We have great concern for the whole brotherhood, faithful ones, especially over the guilty audacity of all the lost, that is, of gamblers, whose souls emerge into the pit of death for wickedness. And since in us the divine and fatherly piety has conferred the leadership of the apostolate and by heavenly favour has ordained the vicarious seat of the Lord, and we carry in our superior the origin of the authentic apostolate upon which Christ founded the Church, having received at the same time the power of loosing and binding and the care of remitting sins: we are warned by saving doctrine, lest, while we continually pardon those who offend, we ourselves be tormented together with them. And therefore we are called the salt of the earth, that from us the whole brotherhood may be salted with heavenly wisdom. For when he says:
But if the salt has become tasteless, it will be worth nothing, except to be cast out and trodden underfoot by men. This we dread and fear, lest, while in the Church we are secure that the priestly dignity has been handed to us by the Lord, we be found near certain slothful brethren in negligence; or lest, while we give false communion, that which we receive with honour from God's favour, we lose from our own action, the Lord being indignant. For divine Scripture says: Woe shall be to the shepherds. But if the shepherds themselves be found negligent, what shall they answer the Lord for the flocks, what shall they say? That they were harassed by the flocks? They are not believed:
It is an incredible thing that a shepherd can suffer anything from the flock; rather he will be punished the more for his lie. And another Scripture says: They have asked you to be their ruler; do not be exalted. Be to them as one of themselves: have care of them, and so recline. And again: Reckon the priest to be a cultivator, and that with him are all delights, granaries full, from which my people may be satisfied with whatever it desires. Now, that it may be established that we, that is the bishops, are shepherds of spiritual sheep, that is of faithful men who are set under our care, let no fault of scab be found in them. Rather let them be daily examined by us, that, the heavenly remedy being applied, their fleeces may grow flourishing for them, who advance to the brightness of the heavenly garment.
In the Gospel the Lord said to Peter: Peter, he says, do you love me? And Peter answered: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And he said: Feed my sheep. And solicitously commanding a third time, he confirmed it, saying: Feed my sheep. And since we have received the episcopate, that is the Holy Spirit, by the laying on of the hand of the heart, into our hospitality, let us set forth no sadness to our fellow-dweller. The Lord admonishes and says: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit who is in us, and, Do not extinguish the light which has shone forth in us. But as great as, for a bishop acting well and admonishing wholesomely, are the worthy martyrdoms without tribulation of the body, so great also are the torments heaped upon a bishop who is negligent and brings forth no lessons from the holy Scriptures.
The Apostle Paul rouses us and sets bishops, worthy of their standing, as stewards of the evangelical doctrine, and says: As long as the heir is an infant, he is under stewards and managers; but when he has grown, then he seeks his inheritance. We too are dispensers and stewards of the Gospel: here too among dispensers and stewards it is sought that one be found faithful and just. If therefore among dispensers and stewards it is sought that one be found faithful and just, what if all offend and the dispensers pardon those who offend? Do they not themselves burden themselves with the weight of the offenders?
The same Apostle Paul recalls, when to Timothy, for teaching and strengthening in the firmness of faith, lest he deceive God in anything and lest the evil one intervene against the prayers of the saints, provident and solicitous, saying: O Timothy, my son, guard what has been entrusted to you: do not spurn the gift that is in you through the laying on of the hands of the elders: gird yourself strongly and do your ministry manfully, fulfilling it with integrity: be to the rest an example in good things. Let no one contradict you, let no one despise your youth: reprove the sinner before many, that the rest also may have fear, and do not share in the sins of others. And again:
If any brother is called a fornicator or an idolater or greedy or a robber or unjust, with such a one not even to take food. And in another place: Whoever a brother lives after the manner of strangers and admits things like their deeds, cease to be at his banquet: for unless you do this, you too will be a partaker with him. And in the Teachings of the Apostles: If any brother offends in the Church and does not obey the law, let him not be gathered in until he does penance, and let him not be received, lest your prayer be defiled and hindered. And again the Apostle says: Remove the evil ones from your midst.
But if by the unity of many witnesses and by concordant admonition we are taught not even to eat food with offending brethren, how much more ought such a one to be kept away also from the sacrifice of Christ? How great and lavish is the piety of the Lord toward the faithful, that, foreknowing, he takes counsel for us in the future, lest any incautious brother be again caught in the snares of the devil. He has commanded us to be solicitous and provident and instructed, since that ancient enemy goes about knocking, tempting the servants of God by no single kind. For many are his temptations, of which the beginnings are:
Idolatry, adulteries, thefts, plunderings, greed, fraud, drunkenness, impatience, adulteries, murders, jealousy, treachery, false testimonies, false speech, envy, arrogance, cursing, error, and any similar things that agree with these, among which is the gaming-board. The devil's manifest snare presides over it, bearing the deadly poison of the serpent and a corrupting enticement: which, though it seems to be nothing, works a great overthrow for those who embrace it.
What manner of thing is this, I ask you, O faithful, that the hand which has already been cleansed from human wrongs and admitted to the Lord's sacrifice, and which, in what pertains to the salvation of the whole man, itself receives grace from God's condescension, itself rises up in the sanctuary to the praise of the Lord, itself marks upon our foreheads the sign of Christ by which we are protected, itself completes the divine sacraments — what is it that this same hand should again be entangled in the snares of the devil from which it was loosed? I speak of the gambler's hand, which destroys and condemns its very self; the hand which has grown accustomed to that lustful pursuit, that is, the dicing-board, which is the devil's hunting-spear and the incurable wound of sin.
The dicing-board, I say, where the devil stands ready to seize the man laid low; and when he has taken his captive, his triumph is treachery, false witness. The dicing-board, I say, where there is madness and fury, and venal perjury, and serpent-like conversation. There is rabid friendship, there the monstrousness of the most atrocious crime, there discordant brotherhood, there reviling and savage recklessness, and an insane mind and wild impatience. The dicing-board, I say, where there is loss of possessions and the ruin of vast sums of money, and litigious display and thievish madness. O the guilt of gamblers, a sedentary and sluggish wickedness! O cruel hands, armed to their own peril, which squander in shameful pursuit the goods of their fathers and the wealth of their forefathers won by their sweat.
A grim hand, harmful and sleepless, night and day the armor-bearer of its own instruments, which by its sins has condemned itself and after the sin does not cease. O wicked hand, armed for the ruin of its own master, which loses its whole substance for the filthiest of coins; and though it had so much wherewith to increase the family estate, and wealth of great abundance, now it is destitute and poor. Dicing is what the law hates; dicing is what an ignoble charge pursues, where the temptation is manifest but the penalty hidden. That gaming-tray is a snare of evil and the tripping-up of the enemy, which brings no gain but consumes the whole.
Hence men become poor, hence they lose their wealth, hence, when all their goods are already consumed, they bury themselves under borrowed money, hence they lose their patrimony without any lawsuit of the forum. What sort of men are they, O faithful, who, though no one persecutes them, persecute themselves with envy, and squander their fathers' inheritances under the manifold reckoning of the dice-bones? There is a time too when the gamblers themselves, together with prostitute women, keep nightly vigils behind closed doors in the presence of their patron: the wretches arm themselves against themselves, filled with the spirit of the devil. And there they commit a double and twofold crime. Here rattles the sound of the dice, there in silence incest is at work.
Here, with no regard for their own dignity and with no excuse, they are compelled by a pestilent zeal to give up their goods; there in secret a deadly poison is drunk. Whence comes this sacrilegious contrivance, whence this crime? We prove it by the testimony of authorities. For when a certain man, well learned in the pursuit of letters, by much reflection devised this evil and so pernicious pursuit — at the instigation of the devil, who had filled him with his arts — he thus displayed this craft, which he even fashioned to be worshipped in carvings bearing his own image. And so he set up an image of his own likeness with an inscription of his own name, the enemy suggesting it to him, who put it into his heart to think up this craft.
So then, showing himself in a pernicious image, he set himself up in a certain lofty place, carrying this dicing-board in his bosom, so that he might appear as the very player and inventor of this malice — whose name ought not to be named by the servants of God (for he is as base in his name as he is wicked in his deeds) — and that whoever, being a servant of God, should embrace the dicing-board might be called by the name of its founder. For when he formed himself in little statues and images, he devised yet another crime, whereby he declared that he was to be worshipped by his imitators; he laid down a law of sacrificing to himself, so that whoever wished to cling to his pursuit should not first stretch out his hand to the board unless he had first sacrificed to its founder.
Hence it came about that one who had once been a man, and an adulterer through the committing of a crime, after his death came to be worshipped by profane and erring men under the false name of a deity. Whoever shall play at the dicing-board ought also to know sorcery — which be far from the servants of God, knowing that this frenzy is baleful and poisonous, and that on the day of judgment it shall again be tortured in whirling fire. Whoever shall play at the dicing-board must first sacrifice to its founder, which is not lawful for Christians, since the Lord says: 'He that sacrificeth to gods shall be rooted out, save unto the Lord alone'; and again: 'Do not sacrifice to strange gods, lest ye provoke me by the works of your hands to destroy you.'
Whoever thou art, a Christian, and dost play at the dicing-board — even if thou dost not sacrifice, by the law thou art a partaker of this crime. And indeed the Lord meets thee and says: 'Go out from her, my people, lest thou be partaker of her sins.' And again: 'Depart, depart from thence, go out from the midst of her, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.' Whoever thou art, a Christian, and dost play at dice, this thou must know in the first place: that thou art not a Christian, but thy name is heathen, and that which pertains to the Lord's sacrifice thou takest in vain. For thus the Lord says: 'No unclean person shall touch the holy sacrifice.' And again: 'Every man eating the flesh of the sacrifice while his uncleanness is upon him: that soul shall perish from my people.'
Whoever thou art, a gambler, thou callest thyself a Christian, which thou art not, because thou art a partaker of the world. Nor canst thou have friendship with Christ, thou who art a friend to Christ's enemy. Surely, what madness of the faithful who gamble! — where they rave and perish with the foulest of cries, and, blinded by the darkness of the devil, lay hands upon one another, curse, devote themselves to destruction, and dishonor the origin of their parents before the crowds present. Publicly rattles the din of the dice; their hands hasten to the murder of their own inheritance; and the wretch does not understand what harm he does himself when he pledges himself to the dice. And he who is already often beaten is again roused, at the devil's urging, to a yet more harmful pursuit.
O craft hostile to those who practice it, and a lustful pursuit, which bestows not riches but nakedness and want! A butchering hand, a harmful hand, which does not cease even after its gains, but still plays on after its losses. A Christian who plays at dice defiles his hands upon the patron, among those who offer sacrifice to the devil. And therefore the Lord declares that he is indignant at this: 'Stretch not out,' he says, 'your hands unjustly, lest ye exasperate me, and I will not suffer you to remain long upon the earth'; and again: 'Keep your hands from the unjust thing, and do not do any evil.' And the most blessed apostle Paul likewise says:
'See, brethren, that ye be not conformed to this world, nor to its pomps and delights and pleasures, but restrain yourselves from all the injustice of the world.' For that there is no excuse for sin against God, nor any indulgence, and pardon is granted to none, the Lord says in the Gospel: 'If any man,' he says, 'shall speak blasphemy against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but he that shall sin against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither here nor in the world to come.' And again through the prophet: 'If a man sin by offending against a man, prayer shall be made for him unto the Lord; but if he sin against God, who shall pray for him?' And the blessed apostle, the steward and vicar of Christ, exercising the care of the Church, lays it down and says:
'Ye are the temple of God, and in you dwelleth Christ: if any man violate the temple of God, God shall destroy him.' And the Lord again in the Gospel disowns sinners and reproaches them, saying: 'Depart from me, all ye that work iniquity: I know you not.' And the apostle John says: 'Every one that sinneth is not of God, but is of the devil; and ye know that the Son of God is to come for this, that he may destroy the sons of the devil.' Whosoever thou art, a Christian gambler, thou art an enemy to thyself and to thine inheritance. Whoever thou art, cease, wretch, from that madness of thine. Why dost thou of thine own accord cast thyself with the devil into the snare of death? Why dost thou lose thy wealth and riches for the filthiest of coins? Why dost thou entangle thyself in the snares of the world, that thou mayest be judged along with the world?
Why dost thou sin by praising thine enemy with thy applause — the enemy with whom thou must needs be punished? Be rather not a gambler but a Christian; scatter thy money upon the Lord's table, with Christ sitting by, the angels beholding, and the martyrs present; divide among the poor thy patrimony, which perhaps thou wast about to lose in a savage pursuit; commit thy riches to the conquering Christ; as a servant be summoned along with thy Lord; obey a God-serving zeal; imitate the craft of the Lord, which loses nothing but rather gains. Cease from those most thievish ways of thine; restrain thy headlong wickedness. Let thy daily game be with the poor; let thy frequent labor be with the widows.
Sell off all thy revenues and thy furnishings for the service of the Church; lay up thy gold and silver and money in the treasuries of heaven; by just labor transfer thy estates and villas to Paradise, that thy sins may be forgiven thee through alms; and give thyself to unceasing works. Play not at dice, where the game is harmful and a deadly crime, where there is madness without reflection, where there is no truth, but a den of lies. Cut off thy hand from thence, and turn away thy heart from thence; draw out the darkness of the enemy from thine eyes, and purify thy hand from the sacrifices of the devil.
Cast away from thee thy thievish ways; be patient and a Christian; be just and provident for thyself and thy life in thy works; flee the pursuing devil, and flee the dice that are the enemy of thy works. Let thy pursuit be that of wisdom, to be instructed by the counsels of the Gospel, to stretch out pure hands to Christ, that thou mayest be able to merit the Lord. Look not back upon the dice. Amen.