講道集 第 1 章 第 1/11 段

A homily of our father among the saints, Asterius, bishop of Amasea, on the Gospel according to Luke, concerning the rich man and Lazarus. Not by prohibitive and doctrinal decrees alone does our God and Savior instruct mankind to hate wickedness and love virtue, but he also hands down, by vivid examples, clear lessons in the good way of life, leading us by deeds together with words to the apprehension of the good and God-loving life.

So too now, having already told us in many places, both through the mouths of the prophets and the evangelists, and moreover also by his own voice, to turn away from proud and haughty wealth and to love a benevolent disposition and poverty joined with righteousness, in order to make the counsel of the good more sure, he confirms his word with practical examples and depicts in narrative the rich man and the poor man: he shows the one's ostentatious enjoyment, the other's afflicted life, and the end to which the lives of both came, so that, considering the truth in the practices of others, we might become sober judges of our own.

"There was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen."

By two brief terms the text mocks and satirizes the flabby and immoderate self-indulgence of those who are wickedly rich.

For the color of purple is costly and elaborate,

while the use of fine linen is not necessary.

But for those who choose an orderly and unelaborate life, it is proper and congenial to measure their use of things by the need for what is necessary, and to flee the rabble of vain conceit and a life of excessive indulgence as the mother of vice.

And that we may learn more clearly the force of what has just been said, let us first examine the use of clothing—up to what point, and by what means, it is to be adopted, being encompassed within the bounds and canons of sobriety.

What, then, does the law of righteousness say? God created the sheep with a fine-fleeced hide, flourishing in its wool;

"take this, shear it, and give the material over to the weaver's craft; make for yourself a tunic and a cloak, so that you may escape the hardship of winter and the harm of the scorching sun."

"But if you also have need of lighter clothing in the season of summer, God has given the use of flax for a broader enjoyment;

and from it, it is very easy for you to acquire a decent covering that clothes you and, by its lightness, refreshes you as well."

"And while enjoying these things, acknowledge your gratitude to the Creator, because he not only made us, but also took thought for the security needed for our life."

"But if, forsaking the sheep and the wool and the necessary provision of the Creator of all things, and straying off into vain devices and reckless desires, you seek after fine linen and gather together the threads of the Persian worms, and weave a web as airy as a spider's, and, going to the purple-dyer, pay lavish wages so that, having hunted the shellfish from the sea, you may stain your garment with the creature's blood—this belongs to a man grown over-fat, misusing what he possesses, having nowhere to pour out his excess."

And for this reason such a man is rightly scourged, being accused by the Gospel as stupid and effeminate, adorning himself with the ornaments of wretched little girls.

Others again, in disposition, are lovers of this same vanity;

such a man imitates the power of the painter's art and imprints upon his robes the forms of every kind of creature; men of this sort lavish their craft on garments flowered and variegated with countless figures, for themselves, their wives, and their children;

playing henceforth, not being in earnest;

misusing life through the immoderation of their wealth, not rightly using it; legislating against Paul and fighting against the God-inspired utterances, not with writings but with deeds.

For what he proclaimed against in word, these men uphold and confirm by their deeds.

So when they appear, having put on such garments, they are seen by those who meet them as painted walls.

And sometimes even the little children stand around them, smiling to one another and pointing their fingers at the design painted on their garments;

and they walk along following, not withdrawing for a long while.

There are lions and leopards, bears and bulls and dogs;

woods and rocks, and men who hunt down wild beasts, and the whole practice of the painter's art imitating nature.

For, so it seems, it was not enough that only their walls and their houses be adorned—now their tunics and the cloaks over them had to be adorned as well.

But as many men and women among the wealthy as are more devout have chosen the Gospel narrative and handed it over to the weavers;

I mean, Christ himself together with all his disciples, and each of his miracles, just as the narrative records them.

You will see the wedding of Galilee and the water-jars;

the paralytic carrying his bed upon his shoulders;

the blind man being healed with clay;

the woman with the flow of blood taking hold of the hem of his garment;

the sinful woman falling at the feet of Jesus;

Lazarus returning from the tomb to life.

And in doing these things they think that they are being pious and are wearing garments pleasing to God.

But if they will accept my counsel, let them sell those garments and honor with the money the living images of God.

"Do not paint Christ; for the one humiliation of the incarnation suffices him, which he willingly accepted for our sake; but upon your soul, bearing him intellectually, carry about the incorporeal Word."

"Do not keep the paralytic on your garments, but seek out the sick man who lies in need."

"Do not continually depict the woman with the flow of blood, but show mercy to a widow in affliction."

"Do not carefully gaze upon the sinful woman kneeling before the Lord, but, being crushed on account of your own transgressions, pour out abundant tears."

"Do not sketch Lazarus being raised from the dead, but prepare a good defense for your own resurrection."

"Do not carry about the blind man on your clothing, but comfort with good deeds the living man who has been deprived of his sight."

"Do not paint the baskets of fragments, but feed the hungry."

"Do not carry on your garments the water-jars which he filled in Cana of Galilee, but give drink to the thirsty."

To this extent, then, has the proud garment of the rich man profited us; but what follows should not be overlooked either.

For to the purple and the fine linen he added that he feasted sumptuously every day;

and certainly both belong to one and the same disposition—both to adorn oneself with the useless extravagance of garments, and to be enslaved, in voluptuous self-indulgence, to belly and throat.

Luxury, then, is a thing at war with a life devoted to virtue; it is the mark of foolishness and dissoluteness, a habit of immoderate enjoyment and slavish indulgence.

And when merely spoken of, the thing appears to be some single thing;

but when examined part by part and brought to account, it is found to be constituted of manifold, abundant, and many-headed vice.

For luxury could not come into being unless it were fostered by many resources.

But it is impossible to heap up the resources of wealth without sin, except in the rare case that it should happen to someone—as it did to Job—both to be abundantly rich and to live with strict righteousness.

The man of luxury, then, needs first of all a costly house, adorned like a bride with mosaic, precious stones, and gold;

and one suitably arranged for the changing seasons of the year.

A summer house, so that it may be fanned by breezes both delicate and cool, the north winds.

After this there is need of costly drapery to clothe the pedestals, the couches, the cushioned seats, the doors.

For among such men everything is carefully clothed, even lifeless things, while the poor are pitiably stripped bare.

Add to these, and reckon next, the silver in the vessels, the gold, the costly purchase of birds from Phasis, of Phoenician wine, which the vines of Tyre pour forth abundantly and preciously for the rich;

and all the other apparatus of enjoyment, which it belongs only to those who actually make use of it themselves to enumerate carefully.

For luxury, increasing daily toward ever greater elaborateness, already pours spices from India into the dishes, and the perfume-sellers now serve the cooks more than the physicians do.

From this, consider the bodyguard-like multitude attending the table: table-servers, cup-bearers, stewards, and those who direct them—musicians, both men and women, dancing-girls, flute-players, jesters, flatterers, parasites, the attendant rabble of vanity.

That these things may be acquired, how many poor men are wronged!

How many orphans are beaten with the fist!

How many, violently torn and racked, hasten toward the noose!

But the soul of such men, as though it had tasted some water of Lethe, forgets itself entirely—who it is, and to what it is joined, and that one day it will be released from this union, and will again dwell together with the body when it is recreated.

But when the appointed time comes, and the inexorable command tears the soul away from its fellowship with the body, a reckoning of the life that was lived enters in, along with unprofitable repentance, coming too late, after the need has passed.

For repentance profits only when the one who has had a change of mind still has the power to make amends;

but once the power to set things right has been taken away, grief is useless and the change of mind is in vain.

"And there was a certain poor man named Lazarus."

The text does not simply depict a poor man deprived of resources and lacking the necessities of life; rather, it depicts one also afflicted with a painful sickness and wasted in body, homeless, hearthless, without care, cast down at the gate of the rich man.

And with great care, at the end of the narrative, he tragically portrays the misfortunes of the poor man, so as to brand the hardness of the one who showed no mercy.

For he who feels nothing pitiable or sympathetic toward hunger and disease is an irrational beast, wrongly shaped into human form, belying by his moral choice his nature;

indeed even more unsympathetic than the beasts themselves, since when a pig is being slaughtered, the other pigs are drawn to some sense of grief, and grunt painfully at the freshly-flowing blood;

and oxen stand around at the killing of a bull, signifying their pain with passionate lowing;

And flocks of cranes, when one of their fellows falls into snares, fly around the captured one and fill the air with a mournful cry, seeking their kindred and companion.

But man, the rational and gentle creature, trained in goodness according to the likeness of God, cares so little for his kinsmen in the painful circumstances of misfortune!

So then the much-suffering yet grateful poor man lay there, having no feet — for otherwise he would have fled the accursed and arrogant man, changing to another place instead of that murderous-to-strangers gate that was shut against the poor — deprived of hands, and not even having a palm to stretch out in supplication, the very organs of his voice stopped up, emitting only a hoarse and rough sound from his chest, in short mutilated in all his members, a remnant of a grievous disease, a pitiable example of human weakness.

But nevertheless, not even so great a catalogue of misfortunes moved the haughty man to visit him;

but he passed by the man as if passing a stone, committing his sin without excuse.

For when accused, he could not say these common and plausible excuses:

"The poor man's supplication escaped my notice;"

and a sight for him as he went out, so that it might render the condemnation of the proud man inescapable.

He longed even for the crumbs of the table, and did not obtain even these;

but the one was bursting with satiety, while the other was wasting away from want.

It would have been good and just to set that Canaanite woman, the Phoenician, as a teacher over the misanthropic rich man, that she might say to him those written words: "O accursed and arrogant one, even the little dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters' table;

but you did not deem your brother, your kinsman, worthy of this gift?" ... But the dogs were carefully fed, the guard-dogs separately, the hunting-dogs apart;

and they were deemed worthy even of shelter and a bed, and had attendants assigned to them with diligence, while the image of God lay cast down on the ground, neglected and trampled upon — the image which the master craftsman and creator of all things fashioned with his own hand, if Moses is to be trusted as a witness to the origin of mankind.

Now if the narrative of Lazarus had ended at this point, and if the nature of things were such that our life is bounded by the inequality of this present life, I would have uttered great cries of protest, over the fact that we, though created with equal honor, live so unequally with our fellow humans.

But since what remains is good to hear, you who are poor — having groaned at what has passed — take heart in what follows, learning of the blessed enjoyment of your fellow poor man.

For you will find the exact tribunal of a just judge, in which he who indulged in pleasure groans, and he who toiled luxuriates;

and each one receives the wages befitting his desert.

Now it came to pass that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.

Do you see the ministers of the righteous and poor man, and the attendants of his passing? For angels formed his honor guard, looking upon him calmly and gently, and by their very bearing revealing beforehand the care and rest that awaited him.

And he was placed, having been carried, into the bosom of the patriarch — which also provides occasion for perplexity to those who gladly probe the depths of the Scriptures.

For if every righteous person who dies were carried to the same place, the bosom would have to be vast and stretched out to infinity, if indeed it were to be capable of containing the whole multitude of the saints.

But if this is entirely impossible — for a bosom, when hollowed out, can scarcely embrace even one man, and barely two infants — then some other contemplation awaits us, leading us by the hand through the image of the sensible bosom toward some intelligible matter.

For what is meant by this? Abraham, it is said, receives those who have lived a well-ordered life.

Tell me then, O inspired Luke — for I shall converse with you as though you were present and visible — why, when there were many righteous men older than Abraham, did you allot this honor to the one who came later in age, passing over Enoch, Noah, and whoever else followed in life like them? But perhaps I understand you, and what I am reasoning does not miss the mark.

For since Abraham was a servant of Christ, and beyond other men received distinctly the appearances of Christ, and since the mystery of the Trinity was sufficiently depicted for us in the tent of this old man, when he entertained the three angels as travelling men, and, in short, from many mystical enigmas this man became a familiar man of God — of him who, in later times, clothed himself in flesh and, through the medium of this human veil, conversed openly with men — for this reason Luke says that his bosom is, as it were, a calm harbor and a wave-free resting place for the righteous.

For in Christ is the salvation of us all, and our hope, and our expectation of the age to come — Christ, who according to the human succession, sprang forth from the flesh of Abraham,

calling the righteous to himself and saying:

"Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you."

Now it came to pass that the poor man died.

There is a twofold meaning concerning the poor man:

the one signifying the want of necessities, the other, moderation of mind and lowliness of character.

Let not, then, the one who is destitute of material goods and lacking in money, clothed in a wretched cloak, appropriate to himself the praise of virtue, nor let him suppose that poverty alone will suffice him for salvation.

For it is not the one who is poor out of necessity who is praised, but the one who moderates his disposition by free choice who is admired.

Since for those who are simply destitute, but have an untrained or uncorrected character, poverty arising from necessity becomes provision for many wicked deeds of daring.

And I myself, whenever I have appeared before a magistrate's tribunal, have seen that all housebreakers and kidnappers, and moreover clothes-thieves and thieves and murderers themselves, are poor men — unknown, homeless, without hearth.

So that it is evident from this that Scripture here calls blessed that poor man who bears his hardships with a philosophic soul, and endures nobly the circumstances of life, and commits no wicked deed in order to grant to the flesh the enjoyment of luxury.

This man the Lord also describes more clearly in the first of the beatitudes, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit."

So then, not every poor man is righteous, but only one such as Lazarus; nor is every rich man condemned, but only the one living with such a disposition as Lazarus's rich contemporary had;

and the witnesses to this, drawn from the experience of life, are evident.

For what was richer than the divine Job? Yet nevertheless his abundant prosperity neither estranged the man from righteousness, nor, to put it comprehensively, exiled him from virtue.

What was poorer than Iscariot? Yet he derived no benefit from his poverty toward salvation, but though he lived together with the eleven poor and philosophic disciples and with the Lord himself, who for our sakes became poor by his own choice, he, being carried away by evil choice into love of money, from that same source also wrought his treachery with wicked cunning.

It is also worth examining intelligently the funeral procession of each of the two deceased.

For the poor man, having fallen asleep, had angels as his honor-guard and attendants, leading him with good hope to the place of rest;

but the rich man, it says, having died, was buried.

For nothing is comparable to using the very wording of Scripture itself, which sufficiently expresses, through a single word, the dishonorable end of the rich man.

For the sinner, when he dies, is truly "buried" — being earthly in body, but earthy also in soul, having through the affinity of the flesh for matter dragged down the natural dignity of that soul, leaving behind no useful memorial of his own life, but being covered by dishonorable oblivion, and dying the death of cattle.

For the grave holds the body, and Hades the soul;

two dark prisons sharing between them the punishment of that wicked creature.

And who would not blame the wretched man for his folly? — when, above ground, he was exultant, boasting greatly, looking down on all who lived with him and were of his own kind, all but calling those he met ants and worms, and bursting with empty pride over his short-lived glory;

but when he was torn away from life and, like a whipped slave, was stripped of those things not his own — which in his folly he had supposed himself master of — he is brought down into a lowliness that counterbalances his former arrogance, and, putting forth the lamentations of a wailing old woman, calls upon the patriarch at length and to no avail, saying:

"Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame" — seeking the mercy which he did not give when he had ready power to do good;

demanding that Lazarus come to him as a helper against the fire;

Such are the follies of those who love the body; this is the end of those who love wealth and pleasure.

And it is fitting for the man who is prudent and provident of the future, considering this parable to be like some preventive medicine against disease, to flee the experience of similar evils, having practiced compassion and love of humanity as the cause of the life to come.

For the discourse has set forth for us its admonition dramatically, in the persons of specific characters, so that, being instructed vividly and demonstratively in the law of good conduct, we might never despise the precepts of Scripture as though they merely frighten in word only, without ever bringing the threat forward into actual punishment.

For I know that many men, being enticed by such notions, grant to themselves unhindered license to sin.

But we are taught the exact opposite by the Scripture set before us: that no pardon lightens the punishment of that judgment, nor does any kindness diminish the appointed penalty — if indeed one must confirm this account by the words of the patriarch.

For though he was earnestly entreated by the rich man and heard countless pitiable words, Abraham was neither moved to relent by the lamentations, nor did he deliver from his pain the man who was being bitterly scourged; but with a stern mind he confirmed the just judgment, saying that God had apportioned to each according to his desert;

"and to you, who lived luxuriously in life at the cost of others' misfortunes, the penalty for your wrongdoing has been imposed — what you now suffer;

but to him who toiled there and was trodden down and endured the bitterness of his embodied life, a sweet and joyous condition has here been allotted."

In addition to this he says there is also a great chasm, preventing their mingling with one another and separating those being punished from those being honored, so that both groups might live distinctly apart from one another, having an unconfused experience of good things and of evil things.

But I think that this sensible parable is a riddle pointing to an intelligible contemplation.

For let us not truly imagine there an actual trench dug by the angels, of the sort that occurs between the lines of opposing armies in military camps, but rather Luke, in describing for us the separation by which those who lived according to virtue and those who lived otherwise are separated from one another, has put forward the image of the chasm.

And Isaiah also confirms this understanding of ours, speaking somewhat as follows:

"Is the Lord's hand too weak to save, or has he made his ear heavy so that it cannot hear? But your sins have set a division between you and between God."

A homily by the same [author], on the Gospel according to Luke, concerning the unjust steward. — I have often told you in my discourses that a certain fabricated and false notion, once it falls upon men, multiplies their sins and diminishes the good deeds which each of us ought to practice in our own manner of life.

And this is the notion: to think that everything we have for use in this life we possess as lords and masters.

And because of this supposition we fight fiercely over these things, and make war, and go to law, and cling to them to the utmost as though they were our own exclusive possessions.

But the truth is not so; indeed, it is quite the opposite.

For all the things we have received are not our own;

nor indeed have we been settled in this life as absolute masters and lords, as in our own house, but we are led about, as sojourners and newcomers and migrants, to where we do not wish and when we do not expect.

And we are deprived of our possessions, of our property, whenever it seems good to the Lord.

And he who is glorious today is pitiable tomorrow, worthy of compassion and help;

he who is now prosperous and flourishing in the substance of riches becomes, after a little while, a poor man, not even having from his own house the bread which he might bring forth to sustain his life.

And in this above all our God surpasses us mortals: in always being the same, and remaining constant, and possessing life and glory and power that cannot be taken away.

From what point, then, did I come to this beginning of my discourse — a thing which perhaps is already familiar to those who have understanding and are lovers of learning?

Luke, having composed a parable for us, has just now been read out, in which he depicts the steward of another's goods as being constrained and afflicted, since, as a spendthrift and a squanderer, he heard from the lord of the money and the possessions: 'Give an account of your stewardship, and step down';

'for I will no longer allow you to revel in my goods as though they were your own.'

Now this is not the narration of an event that actually happened, but the fashioning of a parable, which through veiled words instills moral virtue.

Know, then, each one of you, that you are the manager of what belongs to another; and having cast away from your soul the arrogance of absolute ownership, take up instead the humble and reverent disposition of one accountable and a steward, always awaiting your lord and drawing up, with trembling, the ledger of your defense.

For you are a sojourner, having received permission for a brief and transient use of these things.

But if you doubt what is well known, examine carefully what actually happens, and be instructed by that teacher who never lies — experience.

You possess a piece of land, either having received it from your fathers, or having become its owner through some transaction.

Reckon, then, in your memory, and enumerate, if you can, all those who possessed it before you;

and turn your mind also to the time to come, and consider how many will possess it as lords after you.

Tell me, then, whose is the ownership, and to whom in particular does it especially belong — to those who have held it, to those who now hold it, or to those who will hold it? For if someone, by some contrivance, gathered them all together, those who have owned it would be found more numerous than the clods of earth it contains.

Or rather, if you truly wish to see precisely what our life resembles, recall whether, traveling once in the season of summer, you ever beheld a wide-spreading tree, extending far in breadth and length, sufficient by its shade to fill the need of a house.

Delighted with it, you went beneath it, and, for as long as it was possible, you remained there.

But when it was necessary to set out again, and while you were deliberating about your departure, another traveler arrived.

And while you loaded up your baggage, he set down his own, and at once took over everything of yours — the bed of leaves, the fire, the shade of the tree, the water flowing nearby.

And he took to reclining, while you took to the road. He too was delighted, and then he too let it go;

and the one tree, in the course of a single day, became perhaps the brief lodging of ten strangers;

and that which became the possession of all in turn belonged, in truth, to one — its real owner.

In just this way, the abundance of this present life delights and nourishes many, while the true ownership belongs to God alone, who possesses a life that is incorruptible and imperishable.

You have also seen an inn, at which, surely, while traveling, you once lodged;

and though carrying nothing with you, you received from it many things: a bed, a table, drinking-cups, a dish, and other utensils of every kind.

But before you had made sufficient use of them, another traveler arrived, out of breath, covered in dust, hurrying you along and driving you out of the inn, and seeking as his own exclusive right what belongs to another.

Such is our life, brothers — and if anything, even more transient than what has been said.

But I marvel at those who say —

how by a single vain syllable they claim as their own what does not belong to them, and with three deceptive letters embrace as their own what is another's.

For just as no one possesses as his own exclusive property the masks of the conjurors, but all the actors of the dramas put them on in turn, so too the earth and the substances derived from it are put on, one person after another, like garments.

Is there, tell me, anything more powerful than kingship? And yet, search out the royal palaces;

seek out the royal robes;

and you will find that these same robes have sufficed, having clothed the bodies of many kings.

The same is true of the clasps and the girdles — all of it an unstable inheritance, a common use passing from those who are journeying on to those who remain behind.

And what of the insignia belonging to the rank of prefect — the state canopy, the silver carriage, the golden staff? Do not these always have their prefect, yet never the same one, except for each only a short while? For just as the funeral bier receives different bodies at different times, so too the emblems of office exchange those who make use of them.

For this reason the apostle also cried out to us many sayings that instruct us in this same understanding:

'For the fashion of this world is passing away';

and, 'as having nothing, and yet possessing all things';

and, 'those who use this world, as not misusing it.'