Variety of Human Lot.
(Homilies on the First Epistle to the Corinthians,[5] xxix., vol. ii., p. 359.)
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One and the same Spirit worketh all things, distributing to each his own gifts according to His pleasure. Therefore he says, let us not be troubled or grieved, thinking to ourselves, ‘Why have I received this and not received that?’ Neither must we scrutinise the doings of the Holy Spirit. For if you know that He has shown you favour out of kindness, considering that out of the same kindness He has also put a limit to His gift, acquiesce and rejoice in what you have received, and be not down-hearted about what you have not received, but rather give thanks that your gift is not beyond your power. If it behoves us not to be over-eager in spiritual things, how much less in those of the flesh; but we should be at ease, and not be disturbed because one man is rich and another poor. In the first place, not every rich man gets his wealth from God, but many become rich through injustice and avarice and graspingness. For how could He, Who commands us not to lay up riches, have given that which He prohibited our taking? Now, in order that I may silence those who differ from us in this with the more authority, let us go deeper into the argument. Tell me why were riches given by God? Why was it that Abraham was rich, and that Jacob even wanted bread? Were not both righteous men? Had not God said equally of the three, I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob? Why then was the one rich and the other in poverty? Or, rather, why was Esau, the unjust and fratricidal man, rich, and Jacob in servitude for so long? Again, why did Isaac pass his whole life in ease, and Jacob in toils and hardships, so that he said, My days are short and miserable? Why did David, too, being both prophet and king, as he was, live his life in labour, whilst his son Solomon was, during forty years, the richest of men, in the enjoyment of enduring peace, glory, and honour, and every possible luxury? Why, in short, amongst the prophets was one tried more and another less? Because thus it was profitable to each. Therefore, every man should say, Thy judgments are a deep abyss. For if God exercised those great and admirable men in different ways—one through poverty, another through riches; one by a life of ease, another by tribulation—it behoves us all the more to take the same lesson now to heart. Together with these considerations, we must admit that many things happen to us, which are not according to His judgment, but the result of our own wickedness. Say not, then, ‘Why is it that a man is rich, being bad, and another man is poor, being just?’ We may easily explain this, and say that neither does the just man suffer any harm from his poverty, which is a source of greater merit to him, and that the unjust man, unless he be converted, possesses in his riches a store of wrath, and that, in place of chastisement, the riches of many men have often been the cause of evil to them, and led them into a thousand abysses. But God leaves them these riches, showing everywhere the free action of divine choice, everywhere teaching other men not to fight nor to strive for money. ‘What, then,’ you say, ‘if a bad man becomes rich, and suffers no harm? If a righteous man were to become rich, it would be just, but what are we to say when a bad man does?’ That on this account he is to be pitied. For wealth added to wickedness increases the intensity of passions. But a man is just, and he is starving. Well, it does him no harm. But he is bad, and starving. Well, he has his just deserts, or, rather, what is for his good. ‘But so and so,’ you say, ‘received his wealth from ancestors, and has squandered it on bad women and parasites, and he is none the worse.’ How is this? Will you call him a dissolute man, and say he is none the worse? He is a drunkard, and do you call it enjoyment? He wastes for no good purpose, and do you look upon him as enviable? What could a man do worse than to be making his soul an ignominy? If a body were to be distorted or maimed, you would think it the saddest matter in the world; yet, contemplating that man’s soul wholly maimed, do you consider him a happy man? ‘But,’ you say, ‘he does not feel it.’ And for this very reason he is the more to be pitied, just as men who lose their wits are. For he who knows that he is ill will seek the physician honestly and apply remedies; whereas he who does not know it will be beyond cure. Tell me, then, is this the man you consider happy? But this is not astonishing, for the majority of men are devoid of a right estimate of things. So it is that, when chastised, we pay the extreme penalty, and are not freed from wrath; hence come desires and despondencies and perpetual anxieties, since, when God shows us a painless life, that of goodness, by removing ourselves from it, we choose another road, the way of riches and money, which is productive of a thousand evils. We act as a man would act, who, not being able to judge of physical beauty, but, ascribing everything to clothes and adornment, should pass over a young woman, possessing comeliness of body, and take to himself an ugly one, deformed and crippled, merely for her fine dress. The great mass of men now do something of this kind in the matter of goodness and badness, by following their bad nature on account of its outward attraction, and by turning away from the good nature, which is blooming and beautiful, on account of its unadorned comeliness, the very reason why they should have chosen it.
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Whence the Rich?
(Homilies on First Epistle to Corinthians, xxxiv., vol. ii., p. 430.)
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You ask, ‘Whence come the rich?’ for it is written, Riches and poverty are from the Lord. Now let us ask those who urge this upon us, ‘Then is all wealth and all poverty from the Lord?’ Who would say as much? For we see many laying up riches for themselves through rapacity, through the spoliation of tombs, through sorcery, and other means of the same kind, and that those who possess these riches are unworthy even of living. Now, tell me, is this the wealth we recognise as from God? No, far from it. Whence, then, does it come? From sin. For a bad woman grows rich by misusing her body, and the handsome youth often bartering the flower of his years possesses his money in ignominy, and the invader of graves who unearths tombs amasses the wealth of unrighteousness, just as the thief does by breaking down walls. Therefore not all wealth is from God. How then, you ask, shall we answer this argument? In the first place, understand that poverty was not made by God either, and then we will examine our argument. When a licentious youth either spends his riches upon bad women, or upon magical arts, or upon any other lusts of the same nature, and thus becomes poor, is it not evident that it is brought about not by God, but by his own riotousness? Again, if a man were to become poor through sloth, or to fall into poverty because of his want of sense, or to engage in perilous and unlawful pursuits, is it not evident once more that no one of these or those like them would be thrust into this want by God? Then, is the Scripture false? God forbid, but those who lay down the law on all the Scripture with insufficient discernment are wanting in sense. For if it be asserted that the Scripture is trustworthy, and it be proved that not all wealth is from God, then the difficulty lies in the weakness of those who put an inconsiderate construction upon such things. I ought indeed to have let you alone on this point, having first cleared the Scripture of blame, in order to make you pay a penalty for your carelessness concerning it; yet since I have great pity on you, and cannot bear to see you more troubled and confounded, let me add the explanation, considering in the first place who said it, then when it was said, and to whom.
For God does not speak in the same way to all, just as we ourselves do not use children as we use men. Now, when is it said, and by whom, and to whom? By Solomon of old to the Jews, who were familiar with sensible things only, and measured God’s power by these. It is they who say, Is He not able to give us bread? and, What sign dost Thou show us? Our fathers ate manna in the desert, whose belly is their God. Since they estimated Him by these things, he tells them that God is also able to make men rich and poor, not that He Himself does it altogether, but that He can do it if He choose, as when He says, He rebuketh the sea, and drieth it up, and bringeth all the rivers to be a desert, although this never happened at all. How, then, does the prophet say that it did? Not as really taking place, but implying His power to do it. Now, what sort of poverty does He give and what sort of wealth? Call to mind the patriarch, and you will see what the riches are which God bestows. For it was He Who made Abraham rich, and Job after him, as Job admitted in the words: If we have received good things from the Lord, shall we not endure the bad things as well? And later on their twofold increase was His gift. And Jacob’s riches began from the same source. There is a poverty which is praised by Him, that which He proposed to that rich young man, saying, If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and come and follow Me; and again, when legislating for the disciples, He said, Ye shall not possess gold nor silver nor two cloaks. Therefore, do not say that He gives wealth to all without exception, for I have shown you that it is put together by murders and covetousness and a thousand other like causes.
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