Homily 35 — First Corinthians 14, verses 1 to 19

“Pursue love, yet eagerly desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.” [a]

So now that he has gone through all the excellence of love with such precision, he urges them in what follows to take hold of it eagerly. That is why he said, “Pursue.” For the one who is chasing sees only what he is chasing; he strains toward it and does not let up until he takes hold of it. And when a man in pursuit cannot catch the one who is fleeing by himself, he overtakes him by means of those who are ahead of him, begging those who are near, with great eagerness, to seize him and keep him held until he himself comes up.

Let us do the same. When we cannot reach love by ourselves, let us ask those who are near her to hold her until we come up with her; and once we have caught her, let us never let her go again, so that she does not escape us a second time. For she is continually slipping away from us, because we do not treat her as we should, but put everything else ahead of her. So we must make every effort to keep hold of her completely. If this is done, we will not need much labor from then on — or rather, hardly any. Taking our ease, as though we were keeping a festival, we will march along the narrow path of virtue. That is why he says, “Pursue her.”

Then, so that they would not suppose he had brought in his talk about love for no other purpose than to put out the gifts, he adds the following. Verse 1: “Yet eagerly desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.” Verse 2: “For the one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God, for no one understands; but in the Spirit he speaks mysteries.” Verse 3: “But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their building up, and encouragement, and comfort.”

At this point he compares the gifts and ranks the gift of tongues lower, showing that it is neither altogether useless nor very profitable by itself. For in fact they were greatly puffed up over it, because the gift was thought to be a great one. For just as at the time of the building of the tower the one language was divided into many, so now the many languages often met in one man. The same person would speak in Persian, and in Latin, and in the language of India, and in many other languages, with the Spirit sounding within him; and the gift was called the gift of tongues because he could speak different languages all at once.

See, then, how he both lowers it and raises it. By saying, “The one who speaks in tongues does not speak to people but to God, for no one understands,” he lowered it, implying that its benefit was not great. But by adding, “but in the Spirit he speaks mysteries,” he raised it again, so that it would not seem superfluous and useless and given for nothing.

“But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their building up, and encouragement, and comfort.” Do you see how he shows what a choice gift this is — namely, by the common benefit? And how everywhere he gives the higher honor to whatever serves the profit of the many? For tell me, do not the others speak to people too? Yes, but not so much for “building up, and encouragement, and comfort.” So being empowered by the Spirit is common to both, to the one who prophesies as well as to the one who speaks in tongues. But in this the one who prophesies has the advantage: he is also profitable to the hearer. For those who spoke in tongues were not understood by those who did not have the gift.

What then? Did they build up no one? “Yes,” he says, “themselves alone.” That is why he also adds, Verse 4: “The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself.”

“And how can that be, if he does not know what he is saying?” Well, for the present he is speaking of those who understand what they say — who understand it themselves, but do not know how to put it across to others.

“But the one who prophesies builds up the church.” As great as the difference is between a single person and the church, so great is the gap between these two. Do you see his wisdom? He does not throw the gift out or make it nothing, but shows that it has some advantage, small though it is, and enough only for the one who has it.

Next, so that they would not suppose he was lowering the tongues out of envy of them (for most of them had this gift), he corrects their suspicion by saying, Verse 5: “I would like you all to speak in tongues, but rather that you would prophesy; for the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be built up.” [d]

“Rather” and “greater” do not mark opposition, but superiority. So it is plain from this too that he is not disparaging the gift, but leading them to better things, showing both his care for them and a spirit free of all envy. For he did not say, “I would like two or three of you,” but “I would like you all to speak in tongues”; and not only this, but also “that you would prophesy,” and this rather than that, “for the one who prophesies is greater.” Having established and proved the point, he next goes on to state it outright — not simply, however, but with a qualification. So he adds, “unless he interprets.” For if he is able to do this — I mean, to interpret — then, as he puts it, “he has become equal to the prophet, because then many reap the benefit of it.” This must be especially noticed: how this, before everything else, is his aim throughout.

Verse 6: “But now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you, unless I speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by teaching?”

“And why do I speak of the others?” he says. “No — let the one who speaks in tongues be Paul himself. Even so, no good will come to the hearers.” He says these things to show that he is seeking their benefit and bears no grudge against those who have the gift, since he does not shrink from pointing out its unprofitableness even in his own person. Indeed, it is his constant habit to work out the unpleasant points in his own person. So at the beginning of the letter he said, “Who then is Paul? And who is Apollos? And who is Cephas?” He does the same here too, saying, “Not even I will profit you, unless I speak to you either by revelation, or by prophesying, or by knowledge, or by teaching.” What he means is this: “If I do not say something that can be made intelligible to you and is clear, but merely make a display of having the gift of tongues — tongues you do not understand — you will go away with no profit of any kind. For how could you profit from a voice you do not understand?”

Verse 7: “Even lifeless things that give a sound, whether flute or harp — if they do not make a distinction in the sounds, how will anyone know what is being played on the flute?”

“And why do I say,” he says, “that in our case this is unprofitable, and that only what is clear and easy for the hearers to grasp is useful? You can see the same thing even in lifeless musical instruments. Whether it is a flute or a harp, if it is struck or blown confusedly and without skill, without proper rhythm or harmony, it will captivate none of the hearers. Even in these inarticulate sounds some distinctness is needed; and if you do not strike the harp or breathe into the flute according to the art, you have accomplished nothing. Now if we require so much distinctness and harmony and fitness from lifeless things, and strive and struggle to put so much meaning into those inarticulate sounds, much more, when it comes to human beings endowed with life and reason, and to spiritual gifts, ought one to make meaning the aim.”

Verse 8: “For if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for battle?”

So from things merely ornamental he carries his argument on to things more necessary and useful, and says that you can see this happen not only with the harp but with the trumpet as well. For it too has certain measures. At one time it gives out a call to battle, and at another a call that is not; sometimes it leads out into the battle line, and at other times it calls back from it. Unless one knows these calls, the danger is great. That is just what he means, and it is the harm of it that he is pointing out when he says, “Who will prepare himself for battle?” So if the trumpet lacks this quality, it is the ruin of everyone.

“And what does this have to do with us?” someone says. It concerns you very much indeed. That is why he adds, Verse 9: “So also you: unless you utter with your tongue speech that is easy to understand, you will be speaking into the air” — that is, calling to nobody, speaking to no one. So everywhere he shows how unprofitable it is.

“But if it is unprofitable,” someone says, “why was it given?” So that it might be useful to the one who received it. But if it is to be useful to others as well, interpretation must be added to it. He says this to bring them close to one another: so that if a person does not himself have the gift of interpretation, he may take to himself another who has it, and make his own gift useful through him. That is why everywhere he points out its incompleteness: so that he may bind them together. [e]

In any case, whoever counts it sufficient by itself does not so much commend it as disparage it, since he does not let it shine out brightly through the interpretation. The gift is indeed excellent and necessary, but it is so when it has someone to explain what is spoken. The finger too is a necessary thing, but when you separate it from the other members it will not be as useful. And the trumpet is necessary, but when it sounds at random it is more of a nuisance than anything. Yes, no art will ever come to light without matter to work on, and matter is not given shape if no form is assigned to it. Think of the voice, then, as the matter, and the distinctness as the form; if the form is not there, the material is of no use.

Verse 10: “There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without meaning” — that is, so many languages, so many voices of Scythians, Thracians, Romans, Persians, Moors, Indians, Egyptians, and countless other nations.

Verse 11: “If, then, I do not know the meaning of the voice, I will be a barbarian to the one who speaks.” “Do not suppose,” he says, “that this happens only in our case. You can see it happening in every case. So I am not saying this to disparage the voice, but to show that it is useless to me as long as it cannot be understood.”

Next, so as not to make the charge hard to take, he lays it on both sides alike, saying, “He will be a barbarian to me, and I to him” — not because of what the voice is, but because of our ignorance. Do you see how little by little he draws his hearers toward what is close to the subject? This is his habit: to fetch his examples from far off and to end with what belongs more properly to the matter in hand. Having spoken of the flute and the harp, in which there is much that is inferior and unprofitable, he comes to the trumpet, a more useful thing; and from that he passes to the voice itself. He did the same earlier, when he was arguing that the apostles were not forbidden to receive support: he began with farmers, and shepherds, and soldiers, and then brought the discussion round to what was nearer the subject, the priests under the old covenant.

But please consider how everywhere he has taken pains to clear the gift of blame and to turn the charge round onto those who received it. He did not say, “I will be a barbarian,” but “a barbarian to the one who speaks.” And again, he did not say, “The one who speaks will be a barbarian,” but “The one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.”

“What, then, must be done?” someone asks. Why, far from disparaging the gift, one ought to recommend it and teach about it — as Paul himself does. For after accusing it and rebuking it and showing how unprofitable it is, he goes on to counsel them, saying, Verse 12: “So also you, since you are eager for spiritual gifts, seek that you may abound in them for the building up of the church.”

Do you see his aim everywhere — how he looks continually and in every case to one thing, the general benefit, the profit of the church, laying this down as a kind of rule? And he did not say, “that you may obtain the gifts,” but “that you may abound” — that is, that you may even possess them in great fullness. “So far am I,” he says, “from wishing you not to have them, that I even wish you to abound in them — only so that you handle them for the common good.” And how is this to be done? He adds it, saying, Verse 13: “Therefore let the one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.” Verse 14: “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.” Verse 15: “What is it, then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.”

Here he shows that it is in their power to obtain the gift. “Let him pray,” he says — that is, let him contribute his own part. For if you ask diligently, you will certainly receive. So ask to have not only the gift of tongues but also the gift of interpretation, so that you may become useful to all, and not shut up your gift in yourself alone.

“For if I pray in a tongue,” he says, “my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.” Do you see how, bringing his argument to a point by degrees, he shows that such a person is useless not only to others but to himself as well, if indeed “his understanding is unfruitful”? For if a man were to speak only in Persian, or in any other foreign language, and not understand what he was saying, then of course he would from then on be a barbarian to himself too, and not only to another, since he would not know the meaning of the sound. For in those days there were many who had a gift of prayer along with a tongue. They prayed, and the tongue spoke, praying in Persian or in Latin, but their understanding did not know what was being said. That is why he also said, “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays” — that is, the gift that has been given me and that moves my tongue — “but my understanding is unfruitful.”

What, then, is best in itself, and does good? How ought one to act, or what should one ask of God? To pray both “with the spirit” — that is, with the gift — and “with the understanding.” That is why he also said, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.”

He points to the same thing here as well: that the tongue should speak, and the understanding should not be ignorant of what is spoken. For unless this is so, there will be another kind of confusion as well. [h]

Verse 16: “Otherwise,” he says, “if you bless with the spirit, how will the one who fills the place of the unlearned say the Amen at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying?” Verse 17: “For you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not built up.”

Notice how here again he brings his stone to the plumb line, everywhere seeking the building up of the church. By “the unlearned” he means the layman, and he shows that he too suffers no small loss when he cannot say the Amen. What he says is this: “If you bless in a barbarian tongue, not knowing what you are saying and unable to interpret, the layman cannot answer the Amen. For since he does not hear the words ‘forever and ever,’ which come at the end, he does not say the Amen.”

Then again he comforts the speaker on this point, so that he would not seem to hold the gift too cheap. It is the same kind of remark he made above — that “he speaks mysteries,” and “speaks to God,” and “builds up himself,” and “prays with the spirit” — meaning to give no small comfort by these words. So here too he says, “For you indeed give thanks well,” since you speak moved by the Spirit; but the other, hearing nothing and not knowing what is said, stands there without gaining much benefit from it.

Further, he had run down those who possessed this gift, as though what they had were no great thing. So that he would not seem to hold them cheap because he himself lacked it, see what he says. Verse 18: “I thank God, I speak with tongues more than you all.” [i]

He does this in another place too. There he means to take away the advantages of Judaism and to show that from now on they are nothing. So he begins by declaring that he himself had been endowed with them, and to a very great degree, and then he calls them “loss.” He says: “If anyone thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to the righteousness that is in the law, found blameless” (Philippians 3, verses 4 to 7). Then, having shown that he had the advantage over everyone, he says, “But whatever things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.” He does the same here, saying, “I speak with tongues more than you all.” “So do not boast,” he says, “as though you alone had the gift. For I have it too — yes, more than you.”

Verse 19: “Yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might instruct others also.”

What does “speak with my understanding, that I might instruct others also” mean? It means understanding what I say, and speaking words that I can interpret to others, and speak intelligibly, and so teach the hearers — rather “than ten thousand words in a tongue.” Why? “That I may instruct others,” he says. For the one has display and nothing more; the other has great usefulness. And this is what he seeks everywhere — I mean the common profit.

And yet the gift of tongues was something strange, while the gift of prophecy was familiar and ancient and had been given to many before; the other, on the contrary, was then being given for the first time. Even so, he did not care much for it. That is why he did not use it either — not because he did not have it, but because he always sought what was more profitable, being free, as he was, of all empty glory, and considering one thing only: how he might make his hearers better.

And here is the reason he was able to see what was advantageous both to himself and to others: namely, that he was free of empty glory. For whoever is enslaved to it, far from discerning what is good for others, will not even know what is good for himself. [j]

Such was Simon, who, because he had his eye on empty glory, did not even see his own advantage. Such too were the Jews, who for this reason sacrificed their own salvation to the devil. From this, too, idols sprang up; and it was by this madness that the pagan philosophers worked themselves up and made shipwreck in their false doctrines.

And notice how perverse this passion is. Because of it some of them made themselves poor, and others were eager for wealth. So strong is its tyranny that it prevails even in things directly opposed to each other. One man is vain of his chastity, and another, on the contrary, of his adultery; this one of his justice, and that one of his injustice; and so with luxury and fasting, modesty and rashness, riches and poverty. I say poverty, because some of those outside, when it was in their power to receive, refused to receive in order to be admired.

But not so the apostles. They showed by their deeds that they were clean of empty glory. When some people were calling them gods and were ready to sacrifice oxen to them with garlands, they did not merely forbid what was being done; they even tore their clothes (Acts 14, verses 13 and 14). And after they had set the lame man on his feet, when everyone was gazing at them open-mouthed, they said, “Why do you look so intently at us, as though by our own power we had made this man walk?”

Those others chose a state of poverty among people who admired poverty; but these men chose it among people who despised poverty and praised wealth. And these, if they received anything, used it to serve the needy. So it was not empty glory but goodwill that moved them in all they did. Those others were quite the reverse: they did such things as enemies and pests of our common human nature, and in no other way. One sank all his goods in the sea for no good purpose, imitating fools and madmen; another let all his land go as common pasture for sheep. So they did everything for empty glory.

But not so the apostles. They both received what was given them and distributed it to the needy with such generosity that they themselves lived in constant hunger. Yet if they had been in love with glory, they would not have done this — the receiving and the distributing — for fear that some suspicion would arise against them. For whoever throws away his own things for glory will much more refuse to take the things of others, so as not to be thought to need others or to fall under any suspicion. But these men you see both serving the poor and themselves begging on their behalf. So truly were they more loving than any father.

Notice, too, their rules — how moderate they are, and free of all empty glory. “Having food and covering,” he says, “let us be content with these” (First Timothy 6, verse 8). He was not like the man from Sinope, who went about in rags and lived in a cask to no good end, astonishing many and profiting none. Paul did none of these things, for he had no eye for show. He was clothed in ordinary clothing, with all decency; he lived in a house all the time; and he showed all exactness in practicing every other virtue — which the Cynic despised, living impurely, disgracing himself in public, and dragged along by his mad passion for glory. For if anyone asks why he lived in a cask, he will find no other reason but empty glory alone. [p]

But Paul even paid rent for the house he stayed in at Rome — though a man able to do far harder things could much more have found the strength for this. But he did not look to glory, that savage monster, that fearful demon, that plague of the world, that poisonous viper. For just as that creature tears its way through its mother’s womb with its teeth, so this passion too tears to pieces the one who gives birth to it.

How, then, can anyone find a cure for this disease with its many forms? By setting before himself those who have trampled it underfoot, and by shaping his own life with his eye on their likeness. Take the patriarch Abraham — and let no one accuse me of repeating myself if I mention him often, and on every occasion. This is what shows him most wonderful of all, and what strips those who refuse to imitate him of every excuse. [r]

If we point to one person who did well in this respect and another in that, someone might say that virtue is hard to attain, since it is scarcely possible to succeed in all those things together when each of the saints achieved only a part of them. But when one and the same person is found to have them all, what excuse will they have who, living after the law and after grace, cannot reach the same measure as those who lived before the law and before grace?

How, then, did this patriarch overcome and subdue this monster, when he had a dispute with his nephew? (Genesis 13, verse 8.) For this is how it went: he came off worse and lost the first choice, and he was not upset. Yet you know that in matters like these, to people of ordinary mind, the shame is worse than the loss — especially when a person had everything in his own power, as Abraham did then, and was the first to show honor, and was not honored in return. Still, none of this upset him. He was content to take second place. And when he was wronged by the young man — he the old man, the uncle by his nephew — he was not indignant and did not take it badly, but loved him just the same and looked after him.

Again, when he had won that great and terrible battle and put the barbarians to flight in force (Genesis 14), he did not add display to his victory, or set up a trophy. He wanted only to rescue, not to show himself off. Again, he took in strangers, and even here he did nothing for empty glory. He ran to them himself and bowed down to them, as though he were not doing a favor but receiving one. He called them “my lords,” without knowing who they were who had come to him, and he put his wife in the place of a maidservant (Genesis 18). And before this, in Egypt, when he had shown himself so extraordinary a man, and had received back this very woman, his wife, and had enjoyed such great honor (Genesis 12), he made a show of it to no one. And though the people of the place called him a prince, he himself paid down the price of the tomb (Genesis 23, verse 6). And when he sent to find a wife for his son, he gave no order to speak of him in lofty and dignified terms (Genesis 24), but only to bring the bride.

Would you like to examine the conduct of those under grace as well — when the glory of the teaching was flowing around them on every side — and see that this passion was driven out then too? Consider, please, this same apostle who says these things. See how he always gives God the credit for everything; how he mentions his sins constantly, but his good deeds never, unless perhaps it was needed to correct his disciples; and even when he is compelled to do it, he calls the thing folly. He gives the first place to Peter, and is not ashamed to work alongside Priscilla and Aquila. Everywhere he is eager to show himself lowly — not swaggering in the marketplace, or trailing crowds behind him, but placing himself among the obscure. That is why he also said, “but his bodily presence is weak” (Second Corinthians 10, verse 10) — that is, easy to look down on, with nothing of display about it at all. And again: “I pray that you do no evil, not that we may appear approved.” [v]

And what wonder is it if he despises this glory, when he despises the glory of heaven, and the kingdom, and hell, for the sake of what was pleasing to Christ? For he wishes himself to be accursed and cut off from Christ, for the glory of Christ. If he says he is willing to suffer this for the sake of the Jews, he says it for this reason: that none of those without understanding might think of taking to himself the promises made to them. If, then, he was ready to pass by those things, what wonder is it if he despises human things?

But the people of our time are overpowered by everything — not by the desire for glory only, but also, on the other side, by insult and the fear of disgrace. So if anyone praises you, it puffs you up; and if he blames you, it throws you down. Weak bodies are hurt by ordinary mishaps, and so are souls that grovel on the earth. For people like that, not only poverty but wealth too is ruin; not only grief but joy as well; and prosperity more than hardship. Poverty forces a person to be wise, but wealth often leads him on into some great evil. And as people in a fever are hard to please in anything, so those whose minds are corrupted are hurt from every side.

Since we know these things, then, let us not run from poverty, and let us not admire riches, but let us prepare our soul to be equal to every condition. Someone building a house does not consider how to keep rain from ever falling on it, or sunlight from ever striking it — that would be impossible — but how to make it able to stand up to everything. Again, someone building a ship does not shape and design anything to keep the waves from ever breaking against it, or any storm from rising on the sea — that too would be impossible — but to make the ship’s sides ready to meet everything. And again, someone who takes care of the body does not see to it that the weather never changes, but that the body can easily bear all these things. Let us do the same with the soul. Let us not be anxious either to escape poverty or to become rich, but to manage each of them for our own safety.

So, leaving these things aside, let us make our soul fit for both wealth and poverty. For even if none of the misfortunes a human being is liable to should befall us — which is, for the most part, impossible — even so, the one who does not seek wealth but knows how to bear everything easily is better off than the one who is always rich. Why? First, such a person has his safety from within, and the other from without. A soldier who trusts in his own bodily strength and his skill in fighting is better than one whose strength lies in his armor alone; in the same way, the man who relies on his wealth is inferior to the man who is walled in by his virtue.

Second, even if the rich man never falls into poverty, he cannot possibly be free of trouble. Wealth has many storms and troubles; virtue does not, but only pleasure and safety. Yes, and virtue puts a man out of reach of those who lay traps for him, while wealth does quite the opposite, making him easy to attack and capture. Among animals, deer and hares are the easiest of all to catch, because of their natural timidity, while the wild boar, the bull and the lion would not easily fall into the hands of those lying in wait for them. You can see just the same with the rich and with those who live in poverty by their own choice: the one who chooses poverty is like the lion and the bull, the rich man like the deer and the hare. For whom does the rich man not fear? Are there not robbers, men in power, the envious, informers? And why do I speak of robbers and informers, when such a man suspects even his own household servants?

And why do I say “while he is alive”? Not even when he is dead is he freed from the villainy of robbers. Not even death has the power to put him in safety; wrongdoers strip him even when he is dead — so dangerous a thing is wealth. They do not only dig their way into houses; they even break open tombs and coffins. What, then, could be more wretched than this man? Not even death can give him this security. That wretched body, even when life has left it, is not freed from the evils of life, because those who commit such wickedness hurry to make war even on dust and ashes, and far more grievously than when it was alive. [y]

For then, while he was alive, they might perhaps have gone into his storeroom and carried off his chests, but kept their hands off his person, and not gone so far as to strip the body itself. But now the accursed hands of the grave robbers do not keep off even this. They move it and turn it over and insult it with great cruelty. After it has been committed to the ground, they strip it both of its covering of earth and of the covering its grave clothes give it, and leave it lying like that, cast out.

What enemy, then, is as deadly as wealth? It destroys the soul of the living and insults the body of the dead, not even letting it lie buried in the ground — something granted even to the condemned, and to those caught in the vilest crimes. For of these the lawgivers, once they have exacted the punishment of death, ask nothing further. But from these rich men wealth exacts the bitterest punishment even after death, exposing them naked and unburied, a dreadful and pitiful sight. Even those who suffer this after a sentence, through the anger of their judges, do not suffer so grievously as these. They stay unburied the first day and the second, and then are committed to the ground. But these, once they have been committed to the ground, are then stripped naked and insulted.

And if the robbers go away without taking the coffin too, even then no thanks is owed to their wealth, but here too to their poverty; for she is the one who guards it. Most certainly, if we had trusted wealth with even this much — if we had stopped making the coffin of stone and had forged it of gold — we would have lost this too.

So faithless a thing is wealth: it belongs not so much to those who have it as to those who try to seize it. So it is really a needless argument that sets out to show that wealth is irresistible, since not even on the day of their death do its owners find security.

And yet who does not make peace with the dead, whether it is a wild beast, or a demon, or anything else? The very sight is enough to bend even someone made entirely of iron and past all feeling. That is why, as you know, when someone sees a corpse, even if it is an enemy, public or private, that he is looking at, he weeps for him along with the man’s dearest friends. His anger goes out with the man’s life, and pity takes its place. At a time of mourning, and when the dead are carried out to burial, you could not tell an enemy from one who is not. So deeply do all people revere their … introduced concerning it.

But wealth, even when its owners have come to this, does not let go of its anger against them. No, it turns people who were never wronged at all into enemies of the dead — if indeed stripping a dead body is the act of very bitter enemies. Nature, for her part, reconciles even a man’s enemies to him at that moment; but wealth makes foes of people who have nothing to accuse him of, and treats the body cruelly in its utter helplessness. And yet there are many things here that might move a person to pity: that it is a corpse, that it cannot move, that it is going back to earth and decay, that there is no one to help it. But none of these things softens those accursed wretches, because of the tyranny their shameful greed holds over them. For the passion of greed, like some ruthless tyrant, stands over them giving those inhuman orders; it turns them into wild beasts, and so leads them to the tombs. Yes, like wild beasts falling on the dead, they would not keep off even the flesh, if the limbs were of any use to them. This is what our enjoyment of wealth comes to: to be insulted even after death, and to be robbed of the burial that even the most desperate criminals receive.

Tell me, then, are we still to be fond of so grievous an enemy? No, I beg you — no, my brothers and sisters! Let us run from it without turning to look back. And if it comes into our hands, let us not keep it shut up inside, but bind it fast with the hands of the poor. These are the bonds that have more power to hold it, and out of those treasuries it will never escape again. So this faithless thing stays faithful from then on, obedient and tame, for it is the right hand of Mercy that works this change in it. [aa]

As I said, then: if it ever comes to us, let us hand it over to her. But if it does not come, let us not go looking for it, or fret ourselves, or call its owners happy. What kind of idea of happiness is that? Unless you would also say that those who fight with beasts are to be envied, because those costly animals are shut up and kept for themselves by the men who put on such contests — men who nonetheless do not dare to go near them or touch them, but in fear and trembling because of them hand others over to them.

Something like this, I say, is the case with the wealthy. They have shut up their wealth in their treasuries like some savage beast, and day after day they receive countless wounds from it. In this last point it is unlike the beasts: those harm the people they meet only when you lead them out, and not before; but this one destroys its owners and hoarders precisely when it is shut up and kept safe.

But let us make this beast tame. And it will be tame if we do not shut it up, but give it into the hands of all who are in need. In this way we will reap the greatest blessings from it: we will live the present life in safety and good hope, and on the day to come we will stand with boldness. May we all attain it, 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.