Homily 29 — First Corinthians 12, verses 1 to 11

“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that when you were pagans, you were led away to those mute idols, however you might be led.” [a]

This whole passage is very obscure. The obscurity comes from our not knowing the facts it refers to, and from their having ceased: they used to happen then, but they no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why, look: the very cause of the obscurity has raised yet another question for us, namely, why did they happen then, and do not happen now?

But let us put this off to another time, and for the present let us say what was happening then. Well, what did happen then? Whoever was baptized immediately spoke in tongues; and not in tongues only, but many also prophesied, and some performed many other wonderful works as well. They were coming over from idols, without any clear knowledge of the ancient Scriptures or training in them, and at their baptism they received the Spirit at once. Yet they did not see the Spirit, for the Spirit is invisible. So God’s grace granted a proof of that working which the senses could perceive. One immediately spoke in the Persian language, another in the language of the Romans, another in the Indian, another in some other such tongue; and this made it plain to those outside that it was the Spirit in the very person who was speaking.

That is also why he calls it by this name, saying, “But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable” (verse 7). He calls the gifts “a manifestation of the Spirit.” For just as the apostles themselves had received this sign first, so the faithful went on receiving it too; I mean the gift of tongues. And not this only, but many others as well, since many even used to raise the dead, drive out demons, and perform many other such wonders. They had gifts, too, some smaller and some greater. But more abundant among them than all the rest was the gift of tongues. And this became a cause of division among them, not from its own nature, but from the perverseness of those who had received it. On the one hand, those who had the greater gifts were lifted up against those who had the lesser; and these in turn were hurt, and envied the owners of the greater. Paul himself hints at this as he goes on.

Since, then, they were being dealt a deadly blow from this, as their love came apart, he takes great care to correct it. This happened at Rome too, though not in the same way. That is why in the letter to the Romans he raises the matter, but obscurely and briefly, saying: “For just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. And having gifts that differ according to the grace that was given to us: if prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith; or service, let us give ourselves to our service; or the one who teaches, to his teaching” (Romans 12, verses 4 to 8). And that the Romans too were falling into self-will over this, he hints at the beginning of that passage, where he says: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12, verse 3). With them, however, he spoke in this way because the disease of division and pride had not gone very far; but here he speaks with great anxiety, for the sickness had spread widely.

And this was not the only thing that troubled them. There were also many soothsayers in the place, since the city was more given than most to the customs of the Greeks, and this, along with the rest, was leading to offense and disturbance among them. That is why he begins by first setting out the difference between soothsaying and prophecy. This is also why they received the discerning of spirits: so as to discern and know who was speaking by a pure spirit and who by an impure one.

For it was not possible to supply proof of what was said then and there, from the words themselves, since prophecy supplies the proof of its own truth not at the time it is spoken, but at the time of the event. Nor was it easy to tell the true prophet from the pretender. The devil himself, accursed as he is, had entered into those who prophesied (see First Kings 22, verse 23), bringing in false prophets, as though, if you please, they too could foretell what was to come. Besides, people were easily deceived, because what was said could not be put to the test for the present, before the events the prophecy concerned had come to pass; for it was the outcome that proved who was the false prophet and who the true. So, in order that the hearers might not be deceived before the outcome, he gives them a sign that marked out the one and the other even before the event. And taking this as his order and starting point, he goes on from there to speak about the gifts as well, and corrects the quarreling that had arisen from them too. For the present, however, he begins with what concerns the soothsayers, saying:

“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be ignorant.” He calls the signs “spiritual” because they are the works of the Spirit alone; human effort contributes nothing to working such wonders. And since he means to speak about them, he first, as I said, sets down the difference between soothsaying and prophecy, saying, “You know that when you were pagans, you were led away to those mute idols, however you might be led.” What he means is this: “In the idol temples,” he says, “if anyone was ever possessed by an unclean spirit and began to give oracles, he was drawn along by that spirit in chains, like someone being dragged away, knowing nothing of what he was saying. For this is the mark of the soothsayer: to be out of his mind, to be under compulsion, to be pushed, to be dragged, to be hauled along like a madman. But the prophet is not like that. He speaks everything with a sober mind and a settled temper, knowing what he is saying. So even before the event, tell the soothsayer from the prophet by this.” [f]

And see how he frees what he says from all suspicion, by calling as witnesses the very people who had experienced the thing. It is as if he had said: “So that you may know I am not lying, and not rashly slandering the religion of the pagans, making things up like an enemy, you yourselves be my witnesses. You know how, when you were pagans, you were pulled and dragged away back then.”

But if anyone should say that these too are suspect witnesses, since they are believers, come, I will make it plain to you even from those outside. Listen, for example, to Plato, who says (Apology of Socrates, chapter 7), “Just as those who deliver oracles and the soothsayers say many fine things, but know nothing of what they are saying.” Listen again to another, a poet, who hints at the same thing. By certain secret rites and sorceries, someone had shut up a demon inside a man. The man gave oracles, and as he did so he was thrown down and torn; he could not bear the demon’s violence, and was on the point of dying in that convulsion. So he says to those who were practicing these secret arts, “Release me, I beg you: the mighty god can no longer be held by mortal flesh.” And again: “Unbind my wreaths, and bathe my feet in drops from the pure stream; wipe out these mystic lines, and let me go.”

These things and others like them (for one could mention many more) show us both of the facts that follow: the compulsion that holds the demons down and makes them slaves, and the violence endured by those who have once given themselves up to them, so that they are driven even out of their natural reason. And then there is the Pythian priestess. I am forced now to bring forward and expose another disgraceful custom of theirs. It would be better to pass it over, because it is unfitting for us to mention such things; but so that you may know their shame more clearly, it has to be mentioned, so that from this at least you may come to know the madness and the utter mockery of those who make use of the soothsayers.

This Pythian priestess, then, a woman, is said to sit at times astride the tripod of Apollo. The evil spirit rises from below, enters the lower part of her body, and fills the woman with madness. Then, with her hair flying loose, she begins to rave like the frenzied women of Bacchus and to foam at the mouth, and in this frenzy she utters the words of her madness. I know that you are ashamed and blush when you hear these things; but they take pride both in the disgrace and in the madness I have described. All these things and the like, then, Paul was bringing forward when he said, “You know that when you were pagans, you were led away to those mute idols, however you might be led.”

And because he was speaking to people who knew these things well, he does not set everything out in detail, not wanting to weary them. He only reminds them and brings it all back to their memory, and then quickly leaves the point, hurrying on to the subject before him.

But what does “to those mute idols” mean? These soothsayers used to be led and dragged to them. But if the idols themselves are mute, how did they give answers to others? And why did the demon lead the soothsayers to the images? He led them like prisoners taken in war, in chains, and at the same time made his deceit look believable. So, to keep people from thinking it was just a mute stone, the demons were eager to fasten the people to the idols, so that their own name and title might be inscribed on them.

But our rites are not like this. He did not, however, describe ours, I mean the prophesyings, for they were well known to them all, and prophecy was practiced among them, as befitted their standing, with understanding and with complete freedom. That, you see, is why the prophets had the power either to speak or to keep silent. They were not bound by necessity; they were honored with a privilege. This is why Jonah fled (Jonah 1, verse 3); this is why Ezekiel delayed (Ezekiel 3, verse 15); this is why Jeremiah made excuses (Jeremiah 1, verse 6). And God does not thrust them forward by compulsion, but by advising, urging, and threatening, not by darkening their mind. For to cause distraction and madness and deep darkness is the proper work of a demon; but it is God’s work to give light, and with consideration to teach what is needful.

This, then, is the first difference between a soothsayer and a prophet. A second and different one is the one he states next, saying, in verse 3: “Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking in the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed”; and then another: “and that no one can say that Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit.” [k]

“When you see anyone not speaking his name, or calling him accursed,” he says, “that man is a soothsayer. Again, when you see another speaking everything in his name, understand that he is a spiritual person.” “What, then,” you say, “are we to say about the catechumens? If no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, what are we to say of those who do name his name, but are without his Spirit?” But what he was speaking about at this point was not these people, for there were no catechumens at that time. He was speaking about believers and unbelievers.

What, then? Does no demon call on God’s name? Did not the demon-possessed say, “We know who you are, the Holy One of God” (Mark 1, verse 24)? Did they not say to Paul, “These men are the servants of the Most High God” (Acts 16, verse 17)? They did, but under the lash, under compulsion; never of their own will, and never without being lashed.

But here it is right to ask both why the demon said these things and why Paul rebuked him. He rebuked him in imitation of his Teacher, for Christ too rebuked them, since he did not want to have testimony from them. And why did the devil do this? He meant to throw the order of things into confusion, to lay hold of the apostles’ honor, and to persuade many to pay attention to the demons. If that had happened, they would easily have made themselves seem trustworthy from this, and brought in their own designs. So that these things might not happen, and the deceit might not get a start, he stops their mouths even when they speak the truth, so that people would pay no attention at all to them in their lies, but would stop their ears altogether against whatever they said.

Having, then, marked out the soothsayers and the prophets by both the first sign and the second, he next speaks about the wonders. He does not pass to this subject without reason, but in order to remove the quarreling that had arisen from it, and to persuade those who had the smaller portion not to grieve, and those who had the greater not to be puffed up. That is why he began this way. [m]

Verse 4: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.”

And first he attends to the one who had the lesser gift and was grieved over it. “Why,” he says, “are you downcast? Because you have not received as much as another? But consider that it is a free gift and not a debt, and you will be able to soothe your pain.” That is why he spoke this way at the very beginning: “But there are varieties of gifts.” He did not say “of signs” or “of wonders,” but “of gifts,” and by the name of free gifts he urges them not only not to grieve, but even to be thankful.

“And along with this, consider this too,” he says: “even if you are made inferior in the measure of what is given, still, since you have been granted to receive from the same source as the other who has received more, you have equal honor. For you certainly cannot say that the Spirit gave the gift to him, but an angel to you, since the Spirit gave it both to you and to him.” That is why he added, “but the same Spirit.” So even if there is a difference in the gift, there is no difference in the Giver. You are drawing from the same spring, both you and he.

Verse 5: “And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord.” So, to make the comfort richer, he adds mention of the Son too, and of the Father. And again he calls these gifts by another name, meaning by this too to increase the comfort. That is why he said, “There are varieties of service, but the same Lord.” For someone who hears of “a gift,” and has received a smaller share, might perhaps be grieved; but when we speak of “a service,” the case is different, for the thing implies labor and sweat. “Why, then, are you grieved,” he says, “if he has told another to labor more, and has spared you?”

Verse 6: “And there are varieties of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all.”

Verse 7: “But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable.”

“And what,” someone says, “is a working? And what is a gift? And what is a service?” They are merely different names, for the things are the same. What a gift is, that is a service, and that he also calls a working. So we read, “Fulfill your service” (Second Timothy 4, verse 5), and, “I make much of my service” (Romans 11, verse 13). And writing to Timothy, he says, “For this reason I remind you to stir up the gift of God that is in you” (Second Timothy 1, verse 6). And again, writing to the Galatians, he said, “For he who worked in Peter for the apostleship was mighty in me also toward the Gentiles” (Galatians 2, verse 8).

Do you see that he implies there is no difference in the gifts of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit? He is not blending the Persons together (far from it!) but declaring that their being is equal in honor. For what the Spirit bestows, this he says God also works, and this the Son likewise appoints and grants. Yet surely, if one were inferior to another, he would not have set it down this way, nor would this have been his way of comforting the one who was upset.

After this he comforts him in yet another way: by showing that the measure he has been granted is good for him, even though it is not so large. Having said that it is “the same Spirit,” and “the same Lord,” and “the same God,” and having lifted him up again by this, he brings in another comfort, saying, “But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable.” So that no one would say, “What if it is the same Lord, the same Spirit, the same God? Still, I have received less,” he says that it was given this way because this was what was profitable. [p]

And he calls the miracles “a manifestation of the Spirit” with good reason. To me, a believer, the one who has the Spirit is plain from the fact that he has been baptized; but to the unbeliever this will never be plain except from the miracles. So here again there is no small comfort. Even if there is a difference of gifts, the evidence is one; for whether you have much or little, you are made just as plain. So if you want to show this, that you have the Spirit, you have proof enough.

So, since the Giver is one, and the thing given is pure favor, and the manifestation comes about through it, and this is more profitable for you, do not grieve as though you were despised. God has not done this to dishonor you, or to declare you inferior to another, but to spare you, and for your good. To receive more than one has the strength to bear: that is what is unprofitable, and harmful, and a fitting cause for dejection.

Verse 8: “For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit;” verse 9: “to another faith in the same Spirit; to another gifts of healing in the one Spirit.”

Do you see how everywhere he makes this addition, saying “through the same Spirit” and “according to the same Spirit”? For he knew that the comfort it gave was great.

Verse 10: “To another the working of miracles; to another prophecies; to another discernings of spirits; to another various kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues.”

So, since they were boasting in this, he put it last, and added, in verse 11: “But one and the same Spirit works all these.”

The all-healing remedy in which his comfort consists is this: they all receive from the same root, from the same treasures, from the same streams. And so, dwelling on this expression again and again, he levels the apparent inequality and comforts them. Above, he shows the Spirit, and the Son, and the Father all supplying the gifts; but here he is content to name the Spirit, so that from this too you may understand that their dignity is the same.

But what is “the word of wisdom”? The word Paul had, and John had, the son of thunder.

And what is “the word of knowledge”? That which most of the faithful had: they had knowledge, but were not for that reason able to teach, or to pass on easily to another what they knew.

“And to another faith.” He does not mean by this the faith that holds to the teachings, but the faith of miracles, about which Christ says, “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move,’ and it will move” (Matthew 17, verse 20). And the apostles too begged him for this, saying, “Increase our faith” (Luke 17, verse 5), for this is the mother of miracles. But to have the power of working miracles and to have gifts of healing is not the same thing. The one who had a gift of healing only performed cures; but the one who had powers for working miracles used to punish as well. For a miracle is not only healing but punishing too, just as Paul inflicted blindness, and Peter struck people dead.

“To another prophecies; to another discernings of spirits.” What is “discernings of spirits”? Knowing who is spiritual and who is not; who is a prophet and who a deceiver. As he said to the Thessalonians, “Do not despise prophesyings, but test all things; hold fast what is good” (First Thessalonians 5, verses 20 and 21). For great at that time was the rush of false prophets, as the devil worked underhandedly to put falsehood in the place of truth.

“To another various kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues.” One person knew what he himself was saying, but could not interpret it to another; while another had received both gifts, or else the other of the two. Now this seemed to be a great gift, because the apostles received it first, and most of the Corinthians had obtained it. But the word of teaching was not thought of in that way. That is why he puts the word first, and tongues last. For tongues existed for the sake of teaching, and so indeed did all the rest: prophecies, the working of miracles, various kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. For nothing is equal to teaching. That is also why he said, “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and in teaching” (First Timothy 5, verse 17). And to Timothy he wrote, “Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift that is in you” (First Timothy 4, verses 13 and 14). Do you see how he calls this, too, a gift?

Next, the comfort he gave before, when he said, “the same Spirit,” he sets before us here as well, saying, “But one and the same Spirit works all these, distributing to each one individually, just as he wills.” And he not only gives comfort but also silences anyone who would talk back, by saying here, “distributing to each one individually, just as he wills.” For it was necessary to bind up as well, not only to heal, as he also does in the letter to the Romans when he says, “But who are you to talk back to God?” (Romans 9, verse 20). So here too: “distributing to each one individually, as he wills.” [r]

And what belongs to the Father, he shows belongs to the Spirit as well. For just as he says of the Father, “but it is the same God who works all things in all,” so he says of the Spirit, “but one and the same Spirit works all these things.”

But someone will say: “He does it, but as one moved by God.” No. Paul never said that anywhere; you are making it up. When he says, “who works all things in all,” he is speaking of men. You will hardly claim that among those men he counts the Spirit as well, however far you go in your raving and madness. Because he had said “through the Spirit,” he did not want you to suppose that the word “through” means that the Spirit is inferior, or is moved by another. So he adds that “the Spirit works” — not “is worked upon” — and works “as he wills,” not as he is ordered.

For just as the Son says of the Father that “he raises the dead and gives them life,” and in the same way says of himself that “he gives life to whom he wills” (John 5, verse 21), so also it is said of the Spirit in another place that he does all things with authority and that nothing stands in his way — for the saying “it blows where it wills” (John 3, verse 8), though it is spoken of the wind, serves to establish this — and here, that “he works all things as he wills.”

Learn from another place, too, that he is not one of those who are moved, but one of those who move. “For who knows,” he says, “the things of a man except the spirit of the man? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God” (First Corinthians 2, verse 11). Now I suppose it is plain to everyone that “the spirit of a man,” that is, the soul, does not need to be moved by another in order to know its own things. Neither, then, does the Holy Spirit, in order to “know the things of God.” For his meaning is this: “The secret things of God are known to the Holy Spirit, as the secret things of a man’s soul are known to the soul itself.” But if the soul does not need to be moved for that purpose, much less would the One who knows the depths of God, and needs nothing to move him to that knowledge, need any power to move him in order to give gifts to the apostles.

But besides these things, I will now repeat what I spoke of before. What is it? That if the Spirit were inferior, and of a different essence, there would have been no force in Paul’s comfort, nor in our hearing the words “the same Spirit.” A man who has received a gift from the king may, I grant, find it very soothing that the king himself gave it to him. But if it came from the slave, he is hurt rather than soothed when someone throws it in his face. So from this too it is plain that the Holy Spirit is not of the essence of the servant, but of the King.

So, just as he comforted them when he said that “there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and varieties of workings, but the same God,” he did the same when he said earlier, “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit,” and again after this, when he said, “But one and the same Spirit works all these, distributing to each one individually, as he wills.”

“Let us not, I beg you, be at a loss,” he says, “and let us not grieve and say, ‘Why did I receive this, and not that?’ Let us not demand an account from the Holy Spirit. If you know that he granted the gift out of his care for you, consider that out of the same care he has also given its measure. Be content, and rejoice in what you have received. Do not grumble over what you have not received. Rather, acknowledge God’s favor in that you have not been given things beyond your strength.”

And if in spiritual things we ought not to pry with curiosity, much less in the things of this life. We ought to keep quiet, and not inquire too closely why one person is rich and another poor. For first of all, not every rich man is rich from God. Many are rich from injustice, and plunder, and greed. How could the one who forbade us to be rich have granted what he forbade us to take? [u]

But so that I may silence those who argue with us about these things — and do it far more thoroughly than the case requires — come, let us carry our discussion further back, to the time when riches used to be given by God. Now answer me. Why was Abraham rich, while Jacob lacked even bread? Were they not both righteous? Does he not say of all three alike, “I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob” (Exodus 3, verse 6)? Why, then, was the one a rich man, and the other a hired servant? Or rather, why was Esau rich, an unrighteous man and his brother’s murderer, while Jacob was in servitude for so long? Why again did Isaac live in ease all his days, but Jacob in toil and misery? That is why he said, “Few and evil are my days” (Genesis 47, verse 9).

Why did David, who was both a prophet and a king, also spend all his days in toil, while Solomon his son lived forty years in ease beyond all men, enjoying deep peace, glory and honor, and going through every kind of luxury? And again, what could be the reason that among the prophets too, one suffered more and another less?

Because that was what was good for each. So over each case we must say, “Your judgments are a great deep” (Psalm 36, verse 6). For if those great and wonderful men were not all trained alike by God — one by poverty and another by riches, one by ease and another by trouble — how much more ought we to keep these things in mind now.

But besides this, we should also consider that many of the things that happen do not happen as God intends, but come from our own wickedness. So do not say, “Why is this wicked man rich, and that righteous man poor?” For first of all, one can give an account even of these things. One can say that the righteous man suffers no harm from his poverty, and even gains a greater share of honor; and that the wicked man, in his riches, is only laying up a store of punishment for the road ahead, unless he changes. And even before the punishment, his riches often become the cause of many evils to him and lead him into ten thousand pitfalls. But God permits it, at the same time both to show that the will is free, and to teach everyone else not to be mad and rave after money.

You ask: “Then how is it that a man who is wicked is rich and suffers nothing terrible? If he is good and has wealth, he has it justly. But if he is bad, what are we to say?” That even in this he is to be pitied. For wealth added to wickedness makes the harm worse. Is a man good, and poor? He is not harmed at all. Is he bad, and poor? Then he is poor justly and deservedly — or rather, even to his own advantage.

You say: “But so-and-so received his riches from his ancestors, and squanders them on prostitutes and hangers-on, and suffers no harm.” What are you saying? He commits sexual immorality, and you say, “He suffers no harm”? He gets drunk, and you think he is living in luxury? He spends to no good purpose, and you judge him someone to envy? What could be worse than this wealth, which destroys the very soul? If his body were twisted and maimed, you would say his was a case for great mourning. And you see his whole soul mutilated, and yet you even call him happy?

“But he does not feel it,” you say. Well then, for this very reason again he is to be pitied, as all who are out of their minds are. The man who knows he is sick will of course look for the doctor and submit to treatment. But the man who does not know it has no chance at all of being set free. Tell me, do you call such a man happy?

But it is no wonder, for most people do not know the true love of wisdom. That is why we suffer the heaviest penalty: we are being punished, and yet we do not even pull away from the punishment. This is why there is anger, dejection, and constant turmoil. God has shown us a life without sorrow, the life of virtue, and we leave it and mark out another road for ourselves, the road of riches and money, full of countless evils.

We are acting like a man who does not know how to judge a person’s bodily beauty, but credits all of it to the clothes and the jewelry. When he saw a handsome woman with natural beauty, he would pass quickly by her; but when he saw one who was ugly, misshapen and deformed, yet dressed in beautiful clothes, he would take her for his wife. The crowd is affected in something like this way toward virtue and vice. They take in the one who is deformed by nature because of her outward ornaments, and turn away from the one who is fair and lovely because her beauty is unadorned — the very reason they ought most of all to choose her.

That is why I am ashamed. Among the foolish pagans there are some who practice this philosophy — if not in their deeds, at least as far as their judgment goes — and who know how perishable present things are. But among us, some do not even understand these things; their very judgment has been corrupted. And this while the Scripture is constantly sounding in our ears and saying: “In his sight the worthless man is despised, but he honors those who fear the Lord” (Psalm 15, verse 4); “The fear of the Lord surpasses everything”; “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man” (Ecclesiastes 12, verse 13); “Do not envy evil men” (Proverbs 24, verse 1); “All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is like the flower of grass” (Isaiah 40, verse 6). We hear these words and others like them every day, and yet we are still nailed to the earth. [x]

Think of ignorant children who learn their letters in order, over and over. If they are tested on them when the letters are mixed up, they call one by another’s name and cause a great deal of laughter. It is the same with you. When we recite these things here in order, you follow us after a fashion. But when we question you outside, and not in the set order, about what we ought to put first among things, and what next, and which after which, you do not know how to answer, and you make yourselves ridiculous.

Tell me, is it not a matter for great laughter, that those who expect immortality, and the good “things that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man,” should compete over things that stay behind here, and count them something to envy? If you still need to learn that riches are no great thing, that present things are a shadow and a dream, that like smoke they dissolve and fly away, then stand outside the sanctuary for now. Stay in the entrance hall, since you are not yet worthy to enter the royal courts above. For if you do not know how to see their nature, unstable and always passing away, when will you be able to despise them?

But if you say you do know it, stop prying and busying yourself over the reason why this man is rich and that man poor. When you ask these questions, you are doing the same as if you went around asking why one person is fair-skinned and another dark, or why one has a hooked nose and another a flat one. Just as these things make no difference to us, whether they are one way or the other, neither do poverty and riches — and much less than these. Everything depends on the way we use them.

If you are poor, you can live cheerfully, denying yourself. If you are rich and flee from virtue, you are the most miserable of all people. For these are the things that really concern us, the things of virtue; and if they are missing, the rest is useless. That is why these questions keep coming up: most people think that things that do not matter are important to them, and take no account of the things that are important. And what is important to us is virtue and the love of wisdom.

Because you are standing somewhere — I do not know where — far away from virtue, that is why there is confusion in your thoughts, why there are so many waves, why there is the storm. For when people have fallen from heavenly glory and from love of heaven, they desire the glory of this present life, and become slaves and captives.

You ask: “And how is it that we come to desire this?” From not desiring that other glory very much. And where does that come from? From carelessness. And where does the carelessness come from? From contempt. And the contempt? From folly, from clinging to present things, and from being unwilling to look carefully into the nature of things. And where, again, does this come from? From not paying attention to the reading of the Scriptures, from not keeping company with holy men, and from following the gatherings of the wicked.

So that it may not always be this way, and that wave after wave may not catch us and carry us out into the deep sea of miseries and drown and destroy us altogether, let us hold firm while there is time. Let us stand on the rock — I mean the divine teachings and words — and look down on the surge of this present life. For in this way we will escape it ourselves, and, having drawn up others who are being shipwrecked, we will obtain the blessings to come, 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.