This homily bears a longer heading in codex Plut. XIV of the Laurentian Library, in these words: On avarice, that it is greatly to be detested, signified by the camel. It lacks the author's name; some have attributed it to St. Ambrose, as did the older Parisian editors of his works. But the Maurists have assigned it to Maximus. More truly indeed; since the often-praised codices of Holy Cross in Jerusalem also count this among the sermons of Maximus. In codex 90 it is marked with this title: Here begins on that which was said in the Gospel, the Lord saying: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven; and it is number 50. Codex 99 records it as number 4 with the title: On the camel.
The Lord Jesus Christ says in the Gospel: Amen I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19). I fear that this saying may perhaps fit you, who either possess or seek the riches of this world. For just as the very deformity of the camel's body, which is crooked and misshapen, does not allow that animal to pass through the very narrow hole of a needle, so too the very deformity of life does not in the least permit the rich, laden with avarice and defiled with cupidity, to enter through the strait way of the kingdom. For the same Lord says: Strait and narrow is the way which leads to life (Matt. 7). Therefore in the camel it is the frame of its members that makes the difficulty of entrance.
But in the rich man it is the magnitude of his sins that creates the hindrance. For it is a certain hump of the soul, to think or do something base, and a certain crooked deformity of the mind, ever to bend toward unclean things and to be called away from the holy threshold of the Church by worldly cares. Whence it seems to me that the prophet, speaking spiritually of this deformity of body, rather indicated the foulness of morals, when he says: Let not the hunchbacked glory as the upright does. As if he said: let not the sinner, distorted by the depravity of his vices, glory as the just man glories, made straight by the simplicity of a good conscience. For although, O sinner, you rejoice in the height of your body, although you delight in the evenness of your shoulders,
yet your soul is deformed by the depravity of your deeds. Rightly, then, is the rich man compared to a camel. For just as the thickness of that animal's body keeps it back from the passage of the needle, so the anxiety over his inheritance holds the rich man back from entering the Church. And as the small hole does not take in the one laden with the mass of his members, so the holy entrance does not receive the one weighed down with the heap of his offenses. Each has his own burden: the one is laden with flesh, the other with sins; and as the one is unfit for the very narrow hole of the needle, so the other is unsuited for the most blessed kingdom of God; except that nature makes the camel ill-formed in body, whereas the will makes the rich man depraved.
Now these things I say, brethren, concerning those who, so as not to attend the most festive day of the holy Epiphany in the Church, were held fast by the fetters of their inheritances, and were bound by a certain earthly chain, so that they were not permitted to come to the house of the Lord. Not that anything holds them back, but that they are so entangled in their own affairs that they have already lost the free choice of living from their own power; and while they display anxiety over their inheritance, they utterly fail to seek the medicine of their souls. Why, O rich man, do you object to me the difficulty of the time? Why do you allege a sudden necessity? If you have a heart, understand that greater than every necessity is the necessity of salvation:
and it is more profitable first to take care of one's life than to repair the losses of one's property, lest while we seek the increase of our inheritance, we suffer the detriment of our soul. But perhaps you fear the judge whom you left in the courtroom. Believe me, that you ought rather to fear God as Judge, who will judge concerning that very judge of yours. Do you then fear him who will soon receive a successor, and not fear the Lord, whom no one ever succeeds? Consider, therefore, the impending day of judgment, and the inextinguishable flames of Gehenna, the horrid gnashing of teeth, the uttermost torment of the darkness. And if you can, having forsaken the Church, entangle yourself in worldly cares.
For I fear lest, while you seek the riches of the world, you rather find the riches of sins, and having found the treasures of this age, you lose the heavenly treasures. Here it ends.