Homilies on the Statues, Homily 2

1. What should I say, or what should I speak about? This is a time for tears, not words; for lamentation, not discussion; for prayer, not preaching. The acts so boldly committed are so terrible; the wound is so incurable, the blow so deep, beyond the power of any treatment, and calling for help from above. So it was that Job, when he had lost everything, sat down on a dung heap; and his friends heard about it and came, and when they saw him while they were still far away, they tore their clothes, sprinkled themselves with ashes, and lamented loudly. All the surrounding cities should now do the same: come to our city and lament with heartfelt sympathy over what has happened to us. He sat on his dung heap then; she now sits caught in a great snare. For just as the devil then violently attacked the flocks, herds, and all the property of that righteous man, so now he has raged against this whole city. But then, as now, God allowed it: then, to make the righteous man more glorious through the greatness of his trials; and now, to make us more sober-minded through the severity of this suffering. Allow me to mourn our present condition. We have been silent for seven days, just as Job’s friends were. Allow me to open my mouth today and grieve over this shared calamity. 2. Who, beloved, has bewitched us? Who has envied us? Where has all this change come from? Nothing was more dignified than our city! Now, nothing has ever been more pitiful! The people were so orderly and peaceful, like an obedient, well-trained horse, always yielding to their rulers’ hands; now they have suddenly bolted with us and done such evil that one hardly dares to mention it. I mourn and lament now, not because of the greatness of the anger we must expect, but because of the outrageous frenzy that has been displayed! For even if the Emperor were not provoked or angry, even if he neither punished us nor took revenge, how, I ask you, could we bear the shame of everything that has been done? Lamentation cuts short my words of instruction; I can scarcely open my mouth, part my lips, move my tongue, or utter a syllable! Like a curb, the weight of grief checks my tongue and holds back what I want to say. 3. Once nothing was happier than our city; now nothing is more sorrowful. Like bees buzzing around their hive, its inhabitants used to flit about the forum every day, and everyone called us happy because we were so numerous. But look now: this hive has become deserted! As smoke drives away bees, fear has driven away our swarms; and we may now fittingly say what the prophet said as he mourned Jerusalem: “Our city has become ‘like a terebinth that has lost its leaves, and like a garden that has no water.’” For just as a garden, when its irrigation fails, shows its trees stripped of leaves and bare of fruit, so it has now happened to our city. Help from above has abandoned her, and she stands desolate, stripped of almost all her inhabitants. 4. Nothing is sweeter than one’s own country; but now nothing has become more bitter! Everyone flees the place that gave them birth as though it were a snare. They desert it as they would a dungeon; they leap out of it as from a fire. When a house catches fire, not only those who live in it but everyone nearby flees as fast as possible, eager to save only their bodies. So now, too, when the Emperor’s anger is expected to descend like fire from above, everyone rushes to get out in time and save only their bodies before the advancing fire reaches them. And now our calamity has become a riddle: flight without enemies; the expulsion of inhabitants without a battle; captivity without capture! We have not seen the fires of barbarians or looked into the faces of enemies, and yet we suffer like captives. Everyone now hears of our calamities, for as they receive our exiles, they learn from them about the blow that has fallen on our city. 5. Yet I am not ashamed of this, nor do I blush. Let everyone learn about the city’s sufferings, so that, sympathizing with their mother, they may raise their united voice to God from the whole earth, and with one accord plead with the King of heaven for the city that has nurtured and mothered them all. Recently our city shook; now the very souls of its inhabitants tremble! Then the foundations of the houses shook, but now the very foundations of every heart quiver, and we all see death before our eyes every day! We live in constant terror and endure Cain’s punishment, a more pitiful punishment than that of those who were previously in prison. We are undergoing a new and strange kind of siege, far more terrible than an ordinary one. Those besieged by enemies are only confined within the city walls; but even the forum has become impassable to us, and everyone is shut within the walls of their own house! Just as it is unsafe for those under siege to go outside the walls while the enemy is camped around them, so it is unsafe for many inhabitants of this city to go outdoors or appear in public, because people everywhere are hunting down the innocent along with the guilty, seizing them even in the middle of the forum and dragging them to court without proper procedure, at random. For this reason, free men sit indoors, shackled along with their household servants, anxiously asking detailed questions of anyone they can safely ask: “Who was arrested today? Who was taken away, or punished? How did it happen? In what way?” They live a life more miserable than any kind of death, forced every day to mourn others’ calamities while trembling for their own safety. They are no better off than the dead, since they are already dead with fear. 6. But if anyone free from this fear and anguish chooses to enter the forum, the joyless sight immediately drives him back home. He finds perhaps barely one or two people, hanging their heads and creeping about with downcast looks, where only a few days ago the crowds flowed more constantly than streams of rivers. Yet now they have all been driven away from us! When many trees throughout a dense oak forest are cut down, it becomes a sad sight, like a head with many bald patches. So the city itself, with its inhabitants reduced in number and only a few appearing here and there, has now become dreary and casts a heavy mist of sorrow over those who see it. Not only the ground, but the very air and even the sun’s circle of rays now seem to me to look mournful and shine more dimly. The elements have not changed their nature; rather, our eyes, clouded by sadness, cannot take in the light of the rays clearly or enjoy it as before. This is what the prophet of old lamented when he said, “The sun will go down at noon, and the day will be darkened.” He did not say this as though the sun would be eclipsed or the day disappear, but because those in sorrow cannot perceive even the light of noon through the darkness of their anguish. That is exactly what has happened now. Wherever anyone looks, whether at the ground or the walls, the city’s columns or his neighbors, he seems to see night and deep gloom: everything is so full of sorrow! A silence heavy with horror and a sense of desolation are everywhere; the familiar, beloved hum of the crowd is stifled. As though everyone had gone beneath the earth, speechlessness has taken possession of the city. Everyone seems like stone; the calamity presses on them like a gag on their tongues, and they maintain the deepest silence, a silence as complete as if enemies had attacked and consumed them all at once with fire and sword! 7. Now is a fitting time to say, “Call for the mourning women to come, and for the skilled women, and let them take up a lament. Let your eyes stream with water, and your eyelids gush with tears.” Hills, take up wailing, and mountains, lamentation! Let us call on all creation to share in our grief. So great a city, the foremost of those beneath the eastern sky, is in danger of being torn out of the civilized world! She who had so many children has suddenly become childless, and there is no one to come to her aid! For the man who has been insulted has no equal in dignity on earth: he is a monarch, the summit and head of everything here below! For this reason, let us take refuge in the King above. Let us call on Him for help. If we cannot obtain heaven’s favor, no comfort remains for what has happened to us! 8. I would like to end this sermon here, for people in anguish have little inclination to speak at length. Just as a dense cloud forms and passes beneath the sun’s rays, reflecting all its brilliance back toward it, so the cloud of sadness, standing before our souls, prevents words from passing freely, choking them and forcibly holding them within. This happens not only to speakers but also to listeners: just as it prevents words from bursting freely from the speaker’s soul, it also prevents them from sinking into the listeners’ minds with their natural power. This is why the Jews in ancient times, while slaving over mud and bricks, had no heart to listen to Moses, though he repeatedly told them great things about their coming deliverance. Despondency made their minds inaccessible to his words and closed their ears. For my own part, then, I would have liked to end my sermon here. But I remember that a cloud does not only block the sun’s rays from passing through; often the very opposite happens to it. The sun’s steady heat wears it away and often breaks through its center, suddenly shining out and cheerfully meeting the eyes of those watching. This is what I too expect to do today. As the word continually engages your minds and dwells in them, I hope to break through the cloud of sadness and shine into your understanding again with our usual instruction! 9. But give me your attention! Lend me your ears for a while! Shake off this despondency! Let us return to our former custom; just as we have always been accustomed to gathering here with joy, let us do so now, entrusting everything to God. This will also help bring about our actual deliverance from calamity. For if the Lord sees that His words are being listened to carefully, and that our love of divine wisdom withstands the trial of these difficult times, He will quickly lift us up again and turn this storm into calm and happiness. This, too, is one way Christians must differ from unbelievers: by bearing everything nobly and, through hope for the future, soaring above the assault of human troubles. The believer stands on the Rock; that is why the crashing waves cannot overthrow him. Even if waves of temptation rise, they cannot reach his feet. He stands too high for any such attack. So let us not lose heart, beloved! We do not care as much about our own safety as God who made us does. We are not as concerned about suffering some terrible misfortune as He is, who gave us a soul and then so many other good things besides. Let us rise on the wings of these hopes and listen to what is about to be said with our usual eagerness. 10. Recently I gave you a long sermon, beloved, yet I saw everyone following along and no one turning back halfway through the course. I thank you for that eagerness, and I have received the reward of my labors. But besides your attention, there was another reward I asked of you then; perhaps you know and remember it. What was that reward? That you should punish and discipline the blasphemers in the city; that you should restrain those who are violent and insolent toward God! I do not think I said these things on my own; rather, God, foreseeing what was coming, put these words into my mind. For if we had punished those who dared to do such things, what has now happened would never have happened. How much better it would have been, if necessary, to face danger and even suffer while punishing and correcting such people (which would have won us a martyr’s crown), than now to fear, tremble, and expect death because of their rebellion! Look: a few committed the crime, but the blame falls on everyone! Look: because of them, we are all now living in fear and suffering punishment for what these men dared to do! But if we had caught them in time, driven them out of the city, punished them, and treated the diseased member, we would not have been subjected to our present terror. I know that this city’s character has been noble since ancient times, but certain foreigners and men of mixed race—accursed and destructive people who had no hope for their own safety—have done what has been done. For this very reason I was always raising my voice and constantly testifying, saying: Let us punish these blasphemers’ madness; let us restrain their spirit and provide for their salvation. Even if we must die doing it, the act would still bring us great gain. Let us not overlook the insult to our common Lord; overlooking such things will bring some great evil on our city! 11. I foretold these things, and now they have actually happened—and we are paying the penalty for that apathy! You overlooked the insult to God! Look: he has allowed the Emperor to be insulted and the greatest danger to hang over everyone, so that through this fear we might pay the penalty for that apathy. Was it for nothing, then, and to no purpose that I foretold these things and so persistently urged you, my beloved? Nevertheless, nothing was done. Let it be done now, however; disciplined by our present calamity, let us now restrain these men’s lawless madness. Let us shut their mouths as we would seal up springs that spread disease, and turn them toward the opposite course; then the evils that have gripped the city will certainly be stopped. The Church is not a theater where we listen for amusement. We should leave here having benefited, and gain something new and valuable before we go. For we gather pointlessly and irrationally if we are merely captivated for a while and return home empty, without any improvement from what was said. 12. What do I need with this applause, these cheers, and these noisy signs of approval? The praise I seek is for you to put everything I have said into practice. Then I am an enviable and happy man: when you eagerly do everything you hear from me, rather than merely approving it. So let everyone correct his neighbor, for it says, “Build one another up.” If we do not do this, each person’s crimes will bring some widespread, intolerable harm on the city. Look: though we know we had no part in this affair, we are no less frightened than those who boldly took part in it! We dread the Emperor’s anger falling on everyone, and it is not enough to say in our defense, “I was not there; I was not an accomplice or a participant in these acts.” He may reply, “For this very reason you will be punished and pay the ultimate penalty: because you were not there, did not check or restrain the rioters, and ran no risk for the Emperor’s honor! Did you have no part in these outrageous deeds? I commend that and welcome it. But you did not stop these things while they were happening. That is grounds for an accusation!” We will also hear words like these from God if we silently allow the wrongs and insults against Him to continue. The man who buried his talent in the earth was also called to account, not for crimes he himself had committed—for he returned everything entrusted to him—but because he had not increased it, because he had not instructed others, because he had not deposited it with the bankers. That is, he had not warned, advised, rebuked, or reformed the unruly sinners who were his neighbors. For this reason he was sent away, without reprieve, to those intolerable punishments! But I fully trust that, even though you did not do it before, you will at least now carry out this work of correction and stop overlooking insults against God. For even if no one had given any warning, what has happened is enough to convince even the most unresponsive people that they must act for their own safety. 13. But now it is time to set before you our customary table from St. Paul by discussing today’s reading and presenting it to you all. What, then, was the text read today? “Instruct those who are rich in this world not to be proud.” When he says “the rich in this world,” he makes it clear that others are rich in the world to come. Such was Lazarus: poor in this life, but rich in the future life, not in gold, silver, and similar stores of perishable, passing wealth, but in those indescribable good things “which no eye has seen and no ear has heard, and which have not entered the human heart.” For this is true wealth and abundance: good that is unmixed and subject to no change. That was not the condition of the rich man who despised him; instead, he became the poorest of all people. At least afterward, when he sought just a drop of water, he could not obtain even that, so extreme was his poverty. This is why Paul calls them rich “in the present world”: to teach you that worldly wealth is destroyed along with the present life. It goes no farther and does not move with its owners when they depart; often it even leaves them before their end. He shows this by saying, “Nor trust in uncertain riches.” Nothing is as faithless as wealth. As I have often said and will never stop saying, it is a runaway, ungrateful servant with no loyalty; even if you fasten ten thousand chains around him, he will run away, dragging his chains behind him. Indeed, his owners have often locked him behind bars and doors, stationing their slaves around him as guards. But he has won over those very servants and fled along with his guards, dragging his keepers behind him like a chain: so little security did this confinement provide. What, then, could be more faithless than this? What could be more miserable than people devoted to it? Eagerly trying to gather something so fragile and fleeting, they do not hear what the prophet says: “Woe to those who trust in their power and boast of the abundance of their riches.” Tell me, why is this woe pronounced? “He heaps up treasure,” he says, “and does not know for whom he will gather it,” because the labor is certain but the enjoyment uncertain. Very often you toil and suffer for your enemies. After your death, your wealth often passes by inheritance to those who have injured you and plotted against you in a thousand ways, leaving you the sins as your share and giving others the enjoyment! 14. But here we should ask why he does not say, “Instruct those who are rich in the present world not to be rich; instruct them to become poor; instruct them to get rid of what they have,” but instead, “Instruct them not to be proud.” He knew that pride is the root and foundation of riches, and that anyone who understood how to be humble would not make so much fuss over wealth. Tell me, why do you go around with so many servants, parasites, flatterers, and every other kind of pomp? Not out of necessity, but only out of pride, so that these things may make you seem more dignified than other people! Besides, he knew that wealth is not forbidden when it is used for necessities. As I observed, wine is not bad, but drunkenness is. A greedy man is one thing, and a rich man another. The greedy man is not rich: he lacks many things, and as long as he needs many things, he can never be rich. The greedy man is the keeper of wealth, not its master; its slave, not its lord. He would sooner give someone a piece of his flesh than his buried gold. As though someone had ordered and forced him to touch none of these hidden treasures, he watches and guards them with the greatest care, keeping away from his own property as though it belonged to someone else. And certainly it is not his own. If he cannot bring himself to give it to others or distribute it to the needy, even if he suffers countless punishments, how can he possibly call it his own? How does he possess things he can neither freely use nor enjoy? Besides this, Paul does not usually command everything of everyone, but adapts himself to his listeners’ weakness, just as Christ also did. When that rich man came to him and asked him about Life, he did not immediately say, “Go, sell what you have.” Leaving that aside, he spoke to him about other commandments. Nor afterward, when the man challenged Him and said, “What do I still lack?” did He simply say, “Sell what you have,” but, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell what you have.” “I leave it for you to decide. I give you complete freedom to choose. I impose no obligation on you.” This is also why Paul said nothing to the rich about poverty, but spoke about humility: both because of his listeners’ weakness and because he knew perfectly well that, if he could lead them to practice moderation and be free from pride, he would also quickly free them from their eagerness to be rich. 15. Furthermore, after warning them “not to be proud,” he also taught them how to avoid it. How? By considering the nature of wealth: how uncertain and faithless it is! That is why he goes on to say, “Nor trust in uncertain riches.” The rich man is not the one who possesses much, but the one who gives much. Abraham was rich, but he was not greedy. He did not set his thoughts on one man’s house or pry into another man’s wealth; instead, he went out and looked around for any stranger or poor man, so that he could relieve poverty and welcome the traveler hospitably. He did not cover his roof with gold; he pitched his tent near the oak and was content with the shade of its leaves. Yet his lodging was so glorious that angels were not ashamed to stay with him, for they sought virtue of soul rather than a splendid dwelling. Let us imitate this man, beloved, and give what we have to the needy. That lodging was roughly made, but it was more glorious than royal halls. No king has ever entertained angels; but he, living beneath that oak with only a pitched tent, was considered worthy of that honor. He received the honor not because his dwelling was humble, but because his soul was magnificent and held such wealth. 16. So let us too adorn our souls in preference to our houses. Is it not disgraceful to clothe our walls in marble, pointlessly and to no purpose, while neglecting Christ as He goes about naked? What good does your house do you, man? Will you take it with you when you depart? You cannot take it with you when you depart. But when you depart, you will certainly take your soul with you! Look: this great danger has now overtaken us! Let your houses stand beside you! Let them rescue you from the threatened peril! But they cannot! You yourselves are witnesses, leaving them deserted and hurrying out into the wilderness, fearing them as you would snares and nets! Let riches help now! But they cannot help at a time like this! If the power of riches fails before human anger, how much more will it fail before the divine and unyielding judgment seat! If only a human being is provoked and offended, and gold is already useless, how much more powerless will money be then, when God is angry, who has no need of wealth! We build houses to have somewhere to live, not to make an ostentatious display. Whatever exceeds our needs is excessive and useless. Put on a sandal larger than your foot! You will not tolerate it, because it hinders your steps. In the same way, a house larger than necessary hinders your progress toward heaven. Do you want to build large, splendid houses? I do not forbid it; but do not build them on earth! Build yourself dwellings in heaven, dwellings where you can receive others, dwellings that never fall apart. Why are you so obsessed with fleeting things, things that must be left here? Nothing is more slippery than wealth. Today it is for you; tomorrow it is against you. Everywhere it arms envious eyes against you. It is a hostile companion, an enemy in your own household. You who possess it are witnesses to this, burying it and hiding it from sight in every possible way; even now our very wealth makes the danger harder for us to bear! You see the poor ready for action, unencumbered and prepared for anything; but the wealthy are deeply perplexed, wandering about in search of somewhere to bury their gold or someone with whom to deposit it! Why, man, do you look to your fellow slaves? Christ stands ready to receive your deposits and keep them for you, and not only to keep them, but also to increase them and repay them with great interest. No one can force them out of His hand. And He not only keeps the deposit; for this very act He also frees you from your dangers. Among human beings, those who receive treasures in trust think they have done us a favor by keeping what was entrusted to them. With Christ it is the opposite: when He receives the treasures you deposit, He says He has received a favor, rather than bestowed one. And for guarding your wealth, He does not demand a reward from you, but gives you a reward! 17. What defense, then, can we offer, or what excuse, when we pass by Him who can keep our treasures and is grateful for our trust, giving great and indescribable rewards in return, and instead entrust them to people who cannot keep them, who think they are doing us a favor, and who finally return only what we gave them? You are a stranger and a pilgrim among the things of this world! You have your own country in heaven! Transfer everything there, so that even before you actually enjoy it, you may enjoy the reward here. Anyone nourished by good hopes and confident about things to come has already tasted the kingdom here! For ordinarily nothing restores the soul and makes a person better as much as a good hope for things to come. So if you transfer your wealth there, you can then care for your soul with the leisure it needs. Those who devote all their efforts to decorating their homes, rich as they are in outward things, neglect what is within, leaving their soul desolate, filthy, and full of cobwebs. But if they cared little about outward things and devoted all their attention earnestly to the mind, adorning it in every respect, their soul would become a resting place for Christ. And with Christ dwelling in it, what could ever be more blessed? Do you want to be rich? Have God as your friend, and you will be richer than anyone! Do you want to be rich? Do not be proud! This rule applies both to the future and to the present. For no one is envied as much as a wealthy person; but when pride is added, a double precipice opens up, and the war grows fiercer on every side. If you know how to practice moderation, however, your humility undermines envy’s tyranny, and you possess whatever you have in safety. Such is the nature of virtue: it benefits us in the future and also gives us a reward here and now. 18. So let us not be proud of riches, or indeed of anything else. For if someone who is proud even of spiritual things has fallen and is ruined, how much more is this true of someone proud of fleshly things. Let us remember our nature. Let us recall our sins. Let us understand what we are, and this will give us a firm enough foundation for complete humility. Do not tell me, “I have saved up this many years’ income, tens of thousands of talents of gold, profits increasing every day.” Say as much as you like: you say it all pointlessly and to no purpose. Very often in a single hour, even in one brief moment, all these things are swept out of the house by a blast, like fine dust when the wind rushes down on it from above. Our lives are full of such examples, and the Scriptures abound in lessons of this kind. Someone rich today is poor tomorrow. That is why I have often smiled when reading wills that say one person is to own these fields or this house, and another is to have the use of them. For we all have the use, but no one has the ownership. Even if riches stay with us unchanged throughout our lives, in the end we must transfer them into others’ hands, whether we want to or not. We have enjoyed only their use and depart for another life naked and stripped of this ownership! Clearly, then, only those who have scorned their use and laughed at their enjoyment truly own property. For the man who has given away his possessions and bestowed them on the poor uses them as he should and takes their ownership with him when he departs. Even death does not strip him of his possession; instead, he receives everything back then, and far more besides, on that day of judgment when he most needs their protection and when we must all give an account of what we have done. So if anyone wants to possess his riches and retain their full use and ownership, let him free himself of them all. For anyone who does not do this must in any case be separated from them at death, and will often lose them even before death, amid dangers and countless troubles. 19. Nor is the suddenness of the change the only disaster: the rich man also faces poverty without any practice in enduring it. It is different for the poor man, for he trusts not in gold and silver, which are lifeless matter, but in “God, who gives us all things richly to enjoy.” So the rich man’s position is more uncertain than the poor man’s, since he experiences frequent changes of many kinds. What does this mean: “Who gives us all things richly to enjoy”? God generously gives everything more necessary than riches: air, water, fire, the sun, and everything of this kind. The rich man cannot say he enjoys more sunlight than the poor man; he cannot say he breathes a greater abundance of air. All these things are offered equally to everyone. Someone may ask: Why has God made the greater, more necessary blessings, those that sustain our lives, common to everyone, while the smaller, less valuable things (I mean money) are not common in the same way? Why is this? So that our lives may be disciplined and we may have a training ground for virtue. For if these necessities were not common to everyone, the rich, practicing their usual greed, might strangle the poor. If they do this for money, how much more would they do it for the things just mentioned! Again, if money too were everyone’s common possession and offered equally to all, the occasion for giving to the poor and the opportunity for kindness would be taken away. 20. So the things that sustain our existence have been made common to everyone so that we may live securely. Property, on the other hand, has not been made common, so that we may have an opportunity to gain crowns and a good reputation: by hating greed, pursuing righteousness, and freely giving our goods to the poor, we may in this way obtain a certain kind of relief for our sins. God has made you rich; why do you make yourself poor? He has made you rich so that you may help the needy, so that through generosity to others you may obtain release from your own sins. He has given you money, not to lock away for your destruction, but to pour out for your salvation. This is also why He has made the possession of riches uncertain and unstable, so that he might lessen your frenzied obsession with them. For even now, when their owners can have no confidence in them and see countless snares arising from them, they burn with desire for these things. If security and stability were added to wealth, whom would they have spared? Whom would they have left alone? What widows? What orphans? What poor people? 21. So let us not consider riches a great good. The great good is to possess the fear of God and every kind of godliness, rather than money. Look: if there were any righteous man here with great boldness before God, even if he were the poorest person alive, he alone would be enough to free us from our present troubles! He would only need to stretch his hands toward heaven and call on God, and this cloud would pass away! But now gold is stored up in abundance, yet it is more useless than mere clay for delivering us from the calamities hanging over us! Nor is this true only in a danger like this. If disease or death or any similar evil strikes us, wealth’s powerlessness is fully proved: it is helpless and has no comfort of its own to offer us in these circumstances. 22. There is one respect in which wealth seems to have an advantage over poverty: it lives in daily luxury and is supplied with abundant pleasure at its banquets. Yet this can also be seen at the tables of the poor, who enjoy greater pleasure there than the rich. Do not be surprised at this or think my words a paradox; I will make the matter clear from the evidence of facts. You know, of course, and all admit that at feasts, pleasure usually comes from the condition of those eating rather than the nature of the food. For example, when someone comes to the table hungry, even the most ordinary food tastes sweeter than any delicacy, seasoning, or a thousand exquisite dishes prepared to please the palate. But someone who comes to the table without waiting until he needs food or first becomes hungry (as is customary among the wealthy) feels no pleasure, even when the finest delicacies are spread before him, because his appetite has not yet been stirred. To show you that this is really so, besides your own universal experience of it, let us hear Scripture tell us the same truth: “The full soul,” it says, “loathes the honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” What could be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb? Yet he says it is not sweet to someone who is not hungry. And what could be more unpleasant than bitter things? Yet they are sweet to those stricken by poverty. I suppose it is clear to everyone that the poor come to their meals needy and hungry, while the rich do not wait for this. That is why the rich do not reap the fruit of genuine, unmixed pleasure. Anyone can see that the same thing happens with drinks as with food: just as hunger produces pleasure far more than the quality of the food, thirst usually makes a drink sweetest, even if it is only water. This is what the prophet suggested when he said, “He satisfied them with honey from the rock.” Yet nowhere in Scripture do we read that Moses brought honey from the rock; throughout the account we read of rivers, waters, and cool streams. What, then, did he mean? For Scripture certainly does not speak falsely. They were thirsty and worn out by drought, and found these streams of water so refreshing that, to express the pleasure of such a drink, he calls the water honey. Its nature had not changed into honey; rather, the condition of those drinking made these streams sweeter than honey. Do you see how the condition of thirsty people makes the drink sweet? Indeed, many poor people, worn out, distressed, and parched with thirst, have often drunk from such streams with just the pleasure I have described. But the rich, drinking sweet wine with the fragrance of flowers and every excellence wine can possess, experience no such enjoyment. 23. As anyone can see, the same thing happens with sleep. A soft couch, a bed frame overlaid with silver, quiet throughout the house, or anything else of this kind does not generally make sleep as sweet and pleasant as work, fatigue, the need for sleep, and drowsiness when one lies down. Experience bears witness to this, and even before experience, the statement of Scripture does. Solomon, who had spent his life in luxury, said when he wanted to make this clear, “The sleep of a working man is sweet, whether he eats little or much.” Why does he add, “whether he eats little or much”? Both of these things commonly cause sleeplessness: poverty and too much food. The one dries out the body, stiffens the eyelids, and prevents them from closing; the other constricts and burdens breathing and causes many pains. Yet work is so powerful at inducing sleep that, even if both these things happen to him, the servant can sleep. For throughout the day servants run about everywhere, attending to their masters, knocked about and hard pressed, with little time to catch their breath; and in the pleasure of sleep they receive ample compensation for their toil and labor. Through God’s goodness toward humanity, these pleasures are purchased with labor, hard toil, need, and every kind of discipline, rather than gold and silver. It is different for the rich. They frequently lie in bed sleepless all night; though they devise many ways to sleep, they do not obtain such pleasure. But the poor man, released from his daily work with his limbs completely exhausted, falls into sound, sweet, genuine sleep almost before he can lie down, enjoying this considerable reward for his honest day’s work. Since the poor man sleeps, drinks, and eats with greater pleasure than the rich man, what value remains in riches, now stripped of the one advantage they seemed to have over poverty? This is also why, from the beginning, God bound man to labor: for correction and education, rather than punishment or punitive discipline. When Adam lived without labor, he fell from Paradise; but when the Apostle worked abundantly and toiled hard, saying, “In labor and toil, working night and day,” then he was taken up into Paradise and ascended to the third heaven! 24. So let us not despise labor; let us not despise work. Even before the kingdom of Heaven, we receive the greatest reward from it, gaining pleasure through it; and not only pleasure, but something greater than pleasure: the soundest health. For besides their lack of appetite, the rich are attacked by many diseases, while the poor are free from physicians’ hands. Even if they sometimes become sick, they recover quickly, free from all effeminacy and physically robust. For those who bear it wisely, poverty is a great possession, a treasure that cannot be taken away, the strongest walking stick, a means of gain that cannot be frustrated, a lodging safe from snares. Someone may object: The poor man is oppressed. But the rich man is even more exposed to hostile plots. The poor man is looked down on and insulted. But the rich man is envied. The poor man is less easily attacked than the rich man, who offers the devil and his secret enemies countless ways to get a grip on him from every side, and who is everyone’s servant because his business is so extensive. Needing many things, he is forced to flatter many people and serve them with great servility. But if the poor man knows how to be spiritually wise, even the devil himself cannot attack him. So Job, strong as he had been before, became still more powerful when he lost everything and won a glorious victory over the devil! 25. Besides this, the poor man cannot possibly be harmed if he knows how to be spiritually wise. What I said about pleasure—that it depends on the condition of those eating rather than a costly supply of food—I also say about an insult: it is the disposition of those who bear it, rather than the intention of those offering it, that either creates or destroys the insult. For example, someone has insulted you with a flood of words, whether fit or unfit to repeat. If you laugh at the insults, if you do not take the words to heart, if you show that the blow cannot hurt you, you are not insulted. If our bodies were as hard as adamant, even a thousand arrows attacking us from every side would not hurt us, for arrows cause wounds because of the bodies that receive them, rather than the hand that throws them. So in this case too, insults become real and disgraceful insults because of the weakness of those insulted, rather than the folly of those offering them. For if we know how to be truly wise, we cannot be insulted or suffer any serious evil. Perhaps someone has offered you an insult, but you have not felt it? You have not been hurt? Then you have not been insulted; instead, you have struck a blow rather than received one! For when the insulting person realizes that his blow has not reached the soul of those he abused, he himself becomes even more upset. While those being reproached remain silent, the insulting blow turns back and recoils on its own upon the person who aimed it. 26. In everything, then, beloved, let us be spiritually wise, and poverty will be unable to harm us. Instead, it will benefit us greatly and make us more glorious and wealthy than the richest. Tell me, who was poorer than Elijah? Yet he surpassed all the wealthy precisely because he was so poor, and he chose this very poverty out of his wealth of mind. He considered all material wealth beneath his greatness of soul and unworthy of his spiritual wisdom, and so he welcomed this kind of poverty. If he had considered present things very valuable, he would not have possessed only a cloak. But he so despised the vanity of this present life and regarded all gold as mud thrown into the street that he acquired nothing beyond that covering. So the king needed the poor man, and the man with so much gold hung on the words of someone who had nothing but a sheepskin. Thus the sheepskin was more splendid than royal purple, and the righteous man’s cave more splendid than royal halls. This is also why, when he went up to heaven, he left his disciple nothing but the sheepskin. “With this,” he said, “I have wrestled with the devil; take it and arm yourself against him!” For poverty is a powerful weapon, an unassailable refuge, an unshaken fortress! Elisha received the sheepskin as the greatest inheritance, and it truly was, more precious than all gold. From then on Elijah was present in two persons: an Elijah above and an Elijah below! I know you consider that righteous man blessed, and each of you would like to be that man. What, then, if I show you that all of us who have been initiated have received something far greater than he did? Elijah left a sheepskin to his disciple, but the Son of God, when He ascended, left us His own flesh! Elijah took off his cloak before he went up; but Christ left it behind for our sake, yet also retained it when He ascended. So let us not lose heart. Let us not lament or fear these difficult times. For He who did not refuse to pour out His blood for everyone, and has allowed us to share again in His flesh and His blood—what will He refuse to do for our safety? Confident in these hopes, let us plead with Him continually; let us be earnest in prayers and supplications, and let us give the most careful attention to every other virtue, so that we may escape the danger now threatening us and obtain the good things to come. May God grant that we may all be worthy of them, through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom and with Whom be glory to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.