Works (CSEL) 10 part 1/3

The story of Naboth is old in time, but daily in its practice. For which of the rich does not daily covet what belongs to others? Which of the most opulent does not strive to drive the poor man from his little plot and to thrust the needy out of the bounds of his ancestral field? Who is content with what is his own? Whose mind is not inflamed by a neighbor's possession? Therefore it was not one Ahab who was born, but what is worse, every day an Ahab is born, and he never dies to this world. If one perishes, very many rise up. There are more who plunder than who lose. It was not one poor Naboth who was slain; every day Naboth is laid low, every day the poor man is slain.

Smitten by this fear, the human race now yields up its own lands; the poor man, burdened with his pledge, migrates with his little ones; his wife follows weeping, as though escorting her husband to the grave. Yet she who bewails the death of her own laments less, because, though she has lost the protection of her spouse, she still keeps his tomb; though she does not keep her sons, yet she does not grieve over exiles, nor groan over the fastings of her tender offspring, which are heavier than funerals. How long, you rich, will you stretch out your insane desires? Will you alone dwell upon the earth? Why do you cast out the partner of nature and claim for yourselves the possession of nature? The earth was founded in common for all, for rich and poor alike: why, you rich, do you arrogate to yourselves a private right to the soil?

Nature, which brings forth all men as poor, knows no rich. For we are not born with garments, nor are we begotten with gold and silver. Naked she brings us forth into the light, in want of food, of clothing, of drink; naked the earth receives those whom she has brought forth, and knows not how to enclose the bounds of possessions within the tomb. A narrow turf suffices alike for poor and rich, and the earth, which did not contain the desire of the living man, now contains the whole rich man. Nature therefore knows not how to distinguish when we are born, nor knows it when we die. She creates all alike, she encloses all alike in the bosom of the tomb. Who can distinguish the appearances of the dead? Open the earth again, and, if you can, discover the rich man.

Clear away the mound a little later and, if you recognize him, prove him to have been a rich man — unless perhaps by this alone, that more things perish with the rich. The silken garments and the coverings interwoven with gold, with which the rich man's body is surrounded, are the losses of the living, not the supports of the dead. You receive ointment, rich man, and you stink; you lose another's favor and do not acquire your own. You leave heirs to quarrel. To your heirs you leave a deposit that is more a burden of inheritance than a voluntary benefit, who will fear to diminish or violate what is left. If the heirs are thrifty, they guard it; if they are extravagant, they exhaust it. And so you either condemn good heirs to perpetual anxiety, or you leave bad ones, that they may condemn what you have done. But what do you think, that

that while you live, you abound in all things? O rich man, you know not how poor you are, how needy you seem to yourself, you who call yourself rich. The more you have, the more you seek, and whatever you acquire, you are still in want. Avarice is inflamed by gain, not extinguished. Greed has, as it were, certain steps; the more steps it climbs, the more it hastens toward higher things, whence the fall is grievous for one about to slip. Yet that man was more tolerable when, having less, in the contemplation of his own means he sought only moderate things; with the increase of his patrimony came an increase of greed. He does not wish to be base in his wishes, poor in his desires. Thus he joins two intolerable things together, so that he both increases the ambitious hope of a rich man and does not lay aside the disposition of a beggar.

Indeed the divine Scripture teaches us how wretchedly he is in want, how abjectly he begs. King Ahab was in Israel, and poor Naboth. The one overflowed with the wealth of a kingdom, the other possessed the turf of a narrow plot of soil. The poor man coveted nothing from the rich man's possessions; the king seemed to himself to be in need, because his poor neighbor had a vineyard. Who then seems to you the poor man? He who is content with his own, or he who covets another's? The one is surely poor in appearance of means, the other is poor in disposition. The rich disposition knows not how to be in want, the abundant means cannot fill the heart of the greedy. And therefore the covetous rich man is in the envy of possession and the complaint of poverty. But now let us consider the words of Scripture. 'And it came to pass,' it says, 'after these words.'

'Naboth the Israelite had a vineyard in Israel, near the house of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying: Give me your vineyard, and it shall be to me for a garden of herbs, since it is near to my house, and I will give you another vineyard in its place. And if it please you, I will give you money for this vineyard, and it shall be to me for a garden of herbs. And Naboth said to Ahab: God forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers. And his spirit was troubled, and he lay down on his bed and veiled his face and ate no bread.' The divine Scripture had related above that Elisha, though he was poor, left his oxen and ran to Elijah, and killed them and distributed them to the people, and cleaved to the prophet.

Therefore these things have been set forth beforehand for the condemnation of the rich man, who is portrayed in this king, in that, having the benefits of God — like this Ahab, to whom the Lord granted both a kingdom and rain by the prayer of Elijah the prophet — he violated the divine commandments. Let us hear then what he says. 'Give me,' he says. What other voice is that of the needy, what other voice of one demanding public alms, than 'Give me'? This is, 'Give me, for I am in want. Give me, for I can have no other means of living. Give me, for I have no bread for food, no coin for drink, no expense for nourishment, no substance for clothing. Give me, for the Lord has given you whence you ought to bestow, but to me He has not given. Give me, for unless you give, I shall not be able to have. Give me, for it is written:'

'Give alms.' How abject these words are, how base! For they have not the disposition of humility, but the burning of greed. Yet in this very debasement, how great is the shamelessness! 'Give me,' he says, 'your vineyard.' He confesses it to be another's, that he may demand what is not owed to him. 'And I will give you,' he says, 'another vineyard in its place.' The rich man scorns what is his own as worthless, and covets what is another's as most precious. 'And if it please you, I will give you money.' He quickly corrects his error by offering money for the vineyard; for he wishes another to possess nothing, who desires to seize everything for his own possessions. 'And it shall be to me,' he says, 'for a garden of herbs.' This then was all his madness, this all his fury, that a space should be sought for cheap garden-herbs.

So you do not so much desire to possess these things as useful, as you wish to shut others out. Your concern for the spoils of the poor is greater than for your own profits. You count it an injury to yourselves if the poor man has anything that may be judged worthy of a rich man's possession. You believe whatever belongs to another to be your loss. Why do the losses of nature delight you? The world was created for all, which you few rich men try to claim for yourselves. For not only the possession of land, but the very heaven, the air, and the sea are claimed for the use of a few rich men. This air, which you enclose within your widespread possessions — how many peoples can it nourish! Do the angels have the spaces of heaven divided among them, as you mark off the earth with set boundaries? The prophet cries out:

'Woe to those who join house to house and farm to farm,' and he reproves them for their ineffectual avarice. For they flee from dwelling together with men, and therefore they exclude their neighbors; but they cannot flee, because when they have shut these out, they find others again, and when they have driven away those, they must of necessity come to the vicinity of others; for they cannot dwell alone upon the earth. The birds associate themselves with birds; in the end the sky is often covered by the flight of a great flock; the herd is joined to the herd, the fishes to the fishes, and they count it no loss, but a fellowship of living, when they take to themselves the largest company and seek, as it were, a kind of protection in the solace of more frequent society.

You alone, O man, shut out your fellow, you take in wild beasts, you build dwellings for animals, you destroy those of men, you bring the sea within your estates, that wild beasts may not be lacking, you extend the bounds of the land, that you may not have a neighbor. We have heard the voice of the rich man seeking what is another's; let us hear the voice of the poor man claiming his own: 'God forbid,' he says, 'that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.' As though he reckons the rich man's money to be a kind of contagion to himself, as if he were to say: 'Your money perish with you, but I cannot sell the inheritance of my fathers.'

You have something to follow, rich man, if you are wise: that you should not sell your field for the price of a harlot's night, nor pour out your right for the cost of a revel and the expenses of pleasures, nor adjudge your house to a game of dice, lest you lose the right of inherited piety. When he heard these things, the greedy spirit of the king was troubled. 'And he lay down on his bed and veiled his face and ate not his bread.' The rich grieve if they cannot snatch away what is another's; if the poor man does not yield his own goods, they cannot conceal the violence of their sorrow. They desire to sleep, they veil their faces, lest they should see anything in the world belonging to another, lest they should know that anything in this world is not their own, lest they should hear that a neighbor possesses anything beside them.

lest they should hear the poor man contradicting them: of such are the souls to whom the prophet says, 'Rich women, rise up.' 'And he ate not,' it says, 'his bread': because he sought what was another's; for indeed the rich eat another's bread rather than their own, who live by plunder and supply their expense by robberies. Or surely he ate not his bread, wishing to punish himself with death because something was denied him. Now compare the disposition of the poor man. He has nothing and knows not how to fast voluntarily except to God, knows not how to fast except from necessity. You snatch away from the poor everything indeed, you take away all, you leave nothing, yet you rich rather endure the penalty of the poor. They fast if they have not; you, when you have.

From yourselves therefore you first exact the penalty before you inflict it on the poor. You therefore by your own disposition pay the hardships of wretched poverty, and the poor indeed have nothing to use, while you yourselves neither use it nor allow others to use it. You dig out gold from the veins of the mine and hide it again. The lives of how many do you bury in that gold! For whom is it kept, when you have read of the greedy rich man: 'He hoards up treasures and knows not for whom he gathers them'? The idle heir waits, the disdainful heir complains that you die too late. He hates the increase of his inheritance, he hastens toward its losses. What then is more wretched, when you do not even leave behind any favor with him for whom you toil?

For his sake you endure hunger through all your gloomy days, fearing the daily losses of your table; for his sake you arrange daily fasts. I myself knew a rich man, going off to his field, who used to count the loaves carried smaller from the city, so that by the number of loaves it might be reckoned how many days he would be in the field. He was unwilling to open the sealed granary, lest anything should be diminished from his store. One loaf was allotted for a day, which could scarcely satisfy the niggard. I have also learned by trustworthy report that, if ever an egg was set before him, he would complain that a chick had been killed. I write this so that you may know that the justice of God is an avenger, which avenges the tears of the poor by your fasting. How religious a fast would it be, if you assigned to the poor the cost of your banquet!

More tolerable already was that rich man, from whose table the poor Lazarus gathered up the things that fell, desiring to be filled; but even his table consisted of the blood of many poor men, and his cups dripped with the gore of many whom he had driven to the snare. How many are slain, that what delights you may be procured! Deadly is your hunger, deadly your luxury. That man falls from the highest rooftops, to prepare ample storehouses for your grain. That man falls from the lofty summit of a tall tree, while he searches out kinds of grapes to bring down, from which wines worthy of your banquet may be poured. That man is drowned in the sea, while he fears lest a fish or oyster should be lacking from your table.

That man, in the wintry cold, while he strives to track hares or to catch birds with snares, is stiffened with frost. That man, before your eyes, if perchance something has displeased you, is beaten to death and bespatters the very banquet with shed blood. In the end he was rich who ordered the head of a poor prophet to be brought to him at table, and could find nothing else with which to pay the dancing-girl her reward, except to order a poor man to be slain. I myself have seen a poor man led away, while he was forced to pay what he had not, dragged to prison because wine was lacking for the table of a powerful man, leading his own sons to auction so that he might for a time defer his punishment — having perhaps found someone who would relieve him in that necessity.

The poor man returns to his lodging with his family, beholding all things plundered, nothing left to him for food, groaning over the hunger of his sons, grieving that he had not rather sold them to one who could feed them. He returns to deliberation, and takes up the resolve of selling. Yet the injury of want and the grace of paternal piety fought together; hunger urged him toward the price, nature toward duty. Ready to die together with his sons rather than to be separated from his sons, he often advanced his step, often called it back. Yet necessity, not will, conquered, and piety itself yielded to necessity. Let us now consider the storms of the father's mind, as he agonizes over which of his children he should first hand over. 'Whom,' he says, 'shall I sell first? For I know that the price of one is not enough for the feeding of the rest.'

This alone is the fruitfulness rich in hardship! 'Whom shall I offer? Whom will the auctioneer of grain look on with pleasure? Let me offer the firstborn. But he first called me father. This is the elder among my sons, whom I fittingly honor as the senior. But I will give the younger. Yet him I embrace with a tenderer love. The one I am ashamed before, the other I pity: for the one I sigh over his standing, for the other his age: the one already feels the hardship, the other knows it not: the grief of the one bends me, the ignorance of the other. Let me turn to the others. The one coaxes me more, the other is more bashful: the one is more like his parent, the other more useful: in the one I sell my own image, in the other I betray my hope. Wretched me, I find not what to do, I have not what to choose. The faces of calamities surround me, a chorus of hardships.'

This is a beastly madness, to choose whom you should hand over. The very wild beasts, when they perceive danger threatening their offspring and themselves, are wont to choose which they should set free, not which they should offer up. How then shall I distinguish the affection of nature, how shall I forget, how shall I strip off a father's mind? How shall I set up the auction of my son, with what speech shall I bargain the price, into whose hands shall I deliver my son into servitude, with what eyes shall I look upon him serving, with what kisses shall I bid farewell to him as he departs, with what words shall I excuse the deed? 'Son, I have sold you for my food.' More deadly therefore now is the table of the poor man than of the rich. The one sells strangers, I sell my own: the one imposes necessity, I bring forward my own will. That the cause may be more excusable, I will add:

'Son, you shall serve for your brothers, that food may be sought for them.' And Joseph too, sold by his brothers into servitude, afterward fed both them and his father. He will answer: 'But his father did not sell him, but wept over him as lost, but afterward too. He himself came into the power of a rich man and could scarcely be freed. Afterward his race served the riches of Egypt for a long age. Sell me last, father, on this condition, that the rich may not buy me.' I am stuck fast, I confess; but what shall I do? I will sell none. But while I consider one, I shall see all perishing of hunger. If I hand over one, with what eyes shall I see the rest, suspicious of my impiety, lest I sell the others too?

With what shame shall I return home, how shall I enter, in what disposition shall I dwell, I who have denied myself a son whom no disease consumed, whom no death took away? With what conscience shall I look upon my table, around which so many sons clothed it like young olive plants?' These things the poor man bewails in your presence, and avarice stops your ear, nor is your mind softened by the horror of the pitiable deed. The whole people groans, and you alone, rich man, are not bent, nor do you hear the Scripture saying: 'Lose money for the sake of a brother and a friend, and do not hide it under a stone unto death.' And because you do not hear, therefore Ecclesiastes cries out, saying: 'There is an evil sickness which I have seen under the sun, riches kept for the harm of him who possesses them.'

But perhaps you may return home and confer with your wife, that she may urge you to redeem the one who was sold. Nay rather she will urge you to provide a woman's finery, with which you could free the poor man even for a small sum. She will impose on you the necessity of expenses, that she may drink from a jewel, sleep in purple, recline on a silver couch-frame, load her hands with gold, her neck with necklaces. Women delight even in fetters, provided they are bound with gold. They do not think them burdens, if they are precious; they do not deem them chains, if a treasure glitters in them. Even wounds delight them, that gold may be inserted in the ears and pearls hang down. Gems too have their weights, and garments their chills. One sweats among the gems, one freezes in silks:

yet the prices please, and avarice commends what nature shuns. Emeralds and jacinths, beryl, agate, topaz, amethyst, jasper, sardius they seek with the utmost frenzy. Even if half a patrimony be demanded, they do not spare the expense, so long as they indulge their greed. I do not deny that there is a certain pleasing brilliance in those stones — but stones nonetheless. And they themselves, polished against nature, warn us, that as they laid aside the roughness of the rocks, rather the rigidity of the mind should be polished. 'What artisan could add a single day to a man's life? Whom have riches redeemed from the netherworld? Whose sickness has money soothed?' 'A man's life,' it says, 'is not in abundance.' And elsewhere: 'Treasures profit nothing to the unjust, but justice delivers from death.'

Rightly does David cry out: 'If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.' For what do they profit me, if they cannot free me from death? What do they profit me, if they cannot be with me after death? Here they are acquired, here they are left behind. Therefore we speak of a dream, not of a patrimony. Whence the same prophet says well of the rich: 'They have slept their sleep, and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands' — that is: the rich have found nothing by their works, who have contributed nothing to the poor. They have aided no one's want, they could find nothing that profited toward their own advantage. Consider the very name. The pagans call Dis the ruler of the netherworld, the arbiter of death.

They call him both Dis and rich, because the rich man knows not how to bring anything but death, he whose kingdom is of the dead, whose seats are infernal. For what is the rich man but a certain insatiable whirlpool of riches, an insatiable hunger or thirst for gold? The more he draws in, the more he burns. 'He who loves silver,' it says, 'shall not be satisfied with silver,' and below: 'and indeed this is the worst sickness; for as it came, so also it departed, and its abundance labors after the wind. And indeed all his days are in darkness and mourning and much wrath and sickness and anger,' so that the condition of slaves is more tolerable; for they serve men, but he serves sin; for 'whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.'

Always in snares, always in chains, never free from fetters, because always in crimes. How wretched a servitude, to be a slave to sins! He knows not the offices of nature itself, nor knows the changes of sleep itself, nor enjoys the sweetness of food, whose servitude is in no respect exempt; for 'sweet is the sleep of the laborer, whether he eat little or much,' but for the man sated with riches there is none who lets him sleep. Greed rouses him, the sleepless care of snatching what is another's drives him on, envy torments him, delay vexes him, the barrenness of unfruitful yields disturbs him, abundance makes him anxious. Whence to that rich man, whose possession brought rich fruits, who thought within himself, saying: 'What shall I do, since I have nowhere to gather my fruits?' And he said:

'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will gather all that has grown for me, and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; rest, eat, drink, be merry.' God answered: 'Fool, this night they require your soul of you; and the things you have prepared, whose shall they be?' Not even God Himself permits him to sleep. He breaks in upon him as he thinks, He rouses him as he sleeps. But neither does he himself suffer himself to be at rest, who is troubled over his abundance and amid the plenty of his fruits utters the voice of one in need. 'What shall I do?' he says. Is not this the voice of the poor man, of one who has no means of living? Needy of all things, he looks here and there, he searches his lodging, he finds nothing for the use of nourishment.

He considers that nothing is more wretched than to be wasted by hunger and to die for lack of food; he seeks shortcuts to death and searches out the more tolerable torments of dying; he snatches up a sword, suspends a noose, kindles a fire, tries out poison. And amid these things, doubtful what to choose, he says: 'What shall I do?' Then, recalled by the sweetness of this life, he desires to recall his resolve, if he could find the substance of living. He looks upon all things bare, all things empty. He says: 'What shall I do? Whence comes my nourishment, whence my clothing? I wish to live, if I have how I might sustain this life — but with what food, with what supports?' 'What shall I do,' he says, 'since I have not?' The rich man cries out that he has nothing: this is the speech of poverty: he who abounds in fruits complains of want.

'I have not,' he says, 'where to gather my fruits.' You might think he were saying: 'I have no fruits whereby I must live.' Is he blessed who is endangered by abundance? Nay rather this man is more wretched by his fruitfulness than the poor man, whose danger is from want. The latter has something to excuse his hardship, he has indeed the injury, but not the fault: this man has none whom he may accuse besides himself. 'And he said: This I will do, I will pull down my barns.' You might think he still were saying: 'I will open my barns, let those enter who cannot endure hunger, let the needy come, let the poor go in, let them fill their bosoms. I will pull down the walls that shut out the hungry. Why should I hide what God makes to abound for me to bestow?'

'Why should I shut up with the bars of gates the grain with which God has filled the whole circuit of the fields, which is born and abounds without a keeper?' The hope of the greedy is vanquished, the old barns burst with new harvests. 'I had less and saved in vain; more has been born. For whom do I gather? While I lie in wait for the increase of prices, I have lost the use of benefits. How many souls of the poor could I have preserved with last year's grain? These prices would delight me more, which are reckoned not by coin but by grace. I will imitate holy Joseph by the proclamation of humanity, I will cry out with a loud voice: Come, you poor, eat my loaves, spread out your bosom, receive the grain.

The fruitfulness of the rich man, the abundance of the whole world, ought to be the fertility of all.' But you indeed do not say this, but you say: 'I will pull down my barns.' Rightly do you pull down those from which no poor man returns laden. They are barns, the receptacles of iniquity, not the supports of piety. Rightly does he pull them down, because he knows not how to build wisely. The rich man destroys his own, who knows not eternal things; he destroys his barns, who knows not how to divide his grain, but only to shut it up. 'And I will build greater,' he says. Unhappy man, dispense to the poor even that which you spend on the cost of building. While you flee the grace of liberality, you pay out the losses of building. And he added: 'There I will gather all that has grown for me, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have many goods.'

The greedy man is always wasted by the plenty of his yields, while he reckons the cheapness of provisions. For fruitfulness is universal, but barrenness alone is profitable to the greedy. He delights more in the excess of prices than in the abundance of supplies, and he prefers to have alone what he might sell together with all. See him fearing lest the heap of grain should overflow, lest, redounding above the barns, it should be poured out upon the poor, and an occasion of some good be acquired for the needy. He claims for himself alone the offspring of the lands, not that he himself may wish to use it, but to deny it to others. 'You have,' he says, 'many goods.' The greedy man knows not how to name as goods anything but what is profitable. But I yield to him, that those things may be called goods which pertain to money.

Why then do you make evils out of goods, when you ought to make goods out of evils? For it is written: 'Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity.' To him therefore who knows how to use them, they are goods; to him who knows not how to use them, rightly they are evils. 'He has dispersed, he has given to the poor, his justice remains forever.' What is better than this? They are goods, if you bestow them on the poor, whereby you may make God your debtor by a certain usury of piety. They are goods, if you open the barns of your justice, that you may be the bread of the poor, the life of the needy, the eye of the blind, the father of orphaned infants. You have the means whereby to act — why do you fear? With your own voice I confront you. 'You have many goods laid up for many years'; you can abound both for yourself and for others; you have a public fruitfulness: why do you pull down your barns?

I show you where you may better guard your grain, where you may fence it in well, so that thieves cannot carry it off from you. Lock it away in the heart of the poor, where no weevil consumes it and no decay corrupts it. You have storehouses in the bosoms of the needy; you have storehouses in the homes of widows; you have storehouses in the mouths of infants, that it may be said to you, 'Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings you have perfected praise.' These are the storehouses that endure forever; this is the granary that no future plenty can pull down. For what will you do over again, if still more is born to you in the year that follows? You will then tear down these too which you now make ready to build, and you will build greater ones. For God gives you abundance either to overcome your greed or to condemn it, so that you may have no excuse: