Homily 34 — First Corinthians 13, verses 8 to 13

“But whether there are prophecies, they will be done away with; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will be done away with.” [a]

Paul has shown how excellent love is: from its being necessary both for the spiritual gifts and for the virtues of daily life, from his account of all its good qualities, and from his showing that it is the foundation of strict self-denial. Now, from yet another source, a third ground, he points out its worth once more. He does this, first, because he wants to persuade those who seemed to be counted inferior that it is in their power to have the chief of all the signs, and that if they have this, they will be no worse off than those who possess the gifts, but much better. Second, turning to those who had the greater gifts and were lifted up by them, he works to bring them down and to show that they have nothing unless they have this. In this way they would love one another, since envy and pride would both be taken away by it; and in turn, by loving one another, they would drive these passions still further off. “For love does not envy, is not puffed up.”

So on every side he throws around them a wall that cannot be breached, and a oneness of mind that holds them in many ways, which first removes all their disorders and is then made stronger by that very thing. That is also why he put forward countless reasons that might console them in their dejection. For example: “the same Spirit,” he says, is the giver; and he gives “for what is profitable, and divides as he wills,” and what he divides is a gift, not a debt. Though you receive only a little, you contribute to the body just as much as anyone, and even so you enjoy great honor. And the one who has the greater gift needs you, who have the lesser. And again: “Love is the greatest gift, and ‘the more excellent way.’”

All this he said to bind them to one another doubly. First, they would not think themselves slighted as long as they had this. Second, once they had pursued it and gained it, they would no longer feel their human weakness, since they would have the root of all the gifts, and they would no longer be capable of quarreling, even if they had nothing else. For whoever has once been taken captive by love is set free from the love of quarreling.

And this is why, to show them how great the benefits were that they would reap from it, he sketched out its fruits, holding their disorders in check by his praises of it; for each one of the things he mentioned was medicine enough to heal their wounds. So he said “is patient” to those who were at odds with one another; “is kind” to those who kept their distance from one another and nursed a secret grudge; “does not envy” to those who looked with resentment on their superiors; “does not brag” to those who had broken away into parties; “is not puffed up” to those who boasted against others; “does not behave improperly” to those who did not think it their duty to stoop to others; “does not seek its own” to those who overlooked everyone else; “is not provoked, keeps no account of evil” to those who were insolent; “does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth” to the envious, once again; “bears all things” to the treacherous; “hopes all things” to those who despaired; “endures all things, never fails” to those who were quick to break away.

Now, having shown in every way that love is exceedingly great, he does so again from another and most important ground, raising its dignity by a fresh comparison, and saying, “But whether there are prophecies, they will be done away with; whether there are tongues, they will cease.” For if both of these were brought in for the sake of the faith, then once the faith has been sown everywhere, their use is from then on unnecessary. But loving one another will not cease. Rather, it will advance even further, both here and hereafter, and more then than now. For here there are many things that weaken our love: wealth, business, the passions of the body, the disorders of the soul. But there, none of these. [c]

It is no wonder that prophecies and tongues should be done away with. But that knowledge should be done away with — this is what may cause some puzzlement. For he added this as well: “Whether there is knowledge, it will be done away with.” What then? Are we to live in ignorance? Far from it! In fact it is then above all that our knowledge is likely to be made intense. That is why he also said, “Then I will know, even as I also am known.” And for this reason, if you notice, so that you would not suppose that knowledge is done away with in the same way as prophecy and tongues, after saying, “Whether there is knowledge, it will be done away with,” he did not stop there, but added the manner of its passing away as well, going straight on to say (verses 9 and 10), “We know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away with.”

So it is not knowledge that is done away with, but the fact that our knowledge is partial. For we will know not only as much as now, but a great deal more. Let me make this plain by an example. Now we know that God is everywhere, but how, we do not know. We know that he made the things that are out of things that are not, but the manner we do not know. We know that he was born of a virgin, but how, we do not yet know. But then we will know something more about these things, and more clearly.

Next he points out how great the distance is between the two, and that what we lack is no small thing, saying (verse 11), “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child; but now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.”

And he shows the same thing again by another example, saying (verse 12), “For now we see in a mirror.” Then, because a mirror sets the thing seen before us only indistinctly, he added “darkly,” to show very strongly that our present knowledge is extremely partial. “But then face to face.” Not that God has a face; he says it to express the idea of greater clearness and plainness. Do you see how we learn everything step by step?

“Now I know in part; but then I will know even as I also have been known.” Do you see how he pulls down their pride in two ways? Both because their knowledge is partial, and because they do not have even this from themselves. “I did not know him,” he says, “but he made himself known to me. So, just as now he first knew me and himself hurried toward me, so then I will hurry toward him, much more than now.”

It is like a man sitting in darkness. As long as he does not see the sun, he does not of himself hurry to meet the beauty of its rays, which in fact show themselves as soon as it has begun to shine. But once he sees its brightness, then at last he too follows its light. This, then, is the meaning of the words “even as I also have been known.” Not that we will know him as he is, but that just as he hurried toward us now, so we too will cling to him then, and will know many of the things that are now hidden, and will enjoy that most blessed company and wisdom. For if Paul, who knew so much, was a child, think what those things must be! If these are “a mirror” and “a riddle,” then work out from this, once again, how great a thing the unveiled face of God is.

But to open up for you some small part of this difference, and to bring some faint ray of this thought into your soul, I want you to call to mind the things of the law, now that grace has shone out. For those things too, the things that came before grace, had a great and wonderful appearance. Nevertheless, hear what Paul says of them after grace came: “What was made glorious has had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that surpasses it” (Second Corinthians 3, verse 10). And to make what I am saying clearer still, let us apply the argument to one of the rites performed then, and you will see how great the difference is. If you like, let us set their Passover beside ours, and then you will realize how far ours surpasses it. [f]

The Jews did celebrate it, but they celebrated it “as in a mirror, and darkly.” These hidden mysteries they never once so much as conceived in their minds, nor what the things they did foreshadowed. They saw a lamb slain, and the blood of an animal, and doorposts sprinkled with it. But that the Son of God, having taken flesh, would be slain, and would set the whole world free, and would give both Greeks and barbarians a taste of this blood, and would open heaven to all, and would offer what is there to the whole human race; and that, taking up his blood-stained flesh, he would raise it above heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and in a word above all the hosts on high — the angels and archangels and all the other powers — and would make it sit, shining in glory beyond words, on the very throne of the King, at the right hand of the Father: these things, I say, no one, either among them or among the rest of humankind, ever knew beforehand or was ever able to conceive.

But what do those people say who stop at nothing? They say that the words “now I know in part” were spoken of God’s arrangements, and that the apostle had perfect knowledge of God himself. Then how does he call himself a child? How does he see “in a mirror”? How “darkly,” if he has the whole of knowledge? And why does he speak of this knowledge as belonging to the Spirit alone, and to no other power in creation, when he says (First Corinthians 2, verse 11), “For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God”? And Christ, again, says that this belongs to himself alone, in these words (John 6, verse 46): “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God; he has seen the Father” — giving the name “sight” to the clearest and most perfect knowledge. [h]

And how could someone who knows God’s being be ignorant of his arrangements, when that knowledge is greater than this?

“Are we, then, ignorant of God?” someone says. Far from it! That he is, we know; but what he is in his being, we do not yet know. And so that you may understand that it was not about God’s arrangements that he spoke the words “now I know in part,” listen to what follows. He adds, “but then I will know, even as I also have been known.” And surely it was not God’s arrangements that knew him, but God.

Let no one, then, think this a small or simple wrongdoing. It is double, and triple, and indeed manifold. For their impiety is not only that they boast of knowing the things that belong to the Spirit alone and to the only Son of God. It is also that, when Paul could not gain even this knowledge “which is in part” without revelation from above, these men say they have obtained the whole of it by their own reasoning. Nor can they show that Scripture has anywhere spoken to us about these things.

But let us leave their madness aside and pay attention to the words about love that follow. For Paul was not content with what he had said; he adds more, in verse 13: “And now faith, hope, love remain, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” [j]

Faith and hope come to an end once the good things we believed in and hoped for have arrived. Paul showed this when he said, “For hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he sees?” And again, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen.” (Romans 8, verse 24; Hebrews 11, verse 1.) So these come to an end when those things appear; but love is then raised to its highest, and grows more intense.

Here is another tribute to love. Paul is not content with the ones he has already given; he works to find yet another. And notice: he has said that it is a great gift, and a way still more excellent than the gifts. He has said that without it there is no great profit in our gifts. He has sketched its portrait at length. Now he means to exalt it once more, in another way, and to show that it is great because it lasts. That is why he also said, “But now faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” How, then, is love the greater? In that the others pass away.

Since the excellence of love is so great, Paul has good reason to add, “Pursue love.” There really is need of pursuit, of a hard chase after her, so quickly does she run from us, and so many are the things that trip us up on the way. That is why we always need great effort to overtake her. And to point this out, Paul did not say, “Follow love,” but, “Pursue” her, rousing us and firing us up to lay hold of her.

For from the very beginning God devised countless ways of planting love in us. First, he gave all of us one head, Adam. Why do we not all spring up out of the earth? Why are we not all made full-grown, as he was? So that the birth and the bringing up of children, and being born of one another, might bind us to each other. For the same reason he did not make the woman out of the earth either. Being of one nature was not enough by itself to shame us into oneness of mind unless we also had the same forefather, so he provided for this too. For if even now, when we are separated only by distance, we think of one another as strangers, how much more would this have happened if our race had had two sources! That is why he bound the whole body of the human race together, as if from one head.

And since from the beginning they seemed in a way to be two, see how he fastens them together again and gathers them into one through marriage. “Therefore,” he says, “a man will leave his father and his mother and will cling to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Genesis 2, verse 24.) He did not say “the woman,” but “the man,” because the desire is also stronger in him. In fact, it was for this very reason that God made it stronger: to bend the stronger party under the absolute rule of this passion and make him subject to the weaker. And since marriage too had to be brought in, he made the very man she came from into the woman’s husband. For in God’s eyes everything takes second place to love. And if, when things had begun like this, the first man at once went so mad, and the devil sowed so much warfare and envy among them, what would the devil not have done if they had not sprung from one root?

Then, so that one might be subject and the other rule — for equality often brings in strife — he did not let it be a democracy, but a monarchy. You can see this order in every family, as in an army. In the rank of monarch, for instance, stands the husband; in the rank of deputy and general, the wife; and the children too are given a third place in command. After these comes a fourth order, the servants. For they too rule over those beneath them, and one of them is often set over the whole household, holding the master’s post while still a servant. Along with this there is yet another command, and among the children themselves another again, according to their age and sex, since among the children the girl does not hold equal authority. Everywhere God has set up governments close together and thickly packed, so that everyone might live in harmony and good order.

That is why, even before the race had grown into a multitude, when only the first two existed, he told him to govern and her to obey. And again, so that the man would not despise her as inferior and separate himself from her, see how God honored her and made them one even before she was created. “Let us make for the man,” he says, “a helper suited to him.” This showed that she was made for his need, and so drew him toward her who was made for his sake; for we feel more kindly toward everything that is done for our sake. On the other hand, so that she would not be puffed up at being given him as a help, and break this bond, he makes her from his side, showing that she is part of the whole body. And so that the man would not be puffed up on that account either, God no longer lets what had once been his alone belong to him alone. He brought about the opposite by bringing in the bearing of children. Here too he gave the chief honor to the man, yet without letting the whole be his.

Do you see how many bonds of love God has made? These he has placed in us by the force of nature itself, as pledges of harmony. Being of the same nature leads to this — for every animal loves its like — and so does the woman’s coming from the man, and the children’s coming from both. From this spring many kinds of affection. One person we love as a father, another as a grandfather; one as a mother, another as a nurse; one as a son or grandson or great-grandson, another as a daughter or granddaughter; one as a brother, another as a nephew; one as a sister, another as a niece. Why list all the names of kinship?

He laid yet another foundation of affection. By forbidding marriage between relatives, he led us out toward strangers and drew them back to us. Since they could not be joined to us by natural kinship, he joined us anew by marriage, uniting whole families through the one person of the bride, and blending whole peoples with one another.

“Do not marry,” says the Lord, “your sister, or your father’s sister, or any young woman related to you so closely that it rules out the marriage” (Leviticus 18, verse 6) — and he names the degrees of such kinship. It is enough for your affection toward them that you were born of the same birth pains; the others stand in a different relation to you. Why narrow the breadth of love? Why throw away on her, for nothing, a ground of affection that could have provided you with a separate source for affection to spring from — I mean, by taking a wife from another family, and through her a whole chain of relatives: mother and father and brothers, and their relations as well!

Do you see in how many ways he has bound us together?

Yet even this was not enough for him. He also made us need one another, so that in this way too he might bring us together, because needs, more than anything, create friendships. For no other reason did he refuse to let everything grow in every place: so that this too might compel us to mix with one another. But having made us need one another, he made our dealings with one another easy. If that were not so, the thing would have turned out painful and hard in another way. If someone who needed a doctor, or a carpenter, or any other craftsman had to set out on a long stay abroad, the whole thing would have come to nothing. This is why he also founded cities and brought everyone into one place. And so that we might easily keep up dealings with distant countries, he spread the level surface of the sea between us and gave us swift winds, making our voyages easy.

At the beginning he even gathered all people together in one spot, and did not scatter them until those who first received this gift abused their harmony for sin. Still, he has drawn us together in every way: by nature, by kinship, by language, and by place. Just as he did not want us to fall out of paradise — had he wanted that, he would never have placed “the man whom he had formed” there at all; the one who disobeyed was the cause — so too it was not his will that people should have different languages. Otherwise he would have made it so from the beginning. But as it was, “the whole earth was of one language, and all had one speech.” (Genesis 11, verse 1.)

This is why, when the earth had to be destroyed, not even then did he make us from other material, nor did he take the righteous man away. He left him in the middle of the flood, like a spark of the world, and from him, the blessed Noah, he kindled our race again. From the beginning he made only one authority, setting the man over the woman. But after our race rushed headlong into utter disorder, he appointed other authorities as well, those of masters and those of rulers — and this too for love’s sake. Since vice tends to dissolve and overturn our race, he placed those who administer justice in the middle of our cities as a kind of physicians, so that by driving out vice, a plague to love, they might gather everyone together into one.

And so that there might be great oneness of mind not only in cities but in each household, he honored the man with rule and precedence, and armed the woman with desire. The gift of bearing children he entrusted to both in common. Besides this he provided other things fit to win love, entrusting neither everything to the man nor everything to the woman, but “dividing these things also to each one separately.” To her he entrusted the house, to him the marketplace; to him the work of providing food, for he tills the ground; to her the work of clothing, for the loom and the distaff belong to the woman. It is God himself who gave womankind skill in weaving. Woe to greed, which does not let this difference be seen! The general effeminacy has gone so far that it has brought our men to the looms and put shuttles into their hands, and the weft, and the threads. Even so, the forethought of God’s arrangement still shines out. For we still greatly need the woman in other, more necessary things, and we need the help of those beneath us in the things that hold our life together.

So strong is the pressure of this need that even if a man is richer than everyone, he is still not free of this close tie, of his need for what is beneath him. It is not only the poor who need the rich, you see, but the rich also need the poor — and the rich need the poor more than the poor need them. To see this more clearly, let us imagine, if you like, two cities, one made up only of the rich and the other only of the poor. In the city of the rich let there be no poor man, and in the city of the poor no rich man. Let us clear both out thoroughly and see which will be better able to support itself. If we find that the city of the poor can, it is obvious that the rich will need the poor more.

Now in that city of the wealthy there will be no manufacturer, no builder, no carpenter, no shoemaker, no baker, no farmer, no coppersmith, no rope maker, and no other such trade. For which of the rich would ever choose to take up these crafts, when the very men who work at them no longer put up with the hardship of such work once they become rich? How, then, will this city of ours stand? “The rich will pay money and buy these things from the poor.” That is the reply. Well then, they will not be self-sufficient; their need of the others proves it. But how will they build houses? Will they buy that too? The nature of things will not allow it. So they will have to invite the craftsmen in, and break the law we made at the start, when we were founding the city. You remember that we said, “Let there be no poor man within it.” But look: necessity, even against our will, has invited them and brought them in. From this it is clear that a city cannot exist without poor people. If the city kept refusing to admit any of them, it would no longer be a city; it would perish. Plainly, then, it will not support itself unless it gathers the poor inside it as a kind of preservers.

But let us also look at the city of the poor, to see whether it too will be in need once it is deprived of the rich. First let us make clear in our discussion what riches are, and point them out plainly. What, then, are riches? Gold and silver and precious stones, and garments of silk, of purple, and embroidered with gold. Now that we have seen what riches are, let us drive them out of our city of the poor. If we are to make it purely a city of poor people, let no gold appear there, not even in a dream, nor garments of that kind; and, if you like, no silver either, nor vessels of silver. What then? Tell me, will that city and its affairs live in want because of this? Not at all.

Suppose, first, that there is need to build. One does not need gold and silver and pearls, but skill and hands — and not just any hands, but hands that have grown callused, and hardened fingers, and great strength — and wood, and stones. Suppose again that someone wants to weave a garment. Here too we have no need of gold and silver, but, as before, of hands and skill, and of women to do the work. And what if farming is needed, and digging the ground? Is it rich men who are wanted, or poor? It is obvious to everyone: the poor. And when iron has to be worked, or anything of that sort done, this is the class of people we need most.

In what respect, then, is there anything left for which we might need the rich? Unless what is wanted is to tear this city down! For if that sort of people got in, and these philosophers — I call them philosophers because they seek nothing beyond what is needed — began to desire gold and jewels, and gave themselves up to idleness and luxury, they would ruin everything from that day on.

“But if wealth is not useful, why has it been given by God?” So someone says. And where is it shown that being rich comes from God? “Scripture says, ‘The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ and, ‘I will give it to whomever I choose.’” (Haggai 2, verse 8.) Here, if it were not unseemly, I could laugh out loud right now at the people who say such things. Like little children let in to a king’s table, who stuff into their mouths, along with the food, everything that comes to hand, these people slip their own notions in along with the divine Scriptures. For I know that “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine” was spoken by the prophet; but “I will give it to whomever I choose” is not there. It has been added by these, the scum of the people.

As for the first words, I will explain why they were said. The prophet Haggai kept promising the Jews, after their return from Babylon, that he would show them the temple as it had looked before. Some doubted what was said, and thought it next to impossible that the house, after being reduced to dust and ashes, should appear again as it had been. So, to remove their unbelief, he says these things in God’s person, as if he were saying: “Why are you afraid? Why do you refuse to believe? ‘The silver is mine, and the gold is mine.’ I do not need to borrow from others to make the house beautiful.” And to show that this is the meaning, he adds, “And the glory of this house, the latter glory, will be greater than the glory of the former.”

So let us not bring spiders’ webs onto the royal robe. If anyone caught weaving a counterfeit thread into a purple garment is to suffer the severest punishment, this is far more true in spiritual things, since the sin committed here is no ordinary one. And why do I speak only of adding and taking away? By a mere punctuation mark, or merely by the way a passage is read aloud, many ungodly ideas have often been brought into being.

“Then where do the rich come from? For it has been said, ‘Riches and poverty are from the Lord.’” Let us ask those who raise these things against us: are all riches and all poverty from the Lord? Who would say that? We see that many people gather great wealth by plunder, by the wicked breaking open of tombs, by sorcery, and by other such schemes, and those who own it are not worthy even to live. Tell me, then: do we say that this wealth is from God? Far from it! Where from, then? From sin. The prostitute grows rich by dishonoring her own body; a handsome young man often gets himself gold by selling the bloom of his youth in disgrace; the grave robber gathers unjust wealth by breaking open people’s tombs; and the burglar by digging through walls. So not all wealth is from God.

“What, then, shall we say to this saying?” First get to know a kind of poverty that does not come from God, and then we will go on to the saying itself. I mean this: when some dissolute young man spends his wealth on prostitutes, or on conjurers, or on any other such evil desires, and becomes poor, is it not perfectly clear that this has come not from God but from his own debauchery? Again, if some become poor through idleness, if some are brought down to beggary through folly, or through taking up dangerous and unlawful practices, is it not perfectly clear that none of these, nor any others like them, has been brought down to this poverty by God?

“Does Scripture lie, then?” Far from it! But those who neglect to examine everything that is written with proper care are acting foolishly. If on the one hand it is agreed that the Scriptures cannot lie, and on the other it has been proved that not all wealth is from God, then the weakness of careless readers is the cause of the difficulty.

Now it would be right to dismiss you at this point, having cleared Scripture of blame, so that you might suffer this penalty at our hands for your neglect of the Scriptures. But because I spare you very much, and cannot bear to see you confused and troubled any longer, let us add the solution too, first stating who said it, and when, and to whom. For God does not speak to everyone in the same way, just as we do not deal with children and grown men in the same way.

When, then, was it said, and by whom, and to whom? By Solomon, in the Old Testament, to the Jews, who knew nothing but the things of the senses and tested God’s power by them. These are the people who say, “Can he give bread also?” and, “What sign do you show us? Our fathers ate manna in the desert” — people “whose god is their belly.” (Psalm 78, verse 24; Matthew 12, verse 38; John 6, verse 31; Philippians 3, verse 19.) Since they were testing him by these things, he says to them, “This too is possible with God: to make both rich and poor.” Not that he himself is, as a matter of course, the one who makes them so, but that he can, when he wills. It is just as when the prophet says, “Who rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers” (Nahum 1, verse 4) — and yet this was never done. How, then, does the prophet say it? Not as something that is always being done, but as something it was possible for him to do. What kind of poverty, then, does God give, and what kind of wealth?

Remember the patriarch, and you will know the kind of wealth that God gives. He made Abraham rich, and after him Job, as Job himself says: “If we have received good things from the Lord, shall we not also receive evil?” (Job 2, verse 10.) And Jacob’s wealth had its beginning from the same source. There is also a poverty that comes from him, the kind that is praised — the kind he once wanted to bring to the notice of that rich man, when he said, “If you want to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and come, follow me.” (Matthew 19, verse 21.) And again to the disciples, when he laid down the law and said, “Provide neither gold nor silver, nor two coats.” (Matthew 10, verses 9 and 10.) So do not say that all wealth is his gift, since cases have been pointed out of its being gathered by murderers, by plunder, and by countless other schemes.

But again the discussion comes back to our earlier question: “If the rich are of no use to us, why are they made rich?” What must we say? That those who make themselves rich in that way are of no use, while those who are made rich by God are of the very greatest use. Learn this from what was done by the men we have just mentioned.

Abraham held his wealth for all strangers and for everyone in need. When three men, as he supposed, came near, he slaughtered a calf and kneaded about six gallons of fine flour, and that while sitting at his door in the heat of the day. Think with what generosity and readiness he used to spend his possessions on everyone, giving along with his goods the service of his own body, and at such an advanced age too. He was a harbor for strangers and for all who had fallen into any kind of need, and he held nothing as his own, not even his son; for at God’s command he actually gave him up. And along with his son he gave up himself and his whole household too, when he hurried to snatch his brother’s son out of danger — and this he did not for gain, but out of simple kindness to others. When, for instance, those he had rescued would have handed the spoils over to him, he refused them all, down to “a thread and a sandal strap.” (Genesis 14, verse 23.)

The blessed Job was the same. “My door,” he says, “was open to everyone who came.” (Job 31, verse 32.) “I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame; I was a father to the helpless. The stranger did not lodge outside; the helpless did not go without whatever they needed; and I did not let a single helpless man go out of my door with nothing in the fold of his garment.” And he went on doing far more than these things — we will not list them all now — spending all his wealth on the needy.

Would you like to look also at those who became rich, but not from God, so that you may learn how they used their wealth? Look at the rich man in the parable of Lazarus: he did not share even his crumbs. Look at Ahab: not even the vineyard was safe from his extortion. Look at Gehazi; look at all such people. So those who acquire justly, having received from God, spend on what God commands; but those who offend God in the acquiring offend him in the spending too, using their wealth up on prostitutes and hangers-on, or burying it and locking it away, and spending nothing on the poor.

“And why does God allow such men to be rich?” Because he is patient; because he wants to bring us to repentance; because he has prepared hell; because “he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world.” (Acts 17, verse 31.) If he punished at once those who are rich without virtue, Zacchaeus would not have had a set time for repentance, so as even to repay fourfold whatever he had unjustly taken, and to add half of his goods besides. Nor would Matthew have been converted and become an apostle, cut off as he would have been before his time; nor many others like them. That is why he bears with them: he is calling everyone to repentance.

But if they will not come, and go on in the same way, they will hear Paul saying that “by their hardness and unrepentant heart they are storing up wrath for themselves against the day of wrath, and of revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God.” (Romans 2, verse 5.) That we may escape this wrath, let us become rich with the riches of heaven, and pursue the kind of poverty that is praised. For so we will also obtain the good things to come, which may we all obtain by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.