Homilies on Matthew, Homily 59

Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to the man through whom the offense comes.” “And if ‘offenses must come,’” (one of our opponents might perhaps say), “why does He mourn over the world, when He should instead help it and reach out His hand on its behalf? That would be the work of a physician and protector, while anyone at all could do the other.” What could we possibly say in answer to such shameless talk? No, what are you looking for that could equal this healing care of His? For He is God, and He became man for you, took the form of a slave, endured every extreme hardship, and left nothing undone that He needed to do. But because ungrateful people were no better for all this, He mourns over them, because after so much care they remained sick. It is as if someone were to mourn over a sick man who had received a great deal of care but refused to follow the physician’s instructions, saying, “Woe to this man because of his illness, which he has made worse through his own negligence.” In that case, mourning does no good; but here, predicting what will happen and mourning over it is itself a kind of healing treatment. For people have often failed to benefit from advice, yet changed their ways when someone mourned over them. This is the chief reason He used the word “Woe”: to rouse them fully, make them serious, and move them to stay alert. At the same time, He reveals His goodwill toward these very people and His own gentleness: He mourns for them even when they oppose Him, instead of simply turning away in disgust, and corrects them through both His mourning and His prediction, to win them over. But how is this possible? someone may ask. If “offenses must come,” how can we escape them? Because offenses must indeed come, but people do not necessarily have to perish. It is as if a physician were to say (for nothing prevents us from using the same illustration again), “This disease must come,” but it does not necessarily follow that someone who takes care must be destroyed by the disease. As I said, He spoke this way to awaken His disciples along with the others. To keep them from sleeping, as though they had been sent into peace and an untroubled life, He shows them many wars approaching, from outside and from within. Paul declared this when he said, “There were battles outside and fears within,” and, “In danger among false brothers.” In his address to the Milesians, too, he said, “Some from among you will also arise, speaking perverse things.” And He Himself said, “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” But when He says, “It must be,” He is not taking away their power to choose for themselves or their freedom of moral choice, or placing human life under any absolute compulsion of circumstances. He is predicting what will certainly happen. Luke expressed this in another way: “It is impossible for offenses not to come.” But what are offenses? Obstacles along the right path. Those in the theater who understand such matters also use this word for people who contort their bodies. So His prediction does not bring about the offenses—far from it. They do not happen because He predicted them; rather, He predicted them because they were certainly going to happen. If those who bring about offenses had not intended to do evil, the offenses would not have come; and if they had not been going to come, they would not have been predicted. But because those people did evil and were incurably sick, the offenses came, and He predicts what is going to happen. But if these people had remained upright, someone may say, and there had been no one to bring about an offense, would this saying not have been proved false? Certainly not, because it would never have been spoken. If everyone had been going to remain upright, He would not have said, “They must come.” But because He knew beforehand that by their own choice they would be beyond correction, He said that offenses would certainly come. And why did He not remove them? someone may ask. Well, why should they have been removed? For the sake of those who are harmed? But their ruin does not come from these offenses; it comes from their own negligence. The virtuous prove this: far from being injured by offenses, they benefit enormously from them. Such were Job, Joseph, all the righteous, and the apostles. If many perish, it is because they themselves are asleep. If that were not so, and offenses caused their ruin, everyone would have perished. And if some escape, anyone who does not escape should blame himself. As I have said, offenses awaken people and make them more perceptive and alert—not only those who remain safe, but even those who fall into them, if they quickly get up again. For offenses make them more secure and harder to overcome. So if we stay watchful, we gain a great benefit from them: we stay continually awake. For if we sleep when we have enemies and so many dangers press upon us, what would we be like if we lived in safety? Indeed, if you like, look at the first man. After living in paradise for a short time, perhaps not even a whole day, and enjoying its delights, he rushed into such wickedness that he even imagined himself equal to God, regarded the deceiver as a benefactor, and failed to keep a single commandment. If he had lived the rest of his life without suffering as well, what would he not have done? 2. But when we say these things, they raise other objections, asking, “And why did God make him like that?” God did not make him like that—far from it, since otherwise He would not have punished him. For if we do not blame our servants for things we ourselves have caused, much less would the God of all do so. “But how did this happen?” someone may ask. Through the man himself and his own negligence. “What do you mean, through himself?” Ask yourself. If bad people are not bad through their own doing, do not punish your servant or reprimand your wife for whatever mistakes she makes; do not beat your son, blame your friend, or hate your enemy who mistreats you. All of them deserve pity rather than punishment, unless they do wrong of their own accord. “But I cannot control myself,” someone may say. Yet when you realize that they are not responsible, but that some other necessity is, you can control yourself. At any rate, when a servant falls sick and does not carry out your orders, far from blaming him, you excuse him. So you yourself testify that one thing is a person’s own doing and another is not. Here too, then, if you knew that he was wicked because he was born that way, far from blaming him, you would excuse him. Surely, if you make allowances for his illness, you would not refuse to make allowances for God’s act of creation, if he had actually been made that way from the very beginning. It is easy to silence such people in another way too, for the truth has abundant power. Why do you never blame your servant for not having a handsome face, for not having a fine physique, or for being unable to fly? Because these things belong to his nature. So he is free from blame for his nature, and no one disputes it. When you do blame him, then, you show that the fault lies in his choice, not his nature. For if, in the things we do not blame, we testify that everything comes from nature, it is clear that when we reprimand someone, we declare that the offense comes from choice. Please, then, do not bring forward twisted arguments, sophistries, and webs thinner than a spider’s. Answer me this instead: Did God make everyone? Surely that is clear to everyone. How, then, is it that not everyone is equal in virtue and vice? Where do the good, kind, and gentle come from? Where do the worthless and evil come from? If these things involve no intention but come from nature, how are some one way and others another? If everyone were bad by nature, no one could be good; and if everyone were good by nature, no one could be bad. For if all people had one nature, they would necessarily all be alike in this respect, whether they were one way or the other. But even if we said that some are good by nature and others bad—which would be unreasonable, as we have shown—these qualities would have to be unchangeable, because natural characteristics do not change. Just consider: all mortals are also subject to suffering, and no one is free from suffering, however endlessly he struggles. Yet we now see many good people becoming worthless and worthless people becoming good, the former through negligence and the latter through earnest effort. This shows most clearly that these qualities do not come from nature. For natural characteristics do not change, nor do they require effort to acquire. Just as we do not need to work to see and hear, we would not need to struggle for virtue if it had been assigned to us by nature. “But why did He make worthless people at all, when He could have made everyone good? Where, then, do evil things come from?” he asks. Ask yourself; my task is to show that they come neither from nature nor from God. “Do they come into being on their own, then?” he asks. Certainly not. “But are they unoriginate?” Speak reverently, man, and recoil from this madness of giving God and evil things the same honor, and the highest honor at that. For if they are unoriginate, they are powerful and cannot even be uprooted or reduced to nothing. Surely everyone knows that what is unoriginate is imperishable. 3. And how are there so many good people when evil has such great power? How are beings that have an origin stronger than what is unoriginate? “But God destroys these things,” he says. When? And how will He destroy things equal to Himself in honor and strength, and, one might say, in age? Oh, the devil’s malice! What a great evil he has invented! What blasphemy he has persuaded people to surround God with! What a cloak of godliness he has used to devise another godless explanation! For in their desire to show that evil does not come from Him, they introduced another evil doctrine, saying that these things are unoriginate. “Where, then, do evils come from?” someone may ask. From willing and not willing. “But where does our very willing and not willing come from?” From ourselves. But your questioning is like asking, “Where does seeing and not seeing come from?” and then, when I say, “From closing or not closing your eyes,” asking again, “Where does the very act of closing or not closing your eyes come from?” Then, after hearing that it comes from ourselves and our will, you look for yet another cause. For evil is nothing other than disobedience to God. “Where, then,” someone may ask, “did man discover this?” “Was discovering this really such a task, I ask you?” “No, I am not saying that it is difficult, but where did his desire to disobey come from?” “From negligence. For although he had the power to choose either course, he inclined toward this one instead.” But if you are still confused and dizzy from hearing this, I will ask you nothing difficult or complicated, just a simple, clear question. Have you sometimes become bad, and sometimes good? Here is what I mean. Have you sometimes overcome passion, and then been overcome by passion again? Have you been overcome by drunkenness, and have you overcome drunkenness? Were you once moved to anger, and at another time not moved to anger? Have you ignored a poor man, and at another time not ignored him? Did you once commit sexual immorality, and then become chaste again? Where, then, do all these things come from? Tell me, where? If you will not tell me yourself, I will say it: because at one time you controlled yourself and made an effort, but afterward you became negligent and careless. I will not even discuss self-control with those who are beyond hope, continually wicked, senseless, and mad, and unwilling even to hear what would correct them. But I will gladly speak to those who have sometimes been in one condition and sometimes in the other. Did you once seize by force what did not belong to you, and afterward, overcome by pity, share even your own possessions with someone in need? Where, then, did this change come from? Is it not perfectly clear that it came from your mind and the choice of your will? It is perfectly clear, and no one would deny it. So I urge you to be earnest and hold firmly to virtue, and you will have no need for these questions. For our evils are mere names, if we are willing. So do not ask where evils come from or torment yourself over it. Once you have learned that they come only from negligence, flee evil deeds. And if someone says that these things do not come from us, whenever you see him angry with his servants, irritated with his wife, blaming a child, or condemning those who injure him, say to him, “How, then, could you say that evils do not come from us? If they do not come from us, why do you blame anyone?” Ask him again, “Do you abuse and insult people of your own accord? If you do not, no one should be angry with you. But if you do, your evil deeds come from yourself and your negligence.” Well, then, do you think there are any good people? If no one is good, where did you get this word? Where does praise come from? But if there are good people, it is perfectly clear that they will also reprimand the bad. Yet if no one is wicked voluntarily or through his own doing, the good will turn out to be reprimanding the bad unjustly, and in this way they themselves will become bad in turn. For what could be worse than accusing the innocent? But if we continue to consider them good even when they reprimand others, and if this is especially a proof of their goodness, then even the most foolish can see from this that no one is ever bad by necessity. But if, after all this, you still ask where evils come from, I would say: from negligence, idleness, keeping bad company, and contempt for virtue. These are the sources both of evils themselves and of the fact that some people ask where evils come from. For surely no one who does right, who intends to live justly and with self-control, asks about these things. Instead, those who dare to commit wicked acts and want to devise some foolish comfort for themselves through these discussions weave spiders’ webs. But let us tear these apart through our deeds as well as our words. For these things do not happen by necessity. If they did, He would not have said, “Woe to the man through whom the offense comes.” For He mourns only for those who are wicked by their own choice. And do not be surprised that He says “through whom.” He does not say this as though someone else were introducing the offense through that man; He regards the man himself as the cause of it all. For Scripture commonly says “through whom” for “by whom,” as when it says, “I have acquired a man through God,” referring to the first cause, not the second; and again, “Does not their interpretation come through God?” and, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son.” 4. To learn that this is not a matter of necessity, hear what follows as well. After mourning over them, He says, “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut them off and throw them away from you. For it is better for you to enter life lame or maimed than to have two hands or feet and be thrown into the fire. And if your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the furnace of fire.” He is not speaking about limbs—far from it—but about friends and relatives whom we regard as necessary parts of ourselves. He said this earlier, and now He says it again. For nothing is as harmful as bad company. Friendship can often accomplish what compulsion cannot, both for harm and for good. So He commands us very earnestly to cut off those who harm us, meaning those who bring about offenses. Do you see how He has removed the harm that offenses would cause? He predicts that offenses will certainly come, so that they will find no one careless, but people will expect them and stay watchful. He shows that the evils are great (for He did not say, “Woe to the world because of offenses,” without a purpose, but to show how great the harm they cause is). He mourns again, in stronger terms, over the person who brings them about. For “But woe to that man” was the statement of someone showing how great the punishment would be. And beyond this, He increased the fear through the comparison He added. Then He is not satisfied with these things, but also shows the way to avoid offenses. What is that way? Cut wicked people out of your friendship, He says, even if they are very dear friends of yours. And He gives a reason that cannot be disputed. If they remain your friends, you will not win them over, and you will lose yourself as well. But if you cut them off, you will at least gain your own salvation. So if anyone’s friendship harms you, cut it off. For if we often cut off many of our own limbs when they are incurable and are destroying the rest, we should do this all the more in the case of friends. But if evils came from nature, all this warning and advice would be pointless, as would the precautions I have mentioned. But if they are not pointless, as surely they are not, it is perfectly clear that wickedness comes from the will. “Be careful not to despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels always look upon the face of my Father in Heaven.” He calls them little ones not because they really are little, but because most people regard them that way: the poor, the despised, the unknown (for how could someone be little who is equal in value to the whole world? How could someone be little who is dear to God?). He means those whom most people imagine to be little. And He speaks not only of many, but even of one, once again protecting them from the harm of so many offenses. For just as fleeing the wicked brings great benefit, so does honoring the good. This gives anyone who pays attention a twofold protection: one comes from rooting out friendships with those who cause offenses, and the other from treating these saints with respect and honor. Then He makes them worthy of reverence in another way too, saying, “Their angels always look upon the face of my Father in Heaven.” From this it is clear that the saints have angels, or even that everyone does. For the apostle also says of the woman, “She ought to have authority on her head because of the angels.” And Moses says, “He set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.” But here He is speaking not simply of angels, but of angels greater than others. When He says, “The face of my Father,” He means nothing other than their greater freedom to approach Him and their great honor. “For the Son of Man has come to save what was lost.” Again, He gives another reason stronger than the previous one, and joins it to a parable in which He also presents the Father as desiring these things. “For what do you think?” He says. “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go into the mountains to look for the one that has gone astray? And if he finds it, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. In the same way, for one of these little ones to perish is not something willed before your Father.” Do you see how many reasons He gives to urge us to care for our lowly brothers? So do not say, “This man is a blacksmith, a shoemaker, a farmer, a fool,” and despise him for it. To keep you from feeling this way, see how many motives He offers to persuade you to be humble and press you to care for these people. He placed a little child before them and says, “Be like little children.” And, “Whoever receives a little child like this receives me.” And, “Whoever causes one to stumble” will suffer the most severe penalties. He was not even satisfied with the comparison of the “millstone,” but also added His “woe” and commanded us to cut off such people, even if they are like hands and eyes to us. Again, through the angels entrusted with these same lowly brothers, He makes them worthy of reverence; also through His own will and suffering (for when He said, “The Son of Man has come to save what was lost,” He points even to the cross, just as Paul says of a brother, “For whom Christ died”); and through the Father, because He too does not think it good that one should perish; and through common practice, because the shepherd leaves those who are safe and looks for the lost one. And when he finds the one that went astray, he is deeply delighted to have found and saved it. 5. If God rejoices so much over the little one who is found, how can you despise those who receive God’s earnest care, when you ought to give up even your own life for one of these little ones? But is he weak and lowly? That is the very reason, above all, to do everything to preserve him. For He Himself left the ninety-nine sheep and went after this one, and the safety of so many did not overshadow the loss of one. Luke says that He even brought it back on His shoulders, and that “There was greater joy over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people.” By leaving those who were safe for its sake, and by taking greater pleasure in this one, He showed how earnestly He cared for it. So let us not neglect souls like these. Everything here is said for this purpose. By threatening that anyone who has not become a little child will never even set foot in Heaven, and by speaking of “the millstone,” He has humbled the arrogance of the boastful; for nothing is as hostile to love as pride. By saying, “Offenses must come,” He made them watchful; and by adding, “Woe to the one through whom the offense comes,” He has moved each person to make every effort to keep it from coming through him. By commanding us to cut off those who cause offenses, He made salvation easy. By commanding us not to despise these little ones—and not merely commanding, but doing so earnestly (for He says, “Be careful not to despise one of these little ones”)—and by saying, “Their angels look upon the face of my Father,” and, “I have come for this purpose,” and, “My Father wills this,” He has made those responsible for their care more diligent. Do you see what a wall He has built around them, and how earnestly He cares for those who are despised and perishing? At once He threatens incurable evils against those who cause them to fall, promises great blessings to those who serve and care for them, and again offers Himself and the Father as examples. Let us imitate Him too, refusing none of the tasks that seem lowly and troublesome when they are for our brothers’ sake. Even if we must serve, even if the person we serve is insignificant and lowly, even if the work is hard, even if we must cross mountains and cliffs, let us consider everything bearable for our brother’s salvation. For God cares so earnestly for a soul that “He did not spare His own Son.” So I urge you: when morning comes, as soon as we leave our homes, let us keep this one purpose in view and make it our greatest concern—to rescue the person in danger. I do not mean only danger that the senses can perceive, for that is no danger at all, but danger to the soul, the danger the devil brings upon people. For the merchant crosses the sea to increase his wealth, and the craftsman does everything to add to his possessions. So let us too refuse to be satisfied with our own salvation alone, since otherwise we destroy even that. In war and combat, the soldier who thinks only of saving himself by running away destroys the others along with himself. In the same way, on the other hand, the brave soldier who stands armed in defense of the others preserves himself along with them. Since we too are at war—the bitterest of all wars—in combat and battle, let us take our places in battle as our King commanded us, prepared for slaughter, blood, and murders, seeking everyone’s salvation, encouraging those who stand, and raising those who have fallen. For many of our brothers lie fallen in this conflict, wounded and wallowing in blood, and there is no one to heal them: no layperson, no priest, no one else, no one to stand beside them, no friend, no brother. Instead, each of us looks after his own affairs. Because of this, we harm our own interests as well. For our greatest ground for confidence and approval is to look beyond our own affairs. This, I say, is why we are weak and easily overcome by both people and the devil: we pursue the opposite course, do not lock our shields together, and are not fortified by godly love. Instead, we seek other reasons for friendship: some look to family ties, some to long acquaintance, some to shared interests, some to being neighbors. We become friends for every other reason before godliness, when godliness alone should be the basis of our friendships. But now we do the opposite: sometimes we make friends with Jews and Greeks more readily than with the children of the church. 6. “Yes,” someone says, “because the one is worthless, while the other is kind and gentle.” What are you saying? Do you call your brother worthless, when you are commanded not even to call him Raca? Are you not ashamed? Do you not blush to expose your brother, your fellow member, who has shared the same birth as you and shared in the same table? If you have a brother according to the flesh, even if he commits ten thousand evil deeds, you work hard to cover for him and consider yourself a partner in his shame when he is disgraced. But when it comes to your spiritual brother, whom you ought to protect from slander, do you instead surround him with ten thousand accusations? “But he is worthless and unbearable,” you may say. Then become his friend for that very reason, so that you may put an end to his being that way, convert him, and lead him back to virtue.—“But he will not listen,” you will say, “and he cannot take advice.”—How do you know? Have you warned him and tried to correct him?—“I have warned him often,” you will say. How many times?—“Often: once, and a second time.”—Oh! Is that often? Even if you had been doing this all along, should you grow tired and give up? Do you not see how God is always warning us through the prophets, the apostles, and the evangelists? Well, then, have we done everything? Have we obeyed in everything? Certainly not. Did He stop warning us, then? Did He fall silent? Does He not say every day, “You cannot serve God and mammon,” while among many people excessive wealth and its tyranny keep increasing? Does He not cry out every day, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven,” while we become more and more like wild beasts? Does He not continually urge us to restrain desire and master wicked lust, while many wallow in this sin worse than pigs? Yet He does not stop speaking. Why, then, do we not think these things over and tell ourselves that God reasons with us too, and does not stop doing so, although we disobey Him in many things? That is why He said, “Few are saved.” For if our own virtue is not enough for our salvation, but we must also take others with us when we depart, what will we suffer when we have saved neither ourselves nor others? What hope of salvation will we have left? But why do I blame you for these things, when we do not even pay attention to those who live with us—our wives, children, and servants? Like drunken people, we concern ourselves with one thing instead of another: with having more servants who serve us diligently, with leaving our children a large inheritance, and with giving our wives gold ornaments, expensive clothes, and wealth. We do not care about the people themselves at all, only about their belongings. We neither care for nor provide for our own wives, but for their belongings; and likewise not for our children, but for their belongings. We act like someone who sees a house in bad condition, with its walls collapsing, but neglects to shore them up and instead builds great fences around the outside; or someone who fails to care for a sick body but weaves gold-embroidered clothes for it; or someone who, when the mistress of the house is sick, attends to the maidservants, looms, household vessels, and other things, leaving her to lie there groaning. For this happens even now. When our soul is in a miserable, wretched condition—angry, abusive, filled with wrongful lust and a hunger for praise, quarrelsome, dragged down to earth, and torn by so many wild beasts—we neglect to drive the passions away from her and concern ourselves with our house and servants. If a bear has slipped loose, we shut our houses and run along narrow passages to avoid meeting the wild beast. Yet now, when not one wild beast but many such thoughts are tearing the soul apart, we are not even aware of it. In the city we take such care to confine wild beasts in isolated places and cages, keeping them chained far away, somewhere distant from the city’s senate house, courts of justice, and king’s palace. But in the soul, where the senate house, the King’s palace, and the court of justice are, the wild beasts run loose, howling and creating an uproar around the mind itself and the royal throne. So everything is turned upside down, and everything inside and outside is full of turmoil. We are no different from a city thrown into confusion by an invasion of barbarians. What happens within us is like a serpent attacking a brood of sparrows: the sparrows fly about in every direction with their feeble cries, terrified and distressed, with nowhere to go to escape their terror. 7. So I urge you: let us kill the serpent, shut up the wild beasts, stifle them, and slaughter them. Let us hand these wicked thoughts over to the sword of the Spirit, so that the prophet does not threaten us too with the things he threatened Judea with: “Wild donkeys will dance there, and porcupines, and serpents.” For there are—there are indeed—people worse than wild donkeys, living as though in the wilderness and kicking. Yes, most of the young men among us are like this. With their wild lusts, they leap and kick in this way, roaming unbridled and putting their energy into nothing worthwhile. And the fathers are to blame. They insist that horse trainers train their horses with great care, and do not let a colt remain untamed for long in its youth, but put a bridle and all the rest on it from the beginning. Yet they neglect their own young, who roam for a long time unbridled and without self-control, disgracing themselves through sexual immorality, gambling, and constant attendance at wicked theaters. Before a son commits sexual immorality, they ought to give him a wife, a chaste wife endowed with great wisdom. For she will draw her husband away from his utterly disorderly way of life and serve as a bridle for the colt. For sexual immorality and adultery come from no other cause than young men’s lack of restraint. If a young man has a sensible wife, he will care for his home, honor, and reputation. “But he is young,” you say. I know that too. If Isaac was forty years old when he took his bride, having spent all that time in virginity, much more should young men under grace practice this self-restraint. But oh, what grief! You cannot bear to take care of their chastity, but stand by as they disgrace and defile themselves and become accursed, as though you did not know that the benefit of marriage is to keep the body pure, and that if it does not do this, marriage offers no advantage. Yet you do the opposite: once they are covered with countless stains, you bring them to marriage, pointlessly and fruitlessly. “But I must wait,” you will say, “until he wins recognition and distinguishes himself in public affairs.” Yet you give no thought to his soul and neglect it as though it had been thrown away. This is why everything is full of confusion, disorder, and trouble: because this is treated as secondary, because necessary things are neglected while unimportant things receive great attention. Do you not know that you can do no greater kindness to a young man than to keep him free from the impurity of prostitution? For nothing equals the soul. “What does a man gain,” He says, “if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” But the love of money has overturned and brought down everything and pushed aside the strict fear of God, seizing people’s souls like a rebel chief seizing a citadel. That is why we neglect both our children’s salvation and our own, looking to this one goal alone: to become richer and leave wealth to others, who will leave it to others after them, who in turn will leave it to their descendants. We become people who merely pass along our possessions and money, rather than their masters. This is the source of our great foolishness; this is why we value free people less than slaves. We reprimand slaves, if not for their sake, at least for our own. But free people do not benefit even from this care; we regard them as worth less than those slaves. And why do I say less than our slaves? We value our children less than livestock, and care for horses and donkeys more than for our children. If someone has a mule, he takes great pains to find the best groom, someone neither harsh nor dishonest nor drunk nor ignorant of his trade. But when we appoint a tutor over a child’s soul, we immediately take whoever happens to come along, at random. Yet no art is greater than this. For what equals training the soul and shaping a young person’s mind? Anyone who practices this art should pay closer attention than any painter or sculptor. But we give no thought to this and look to one thing alone: training him to speak. And even here, we have directed our efforts toward making money. For he learns to speak so that he may make money, rather than simply so that he may speak well. If he could become rich without this, we would not even care about this. Do you see how great the tyranny of wealth is? How it has seized everything, bound it like slaves or cattle, and drags it wherever it wishes? But what do we gain by making such accusations against it? We shoot at it with words, but it overcomes us in our deeds. Even so, we will not stop shooting at it with the words of our tongue. For if any progress is made, both you and we benefit. But if you continue in the same ways, at least we have done everything required of us. But may God both deliver you from this disease and give us reason to take pride in you. For to Him be glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen.