Sermons 157 part 1/4

The authors of all cures assert, dearly beloved, that the diverse benefits of medicine are suited to diverse pains, and that each several benefit affords something peculiar to each several infirmity; so that they teach that swellings ought either to be checked with the knife, or softened by the compounding of a salve: that hidden ailments are better tracked down by potions, that the cold parts of bodies are fed with hot things, the hotter tempered with the colder. But I in the work of divine instruction think otherwise. For if you review that Epistle written to Timothy, you will find that under one medicine, and by the excision of a single wound, many maladies can be cured.

But what that wound is, in which diverse infirmities meet and work deadly pains, the holy apostle Paul evidently set forth, saying: 'The root of all evils is covetousness: which some coveting have erred from the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows' (1 Tim. 6:10). It must be treated, therefore, dearly beloved, by what work, by what labour so great a forest of crimes ought to be hewn down. But first you ought to recognize the causes of all the vices that run together from every side, this one thing, and to inquire diligently whence each several thing descends, whither it goes, what of deformity, what of pain it presents. For the greatest hope of recovering health is to know the source of the sickness. The root of all evils is covetousness.

And truly, dearly beloved, if we consider the several things by which from the beginning the human condition has prostituted its life to the zeal of possessing, there is nothing of evils which covetousness does not either conceive, or bring to birth, or feed, or nourish. For from this kindling-wood we see the causes of hatreds sprout up, hence the battles of crimes to arise, hence fraternal battle-lines to be drawn up, hence the covenants of friendships to be dissipated. Let no one, therefore, assign to the several infirmities the guilt of a pain proper to itself. For although all the vices stand under their own names, yet they hang upon the wickednesses of others. We see, then, pride composed of the swelling of vanity, and even the humblest man moved by the contagion of arrogance.

If you should perchance suddenly behold him set among his equals, you judge him to be other than he was, so puffed up does he walk in words, and with swelling countenance you may see him carry his neck toward heaven, and by the benefit of poverty long fortify the closed pathway of his tongue with the weight of words; and to such a degree does he dispose the words of his fastidious mouth, that when he himself wishes to speak, he will not that another be heard. But these things, although grave in themselves, are proved to be animated by the enticements of covetousness. When the pomp of riches ceases, you will not so easily find one who labours under the envy of pride. The root of all evils is covetousness. Let us run through the several things, if it seem good, and you will find with how many evils the vice of covetousness sprouts. Behold, a neighbourhood is frequently armed for strife:

whence is this, save that this man perchance thinks to overstep the boundaries, and plots to seize the turf of another's right? Why does that sentence not meet his eyes: 'Pass not beyond the boundaries which thy fathers have set' (Prov. 22:28)? Behold, in this place first arises a contention over property: and while each man fosters his own covetousness with words, he kindles the goad of strife. Afterward, out of contention grows litigation: and would that this alone might suffice covetousness! That which is graver is this, that while no one wishes to make loss of the calumny he has begun, it comes to a brawl. Servants are armed, kinsmen are incited, and one man's breast is set against another for the gain of another. Fury, hired by wine, is animated, and blood shed becomes the price of possession.

Afterward the forum is opened by the laws; and while a place for vengeance is sought, homicide is redoubled. We see also frequently battle-lines composed by covetousness, while either this man wishes to appear richer, or that man blushes to be poorer. And while these vie among themselves, the fellowship of a neighbouring possession is meanwhile imperilled, while each seeks to be the first to invade, and plots how he may possess it free of charge. So it comes to pass that while covetousness seeks increase, another's patrimony totters. Why do these men not consider that sentence which says: 'Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee; and these things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?' (Luke 12:20)?

And truly there is nothing more foolish than to seek doubtful things and to acquire perishable ones. For what do riches profit a man, which are gathered together only to this end, that they may perish? Certainly, when you die, the turf enlarged by avarice remains; the enlarged possession is left behind; and although it be poured over into another's power, yet it shall preserve the testimony of its own crime. In this place must always be pondered that prophetic word: 'Woe to him that joineth house to house' (Isa. 5:8). But you say: 'I read that parents ought to lay up treasure for their children' (2 Cor. 12:14). From this very sentence you can recognize what your dutifulness has profited. Behold, to another pass the ornaments of your riches, and with you remains the odium of your persuasion. With another has settled the pomp of your goods, and with you the penalty has migrated.

It is a kind of folly to have made gain for others, and prepared punishment for oneself. For the Apostle thus says: 'They that will be rich fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil' (1 Tim. 6:9). But not even after a long interval does the heavenly sentence of strictness put forth its power. For in some manner the increments of the vices succeed by degrees toward a certain vengeance for past deeds. In short, this man with parricidal mind either upbraids his father's life, or awaits his mother's death. Perhaps the cause of a due inheritance defends him from this crime. It is true: but although he be a lawful heir, yet not without the vice of covetousness does he plot the wing of the succession. In short, he would wish to be the only one, if he could:

now he thinks on his father's death, now he sighs after his brother's life. This is not without a great crime of impiety. For whoever of men feeds his soul with the expectation of a parent's death, succeeds to the inheritance with the crime of parricide. In this place, by the impulse of covetousness, hatreds are nourished among co-heirs. Not yet is the funeral carried out, and already the good faith of the testament is voided by an interpretation of the law. One disputes about the father's signature, another despairs of the brother's person. This one alleges that the writing does not stand by witnesses, that one asserts that the testament does not agree with the dates. So the estate totters in the collision of lawsuits; and what the avarice of the parents acquired, the covetousness of the children loses. Hear the Scripture saying:

'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods' (Exod. 20:17). It cannot be enumerated in how many ways covetousness rages. Behold, where a testament is produced, at once there is thought of forgery. It is asked who heard the mute man speaking, who knew the dead man ordaining his heirs. Nor is it difficult, what is worse, for anyone to find persons either joined in crime or bought with a price. This wretch imitates the wicked signature of another. So the writing which the testator did not draw up, covetousness composes, with the pen often repeating it. The root of all evils is covetousness.

This man, to confirm the fraud, arms falsehood with perjury; that man sometimes sets his corrupted breast against another's lawsuits. So under the vice of one single covetousness a substance is both acquired and torn to pieces. Where is that which the Scripture says: 'A false witness shall not be unpunished' (Prov. 19:5)? To whom shall we think this to be imputed, that among those whom we hear to have sometimes taken part in crimes, even the innocent are called into accusation? For suspicion frequently comes into the inquiry; and although the guilt of theft resides with one, the odium of encroachment passes over to another. So while increase of substance is sought, even things well acquired are torn to pieces. Thus it comes to pass that sometimes falsehood descends from covetousness, and from falsehood poverty.

The root of all evils is covetousness. Whence comes it that we often see legions standing armed against one another? What else is it but that the one seeks to seize what belongs to another, while the other guards what he has seized? From this it comes that contention is sometimes made for the power of empire, and men strive out of ambition for primacy. All things would surely stand in peace, if the lust to rule did not carry a man away. The root of all evils is avarice. Let us ask whose vice it is that a man's life is entrusted to a thin plank, and that men make trial of doubtful chances upon the deep.

Is it not to be ascribed to covetousness, when at the onset of a storm the sailors' cry accuses the high sea? Does it not recur to the malice of covetousness, when the shipwrecked body is dashed against jagged rocks, and limbs swollen with water are cast by the sea's wave upon unknown shores? Never surely would the sailor have entrusted himself to a ship, had not the greed of gain incited his desire to sail.

In short, a man is borne over the waves by his vow to quadruple his money; gold is carried out that perjury may be brought back with falsehood. For no business is ever transacted without fraud, where a thing is bought cheaper for this sole purpose, that it may be sold dearer. Wherefore even if the voyage prospers quietly according to men's wishes, it is not without shipwreck, since between seller and buyer, by unjust weights or measures, someone either wrongs or is wronged. Why then do these men not consider that saying which declares: As you have measured, it shall be measured to you (Matth. VII, 2)? We blush to speak of those things, dearly beloved, which are done at the prompting of luxury, whose traffic descends from covetousness.

Frequently, then, conjugal chastity is cheapened by a valuation in money, and a virginity long uncontaminated, prostituted for a small weight of gold, has lost the pledge of its integrity. So great in some is covetousness, that chastity is put up for sale and finds a price for its own defilement. For money is diligently weighed out for the corruption of the body, as though something worthy were being purchased. Wretched indeed is he who takes more counsel for covetousness than for chastity. To have condemned the grace of a promised inheritance is to have suffered the loss of integrity. See how unlike is the traffic of covetousness under one and the same crime: this one gave money to buy corruption; that one lost her chastity to gain money. For nothing is done without covetousness, as often as sin is committed.

For if you remove the cult of ornaments, you will suffer no shipwreck in the defilement of the body. Let the desire for gold cease, and neither does conjugal faith perish, nor does virginal integrity blush. The root of all evils is avarice. Here one man is convicted of treachery; there another, an informer, is accused of another's crime. Who can doubt that the weight of proffered money has broken into the secret of the heart? Nothing stands shut that gold and silver do not open; nothing is hidden that is not made known when money searches it out. Whence perilously is the trust of conscience committed to those over whom covetousness holds sway. Integrity would surely keep its whole secret, if traitorous money had no entrance into another's house. The root of all evils is covetousness.

Behold, our Lord and Saviour Himself fulfilled the outcome of His willing Passion through the vice of another's covetousness. We read that the condemnation of our Redeemer was purchased for thirty pieces of silver. But just as you have seen betrayal come from covetousness, so ought you to recognize condemnation descending from betrayal. The betrayed was indeed led to punishment, but the betrayer runs to the noose. Behold what fruit covetousness has: the money of condemnation, laid up for the purchase of a burial place, that is, assigned to a grave. Understand therefore in what state is the guilt of covetousness, when the price of betrayal has come to condemnation. For the apostle Peter also says: May your money be with you unto perdition (Act. VIII, 20).

Perhaps some one of the foolish and the avaricious may flatter himself with an opinion on this matter, and put forward what he hears, that his money will migrate with him. We take nothing away from his wishes on this side. It will indeed come with you, not, as you suppose, for the adornment of the body, but for a testimony of your falsehood. Yet this reckoning does not apply to those whom mercy accompanies. One cause awaits those whom their money, to be spent upon the poor, commends to the Lord by generous giving; another awaits those whom wealth stored up through crime accuses. To the latter it is reckoned unto punishment, but for the former it is prepared unto the kingdom, as the Lord thus says: Come, children, possess with me the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. I was hungry, and you gave me to eat;

I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was naked, and you clothed me (Matth. XXV, 34-36). Let each one of you therefore, dearly beloved, be content with that quality of money which acquires the grace of salvation, not that which kindles a cause of condemnation. Let us therefore chastise covetousness in the first place, if we wish to conquer the error of all the vices. Let no one covet another's goods, and there is no one who labours under the ill-will of enmities; let no one attack a partnership, and there is no contest over encroachment. Let each be content with his own, and there is no dispute over a possession seized. Despise gold, and the murder prepared for it vanishes;

nor are parricidal hatreds sown, if the eye of covetousness be chastised. There is nothing over which an heir need blush, if a man come content to the moderate share of his portion. Let there be none who seeks the increase of money, and no one accuses another of the guilt of betrayal. If you seek no gain, you will suffer no shipwreck in the tempest; and when idle you guard the secrets of your little field, you will look on another's peril untroubled. To avoid these things, dearly beloved, step by step is perhaps difficult, and it is laborious to meet at once many enemies through diverse errors. We must therefore seek a shortcut of the war, and the author of the strife must be sought out, that our fight may be with him from whom the wrong proceeded.

For without doubt you will be able to conquer legions arrayed in arms, if you can master the tyrant. And he has ended the whole cause of the war who has overcome the author of the fight. Let us therefore draw up the battle-lines of the virtues against the prepared legions of crimes. But above all, with faith aiding us, let us fight against that very thing which is the head of the war, that is, covetousness. So will the victory over that stain of the vices of which we have spoken be not difficult, its mother being taken captive. The burden of your vows concerning me has been laid upon me; and though for the present, as it is written, absent in body, yet present in spirit and mind I come to you (I Cor. V, 3; Coloss. II, 5).

And I show, as I think, no small measure of duty and of love to your charity, in that I trust that you too walk in the spirit, not in the flesh, since the Apostle says: Whoever are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you (Rom. VIII, 8, 9). Nor do I truly hold a way unknown to spiritual men, if I set forth the care of your edification in the discourses of an epistolary utterance, having before my hands the pre-eminent example of the most blessed Paul, whom we desire to follow, even though we are not able to attain to him. For although the comparison with him admits us in nothing, yet to you the obedience of those whom he teaches is to be matched.

So that, with the teaching set in due order: with the ROMANS (Rom. I, 8), desiring your faith to be proclaimed in all the world; with the CORINTHIANS (II Cor. VI, 6), corrected by a second amendment, with peace entire and charity unfeigned, you may, as it is written, salute one another with a holy kiss (I Cor. XVI, 20; II Cor. XIII, 12). With the GALATIANS (Gal. IV, 10, 30, 31), rejecting the observance of months and seasons and days, renouncing the world and following God, you may understand yourselves to be sons not of the bondwoman but of the free. That, in the word of truth, remaining with the EPHESIANS (Ephes. I, 13; IV, 5), you may know one Lord, one faith, one God the Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. With the PHILIPPIANS (Philipp. II,

14, 15), blameless and sincere, doing all things without murmuring and hesitations, that you may shine as lights in the midst of a crooked generation. With the COLOSSIANS (Coloss. III, 16), the word of Christ dwelling in you abundantly, you may teach one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. With the THESSALONIANS (I Thess. IV, 1, 3; V, 17), following the will of God, abstaining from fornication, praying without ceasing, proving all things, holding fast that which is good. Thereafter, pursuing the order of the precept with all diligence: that if any will not work, neither let him eat (II Thess. III, 10). For He Himself is the bread that came down from heaven (Joan. VI, 51, 59);

with whom it befits no one to be mingled, unless he practise the works in which He delights. So that TIMOTHY may be a pattern for you, who, even after long drinking water, was bidden to use a little wine to sustain his stomach (I Tim. V, 23), not to oppress it: for although he is instructed by twofold admonitions, unless a man be sober, he cannot fulfil his ministry (II Tim. IV, 5). So that the example of TITUS may form you, that you ought not only to be sober, but also continent; for to the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure (Tit. I, 8, 15). Finally, this conclusion of the apostolic teaching completed the whole sum of the mystic number, the purification of a body cleansed, since nothing is so near to God as for a man not to be corrupted.

Let us therefore attend more circumspectly to what follows after these things. A servant once a fugitive returns to his master, and his condition is changed by conversion (Philem.). Begotten in the apostolic bonds, the unprofitable one advances to usefulness; and not only into a brother, but even into a most beloved brother, he rises by the loftiness of a joined name to a rank of souls united; nor does he merely deserve the bond of appellation, but also the affection of love. For to this is chaste purity, nourished by sobriety, brought by the Lord's favour, that what the sparing use of wine cured in Timothy, what abstinence and continence purged in Titus, this grows unto a most indulgent liberty in ONESIMUS. These things are both to be carried out by the learned, and to be acknowledged by the unlearned;

for as it is written, ignorance too is death (I Cor. XIV, 38), and faith without works is dead (Jac. II, 26). A twofold reckoning of observance to be applied rests upon you: the care of knowing, with the labour of fulfilling; since, as to those things which are prescribed in the divine oracles, not only to do them, but even to be ignorant of them, is sin. Finally, taking the HEBREWS as an example of consummate perfection, I instil the contempt of present things for the love of heavenly rewards.

So that if perchance anyone should either lay upon you the weight of persecution, or plunder all that is yours, you too may follow with a like affection of holy imitation that noble and singular testimony which Paul uttered from his venerable mouth in their exceptional praise, when he says: For you had compassion on the prisoners, and took the plundering of your goods with joy (Hebr. X, 34). To men reborn through faith, and sanctified according to the form of the Gospel in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and through this confession hoping for the heavenly kingdom, the Apostle said that nothing is more useful than that they should have care for good works. For thus he writes to Titus:

And I will that you affirm these things, that they who believe in God may be careful to maintain good works. These things, he says, are good and profitable to men. But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain (Tit. III, 8-9). In writing these things the blessed Apostle already then foresaw that there would be men who, through curiosity and unprofitable questions, would neglect the care of good works, and would destroy the peace which the Lord had left to His Church. For men who, while they strive to be high-minded, are not permitted to understand humble things, forgetting the Apostle's saying, Be not high-minded, but fear (Rom. XI, 20), thus, while they presume upon things unlawful, have lost even things lawful.

These are they who, when they cannot gather and grasp by their sense even the fabric of heaven and earth, yet contend to grasp and measure the very Creator and Fashioner, God; and Him whom they ought, through the greatness of His works and the immensity of such great things, simply and solely to adore, they subject to questioning; and they dispute about the quality of His mystery and about its quantity, saying: How great is the Father? Of what sort the Son? Of what kind the Holy Spirit? O man, not yet knowing yourself, do you dare to measure things divine? And indeed, I say nothing of Sabellius the Patripassian, who dared with foolish presumption to say that the very One who is the Father is the Son; that He is also the Holy Spirit: and that there is a Trinity in name only, not also in truth;

nor subsist in persons, but in appellation alone: and so he confounds the whole, when he feigns that the Father Himself took a body and suffered. I say nothing of Photinus, who, hearing of the incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God, His humility, and that Passion which is salvation-bearing for us, thought Him to be man only; but denied Him to be God, whom he ought to have acknowledged from those very works: forgetting the saying of the Apostle who says: That whereas Christ was in the form of God, He took the form of a servant; that to us, as to servants of sin, He might give the most true liberty (Philip. II, 6-7). And to the Corinthians: You know, he says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for our sakes He became poor, though He was rich, that by His poverty you might be rich (II Cor. VIII, 9).

I say nothing, then, of Sabellius or of Photinus, because from nearly all the churches they have received a sentence worthy of their error. Concerning this heresy, which now calumniates the Catholic faith, you have asked me to say a few words; concerning this heresy assuredly which arose with Arius as its author. For he was not content with the Gospel utterances and the preachings of the apostles, which surely proclaim Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit: nor did he deign to believe, as is fitting, that the Father has a Son, and the Son truly has a Father: but when the unhappy man extended himself and wished to inquire how and in what manner God was able to beget, not apprehending the manner, because it cannot even be comprehended, he fell into error, so as to deny both the Father and the Son.

For he denies the Father in this, that he says He could not beget of Himself a proper and true Son: and the Son he denies in this, that he says He was made from elsewhere and from things non-existent, rather than begotten; and that He is a certain creature, which for the sake of love merited to be called Son;

but that He is not truly the Son who is begotten of the Father; and hence it is that he devised Him to be of another substance, lest He should at all be believed to be the true Son of the Father. Against this his perversity, therefore, and his new doctrine, the Nicene Synod was convened, where, all the Scriptures being collated and gone through, the truth was made manifest, was written down. For, in short, the Son whom Arius had said to be from elsewhere and not of the Father, nor of the substance of the Father, that is, of that very thing which is God, our holy Fathers professed to be born of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, born not made, of one substance with the Father; that surely no diversity may be believed in the Son.

Truly indeed, if He is the true Son of God, and is truly begotten of God the Father, He must not be believed to be of another substance, save that of Him whose Son He is, so that as the Father is God, so may the Son be God; and as the Father is light, so may the Son be light. But this very profession, whereby the Son is believed to be of the same substance, offends some, and the holy profession is wrested by calumnies. For they interpret the saying 'of one substance' as though we said the Father is divided; and that the Son is a part of the Father; and that God the Father is diminished in the Son: or at any rate that by an efflux and derivation the Son retains the unity of the paternal substance.

Which be it far, not only from Christian minds, but even from Christian ears, that any such thing should come into our thought. But we so believe the Son to be of one substance, that we believe the Father to be perfect in His eternity, and remaining also in His impassibility, to have so begotten the Son that He experienced no suffering or diminution of His nature and of His majesty, but that, Himself perfect, He begot of Himself the perfect One, before all ages, the true, almighty Son, through whom indeed all things were made, without whom nothing was made: so that the true Father of His only-begotten Son, and the true Son of the Father, may be believed, not confused, but distinct; the Son nevertheless having in Himself all things that are the Father's, even as He Himself says in the Gospel:

All things that the Father has are mine (Joan. XVI, 15). What are all those things? Surely virtue, surely power, goodness, incorruption, glory, and eternity, even as the Father has. But if these were not in the Son, I fear to say it, the Father would seem to have degenerated in the Son. And if this be so, that the Son should be esteemed degenerate, how is there the same honour, the Lord Himself saying, that all should honour the Son even as they honour the Father (Joan. V, 23)? This the Lord requires, this the faithful render: nor is one scandalized at the humility of the Son, the Saviour, nor at His words which He spoke according to man; nor at the sufferings which for the salvation of the world He deigned to fulfil:

but through these very things they feel that they owe more of grace, more of honour to Christ: so that even if it were not commanded in the Gospel that all should honour the Son even as they honour the Father, the more faithful would do this of their own accord: because He who deigned to humble Himself ought to be exalted, as it is written, He that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luc. XIV, 11). But when the Father says, This is my Son, hear ye Him (Matth. III, 17), and the Son says, That all should honour the Son even as they honour the Father (Joan. V, 23), what blindness of minds is it, that, honour being neglected, insults should be devised?