Homilies 1 part 2/11

For all these sayings tend toward a single purpose: that it is fitting for us to live our lives as creatures of a day, awaiting the signal for our departure.

And so that you may learn precisely that you are subject to laws and to the ordinances of a master, according to which it is fitting for you to live with exactness, understand first from your own self that both your body and your soul are, on every side, subject to the precepts of virtue, and that you are not even master of yourself;

but it is fitting for you to manage as a steward both your word and your deed, and every movement of your life.

You received a body from the Creator, composed of many parts and administered by five senses for the needs of life.

But not even these senses are free and autonomous; rather, each one is a slave to laws.

And first, the eye hears its command:

'Look upon nature, and behold the things that are good to see;'

the sun, illuminating the whole inhabited world;

the moon, brightening the gloomy and murky darkness of the night;

the other stars, which do not supply from themselves much light, nor light sufficient for us, yet which shine forth the beauty that has fallen to their lot.

Behold the earth, luxuriant with plants of every kind and with herbs;

the sea, spread out like a level plain, whenever it settles into a pure calm.

On these and such things spend fully the use of your sight;

but as for the other sights, as many as bring harm to the soul through the eyes, flee them and run past them, and place a covering upon yourself, so that you may not see.

For it is better to darken this sense, whenever it provides the occasion for the works of darkness.

For this reason, yesterday the Lord said to us through Matthew:

'Everyone who looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart;'

and it is better to pluck it out, whenever it looks upon disorderly and harmful things.

The sense of hearing, too, has precepts that restrain it from wicked listening.

For it is necessary that, whenever it hears something good, it be wide open, and through itself convey to the soul the perception of profitable words.

But if some companion of vice — a pestilence and a corrupter — draws near to it and is about to pour into it the mire of sin, one must flee from him as from a venomous beast.

Let the tongue, together with the mouth, also be self-controlled;

and let it abstain from things forbidden: reviling, slander, unjust accusation, evil-speaking against the brethren, blasphemy against God;

and let it utter only what is fair-spoken, what is pious, what carries counsel toward good deeds;

and let every man say the words of the sacred psalmist:

I will guard my ways, that I sin not with my tongue;

and this: 'With their tongues they have practiced deceit;'

and this: 'Why do you boast in evil, you who are mighty in lawlessness? All the day your tongue has devised injustice;'

you have wrought deceit like a sharpened razor.

Let the mouth taste only of what profits.

Let the nose too be temperate, not forever inhaling luxury, nor drawing up onto the head the fragrant vapors of costly perfumes.

For of such things Isaiah too is a vehement accuser.

Let the hand also remember the commandments, so that it may not touch everything without restraint.

Let it be stretched out toward almsgiving, not toward plunder;

let it guard what is its own, not gather what belongs to others;

let it touch sluggish and afflicted bodies through good visitation, not bodies that are vigorous and given over to fornications.

The discourse has shown us that we ourselves are not masters of ourselves, but stewards.

For everything that is subject to laws and commands is a slave of the lawgiver, and obedient to him.

But if the parts of our body do not have free authority, but are regulated in their functions by the master's will, what could one say to those who suppose that they hold gold and silver and land and other things in unaccountable possession? ... Nothing is yours, O man,

you are a slave, and what is yours belongs to the Lord.

For a slave has no peculium that is his own free property.

For you were brought naked into this light;

you received what you have according to the law of your Lord;

either by inheriting from a father — since God ordained it so (for, it says, parents shall divide the spoils to their children) — or by acquiring wealth through marriage (and marriage, and what pertains to it, has been ordained by God), or from trade and farming and other pursuits, God cooperating toward these things.

Behold then, it has been shown that you received what was not your own.

Let us then see further what has been commanded you, and what manner of administration is required over these things.

Give to the hungry, clothe the naked, tend the afflicted, do not overlook the destitute man cast down at the crossroads.

Do not be anxious about yourself, nor worry how you will live on the morrow.

'If you do these things,' he says, 'you will be honored by the Lawgiver;'

'but if you disobey the commandment, you will be punished bitterly.'

In these I see no mark of one who is self-governing, nor of one living with independent authority; on the contrary, the many and continual commands show me a man ruled over with great power, held accountable to his master's laws, and required, as though it were a debt, to render the ordered conduct prescribed to him.

But how is it that we, living as though our life were unaccountable, overlook the wretched and the poor as they perish amid their misfortunes, while we spend lavishly, out of vain ambition, on vanities — feeding a crowd of dissolute flatterers and dragging along bands of ill-starred parasites;

and again scattering our wealth on beast-fighters and wild beasts, sparing nothing we possess on horse-breeding, and yet again squandering our abundance on conjurers and mimes and the other ruinous follies that follow!

And we suffer something empty and near to madness.

For where the expenditure brings countless gain and immortal salvation, we clutch our money tightly, so that not even a few obols fall from our hand;

but where the outlay is sinful, the cause of countless punishments and even of the very penalty of fire, we pour it out unbidden, of our own accord.

And our extravagant ambition outruns the very asking;

and throwing open every door, we let our wealth pour out to those outside.

But this disposition is not that of slaves awaiting their master, but of dissolute youths, revelers, the licentious.

But if you wish, O hearer, to see the fear of a steward who administers, with prudent reverence, what has been entrusted to him, open the book of David;

seek out those words where the man, earnestly inquiring after the appointed term of his own end, says to God:

'Make known to me, O Lord, my end, and what is the number of my days, that I may know what I still lack.'

You see how, as in a picture, the disposition of the one who prayed is beheld in these words: that he is filled with fear on every side, foresees the future, awaits the judgment, and anxiously inquires into the appointed time, lest the signal of his departure overtake him unprepared;

and, having reckoned it, he seeks to perceive what is lacking in the course of his sojourn, so that, hastening, he might fill it up before the one who leads him out should come.

For truly the death of each of us is an image of a steward's dismissal, if we compare the particulars of each with one another — what the dying man suffers, and what the one cast out from his stewardship endures.

For likewise the dying man hands over his administration to others, just as the steward hands over the keys;

the one is cast out of a field, the other out of the whole world as out of a single estate.

The steward withdraws in deep anguish from his own labors — his vineyards, his gardens, his houses;

what then do you suppose the dying man too suffers? Does he not lament his possessions? Does he not look about piteously upon his estate, being torn from it against his will after such deep attachment, far from his treasures, his storerooms? And when he arrives at the place allotted to him, hearing:

'Give an account of your stewardship; show how you heeded the commandments, how you were disposed toward your fellow slaves — kindly and humanely, or, on the contrary, oppressively and tyrannically, striking them, buffeting them, depriving them of their ration of alms.'

And if he is able, by showing himself a good slave, to render the master gracious toward him, it would be well;

but if the contrary, then there is no longer scourging with rods there, nor the dark mill-house and iron fetters, but unquenchable fire and eternal darkness never illumined by any light, and the gnashing of teeth, which the Gospel has clearly foreshown us.

If then he never casts you out of these present things as though they belonged to another, then feast to the full on the world, and let pleasure loose, unhindered, upon every sense.

But if these things will come to an end, and we shall enjoy them not for long, let us fear, brothers, our departure from here, and let us live in the season of our sojourn as the Lord commanded;

let us not be led away as prisoners burdened with debts, but let us journey as free men, carrying a conscience full of confident boldness, bearing the ledgers of our life's conduct unimpeachable.

That rich man whose land yielded abundantly was a bad steward of the life here, since amid the plenty of his fruits the man devised nothing good, but, opening wide the appetite of his belly and the broad, unbounded recesses of his greed, allotted everything to his own enjoyment, saying:

'I will tear down my barns and build greater ones, and I will say to my soul:'

'You have many good things laid up; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry;'

and while he was still speaking, the one who leads souls away stood beside him.

A fearsome fellow-slave came, to drag him forcibly away from his stewardship;

and what profit was there in his pleasure-loving counsel? Now these things were written vividly for our admonition;

but what is the experience of actual life like? Does it not cry out these very things every day through the facts, showing us the man healthy at midday, dead before the evening star has risen;

and the man who was robust in the evening, not living to see the morning ray;

and yet another ceasing to live in the very midst of eating? And who is so foolish as not to perceive how, day by day, now one of us and now another is removed from the stewardship here? But the good and faithful servant, one confident in his own administration, holds the same disposition as Paul held,

for he, though the Lord was not urging him, hastened toward Him, and longed for his release, and willingly asked to be excused from his stewardship, saying at one point:

'Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?' and again:

'But for me, it is good to depart and be with Christ.'

But the man who is earthly in mind, and truly akin to clods of soil, laments in such a manner, at a loss over his departure, as does this man in the parable:

'What shall I do, since my lord is taking the stewardship away from me? I have not the strength to dig; I am ashamed to beg.'

This is the grief of an idle and pleasure-loving man.

For to lament over one's departure is proof of having become fused to one's estate and of grieving over the passionate enjoyments of the flesh; but to be unable to work is an accusation against a life that is idle and enervated.

For if he had been accustomed to diligent labor, he would not have feared to dig.

But if we should take the parable allegorically, in its spiritual sense, then after the departure from here there is no longer any time either for working or for begging.

And therefore let no one say:

'Even if he were able, no one would permit it.'

This present life consists in the tilling of the commandments, but the life to come consists in the enjoyment [of the harvest].

So that if you have done no work here, the vines are left untended, and it is vain for you to be anxious then about the spade.

nor will begging then do you any good at all.

And of this a clear example has been handed down to us in the parable of the foolish virgins;

who, having fallen short of oil, shamelessly begged some from the wise virgins;

but they gained nothing by it, and were turned away without accomplishing their purpose;

— by right conduct, unto one's own enjoyment —

For each one has put on his own manner of life as a garment, whether splendid and costly, or shabby and like a poor man's cloak.

But it is impossible to take it off, or to exchange it for another, or to borrow finery at the time of judgment and adorn and array oneself with it.

Each one remains, in truth, exactly as he is, whether poor in good works or rich.

So much, then, for these matters.

But what should we say concerning the forgiving of debts, which the steward of unrighteousness devised as a consolation for himself in his troubles, by dealing thus with his fellow servants? For it is not easy to recast it into an allegory consistent with what is written.

But what occurred to me after much consideration is this:

All of us who, by giving or forgiving what belongs to another, procure for ourselves the relief that is to come, thereby secure a gain that is our own.

By 'what belongs to another' I mean the things that belong to the Master.

For nothing is ours; rather, all things are possessions belonging to his dominion.

Whenever, then, someone, perceiving his death and his departure from this world, lightens the burden of his sins by good deeds — whether by forgiving debtors their debts, or by supplying abundance to the poor, thereby giving what belongs to the Master — he acquires many friends who will bear witness for him before the Judge to his goodness, and through their testimony prepare for him a lodging of refreshment.

Those who have been well treated are said to bear witness before the Judge, not by teaching him with words as though he were ignorant, but inasmuch as the deed done for them itself rescues the sinner from punishment.

For in the manner that the blood of Abel was said to cry out to God, so too the good deed will be said to bear witness for the one who has performed it, in Christ Jesus our Lord;

to whom be the glory unto the ages of ages.

By the same [author], Against Greed. .. Christian men, and men who are partakers of the heavenly calling —

you, the country folk, and all who, setting out from the cities, have gathered together in harmony for the present feast — for I embrace you all with a general address — has each of you truly cast a thought into your mind, considered and understood on whose account we have assembled? For what reason are the martyrs honored by the building of splendid shrines and by these yearly gatherings, and to what purpose did our fathers look when they ordained what is now seen, and left this custom firmly established for those who came after? .. Or is it not plain even to one who has sharpened his mind but a little, that these things were established for us out of zeal for piety, and that these festivals are gathered as common schools for the instruction of souls, so that, by honoring the martyrs, we might imitate the martyrs' fortitude in the cause of piety;

so that, by lending our ear to the teachers gathered there, we might learn something profitable that shortly before we did not know — whether the certainty of some doctrine, or the resolution of a difficult passage of Scripture, or some discourse that corrects the state of our morals? .. But you seem to me to have abandoned the cultivation of virtue, and, having forgotten zeal for the soul, to have transferred your whole concern to the sordid clutter of mammon and the busyness of the marketplace stalls;

some of you yourselves engaged in trading, others gaping at what belongs to another and watching those who are wrangling over the goods for sale, [to see] how they undercut one another's prices.

But turn your longing, I beg you, toward the church;

abandon love of money, that creature of the marketplace, that raving maenad.

Fall in love, rather, with her who is divine and modest, becomingly arrayed, whose gaze is grave and unwavering.

For thus Solomon says in the book of Proverbs:

Do not forsake her, and she will hold fast to you.

Love her, and she will guard you.

Do not pass by in contempt, nor think what is set before you on this table of ours to be worthless for this reason, that you are permitted to acquire possession of it without paying a price;

but rather desire it all the more, because we do not sit here as shopkeepers carrying about a balance or a scale;

we seek but one profit — the salvation of the disciple.

There was read to us from the Acts [of the Apostles] Paul's address to Festus and Agrippa, the address of Paul, the faithful apostle and wise orator.

You certainly saw, O hearer, if you gave heed, how he does not betray the truth out of cowardice, but, tempering his deference toward Agrippa with boldness of speech, softens the harsh tribunal toward goodness, as though he were charming wild beasts by the deft handling of his discourse.

Zechariah, too, prophesied to us this day, opening the door to the great mysteries of the Only-Begotten — through the stone possessing the seven eyes, through the golden lampstand, upon which are the seven lamps and the two olive branches.

Many are the Scriptures that follow, possessing a rich treasure of profit, all of which I would gladly have gone through, to show you the abundance of this spiritual festival;

but the promise I made yesterday urges me on toward the payment of my debt.

For having begun to assail greed with many accusations, since we did not have time to lay bare its vanity, we deferred the demonstration of the charge to the present day.

Listen, then, and become fair-minded judges of the truth, since you are giving judgment not on behalf of others but for your own salvation, and you cast all your condemning votes against the guilty party, each one banishing her from his own soul as from a house or a city.

Greed, then, is not only to be mad for silver along with other possessions, and to wish to add to what one has what one does not yet possess, but, to speak more generally, it is to wish, in every matter, to have more than what is owed and due.

And indeed the devil was the first to suffer this transgression — he who, though an archangel appointed to the fairest life and rank, yet, vain-minded, conceived tyranny and rebellion against the Godhead;

then, cast down and fallen into this air surrounding the earth, he became an evil neighbor to our life.

He did not, then, attain what he pursued — the Godhead;

and he lost what he had possessed — his rank as archangel;

an unfaithful slave who, through gradually escalating acts of daring, turned into a robber;

[like] the dog of the Greek fable, deprived of the meat and — how could it be otherwise? — failing even to seize the shadow, a thing that cannot be grasped at all.

After him, the first man, lured into self-indulgence, lost immortality through the forbidden food, just as Esau later lost his birthright for a mess of lentils.

And it was the desire for more that introduced into human life these various dialects and the many languages of men.

For those who, grown wanton through human prosperity, expected that heaven would be walkable for them, and vainly raised a ridiculous tower for the ascent into it — these men made those who once spoke with one voice speak with different tongues;

and by seeking more than what they had, they themselves were thrown into confusion, and they left the human race to labor amid the hearing of unintelligible sounds and the seeking after interpreters.

And what of Pharaoh? From what source did he fall into such various and manifold plagues? Was it not through greed, and through wishing to be lord over a foreign people that in no way belonged to his kingdom? And for this reason, by refusing to release what belonged to another, he lost what belonged to himself —

some in the plague upon the firstborn, others in the pursuit at the sea —

[the pursuit] for which Egypt was condemned on account of the greed of its ruler.

Elsewhere again I have learned that the end of sin was leprosy, suddenly poured out over the greedy man.

And recall with me, if anyone is fond of history and a willing hearer of the achievements of Elisha, how Naaman the Syrian was cleansed of his leprosy by washing in the Jordan, and how the affliction then passed over to Gehazi the servant, a greedy and unphilosophical youth, who sold a spiritual gift and his master's healing that was given without payment.

How did Absalom become a father-slayer — that inflamed and rash youth of a gentle father? Was it not by seeking, before the proper time, the inheritance of the kingdom, and by leaping upon what belonged to another, like a robber? And Judas, again — what expelled him from the roll of the disciples, and made him a traitor instead of an apostle? Was it not first the pilfering of the money-box, and then the acquiring of that dishonorable price? Why do the Acts of the Apostles make a tragedy of Ananias and Sapphira? Was it not because they became thieves of their own goods, and sacrilegious robbers of their own dedicated offerings? .. The very day would perhaps fail me were I to go on enumerating the servants of greed.

But leaving aside ancient history, let us examine the experience that attends everyday life;

what a wild beast greed is known to be, and how hard it is to shake off once it has seized hold of anyone — ever in full vigor, never withering, but growing old together with those it has captured, and remaining with them to the very end.

The lecher, the lover of bodies, even though he may rage with desire for a long time, once he himself has reached old age, or has seen the object of his longing grown old and faded from its bloom, finds his disease coming to a halt.

The glutton, too, withdraws from his love of pleasure, either when satiety has filled him, or when his organs of digestion have grown weak and brought his excessive appetite to an end.

The lover of glory, having vaunted himself in many displays of distinction, at last ceases from his craving to be seen.

But the disease of greed is an evil hard to shake off;

and just as this ivy — that flourishing, evergreen plant — creeping up the trees that grow beside it, coils itself powerfully around whatever wood it has taken hold of, and withdraws neither when the trees have been damaged nor when they have withered, unless someone cuts through its coils with iron as though through a serpent's; so too it is not easy to free the soul of such a man, whether his body is still young or has already begun to wither, unless some sober reasoning comes upon him and, like a sword, cuts through the disease.

To his own household the greedy man is unpleasant, to his servants harsh, to his friends of no use, to strangers difficult to deal with, to his neighbors a nuisance, to his wife a wretched companion, a stingy and miserly provider for his children, a poor steward of himself — anxious by night, tense and preoccupied by day, talking to himself like those who are out of their minds or deranged;

abounding in everything, yet groaning as though in want; not enjoying what he has, and seeking what he does not have; not making use of his own possessions, but casting envious eyes upon those of others.

Such a man's flock, rich in lambs, crowds the folds in which it is penned, and covers the plains on which it grazes;

yet if a well-fleshed sheep belonging to his neighbor comes into view, he abandons his own flock, and fixes his desire upon that single sheep belonging to another.

The same holds true in the case of oxen, likewise of horses, and no differently with land.

He crowds his house with everything, yet nothing is put to use;

For it is not possible for the insatiable man to enjoy his wealth; rather, his house is like a tomb.

Behold, tombs too are often full of silver and gold, but their contents have no one to make use of them.

The body is not nourished, and no profit accrues to the soul;

for almsgiving does not flourish from his right hand.

What is the end of this labor? Let one of those already seized by this disease instruct me.

I myself know many, having learned from experience, who love money more than health even in their illnesses;

if the physician prescribes a mode of treatment using some cheap material — celery, say, or thyme, or dill, things whose abundance costs nothing — they obey the advice readily;

but if it is elaborate and compounded of many ingredients, and they are bidden to go to the druggist or the perfumer's shop, they would sooner give up the ghost than untie their purse-strings.

For being earthly in their thinking, they reckon the possession of earthly goods to be life itself.

The common prosperity of all grieves such men exceedingly, while ⟨adverse⟩ circumstances gladden them.

They even pray that decrees of unbearable taxes may go forth, so that they may multiply their silver through interest;

they long to see men throttled by their creditors, so that they may acquire the field, the vessel, or the beast, cast off cheaply out of necessity.

And continually they gaze up at the sky, like the philosophers who ponder the heavens — not to seek the rising of a star, nor to inquire which house holds one of the planets, but busily prying into the state of the air, to see whether the signs that appear foretell a flood of rain or a drought.

And if they foresee some hardship coming upon the many, they rejoice at the misfortune of others.

They gather everything into their storerooms, sealing it securely and making it fast with double bolts;

measuring it out endlessly, they reckon and reckon again.

While the covetous man busies himself with such hope, and meanwhile grows rich as in a dream, in the mere sketch of his imaginings, if a heavy cloud should gather, he is afraid, as one about to be endangered.

If light drops sprinkle the earth, he begins to weep quietly;

and if rain should come sufficient to cure the drought, the matter becomes for him an utter mourning.

Thereafter he wanders about, consulting everyone concerning his grain as though it were a son in peril — what remedy, what device, will make it last a long time, will let it escape the ravage of the worm.

And if he perceives a heat-wave coming, like physicians who spread out those wasting with fever, he spreads the grain out, divides it into portions, and cools it; he sits by it, toiling; at midday he contrives shade for it; at night he strips away the coverings, so that it may be fanned by the night breezes.

While he labors thus wretchedly, the poor man comes and stands before him, seeking something from the imperiled grain, and he does not give;

or if he does give, he bestows it grudgingly, clinging to the grain as though half-dead at parting with it.

Do not, then, I beg you, such a man as you are, toil at labors without end and without mercy.

For worthy of pity too is the self-indulgent covetous man, who confines his life to the belly and to other pleasures, reckoning this to be the end and purpose of human existence;

but the mean and petty man has no measure at all to his wretchedness: he takes what belongs to the many yet gives nothing even to himself, and all his eager pains come at last to no result.

For who does not know that nothing that happens, except the virtues, happens for its own sake, but we do one thing in order to accomplish another? No one who sails puts to sea for the sake of sailing itself, nor does the farmer live amid his toils for the sake of farming itself;

but it is quite plain that both endure their hardships for a purpose: the one, that he may bring in the produce of the land; the other, that he may bring home the wealth of maritime trade.

But you — tell me, what is your goal?

Is it that you may hoard? And what sort of goal is this, to heap up useless matter merely to look at it? ⟨...⟩ "The very sight of it delights me," he says.

Then pursue your malady by another means.

For it is possible to give your longing rest even upon the money of others.

If the gleam of silver delights you, sit by the silversmiths' shops and gaze at the dense, glittering brightness; or go to the markets and take pleasure in the various vessels — the dishes and the ewers;

for the sight, at least, costs you nothing and is free to all.

Watch, too, the money-changers at their tables, continually fingering and counting the coins;

but better still, be persuaded by good counsel and change your mind.

For the correction is easy, since greed is not a necessity of nature but an impulse of choice, which is not hard to alter for those who reckon their true advantage.

Lift your reasoning and look ahead to the time to come, when you will no longer be, when a little earth will hold your body, stretched out and without sensation;

and a slab a few spans wide will cover what remains.

...heir of what was left behind? For that man will by no means be the successor you expect.

If you leave children, they may well be defrauded, and a covetous man cut from your own cloth will drive them, weeping, from their father's house.

And if, being childless, you pass on your inheritance to some friend, do not trust your will as an immovable law, as a matter beyond dispute and unbreakable.

A little effort renders a document void.