HOMILIA XLIII. That he who despises present things dominates both; and that avarice is worse than any mire and filth.
Since a certain great grace was about to be given from the beginning, beloved, to men, God, wishing not to grant this as a grace, but to provide it as a debt, prepares the first man to yield up his own son for the sake of God’s command, so that he might not seem to be doing anything great in yielding up his own Son, if a man had done this before him; so that this might not be thought to be done by grace alone, but also by debt. For those whom we love, we wish even to bestow this upon them: to appear to have received something small from them before, and thus to give them the whole, and we boast in the taking rather than in the giving, and we do not say, "This we gave him," but, "This we received from him." Whence, he says, he also "received him in a parable" (Heb. 11:19), that is, as in an enigma (for the ram of Isaac was, as it were, a parable), or as a type. Since the sacrifice had been completed, and Isaac had been slain in intention, for this reason he was granted back to the patriarch. A Do you see that what I always say is now shown? When we present our mind as completed, and show that we despise earthly things, then even earthly things are granted to us, but not before, so that it may not fetter us, who are already tied to receiving. "Loose," he says, "yourself from the slavery, and then receive, so that you may no longer receive as a slave, but as a master." Despise wealth, and you shall be wealthy; despise glory, and you shall be glorious; despise the punishment of your enemies, and then you shall attain it; despise ease, and then you shall take it; so that having taken it, you may not take it as one bound, nor as a slave, but as one free. For just as with little children, when the child desires childish trifles, we hide those things with great diligence, such as a ball and things of that kind, so that B he may not be hindered from necessary things; but when he despises them and no longer desires them, we share them with him without fear, knowing that no harm henceforth befalls him from that, since that desire is no longer powerful enough to lead him away from necessary things; so also God, when He sees that we no longer desire the things here below, allows us to use them; for as free men and adults we hold them, not as children. For that if you despise the punishment of your enemies, then you shall attain it, hear what He says: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink"; and He added: "For in doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head" (Rom. 12:20). And again, that if you despise wealth, then you shall attain it, hear Christ saying: "There is no one who has left father, or mother, or houses, or brothers, who will not receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life" (Matt. 19:29). And that if you despise glory, then you shall attain it, C hear again Christ Himself saying: "Whoever wishes to be first among you, let him be your servant"; and again, "For whoever shall humble himself, this one shall be exalted" (Matt. 20:26 and 23:12). What do you say? If I give my enemy a drink, then do I punish him? If I leave my possessions, then do I have them? If I humble myself, then shall I be exalted? Yes, He says; for such is My power: to provide the contraries through the contraries. I am resourceful and capable; do not fear; the nature of things follows My will, I do not follow nature; I work all things, I am not led by them; wherefore I also wish to transform and remodel them. D And why do you marvel at these things? For you shall find the same thing in all other matters as well. If you do wrong, you have been wronged; if you are wronged, then you have not been wronged. If you take revenge, then you have not taken revenge, but you have taken revenge on yourself; "For he who loves injustice," he says, "hates his own soul" (Prov. 29:24). Do you see that you have not been wronged, but that you are doing wrong? For this reason Paul also says: "Why do you not rather suffer wrong?" (1 Cor. 6:7). Did you see that this is not to be wronged? When you insult, then you have been insulted; and to some extent the many know this, as when they say to one another: "Let us go from here, do not insult yourself." Why? Because there is a great distance between you and him; for whatever insults you may cast, he considers it glory. Let us think this regarding all things, and let us become higher than the insults. How, I say? If we have a fight with one who wears the purple, we count insulting him as insulting ourselves; for we consider ourselves worthy of being washed clean. What do you say, tell me? Being a citizen of the heavens, and possessing the philosophy from above, do you wash yourself with one who minds earthly things? For even if he possesses ten thousand riches, even if he is in power, he does not yet know your good. Do not insult yourself by insulting him; spare yourself, not him; honor yourself, not him. Is there not such a proverb, "He who honors, honors himself"? Deservedly; for he does not honor him, but himself. Hear a certain wise man saying: "Make honor for your soul according to its dignity" (Eccl. 10:31). According to its dignity, what is this? If it has been overreached, he says, do not overreach; if it has insulted, do not insult. Tell me, I beseech you, if some beggar took mire cast from your courtyard, would you have convened a court over this? By no means. Why? So that you may not insult yourself, so that you may not be condemned by all. This also happens now. For the rich man is a beggar, and the more he is wealthy, the more he becomes a beggar in true poverty. Money is but mire cast in a courtyard, not lying within your house; for your house is heaven. Will you then convene a court over this? And will not the citizens on high condemn you? Will they not cast you out of their fatherland, you who are so lowly, so contemptible, as to choose to fight over a little mire? For if the world were yours, and then someone took it, should you be distressed? Do you not know that if you put the inhabited world ten times, and a hundred times, and ten thousand times, and twice as much, it is not even the smallest part of the goods in the heavens? He, therefore, who admires the things here, has insulted those things, if indeed he considers them as worthy of concern as much as he falls short of those...
A things. How, indeed, will anyone be able to admire those things if he is preoccupied with these? Let us cut the ropes and the nets—for earthly things are this. How long shall we stoop downwards? How long shall we lie in wait for one another, as wild beasts, as fish? Nay, rather, wild beasts do not lie in wait for their own kind, but for others: for instance, a bear does not easily kill a bear, nor a serpent a serpent, as being of the same kin. You, however, who have with your own kind ten thousand reasons for just behavior—namely, kinship, reason, the knowledge of God, and ten thousand other things, and have shared in the same nature—do you kill him and involve him in a thousand evils? For what if you do not thrust a sword, nor sink your right hand into his throat? You do things graver than these, afflicting him with perpetual sorrows. For if you had done that, you would have delivered him from cares; but now you cast him into a famine of slavery, into vexations and many sins. I say these things, and I will not cease saying them—not to prepare you for death, nor to urge you to cause less evil than that man, but because I want you not to trust as though you were not going to pay the penalty. For he says: "He who takes away his neighbor’s livelihood kills him" (Ecclus. 34:24). B Let us therefore hold back our hands; nay, rather, let us not hold them back, but let us extend them correctly, not to avarice, but to alms. Let us not have a barren hand, nor a withered one: for that which does not dispense alms is withered; that which strives for avarice and rapacity is detestable and impure. Let no one eat with such hands: for this is an insult to the guests. For tell me, if someone were to bid us recline on carpets and soft bedding and on sheets interwoven with gold in a splendid and large house, and were to bring in a great crowd of servants; and then were to prepare a table of silver and gold, full of various and exquisite foods, and compel us to eat—would we bear his hands, as he reclined, dirty with mud or human dung? Would not anyone consider this as a torture? Would not one take this as an insult? I, at least, think so, and that he would immediately depart. But now, you do not see the hands filled with mud, but the very food itself, and you do not recoil? You do not flee? You do not rebuke? But C if he is in a position of power, you consider it a great thing, and you destroy your own soul, while partaking of such foods? For avarice is worse than all mud: it defiles the soul, not the body, so that it can scarcely be washed. Since you see, therefore, this man reclining, defiled with mud in both his hands and his face, and the house and the table filled with it (for those foods are baser and more detestable than this impure dung); do you feel as though you have been honored, and as though you are about to enjoy delicacies? Nor do you fear Paul, who permits us to recline at the table of the heathen, if we wish, but does not grant it even to those who wish at the table of the avaricious? "If any man that is named a brother," he says, "be a fornicator" (1 Cor. 5:11)—calling every believer a brother here, not a monk. For what makes fraternity? The laver of regeneration, which enables us to call God Father. Therefore, he who is a monk, if he be a catechumen, is not a brother; but a believer, even if he be a secular person, is a brother. "If any man that is named a brother," he says. For there was not even a trace of a monk then, but this blessed man spoke to all regarding seculars. "If any man," he says, "that is named a brother be a fornicator, or a covetous person, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such an one, do not so much as to eat." D But with the heathen not so; but, "If any of the infidels call you," meaning the heathen, "and you desire to go, eat everything that is set before you" (1 Cor. 10:27). "If any man that is named a brother," he says, "be a drunkard." Alas, what precision! We, however, not only do not flee from drunkards, but we approach them, and we share with them. Therefore, all things have been turned upside down, all things are confused, disturbed, and have perished. For tell me, if one of such men were to call you to a banquet, considering you poor and base, and then were to hear from you: "The filth served is born of avarice and rapine, and I will not suffer my soul to be defiled"—would he not be covered with shame? Would he not blush? This alone would have been enough to correct him, and to lead him to proclaim himself wretched because of his riches, and to admire you who are living in poverty, if he saw himself despised by you with such zeal. But I know not whence we have become slaves to men, while Paul is crying out here and there, "Do not become slaves to men" (1 Cor. 7:23). Whence, then, I ask you, have we become slaves? Because we were first slaves of the belly and of money and of glory and of all other things: we have betrayed the liberty which Christ bestowed upon us. What, then, tell me, awaits him who has become a slave? Hear Christ saying: "The slave does not abide in the house forever" (John 8:35). You have a definitive sentence, that he may never enter the kingdom: for this house is that one; for He says, "In my Father's house there are many mansions" (John 14:2). The slave, therefore, does not abide in the house forever: He calls him a slave who is a slave of sin. But he who does not abide in the house forever, abides in gehenna forever, having nowhere any consolation. But things have reached such wickedness, that they even give alms from these goods, and many accept them. Therefore our boldness has been cut away, and we cannot rebuke anyone. Yet, let us nevertheless at least now flee this damage, and you who wallow in this mire, cease from such destruction. For just as a dead body is not affected by any sensation, but is even troublesome to those approaching it; so also sin immediately strikes the rational part, and does not allow the mind itself to rest, but disturbs it. It is said, moreover, that a plague arises and decays bodies. Such also is sin; it differs nothing from a plague, not first decaying the air, and then the bodies, but immediately leaping into the soul. Do you not see those who labor under the pestilence, how they are swollen, how they are turned round, how they are full of stench, how they are base in appearance, how they are unclean? Such are those who sin, even if they do not see it. For tell me: is he not worse than every fevered person who is held by the love of money or of bodies? Is he not more impure than all these who shamelessly does and suffers all base things? For what is baser than a man blinded by the love of money? Whatever harlots, whatever stage-actresses do, he does not refuse to do; nay, it is more likely that they would refuse rather than he; and he sustains doing servile works, flattering those whom he does not even find worthy of this care, and from them he falls away, or rather, he is not even able to admire those things; for how can he, if he is taken by the admiration of these? Dissect the little ropes and nets: for earthly things are such. How long shall we turn ourselves downwards? How long shall we lie in wait for one another, as wild beasts, as fish? Nay, indeed, wild beasts do not lie in wait for one another, but for others: for example, a bear does not easily kill a bear, nor a serpent a serpent, as being of the same kin; but you, who have with your own kind countless reasons to act justly, namely kinship, the rational power, the knowledge of God, and countless other things, by nature finally the fortitude; you kill him, who is akin and a participator of the same nature, and involve him in a thousand evils? For what if you do not thrust a sword, nor sink your right hand into his throat? You do things heavier than these, afflicting him with perpetual sorrows. For, if you had done that, you would have set him free from cares; but now you cast him into a famine of slavery, into vexations and many sins. These things I say, nor will I make an end of speaking, not to afflict you with death, nor to urge you to withdraw less from evil than that man, but because I wish you not to be confident, as though you were not to pay the penalty: for he says, "He kills his neighbor, who takes away his food" (Ecclus. 34:24). Let us at length contain our hands; nay, rather, let us not contain them, but let us extend them correctly, not to avarice, but to alms. Let us not have a hand that is fruitless, nor withered: for that which does not dispense alms is withered; that which strives for avarice and rapacity is detestable and impure. Let no one eat with such hands: for this is an insult to the invited. For tell me, if someone were to bid us recline on carpets and on soft bedding and in sheets interwoven with gold in a splendid and great house, and were to bring in a great multitude of servants; and then were to have prepared a table of silver and gold, full of various and exquisite foods, and compel us to eat: would we bear his hands, as he reclined, defiled with mud, or with human dung? Would anyone not consider this as a torture? Would one not take this as an insult? I at least think so, and that he would immediately depart. But now, you do not see the hands filled with mud, but the very food itself, and you do not recoil? You do not flee? You do not rebuke? But, if he be in power, you consider it a great thing, and you destroy your own soul, while using such foods? For avarice is worse than all mud; for it defiles the soul, not the body, so that it can scarcely be washed. You therefore, seeing this man reclining, defiled with mud, and in his hands and face, and the house and the table filled with it (for these foods are more impure and more detestable than this foul dung); are you affected as though honored, and as though about to take delicacies? Nor do you fear Paul, who permits us to recline at the table of the heathen, if we wish, but does not grant it to those who will not have it at the table of the avaricious? "If any man that is named a brother," he says, "be a fornicator" (1 Cor. 5:11): calling every believer brother here, not monk. For what makes fraternity? The laver of regeneration, which allows us to call God father. Therefore, he who is a monk, if he be a catechumen, is not a brother; but a believer, even if he be a secular man, is a brother. If any man that is named a brother. For then there was not even a trace [of a monk, but he spoke to all as seculars].
A And he who plays the flatterer to those he should not is everywhere inconsistent. He sits fawning upon wicked men and old men—often corrupt, and far poorer and more contemptible than himself—while he insults and behaves arrogantly toward others who are good and virtuous in every way. Do you see the unseemliness on both sides? Do you see the shamelessness? He is both humble beyond measure and arrogant.
But, you say, harlots stand in a brothel; and this is the crime, that they sell their body for the sake of money. But, you say, poverty and hunger compel them. Even if that be true, this is not enough for an apology, for it was possible for them to work and be fed. But here the covetous man stands, not in a brothel, but in the middle of the city; not selling his body, but betraying his soul to the devil, so that he is both joined with him and enters into him, just as one does with a harlot; and having fulfilled all his desire, he goes out; and the whole city sees it—not two or three men. And this also is a property of harlots, that they belong to the one who gives them gold; whether he be a slave, or a monk, or anyone at all, if he offers the payment, they admit him; but free men, even if they are more noble than all, they do not admit without silver. These men do the same thing here; when they have no silver, they turn away right reasonings; but they are joined to the defiled and those who are truly enemies of God for the sake of gold, and they are joined unseemly, and they lose the beauty of the soul. For just as those women are by nature ugly, black, unrefined, ill-formed, and poorly constructed, and shameful in every way; so, too, do the souls of these men become, unable to conceal their deformity even with outward cosmetics. For when there is extreme ugliness, whatever they may contrive, they cannot even pretend otherwise. For that it is shamelessness that makes harlots, hear the prophet saying: *Thou hast behaved shamelessly toward all; there was the face of a harlot unto thee* (Jer. 3:3). This can also be said to the covetous: Thou hast behaved shamelessly toward all; not toward this one and that one, but toward all. How? Such a man respects no one—neither father, nor son, nor wife, nor friend, nor brother, nor benefactor, nor anyone at all. And why do I say friend, brother, and father? He does not even respect God Himself, but everything seems to him a fable, and he laughs—drunk on great desire—and does not even receive into his hearing any of those things capable of benefiting him.
But O the absurdity, and what they speak! "Woe to you, Mammon, and to him who does not have you." Here I am distraught with anger; for "woe" to those who say these things, even if they say them in jest. For tell me, did not God threaten such a threat, saying: *You cannot serve two masters* (Matt. 6:24)? And do you loosen the threat? B Does not Paul say it is idolatry, and call the covetous man an idolater? And you stand laughing, like the secular women, mocking like those on the stage? This has overturned and cast down everything; our life has become laughter, and civility, and witticism; nothing is stable, nothing is grave. I do not say these things only to secular men, but I know whom I hint at; for the Church is filled with laughter; if someone says something witty, laughter immediately arises among those sitting there. And what is wonderful is that, at the very time of prayer, many do not cease from laughter. The devil dances everywhere, he puts on the guise of everything, he controls everything; Christ is insulted, and the Church is accounted as nothing.
Do you not hear Paul saying: *Filthiness and foolish talking and jesting, let it be taken away* (Ephes. 5:4)? He places jesting alongside filthiness, and you laugh? What is foolish talking? Things that have nothing useful in them. C And do you, the monk, the crucified one, the one who mourns, spread and relax your face? You laugh, tell me? Where did you hear that Christ did this? Nowhere; but [you hear] that He often expressed sorrow; for indeed, when He saw Jerusalem, He wept, and when He thought of the traitor, He was troubled, and when He was about to raise Lazarus, He wept; and you laugh? If he who does not grieve over the sins of others is worthy of accusation, of what forgiveness shall he be worthy who is insensate and laughs at his own? The time is one of mourning and tribulation, of buffetings and servitude, of struggles and sweat—and you laugh? Do you not see how the Sadducees were rebuked? Do you not hear Christ saying, *Woe unto you that laugh, for you shall weep* (Luc. 6:25)? You chant these things every day. For what do you say, tell me? That I laughed? By no means. But what? *I have labored in my sighing.* But perhaps some are so relaxed and soft that they even laugh at this rebuke, because, forsooth, we are discussing laughter. For such is wandering of mind, such is madness; it does not even perceive the rebuke. The priest of God stands offering the prayer of all, and you laugh without fearing anything? And he indeed offers prayers for you, and you show contempt? Do you not hear the Scripture saying, *Woe to the contemptuous*? Do you not shudder? Do you not compose yourself? And when you enter a palace, you adorn yourself in shape, and look, and gait, and all other things; but here, where these are truly the palaces, and such as are the heavenly ones, you laugh? I know indeed that you do not see; but hear that angels are present everywhere, and especially in the house of God they stand by the King, and everything is filled with those incorporeal Powers. This is my word also to the women, who do not dare to do this quickly before men; and even if they do, not always, but during the time of relaxation; but here [they do it] always. Do you cover, tell me, your head, and do you laugh, O woman, sitting in church? You came to confess your sins, to fall before God, to beseech and entreat for the things you have wrongly committed, and you do this with laughter? How then will you be able to propitiate Him?
And what evil is there in laughter, he says? Laughter is not an evil, but it is evil to be immoderate, to be out of season. Laughter is implanted in us so that, when we see friends after a long time, we may do this; when we see some who are struck down and afraid, we may relieve them with a smile, not so that we may guffaw and always be laughing; laughter is implanted in our soul so that the soul may be relaxed at times, not so that it may be dissipated—since desire for bodies is also implanted in us, and it is not at all a necessity that, because it is implanted, we must use it or not use it immoderately; but we also restrain it, and we do not say: "Because it is implanted, let us use it." Serve God with tears, that you may be able to wash away your sins. I know that many mock us, saying: "Tears again." For this reason it is the time for tears. I know that those who say, *Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die* (1 Cor. 15:32), also speak impiously. *Vanity of vanities, all is vanity* (Eccl. 1:2; 2:4; 5:5). I do not say this, but He Himself who had experience of all things...