of the world. And that is why the feet of some stumble on the way of God and try to go off the track. For many stray and go off the track, having resolved and determined in their minds to serve God for this purpose, that they may abound in earthly goods and lack evils and avoid them. For when they have determined this for themselves and fixed this as the reward of their piety and religion, when they see themselves struggling and the wicked flourishing, as though they had lost their reward, as though he who called them had deceived them, as though he who cheated them of the wages had given them work in vain, they renounce God. And where do the wretches turn, turning away from him by whom they were made and clinging to the things that were made? When what was made begins to perish, where will the lover of time be, who has lost eternity?

Therefore, because of the goods that God will give only to the good and the evils that will be inflicted only on the bad, since both will appear at the end, God wants to be believed. For what reward is there for faith, or what does the very name of faith mean, if you want to see now what you hold? You ought not, then, to see what you believe, but to believe what you are to see; to believe as long as you do not see, lest when you see you be ashamed. So let us believe while it is the time of faith, before it is the time of sight. For so the apostle says: “As long as we are in this body, we are away from the Lord: for we walk by faith.” We walk by faith, then, as long as we believe what we do not see; but we shall hold the sight when we see face to face, as he is. The time of faith and the time of sight the apostle John too distinguishes in his letter, saying: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be.” This is the time of faith; see the time of sight: “We know,” he says, “that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

The time of faith is laborious: who denies it? It is laborious; but this is the work of which that is the reward. Do not be lazy in the work whose reward you desire. If you yourself had hired a laborer, you would not count out his wages before you had put him to work. You would say to him, “Do the work, and receive your pay”; he would not say to you, “Give, and I will do it.” So too with God. You, because you fear God, do not cheat your laborer; will God himself, who commands you not to cheat your laborer, cheat you? Yet you can fail to give what you have promised; and even if there is no deceit or falsehood in your heart, there is still in human frailty the want of means. What should we fear from God, who can neither deceive, because he is truth, and abounds in all things, because he made all things?

Let us believe God, then, brothers. This is the first commandment, this is the beginning of religion and of our life: to have the heart fixed in faith, and with the heart fixed in faith to live well, to refrain from all that seduces, to endure temporal evils; and while the one flatters and the other threatens, to keep the heart unshaken against both, so that you neither flow away into the one nor are broken by the other. Having continence, then, and having endurance too, when temporal goods have passed and the evils that are inflicted are no more, you will have every good and no evil. That is why, what was said to us in the reading? “Son, coming to the service of God, stand in justice and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation. Humble your heart and endure, so that your life may increase at the last.” Not now, but at the last your life may increase: “that your life may increase at the last.” How much, do we think, does it increase? So as to become eternal. For now human life, as long as it is prolonged and seems to be prolonged, decreases rather than increases. Pay attention and see; reason it out and see that it decreases. A man is born: suppose God has set seventy years for his life. Life is added to him, we say, as he grows. Is it added, or does it depart? See, of seventy years he has lived sixty; ten remain: what was set has been diminished; and the more he lives, the less remains to him. And so by living here life decreases; it does not increase. Hold fast to what God has promised you: “that your life may increase at the last.”

Then follows what was not read: “Whatever is brought upon you, accept it, and endure in sorrow, and in your humiliation have patience. For gold and silver are tested in fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.” It seems hard; you have given up. Have you not then lost what does not fail? Many suffer many things for money that will perish, and you will not suffer for life that will last? You refuse to toil for God’s promises, as if you did not toil for your desires. How much do robbers suffer for their iniquity? How much do the depraved suffer for their crimes, the dissolute for their wickedness, merchants for their avarice, crossing the sea, entrusting body and soul to winds and storms, leaving their own things, running to the unknown? If a judge pronounces exile, it is a punishment; avarice commands exile, and it is a joy? What great thing, then, does wisdom command you that avarice could not command? And yet when avarice commands, you do it. And when you have done what avarice commands, what will you have? A house full of gold and silver. Have you not read, “Although man walks in an image, yet he is troubled in vain: he stores up treasure, and does not know for whom he gathers it”? Why, then, did you sing and say to God, “Give ear to my tears”? Why do you not give ear to the words of him by whom you want your tears to be heard? If you accuse your avarice, he will invite you to his wisdom. But when you have taken up the yoke of wisdom, will it be laborious? Laborious indeed; but see with what end, with what reward. Do you not know for whom you gather what you gather through wisdom? You gather for yourself. Wake up, keep watch, have the heart of the ant. It is summertime: gather what will be useful to you for winter. When things go well for you, learn then how you will be sustained when things go badly. Things are going well for you; it is summer: do not be lazy; gather grain from the Lord’s threshing floor, the words of God from the Church of God, and store them within, in your heart. Now indeed things go well for you; the time will come when they go badly. Tribulation will come to every man: even if all earthly things are his, certainly when he begins to die he passes through tribulation to another life. For who is there who can say, “It will go well with me, and I will not die”?

And yet, if you love life and fear death, the very fear of death is a daily winter. And the fear of death stings most when things go well for us. For when things go badly for us, we do not fear death; when things go well for us, then we fear death more. That is why that rich man, whom his riches delighted so much (for he had great riches and great possessions), was, I believe, assailed by the fear of death and wasted away amid his delights. For he thought that he would leave those goods behind; he had gathered, and did not know for whom; and he desired something eternal, and came to the Lord and said to him, “Good Master, what good shall I do to obtain eternal life?” Things are going well for me, but what I hold is slipping away; things are going well for me, but suddenly what I have will be gone: tell me how I may have what will last forever; tell me how I may reach what I shall not lose. And the Lord said to him, “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He asked which commandments. He heard. He answered that he had kept them all from his youth. The Lord, the counselor of eternal life, said to him, “One thing you lack: if you want to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” For he did not say, “Lose it,” but, “Sell it, and come, follow me.” He who delighted in his riches, and for that reason asked the Lord what good he should do to obtain eternal life, because he wanted to pass from delights to delights and was afraid to leave the ones that delighted him, went away sad to his earthly treasures. He would not believe the Lord that he can keep in heaven what is going to perish on earth. He would not be a true lover of his treasure. By holding it badly he lost it; by loving it too much he lost it. For if he had loved it rightly, he would have moved it to heaven, where he himself would later follow. God showed him a house to move it to, not a place to lose it; for he went on to say, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

But people want to see their riches. Suppose they store them up in the ground: are they not afraid their riches will be seen? They dig, block up, and cover them; and when they have blocked them up and covered them, do they see what they have? Not even the owner sees it: he wants it to lie hidden; he fears it may be exposed. He wants to be rich in reputation, not in reality. As if it were enough to have in one’s conscience what one keeps in the ground! O how much greater and better your conscience will be if you keep it in heaven! Here, when you have buried it in the ground, you are afraid that your slave may find out, take it, and run away; here you fear that your slave may take it from you; there you do not fear, because your Lord keeps it well for you. “But I have,” you say, “a faithful slave, who knows and will not betray me, and will not take it.” Compare him with your Lord. If you have found a faithful slave, when has your Lord ever deceived you? Even if your slave cannot take it, he can still lose it: your Lord can neither take it nor lose it, nor does he let it perish. He keeps it for you; it remains for you; he sets you free; he makes you abiding; he will neither lose you nor lose what you have entrusted to him. Will he say, “Come, receive what you deposited with me”? Far from it. God does not say this to you. “I,” he says to you, “who forbade you to lend at interest, have borrowed at interest from you. For you wanted to grow by interest, and you gave to a man so that he would give back more to you; he took it rejoicing and gave it back weeping. This you wanted, and I forbade it: for I said, ‘Who has not given his money at usury.’ I forbade you interest: I command you interest: lend to me at interest.” This is what your Lord says to you: “You want to give little and receive more: leave the man who weeps when you exact payment; find me, who rejoice when I repay. See, here I am: give, and take; at the time of repayment I will repay you. And what will I repay? You gave little; take more. You gave earthly things; take heavenly ones. You gave temporal things; take eternal ones. You gave what is mine; take me myself. For what did you give, except from what you received from me? Shall I not repay what you gave, I who gave you the means to give? I who gave you yourself to be the giver; I who gave you Christ to give to, who would say to you, ‘When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me.’” See to whom you give: he feeds, and hungers for your sake; he gives, and is in need. When he gives, you want to receive; when he is in need, you do not want to give. Christ is in need when a poor man is in need: he who is ready to give eternal life to all his own has deigned to receive temporal things in every poor man.

And he gives you advice on where to move it: he has given advice on where you ought to move it. Move it from earth to heaven, lest you lose it. For how many have lost what they were keeping, and even so, not corrected, have not learned to place it in heaven! If perhaps someone said to you, “Move your riches from the West to the East, if you do not want them to perish,” you would be in turmoil, you would toil, you would bustle about, you would consider how much you had, you would see that because of the multitude of your possessions you could not easily move to distant parts; and perhaps you would weep, because you were forced to go and could not find how to take with you what you had gathered. He has ordered you to move farther, who did not say, “Move from the West to the East,” but “Move from earth to heaven.” You are in turmoil, as if you thought you faced a greater difficulty, and you say to yourself, “If I could not find beasts of burden and ships to move from the West to the East, how shall I find ladders to move from earth to heaven?” “Do not trouble yourself,” God says to you, “do not trouble yourself: I who made you rich, who gave you what to give, have made the poor your porters.” If, for example, you found some needy man from overseas, or from wherever you wanted to go, if you found a citizen of that place in need, you would say to yourself, “This citizen comes from where I want to go; he is in need here; I give to him what he can repay me there.” See, the poor man is in need here; he is a citizen of the kingdom of heaven: why do you hesitate to make a transfer? For if those who do this give so that they may receive more when they come to the place the recipient comes from, let us do the same.

This happens if we believe, if we rouse our faith. For we are troubled in vain. Why are we troubled in vain? Because while Christ was asleep in the boat, the disciples nearly suffered shipwreck. Jesus was asleep, and the disciples were troubled. The winds raged, the waves rose, the boat was sinking. Why? Because Jesus was asleep. So with you: when the storms of temptations rage in this world, your heart is troubled like your boat. Why, unless because your faith is asleep? For so the apostle Paul says, that Christ dwells through faith in our hearts. Wake Christ, then, in your heart; let your faith keep watch, let your conscience be calmed, and your boat is set free. Be sure that he who promised is truthful. He has not yet shown it, because it is not yet time for him to show it. Yet he has already shown many things: he promised his Christ, and gave him; he promised his resurrection, and gave it; he promised his Gospel, and gave it; he promised his Church to be spread over the whole world, and gave it; he foretold the very tribulations and heaps of calamities in human affairs, and showed them. How much remains? What was promised is being fulfilled; what was foretold is being fulfilled; and do you waver, fearing that what remains may not come? You ought to fear then, if you did not see what was foretold. There are wars, there are famines, there are disasters. Kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, heaps of calamities, an abundance of scandals, the cooling of love, a flood of iniquity. All these, read it, were foretold. Read, and see that all that you see was foretold; and believe that you will see what has not yet come, counting how much has come. But you, seeing God show what he foretold, do not believe that he will give what he promised? There you ought to believe, where you began to be troubled.

If it is the end of the world, we must move out of the world, not love the world. See, the world is in turmoil, and the world is loved. What if the world were calm? How you would cling to it if it were beautiful, when you embrace it so when it is ugly! How you would gather its flowers, when you do not draw back your hand from its thorns! You do not want to leave the world; the world leaves you, and you follow the world. Let us cleanse our hearts, then, dearly beloved, and let us not lose endurance; but let us lay hold of wisdom and keep continence. Toil passes, rest comes: false delights pass, and the good comes that the faithful soul has desired, for which every pilgrim in the world burns and sighs: the good homeland, the heavenly homeland, the homeland of the contemplation of the angels; the homeland where no citizen dies and no enemy is admitted; the homeland where you may have God as your friend forever, and need fear no enemy.

We have heard, brothers, the Lord saying through the prophet: “Do not delay to turn to God, and do not put it off from day to day. For suddenly his wrath will come, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy you.” He has promised you that on the day you turn he forgets your past evils; but has he promised you tomorrow’s life? Or perhaps God did not promise it to you, but an astrologer promised it to you, so that God may condemn both you and him? God has made the day of death uncertain for our good: let each one think of his last day for his good. It is God’s mercy that man does not know when he will die. The last day is hidden, so that every day may be watched.

But the world holds us; its allurements flatter us on every side: the greatness of money delights, the splendor of honor delights, the terror of power delights. These things delight; but let the apostle be heard: “We brought nothing into this world, and we cannot take anything out.” Honor ought to seek you, not you it. For you ought to recline in a lower place, so that he who invited you may make you go up to a more honorable place. But if he does not wish to, eat where you are reclining, because you brought nothing into this world. Is it too little for you that you are eating at someone else’s expense? Recline anywhere, and eat. You will say, “I eat from my own.” Hear the apostle: “We brought nothing into this world.” You came into the world; you found a full table. “But the earth is the Lord’s, and its fullness.” “For those who want,” he says, “to become rich.” He did not say, “those who are rich,” but “those who want to become rich”: he accused desires, not means. “Those who want to become rich fall into temptation and into many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge men into ruin and destruction.” Money delights you; do you not fear these things? Money is a good thing, much money is a good thing. “They fall into temptation”: do you not fear? “They fall into many foolish and harmful desires”: do you not fear? Fear where desires lead. What does “where they lead” mean? “Which plunge,” he says, “men into ruin and destruction.” Are you still deaf? Do you not fear ruin and destruction? God thunders like this, and you snore?

But to those who are already rich the apostle gave further advice: “Command,” he says, “the rich of this world not to be proud.” The worm of riches is pride. It is difficult for one who is rich not to be proud. Take away pride, and riches will do no harm. But consider what you ought to do with them, lest what God has bestowed lie idle with you. “Not to be proud”: I take away this vice. “Nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches”: take away this vice too. When you have taken these away, practice good works. Which ones? Hear: “Let them be rich,” he says, “in good works; let them not hope in the uncertainty of riches.” But where should they hope? “In the living God, who provides us with everything abundantly to enjoy.” God provides the world to the poor man; he provides it to the rich. Because he is rich, will he fill two bellies? Pay attention and see that from God’s gifts the poor sleep satisfied. He who feeds you feeds them too, through you.

So let money not be loved; but if it is already had, let good be done with it. Be rich, you who have it. But rich where? “In good works. Let them give readily,” he says, “let them share.” Here avarice contracts at once when it hears, “Let them give readily, let them share”: as though doused with cold water, it stiffens, draws its purse tight, and says, “I will not lose the fruit of my labors.” Unhappy man, you do not want to lose your labors? See, you will die, and you who brought nothing here can take nothing from here: when you have taken nothing away, will you not have lost all your labors? Hear, then, God’s counsel. Do not be frightened because he said, “Let them give readily, let them share.” Hear what follows. Wait; do not shut the door against me, nor the entrance of your heart; wait. Do you want to know that “Let them give readily, let them share” means that you will not lose, and that this alone you will not lose? “Let them store up for themselves,” he says, “a good foundation for the future, so that they may lay hold of the true life.” This life, then, that delights you is a false life: you live here as if in dreams. If you live here as if in dreams, you will wake when you die, and so you will find nothing in your hands. It is as if a beggar sleeps, and in his dreams an inheritance comes to him: nothing is happier than he until he gets up. He sees himself in his dreams handling splendid clothes and precious vessels of gold and silver, entering most pleasant and spacious estates, great households serving him: he wakes up and weeps. And as a man awake accuses one who has robbed him, so he accuses the one who woke him. The psalm has spoken of this most plainly: “They slept their sleep,” it says, “and all the men of riches found nothing in their hands, after they had finished their sleep.”

Since, then, you brought nothing, you will take nothing away from here. Send on ahead what you found, and you will not lose it. Give to Christ: for Christ wanted to receive here. Give to Christ, and you do not lose. You do not lose if you entrust it to your slave; and do you lose if you entrust it to your Lord? You do not lose if you entrust to your slave what you have acquired; and will you lose if you entrust to your Lord what you received from that very Lord of yours? Christ chose to be in need here, but for our sake. All the poor whom you see: Christ could feed them, as he fed Elijah by a raven; yet even from Elijah he took away the raven, so that he might be fed by a widow, as a favor not to Elijah but to the widow. When God makes people poor, then, because he himself does not want them to have; when he makes people poor, he tests the rich. For so it is written: “The poor and the rich met each other.” Where did they meet each other? In this life. This one was born, that one was born: they found each other, they met each other. And who made them both? The Lord. The rich man, to help the poor; the poor man, to test the rich. Let each one give according to his means; let him not give in such a way that he himself suffers want. We do not say this. Your superfluities are another’s necessities. You heard just now, when the Gospel was being read: “Whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of the least of mine for my sake will not lose his reward.” He has put the kingdom of heaven up for sale, and willed its price to be a cup of cold water. But when the one who gives alms is poor, then his alms should be a cup of cold water. Let the one who has more do more. That widow gave from two mites; Zacchaeus gave half his goods, and kept the other half for repaying his frauds. Alms profit those who have changed their life. For you give to Christ in need so as to redeem your past sins. For if you give so that you may always be free to sin with impunity, you are not feeding Christ but trying to bribe the judge. So give alms for this purpose: that your prayers may be heard, and God may help you to change your life for the better. And you who are changing that life, change it for the better, so that through alms and prayers your past evils may be blotted out, and the eternal goods to come may come.