Tractates 18

[Or] the reply of the holy bishop to Serminius on the steward of iniquity. Gaudentius the bishop to Serminius, servant of Christ. It always befits a wise man to think on the sayings of wisdom and to bend every sharpness of his wit and every vigour of his mind to understanding them. And therefore you, who are both learned in the letters of worldly wisdom and have learned the true wisdom of God through the sacred letters, do not cease to devote your efforts to searching out the inner meanings of the words of Christ, whom you know, as the Apostle teaches, to be the power of God and the wisdom of God. For among the other oracles of the divine Law, whose discussion you often demand, you have asked this in particular: that I should explain in writing of my own the very difficult parable of the steward of iniquity, of which none of us seemed to you a fit interpreter. You wish the explanation itself to be committed to writing perhaps so that you may hold a signed copy of my answer on a chapter which, as you yourself admit, is most obscure. But I shall not be afraid, being asked, either to say or even to write what I think, as far as the littleness of my understanding allows, without prejudice to the faith.

And first, dearest one, the words of the reading itself must be set down, and only then the meaning of what is said opened. Blessed Luke records in the book of his Gospel: "The Lord Jesus," he says, "told a parable to his disciples: There was a certain rich man who had a steward; and he was accused to him of wasting his goods. And he called him and said to him: What is this I hear of you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward. And the steward said within himself: What shall I do, since my lord is taking the stewardship from me? I am not able to dig; I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the stewardship they may receive me into their houses. And calling each of his lord's debtors, he said to the first: How much do you owe my lord? And he said: A hundred baths of oil. And he said to him: Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty. Then to another: And how much do you owe? And he said: A hundred cors of wheat. And he said to him: Take your bill, and write eighty. And the lord praised the steward of iniquity because he had acted prudently; for the sons of this world are more prudent in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you: Make friends for yourselves of the mammon of iniquity, so that when you fail they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles. He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in a very little is unjust also in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unjust mammon, who will entrust to you what is true? And if you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is your own? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will bear with the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

It belongs to a perfect teacher, in instructing his disciples, to set before them likenesses of things that are frequent in the life of the human race, so that a fit hearer may be shaped for zeal in working by the teaching of the comparison, and may not hesitate to undertake the work which the image of the parable has shown to be possible and necessary. And therefore the Lord Jesus, the true teacher of saving commandments, wishing to stir up his disciples, whether the apostles then or all believers now, to practise almsgiving faithfully, set before them the likeness of a steward, so as to signify by the example of this person that nothing in this world is ours, but that the stewardship of our Lord's goods has been entrusted to us, either to use of them sufficiently with thanksgiving or to distribute to our fellow servants as each has need; and that we may not abuse at random the goods entrusted to us, or usurp them for superfluous expenses, since an account of the spending must be rendered to the Lord when he comes. Finally, after the end of the parable he added thus: "And I say to you: Make friends for yourselves of the mammon of iniquity, so that when you fail they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles"; that is, make the poor your friends out of the earthly goods which the iniquity of human avarice claims for itself, so as not to share anything of them with men of God. For in the Syrian tongue riches or wealth are called mammon. "Make for yourselves, then," he says, "friends" of the poor "out of the mammon of iniquity, so that when you fail," the same substance having been spent and used up on the needs of the poor, "they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles": those same poor, namely, the friends who win salvation for us, in whom Christ the eternal rewarder will declare that he received the services of this kindness. They will receive us, then, not wholly the poor themselves by themselves, but through him who is refreshed in them by the fruit of our obedience and faith, and who will receive the ministers of this kindness into the eternal tabernacles of the heavenly kingdom. For he says: "Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the origin of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; naked and you clothed me; sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me." And when they modestly and reverently excuse themselves, "Lord, when did we see you in these needs and minister to you?", he will answer, saying: "Amen I say to you, when you did it to one of these least, you did it to me." Let it not seem absurd to anyone, then, that those are said to receive us for whose sake we are received, since our receiver himself, the Lord Jesus, who is not subject to human needs, declares that in them he was hungry and thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, and in prison.

"Make friends for yourselves, then," he says, "of the mammon of iniquity, so that when you fail they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles." And a little after: "If you have not been faithful in the unjust mammon, who will entrust to you what is true?" For indeed, dearly beloved, who would think that the true riches of heavenly things, which a faithful and just distributor duly and deservedly enjoys, should be entrusted to one who does not know how to dispense faithfully earthly goods, which commonly furnish the material of iniquity? For "glory and riches are in his house, and his righteousness remains for ever." Then the Lord's saying is immediately joined thus: "And if you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is your own?" For certainly whatever is in this world is another's to us, who, hoping for the future reward, are commanded to live in this world as guests and strangers, so that each of us may dare to confess to the Lord without anxiety: "I am a sojourner and a stranger, like all my fathers." But the proper and eternal possession of believers is that heavenly one, where we know that our heart and our treasure are; where we now presume to dwell by faith with the whole affection of our mind, since, according to the teaching of blessed Paul, "our citizenship is in heaven." The kingdom of heaven, then, is ours if we serve the Lord who promises it in humility of heart and gentleness of spirit. "For blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This kingdom cannot be obtained by anyone who has not been a fit and faithful steward of the property of this world, which belongs to another and has been entrusted to him for a time; hence the Lord said in another place: "How hard it is for those who have money to enter the kingdom of God!" And at the end of this reading he says: "You cannot serve God and mammon." For the servants and disciples of God, of Christ, must rule over money, not serve it; lest, while we obey the desire for it, we be separated from the love of his service by the dominion of money. Money must therefore be scattered to the needy according to the command of God, the Creator of all, since it is neither ours, nor does any greedy man hold it without iniquity and his own ruin. For according to the Saviour's sentence it shuts the entrance of the kingdom of heaven to those who keep it, and "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God": that rich man, namely, who through the horror of shameful avarice is weaker than a camel. Heavy is the burden of money, which presses down to earth with the weight of avarice the minds of those who cling to it, and does not at all allow them to rise to things above and look up to heaven, where our life is; while the blessed Apostle teaches: "If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory." And since the way that leads to life is strait and narrow, it does not allow those loaded with bundles of earthly riches to enter by it. It seeks those who are unencumbered and slender, chastened by every continence, and (so to speak) like a thin thread, who, made spiritual, may pass easily even through the eye of that mystical needle.

This is the meaning and the use of this parable, which must first be obeyed, as it commands; and only then the more secret understanding, if it can be found, is to be sought; because "the kingdom of God is not in word but in power," and "not the hearers only, but the doers of the Law will be justified before God"; nor can anyone clearly comprehend the inner knowledge of the divine oracle, as the Apostle declares: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?" And in another place, when he perceived the very great mystery of the divine word concerning Adam and Eve and could not speak it worthily, he says: "This mystery is great; but I speak with reference to Christ and the church." Do you want to know that one comes to eternal life not through knowledge of secrets but through the performance of good works? The Lord in the Gospel answered a certain rich man who asked him: "If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments." And when he boasted that he had kept them all, yet one commandment could not be wrung from him for the present: that he should be merciful to the poor and transfer his treasure to heaven; for as soon as he heard this saying he went away sad. And not without reason sad, because, possessed by the evil of avarice, he could not possess the joy of the heavenly treasure. Surely "the root of all evils is the love of money," as the Apostle groans, "which some coveting have strayed from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows." For he suffers a ruinous error of faith and pierces himself with many sorrows who, like this young man, departs from Christ for love of earthly things, while he evades his commandment, while, sad and mourning, he is led by voluntary blindness away from the sight of the Lord to the punishments prepared for the avaricious and the despisers. For to those placed on the left for their unfruitfulness it will be said: "Depart from me into the eternal fire, which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels; for when you did not show mercy to the needy, you did not do it to me."

I come now to what you demanded of me so insistently, and I shall tell, with what brevity I can, what I think about it, without prejudging anyone, however he may wish to interpret it, provided that his explanation does not infringe the tradition of the apostolic faith. I think the steward of iniquity is the devil, who has been let loose in this world for the correction of the human race, so that, fleeing the savagery of this most cruel steward, we may run in supplication to the kindness of God, by whose mercy and power we can be defended against all his attacks; since this steward too is set under the power of the Lord God, that truly rich man who, as the Apostle teaches, "is rich toward all and above all who call upon him; for everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved." The devil wastes his Lord's goods when he rages for the destruction of the human race, that is, for the death of us who are God's possession, as the Son of God himself testifies, recounting his Father's words through the prophet: "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession." And again: "For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, and Israel for his possession." God, then, seeing that the demon's audacity had broken out so far that he had usurped and slain those whom he had been permitted only to tempt for the sake of correction, threatens him with expulsion, so that his savagery may be broken by the fear of the threatened vengeance. But that most wicked one, counting the death of men his gain, burns with anxiety because the Lord was about to take from him the power of ruling; and since he neither wishes to do good nor, repenting, is ashamed to ask for mercy, he contrives how he may succeed not only in pursuing his Lord's debtors (that is, those entangled in the debts of sins) in open battle, but also in deceiving them with a flattering fraud under the pretext of a false benevolence, so that, seduced by a false kindness, they may the more receive him into their houses, to be judged with him for ever. For the devil thinks it a great remedy for his own punishments if he gains many companions in punishment. For the cunning enemy, troubled at the coming and threatening of Christ, devised with poisoned counsel how even those who fled him when he pursued might follow him when he gives way. For he hastens by new arts and various kinds of temptations to trip up men, from whose dominion he knows he must be wholly removed at the end of the world. For after the coming of Christ he is inflamed with doubled fury against the race of men, knowing that he has little time, as is written of him.

He falsely promises to remit the debts of his fellow servants, which are in the Lord's power, when he promises a vain indulgence to those who sin either in faith or in works; when he persuades them that those crimes are not imputed as sin which even those who commit them know to be grave. For they confess the amount of their debt, since they cannot deny that they are wholly liable to God, both for faith despised and for works neglected. But those who render to God what is God's are no longer God's debtors. Nor should you wonder that he so lies to men about the remission of debts, men whom by this art he tries the more subtly to kill, he who dared to promise the kingdoms of the world to Christ, the Creator of all things, impudently asserting that they were his: "All these are mine," he says, "and I give them to whom I will. If you fall down and worship me, all will be yours." O unspeakable patience of Christ, which allows the tempter to speak so that he might show in himself, to the man he had assumed, the art of fighting and conquering! O unbridled audacity of the lying devil! He perceives God and tempts him; he knows the Lord of the whole creation, to whom he lies that the kingdoms of the world are his; and he promises to give the possession of created things to him through whom, he well knows, all things were created. For "from the beginning," as it is written, the devil "was a murderer, and did not stand in the truth, because the truth is not in him."

But now let us come to the very kinds of goods about which the question is asked. The wheat, as we touched on above, is faith in Christ, the beginning of human life. For he is "the living bread which came down from heaven and gives life to this world." And again he himself says: "He who believes in me, though he die, will live." The oil is good works, which those foolish virgins did not have, and so, the lamps of their souls being extinguished, they remained in darkness, shut out from the bridal chamber of the heavenly kingdom. For our souls must not only be virgin and whole in faith, but must also always carry with them in their vessels the oil of every good work, lest the lamps of faith in us be extinguished by lack of works. For "as the body without the soul, so faith without works is dead," according to the sentence of holy James. For the light of faith will be continual and perpetual if it is fed abundantly with the richness of good works. The devil, then, circumvents the race of men with false promises, so that they do not recognize the debt of faith and works, until by the sentence of the Lord the Judge they are thrust back into the prison of hell, to be exacted by punishments to the last farthing. And that he persuades the hundred measures of oil, that is, of works, to be written as fifty, and compels the hundred cors of wheat, that is, of faith, to be transferred to eighty: this is a more hidden fraud and a very subtle circumvention of the enemy; when he entangles men drawn back from idolatry in various errors of pernicious doctrines, lessening the sum of saving faith; and trips up with the pestilent love of boasting those who have turned from wicked acts and wish to persist in good works. For he tries to twist our faith and our works from the number one hundred, which is perfect and set on the right hand, to the deceitful savings of the left side; perverting the apostolic faith by the sinister sense of heretical persuasion, and often leading the merits of good works and right-handed deeds into sinister ways. For how many has the devil loosened from the vigour of the right side, by sinister warnings, into the vices of carnal pleasures! How many, eager to pay the spiritual debts of religion by works, has he deprived of the heavenly reward by casting in the desire for human glory, so that they do not seize the rewards promised to the right hand, while in their very good works they hasten to please not God but men! Hence Christ the Lord, warning his disciples not to dare to perform their righteousness, alms, fasts and prayers before men, lest through the vice of boasting, which perishes on the left, they should lose the reward of the right side, says: "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand does." It is plainly clear, then, with what poisoned prudence that steward of iniquity changes the owed offices of religion from the right side to the left.

Nor is it idle that a greater amount is lost to the Lord, to whom we are debtors, from the works figured by the oil than from the wheat compared to the type of living faith. For the crowd is smaller which is drawn away by the devil's fraud from right faith than that drawn away from fitting works, as the Saviour testifies: "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?" The Lord praises not the goodness, not the kindness, not the equity, but the cunning and crafty prudence of the steward of iniquity, because he had contrived his deceit subtly. He praises him, however, threateningly and prudently at once: threateningly, in that by the very word "iniquity" he condemns the devil's most evil prudence; prudently, in that he trains the disciples who hear against the counsels of his schemes, so that with all caution and prudence they may resist so cunning, so wickedly prudent an enemy. For he was the serpent in paradise, more prudent than all the beasts, who slew the first-formed men with the poisoned bite of seduction. Blessed Paul, detecting the twisted wit of this serpent, says: "For we are not ignorant of his schemes." Hence the Saviour too: "Be prudent," he says, "as serpents, and simple as doves"; which the apostle Paul sets out in other words when he says: "Be little children in malice, that you may be perfect in understanding." Christ commanded us to be prudent, not poisonous; wise, not harmful; but such as, putting off the old tunic of sin like a snake, may be re-formed into the new man; guarding our head, which is Christ, with all diligence, and handing over all our limbs for his sake to be torn by persecutors, so that the faith of God, which is the head of our salvation and life, may remain sound and unwounded.

Therefore, dearly beloved, let us imitate the prudence of this steward, not his faithlessness; let us emulate his cunning, not follow his wickedness. As skilled as he is in doing harm in the work of his iniquity, so instructed by saving studies, furnished and armed with all prudence, ought we to be: "putting on the breastplate of faith and the helmet of salvation," and "the sword of the spirit," and the impregnable shield of equity, with which we may, as the Apostle urges, "extinguish all the fiery darts of the evil one"; lest he pierce us anywhere, unwary, with the darts of his suggestions; lest he overwhelm us unarmed; lest he kill us sleeping; lest he slay us even when awake and armed, if we do not know the practice of war. For sometimes the unclean spirits, whom the Lord calls sons of this world, that is, sons of darkness, are found more prudent than the sons of light, whom God, who is light, deigns to call into the adoption of sons, reborn through the sacraments of the heavenly washing. Farewell in Christ, dearest son.