the high things, and I am not ashamed of the lowly things of his humanity; but with the great and blessed Apostle Peter, I cry out to him: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And to you be glory and honor and worship, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
On Almsgiving
Divine Scripture says: *He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord* (Prov. 19:17). See what a creditor the merciful have: how great, how well-provided! If you lend gold or silver or grain to a man, you draw up a bond and bind the hand that receives it with written documents. But in the case of God, this is not so; rather, you give to the witness and to the poor, and God calls upon and announces that he will receive back the loans that you lent to the poor. He is eager to settle the guarantee, and he does not repay simply, but with much blessing, saying—he speaks, and he is less than many. Likewise, he who buys comes to give a little, and he who sells gives more; and thus, having placed the middle price, they trade what is convenient. And when you have acquired what you desire with such great labor, you do not possess security. For often, before you reach your home, it has perished, or been lost, or proven worthless, and the labor becomes double. But in the kingdom of God, you endure nothing of the sort: no labors of travel, no burning heat, no sluggishness, no grief of failure, nothing of this. While you are sitting in your house, the poor man comes, selling paradise, and says to you: "Give bread, and receive paradise; give a worn-out garment, and receive the kingdom of heaven." Yet he does not compel you to give what you do not have, but from what you are able. But you, unwilling to buy the paradise of God, say: "I have no bread." Give one obol, give a cup of cold water, give what you wish, give what you have; Christ accepts all things. Only buy paradise. Imitate that widow of Sarepta, who gave the handful of flour and inherited the kingdom of heaven; and again, another widow mentioned in the Gospel, keeping nothing else but two mites, and casting these into the treasury. Buy paradise. God does not seek an abundance of wealth, but a merciful soul and a well-disposed heart. Give to the poor, and acquire God as your debtor. *He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord.* And when, he asks, does the one who borrowed repay? When you leave behind all the things here—the houses, the gold, the silver, the clothing, and all the rest—and go there, having left all things here behind; then the one who borrowed repays with thanksgiving. Send your wealth on ahead of you; do not wait for times, do not hoard them, so that you do not lose eternal life. Death is uncertain; you do not know when it comes, at what hour you depart. And you indeed go there, while the wealth remains here, and others distribute your riches among themselves, not even making mention of your name; and often your heirs tear apart your estate and curse you. Send your wealth on ahead to the age that has no end, so that you do not depart into the place of unquenchable fire, as the rich man did on account of Lazarus. *Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink*; and so forth. See what the Creator of the world says. He does not say: "I was king, and you feared me," nor "I was a ruler, and you honored me," but: "I was naked, and you clothed me; sick, and you visited me." Truly there is nothing equal to almsgiving; the poor man spends, and God repays. God, having borrowed from the poor—who are the witnesses who remain—does not only repay the loan, but makes the lenders heirs, saying: *Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.* And when, he asks, was it prepared? When you provided food and clothing to the poor, when you bore fruit in the churches and in the shrines, when you welcomed them into your house, when you visited the sick and those in prison; when you were doing these things, I was preparing this kingdom for you. When you are about to depart from life, do not wait for the hospitality of it; the Master of the house meets you, saying: *Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.* Behold the greatness of almsgiving, how no other virtue is compared to it or preferred before it. For he did not say: "Because you kept virginity," or "Because you fasted for my sake"; he said nothing of the sort, but only: *I was hungry, and you gave me food.* Fasting and virginity and the remaining virtues are great, but nothing is equal to almsgiving. Send your world on ahead to the world there that has no end, and you will find in that age those things which you provide here, just as the Lord also says: *Make for yourselves friends by means of unrighteous mammon, so that, when you fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles* (Luke 16:9). O the friendship of the Master, the foolishness of the wealthy! He himself invites, and the rich man is pained. Do you not understand, O man, what the providence of God is? Could God not have given the poor man as much wealth as he gave to you, and made both you and him rich? Could he not have brought down showers of gold and made the poor rich? Or does God need you to honor him because of your wealth? Consider what you are about to become; look at the exposed bones in the grave. How do you differ there, rich man or poor? Are they not all ash? Are they not all dust? Where is the king there? Where the ruler? Where the powerful? Where the poor? Truly all are equal corpses, and creeping bones, a multitude of worms. Why are you proud against the poor? Why do you despise the weak? Does God not behold both him and you? Is he not also an image of him? Consider that God calls the poor man himself brother, and makes him more preferable than you on that day. For God is not unjust; he does not deprive the poor of eternal life and the heavenly kingdom, if he endures poverty. But for you, he does not give two paradises, unless you send on ahead of you the gifts given to you by God. *For inasmuch as you did it not to one of these least of my brethren, you did it not to me* (Matt. 25:40). Come, then, let us listen, and fill the bellies of the poor from what God has provided for you, so that you find your storehouses full there. For if he is blessed who will eat bread in the kingdom of God once, how much more blessed is he who is deemed worthy to dwell therein for the unending ages! Do not say to me that the poor are destitute and have nothing to give us on that day; their guarantor is rich. Do not ask the poor for it; God will give it to you. He repays the gifts even to the poor, he who governs our life here, and will save us from there, if we do what is pleasing to him. For he who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord; and according to his gift, he will repay him; according to his intention, he says. For where there is a good intention, there is an abundant supply. Let us fear the day of the Lord, in which the Master of the house will send forth for the harvest of the grain, and will gather the grain into the storehouse, but will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. For the Master of the house is the Lord, the reapers are the angels, the grain is the righteous, and the chaff is the sinners. Let us strive, therefore, to be found mature grain through almsgiving, so that we may enter into the eternal tabernacles, which He who was taken up from us has prepared; with whom, to the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
On Charity
The Lord almost said, *My burden is light* (Matt. 11:30). For what burden, or what labor, is it to forgive the transgressions of a brother—light and insignificant—and to have one's own forgiven, and to be justified quickly? He did not say: "Bring me money, or calves, or goats, or fasting, or keeping watch," lest you say that