(Admonition 22.) In one way are those to be admonished who neither covet others' goods nor bestow their own; and in another those who both give of what they have, and yet do not cease to plunder others' goods. Those are to be admonished who neither covet others' goods nor bestow their own, that they may know with all care that the earth from which they were taken is common to all men, and therefore brings forth food likewise for all in common. In vain, then, do they think themselves innocent who claim as their own private possession the common gift of God; who, in not bestowing what they have received, work the death of their neighbours, since they slay well-nigh as many each day as they have poor men's supports of the dying hidden away with them. For when we minister necessaries of any kind to the needy, we render to them their own; we do not bestow what is ours;
we discharge a debt of justice rather than fulfil works of mercy. Whence Truth itself, when speaking of mercy to be shown with caution, says: 'Take heed that you do not your justice before men' (Matt. 6:1). To which sentence the Psalmist also, agreeing, says: 'He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his justice remaineth for ever' (Ps. 111:9). For when he had first mentioned the bounty bestowed on the poor, he chose to call it not mercy, but justice; because what is given by the common Lord is assuredly just, that whoever receive it should use it in common. Hence too Solomon says: 'The just man giveth and ceaseth not' (Prov. 21:26).
They are also to be admonished to attend carefully to how the strict husbandman complains against the fig tree that bore no fruit, because it even took up the ground. For the fig tree takes up the ground without fruit when the mind of the tenacious keeps uselessly to itself what might have profited many. The fig tree takes up the ground without fruit when the fool, through the shadow of sloth, holds down the place which another, by the sun of good work, might have made fruitful. But such men are wont sometimes to say: We use what has been granted to us, we do not seek what is another's; and if we do not perform deeds worthy of the reward of mercy, yet we commit nothing perverse. This they think because they close the ear of the heart against the words of heaven.
For the rich man in the Gospel, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day (Luke 16:19 ff.), is not said to have plundered another's goods, but to have used his own unfruitfully; and after this life avenging hell received him, not because he did anything unlawful, but because by immoderate use he gave himself over wholly to lawful things. The tenacious are to be admonished to know that they do this first injury to God, in that to Him who gives them all things they render no sacrifice of mercy. Hence the Psalmist says: 'He shall not give to God his ransom, nor the price of the redemption of his own soul' (Ps. 48:8). For to give the price of redemption is to render a good work to the grace that goes before us. Hence John cries out, saying:
'Now the axe is laid to the root of the tree. Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire' (Luke 3:9). Those, then, who deem themselves harmless because they do not plunder others' goods, let them foresee the stroke of the near-approaching axe, and lay aside the torpor of an improvident security, lest, while they neglect to bear the fruit of good work, they be utterly cut off from the present life as though from the greenness of the root. On the other hand, those are to be admonished who both give of what they have and do not cease to plunder others' goods, that they may not seek to appear exceedingly bountiful, and thereby, under a show of good, become worse. For these, giving away their own without discernment, not only, as we have already said above, break out into the murmuring of impatience;
but, driven by want, they sink even to avarice. What, then, is more wretched than the mind of those from whose liberality avarice is born, and in whom a crop of sins is sown as though out of virtue? First, therefore, they are to be admonished to know how to keep their own reasonably, and then at last not to covet others' goods. For if the root of the fault be not burned out in the very outpouring, never is the thorn of avarice, luxuriating through its branches, dried up. The occasion of plundering, then, is taken away if the right of possessing be first well ordered. But then let the admonished hear how they are to bestow mercifully what they have, when indeed they have learned not to confound the goods of mercy through the interposed wickedness of plunder. For they violently seek out what they mercifully bestow.
But it is one thing to show mercy for sins, and another to sin in order to show mercy: which can then no longer be called mercy, since it does not advance to sweet fruit that which grows bitter through the poison of a pestilential root. Hence it is that the Lord reproves even sacrifices themselves through the prophet, saying: 'I am the Lord that love judgment, and hate robbery in a burnt offering' (Isa. 61:8). Hence again He said: 'The sacrifices of the wicked are abominable, which are offered of wickedness' (Prov. 21:27). Such men often even take away from the needy what they bestow on God. But with how great a chastisement the Lord rejects them, He shows through a certain wise man, saying:
'He that offereth sacrifice of the substance of the poor is as one that sacrificeth the son in the presence of his father' (Ecclus. 34:24). For what can be more intolerable than the death of a son before his father's eyes? Thus it is shown with how great wrath this sacrifice is regarded, in that it is compared to the grief of a bereaved father. And yet very often they weigh how much they give, but neglect to consider how much they plunder. As it were, they count up their wage, and refuse to weigh their faults. Let them therefore hear what is written: 'He that hath gathered wages, hath put them into a bag with holes' (Hag. 1:6). For in a bag with holes it is seen when money is put in; but when it is lost, it is not seen.
Those, then, who look at how much they bestow, but do not weigh how much they plunder, put their wages into a bag with holes; because indeed, looking to them in the hope of their own confidence, they heap them up, but, not looking, they lose them.