The Poor and the Rich

Admonition 3. The poor are to be admonished in one way, and the rich in another. To the poor we ought to offer the comfort of consolation against their troubles, but in the rich we ought to stir up fear against pride. For the Lord says to the poor one through the prophet, “Do not fear, for you will not be put to shame.” And not long after, soothing her, he says, “O poor little one, tossed by the storm.” And again he comforts her, saying, “I have chosen you in the furnace of poverty.” But on the other hand Paul says to his disciple about the rich, “Command the rich of this world not to be proud, and not to trust in the uncertainty of their riches.” Here we should particularly notice that the teacher of humility, in speaking of the rich, does not say “Entreat” but “Command,” because although pity is to be shown to weakness, no honor is owed to pride. So the right thing that is said to such people is all the more rightly given as a command, the more they are puffed up with lofty thoughts about passing things. Of them the Lord says in the Gospel, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have your consolation.” For since they do not know what eternal joys are, they take their consolation from the abundance of the present life. So consolation is to be offered to those who are tried in the furnace of poverty, and fear is to be stirred up in those whom the consolation of passing glory lifts up; so that the poor may learn that they possess riches they do not see, and the rich may come to know that they can by no means keep the riches they do see. Yet very often people’s character reverses the order in which they stand, so that the rich man is humble and the poor man proud. So the preacher’s tongue ought quickly to be fitted to the hearer’s life: it should strike pride in a poor man all the more sharply because not even the poverty that has come upon him brings it down, and it should cheer the humility of the rich all the more gently because not even the abundance that raises them up makes them proud. [b]

Sometimes, however, even a proud rich man is to be won over by gentle coaxing in exhortation, since hard sores too are usually softened by soothing warm compresses, and the rage of the insane is often brought back to health by the mild words of the physician; when they are pleasantly humored, the disease of their madness is eased. Nor should we take lightly the fact that when a hostile spirit entered into Saul, David took his harp and calmed his madness. For what does Saul stand for but the pride of men in power, and what does David stand for but the humble life of the holy? So when Saul is seized by the unclean spirit, his madness is calmed by David’s singing; for when the minds of men in power are driven to frenzy by pride, it is fitting that they be called back to a healthy state by the calmness of our speech, as by the sweetness of a harp. But sometimes, when the powerful of this world are to be taken to task, they should first be probed with certain comparisons, as if about a matter that does not concern them. Then, when they have pronounced a right judgment as though against another man, they should be struck in fitting ways about their own guilt. In this way the mind puffed up with worldly power can in no way lift itself up against the one who reproves it, since by its own judgment it has trodden on the neck of pride; nor can it try to defend itself, since it is bound by the sentence of its own mouth. That is why Nathan the prophet, who had come to take the king to task, asked for his judgment as though in the case of a poor man against a rich one, so that the king would first pronounce sentence and only afterward hear of his own guilt, and so could by no means contradict the just sentence he had spoken against himself. So the holy man, bearing in mind both that he faced a sinner and that he faced a king, took care, in a wonderful order, first to bind the bold offender by his own confession, and afterward to cut him to the heart by rebuke. He hid for a while whom he was aiming at, but struck him suddenly once he had him. The blow might have fallen with less force if he had set out to strike the sin openly from the beginning of his speech; but by first bringing in the comparison, he sharpened the rebuke he was hiding. He had come as a physician to a sick man. He saw that the sore must be cut, but he was unsure of the sick man’s patience. So he hid the surgeon’s knife under his robe, then suddenly drew it out and plunged it into the sore, so that the patient would feel the cutting blade before he saw it, lest, seeing it first, he should refuse to feel it. [d]