Moralia in Job 1035

53. How greatly prelates sin who mutely eat the goods of the Church. How much solicitude those who preside owe to their subjects. — For to eat the fruits of the land without money is indeed to receive maintenance from the Church, but not to render to that same Church the price of preaching. Concerning which preaching it is said by the voice of the master: 'Thou oughtest to have committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received back my own with interest' (Matt. xxv, 27). He, therefore, eats the fruits of the land without money who receives ecclesiastical benefits for the use of the body, but does not expend the ministry of exhortation to the people.

What to these things do we pastors say, who, running before the coming of the strict judge, indeed take up the office of herald, but mutely eat the ecclesiastical nourishments? We exact what is owed to our body, but do not expend what we owe to the heart of our subjects. Behold, the holy man, bound by so many pledges in this world, amid innumerable occupations was free for the pursuit of preaching. He never ate the fruits of the land without money, because assuredly he rendered to his subjects the word of good admonition, from whom he received the fruits of bodily service.

For this everyone who presides over a people owes to almighty God—he who presides over many, he who presides over fewer—that he so exact the owed ministries from his subjects, that he himself also, solicitous, may ever attend to what he owes of admonition. For all of us who under the dispensation of the Creator are joined by a vicarious ministry, under one and true Lord, what else are we to one another but mutually servants? Since, therefore, he who is subject serves for obedience, it assuredly remains that he who presides serve for the word. Since he who is subject obeys commands, it behoves that he who presides expend the care of solicitude and of piety.

And so it comes about that, while we now zealously strive to serve one another through charity, we may one day, with the true Lord, in common exultation reign. But there are some who, in that they exhibit the office of preaching, envy others the good which they themselves have, and therefore truly no longer have it. To whom it is rightly said through James: 'But if ye have bitter zeal, and there are contentions in your hearts, this is not the wisdom descending from above, but earthly, animal, devilish' (James iii, 14-15). Whence here too, when it has been said, 'If I have eaten its fruits without money,' it is rightly subjoined: CHAPTER XXIII. 54. Let the ruler of the churches not envy those who cooperate with him in preaching.

— For the husbandmen of this land are those who, set in a lower place, with what zeal they can, with as much labour as they are able, cooperate for the instruction of the holy Church in the grace of preaching. Which husbandmen of this land not to afflict is this—not to envy their labours—lest the ruler of the Church, while he claims the right of preaching for himself alone, should, with envy gnawing him, gainsay also others who preach rightly. For the pious mind of pastors, because it seeks not its own glory but the author's, wishes what it does to be helped by all. For the faithful preacher desires, if it can be brought about, that the truth which he alone does not suffice to speak, the mouths of all should sound.

Whence, when Joshua wished to withstand the two who remained in the camp and were prophesying, it is rightly said through Moses: 'Why art thou jealous for me? Would that all the people might prophesy, and that the Lord would give them his spirit!' (Num. xi, 29). For he wished all to prophesy, who envied not others the good which he himself had. Since, therefore, blessed Job set forth all these things conditionally, and if he has by no means done them binds himself to the sentence of malediction, there follows: