Moralia in Job 1010

29. Let humility accompany mercy toward the poor. Those who bestow alms after uttering reproaches scarcely make satisfaction for that injury. — That he did not despise the poor man, he displayed the virtue of humility; that he clothed him, of piety. For these two virtues ought to be so joined to one another that they may always be supported by a reciprocal work; so that neither may humility, when it venerates a neighbour, forsake the grace of bounty, nor may piety, when it bestows, grow swollen. Toward the neediness of a neighbour, therefore, let piety support humility, and humility support piety, so that when you see one needy of the necessary things a partaker of your own nature, you neither through impiety cease to clothe, nor through pride neglect to venerate him whom you read of.

For there are some who, as soon as they are asked for necessaries by needy brethren, before they bestow their gifts, first hurl contumelious words against them. Who, even if in deeds they accomplish the ministry of piety, yet in words they lose the grace of humility; so that for the most part it seems that they now pay satisfaction for an injury already inflicted, when after contumelies they bestow gifts. Nor is it a great work that they give what is asked, because by the very gift of their giving they scarcely cover over that same excess of speech. To whom it is well said through the book of Ecclesiasticus: 'In every gift give not the sadness of an evil word' (Ecclus. 18:16). And again:

'Behold, a word is above a good gift, and both are with a justified man' (Ibid. 17): namely, that the gift ought to be shown through piety, and the good word bestowed through humility. But on the contrary, others do not study to support their needy brethren with substance when they are able, but only to cherish them with soothing words. Whom the holy preaching of James vehemently reproves, saying: 'If a brother or sister be naked, and lack daily food, and one of you say to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled; yet give them not those things which are necessary for the body, what shall it profit?' (James 2:15-16). Whom also John the Apostle admonishes, saying: 'My little children, let us not love in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth' (1 John 3:18).

For our love must always be shown both by the veneration of speech and by the ministry of bounty. To the poor giving alms, we offer gifts to patrons. We sow what we may afterwards reap with great interest. — But it avails much to subdue the giver's pride, if, when he bestows earthly things, he anxiously weighs the words of the heavenly Master, who says: 'Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings' (Luke 16:9). For if by their friendships we acquire everlasting dwellings, we who give ought without doubt to weigh that we rather offer gifts to patrons than bestow bounties on the needy. Hence it is said through Paul:

'Let your abundance supply their want, that their abundance also may be a supply to your want' (2 Cor. 8:14). That is, that we may anxiously weigh that even those whom we now perceive to be needy we shall one day see abounding; and we who are now looked upon as abounding, if we neglect to bestow, shall one day be needy. He therefore who now bestows temporal aid upon a poor man, being afterwards about to receive from him perpetual aid, so to speak, cultivates the earth as for a crop, which more abundantly renders what it has received. It remains therefore that elation never rise from the gift, when, namely, the rich man from that which he bestows on the poor acts that he himself may not be poor for ever.

Therefore blessed Job, that he might diligently show with how great consideration humility and mercy were joined together in him, says: 'If I have despised him that was passing by, because he had no clothing, and the poor without covering; if his sides have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep.' As if he plainly said: In the love of the neighbour, pressing down by one and the same order both the vice of pride and the vice of impiety, one passing by and beholding him humbly I did not despise, and mercifully I warmed him.

For whosoever exalts himself with the haughtiness of elation over him to whom he bestows something, commits a greater fault inwardly by growing proud than he earns a reward outwardly by bestowing; and he himself becomes naked of the interior goods, when he despises the naked one in clothing him; and he acts so that he becomes worse than his own self, in that he thinks himself better than the needy neighbour. For less needy is he who has not a garment than he who has not humility. Whence it is necessary that when we behold the partakers of our nature not having outward things, we weigh how many good interior things are lacking to us; so that thought may not lift itself above the needy, when it carefully sees that we are the more truly needy the more inwardly we are so. 31. Let alms be given even to the unknown.

— And because there are some who know not how to extend the bowels of their piety even to the unknown, but have mercy only on those whom they have come to know through the constancy of acquaintance — among whom, indeed, familiarity avails more than nature, since they bestow necessaries on certain ones not because they are men, but because they are known — well is it now said through blessed Job: 'If I have despised him that was passing by, because he had no clothing.' For he indicates that he had mercy on an unknown neighbour, whom he calls one 'passing by,' because with a pious mind nature avails more than acquaintance. For everyone also who is in need, by that very fact that he is a man, is now no stranger to him. It follows: