Sermons 123–125

[On the same.] It is the mark of a shameless debtor either to put off what was lent or to deny what was promised; of an honest one, to pay both without delay and at once. We promised to pay back all that remains about that rich man, who, though he seemed harsh toward Lazarus, was more savage and cruel toward himself. Up to this point both the holy evangelist and our sermon, as far as it could, have set out what the rich man said to Abraham. It was said: “And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham far off, and crying out he said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” Abraham now answers him: “Son, you received good things in your life” (Luke 16). O wonderful kindness! He still calls him son whom he sees has so degenerated by his own cruelty. O singular goodness! He still calls him son whom he saw as hell's homeborn slave, the offspring of punishments, already the lowest chattel of Gehenna. But he calls him son so that the son's impiety may be exposed all the more, when the kindness of fatherly speech continues even toward such a one. “You call me father; I call you son, so that you may grieve bitterly at having lost what you were born to. I still call you son, so that you may grieve more bitterly at having lost what grace and nature had given you; for not to have had something is not so great a grief as to have lost what one had. I call you son, so that you may understand that what you suffer is from judgment, not from rage; I call you son, so that my patience may remain in me, and your punishment in you.” But this man understands, brothers, that he is no son, who admits and weighs that it is by his own desert that he lost by nature so kind a father. He would then certainly have answered to his lineage if he had been kind, hospitable, merciful, humane toward the poor man. Whoever does not do his parent's works denies his lineage, as the Lord teaches: “If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham” (John 8). He proves the faithfulness of his lineage who stands as defender of his father's work. But what does Abraham say? “Son, you received good things in your life.” If this rich man's crime is so great because he received good things, how guilty is he who seizes what is not owed? If he is so criminal who shuts up his own goods, who does not give what he has received, how deserving of punishment is he who broods over his own and invades the goods of others? Brothers, let us give what is ours, if indeed it is ours; let us at any rate give what we think is ours; let us avoid what belongs to others, let us turn away from what is not ours; certainly, if we have taken anything from anyone, let us return it with all speed, lest, leaving everything here, poor in wealth and rich in crime, we be brought there to this rich man. Let the rich man learn, however, that he received good things back, not that he received them as a gift. You see, brothers, that by the word of holy Abraham this rich man's mind is exposed, his thinking convicted, his understanding punished, since he believed that whatever he possessed by the Lord's bounty was not given to him but paid back to him. Understand with what thought he walked, with what heart he went about, who believed God to be his debtor, and in his evil wealth made his Lord liable to his own interest, not knowing that the Lord, though he walked poor on earth, ascended rich into heaven. And he gave, he did not receive on loan, who gave five talents to one, two to another, one to another; and so he promises to exact interest, not to pay it, when he says to the servant: “Wicked and slothful servant, you should have given my money to the bankers, and when I came I would have demanded it with interest” (Matt 25). For this reason this rich man is the more impious, because he was not kind to another: even though he received good things, he unworthily received good things not for good but for evil. But let us pass on to Lazarus and ask what is meant when he says: “And Lazarus likewise received evil things.” And let it suffice for merit and abound for glory, if he did not do good things but received evil things. Truly blessed, brothers, is the one who believes faithfully that he receives good things from God as a gift and receives evil things back as due. Blessed is he who always pays God what he owes; certainly, if he cannot, let him with all humility at least ask that his whole debt be forgiven, as the Lord himself teaches: “Say: Forgive us our debts” (Matt 6). Blessed is he who pays God what he owes even when he does not understand that he contracted the debt, as the prophet teaches more deeply when he says: “What I did not steal I then paid back” (Ps 69:4 [LXX 68:5]). Blessed is he who always accuses himself before God in order to excuse himself, as Scripture admonishes: “The just man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech” (Prov 18:17, following the LXX). And if he is just, why does the just man accuse himself? Because “no one living will be justified in your sight” (Ps 143:2 [LXX 142:2]). A man may perhaps boast before a man of his righteousness, his innocence, his merit; before God, the one who vaunts his innocence and glories in his righteousness is not a man. Hence that Pharisee, when he does not pray but counts up his righteous deeds, credits them to himself and belches them out, goes away unjust and worse than the tax collector (Luke 18). But let us come to the rest. “But now,” he says, “he is comforted here, and you are tormented.” See, brothers, understand, brothers, from what has been said, that though the just and the unjust were distinguished by place, one region of the underworld still held them; and though a great chasm already separated them, the heavenly dwelling did not yet separate them; and though a grim gulf divided them, the heights above appointed for the angels were not yet assigned to them. A flaming sword (as the lawgiver reports) turned at the gate of paradise so that no access lay open to man (Gen 3); the gates of the underworld were shut, barred with bronze doors and iron bolts, so that no way out lay open to the souls that had been cast down there from above. For the bond of the ancestral debt, which made each one liable to death, was held written with the pen of guilt and the very ink of the offence, and its interest ran on for many ages to the harm of the offspring. Nor was anyone fit to enter paradise, to quench the flame divinely set there, to open the barred gates of hell, or to cancel the bond that was kept shut up in the chest of the law by God's command. Hence the Lord himself, who had exiled the first man, that is, the rebellious servant, came; the Lord himself, who had barred paradise and shut hell, came down to earth and to the underworld with all power, to quench what was kindled, to open at once what was shut, to blot out the crime of the first-formed man. Hence he carries the battering ram of his cross as he goes to attack hell, to crush and shatter the very gates of Tartarus fortified with bronze and iron. From his side he pours out water to ease the way to paradise, to quench the fire of hell on the side of the saints, to wash away the whole bond of the debt and cancel the old one, and by suffering to remit what he himself had imposed by inflicting it. Recognize, brothers, rejoice, brothers, that after Christ's triumph the custody of the saints was dissolved, and that nothing more is owed to hell by the saints, since Christ penetrated even to the underworld to set free the just, not the unjust. Let us understand, brothers, how much Christ has profited us; indeed, that without Christ there was no salvation at all, since, besides this dissolution of bodies, the souls of the saints too were held bound in the underworld. Blessed therefore is Lazarus, who owed everything to God so as to owe nothing to crime. Blessed, because he received so many evils here that there he might possess all good things. “And Abraham added, saying: No one can cross from here to you, nor pass over from there to here.” It frightens, brothers, the hearing of this word frightens us exceedingly, for it shows that after death those once assigned to the custody of punishment in the underworld cannot be transferred to the rest of the saints, unless, already redeemed by the grace of Christ, they are freed from this hopelessness by the intercession of the holy Church; so that what the sentence denies, the Church may obtain and grace may grant. Here, however, the rich man still asks and says: “Father Abraham.” He still calls him father, who by his deserts has so lost both father and homeland. “Father Abraham.” Here the wretch lies even in punishment. “Father Abraham, send him to my father's house.” If he truly calls this man father, whose father's house is he then seeking? Unless perhaps he thinks he has as father in absence the one he sees he has so lost in presence, and so believes that the house of that father is kept for him for the sake of the one whose bosom he sees denied to him there, whose rest he sees refused. “Father Abraham, send him.” Whom? Lazarus, of course. Where? “To my father's house.” Now, and too late, the rich man invites Lazarus to his father's house, not merciful but to be pitied, whom all the time of his wealth he did not take in when he lay at his gate begging for compassion; and under a show of kindness he wants Lazarus to go back to his old wounds and his past groans, when by his first petition he could not call him down to his own torments. Before, he said, “Send him to me”; now he says, “Send him to my brothers.” The unhappy man grieves and acts lest he see happy the one he once thought unhappy. “Send him to my brothers.” Where? “To my father's house.” Why? “For I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torments.” Kind to whom, he who is so unkind to himself? Shamelessly he presumes to obtain repentance for others, who so cruelly made no provision for pardon for himself. “Send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers.” And do you think Lazarus will be enough for your five brothers, who for so long, with so many wounds, crying out with his whole body, did you no good? Rightly Abraham answered him: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” Let Lazarus rest after such great labors, and you bewail your punishments, which you bear by your own desert. God, however, provided long ago for the salvation of your brothers and of all, not by your counsel but by his own gift: he gave the law through Moses, he granted prophecy through Elijah; let them hear them, therefore, so that they may not feel your torments. The rich man answered: “No, father Abraham, but if someone rises from the dead, they will believe him.” Abraham answered him: “If they do not believe Moses and Elijah, neither will they believe if someone rises from the dead.” Nothing is so true, brothers: whoever would not believe him who spoke from heaven through the law, nor Christ who came from heaven, will not now deserve to believe one returning from the underworld. Christ himself, brothers, our God and Lord, spoke to Moses from heaven; he himself spoke on earth in an earthly body; he himself returned from the underworld with an earthly body; and yet, when he told what good things are in heaven and what evils are in the underworld, the brothers of that rich man, who are understood to be among the Jewish peoples, refused with all obstinacy to believe. But, brothers, since time does not allow us now to say who the rich man is, or who Lazarus the poor man is, and who the rich man's five brothers are, nor permits us to open what spiritual meaning lies hidden in this story, being taught by Christ what awaits the just with him and what awaits the unjust in the underworld, let us act, let us run, in word, in deed, in mercy, so that we may lay hold of the good things above and, terrified, avoid and turn away from the evils.

[On the same.] As often as God sets before us the rich man in purple, as often as the wounded poor man is presented to us, so often is the arena of mercy opened to us, so often is the stadium of kindness laid open, so that from a heavenly spectacle we may observe how quickly the poor man came to the palm and the rich man to ruin. “There was,” it says, “a rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, longing to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table” (Luke 16). The rich man was clothed in purple, the poor man in bruises; the rich man in fine linen, the poor man in filth; the rich man in gold, the poor man in stench; the rich man reclined on a feather-cushioned couch, the poor man lay on the hardest ground; the rich man belched out banquets, the poor man gasped out pus; the rich man poured out wines, the poor man tears; the rich man, sated, threw away loaves, the poor man, starving, did not have crumbs; the rich man fed with his dishes the dogs that barked at the poor man, the poor man filled the rich man's dogs with his wounds. In short, we read that all good things came to the rich man and all evil things to the poor; yet adversity did not break the poor man, nor did all prosperity profit the rich. Rather, poverty advanced the poor man to wisdom, pain to virtue, contempt to patience, necessity to free will, hunger to fasting, thirst to endurance, death to life, punishment to reward, earth to heaven, want to the kingdom; and so purple raised the rich man to pride, fine linen to luxury, plenty to inhumanity, abundance to impiety, perfumes to languor, splendor to blindness, loftiness to ruin. Therefore neither does prosperity raise up the slothful nor adversity lay low the strong: for neither riches nor poverty, but the mind either leads the grateful to reward or leads the ungrateful down to punishment. The poor man, full of sores, is set at the rich man's gate; and this happens not by human chance but by divine judgment, so that the contest of rich and poor might be on earth, and the spectacle remain in heaven. The rich man stood fully clad in the armor of riches; against him the poor man lay clothed only in his flesh, unless perhaps the one wound of his whole body was his breastplate. The rich man lingered among choirs of slaves; the poor man, stripped of his skin, was driven by the goads of pain. The rich man hurled the darts of impiety; Lazarus set against them the shield of compassion. The rich man aimed his cruelty at the poor man's wound; the poor man's strength frustrated the rich man's guilty soul, because, as his body failed him, his whole strength passed into his soul, and, trampling his flesh, the whole warrior rose up into the spirit, so that the rich man's cruelty might find nowhere to strike. For God had arranged this, that the rich man should always be before the poor man's eyes and the poor man before the rich man's, so that each in turn might care for the other's different sickness. The poor man was sick in body, the rich man in mind. Hence the poor man's cure was put off, so that the rich man might take medicine from the wound, compunction from the groaning, repentance from the tears, an example from the patience, mercy from the hunger, feeling from the thirst, and, in sum, a share in heaven from compassion on earth: certainly, so that the rich man, supported by such great goods, might be pleasing to God, when the poor man, in all his evils, remained pleasing to God before the rich man's eyes. Rightly then he who lay prostrate was carried by angels; he who mourned was comforted in Abraham's lap; and he who did not know how to live for himself in the world lives for God forever. “It came to pass,” it says, “that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died, and was buried in hell.” The wretch received the burial of his soul before that of his body, and was handed over to the tomb of punishment before his body was laid to rest, so that he who once died to life might live forever for punishment. “And he was buried in hell; and he saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom.” What a reversal of things! Where the rich man went down, where the poor man went up! There he looks up to the one he looked down on here; and from hell he sees in Abraham's bosom the one he did not see lying before him from his proud couch. “Father Abraham, have mercy on me.” Foolishly he asks mercy from the father which he had denied to his brother. “Have mercy on me.” What has mercy to do with him, for whom everything has now turned to punishment? Or what supplication to the father can help him, whose accuser rests in the father's bosom? Lazarus holds the father's breast and knocks at all the fairness of that holy heart, so that he may keep himself father of the good son and judge of the bad. “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” “Send Lazarus”: so that he who is the cause of my torment, now a minister of refreshment, may himself hold out to me the comfort of the tip of his finger, to whom, as he lay there, I then refused all the comfort of my hand. “And send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” So he thirsts for a drop who poured out vats of wine while the poor man thirsted; and he thinks a drop from the tip of a finger can quench the flames of Gehenna, who by measures all day long did not quench the fires of drunkenness. But he asks this drop to be given him for refreshment, which he had refused for the poor man's burning. That drop, rich man, is what makes you cruel; that drop it is which, refused by you, dried up the mouth of Lazarus, for a drop is enough to refresh the body, and a crumb. “Longing,” it says, “to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the table.” Bread was scattered, wine was poured out, and what was refused to the poor man for the last of his life all went to waste for the rich man's pomp. “And send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” The tongue is in the head, the head of evil; it disparages the needy, insults the poor, barks at kindness, carps at mercy; and rightly it is first in Gehenna, foremost in torment, leader of punishments, because it forbade mercy, which had been given the power to command it. And although the order of the reading compels me to say, and invites you to hear, who the rich man in purple is, who Lazarus the poor man is, who the five brothers of the rich man are, and how the rich man feels the torments of Gehenna before the day of judgment, yet grief calls me back to say: “The rich man died and was buried in hell.” And if there is a prison under the earth, if there is a burning furnace, if there is an underworld tormenting without end, if there is a grim officer to snatch us to these things after the labors of this age, why are we stupefied? Where are we? What is this sleep that mocks us? What is this deadly forgetfulness that holds us? Why is it not our only care, despising all things, to escape such evils, so that, living for the world and running after other things, we may not suddenly be snatched away to such great, such terrible, such cruel punishments? And if there is a possibility of ascending to the things above, if there is a means of living in heaven, if Abraham's bosom is prepared as a rest for all the good, if Lazarus is in the bosom of so great a father, indeed, since there is no doubt where places, persons and names are described, why do we not exchange earth for heaven? Why do we not buy eternal things with perishable ones? Why do we not purchase lasting things with things that will perish? So that we may both avoid the punishments of hell and see broadly, have and hold, what we now long to hear of in narrow terms.

[On the unjust steward.] Salt is indeed a wholesome seasoning for all foods, if measure is not lacking; otherwise, without measure, it is itself lost and ruins what it has salted, for excess makes bitter what measure could have seasoned. So the understanding that is in us, if it keeps measure, gives savor, brings forth insight, begets prudence, enlarges the heart, increases the mind, ripens what is to be said, orders what is to be heard, and becomes sweet to itself and the whole fullness of sweetness to those who taste it; and plainly that understanding will be honeyed which brings forth nothing bitter from the mouth. We have said this first so that in the meanings of the Gospel we may keep the measure of our understanding restrained, so that it may not spoil the life-giving food, the divine pasture, the heavenly savor, but guard it for us with the most careful sobriety, according to the Apostle's word: “Not to be wise beyond what one ought to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety” (Rom 12). But now let us hear what the Lord said: “There was a certain rich man” (Luke 16). And who was this man if not Christ? Who was rich, if not he who in our poverty possessed all the riches of creation? “There was a certain rich man.” He often pressed this on the Jews, so that they might understand that a wealthy Godhead was in him whose lot was human poverty. “He was rich.” He was rich in his majesty, who in the eyes of the Jews was poor. And how was he not rich, whom angels served, whom powers obeyed, whom the elements served, and at whose command things that were not came to be, and when called came? “There was a certain rich man, and he had a steward.” Whom, if not man, to whom the whole estate had been committed to cultivate the world? “There was a certain rich man, and he had a steward, and this man was accused to him.” As if he did not know beforehand, as if he did not foresee, he to whom hidden things are known, before whose eyes even what is covered is naked! “And this man was accused to him.” Did he then believe a report? Did he learn it from rumor? Far from it. But the things he knew, which he veiled in kindness, he began to examine when the earth accused: “The voice of your brother's blood cries out from the earth” (Gen 4); the earth cried out, heaven cried out, the angels grieved, when the whole report of the world was already speaking. “And this man was accused to him of having squandered his property.” Before, we read that the younger son of this man squandered his substance; now the steward is said to have squandered his goods. As Christ is the same God and man, the same householder and father, so it is clear that this same one is both steward and son: here there is a difference of cases, a change of names, not a variety of persons. “And he was accused to him of having squandered his goods, and he called him.” He called him through the Gospel. “And he said to him.” And what does he not do through the Gospel, by which he rebukes conduct, lays bare what is hidden, opens the conscience, chastises what has been committed, counts up evils, and threatens punishment to one who persists in them, though he promises pardon to one who is converted? “And he called him, and said to him: What is this I hear about you?” He charges what he knew as though he had only heard it, because he does not wish to hasten sentence against the guilty man; and the one already convicted before him he summons as though merely accused, he who longs that pardon should so go before judgment. “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.” Why does he join such severe words to such kind ones? Why does he remove him from the stewardship before he examines the account? “Give an account, for you can no longer be steward.” Now he asks an account like a man, now like God he announces what is at hand and to come. “Give an account, for you can no longer be steward.” He asks for an account not to exact it but to relax it; he asks so that he may be asked; he asks here so that he may not ask of you there; he asks in this age so that he may not ask at the judgment; he asks soon, so that the time of punishments may not shut out the time of satisfaction. “Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.” Why? Because the end of life, the time of death, has come? Already the summons from above binds you, already judgment calls. Hurry, then, so as not to lose the time of satisfaction, you who have lost the time of work. “Give an account.” That is to say: settle the account, settle your affairs, so that you may not have to pay mine; and you will settle them if you now stop squandering. “I took on your former debts when I took you on; I paid them when I absolved you; I, the judge, stood for you to be heard before the judge; I, the judge, entered judgment; I became the defendant of my own defendant; I took on punishments from the punishable; I did not flee the sentence from the condemned; I, the destroyer of death, received death; I, the destroyer of hell, penetrated hell, so that by these things I might not only remove you from your punishment but also make you a sharer in my dignity. Act, therefore, so that you, whom the time of your stewardship has shut out, may not be shut in by an everlasting condemnation of mine.” But let us now examine what the steward answered. “He said within himself: What shall I do?” “What shall I do now?” A man always wants to do good when death has taken away the time for doing it. “He said within himself.” He seeks counsel within himself, who had nowhere outside from which to help himself now. “He said within himself.” He pricks his heart, goads his mind, and troubles all within, so as to wring from himself the repentance he can offer for himself. “I am not able to dig.” Not his strength, but his time for labor had failed. “I am not able to dig, I am ashamed to beg.” He fears the shame of the future judgment, in which there is no longer a time for repentance but for punishments, and where the guilty man blushes more at his conscience than at the fire of Gehenna. “I am ashamed to beg.” And who is not ashamed to beg in heaven? Wretched is he whom time held rich: eternity will possess him as a beggar; and Tartarus will hold him naked whom heaven could have received and kept wealthy. The present figure points to the people; but it is good for us, very good, if each of us applies these things to himself, if we refer them to ourselves, who ought to know that on earth we are stewards and not think ourselves owners; that we have received a ministry of temporary dispensing, not found a right of possessing forever; and take care that the report of a ruined estate may not go before us to the householder, according to the Apostle's word: “The sins of some are manifest, going before them to judgment; but in some they follow after” (1 Tim 5). He does not reach the appointed end of his life who loses the time of his stewardship, whom the report has accused of squandering what was entrusted to him. Hence, hence comes an untimely departure, hence death before its day, hence a bitter summons, hence a return more painful than death itself, as the prophet laments, crying: “Men of blood and deceit shall not live out half their days” (Ps 55:23 [LXX 54:24]). But would that, when sickness warns us of our summons, when fever harshly shuts us out of our stewardship, when the force of pain compels us to hasten to render it, we would follow the deed and the mind of this steward, and turn to the counsel of the soul, to compunction of heart, to repentance of mind, to the support of mercy, to the patronage of kindness, to the advocacy of confession! Surely we would ask for the bonds of the Lord's debtors; and if not all, at least half, like this steward, we would cancel for our own pardon, so that we who, by squandering the goods entrusted to us, are called stewards of iniquity, may at the last by a holy fraud obtain the praise of the judge himself. “And he praised,” it says, “the steward of iniquity.” And since the deed of the Gospel steward raises no small question, for a man guilty of many things is read to have pleased by one fraud, why he pleased so, and who he is, we shall set out more fully, God willing, in the next sermon.