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
Offer money, or calves, or goats, or fasting, or vigils; do not say, "I have none, I cannot." But what is light, easy, and at hand—this he has commanded, saying: Remit to your brother his failings, and I will remit yours. You remit small failings, perhaps a few obols, or a hundred denarii; but I remit you thousands of talents. And you, indeed, remit without any additional gift, while I grant both remission and healing, and over and above these, the kingdom. Your gift, however, I admit only when you are reconciled with your enemy, when you have no enmity, when the sun does not set upon your anger, when you keep peace with all and charity: then your prayer is also accepted, your house blessed, and you are blessed. If, indeed, you are not reconciled with your brother, why do you seek pardon from me? You trample upon my words and command remission? I, the Lord, command it, and you pay no heed? And how, servant, do you dare offer prayer to God, or sacrifice, or first-fruits, while you harbor enmity against someone? For just as you turn your face away from your brother, so too does God avert His eyes from your prayer and your gift, because God is charity, and what is done without charity does not please Him. How, then, will God admit the prayer, B or house, or first-fruits, or fruits of a murderer, unless he first performs appropriate repentance? But you will undoubtedly say to me: "I am not a murderer." But I will show you that you are a murderer; nay, rather, John the Theologian will refute you, saying: *He who hates his brother is a murderer* (1 John 3:15). Therefore, my beloved brothers, let us prefer nothing to charity; let us study to possess nothing equivalent to it; let no one have anything against anyone, let no one return evil for evil. *Let not the sun set upon your anger* (Ephes. 4:26), but let us dismiss all the failings of our debtors. What profit is there, O children, if one has everything but does not have saving charity? And if someone prepares a great dinner to invite a king and princes, and prepares all things lavishly so that nothing is missing, but has no salt: will such a dinner be able to be tasted? Not at all; indeed, he has lost all the expense and all the labor; indeed, it will be a reproach to him before the guests. So it happens here: what profit is there to scatter to the winds and to labor? Without charity every work is impure; whether one preserves virginity, or fasts, or keeps vigils, or prays, or distributes to the poor; and even if he seems to offer gifts, or first-fruits, or fruits; or builds a church, or does anything else, without charity all those things are deemed of no account before God, neither are they pleasing to Him. Hear the Apostle saying: He who has enmity against his brother and seems to offer to God is as one who sacrifices a dog, and these shall be reckoned as the wages of a harlot (Cf. Matt. 5:23, 24; Isai. 66:3, and Deut. 23:18). Do not, therefore, ever wish to do anything without charity, because charity covers a multitude of sins. O what a good we despise! O of what great goods we are deprived, of what joy, when we do not have charity! Because Judas did not have this, he went out from the midst of the choir of the apostles, leaving the true light, having his teacher and his brothers as nothing, and went into darkness. Therefore the prince, Peter, said: Judas turned aside, *to go to his own place* (Acts 1:25). And again John the Theologian says: *He who hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and knows not whither he goeth, because darkness has blinded his eyes* (1 John 2:11). If you say: "Even if I do not love my brother, yet I love God," John convicts you, saying: If anyone says, "I love God," and does not love his brother, he is a liar. *For he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see?* (1 John 4:20). Therefore, he who loves all his brethren, who has no enmity against anyone, who fulfills the word of the Apostle, *Let not the sun set upon your anger* (Ephes. 4:26)—this man loves God; this man is a disciple of Him who said: *In this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another* (John 13:35). It is evident, therefore, that Christ's disciples are known by this, namely, by true charity. He who harbors hatred against his brother, even if he seems to love Christ, is a liar and deceives himself. For the apostle John says: *This commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God, love also his brother* (1 John 4:21); and again the Lord: *Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself*; and to show the power of charity, he adds: *On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets* (Matt. 22:37, 40). O immense miracle, that he who has unfeigned charity fulfills all the law! *For love is the fulfilling of the law* (Rom. 13:10), as the Apostle says. O power of charity incomprehensible! O power of charity immense! Nothing is more precious than charity, neither in heaven nor on earth. Therefore the apostle Paul, having learned that C nothing is equal to charity, wrote and sent to the ends of the earth, saying: *Owe no man anything, but to love one another* (Rom. 13:8), and to lay down one's soul for others. For this is charity, the head of all virtues, the salt of virtues: charity is the fulfilling of the law, charity is certain salvation. This from the beginning conquered the heart of Abel, this guided Noah, this made David a habitation of the Holy Spirit, this dwelt in the prophets, this strengthened Job; and why do I not say things greater than these? This led the Son of God from the heavens to us. Through charity, the One who is without flesh is incarnate, the One without beginning begins to be, the Son of God is made the son of man. Through charity all things are dispensed for salvation, death is destroyed, the devil is cast down, Adam is recalled, Eve is liberated: through charity one fold is made of angels and of men; through charity the curse is dissolved, paradise is opened, life is manifested, the kingdom of heaven is promised. This, catching the fishermen of fish like a net, made them fishers of men; this helped and strengthened the martyrs in the contest, this made deserts into cities, this made mountains and caves abound in psalmody, this filled them and made angels and men one. But how long shall we pursue the incomprehensible?
IN LAZARUM I
Every divine doctrine is accustomed to gather the usefulness of studious men; especially those feasts which always occur at certain times, and which imitate the streams of waters, which offer water to the thirsty to quench their thirst, and become more desirable to those who drink therefrom. What does this prologue wish to signify? Lazarus, dead for four days, was resurrected in these days of fasting, with Christ already hastening to prepare for salvation through his passion, and performing miracles before other miracles, celebrating another feast before that feast, and exhibiting another work before that work; that when He himself was led to the cross, the disciples would not deny the resurrection of their Master, but would believe that He, submitting to death for the sake of others, could in no way be harmed by death. It would be just, therefore, in favor of the time, and of ourselves and the future solemnity, that we be companions of the joy regarding the resurrection of Lazarus; companions, indeed, not only of tears, but also of the cheer and joy of Mary and the thrifty women who were her associates; and by exploring the history, let us honor Jesus our teacher. For he who honors His friends, refers the gift to Him: for being benign, He is accustomed to reckon honor shown to them as conferred upon Himself. He said in the Gospels: *He who receives you, receives me; and he who receives me, receives Him that sent me* (Matt. 10:40).