Homily 23 — First Corinthians 9, verse 24, to 10, verse 12

“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?” [a]

He has pointed out how useful in so many ways it is to stoop down to meet others, and that this is the highest perfection. He has shown that he himself rose higher than anyone toward perfection — or rather went beyond it, by refusing to accept pay — and then came down lower than anyone again. And he has made known to us the right time for each of these, both for perfection and for stooping down. Now, in what follows, he touches them more sharply, hinting without saying it outright that what they were doing, the very thing they counted a mark of perfection, is a kind of pointless and useless labor. He does not say it plainly, so that they would not turn insolent; but the kinds of proof he uses make it evident.

He had said that they sin against Christ and destroy their brothers, and that this perfect knowledge of theirs does them no good at all unless love is added. Now he turns again to a common example, and says, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?” He does not say this as though here too only one out of many would be saved. Far from it! He says it to set before us the great diligence it is our duty to show. For there, though many go down onto the course, not many are crowned; that happens to one alone. And it is not enough to go down into the contest, or to oil oneself and wrestle. In the same way, here it is not enough to believe and to compete in just any way. Unless we have run so as to show ourselves blameless to the very end, and come near the prize, it will do us no good. For even if you consider yourself perfect in knowledge, you have not yet reached the whole. It was to hint at this that he said, “So run, that you may obtain it.” It seems, then, that they had not yet obtained it. And having said this, he also teaches them how.

Verse 25: “And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.”

What does “in all things” mean? He does not hold back from one thing and go wrong in another; he masters gluttony and lust and drunkenness and all his passions completely. “This happens,” he says, “even in the pagan games. Those who compete are not allowed to drink much wine at the time of the contest, or to give themselves to loose living, so that they will not weaken their strength. They are not even allowed to busy themselves with anything else. They separate themselves from everything entirely and apply themselves to their training alone.” Now if things are so there, where the crown goes to one alone, much more must they be so here, where there is far more to spur us on in the contest. For here it is not one alone who is to be crowned, and the rewards also far outweigh the labors. That is why he puts it in a way that shames them, saying, “They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.”

Verse 26: “I therefore run this way, not uncertainly.” [d]

Having shamed them by the example of those outside, he next brings himself forward as well. This is a most excellent way of teaching, and so we find him doing it everywhere.

But what does “not uncertainly” mean? “With my eye on a mark,” he says, “not at random and for nothing, as you do. For what do you gain by going into idol temples and showing off that perfection of yours? Nothing. But I am not like that. Whatever I do, I do for my neighbor’s salvation. If I show perfection, it is for their sake; if I stoop down to meet them, it is for their sake again. If I go beyond Peter by refusing to accept pay, it is so that they will not stumble; if I come down lower than anyone, being circumcised and shaving my head, it is so that they will not be overturned. This is what ‘not uncertainly’ means. But you — tell me, why do you eat in idol temples? No, you cannot give any reasonable cause. For ‘food does not commend you to God: if you eat, you are no better, and if you do not eat, you are no worse’ (First Corinthians 8, verse 8). Plainly, then, you are running at random, for this is what ‘uncertainly’ means.”

“So I fight, not as one beating the air.” He says this, again implying that he did not act at random or for nothing. “For I have someone to strike — that is, the devil. But you do not strike him; you simply throw away your strength.”

So far, then, he speaks this way, bearing with them entirely. Because he had dealt rather sharply with them in the earlier part, he now holds back his rebuke instead, keeping the deepest wound of all for the end of his argument. Here he says that they act at random and for nothing; but later he makes clear that they are risking nothing less than the utter ruin of their own souls, and that even apart from all the harm done to their brothers, they themselves are not guiltless in daring to act this way.

Verse 27: “But I pummel my body and bring it into slavery, so that after preaching to others I myself should not somehow be rejected.” Here he implies that they are slaves to the craving of the belly and give it free rein, and under a pretense of perfection satisfy their own greediness. He was struggling to bring this thought to birth before, too, when he said, “Food for the belly, and the belly for food” (First Corinthians 6, verse 13). For since sexual immorality is caused by luxury, and luxury also gave birth to idolatry, he naturally attacks this disease again and again. And as he points out how much he suffered for the good news, he sets this down among the rest. “Just as I went beyond the commands,” he says, “and that when it was no light matter for me” — (“for we endure all things,” as it says) — “so here too I take on much labor in order to live with self-control. Stubborn as appetite is, and the tyranny of the belly, I still bridle it and do not give myself up to the passion; I endure every labor so as not to be dragged off course by it.

“Please do not suppose that I arrive at this happy result by taking things easy. No, it is a race and a struggle of many kinds, with a tyrannical nature always rising up against me and trying to break free. But I do not put up with it; I hold it down, and bring it into subjection with many struggles.” He says this so that no one will lose heart and back away from the contests for virtue because the task is laborious. That is why he says, “I pummel it and bring it into slavery.” He did not say, “I kill it,” or, “I punish it,” for the flesh is not to be hated; but, “I pummel it and bring it into slavery.” That is the part of a master, not an enemy; of a teacher, not a foe; of an athletic trainer, not an opponent.

“So that after preaching to others I myself should not somehow be rejected.”

Now if Paul feared this — he who had taught so many, and feared it after his preaching, after becoming an angel and taking on the leadership of the whole world — what can we say? “Do not think,” he says, “that because you have believed, this is enough for your salvation. If for me neither preaching nor teaching nor bringing over countless people is enough for salvation unless I also show my own conduct to be blameless, much less is it enough for you.”

Then he turns to other illustrations again. Above, he brought forward the examples of the apostles, of everyday custom, and of the priests, and his own. So here too, having set out the examples of the Olympic games and of his own race, he goes on again to the histories of the Old Testament. And because what he has to say will be somewhat unwelcome, he makes his exhortation general, and speaks not only about the subject in hand but about all the evils among the Corinthians generally. In the case of the pagan games he says, “Do you not know?” But here, in chapter 10, verse 1: “For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters.” [g]

He said this to imply that they were not very well taught in these things. And what is it that you do not want us to be ignorant of?

Verses 1 to 5: “That our fathers,” he says, “were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from a spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not pleased.”

And why does he say these things? To point out that just as they gained nothing from enjoying so great a gift, so these too gain nothing from receiving baptism and sharing in the spiritual mysteries, unless they go on to show a life worthy of this grace. That is why he brings in the types both of baptism and of the mysteries.

But what does “they were baptized into Moses” mean? We are baptized when we believe in Christ and his resurrection, since we are destined to share in the same mysteries in our own persons; for “we are baptized,” he says, “for the dead,” that is, for our own bodies. In the same way, they put their confidence in Moses — that is, having seen him cross first — and ventured into the waters themselves. But because he wants to bring the type close to the truth, he does not put it that way, but uses the terms of the truth even of the type.

Further, this was a symbol of the font, and what follows was a symbol of the holy table. For as you eat the Lord’s body, so they ate the manna; and as you drink the blood, so they drank water from a rock. For though what was produced were things of the senses, they were given in a spiritual way — not according to the order of nature, but according to the gracious purpose of the gift — and along with the body they nourished the soul too, leading it to faith. That, you see, is why he made no remark about the food: it was entirely different, not only in the way it came but in its nature too, for it was manna. But the drink was extraordinary only in the way it was supplied, and that needed proof. So having said that “they drank the same spiritual drink,” he added, “for they drank from a spiritual Rock that followed them,” and then, “and the Rock was Christ.” What he means is this: it was not the rock’s own nature that sent out the water, or it would have gushed out before this time as well. Another sort of Rock, a spiritual one, did the whole thing: Christ, who was with them everywhere and worked all the wonders. That is why he said, “that followed them.”

Do you see Paul’s wisdom, how in both cases he points him out as the Giver, and so brings the type close to the truth? “For he who set those things before them,” he says, “is the same who has prepared this table of ours. The same one brought them through the sea and you through baptism; before them he set manna, but before you his body and blood.”

So much, then, for his gift. Now let us look at what follows too, and consider whether, when they showed themselves unworthy of the gift, he spared them. No, you cannot say that. [k]

That is why he added, “But with most of them God was not pleased,” although he had honored them with so great an honor. Yes, it did them no good; most of them perished. In truth they all perished; but so that he would not seem to be prophesying total destruction for these as well, he said, “most of them.” And yet they were beyond counting, but their numbers did them no good. All these things were so many tokens of love, but not even this did them any good, since they did not themselves show the fruits of love.

Most people disbelieve what is said about hell, since it is not present or in sight. So he brings forward what was done in the past as proof that God does punish all who sin, even when he has given them countless benefits. “For if you disbelieve the things to come,” he is saying, “you will surely not disbelieve the things that are past.” Consider, for example, how great the benefits were that he gave them. He set them free from Egypt and the slavery there; he made the sea their road; he brought manna down from heaven; from below he sent up strange and wonderful springs of water. He was with them everywhere, working wonders and fencing them in on every side. Nevertheless, since they showed nothing worthy of this gift, he did not spare them, but destroyed them all.

Verse 5: “For they were overthrown,” he says, “in the wilderness.”

By this word he shows the sweeping destruction, and the punishments and vengeance God inflicted, and that they did not even reach the rewards set before them. They were not in the promised land when he did these things to them, but outside it, somewhere far off, well away from that country. So he punished them twice over: by not letting them see the land, though it had been promised to them, and by actual severe punishment.

You say: “And what do these things have to do with us?” They certainly have to do with you. That is why he adds, in verse 6: “Now these things were figures for us.”

For as the gifts are figures, so the punishments are figures too. Just as baptism and the table were sketched out in advance by prophecy, so by what happened next it was proclaimed in advance, for our sake, that punishment will surely come on those who are unworthy of this gift, so that we might learn self-control from these examples. That is why he adds, “so that we would not crave evil things, as they also craved.” For as in the benefits the types went first and the reality followed, so it will be in the punishments too. Do you see how he points out not only that these people will be punished, but also the degree — more severely than those of old? For if the one is the type and the other the reality, the punishments must go beyond as far as the gifts do.

And see whom he deals with first: those who eat in the idol temples. Having said, “so that we would not crave evil things,” which was general, he adds what is particular, implying that each of their sins arose from evil craving. And first he says this, in verse 7: “Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.’”

Do you hear how he even calls them “idolaters”? Here he makes the statement; later he brings the proof. He also gave the reason they ran to those tables, and it was gluttony. So having said, “so that we would not crave evil things,” and having added, “do not be idolaters,” he names the cause of this wrongdoing, and it was gluttony. “For the people sat down,” he says, “to eat and to drink,” and he adds where it ended: “they rose up to play.” “Just as they passed from self-indulgence into idolatry,” he says, “so there is reason to fear that you too may fall from the one into the other.” Do you see how he shows that these men — perfect men, if you please! — were less perfect than the others they found fault with? Not only in this respect, that they did not bear with their brothers all the way, but also in that the others sin out of ignorance, while these sin out of gluttony. He counts the ruin of the others against these men, as something they will be punished for; and he does not let them lay the blame for their own sin on anyone else, but holds them responsible both for the harm done to the others and for their own.

“Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did.”

Why does he mention sexual immorality here again, when he has already spoken about it at such length? It is always Paul’s custom, when he brings a charge of many sins, to set them out in order and to deal with his chosen topics one at a time, and then again, while speaking about other things, to mention the earlier ones as well. God also used to do this in the Old Testament: in regard to each particular wrongdoing, he would remind the Jews of the calf and set that sin before them. Paul does the same here, at once reminding them of that sin and teaching that the parent of this evil too was luxury and gluttony. That is why he adds, “Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day.”

And why does he not name the punishment for their idolatry in the same way? Either because it was plain and better known, or because the plague at that time was not as great as in the matter of Balaam, when they joined themselves to the Baal of Peor, and the Midianite women appeared in the camp and lured them into loose living, on Balaam’s advice. For Moses shows afterward that this evil advice was Balaam’s, in the following passage at the end of the book of Numbers (Numbers 31, verses 8, 11, 15 and 16): “They also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword in the war with Midian, and they brought the spoils… And Moses was angry, and said, ‘Why have you kept all the women alive? For these were a stumbling block to the children of Israel, according to the word of Balaam, to make them depart from and despise the word of the Lord for the sake of Peor.’”

Verse 9: “Nor let us put Christ to the test, as some of them also did, and were destroyed by serpents.”

By this he hints again at another charge, which he also states at the end, when he blames them for quarreling over signs. And in fact those people were destroyed because of their trials, saying: “When will the good things come? When will the rewards?” That is why he adds, correcting and alarming them on this account, in verse 10: “Nor grumble, as some of them grumbled, and were destroyed by the destroyer.”

For what is required is not only to suffer for Christ, but also to bear nobly what comes upon us, and with all gladness, since this is what every crown is made of. Yes, and unless it is so, punishment instead will follow those who take misfortune with bad grace. That is why the apostles rejoiced when they were beaten, and Paul boasted in his sufferings.

Verse 11: “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our warning, on whom the ends of the ages have come.” [r]

Again he frightens them by speaking of the “ends,” and prepares them to expect things greater than what had already happened. “That we will suffer punishment is plain from what has been said,” he says, “even to those who disbelieve what is said about the fire of hell. And that the punishment will also be most severe is clear from the greater blessings we have enjoyed, and from the things of which those were only figures. For if in the gifts the one goes beyond the other, it is perfectly clear that it will be so in the punishment too.” That is why he called them types, and said they were “written for us,” and mentioned an “end”: to remind them of the end of all things. For the penalties then will not be such as to come to an end and be done away with; the punishment will be eternal. Just as the punishments in this world end with the present life, so those in the next remain forever. And when he said, “the ends of the ages,” he means nothing else than that the fearful judgment is now close at hand.

Verse 12: “So let anyone who thinks he is standing take heed that he does not fall.”

Again he brings down the pride of those who thought highly of their knowledge. For if those who had such great privileges suffered such things — some punished this way for grumbling alone, others for putting him to the test — and neither their great numbers nor all they had been given moved God to change his mind, much more will it be so with us, unless we are self-controlled. And he did well to say, “anyone who thinks he is standing.” For relying on yourself is not even standing as one ought to stand; a person like that will quickly fall. Those people too, if they had not been proud and self-confident, but humble in mind, would not have suffered these things. So it is clear that pride above all, and carelessness — from which gluttony also comes — are the sources of these evils.

So even if you are standing, take heed that you do not fall. For our standing here is not secure standing — no, not until we are delivered from the waves of this present life and have sailed into the calm harbor. So do not be proud that you are standing, but guard against falling. For if Paul was afraid, who was firmer than anyone, much more ought we to be afraid.

Now the apostle’s word, as we have seen, was, “So let anyone who thinks he is standing take heed that he does not fall.” But we cannot say even this, since all of us, so to speak, have fallen and are lying flat on the ground. For to whom am I to say it? To the man who practices extortion every day? No, he lies flat after a heavy fall. To the sexually immoral man? He too has been thrown to the ground. To the drunkard? He has fallen as well, and does not even know that he has fallen. So this is not the time for that word, but for the saying the prophet spoke to the Jews: “Does one who falls not get up again?” (Jeremiah 8, verse 4). For all have fallen, and they have no mind to get up again. So our appeal is not about not falling; it is about how those who have fallen may rise. [s]

Let us get up again, then, late though it is, beloved. Let us get up again, and let us stand nobly. How long will we lie flat? How long will we be drunk, dazed with an excessive desire for the things of this life? Now is the right time to say, “To whom shall I speak and bear witness?” (Jeremiah 6, verse 10). So deaf has everyone become, even to the very teaching of virtue, and so they are filled with a flood of evils. If it were possible to see their souls stripped bare, we would see in the church what one sees in an army when the battle is over: some dead, and some wounded. That is why I beg and implore you: let us stretch out a hand to one another and raise ourselves up completely. For I myself am one of the wounded, and I need someone to apply remedies to me.

But do not despair because of this. What if the wounds are severe? They are not incurable; such is our Physician. Only let us feel our wounds. Even if we have come to the very limit of wickedness, he opens up many roads to safety for us. So, if you stop being angry with your neighbor, your own sins will be forgiven. “For if you forgive people,” he says, “your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6, verse 14).

And if you give alms, he will forgive you your sins, for he says, “Break off your sins by almsgiving” (Daniel 4, verse 27). And if you pray earnestly, you will receive forgiveness; the widow shows this, who won over that cruel judge by the persistence of her prayer. And if you accuse yourself of your own sins, you find relief, for “Declare your wrongdoings first, so that you may be shown to be in the right” (Isaiah 43, verse 26). And if you grieve over these things, that too will be a powerful remedy for you: “For I saw,” he says, “that he was grieved and went about sorrowful, and I healed his ways” (Isaiah 57, verses 17 and 18). And if, when you suffer some evil, you bear it nobly, you have put away the whole of it. For this is what Abraham said to the rich man as well, that “Lazarus received his evil things, and here he is comforted.” And if you take pity on the widow, your sins are washed away. For he says, “Do justice for the orphan, and plead for the widow; and come, let us reason together, says the Lord. And if your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and if they are like crimson, I will make them white as wool” (Isaiah 1, verses 17 and 18). He does not let even a single scar of the wounds show.

Yes, even if we have come to the depth of misery into which that son fell who devoured his father’s property and fed on pods, if we repent, we are certainly saved. And even if we owe ten thousand talents, if we fall down before God and hold no grudge, everything is forgiven us. Even if we have wandered off to the place where the sheep strayed from its shepherd, he brings us back again even from there. Only let us be willing, beloved, for God is merciful. That is why, in the case of the man who owed ten thousand talents, he was content with his falling down before him; in the case of the son who had devoured his father’s goods, with his return alone; and in the case of the sheep, with its being willing to be carried.

So, considering the greatness of his mercy, let us win his favor here, and “let us come before his face with full confession” (Psalm 95, verse 2), so that we do not depart from here without excuse and have to endure the utmost punishment. For if in this present life we show even an ordinary diligence, we will gain the greatest rewards. But if we depart having become no better here, then even if we repent ever so earnestly there, it will do us no good. For we ought to have striven while we were still in the contest, not to lament and weep idly after the crowd has broken up — as that rich man did, bewailing and mourning himself, but to no purpose and in vain, since he had let slip the time when he ought to have done these things. [z]

And not he alone: there are many others like him now among the rich, who are not willing to despise wealth, but despise their own souls for wealth’s sake. I cannot help wondering at them when I see people constantly pleading with God for mercy while they are doing themselves incurable harm, showing no mercy to their very soul, as if it were an enemy. So let us not trifle, beloved; let us not trifle or deceive ourselves, begging God to have mercy on us while we ourselves put money and luxury — in fact, everything — ahead of this mercy.

Suppose someone brought a case before you and accused a man of this: that he was about to suffer ten thousand deaths, and could have freed himself from the sentence with a little money, but chose to die rather than give up any of his property. You would not say that he deserved any mercy or pity. Now reason about yourself in the same way. For we too act like this: we make light of our own salvation and are sparing of our money. How, then, can you beg God to spare you, when you are so unsparing of yourself and honor money above your soul?

That is also why I am greatly astonished to see how great a spell lies hidden in wealth — or rather, not in wealth, but in the souls of those who are taken in by it. For there are people, there certainly are, who have laughed this sorcery to scorn. What is there in wealth that is really able to bewitch us? Is it not lifeless matter? Is it not passing? Is not owning it something no one can trust? Is it not full of fears and dangers? Yes, and of murders and plots, of hostility and hatred, of carelessness and much wickedness? Is it not dust and ashes? What madness is this? What disease?

You will say: “But we ought not just to bring such charges against those who have this disease. We ought to destroy the passion too.” And how else are we to destroy it, except by showing how shameful it is and how full of countless evils?

But it is not easy to persuade a lover about the object of his love. Very well, then: we must set another kind of beauty before him. But bodiless beauty he does not see, since he is still in his disease. Very well, then: let us show him a beauty of a bodily kind, and say to him: Look at the meadows and the flowers in them, which sparkle more than any gold and are more graceful and clearer than every kind of precious stone. Look at the clear streams flowing from their springs, the rivers that flow out of the earth silently, like oil. Go up to heaven and see the brilliance of the sun, the beauty of the moon, the stars that cluster like flowers.

You will say: “Why, what has this to do with it? We don’t make use of these the way we use wealth, I suppose.” No, we use them more than wealth, since the use of them is more necessary and the enjoyment more secure. You have no fear that someone will take them and run off, as with money; you can always be sure of having them, and without anxiety or worry. But if you are grieved because you enjoy them in common with others and do not own them by yourself, as you do money, then it seems to me it is not money you are in love with, but plain greed. You would not even desire the money if it had been placed within reach of everyone in common.

So, since we have found the beloved — I mean Greed — come, let me show you how she hates and loathes you: how many swords she sharpens against you, how many pits she digs, how many nooses she ties, how many cliffs she makes ready for you; so that in this way at least you may break the spell. Where, then, are we to learn this? From the roads, from the wars, from the sea, from the law courts. For she has filled the sea with blood; she often reddens the judges’ swords against the law; she arms those who lie in wait on the roads day and night; she persuades people to forget nature, makes men murder their fathers and their mothers, and brings every kind of evil into human life. That is why Paul calls her “a root of these things” (First Timothy 6, verse 10). [ab]

She does not let her lovers be any better off than those who work in the mines. For as they, shut up forever in darkness and in chains, labor for nothing, so these, buried in the caves of greed, with no one forcing them, draw their punishment on themselves of their own will, putting on fetters that cannot be broken. And those condemned to the mines are at least released from their toil when evening comes; but these dig in these wretched mines both day and night. For those there is a fixed limit to their hard labor; these know no limit, but the more they dig, the more hardship they long for.

“But what if those work unwillingly, and these of their own will?” In saying that, you are telling me the most grievous part of the disease: that they cannot even be rid of it, since they do not so much as hate their misery. As a pig delights to wallow in mud, so these delight to wallow in the stinking mire of greed, suffering worse things than those condemned men. To see that they are worse off, hear how things stand with the one, and then you will know the state of the other.

They say that the ground that is full of gold has certain clefts and hollows in those gloomy caverns. The convict condemned to labor there, so we are told, takes a lamp and a pick for the purpose and goes in; and he carries a small flask with him, to drip oil from it into the lamp, because it is dark there even by day, without a ray of light, as I said before. Then, when the time of day calls him to his wretched meal, he himself, they say, does not know the hour; but his jailer above strikes hard on the cave, and by that clattering noise announces the end of the day to those working below.

Do you not shudder when you hear all this? Now let us see whether the greedy do not have things more grievous than these. First of all, they too have a jailer, and a harsher one: greed. It is harsher by this much, that besides their body it chains their soul as well. And this darkness is more terrible than that one. For it is not a darkness the senses can perceive; they produce it within themselves and carry it around with them wherever they go. The eye of their soul has been put out. That is why Christ calls them wretched above all others, saying, “But if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6, verse 23).

The convicts, for their part, at least have a lamp shining; these are deprived even of this ray of light, and so every day they fall into countless pits. And when night overtakes the condemned men, they have a rest, sailing into that calm harbor which all the unfortunate share — I mean the night. But for the greedy even this harbor is blocked by their own greed, such troubling thoughts they have even at night; for then, with no one to disturb them, they have all the leisure they want to cut themselves to pieces.

Such is their state in this world. But what words can show their state in the next? The unbearable furnaces, the rivers burning with fire, the gnashing of teeth, the chains never to be loosed, the poisonous worm, the darkness without a ray of light, the miseries that never end. Let us fear them, beloved. Let us fear the source of such great punishments: this insatiable madness, the destroyer of our salvation. For it is impossible to love both money and your soul at the same time.

Let us be convinced that wealth is dust and ashes; that it leaves us when we depart from here, or rather, that even before we depart it often darts away from us, and harms us both for the future and in this present life. For before the fire of hell, before that punishment, even here it surrounds us with countless wars and stirs up quarrels and fights. Nothing is so apt to cause war as greed; nothing is so apt to produce beggary, whether it shows itself in wealth or in poverty.

For this grievous disease arises in the souls of poor people too, and makes their poverty all the worse. If a poor man is found to be greedy, he is punished not in money but in hunger. He does not let himself enjoy his modest means in comfort; he tortures his belly with hunger and punishes his whole body with nakedness and cold. Everywhere he looks more squalid and filthy than any prisoner, and he is always wailing and lamenting as though he were the most wretched of all, though there are ten thousand poorer than he is.

If this man goes into the marketplace, he comes away with many a lash. If he goes into the bath or the theater, he will still keep receiving more wounds, not only from the spectators but also from those on the stage, where he sees not a few unchaste women glittering with gold. If again he sails the sea and looks at the merchants, their richly loaded ships and their enormous profits, he will not even count himself alive. If he travels by land, reckoning up the fields, the estates outside the cities, the inns, the baths, and the income they bring in, he will count his own life no longer worth living. And if you shut him up at home, he will only rub and chafe the wounds he received in the marketplace, and so do still greater harm to his own soul. He knows only one consolation for the evils that weigh on him: death, and release from this life.

And it is not only the poor man who will suffer these things, but the rich man too who falls into this disease — and so much more than the poor, since the tyranny presses on him more violently and the drunkenness is greater. That is why he too will count himself poorer than everyone; or rather, he is poorer. For wealth and poverty are measured not by the amount of one’s property but by the disposition of the mind; and the poorest of all is the man who is always hungering after more and can never check this wicked craving.

So, for all these reasons, let us flee from greed, the maker of beggars, the destroyer of souls, the friend of hell, the enemy of the kingdom of heaven, the mother of all evils together. And let us despise wealth, so that we may enjoy wealth, and with wealth may enjoy also the good things stored up for us. May we all attain them, through the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, power, and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.