Homilies and Sermons 7.3–8.1

[3] But what will you use your wealth for? To clothe yourself? A tunic of two cubits will suffice you, and wrapping yourself in one cloak will fulfil the whole need for clothing. Will you spend your wealth on food? One loaf is enough to fill a belly. Why then do you grieve, as one deprived of what? Of the glory that comes from wealth? But if you do not seek glory on the ground, you will find that true and splendid glory leading you forward in the kingdom of heaven. "But the mere having of wealth [is a delight] …" That zeal for useless things is foolish is known to everyone. But what I am about to say will perhaps seem paradoxical to you, yet it is truer than anything. Wealth scattered in the way the Lord prescribes naturally remains; held fast, it is lost. If you guard it, you will not have it; if you scatter it, you will not lose it: "He scattered, he gave to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever." But wealth is so eagerly sought by most people not for clothing or food; rather a scheme has been devised by the devil, suggesting to the rich countless occasions of expense, so that superfluous and useless things are pursued as necessary, and nothing suffices them for the invention of expenditures. For they divide their wealth between present and future need, setting aside one part for themselves and another for their children. Then they divide it again into occasions of various expenses. Hear what their arrangements are like. "Let one part of my wealth," he says, "be in use, another laid by; and let the part that serves my needs exceed the limit of necessity. Let this one be available for luxury at home, that one for [display] outside, … and let the part that stays at home make life splendid and admired." So I am amazed at the invention of superfluities. There are countless vehicles, some carrying baggage, others carrying themselves, decked with bronze and silver; [horses] … named from the noble birth of their sires, like men. Some carry their masters about the city in luxury; others hunt with them; others are for journeys, everything of silver, everything sprinkled with gold. Carpets …, decking the horses like bridegrooms; a multitude of mules, sorted by color; their drivers, relieving one another, some running ahead, some following behind. The number of other servants is countless, sufficient for all their extravagance: stewards, treasurers, farmers, men skilled in every craft, both necessary and devised for enjoyment and luxury, [cooks] …, painters, makers of every kind of pleasure. Herds of camels, some for carrying burdens, others at pasture; herds of horses, cattle, flocks of sheep, droves of pigs, their herdsmen; land enough to feed all these, and still increasing the wealth by its revenues; baths in the city, baths in the country; houses gleaming with every kind of marble, one of Laconian, another of Thessalian slabs; some of these warm in winter, others cool in summer. A floor [inlaid] with mosaic, gold overlaying the ceiling. Whatever part of the walls escapes the marble slabs is adorned with the flowers of painting.

When the wealth, scattered on countless things, is still left over, it is thrust into the ground and kept in secret hiding places. "For the future is uncertain; some unexpected needs may overtake us." It is uncertain whether you will come to need the buried gold; but the penalty for your inhumane ways is not uncertain. For when you could not spend your wealth on your countless inventions, then you hid it in the earth. Terrible madness: while the gold was in the mines, to search the earth for it; when it had become visible, to make it vanish in the earth again! Then, I think, it happens that in burying your wealth you bury your heart with it: "For where your treasure is," he says, "there will your heart be also." That is why the commandments grieve them: they think life not worth living without … The young man's passion, and that of those like him, seems to me like that of a traveller who, longing for some city, has eagerly completed the road up to it, and then, staying at the inns before the walls, shuts himself out of the good things in the city from reluctance to take a small step. Such are those who consent to do the other things but resist giving up their possessions. … [I see many who fast, pray, sigh, practise] every piety that costs nothing, but will not give a single obol to those in need. What good is the rest of their virtue to them? For the kingdom of heaven does not receive them, because "it is easier," he says, "for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." The sentence is so clear, and the one who said it so truthful; but those who obey are few. "And how shall we live," he says, "when we have given up everything? What will the shape of life be, when everyone sells and everyone gives up his property?" Do not ask me the meaning of the Master's commands. He who gave the law knows how to fit even what is impossible to the law. But your heart is being tested as on a balance, whether it inclines toward the true life or toward present enjoyment. For those who reason soberly ought to regard the use of wealth as stewardship, not enjoyment, and when they give it up, to rejoice as parting with what belongs to others, not to be vexed as losing what is their own. Why then do you grieve? Why do you mourn in your soul when you hear, "Sell your possessions"? If they followed you to the future, even so they would not be worth pursuing, darkened by the precious things there; but if they must remain here, why should we not sell them and carry off the profit from them? You do not lose heart when you give gold and acquire a horse; but when you give up perishable things and receive the kingdom of heaven in exchange, you weep, and refuse the one who asks …

What will you answer the Judge, you who clothe walls but do not clothe a human being? You who adorn horses but overlook your brother in his disgrace? You who let grain rot but do not feed the hungry? You who [bury] gold … And if a wife who loves wealth lives with you too, the disease is doubled: she inflames the luxuries and increases the love of pleasure and puts goads into superfluous desires, devising certain stones, pearls, emeralds and jacinths, and gold, working some into jewelry and weaving some into cloth, and increasing the disease by every kind of folly. For their zeal for these things is no side matter; they have their cares about them night and day. And countless flatterers, playing up to their desires, gather the dyers of flowered stuffs, the goldsmiths, the perfumers, the weavers, the embroiderers. She gives her husband no time to breathe from her constant orders. No wealth suffices to serve women's desires, not even if it flows from rivers, when they are eager for foreign perfume as for oil from the market, and for the flowers of the sea, the shell-purple and the pinna, above … of the precious stones, one becomes an ornament for their forehead, another for their neck; another on their girdles, another adorns their hands and feet … if only the gold that binds them is gold. When, then, will a man who serves a woman's desires care for his soul? [For as] storms and squalls [sink ships], so the wicked dispositions of women sink the weak souls of those who live with them. Wealth, then, being drawn to so many things by husband and wife, outdoing each other in inventing vanities, naturally has no time to peep out to those outside. But if you hear, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor," that you may have provisions for eternal [life] … [you go away grieving; but if you hear, "Give your money to] mosaic-workers, painters …," you rejoice as though … those buildings that time has brought down, whose remains, like rocks, stand up throughout the whole city? How many poor were there in the city when these were being raised, who were overlooked by the rich of that day because of their zeal for these things? Where then is the splendid construction of these works? Where is the man envied for their magnificence? Are not these confused and vanished, like the things boys build for play in the sand, while he lies in Hades, repenting of his zeal for vanities? Have a great soul; walls, small and greater, fulfil the same need. When I go into the house of a vulgar and newly rich man, and see it brightly adorned with flowers of every kind, I know that this man possesses nothing more precious than what is seen, but that he adorns lifeless things and keeps his soul unadorned. … tell me, do silver and ivory chairs provide more use, so that your wealth does not pass on to the poor because of them, though countless people stand at your door uttering every pitiable cry? But you refuse the gift, saying it is impossible to supply those who ask. You swear it with your tongue, but you are refuted by your hand: for your hand, silent, [proclaims the lie through] the bezel on your ring. How many could one ring of yours release from debts? How many falling houses could it set up again? One chest of your clothes could clothe a whole shivering people; but you endure sending the poor man away empty-handed, not fearing the just retribution of the Judge. [You did not show mercy;] you will not be shown mercy. [You did not open your house;] you will be sent away from the kingdom. You did not give bread; you will not receive eternal life.

[5] But you call yourself poor; and I agree. For the poor man is one who lacks many things; and the insatiability of desire makes you lack many things. You are eager to add ten more talents to ten; when there are twenty, you seek as many again, and what is added always does not stop your impulse but inflames your appetite. As for drunkards the addition of wine becomes an occasion of drinking, so the newly rich, having acquired much, desire more, feeding the disease by what is constantly added, and their zeal turns to the opposite. For what they have, great as it is, does not gladden them as much as what they lack, whatever they suppose they lack, grieves them; so that their soul is always wasted away with cares as they compete for still more. For they ought to rejoice and be grateful, being better off than so many; but they are vexed and pained because they fall short of one or two. When they have caught up with the rich man, they at once strive to equal one richer; and if they reach him, they transfer their zeal to another. As those who climb a ladder lift their foot to the next rung and do not stop before they reach the top, so these do not stop their impulse toward power until, raised on high, they dash themselves down from a lofty fall. The Creator of all contrived that the seleucis bird should be insatiable for the benefit of men; but you have made your soul insatiable for the harm of many. Whatever the eye sees, the greedy man desires. "The eye will not be filled with seeing, and the lover of money will not be satisfied with taking." Hades never said "Enough," and the greedy man never said "Enough." When will you use what you have? When will you enjoy it, always gripped by the labors of acquiring? "Woe to those who join house to house and add field to field, that they may take something from their neighbor." And what do you do? Do you not invent countless pretexts to take what is your neighbor's? "My neighbor's house shades me," he says; "it makes noise; it harbors vagrants"; or, alleging whatever comes to hand, he harasses, pushes out, drags and tears at them, and does not stop until he forces them to move away. What killed Naboth? Was it not Ahab's desire for the vineyard? The greedy man is a bad neighbor in the city, a bad one in the country. The sea knows its bounds; the night does not pass its ancient limits. But the greedy man respects no time, recognizes no boundary, yields to no order of succession, but imitates the violence of fire: he seizes everything, consumes everything. As rivers, starting from a small first source and then gaining irresistible growth by little additions, sweep away whatever stands in their way by the violence of their course, so those who have advanced to great power, from those already oppressed [gain power to] enslave the rest, and the abundance of wickedness becomes for them an increase of power. For those who have already suffered, giving them forced help, join in working harm and injustice against others. What neighbor, what housemate, what business partner is not swept away? Nothing withstands the violence of wealth; everything bows to its tyranny, everything cowers before its power, since each of the wronged takes more thought for not suffering further evil than for getting justice for what is past. He brings his yokes of oxen, ploughs, sows, reaps what does not belong to him. If you object, blows; if you lament, charges of assault; you are hauled off …, set in danger of your life. You will be glad to give something more and be rid of the matter.

I wish you would take a little breathing space from the works of injustice and give your reasonings leisure to consider to what end the zeal for what you do is directed. You have so many and so many acres of arable land, so many more of planted land, mountains, plains, glens, rivers, meadows. What then after all this? Do not three cubits await you all? Will not the weight of a few stones suffice to [guard your wretched flesh]? For whose sake do you break the law? Why do you gather fruitlessness with your hands? Would it were only fruitlessness, and not fuel for the eternal fire! Will you never come to your senses from this drunkenness? Will you not be sound in your reasonings? Will you not come to yourself? Will you not set before your eyes the judgment seat of Christ? What defence will you make when those you have wronged stand round you and cry out against you before the just Judge? What then will you do? What advocates will you hire? What witnesses will you produce? How will you persuade the Judge who cannot be misled? There is no orator there, no persuasiveness of words able to steal the truth from the Judge; flatterers do not follow, nor money, nor the bulk of rank. Bereft of friends, bereft of helpers, without defence, without boldness [you will stand] … For wherever you turn your eye, you will see the vivid images of your evils: here the orphan's tears, there the widow's groaning, elsewhere the poor you beat with your fists, the servants you flayed, the neighbors you provoked. All will rise up against you; the wicked chorus of your evil deeds will surround you. For as the shadow follows the body, so sins follow souls, vividly portraying the deeds. That is why there is no denial there, but the mouth is stopped, even the shameless one. For the deeds themselves bear witness against each, not uttering a sound but appearing such as we made them. How can I set before your eyes those terrors? If you will listen, if you will yield, remember that day on which "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven." Remember … "those who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment." Then shall be eternal shame for sinners, and "a fury of fire" … [let these things grieve] you, and let not the commandment grieve you. How shall I shame you? What shall I say? Do you not desire the kingdom? Do you not fear Gehenna? Where will healing be found for your soul? For if terrors do not frighten, and bright things do not encourage, we are speaking to a heart of stone.

[7] Look, man, at the nature of wealth. Why are you so excited about gold? Gold is a stone, silver is a stone, the pearl is a stone, each of the gems is a stone: chrysolite, beryl, agate, jacinth, amethyst, jasper. These are the flowers of wealth. Some of them you store away, hiding them, and cover the translucent stones with darkness; others you carry about, priding yourself on the gleam of the precious ones. Tell me, what good is it to you to turn about a hand gleaming with stones? Do you not blush at craving pebbles like women when they are pregnant? For they nibble pebbles, and you too are greedy for the flowers of stones, seeking sardonyx and jasper and amethyst. What fop was ever able to add one day to his life? Whom did death spare for his wealth? From whom did sickness keep away because of his money? How long will gold be the noose of souls, the hook of death, the bait of sin? How long will wealth be the occasion of war, for which weapons are forged and swords sharpened? Because of it relatives ignore nature, brothers look at each other with murder in their eyes; because of wealth the deserts nourish murderers, the sea pirates, the cities informers. Who is the father of lies? Who is the maker of forgery? Who begot perjury? Is it not wealth? Is it not the zeal for it? What is wrong with you, men? Who has turned what is yours into a plot against you? It is a help for living: was money given as provision for evils? It is a ransom for the soul: is it an occasion of destruction? "But wealth is necessary because of children." This is a plausible pretext for greed; … do not blame the one who is not to blame. [Your child] has his own Master, his own steward; from another he received life, from him he awaits the means of living. Were the Gospels not written for married people too? "If you would be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor." When you asked the Lord for good offspring, when you prayed to become a father of children, did you add this: "Give me children, that I may disobey your commandments; give me children, that I may not reach the kingdom of heaven"? And who will be guarantor of the child's choice, that he will use what is given as he ought? For to many wealth has become the servant of licentiousness. Or do you not hear the Preacher saying, "I have seen a grievous sickness: wealth kept by its owner to his harm"? and again, "I leave it to the man after me; and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool?" Take care, then, that you do not, having amassed wealth with countless labors, prepare material of sin for others, and then be found punished twice over, both for the wrongs you did yourself and for those you equipped another to do. Is not your soul closer to you than any child? Does it not come nearer than all in kinship? Give it first the right of the firstborn in the inheritance; provide it with rich means of life; and then divide your livelihood among your children. Children who received nothing from their parents have often made houses for themselves; but your soul, if abandoned by you, by whom will it be pitied?

Enough has been said to fathers. But what plausible reason for their stinginess do the childless [put forward]? "I do not sell my possessions or give to the poor, because of the necessary needs of life." Then the Lord is not your teacher, nor does the Gospel regulate your life, but you make laws for yourself. See into what danger you fall by thinking so. For if the Lord laid these things down for us as necessary, and you strike them out as impossible, you are saying nothing else than that you are wiser than the lawgiver. "But after enjoying them all my life, at the end of my life I will make the poor heirs of my property, appointing them owners of what is mine by writings and testaments." When you are no longer among men, then you will become a lover of men; when I see you dead, then I shall call you a lover of the brethren. Many thanks to you for your munificence, that lying in the tomb and dissolved into earth you have become lavish in spending and large-hearted! Tell me, for which time will you demand your wages, for that in your life or for that after your departure? While you lived, wallowing in the pleasures of life and dissolved in luxury, you could not bear even to look at the poor; when you are dead, what action is there, what wage is owed for work? Show the works, and demand the rewards. No one trades after the fair has broken up; no one comes in after the contests and is crowned; no one does brave deeds after the wars. So neither, plainly, is it possible to be pious after life. And you promise your good deeds in ink and letters. Who will announce to you the time of your departure? Who will guarantee the manner of your death? How many have been snatched away by violent accidents, not even allowed by their suffering to utter a word? How many has fever made delirious? Why then do you wait for a time when often you will not even be master of your own reasonings? Deep night, heavy sickness, no helper anywhere; and the one lying in wait for the inheritance ready, managing everything to his own advantage, making your plans ineffective. Then, looking round this way and that, and seeing the desolation that surrounds you, [you will realize] for what a time you reserved the commandment, when the tongue is paralysed and the hand already trembling, shaken by spasms, so that you cannot show your mind either by voice or by letters. And even if everything had been clearly written, and every word spoken plainly, [it is easy] to alter the intention: one forged seal, two or three unjust witnesses, would transfer the whole inheritance to others.

Why then do you deceive yourself, now disposing of your wealth wickedly for the enjoyment of the flesh, and promising for later what you will no longer be master of? As the argument has shown, the plan is wicked: "While I live I will enjoy pleasures; when I die I will carry out what is prescribed." Abraham will say to you too: "You received your good things in your life." The narrow and hard way does not receive you, if you do not lay down the bulk of your wealth. You went out carrying it, for you did not throw it away as you were commanded. While you lived, you put yourself before the commandment; after death and dissolution, then you preferred the commandment to your enemies. "That so-and-so may not get it," he says, "let the Lord have it." And what shall we call this, revenge on enemies or love of neighbor? Read your testament: "I wished to live still and enjoy my own." Thanks to death, not to you. For if you were immortal, you would not have remembered the commandments. "Do not be deceived; God is not mocked." A dead thing is not brought to the altar; offer a living sacrifice. One who offers from his surplus is not accepted; but you offer to your benefactor what was left over after your whole life. If you do not dare to entertain distinguished guests with the leftovers of your table, how then do you dare to appease God with leftovers? See the end of love of money, you rich, and stop being passionately attached to money. The more you love wealth, the more you should leave none of your possessions behind. Make everything your own, take everything with you; do not leave your wealth to strangers. Perhaps your servants will not even dress you in your last adornment, but will perform the burial perfunctorily, having already gone over to the heirs in goodwill. Or perhaps they will even philosophize about you then: "It is tasteless to adorn a corpse and carry out expensively one who no longer feels. Is it not better for the living to be adorned with costly and splendid clothing than to let precious garments rot with the corpse? What use is a notable tomb, a costly funeral, an unprofitable expense? One ought to use what is left for the necessities of life." They will say such things to avenge themselves on your harshness and to please those who have succeeded to your property. Forestall them, then, and bury yourself. Piety is a fine burial garment. Go away clothed in everything; make your wealth your own adornment; keep it with you. Be persuaded by a good counsellor, Christ, who loved you, who became poor for our sake so that we might be rich by his poverty, who gave himself as a ransom for us. Let us either obey him as wise and seeing what is good for us, or bear with him as one who loves us, or repay him as our benefactor. In every way let us do what has been commanded us, that we may become heirs of eternal life in Christ himself, to whom be glory and might for ever and ever. Amen.

"The lion will roar, and who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken, and who will not prophesy?" Let us make the opening of our discourse prophetic, and take the inspired Amos as our helper for the needs before us, since he treated sufferings like the evils that trouble us, setting out his counsel and judgment about what is good for us. For the prophet himself, in the course of earlier times, when the people had left their ancestral piety, trampled on the exactness of the laws and slipped into the worship of idols, became a herald of repentance, urging them to turn back and holding out the threat of punishments. For my part, let it be my prayer to imitate the old story up to a point, but not to see the outcome of what happened then follow. For the people disobeyed, and like a hard-mouthed, unruly colt that has taken the bit in its teeth, it was not drawn to its own good; turning aside from the straight road, it ran so wildly and so defied its driver that it suffered … [falling] into chasms and cliffs. May that not happen now to us, my children, whom I begot through the gospel, whom I swaddled through the blessing of my hands. But let there be a grateful ear, an obedient soul, receiving the exhortations softly, yielding to the speaker as wax to the seal, so that by this one effort I may receive a fruit of my labors that gladdens me, and you, at the time of deliverance from these terrors, may praise the exhortation given. What then is it that the discourse is pointing to, and still holds your souls in suspense with the expectation of hearing, delaying to make public what you expect?