Homilies 1 part 3/11

Do you not see those who contend continually in the courts against wills — how they overturn them by manifold contrivances, setting up as their advocates men skilled in the law, bringing in clever orators to assist them, maintaining false witnesses, corrupting the courts? ⟨...⟩ Therefore, learn from what you see while you live, concerning what is to come after you.

If your wealth is justly held, put it to its proper use, as did the blessed Job;

if unjustly, restore it to the rightful owners from whom it was wrested, as one restores a captive taken in war;

either the very thing you took, or that plus an addition, as Zacchaeus did.

If you do not have it, do not acquire it wrongfully.

For sin will follow you as a bitter provision for the road, as you journey the road that all must travel;

but the enjoyment of what you acquired will be left to those you do not know.

And then you will marvel at David, who says:

"He heaps up treasure, and does not know for whom he will gather it."

You should also come to know the rich man who is set over against Lazarus, whom we have just now heard read from the Gospels — not a fable composed to strike us with dread, but an exact type handed down of what is to come.

The fine linen rotted, his estate passed to another master, his luxuries came to nothing;

but the sin that arose from them journeyed on with him, remaining like a shadow that clings to a body as it walks.

And therefore, after the extravagance of his banquets and his sumptuous table, he now seeks a single drop of water, falling from a leprous finger;

and he calls upon the poor man to be the physician of his torment — the very man who perhaps had no use even of his hands, when he lay cast down at the gate;

for otherwise he would have driven off the dogs that licked his sores.

He longs to join Lazarus, seen there opposite him, but is kept apart by the pit or chasm between them;

not that any pit has actually been dug, nor any trench made, such as one may see marking the no-man's-land between armies in their camps, but the text signifies, I think, the barrier raised by sins, which has walled off the condemned man's passage to the righteous one.

And my interpretation is confirmed by the prophet Isaiah, who speaks in stern rebuke to a foolish people, saying:

"Is the hand of the Lord not strong enough to save? Or has his ear grown heavy, that it cannot hear? No — it is your sins that stand between you and God."

But if sins are known to separate men from God, nothing could be more sinful than greed, which is called, by the truthful voice of Paul himself, herald of the truth, idolatry, and the root and mother of all evils.

For how were those who once belonged to the company of Christians and shared in the mysteries drawn to the worship of demons? Was it not by desire to acquire much and to become masters of what belongs to others? Having received promises from the godless and impious — of either a ruler's life or wealth from the royal treasuries — they changed their religion swiftly, as one changes a garment.

As for the events of earlier ages of our life, memory and report have preserved and taught them to us.

But there are also things which our own present life has delivered to us by direct experience.

For when that emperor suddenly laid aside the mask of the Christian, and stripped bare the comic drama he had long been playing, and himself shamelessly sacrificed to demons, and many rewards were held out to those who wished to do likewise — how many abandoned the Church and ran to the altars? And how many, taking the bait of high office, swallowed with it the hook of apostasy? ⟨...⟩ Now branded men wander through the cities, objects of hatred;

cast out from the roll of Christians, as Judas was cast out from the apostles;

known by the very name "apostate," as horses are known by their brands;

dragged only once into the harshest of all sins, and immediately following the initiator of that profane and polluted impiety.

Thus, then, according to the Apostle, greed becomes idolatry also, and is the root of all evils, begetting from itself countless vices.

For as those who search for gold in the bosom of the earth say that the gold-bearing earth, at its very source and principal origin, lies heaped up in a mass, and from there, like certain veins branching this way and that, extends far and stretches out in many divisions, following, as it were, the very roots of trees that spread out from the trunk — so also here, seeing many offshoots, I find them all bound together by a single root: greed.

And indeed my discourse has found the illustration drawn from gold not inappropriate for [describing] greed.

From this I observe the parricide daring to lay hands against the very head of the one who bore him, respecting neither his grey hairs nor his paternal dignity, but rather burdened by the fact that the old man goes on living too long.

For seeing everything in the household in abundance, yet not having authority over what he sees, and desiring to be lord both of these things and of the whole estate, he is straitened by his father's authority.

And at first he keeps silence and holds the disease deep within;

but as time increases his desire, and his soul is filled, he suddenly bursts forth with the vice, as waters through pipes.

And from then on he becomes unbearable to the old man, all but driving him toward the grave while he is still hale and walking about.

If the old man mounts his horse with ease, the son is greatly astonished, as if in mock wonder;

if he partakes of food with some vigor, the son grumbles;

if he rouses the household servants at dawn for their duties, the son is vexed at the old man's alertness and vigor.

And if he even gives away some of his heirlooms, or releases a servant from bondage, then indeed — then he is called a dotard and one out of his mind, one who has overstepped the bounds proper to his age, a squanderer of what belongs to another, and, hearing every kind of blasphemous word, he is treated with the insolence one shows a drunkard;

"Why has he not died already?" — such is the reproach cast at him.

This, O abominable greed, is your fruit;

receiving from you their goad, the son becomes an enemy to the one who begot him.

You fill the earth with robbers and murderers, the sea with pirates, the cities with tumults, the courtrooms with false witnesses, informers, traitors, advocates, and judges who lean whichever way you drag them.

Greed, mother of inequality — merciless, misanthropic, most savage.

Because of her, human life is filled with inequity;

and some, from satiety, feel nausea, disgorging the surplus of their possessions as though it were food beyond satisfying, while others, oppressed by famine and want, are in peril.

Some recline beneath gold-spangled ceilings and dwell in their houses as though in small cities, adorned with baths, various chambers, and colonnades extending to great length, and with every kind of extravagance;

while others do not even have the shelter of two beams, but when they cannot go on living out in the open, either they take refuge at the furnaces of the bathhouses, or, if they happen upon inhospitable bath-attendants, they contrive the warmth they need for themselves by digging into dung, just like swine.

And man, a living being of equal honor with his fellows, has so great a difference of lifestyle from his own kind;

this disorder and inequality being introduced by nothing other than greed.

The one is shamefully exposed in his naked limbs, while the other, having clothing beyond counting, clothes even his walls with slabs of purple.

The poor man lacks even bread to break upon his wooden table, while the man of luxury, having hammered out a silver table to great breadth, delights his soul in the gleam of the material.

He does not even own a donkey, the necessary beast for his needs;

while another, because of their sheer number, does not even recognize his own herds of horses.

One lacks even oil to light his lamp;

while another is rich in lampstands alone.

The one is flung down upon the bare ground, while the man who is vainly rich shines all about with the ornamentation of his bed, which has silver globes and chains in place of cords.

These are the products of insatiable greed.

For if it had not introduced inequality into life, there would not be these projections and hollows of unevenness, nor would the manifold misfortunes have made our life unpleasant and full of tears.

From this men have lost their natural affection for one another, and they sharpen iron and muster battle-lines, and, like wild beasts, engage one another with great savagery.

And how could anyone even relate what follows from these things? Strong walls are battered down by siege-engines, cities are captured, women are led away captive, and children are enslaved;

the land is cut and stripped bare, and the trees are made war upon as though they were men who had done wrong;

there is great slaughter of men in the prime of life, and rivulets of blood flow out from their wretched bodies;

and the wealth of the defeated becomes the prize of the victors.

After these things come the wailings of widowhood, the tears of orphans, who lament together both their fathers and their freedom;

and he who was once lord of great wealth now begs a morsel of bread, stretching out his right hand;

and he who had many weaver-slaves and houses full of clothing, now clad in rags, lives as a slave, carrying water out of necessity, scraping dung from the stable, and performing shameful services;

and countless other evils, which it is impossible to comprehend all at once.

Of all these things the beginning, the cause, and the root is the desire for more — an unjust passion for the possessions of others.

But if someone were to excise this passion from mankind, nothing would prevent a deep peace from being established in life, wars and disturbances from being banished from among men, and all from returning to the natural affection and friendship proper to them.

For this reason our Lord too, through his commandments, diligently heals this disease — at one time declaring:

"You cannot serve God and mammon";

at another time declaring wretched that rich man who was to die the very next day, and yet was picturing to himself a long enjoyment of luxury;

and elsewhere teaching that he is perfect who, having yielded up all that he has to those in need, deserts to the life of possessionless philosophy — the mother of virtue, and akin to her in nature.

But I seem to myself to hear, even while they remain silent, those who out of habit are accustomed to say such things to their teachers:

"And how shall we get through life, if the acquiring of money is neglected? How shall we provide for our needs? How will debts be paid? And how will a loan even be given to one who asks for it, if because of your exhortation we are all left destitute?" This is the word of an unbeliever, the voice of a fool — of one who does not know that we have God as our master, the steward of our life, who from himself supplies to the creature he has made whatever is useful, and the necessary provisions of nourishment and the need of covering.

For the providence of God embraces all his own creatures;

and the man who is rich in faith is never overtaken by the misfortune of poverty.

By bringing forward one of the divine sayings, I shall, I think, furnish sufficient testimony to prove the point before us.

In the history of the Book of Kingdoms a certain woman is recorded, a widow, greatly weighed down by the misfortune of her solitude.

A creditor, avaricious and misanthropic, was besieging her, seizing as pledge her sons — whom alone the mother had, in place of everything else.

And since her situation had come round to a complete impasse, and none of those who possessed gold showed her mercy, she went to the one who possessed loving-kindness and faith.

This was Elisha the prophet, a man who possessed nothing of earthly substance, yet abounded in incorporeal riches;

a philosopher risen from the plowmen, houseless, hearthless, clad in a single garment;

and the inheritance he received was a cheap sheepskin, and an invisible blessing that fell from the fiery chariot.

He did not, however, send her supplication away unanswered, nor did he despair of helping merely because what was sought was not at hand, nor did he speak any ignoble or unbelieving words, as one of the common crowd might have done —

"And where should I get silver, to pay off the debt?" — But like an excellent physician who, even when no medicines are at hand, discovers through extraordinary ingenuity a cure for the disease, he said instead, "What do you have in the house, woman? Recall whether even some small thing remains within."

For no one is so poor as to be, absolutely and utterly, master of nothing at all.

And when she said that there was a jar, with a small remnant of oil in it, he said, "Prepare for me a great number of vessels."

And she made them ready, and he, through her, filled them, and the debt to the creditor was discharged;

and the woman departed, having found, out of her utter want, a way of provision.

For that very small quantity of oil, which she told the prophet was all she had, welled up miraculously and filled every one of the small jars that had been made ready;

and it ceased flowing only when there was no longer any vessel left to receive it;

and the grace was measured out exactly according to the need.

Truly that was oil which no plant had borne as fruit, but which the compassions of God had cultivated.

Acquire this knowledge — if you are able — you who dwell from the rising of the sun even to its setting: kings, potentates, rich men.

You who are wise with worldly wisdom, obtain the gift of the prophet who came forth from the plowmen — a gift that, once received, remains inalienably with its possessor.

For the possessions won by your zeal harbor countless dangers of ruin lying in wait beside them:

robbers breaching walls, tyrants plundering, and false accusers scheming, the sea engulfing them, and the earth splitting open into chasms.

Let, then, the right hand of God be hope and treasury for mankind — the hand that led the people out of Egypt and in the desert land supplied abundance of good things;

the hand that brought Habakkuk to Daniel, and saved Ishmael when he was cast from his mother's embrace, and provided for every generation in its turn, and finally multiplied five barley loaves as though into an endless harvest, so that a single loaf might fill the bellies of a thousand hungry men, and besides that, a basket of the remains.

To our God be the glory unto the ages of ages.

By the same Asterius, a discourse of accusation against the festival of the Kalends. Two festivals have coincided together on yesterday's day and the present one — not harmonious, nor sisters, but altogether the opposite: standing in hostility and opposition to one another.

The one belongs to the outward rabble, gathering up much of mammon's silver and dragging along with it the rest of huckstering — the vulgar and illiberal kind of trade;

the other belongs to holy and true religion, teaching kinship with God and the virtue of a purified life.

Since, then, many, preferring the self-indulgence and idle occupation that spring from vanity, have absented themselves from the church's assembly, come, let us drive out this foolish and harmful delight from souls by reasoned argument, as one would banish some frenzy that, amid laughter and play, leads a man on toward death.

At the fitting moment I would emulate Solomon in his manner of handling discourse.

For he too, counseling the young to keep themselves safely from the snares of licentiousness, in order to make his admonition forceful and effective, personifies Licentiousness as a disreputable woman;

and by branding all her wickedness, he thus declares her worthy of hatred to those who are being enticed by her —

so as to draw her lovers away from their misguided ardor.

This, then, is the ordinance and law of a festival for the whole people:

first, that the purpose of the assembly be manifest; second, that the rejoicing be common to all, and not that one part take delight while the rest pass their time in grief and dejection.

For this is the special mark of war rather than of a festival,

since it is inevitable that those who prevail parade in triumph over their victory, while those defeated weep over their calamity.

But as for these days, first, on what account the festival is celebrated is unclear.

For many tales are told, each overturning the other;

then, I see few who are rejoicing,

but the many grieving, even though they overshadow their sorrow with a becoming pretense;

and everything full of uproar and confusion, and the crowd jostling itself at random.

It is, they say, a remembrance and a rejoicing of the year.

What sort of rejoicing is this, O man? First, when I consider the very shape of the encounter — what it is like, and how suspicious and unfriendly it is!

With a feeble, thin voice the greeting proceeds from the lips;

then follows a kiss, prelude to the gain — the mouth is kissed, but the coin is loved;

the outward form is of affection, but the deed is of greed.

But where friendship is pure and guileless, the tokens of goodwill are unpaid for and profitless.

Gold, at any rate, is carried round everywhere in plenty and given, yet a just and decent pretext for the gain neither exists nor is even alleged.

There is no wedding, that one might call it the lavish generosity of an exultant bridegroom.

I cannot call the outlay almsgiving,

for no poor man is released from his misfortune by it.

No one could call what takes place a business transaction,

for the crowd exchanges nothing whatsoever with one another.

Nor is it right to call it a free gift, not even to the smallest degree, since necessity has been yoked together with the giving.

What, then, shall we call either the festival or what is spent upon it? For my part, I cannot find an answer.

But you tell me — you who are so devoted to it —

give an account of it, as we give an account of the true festivals that accord with God.

We keep the feast of the Nativity, because God showed us at this season his manifestation in the flesh.

We hold the festal assembly of the Lights, because by the remission of sins we are led up, as it were out of some dark prison of our former life, into the luminous and blameless one.

Again we array ourselves in splendor and, rejoicing, go in procession on the day of the Resurrection;

for it signifies to us incorruption and transformation into the better state.

Thus we celebrate these feasts, and thus those that follow;

and reason leads the way in every human matter,

but that from which cause and purpose are absent is nonsense and idle chatter.

All go about open-mouthed, hoping for something from one another;

those who give are grieved, those who receive do not keep what they got,

for the gain passes from hand to hand, and he who has received it from the man beholden to him gives it in turn to one greater than himself.

Unstable is the gold of this day, like the ball of those at play, swiftly sent by me on to another.

And it is a new manner of gift-bearing and public duty, exacting a contribution of necessity that admits no excuse:

for the greater and illustrious man intimidates, the lesser man begs, and all are moved, rank upon rank, toward the laps of their superiors.

And what happens at the confluence of waters may now be seen here.

For there too a thin rivulet, flowing forth, mingles its current with the next, greater one;

and that one in turn is submerged by one still more overflowing, and many slighter streams gathered together become an addition to a neighboring river;

and this river again becomes an addition to another, greater one, and another to yet another, until the last one settles its water in the depth and breadth of the sea.

This festival is falsely named, full as it is of oppressiveness;

for going out is burdensome, and staying within is not free from disturbance.

For the local vagabonds and the conjurers of the theatrical troupe, having divided themselves into ranks and companies, harass every house;

besieged, a man gives up the silver he has — and even that which he does not possess.

Coming to the doors in relays, they take over from one another, and until late evening there is no respite from the affliction, but company overtakes company, and outcry overtakes outcry, and loss overtakes loss.

This 'best' of festivals becomes for men also the cause of borrowing — and that at interest —

an occasion of poverty, the beginning of misfortunes.

And if someone, because his estate inspires no confidence, cannot even find a lender, he is dragged off like a man who has defaulted on the imperial taxes, he weeps like one whose property is being confiscated, he wails like one who has fallen among robbers; he is imprisoned, he is scourged.

And if there is some small thing left in the house for the sustenance of his wife and wretched children, this too he gives up;

and he sits there starving, with his whole household, in the midst of the glad festival.

It is a new law of evil custom, that unpleasantness should be kept as a feast, and that men's destitution should be called a festal assembly.

This day teaches even little children, artless and simple, to become lovers of money, and trains them to go exchanging from house to house and to offer new gifts — fruits studded with silver coin.

The giving is a repayment made double, and from this the mercantile and illiberal spirit begins to be stamped upon the tender minds of the young.

And as for the holy and excellent farmers — in what state does this day leave them!

It makes the city, for them, a thing to be shunned and untrodden;

and they flee from it more than hares flee from nets.

For those who are caught are scourged, are subjected to drunken abuse, lose what is in their hands, are warred upon in time of peace, are mocked, are made objects of comic ridicule in word and deed;

our finest prophets are filled with outrage — the guileless creatures, the artless images of God, the servants of our life who, though free, are faithful.

Such, then, is the plight of those in high office; such of the poor; such of children; such of country folk.

Some toil, others grumble, and others learn what it would be good not to know.

Let us also consider how the armed soldiers profit from this festival.

They are mulcted in money, and as the price of a single losing throw they hand over the very provisions meant for war.

In manner and character they are harmed.

For they learn servility, the practices of stage-players, dissoluteness and softness of character, and mockery of the laws and of the authority whose guardians they were appointed to be.

For they turn the highest office into comedy and hold it up to ridicule, mounting a chariot as if upon a stage, appointing sham bodyguards, and publicly performing, like shaven boxers, bouts of the fist.

And these are the more respectable parts of the procession.

But as for the rest, how could one even speak of it? Does not the champion himself, unveiling his true self, play the woman — he whose spirit is lion-like, who once armed was a wonder to behold to his own people and a terror to his foes —

and he lets his tunic down to his ankles, and winds the girdle about his breast, and wears a woman's shoe, and sets upon his head the topknot which custom prescribes for women;

and he carries a distaff heavy with wool, and with his right hand draws down the thread — the very hand that once bore the trophy of victory;

and, altering the pitch of his soul, utters shrill, womanish sounds? These are the fine things of the festival;

these are the benefits of the public festival today.

And those who have mounted to the summit of human honors, the much-vaunted consuls, spend their wealth on vanity, scattering heaps of money into no fruit of righteousness but a harvest of sin;

whose folly is as conspicuous as their throne is high.

For having ascended many human thrones and administered the greatest offices of the realm, they take unsparingly the greater part from every source;

some appropriating the rations of poor soldiers, others repeatedly selling justice and truth, and others draining unspeakable wealth from the royal treasuries and eagerly gathering it from every quarter;

sparing no gain, neither unseemly nor unjust;

[squandering it] on wretched flute-players and mimes and dancers and effeminate men, and on harlot women who offer their bodies for public sale;

and again on vile and desperate beast-fighters, and on the very beasts themselves.

For it is quite evident that gold feeds even the beasts, buying meat for some and barley-cake for others.

And all this they lavish for the sake of a single ambition: that their names be inscribed at the head of these transactions.

God promises to inscribe the names of those who feed the poor in living books, immortal, incorruptible, which moth does not destroy and time does not erase;

and do you not desire that writing, nor take any account of that blessed promise, nor seek to be inscribed in the memory of God? For this is the living book.

Instead you set great store by being recorded by the notaries, by being talked of among the buyers of slaves, and by being applauded by flattering commoners — a poor judge of the true use of things, a foolish assessor of what truly profits.

Give to the maimed poor man, and not to the dissolute musician;

bestow your gift on the widow rather than the harlot, on her who sits at table modestly rather than the public woman.

Seek out where a holy virgin sings psalms to God, and hate the shameless songstress who with her melody hunts the licentious before the eyes of onlookers;

aid the orphan, discharge the debt of the poor man, and you will see glory that lasts forever.

You empty a multitude of purses for shameless sport and disorderly laughter, not knowing how many tears of the poor you are thereby squandering — the very tears from which your prosperity was gathered;

how many were bound, how many were scourged, how many came near the noose and the halter, that today the dancers might receive their pay.

And what is the end? Vanity.

After all this, a small grave, a garment of a few obols wrapping the little body, and after a short while oblivion — that necessary affliction of time — covering over all that was so eagerly pursued;

and upon these things, the judgment of God, and inescapable punishment for the evil choice.

Where are the consuls? Count those of yesterday and the day before.

Was not one of them beheaded like a common criminal, falling victim to the sudden uprising of an armed multitude;

and was he not paraded in procession after death more than when, borne upon his chariot, he gloried in his rank? And another, having attained this same honor after a generalship, perished miserably in the farthest reaches of Egypt and Libya, fleeing the punishment of his condemnation, and finally met his end in the sands, since the whole land through which he was fleeing was waterless and uninhabited. And what should we say of the one who rose from generals and consuls, and who now likewise dwells in the land of Colchis, kept alive by the humanity of the barbarians there? And that other man, from among the prefects — the one who thought himself unconquerable and lion-like in resolve — what a catastrophe of life befell him!

For first he saw his own son beheaded;

then he himself also received the sentence of death, and when the cord had already been brought to his mouth, royal clemency kept the executioner from carrying it out.

But having lived only a little while longer in pain and misfortune, and lingering in the awareness of his ills, the old man departed from life in disgrace, having found this to be the end of his great consulship.

And how did the consul of the past year set his mind on things greater than the giants, though he was ambiguous, being neither wholly woman nor man? Having fled the rods of masters, he came to desire the rods of the consuls;

he acquired land so vast that it is not even easy to say how much;

but he was buried in only as much land as the one who took pity on him bestowed.

Are not, then, according to the wise Ecclesiastes, all such things Vanity of vanities, and are not these honors mere phantoms of insubstantial dreams, delighting for a little while, then passing away, having blossomed and withered? Let us, then, bringing our discourse to a close at this point, send up glory to the Savior.

By the same Asterius, a homily on the Gospel according to Matthew, on the text:

"Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" ... A fine pairing these two days make for Christians who are diligent in good works — I mean the Sabbath and the Lord's Day — which time, revolving, brings round again each week.

For like mothers or nurses of the church, they both gather the people together and seat the priests, as teachers, in the presiding place;

and they marshal both disciples and teachers alike to the care of souls.

For my part, then, yesterday's discourse still resounds in me, and what was labored over remains lodged in my memory.