Homily 11 — Romans 6, verses 5 to 18

“For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we will also be in the likeness of his resurrection.” [a]

What I had occasion to point out before, I mention here too: he keeps turning aside into exhortation. He does not make a twofold division, as he does in his other letters, setting apart the first part for doctrine and the second for moral instruction. Here he does not do that. He blends the moral teaching into his subject all the way through, so that it may find an easy hearing.

Here, then, he says that there are two ways of being put to death, and two deaths. The one is done by Christ in baptism; the other it is our duty to bring about afterward by our own earnestness. That our former sins were buried came of his gift. But remaining dead to sin after baptism must be the work of our own earnestness, however much we find God giving us great help here as well. For wiping out our past transgressions is not the only thing baptism has the power to do; it also guards us against later ones. So just as, with the former sins, your contribution was faith, so that they might be wiped out, so with those that come after, show a change in what you aim at, so that you do not defile yourself again. That, and things like it, is what he is urging on you when he says, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we will also be in the likeness of his resurrection.”

Do you notice how he rouses the hearer by leading him straight up to his Master, and how hard he works to show the close likeness? This is why he does not say “in death,” so that you would not dispute it, but “in the likeness of his death.” For it is not our very being that has died, but the man of sins, that is, wickedness. And he does not say, “For if we have shared in the likeness of his death.” What does he say? “If we have been planted together.” By speaking of planting, he hints at the fruit that comes to us from it. For just as his body, buried in the earth, bore as its fruit the salvation of the world, so ours, buried in baptism, bore as its fruit righteousness, holiness, adoption, countless blessings. And later it will also bear the gift of the resurrection. We, then, were buried in water, he in earth; we with regard to sin, he with regard to his body. That is why he did not say, “We were planted together in his death,” but “in the likeness of his death.”

For both are death, but not the death of the same thing. So when he says, “If we have been planted together in his death, we will also be of his resurrection,” he is speaking here of the resurrection that is to come. Earlier, when he was dealing with the death and said, “Do you not know, brothers and sisters, that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?” he had said nothing clear about the resurrection, only about the way of life after baptism, telling them to walk in newness of life. That is why he takes up the same subject again here and goes on to foretell that resurrection to us plainly. [b]

And so that you may know he is speaking not of the resurrection that comes from baptism but of the other one, after saying, “For if we were planted together in the likeness of his death,” he does not say that we will be in the likeness of his resurrection, but that we will belong to the resurrection itself. And so that you could not say, “How are we to rise as he rose, if we did not die as he died?” when he spoke of the death he did not say “planted together in the death,” but “in the likeness of his death.”

But when he spoke of the resurrection, he did not say “in the likeness of the resurrection,” but that we will be “of the resurrection” itself. And he does not say “we have become,” but “we will be,” again plainly meaning by this word the resurrection that has not yet taken place but will take place later. Then, to make what he says believable, he points to another resurrection, one that happens here, before that one, so that from what is present you may believe what is to come as well. For after saying, “We will be planted together in the resurrection,” he adds: [c]

Verse 6: “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed.”

So he puts together both the cause of the resurrection to come and the proof of it. And he does not say “was crucified,” but “was crucified with him,” so bringing baptism close to the cross. It was on this account, too, that he said above, “We have been planted together in the likeness of his death, so that the body of sin might be destroyed” — not giving that name to this body of ours, but to all wrongdoing. For just as he calls the whole sum of wickedness “the old man,” so again he calls the wickedness that is made up of the different parts of wrongdoing “the body” of that man.

And to show that what I am saying is not mere guesswork, listen to Paul’s own explanation of this very point in what comes next. After saying, “so that the body of sin might be destroyed,” he adds, “so that from now on we would not serve sin.” As if to say: “The way I want it dead is not that you should be destroyed and die, but that you should not sin.” And as he goes on, he makes this plainer still. [d]

Verse 7: “For the one who has died,” he says, “has been freed from sin.”

He says this of everyone. Just as the one who has died is from then on freed from sinning, lying there a dead body, so the one who has come up from baptism must remain dead to sin forever, since he died there once for all. So if you died in baptism, stay dead. Anyone who has died can sin no more; but if you sin, you spoil God’s gift. Having required of us a philosophy of this high degree, he immediately brings in the crown as well, in these words:

Verse 8: “Now if we have died with Christ.”

And indeed, even before the crown, this is itself the greater crown: sharing with our Master. But he says: “I give you yet another reward.” What kind of reward? Eternal life. For “we believe,” he says, “that we will also live with him.” And how is this clear?

Verse 9: “Since Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more.”

Notice again how fearless he is, and how he proves his point from what seemed to tell against it. It was likely that some would be perplexed at the cross and the death; so he shows that this very thing is a reason for confidence from now on. For he says: “Do not suppose that because he died once, he is mortal. That is the very reason he is immortal. His death has been the death of death; and because he did die, for that very reason he does not die.” For even that death —

Verse 10: “He died to sin.”

What does “to sin” mean? It means that he was not subject even to that death himself. He died because of our sin, to destroy it and to cut away its sinews and all its power; that is why he died. Do you see how he puts fear into them?

For if he does not die again, then there is no second washing. So keep yourself from every leaning toward sin. He says all this to take a stand against the saying, “Let us do evil that good may come,” and “Let us remain in sin that grace may abound.” It is to pull that notion up, root and branch, that he sets all this down. [f]

“But in that he lives, he lives to God,” he says — that is, unchangeably, so that death no longer has any dominion over him. For if he died that first death not because he was liable to it, but only for the sin of others, much less will he die again now that he has done away with that sin. He says this in the Letter to the Hebrews too: “But now once, at the end of the world, he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for people to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many; and to those who look for him he will appear a second time, without sin, for salvation” (Hebrews 9, verses 26 to 28).

And he points out both the power of the life that is lived to God and the strength of sin. As for the life to God, he shows that Christ will die no more. As for sin, he shows that if it brought about the death even of the Sinless One, how can it fail to be the ruin of those who are subject to it? Then, since he had been speaking of Christ’s life, so that no one could say, “What does all you have been saying have to do with us?” he adds:

Verse 11: “In the same way, you too must reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God.”

He does well to say “reckon,” because what he is speaking of cannot yet be set before our eyes. Someone may ask: “And what are we to reckon?” That we “are dead to sin, but alive to God, in Jesus Christ our Lord.” For the one who lives this way will lay hold of every virtue, since he has Jesus himself as his ally. That is what “in Christ” means. For if he raised them when they were dead, much more will he be able to keep them living now that they are alive.

Verse 12: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey it in its cravings.”

He does not say, “Do not let the flesh live or act,” but “Do not let sin reign.” For Christ came not to destroy our nature but to set our free choice right. Then, to show that we are held down by wickedness not through any force or necessity but willingly, he does not say, “Do not let it tyrannize over you,” a word that would imply necessity, but “Do not let it reign.” For it is absurd for people who are being led to the kingdom of heaven to have sin ruling over them as queen, and for those who are called to reign with Christ to choose to be sin’s captives. It is as if someone were to fling the diadem from his head and choose to be the slave of a raving woman who came begging, dressed in rags.

Next, since getting the upper hand over sin was a heavy task, see how he shows it to be even easy, and lightens the labor, by saying, “in your mortal body.” This shows that the struggles last only for a time and will soon come to an end. At the same time he reminds us of our former wretched state, and of the root of death, since it was from sin that the body became mortal, contrary even to how it began. Yet even someone with a mortal body can keep from sinning. Do you see the abundance of Christ’s grace? Adam fell, though he did not yet have a mortal body. But you, who have received a body that is even subject to death, can win the crown.

“How, then, does sin reign?” Not from any power of its own, but from your own slackness. That is why, after saying, “Do not let it reign,” he also points out how this reigning happens, by going on to say, “so that you obey it in its cravings.” For it is no honor to give the body everything it wants. No, it is slavery of the worst kind and the height of dishonor. When the body does whatever it pleases, it is robbed of all its freedom; but when it is kept under restraint, then it best keeps its own proper rank.

Verse 13: “Do not yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin … but as instruments of righteousness.” [g]

The body, then, stands midway between vice and virtue, as instruments do. Either result is the work of the one who uses it. Think of a soldier fighting for his country and a robber arming himself against the people who live there: they may have the same weapons for defense. The blame is not laid on the armor but on those who use it for a bad end. The same can be said of the flesh too. It becomes this or that by the mind’s decision, not by its own nature. If the eye lingers with curiosity on someone else’s beauty, it becomes an instrument of wrongdoing — not through any action of its own, for the eye’s part is only to see, not to see wrongly, but through the fault of the thought that commands it. But if you rein it in, it becomes an instrument of righteousness. So it is with the tongue, so with the hands, so with all the other members.

And he does well to call sin unrighteousness. For by sinning, a person wrongs either himself or his neighbor — or rather, himself more than his neighbor.

Having led us away from wickedness, he leads us to virtue, in these words: “But yield yourselves to God, as those who are alive from the dead.”

See how he exhorts them by the bare words alone, naming “sin” on the one side and “God” on the other. By showing how great the difference is between the two rulers, he leaves no excuse at all to the soldier who deserts God and wants to serve under sin’s rule. And he makes the point not only in this way but also by what follows, when he says, “as alive from the dead.” By these words he shows both the wretchedness of the one state and the greatness of God’s gift. For he says: “Consider what you were, and what you have been made. What were you? Dead, and ruined by a destruction that could not be repaired from any quarter, for there was no one who had the power to help you. And what have you been made, out of those dead people? Alive, with an immortal life. And by whom? By the all-powerful God.

So you ought to take your place in his ranks with all the eager readiness of people who have been brought back to life from the dead.”

“And your members as instruments of righteousness.” So the body is not evil, since it can be made a weapon of righteousness.

But by calling it a weapon, he makes it clear that a hard war lies ahead of us. For this reason we need strong armor, and a noble spirit as well, one that knows the ways of this warfare; and above all we need a commander. The Commander, though, stands by us, always ready to help and always unconquerable, and he has furnished us with strong weapons too. Beyond that, we need a resolve to handle them as we should, so that we may obey our Commander and take the field for our homeland. Having given us this vigorous exhortation, and reminded us of weapons and battle and wars, see how he encourages the soldier again and warms his ready spirit:

Verse 14: “For sin will no longer have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.”

If sin no longer has dominion over us, why does he lay so strict a charge on them in the words, “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body,” and, “Do not yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin”? What, then, does this statement mean? In it he is sowing a kind of seed, which he means to develop later and to cultivate with a powerful argument. And what is the statement? It is this: before Christ came, our body was easy prey to the attacks of sin. After death came in, a great swarm of passions came in with it. That is why the body was not light enough to run the race of virtue. There was no Spirit present to help (John 7, verse 39), and no baptism with the power to put them to death. [h]

Like a horse that does not answer to the rein, it ran, to be sure, but it kept stumbling, while the law announced what was to be done and what was not, yet gave those in the race nothing beyond exhortation in words. But after Christ came, the effort became easier, and so the mark set for us was farther off, since the help given us was greater.

That is why Christ also says, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5, verse 20). He says this more clearly later on; for now he touches on it briefly here, to show that unless we stoop very low to it, sin will not get the better of us. For it is not the law alone that urges us on, but grace too, which both forgave our former sins and guards us against future ones. The law promised them crowns after their toils; but grace crowned them first, and then led them into the contest.

Now it seems to me that he is not describing here the whole life of a believer, but drawing a comparison between baptism and the law. He says this in another passage too: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (Second Corinthians 3, verse 6). For the law convicts of transgression, but grace undoes transgression. So just as the one, by convicting, establishes sin, the other, by forgiving, does not let us be under sin. And so you are set free from this slavery in two ways: by not being under the law, and by enjoying grace. After giving the hearer a breathing space with these words, he again provides him with a safeguard, bringing in an exhortation in answer to an objection. He says:

Verse 15: “What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law but under grace? Far from it!” [j]

He first used a form of strong refusal, because what he had named was absurd. Then he moves his discourse on to exhortation and shows how very easy the struggle is, in these words:

Verse 16: “Do you not know that to whomever you yield yourselves as slaves to obey, you are the slaves of the one you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?”

As if he were saying: “I do not yet mention hell, or that great punishment, but the shame there is in it in this world, when you become slaves — slaves of your own accord, too, and slaves of sin — and when the wages are such as this: a second death.”

For if, before baptism, sin brought about the death of the body, and the wound needed such great care that the Lord of all came down to die and so put a stop to the evil — if, after so great a gift and such great freedom, it seizes you again while you willingly bow down under it, what is there that it may not do? So do not run into such a pit, or give yourself up of your own will. In wars, soldiers are often handed over even against their will. But here, unless you desert of your own accord, there is no one who will get the better of you.

Having tried to shame them with a sense of what is fitting, he alarms them with the rewards as well, and sets before them the wages of both: righteousness, and death — and a death not like the former one, but far worse. For if Christ is to die no more, who is to do away with death? No one! Then we must be punished and pay the penalty forever. For in this case no death that the senses can perceive is still to come, as there was in the former case, the kind that gives the body rest and separates it from the soul. “For the last enemy, death, is destroyed” (First Corinthians 15, verse 26). So the punishment will be deathless. But not for those who obey: righteousness, and the blessings that spring from it, will be their rewards.

Verse 17: “But thanks be to God that you were slaves of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching which was handed on to you.” [l]

After shaming them by the slavery and alarming them by the rewards, and so exhorting them, he sets them upright again by calling to mind the benefits they have received.

By these words he shows that the evils they were freed from were great; that they were freed from them not by any labors of their own; and that from now on things would be easier to manage. Think of someone who has rescued a captive from a cruel tyrant and advises him not to run back to him: he reminds him of his grievous slavery. In the same way Paul sets the evils now past before us most forcefully, by giving thanks to God. For no human power could set us free from all those evils; but “thanks be to God,” who was both willing and able to do such great things.

And he does well to say, “You have obeyed from the heart.” You were neither forced nor pressured; you came over of your own accord, with a willing mind. This is like someone who praises and rebukes at once. For if you came willingly, with no necessity laid on you, what leniency can you claim, or what excuse can you make, if you run back to your former state?

Next, so that you may learn that it did not come from your own willingness alone, but that the whole of it came from God’s grace as well, after saying, “You have obeyed from the heart,” he adds, “that pattern of teaching which was handed on to you.” Obeying from the heart shows free will; being handed on hints at the help that comes from God. But what is the pattern of teaching? It is living rightly, according to the best way of life.

Verse 18: “Having been set free, then, from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”

He points out two gifts of God here: being “set free from sin,” and also being made “slaves of righteousness,” which is better than any freedom. God has done as if someone were to take an orphan who had been carried off by savages into their own country, and not only free him from captivity but set a kind father over him and raise him to the highest rank. This is what has been done in our case. It was not only from our old evils that he freed us; he even led us to the life of angels and paved the way for us to the best way of life. He handed us over to the safekeeping of righteousness, killed our former evils, put the old man to death, and led us to an immortal life.

So let us go on living this life. Many who seem to breathe and walk about are in a more wretched state than the dead. For there are different kinds of death. One is the death of the body, and in this sense Abraham was dead, and yet was not dead. For “God,” he says, “is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22, verse 32). Another is the death of the soul, which Christ hints at when he says, “Let the dead bury their dead” (Matthew 8, verse 22). Another is even a matter for praise. It is brought about by philosophy, and of it Paul says, “Put to death your members which are on the earth” (Colossians 3, verse 5). And another is the cause even of this one: the death that takes place in baptism. “For our old man,” he says, “has been crucified” (verse 6) — that is, put to death. [m]

Since we know this, then, let us run from the death by which we die even while we are alive. And let us not be afraid of the death that comes to everyone. But the other two — the one blessed, since it is given by God, and the other praiseworthy, since it is accomplished by ourselves together with God — let us both choose and strive to match. Of these two, David pronounces the one blessed when he says, “Blessed are those whose wrongdoings are forgiven” (Psalm 32, verse 1). The other Paul admires when he writes to the Galatians, “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh” (Galatians 5, verse 24). And of the other pair, Christ says that the one is easy to despise, when he says, “Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul”; and that the other is to be feared: “Fear him,” he says, “who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell” (Matthew 10, verse 28).

So let us run from this death, and choose the death that is called blessed and admirable, so that of the other two we may escape the one and not fear the other. For it does us no good at all to see the sun, and to eat and drink, unless the life of good works goes with it. What good, tell me, would a king be, dressed in a purple robe and owning weapons, but without a single subject, and open to anyone who cared to attack and insult him? In the same way it will do a Christian no good to have faith and the gift of baptism, and yet lie open to all the passions.

In that case the disgrace will be greater, and the shame more. Such a king, wearing the diadem and the purple, is so far from gaining any honor from his dress that he disgraces it by his own shame. So too the believer who leads a corrupt life: far from being respected for being a believer, he is only scorned the more. “For as many as have sinned without law,” it says, “will also perish without law; and as many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” (Romans 2, verse 12). And in the letter to the Hebrews he says, “Anyone who despised the law of Moses died without mercy on the word of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought to deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God?” (Hebrews 10, verses 28 and 29). And rightly so. For he might say: “I made all the passions subject to you by baptism. How is it, then, that you have disgraced so great a gift, and become something other than you were? I killed and buried your former transgressions like worms. How is it that you have bred others?” [q]

For sins are worse than worms. Worms harm the body, sins the soul, and sins give off the more offensive stench. Yet we do not notice it, and so we take no trouble to clear them out. The drunkard does not know how disgusting the stale wine is, but someone who is not drunk notices it distinctly. So it is with sins too. The one who lives soberly knows that other mire well, and its stain. But the one who gives himself up to wickedness, like a man made drowsy by drink, does not even know that he is sick. And this is the most grievous thing about vice: it does not let those who fall into it see even how great their ruin is. As they lie in the mire, they think they are enjoying perfumes. So they have not even the strength to get free. When they are full of worms, they exult in them like men who pride themselves on precious stones. That is why they have not so much as the will to kill them. Instead they even feed them and multiply them in themselves, until they pass them on to the worms of the world to come.

For these worms supply those, and not only supply them but are the very fathers of those worms that never die, as it says: “Their worm will not die” (Mark 9, verse 44). These kindle the hell that is never put out. To keep this from happening, then, let us do away with this fountain of evil, put out the furnace, and pull up the root of wickedness from below. You will do no good by cutting the tree down from above if the root stays below and sends up fresh shoots of the same kind again. [r]

What, then, is the root of the evils? Learn it from the good farmer (First Corinthians 3, verses 6 to 9), who knows such things thoroughly, tends the spiritual vine, and cultivates the whole world. What does he say is the cause of all the evils? The love of money. “For the love of money is the root of all evils” (First Timothy 6, verse 10). From this come fights, and hatreds, and wars; from this come rivalries, and abuse, and suspicions, and insults; from this come murders, and thefts, and the robbing of graves. Because of this, not cities and countries only, but roads, inhabited places and uninhabited, mountains and groves and hills — in a word, every place — are filled with blood and murder. Not even the sea has this evil left alone. There too it has run riot with great fury, for pirates besiege it on every side, devising a new kind of robbery. Because of this the laws of nature have been overturned, the claims of kinship set aside, and the laws of reverence itself broken through. For slavery to money has armed the right hands of such men not against the living only, but even against the dead. Even at death they make no truce with them. They break open the tombs and lay their unholy hands even on dead bodies, and not even the man who has let go of life will they let go from their plotting.

And every evil you may find, whether in the home, or in the marketplace, or in the law courts, or in the senate, or in the king’s palace, or in any other place at all — you will find that they all spring from this. For this is the evil, this and no other, that fills every place with blood and murder; this lights the flame of hell; this makes cities as wretched as a wilderness — or rather, far worse. Those who lie in wait on the highways one can easily guard against, since they are not always on the attack. But those who imitate them in the middle of cities are so much worse than they are, because they are harder to guard against, and dare to do openly what the others do in secret. The very laws that were made to stop their wrongdoing they draw into alliance with themselves, and they fill the cities with this kind of murder and pollution. Is it not murder, tell me, and worse than murder, to hand the poor man over to famine, to throw him into prison, and to expose him not to famine only but to tortures too, and to countless outrages?

For even if you do not do these things to him yourself, you are the cause of their being done, and you do them more than the officers who carry them out. The murderer plunges his sword into a man once, and after giving him pain for a short time, he carries the torture no further. But you, with your slanders, your harassing, your plotting, turn his daylight into darkness and make him long for death ten thousand times over. Think how many deaths you inflict instead of only one! And what is worst of all, you plunder and grab, not driven to it by poverty, with no hunger forcing you, but so that your horse’s bridle may be spattered with gold enough, or the ceiling of your house, or the capitals of your pillars.

What hell would this conduct not deserve? It is a brother, one who has shared with you in blessings beyond words, one who has been so highly honored by the Lord — and you are casting him into countless calamities so that you may deck out stones, and floors, and the bodies of animals that have neither reason nor any sense of these ornaments! Your dog is well cared for too, while a human being — or rather Christ — is pinched with extreme hunger for the sake of the hound and all the other things I have named. What could be worse than such confusion? What more grievous than such lawlessness? What rivers of fire will be enough for such a soul?

The one who was made in the image of God stands in a shameful state through your cruelty, while the faces of the mules that draw your wife glitter with gold in abundance, and so do the hides and the wood that make up that canopy. And if a seat is to be made, or a footstool, they are all made of gold and silver. But the member of Christ, for whom he came here from heaven and shed his precious blood, does not even get the food he needs, because of your greed. The couches are covered with silver on every side, while the bodies of the saints lack even the clothing they need. To you Christ is worth less than anything else — than servants, or mules, or a couch, or a chair, or a footstool. I pass over furniture put to still lowlier uses than these, and leave you to know it for yourselves. [t]

But if you are shocked to hear this, keep away from doing it, and then what is said will not hurt you. Keep away, and stop this madness; for it is plain madness, such eagerness over these things. So let us let go of them and look up toward heaven, late as it is. Let us call to mind the Day that is coming; let us think of that fearful judgment seat, and the strict accounting, and the sentence no one can bribe. Let us consider that God sees all these things and sends no lightning from heaven — and yet what is being done deserves more than thunderbolts. Yet he does not do it. He does not let the sea loose on us, he does not split the earth in two, he does not put out the sun, he does not hurl down the heaven with its stars on us. He moves nothing from its place, but lets them all hold their course, and the whole creation serve us.

Thinking over all this, then, let us stand in awe at the greatness of his love for humankind, and let us return to the noble birth that belongs to us. For at present we are certainly in no better state than the animals without reason — we are in a much worse one. They do love their own kind, and need only a shared nature to make them feel affection for each other. But you, who besides nature have countless reasons to draw you close and bind you to one who is a member of yourself — being honored with the Word, sharing one religion, sharing countless blessings — you have become more savage than they. You show such concern over worthless things, and leave the temples of God to perish in hunger and nakedness, and often surround them with a thousand evils besides. If it is from love of glory that you do these things, it is much more your duty to take care of your brother than of your horse. For the better the creature that receives the kindness, the brighter the crown that is woven for such care.

But now, while you do the very opposite of all this, you bring countless accusers down on yourself, and yet you do not notice it. For who will not speak ill of you? Who will not charge you with the worst savagery and hatred of humankind, when he sees you disregard the human race and set the race of senseless creatures above human beings — and not only senseless creatures, but even the furniture of your house? Have you not heard the apostles say that those who first received the word sold both “houses and lands” (Acts 4, verse 34) in order to support the brothers and sisters? But you plunder both houses and lands so that you can adorn a horse, or woodwork, or hides, or walls, or a floor.

And what is worse, it is not men only but women too who suffer from this madness. They push their husbands into this empty effort, forcing them to spend their money on anything rather than on what is needed. And if anyone blames them for it, they have a defense ready, and the defense itself is loaded with much to blame. One of them says: “Both are done at once — the one and the other.”

What are you saying? Are you not afraid to say such a thing, and to set the same value on horses and mules, couches and footstools, as on Christ when he is hungry? Or rather, not even comparing them at all, but giving the larger share to these, and measuring out to him, grudgingly, a scant share? Do you not know that everything belongs to him, both you and what is yours?

Do you not know that he shaped your body, and gave you a soul, and assigned you the whole world? Yet you are not willing to give him even a small return. If you rent out a little hut, you demand the rent with the utmost strictness. Yet though you reap his whole creation and live in so wide a world, you cannot bring yourself to pay even a little rent. Instead you have handed over yourself and all you have to empty glory. For that is where all these things come from. [w]

The horse is no better than its natural excellence for wearing this ornament, and neither is the man riding it. Sometimes he is only thought the less of for it, since many people ignore the rider and turn their eyes to the horse’s trappings, and to the attendants behind and in front, and to the fan-bearers. But the man who is waited on by these they hate and turn away from, as a common enemy. This does not happen when you adorn your soul. Then men and angels and the Lord of angels all weave you a crown.

So if you are in love with glory, keep away from the things you are doing now. Show your fine taste not in your house but in your soul, so that you may become brilliant and distinguished. As things are, nothing could be cheaper than you are, with your soul unfurnished and only the handsomeness of your house for a screen. But if you cannot bear to hear me speak this way, listen to what one of those outside once did, and at least be shamed by their philosophy. It is said that one of them went into a palace that shone with gold in abundance and gleamed with the great beauty of its marble and its columns. When he saw the floor spread with carpets in every direction, he spat in the face of the master of the house. When he was blamed for it, he said that since there was no other part of the house where he could spit, he was forced to give this insult to the man’s face.

See how ridiculous a man is who displays his taste in outward things, and how small he is in the eyes of all sensible people. And rightly so. If someone left your wife to go in rags and be neglected, and dressed your maidservants in brilliant clothes, you would not bear it calmly. You would be furious, and say it was the height of insult. Reason in the same way, then, about your soul.

When you display your taste in walls and floors and furniture and other things of that kind, and do not give generously in alms or practice the other parts of the life of philosophy, you are doing nothing less than this — or rather, something far worse. For between a servant and her mistress there is no difference, but between soul and flesh there is a great gap. And if this is so with the flesh, much more is it so with a house, or a couch, or a footstool. What excuse, then, do you deserve, you who put silver on all these things and have no regard for your soul, though it is covered in filthy rags, squalid, hungry, full of sores, and torn by countless dogs (Luke 16, verses 20 and 21) — and after all this imagine that you will win glory by displaying your taste in the outward things wrapped around you? This is the very height of madness: to be laughed at, reproached, disgraced, dishonored, and falling into the severest punishment, and still to be proud of these things! [x]

So I beg you, let us lay all this to heart and become self-controlled, late as it is, and masters of ourselves, and let us move this adornment from outward things to our souls. For then it will stay safe from plunder, and make us equal to the angels, and give us the enjoyment of good things that never change. May we all attain them by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.