Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 56.5–56.6

So that this may not happen, then, let us put off the filthy garments, let us put on the armor of light, and the glory of God will clothe us. For what is burdensome in the commands? What is not easy? Hear the prophet saying it, at any rate, and then you will know how easy it is. “Not even if you bend your neck like a ring, and spread sackcloth and ashes under you, not even so will you call it an acceptable fast; but loose every bond of injustice, undo the knots of violent contracts.” See the prophet’s wisdom. For having first set down the burdensome things and removed them, he asks that we be saved by the easy ones, showing that God does not need labors but obedience. Then, showing that virtue is easy, but wickedness heavy and burdensome, he establishes this from the bare names. For wickedness is a bond and a knot, he says; but virtue is release and loosing from all these. “Tear up every unjust document”: so he calls the bills of interest and of loans. “Send away the crushed in release,” the afflicted. For such is the debtor: when he sees the lender, his mind is broken, and he fears him more than a wild beast. “Bring the homeless poor into your house; if you see one naked, cover him, and do not overlook those of your own seed.” In our discourse the other day, then, describing the prizes, we showed the wealth that comes from these things; but now let us see whether any of the commands is difficult and exceeds our nature. But we shall find nothing of the kind, but quite the opposite: these have great ease, but the things of wickedness much sweat. For what is more troublesome than lending at interest, and worrying about interest and contracts, and demanding sureties, and fearing and trembling about pledges, about the principal, about the documents, about the interest, about the guarantors? For such are the things of this life. For this seeming and contrived security is more rotten than anything and suspect; but showing mercy is easy, and frees one from every care. Let us not, then, make a trade of other people’s misfortunes, nor huckster our love for mankind. And I know that many hear these words with displeasure; but what is the gain of silence? For even if I keep silent and do not trouble you at all with words, it is impossible by this silence to free you from punishment; but quite the contrary comes of it: the vengeance is intensified, and such silence procures punishment not for you alone but for me too. What, then, is the charm of words, when it does not help deeds but even harms them? What is the gain in delighting with a word and grieving in fact? In pleasing the ear and punishing the soul? That is why it is necessary to grieve you here, so that we may not pay the penalty there. For indeed a dreadful disease, beloved, dreadful and needing much treatment, has fallen upon the church. For those who are commanded not even to treasure up from honest labors, but to open their houses to those in need, reap profit from the poverty of others, devising a respectable robbery, a well-excused covetousness. For do not tell me of the laws of those outside; since the tax collector too fulfills the law of those outside, but nevertheless is punished. This we too shall suffer, unless we cease wearing out the poor and using their need and necessity as an occasion for shameless huckstering. For you have money for this reason, to relieve poverty, not to trade on poverty; but you, under pretext of consolation, make the misfortune greater, and sell your love for mankind for money. Sell it—I do not forbid—but for the kingdom of the heavens. Do not take a small price for so great an achievement, interest at one in a hundred, but that immortal life. Why are you poor and needy and petty, selling great things for little, for money that perishes, when you should sell them for a kingdom that always remains? Why, leaving God, do you make human gains? Why, passing by the one who is rich, do you trouble the one who has nothing, and leaving the one who repays, do you make contracts with the ungrateful? He wishes to repay; but this one is even displeased when he repays. This one hardly repays the hundredth; but he a hundredfold, and eternal life. This one with insults and revilings; he with praises and acclamation. This one stirs up envy against you; he even weaves crowns for you. This one hardly here; but he both there and here. Is this not, then, the height of folly, not even to know how to make a profit? How many have lost even the principal because of interest! How many have fallen into dangers because of interest! How many have thrown both themselves and others into the utmost poverty because of their unspeakable covetousness!

For do not tell me that he is glad to receive it, and is grateful for the loan. This happens because of your cruelty. For Abraham too, giving up his wife to the barbarians, himself contrived that the plot should be readily accepted; yet not willingly, but because of fear of Pharaoh. So too the poor man, since you do not think him worthy even of this, is compelled to be grateful even for cruelty. But you seem to me, even if you were to free him from dangers, to demand of him a fee for this deliverance. “Away with it,” you say, “God forbid.” What are you saying? Freeing him from the greater thing, you do not wish to demand money; but for the lesser you show such inhumanity? Do you not see how great a punishment is laid down for the thing? Do you not hear that even in the Old Testament this was forbidden? But what is the argument of the many? “Having taken the interest, I give it to a poor man,” he says. Hush, man; God does not want such sacrifices. Do not play the sophist with the law. It is better not to give to a poor man than to give from this source. For the money gathered from honest labors you often make lawless through its wicked offspring; as if one were to force a good womb to bear scorpions. And why do I speak of the law of God? Do you not yourselves call it filth? And if you who make the gains vote so, consider what verdict God will give about you. And if you wish to ask the lawgivers outside too, you will hear that to them also the thing seems a sign of the utmost shamelessness. Those, at any rate, who are in high office and in the great … … not to disgrace themselves with such gains; but there is a law for them that forbids such gains. How then is it not worthy of shuddering, if you do not render even so much honor to the commonwealth of the heavens as the lawgivers to the senate of the Romans, but heaven will count for less with you than earth, and you are not even ashamed of the senselessness of the thing? For what could be more senseless than this, unless one tried to sow without earth and rain and plough? That is why those who devised this wicked farming reap tares, which are handed over to the fire. For are there not many just trades: those of fields, of flocks, of herds, of cattle, of the hands, of the care of possessions? Why do you rave and act madly, farming thorns to no purpose? “But the fruits of the earth have failures, hail and blight and floods.” But not so many as interest has. And whatever such things happen, the loss concerns the yield; the principal stands, the field. But here many have often suffered shipwreck in the principal; and even before the loss they are in continual despondency. For the lender never enjoys what he has, nor is he glad at it; but when the interest is brought, he does not rejoice that there has been income, but grieves that the interest has not yet equalled the principal. And before this evil offspring is fully born, he compels it too to bear, making the interest principal, and forcing it to bring forth the untimely and abortive offspring of vipers. For such is interest: more than those wild beasts it devours and tears the souls of the wretched. This is the bond of injustice; this is the knot of violent contracts. “For I give,” he says, “not that you may receive, but that you may repay more.” And God does not command even what is given [to be demanded back]: “For give,” he says, “to those from whom you do not expect to receive”; but you demand even more than what was given, and what you did not give you compel the borrower to pay down as owed. And you think that your substance increases from this; but in place of substance you kindle the unquenchable fire. So that this may not happen, then, let us cut out the wicked womb of interest, let us stop up these lawless birth pangs, let us dry up this deadly belly, and pursue only the true and great gains. And what are these? Hear Paul saying, “Great gain is godliness with contentment.” Let us be rich, then, in this wealth alone, so that we may enjoy security here and attain the good things to come, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.