Homilies on First Corinthians 23

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run indeed, but one receives the prize? (Chapter 1)

Having shown that condescension is very useful, and that this is the highest perfection, and that he himself, having ascended above all the rest toward perfection—or rather, having even surpassed it by not taking what was his due—descended again more than all, and having made known to us the fitting occasions for each of these, both for perfection and for condescension, he now assails them more sharply, hinting that this practice of theirs, which seems to be a mark of perfection, is a certain superfluous and vain labor.

And he does not state it thus plainly, lest they should grow shameless;

but by the means through which he builds up his argument, he makes it clear.

And having said that they sin against Christ, and destroy the brethren, and gain nothing from their perfect knowledge unless love be present, he again comes to a common example and says:

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run indeed, but one receives the prize? He says this, not as though here too only one out of all is destined to be saved—far from it—but as though we ought to bring in much diligence.

For just as there, when many go down into the stadium, not many are crowned, but this comes round to one only, and it does not suffice merely to descend into the contest, nor to anoint oneself and wrestle;

so also here it does not suffice merely to have believed and to have contended in a haphazard way;

but unless we so run as to present ourselves uncaught unto the end and to draw near to the prize, there will be no gain for us either.

For even if you think yourself perfect, he says, in respect of knowledge, yet you have not yet laid hold of the whole; which is what he hinted at when he said:

So run, that you may obtain.

It follows then that they had not yet obtained.

And having spoken thus, he also teaches the manner:

And everyone who contends exercises self-control in all things.

What does 'in all things' mean? Not that he abstains from this, but transgresses in another; rather he masters gluttony, and lust, and drunkenness, and, in a word, all the passions.

For this, he says, happens even in the outward contests.

For it is not permitted to those who contend to be drunken during the season of the contest, nor to commit fornication, lest they enfeeble their strength, nor even to be occupied with anything else;

but having once withdrawn themselves from all things, they attend to their exercises alone.

But if these things are so there, where the crown goes to but one, how much more here, where the honor is also greater.

For not one alone is crowned, and the rewards also far surpass the toils.

Wherefore also he sets it down in a way that shames them, saying:

They indeed do it to receive a corruptible crown;

I therefore so run, as not uncertainly.

For having shamed them by means of the outward examples, he next brings himself also into the midst, which is the best manner of teaching.

Wherefore also he is seen doing this everywhere.

But what does 'not uncertainly' mean? Looking, he says, toward some goal, not at random and in vain, as you do.

For what more do you gain from entering into the idol-temples and displaying that supposed perfection of yours? Nothing.

But I am not such a one; rather, all that I do, I do for the salvation of my neighbors;

whether I display perfection, it is for their sake;

whether condescension, it is for their sake;

whether I surpass Peter by not accepting support, that they may not be offended;

whether I descend below all men, being circumcised and shaved, that they may not be tripped up.

But you—tell me—why do you eat in the idol-temples? Nay, you could not assign any reasonable cause.

For food does not commend you to God;

and neither if you eat are you the better, nor if you do not eat are you the worse.

Therefore you run in a haphazard and random way.

So I box, as not beating the air.

Again hinting at the 'not at random and in vain,' he says this;

for I have one whom I strike, that is, the devil;

but you do not strike him; rather, you simply pour out your strength to no purpose.

For the time being, then, still bearing with them, he speaks thus.

For since he had dealt with them

more vehemently in what went before, he again restrains his rebuke, reserving the deep incision for the end of the discourse.

For here he says only that they act at random and in vain;

but later he shows that it is even to the great destruction of their own head, and that, quite apart from the harm to the brethren, they themselves are not without guilt in daring these things.

But I buffet my body and bring it into bondage, lest by any means, having preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Here he shows that they too were held fast by the desire of the belly and gave loose rein to it, and under the pretext of perfection were satisfying their own gluttony;

which he had also been travailing to say from before, when he said:

Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods.

For since luxury produces fornication, and this begot idolatry, he reasonably assails the malady in many places;

and showing how much he suffered for the sake of the gospel, he sets this down along with those things.

For just as, he says, I went beyond the commandments—and that though the matter was no light one for me;

for indeed, We endure all things, he says.

So too here I endure much toil, that I may live temperately.

For though desire is hard to bridle and the tyranny of the belly is strong, yet I curb it and do not surrender myself to the passion, but endure every toil so as not to be swept away.

For do not suppose that I accomplish these things without effort.

For it is a race and a wrestling match and a tyranny of nature that continually rises up in revolt and desires to run loose;

but I do not give way; rather I hold it down and subdue it with much sweat.

He says these things so that no one may despair over the struggles on behalf of virtue, since the matter is laborious;

wherefore he says, 'I buffet my body and bring it into bondage.'

He did not say, 'I destroy it,' nor, 'I punish it';

but, 'I buffet it and bring it into bondage'—which is the act of a master, not of an enemy;

of a trainer, not of an adversary.

'Lest, having preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.'

But if Paul feared this—he who had taught so many, and feared it even after having preached, and after becoming a messenger, and after receiving the oversight of the whole world—what shall we say? For do not suppose, he says, that because you have believed, this suffices for your salvation.

For if to have preached, to have taught, to have brought countless souls to God does not suffice for my salvation, unless I also present my own conduct as irreproachable, much more is this the case with you.

Then he comes again to other examples;

and just as before he set forth the examples of the apostles, and those of common custom, and those of the priests, and his own,

so here too he sets forth those of the Olympic contests.

And having set down his own examples, he proceeds again to the histories of the Old Testament.

And since he is about to make his discourse more severe, he casts his exhortation in general terms, and discourses not only about the matters at hand but simply about all the maladies among the Corinthians.

And in the case of the outward contests he spoke thus;

but here, 'I would not have you ignorant, brethren.'

This he said, showing that they had not been very well instructed in these matters.

And what is this which you do not wish us to be ignorant of? 'That all our fathers,' he says, 'were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;'

'and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink (for they drank of a spiritual Rock that followed them;

and the Rock was Christ)';

'but with most of them God was not well pleased.'

And for what reason, he asks, does he say these things? In order to show that, just as it profited those men nothing to have enjoyed so great a gift, so neither does it profit these to have received baptism and to have enjoyed spiritual mysteries, unless they are minded to display a life worthy of the grace.

Wherefore he brings forward both the types of baptism and those of the mysteries.

And what does it mean, 'they were baptized into Moses'? Just as we, having believed in Christ and in His resurrection, are baptized, so as to share in the same mysteries with Him;

for 'we are baptized,' he says, 'on behalf of the dead,' that is, of our bodies;

so also those men, having taken courage from Moses—

that is, having seen him cross over first—themselves also ventured upon the waters.

But since he wishes to bring the type close to the reality, he does not speak in this way, but uses the names belonging to the reality even in the case of the type.

And this indeed is the symbol of the laver;

but the things that follow are the symbol of the sacred table.

For just as you eat the Lord's body, so those men ate the manna;

and just as you drink the blood, so also those men drank water from the rock.

For even though the things done were sensible, yet they were supplied spiritually—not according to the sequence of nature, but according to the bounty of grace—and, together with the body, nourished also the soul, leading it on to faith.

For this very reason he said nothing concerning the food;

for it was different not only in its manner but also in its nature;

but concerning the drink, since only the manner of the supply was marvelous, and it required preparation;

therefore, having said, 'They drank the same spiritual drink,' he added,

'For they drank of a spiritual Rock that followed them;'

and he added, 'And the Rock was Christ.'

For it was not the nature of the rock that sent forth the water, he says;

for otherwise it would have gushed forth even before this;

but some other, spiritual Rock wrought the whole thing—that is, Christ, who was present with them everywhere and worked all the wonders.

For on this account he said, 'that followed them.'

You see Paul's wisdom, how he shows that Christ was the supplier of both, and by this brings the type close to the reality? For He who furnished those things to those men, he says, this same One also prepared this table;

and the same One led those men through the sea and led you through baptism;

and to them He gave manna and water, and to you He gave body and blood.

And such are the things pertaining to His gift;

but let us look also at what follows, and consider whether He spared these people when they showed themselves unworthy of the gift.

But you could not say this;

wherefore he added, 'But with most of them God was not well pleased'—and that, though He had honored them with so great an honor.

But this profited them nothing; rather, the greater part perished.

But lest he should seem to be prophesying utter destruction to these Corinthians also, on this account he said, 'the greater part.'

And yet they were countless, but their multitude profited them nothing;

and all those things were tokens of love, but neither did this profit them, since they themselves did not display the works of love.

For since many disbelieve the words about hell, inasmuch as it is not present nor visible, he shows from things that have already come to pass that God punishes those who sin, even though He may have benefited them ten thousand times over;

for even if you disbelieve the things to come, he says, yet surely you will not disbelieve the things that have already happened.

Consider, then, how great were the benefits He bestowed on these people;

He delivered them from Egypt and from the bondage there, He spread out the sea beneath them, He brought down manna from heaven, He sent up from below strange and marvelous springs of water, He was present with them everywhere working wonders, and walling them about on every side;

yet nevertheless, since they displayed nothing worthy of this gift, He did not spare them, but destroyed them all.

'For they were overthrown,' he says, 'in the wilderness,'

signifying by this expression their sudden destruction, and the chastisements and the God-sent punishments, and that they did not even attain the prizes set before them.

For He did not work these things upon them in the land of promise, but outside it, somewhere far off and remote from that country, punishing them with a twofold punishment: both by not permitting them to see the land—and that though it had been promised to them—and by chastising them severely.

And what have these things to do with us? one asks;

'Now these things happened as types of us.'

For just as the gifts were types, so also the chastisements are types;

and just as baptism and the table were prefigured beforehand, so also, through the things that came after, it was proclaimed in advance for our sakes that those who are unworthy of this gift shall likewise be punished—that we might become more temperate by those examples.

'That we should not be desirers of evil things, as they also desired.'

For just as in the benefits the types went before and the truth followed after, so also in the punishments it will follow.

Do you see how he shows, not merely that

they shall be punished, but that they shall be punished even more severely than those of old? For if the one was a type and the other the truth, of necessity there must be great superiority also in the punishments, just as there is in the gifts.

And observe whom he first lays hold of:

those who ate in the idol-temples.

For having said, 'Be not desirers of evil things'—which was the general statement—he adds also the particular kind, showing that each of the sins arose from an evil desire:

'Neither be idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written,

The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.'

Do you hear how he now also calls them idolaters? But here he merely asserts it, while later on he also establishes it by proof.

And he has set down the cause also, on account of which they ran to those tables:

Wherefore, having said, 'That we should not be desirers of evil things,' and having added, 'Neither be idolaters,' he sets down the cause of such transgression;

and this was gluttony.

'For the people sat down,' he says, 'to eat and drink.'

And he adds the result that came of it, that 'They rose up to play.' For just as those men, he says, passed from luxury into idolatry;

so there is fear lest you also from this fall thither.

Do you see how he showed these supposedly perfect ones to be more imperfect than those of old? Whom he smote not only by this, that they would not bear with the weak, but also because some sinned from ignorance and others from gluttony;

and the punishment for the destruction of those he reckons against these; nor does he permit these to refer the pretext of their own sin to another, but declares them accountable both for the harm of those and for their own.

'Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication.'

For what reason does he here mention fornication again, having discoursed so much about it before? It is ever Paul's custom, when he brings accusation concerning many sins, both to set them in order and to go through them one by one as they lie before him, and again in his discourses about others to make mention also of the former ones;

which indeed God also did under the Old Covenant, reminding the Jews of the calf at each of their transgressions, and bringing that sin into the midst.

This then is what Paul also does here, at once reminding them of that sin, and teaching that this evil too was born from that source, from luxury and gluttony.

'Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.'

And why does he not set down also the punishment for the idolatry? Either because it was plain and more evident;

or because so great a plague did not then occur, as in the case of Balaam, when they were initiated to Baal-peor, the Midianite women having appeared before the army and drawn them into licentiousness according to the counsel of Balaam.

For that this wicked counsel was Balaam's, Moses makes plain when he afterward speaks thus, near the end of the Book of Numbers:

'And they slew Balaam the son of Beor in the war of Midian, among their slain, and brought the spoils.'

'And Moses was wroth, and said:

Why have you saved alive every female? For these were unto the sons of Israel a stumbling-block, according to the word of Balaam, to make them depart and disregard the word of the Lord for Peor's sake.'

'Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by the serpents.'

By this again he hints at another charge, which he also sets down near the end, accusing them of contending about signs, and of murmuring on account of their trials, saying, When will the good things come, when the rewards? Wherefore on this account also he goes on to correct them and put them in fear:

'Neither murmur, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer.'

For neither is this the only thing required, to suffer for Christ, but also to bear the things that come nobly, and with all gladness.

For this is the whole crown;

so that, if this be not so, punishment too will follow those who are impatient.

For this cause the apostles also rejoiced when they were scourged, and Paul gloried in his sufferings.

'And they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.'

Again he strikes fear by speaking of 'the ends,' and prepares them to expect greater things than those that have happened.

For that we shall pay the penalty is clear, he says, from the things spoken, even to those who disbelieve the words concerning hell;

and that we shall pay a more grievous penalty is clear from the greater benefits which we have enjoyed, and from the fact that those things were types.

For if in the gifts there is a superiority, it is evident that there is one also in the punishment.

For this reason he both called them types, and said they were written for our sake, and made mention of the end, that he might remind them of the consummation.

For the punishments then were not such as to have any end and be dissolved, but the chastisement is everlasting.

For just as the punishments here are dissolved together with the present life, so those there abide perpetually.

But when he says, 'The ends of the ages,' he means nothing else than that the fearful tribunal is henceforth close at hand.

'Wherefore let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.'

Again he cast down the conceit of those who thought highly of themselves on account of their knowledge.

For if those who had enjoyed so many things suffered such things, and some paid such a penalty for murmuring alone, and others for tempting, and neither did their multitude shame God, nor their attaining to such privileges;

much more shall this be so in our case, if we are not watchful.

For this very thing is not even to stand, as one ought to stand—to be confident in oneself;

for such a one will quickly fall;

since those men too, had they not thought highly and been confident, but had been humbled, would not have suffered these things.

Whence it is plain that arrogance most of all, and next sloth, and gluttony, are the sources of these evils.

So that even if you stand, guard against falling.

For to stand here is not to stand securely, until we are delivered from the waves of the present life, and sail into the calm harbor.

Therefore do not think highly of yourself because of your standing, but guard against the fall.

For if Paul feared, who was firmer than all men, much more ought we to fear.

Now the Apostle said, 'Wherefore let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall';

but we cannot even say this, seeing that almost all, so to speak, have fallen and been laid low and lie upon the ground.

For to whom shall I say this? To the man who plunders every day? But he lies fallen with a great fall.

Or to the fornicator? But he is cast upon the ground.

Or to the drunkard? But he too lies prostrate;

and he does not even know that he lies there.

So that it is not the time for this saying, but for that prophetic one, which He also spoke to the Jews:

'Shall not he that falls arise?' For indeed all lie prostrate, and are not willing to rise up.

So that our exhortation is not that we should not fall, but that those who lie fallen may be able to rise.

Let us then arise, late though it be, beloved—let us arise, and stand nobly.

How long do we lie? how long are we drunk, stupefied with the great desire for the things of this life? It is seasonable to say even now:

'To whom shall I speak, and testify?' So deaf are all, even to the very teaching of virtue, and so filled thereby with many evils!

And if it were possible to see souls laid bare, just as on the battlefields, when the engagement is over, one may behold some dead and others wounded, so also in the Church we should have seen it.

Therefore I beseech and exhort you, let us stretch out a hand to one another and rise up together.

For I too am among the wounded, and among those who need one to apply the remedies.

But do not on this account despair;

for though the wounds be grievous, yet they are not incurable.

Only let us be conscious of our wounds; and even if we have come to the very uttermost of wickedness, He cuts out for us many roads of salvation.

For if you forgive your neighbor his anger, your own transgressions shall be forgiven you;

'For if you forgive men,' He says, 'your heavenly Father will also forgive you.'

If you give alms, He will pardon your sins;

'For redeem your iniquities,' He says, 'by almsgiving.'

If you pray earnestly, you will obtain remission.

And this the widow shows, who bent that harsh judge by the persistence of her entreaty.

If you accuse yourself of your sins, you have consolation;

'For declare you first your sins, that you may be justified.'

If you are downcast on account of them, this too shall be for you a very great remedy;

'For I saw,' He says, 'that he was grieved and went about mournful, and I healed his ways.'

If, having suffered some evil, you bear it nobly, you have stripped off the whole.

For this too Abraham said to the rich man, that 'Lazarus received his evil things, and here he is comforted.'

If you show mercy to a widow, your sins are washed away;

'For judge the fatherless,' He says, 'and do justice to the widow; and come, let us reason together, says the Lord;

and though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow;

and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as wool.'

For He does not suffer even a scar of the wounds to appear.

But even if we have come into that depth of evils, into which he fell who had devoured his father's substance and was eating husks, if we repent, we are altogether saved;

and though we owe ten thousand talents, if we fall down and cherish no resentment, all is forgiven us;

and though we have wandered astray to that place where the sheep strayed off, from thence too He brings us back;

only let us be willing, beloved.

For this reason, in the case of him who owed ten thousand talents, He was content with the prostration; and in the case of him who had devoured his father's substance, with the mere return; and in the case of the sheep, with its willingness to be carried.

Considering therefore the greatness of His lovingkindness, let us here make Him propitious to us, and let us come before His presence with confession, lest departing hence without defense we endure the uttermost punishment.

For if in the present life we display zeal, even but a little, we shall gain the greatest things;

but if we depart hence having become no better here, even though we repent more vehemently there, it will avail us nothing.

For one must contend while remaining within the lists, not wail and weep uselessly after the theater has been dismissed;

which is what that rich man did, lamenting indeed and bewailing, but thenceforth in vain and to no purpose, since he had overlooked the time in which he ought to have done these things.

And not he alone, but many others also like him are now rich, unwilling indeed to despise wealth, but despising their soul in exchange for wealth;

at whom I am moved to marvel, when I see them continually entreating God for mercy, yet inflicting incurable evils upon themselves, and being as unsparing of their own soul as though it were an enemy.

Let us not then trifle, beloved, let us not trifle, nor deceive ourselves, asking God to have mercy on us, while we ourselves set above this mercy both money and luxury and, in a word, everything.

For if someone brought a suit against you, and in accusing a certain man said that, though about to suffer ten thousand deaths and being able to reverse the sentence with a little money, he chose rather to die than to part with any of his goods, you would not say that he deserved any mercy or pardon.

This, then, reckon also with respect to yourself;

for we too do this very thing, and despising our own salvation, we spare our money.

How then do you ask God to spare you, while you are yourself so unsparing of yourself, and prefer money to your soul? Wherefore I am also greatly amazed at how much sorcery lies hidden in money, or rather not in money, but in the souls of those who are deceived by it.

For there are, there are indeed, those who even greatly deride this witchcraft.

For what is there sufficient in these things to bewitch us? Is not the material lifeless? Is it not perishable? Is not the possession of it insecure? Is it not full of fears and dangers? Of murders and treacheries? Of enmity and hatred? Of much sloth and vice? Is it not earth and ashes? What madness is this, what disease!

But indeed, someone says, one must not only accuse those who are sick with such things, but also dissolve the passion.

And how shall we dissolve it otherwise than by showing it to be base and full of ten thousand evils? But this is not easy—to persuade the lover concerning his beloved.

We must therefore set another beauty against it.

But while still sick he does not see the incorporeal beauty;

let us therefore display a bodily one, and say to him:

Consider the meadows and the flowers in them, brighter than all gold and more graceful and translucent than gems of every kind;

consider the clear streams of the fountains, the rivers that flow noiselessly from the earth like oil;

go up to heaven, and behold the beauty of the sun, the comeliness of the moon, the flowers of the stars.

For indeed we do not use these things as we use money.

And yet more than money, inasmuch as the need of them is more necessary, and the enjoyment of them more secure.

For you do not fear lest someone, as with money, take them and go off;

but it is possible for you to be confident concerning them continually, and that too without anxiety or care.

But if you are grieved because you enjoy them together with others, and do not possess them alone as you do money, you seem to me to love not money but only greed.

For neither would you have loved money, if it lay open in common to all.

Since then we have found your beloved—I mean greed—come, let me show you how she hates you and turns away from you, how many swords she whets against you, how many pits she digs, how many nooses she kindles, how many precipices she prepares;

that even so you may quench the love-charm.

Whence then is it possible to know these things? From the highways, from the wars, from the sea, from the courts of law.

For indeed she has filled the deep with blood, and often unlawfully stains the swords of the judges, and arms those who lie in wait upon the roads by night and by day, and has persuaded men to be ignorant of nature, and has made parricides and matricides, and has brought into life all evils.

Wherefore Paul also calls it the root of these evils.

She suffers her own lovers to be in no better case than those who labor in the mines.

For just as those men, continually shut up and bound in darkness, toil to no profit;

so also these, buried in the caverns of avarice, with no one imposing necessity upon them, of their own accord draw down punishment upon themselves, putting about themselves bonds that cannot be loosed.

And the condemned, when evening comes on, are at least released from their labors;

but these, both by day and by night, dig at these wicked mines;

and for the former there is an appointed measure of that toilsome labor, but these know no measure at all, but the more they dig, the more they long for greater misery.

And if the former do it unwillingly, but these willingly, you tell me the grievous part of the disease—that they cannot even be delivered, seeing that they do not even hate their wretchedness.

But like a swine in the mire, so also these, wallowing in the foul stenches of avarice, take pleasure in it, suffering things more grievous than those condemned men.

For that they are in a worse case, hear the condition of the former, and then you will know that of the latter.

It is said, then, that that gold-bearing land has holes and hiding-places within those gloomy caverns;

The malefactor, then, who has been condemned to the toils of that place, on this account takes a lamp and a mattock, and so goes in within, and carries with him a little oil-flask, so that from it he may drip oil upon the lamp; for by reason of the darkness the place is without light even in the daytime, as I said before.

Then, when the hour calls him to his wretched meal, he himself does not know the time; but the keeper of that prison, striking violently upon the cave from above, makes known by that din and by that voice to those working below the ending of the day.

Did you not shudder on hearing these things? Let us see, then, whether the lovers of money do not suffer things more grievous than these.

For these too have a heavier jailer, namely covetousness; and by so much the heavier, in that it binds fast together with the body their very soul as well.

And this darkness too is more dreadful than that other;

for it is not perceptible to the senses, but, engendering it from within themselves, wherever they go they carry it about with them everywhere.

For the eye of their soul has been quenched.

Wherefore also, above all others, Christ pronounces them wretched, saying:

'But if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is the darkness!'

And those men at least have a lamp giving light; but these are deprived even of this radiance;

wherefore also each day they fall into ten thousand pits.

The condemned, when night comes on, breathe again, having sailed into the common calm of those who are in misfortune—I mean the night;

but for the lovers of money, covetousness silts up even this harbor;

so many things do they anxiously ponder even in the night, grievously, since—no one troubling them—with all leisure they cut themselves to pieces.

And such are the things here;

but the things there, what discourse shall set forth?—the intolerable furnaces, the rivers flaming with fire, the gnashing teeth, the bonds that cannot be loosed, the venomous worm, the lightless darkness, the evils that never come to an end. Let us therefore fear, beloved, let us fear the fountain of so many torments, the insatiable madness, the ruin of our salvation.

For it is not possible at the same time both to love money and to love one's soul.

Let us learn that riches are earth and ashes, that they forsake us as we depart hence; or rather, that even before our departure they often leap away from us, and injure us both as to the things to come and as to the present life.

For even before hell and before that punishment, here also it involves us in ten thousand wars, and stirs up factions and battles.

For nothing is so productive of war as the love of money;

nothing so productive of poverty, whether it appear amid wealth or amid want.

For this grievous disease grows up even in the souls of the poor, and afflicts their poverty yet more.

And if a poor man be found covetous, such a one pays the penalty not in money, but in famine.

For he cannot endure to enjoy his moderate means with security, but he racks his belly with hunger, and punishes his whole body with nakedness and cold, and everywhere appears more squalid and filthy than the prisoners;

and he is ever wailing and lamenting, as though he were the most wretched of all, even though he have ten thousand poorer than himself.

This man, even if he go into the marketplace, comes away having received many bruises;

even if into the bath, even if into the theater, he will receive yet more wounds, not from the spectators only, but even from those upon the stage, when he sees many of the harlot women gleaming with gold.

This man, even if he sail the sea, considering the merchants again and the ships that carry ten thousand loads and the boundless gains, will not even reckon himself to be alive;

and if he travel by land, reckoning up the fields, the suburban estates, the inns, the baths, and the revenues from these, he will thenceforth deem his own life not worth living;

and even if you shut him up at home, tearing open again the wounds from the marketplace, by himself he will the more grievously ravage his own soul;

and he knows of but one consolation alone for the evils that possess him—death and the release therefrom.

But these things not the poor man only, but also the rich man who has fallen into this disease will suffer, and by so much more than the poor man, in that a more vehement tyranny lies upon him, and a greater drunkenness.

Wherefore also he will deem himself poorer than all men; or rather he even is poorer.

For it is not by the measure of one's substance, but by the disposition of the mind, that wealth and poverty are judged;

and that man is rather the poorest of all who ever desires more, and can never bring to a stand this wicked desire.

For all these reasons then let us flee the love of money—the maker of poverty, the corrupter of the soul, the friend of hell, the enemy of the kingdom of heaven, the mother of all evils together;

and let us despise riches, that we may enjoy riches, and together with riches may enjoy also the good things promised to us;