Homilies on First Corinthians 23 part 2/2

For that they are in a worse case, hear the condition of the former, and then you will know that of the latter.

It is said, then, that that gold-bearing land has holes and hiding-places within those gloomy caverns;

The malefactor, then, who has been condemned to the toils of that place, on this account takes a lamp and a mattock, and so goes in within, and carries with him a little oil-flask, so that from it he may drip oil upon the lamp; for by reason of the darkness the place is without light even in the daytime, as I said before.

Then, when the hour calls him to his wretched meal, he himself does not know the time; but the keeper of that prison, striking violently upon the cave from above, makes known by that din and by that voice to those working below the ending of the day.

Did you not shudder on hearing these things? Let us see, then, whether the lovers of money do not suffer things more grievous than these.

For these too have a heavier jailer, namely covetousness; and by so much the heavier, in that it binds fast together with the body their very soul as well.

And this darkness too is more dreadful than that other;

for it is not perceptible to the senses, but, engendering it from within themselves, wherever they go they carry it about with them everywhere.

For the eye of their soul has been quenched.

Wherefore also, above all others, Christ pronounces them wretched, saying:

'But if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is the darkness!'

And those men at least have a lamp giving light; but these are deprived even of this radiance;

wherefore also each day they fall into ten thousand pits.

The condemned, when night comes on, breathe again, having sailed into the common calm of those who are in misfortune—I mean the night;

but for the lovers of money, covetousness silts up even this harbor;

so many things do they anxiously ponder even in the night, grievously, since—no one troubling them—with all leisure they cut themselves to pieces.

And such are the things here;

but the things there, what discourse shall set forth?—the intolerable furnaces, the rivers flaming with fire, the gnashing teeth, the bonds that cannot be loosed, the venomous worm, the lightless darkness, the evils that never come to an end. Let us therefore fear, beloved, let us fear the fountain of so many torments, the insatiable madness, the ruin of our salvation.

For it is not possible at the same time both to love money and to love one's soul.

Let us learn that riches are earth and ashes, that they forsake us as we depart hence; or rather, that even before our departure they often leap away from us, and injure us both as to the things to come and as to the present life.

For even before hell and before that punishment, here also it involves us in ten thousand wars, and stirs up factions and battles.

For nothing is so productive of war as the love of money;

nothing so productive of poverty, whether it appear amid wealth or amid want.

For this grievous disease grows up even in the souls of the poor, and afflicts their poverty yet more.

And if a poor man be found covetous, such a one pays the penalty not in money, but in famine.

For he cannot endure to enjoy his moderate means with security, but he racks his belly with hunger, and punishes his whole body with nakedness and cold, and everywhere appears more squalid and filthy than the prisoners;

and he is ever wailing and lamenting, as though he were the most wretched of all, even though he have ten thousand poorer than himself.

This man, even if he go into the marketplace, comes away having received many bruises;

even if into the bath, even if into the theater, he will receive yet more wounds, not from the spectators only, but even from those upon the stage, when he sees many of the harlot women gleaming with gold.

This man, even if he sail the sea, considering the merchants again and the ships that carry ten thousand loads and the boundless gains, will not even reckon himself to be alive;

and if he travel by land, reckoning up the fields, the suburban estates, the inns, the baths, and the revenues from these, he will thenceforth deem his own life not worth living;

and even if you shut him up at home, tearing open again the wounds from the marketplace, by himself he will the more grievously ravage his own soul;

and he knows of but one consolation alone for the evils that possess him—death and the release therefrom.

But these things not the poor man only, but also the rich man who has fallen into this disease will suffer, and by so much more than the poor man, in that a more vehement tyranny lies upon him, and a greater drunkenness.

Wherefore also he will deem himself poorer than all men; or rather he even is poorer.

For it is not by the measure of one's substance, but by the disposition of the mind, that wealth and poverty are judged;

and that man is rather the poorest of all who ever desires more, and can never bring to a stand this wicked desire.

For all these reasons then let us flee the love of money—the maker of poverty, the corrupter of the soul, the friend of hell, the enemy of the kingdom of heaven, the mother of all evils together;

and let us despise riches, that we may enjoy riches, and together with riches may enjoy also the good things promised to us;