講道與書信 第 7 章

The mercy and justice of God, most beloved, has unlocked for us by the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, with a most kindly exposition, the form of His recompenses ordained from the constitution of the world, so that, having received the significations of things, we might already know as if accomplished the things which we believe to be future. For our Redeemer and Savior knew how many errors the deceit of the devil had scattered throughout the whole world, and to how many superstitions he had subjected the greatest part of the human race. But lest, through ignorance of the truth, the creature made to the image of God should be driven further into the precipices of perpetual death, He inscribed in the evangelic pages the character of His judgment, which might recall every man from the snares of the most cunning enemy;

since it was now unknown to none what rewards were to be hoped for by the good, and what punishments to be feared by the evil. For that instigator and author of sin—first proud that he might fall, then envious that he might harm, because 'he stood not in the truth' (John 8:44)—placed all his force in falsehood, and produced every kind of deception from this most venomous fountain of his art: so that he might exclude from that good, which he himself had lost by his own pride, the hope of human devotion, and might drag into the fellowship of his own damnation those to whose reconciliation he himself could not pertain. Whoever, therefore, of men has offended God by any impieties, has been led astray by the fraud of this one, has been corrupted by the wickedness of this one.

For easily did he impel into all crimes those whom he deceived by religion. But knowing that God is denied not only by words but also by deeds, from many, from whom he could not take away faith, he took away charity; and, the field of their heart being occupied by the roots of avarice, he despoiled of the fruit of works those whom he did not deprive of the confession of the lips.

On account, therefore, of these wiles of the ancient enemy, most beloved, the ineffable kindness of Christ willed that we should know what was to be decreed concerning the whole of mankind on the day of recompense, so that while in this present time the medicine of lawful remedies is offered, while restoration is not denied to the fallen, and those who were long barren may at length become fruitful, the ordained decision of justice may be anticipated, and the image of divine discernment may never depart from the eyes of the heart. For the Lord will come in the glory of His majesty, as He Himself foretold (Matt. 25:31), and there will be with Him, radiant in His splendors, an innumerable multitude of angelic legions. Before the throne of His power will be gathered the peoples of all nations;

and whatever of men has been begotten in all ages throughout the whole world will stand in the sight of the Judge. The just will be separated from the unjust, the innocent from the guilty; and when the sons of piety, their works of mercy being reviewed, shall have received the kingdom prepared for them, the hardness of barrenness will be reproached to the unjust; and those on the left, having nothing in common with those on the right, will be sent by the judgment of the Almighty in condemnation into the fire prepared for the torments of the devil and his angels, destined to have fellowship of punishment with him whose will they chose to do. Who, then, would not dread that lot of eternal torments? Who would not fear the evils that are never to end?

But since severity has been announced for this reason, that mercy might be sought, in the present days one must live with the bounty of mercy, so that it may be possible for a man, returning after perilous negligence to the work of piety, to be freed from this sentence. For this the power of the Judge effects, this the grace of the Savior: that the impious man may forsake his ways, and the sinner may depart from the habit of his iniquity. Let them have mercy on the poor, who wish Christ to spare them. Let them be ready for the feeding of the wretched, who desire to attain to the fellowship of the blessed. Let not man be worthless to man, nor in anyone let that nature be despised which the Maker of things made His own. For to whom of the laboring is it lawful to deny what Christ professes to be bestowed upon Himself?

The fellow-servant is helped, and the Lord returns the favor. The food of the needy is the price of the heavenly kingdom; and the giver of temporal things is made heir of eternal ones. But whence have these slight expenditures merited to be reckoned at so great a valuation, except because the weights of the works of charity are weighed in the balance, and, when that is loved by man which God loves, one deservedly ascends into His kingdom, into whose affection one passes over?

To the pious care of these works, therefore, most beloved, the day of the apostolic institution invites us, on which the first collection of the holy contributions was prudently and usefully ordained by the Fathers: so that, because in this season the once-gentile people served the demons more superstitiously, against the profane sacrifices of the impious the most sacred offering of our alms might be celebrated. And because this was most fruitful for the increases of the Church, it was resolved to be perpetual.

Wherefore we exhort your holiness that throughout the churches of your regions, on the fourth weekday (Wednesday), you contribute from your means, as much as possibility and will persuade, to the expenses of mercy, so that you may be able to merit that blessedness in which he shall rejoice without end who understands concerning the needy and the poor (Ps. 40:1). Toward understanding whom, most beloved, one must watch with anxious kindness, that we may be able to find the one whom modesty covers and shame hinders. For there are those who blush to ask openly for the things they need, and prefer to be afflicted by the misery of silent want rather than to be confounded by public petition.

These, therefore, are to be understood, and to be relieved from their hidden necessity, so that they may rejoice the more on this very account, when provision has been made both for their poverty and for their modesty. And rightly in the needy and the poor is perceived the person of Jesus Christ our Lord Himself, who, though He was rich, as the blessed Apostle says, became poor, that by His poverty He might make us rich (2 Cor. 8:9). And lest His presence should seem to be lacking to us, He so tempered the mystery of His humility and His glory, that Him whom we adore as King and Lord in the majesty of the Father, we should feed in His poor; being for this reason freed, in the evil day, from perpetual damnation, and, on account of the care shown to the poor man understood, being grafted into the fellowships of heaven.

But that in all things, most beloved, your devotion may please the Lord, we also exhort you to this diligence: that you should publicly denounce to your presbyters the Manichaeans wherever they lie hidden. For it is a great piety to betray the hiding-places of the impious, and to war down in them the very devil whom they serve. For against these men, most beloved, it befits indeed the whole world and the entire Church everywhere to take up the arms of faith; but your devotion in this work ought to excel, you who in your forefathers learned the Gospel of the cross of Christ from the very mouth of the most blessed apostles Peter and Paul. Let not men lie hidden who do not believe that the law given through Moses, in which God the Creator of all is shown, is to be received;

they contradict the prophets and the Holy Spirit; they have dared with damnable impiety to reject the Psalms of David, which are sung throughout the universal Church with all piety; they deny the nativity of Christ the Lord according to the flesh; they say that His passion and resurrection were simulated, not true; they strip the baptism of regeneration of all the power of grace. Nothing is holy among them, nothing whole, nothing true. They are to be guarded against, lest they harm anyone; they are to be betrayed, lest they establish themselves in any part of our city. To you, most beloved, before the tribunal of the Lord it will profit, this which we enjoin, this which we ask.

For it is fitting that to the sacrifice of alms should be joined also the palm of this work, the Lord Jesus Christ aiding you in all things, who lives and reigns unto ages of ages. Amen.

Keeping the institutes of the apostolic tradition, most beloved, we exhort you with pastoral solicitude, that the day which they, purged from the superstition of the impious, consecrated to the works of mercy, we should celebrate with the devotion of a religious custom, showing that among us the authority of the Fathers lives on, and that their teaching abides in our obedience. Since the holy usefulness of so great an institution provided not only for the time past, but also for our age, so that what profited them for the destruction of vanities, this may profit us also for the increases of virtues. But what is so apt to faith, what so becoming to piety, as to help the poverty of the needy, to take up care of the sick, to relieve fraternal necessities,

and to be mindful, in one's own condition, of the labor of others?

In which work how much each one can, and how much he cannot, He alone truly discerns who knows what He has bestowed on each. For not only spiritual riches and heavenly gifts are received by God's giving, but also earthly and bodily resources come forth from His bounty, so that He will justly require an account of those things which He has handed over not so much to be possessed as committed to be dispensed. The gifts of God, therefore, are to be used justly and wisely, lest the material of a good work become the occasion of sin. For riches, as regards their species and substances themselves, are good, and are of the greatest profit to human society, when they are held by the benevolent and generous, and neither the luxurious man squanders them nor the miser hides them away, so that, ill-hoarded, they perish as much as, foolishly spent.

Although, moreover, it is praiseworthy to flee intemperance and to avoid the harms of base pleasures, and although many great men disdain to hide their resources and, abounding in plenty, shrink from cheap and sordid parsimony, yet the abundance of such men is not happy, nor their frugality to be approved, if their own resources serve only themselves; if by their goods no poor are helped, no sick are cherished; if from the abundance of great resources no captive feels redemption, no stranger consolation, no exile aid.

Rich men of this kind are more needy than all the needy. For they lose those revenues which they could have perpetual, and while they lie upon a brief and not always free enjoyment, they are fed by no food of justice, by no sweetness of mercy; splendid without, dark within; abounding in temporal things, destitute of eternal ones: because they themselves afflict their own souls with hunger and dishonor them with nakedness, who from those things which they have entrusted to earthly barns have brought nothing into the heavenly treasuries. But perhaps there are some of the rich who, although they are not wont to help the poor of the Church by any bounties, yet keep other commandments of God, and, amid diverse merits of faith and probity, deem that one virtue is pardonably lacking to them.

But this one virtue is so great, that without it the others, even if they exist, cannot profit. For although a man be faithful, and chaste, and sober, and adorned with other greater distinctions; if nevertheless he is not merciful, he does not merit mercy: for the Lord says: 'Blessed are the merciful, for God shall have mercy on them' (Matt. 5:7). But when the Son of man shall come in His majesty, and shall sit upon the throne of His glory, and, all nations being gathered together, the distinction of the good and the evil shall have been made (Matt. 25:31-33),

in which those who stand at the right hand will be praised for nothing except the works of benevolence and the offices of charity, which Jesus Christ will reckon as expended upon Himself. For He who made the nature of man His own, in nothing separated Himself from human lowliness. But to those on the left, what will be objected, except the neglect of love, the hardness of inhumanity, and mercy denied to the poor?—as though those on the right had no other virtues, nor those on the left other offenses. But in that great and supreme judgment, either the kindness of generosity or the impiety of niggardliness will be reckoned of such great account, that, in place of the fullness of all virtues and in place of the sum of all offenses, both by one good work these are led into the kingdom, and by one evil deed those are sent into the eternal fire.

Let no one, therefore, most beloved, flatter himself over any merits of a good life, if the works of charity be wanting to him; nor let him feel secure over the purity of his own body, if he is cleansed by no purification of almsgiving. For alms blot out sins, they destroy death, and they extinguish the punishment of everlasting fire. But whoever is empty of their fruit shall be a stranger to the mercy of the One who repays, as Solomon says: 'He who stops his ears that he may not hear the weak, he too shall call upon the Lord, and there shall be none to hear him.' Whence also Tobias, instructing his son in the precepts of piety, said: 'Out of thy substance give alms, and turn not away thy face from any poor man: so shall it come to pass that neither shall the face of God be turned away from thee.'

This virtue makes all the virtues profitable; it also gives life by its own admixture to that very faith by which the just man lives, and which without works is called dead. For as in faith there is the ground of works, so in works there is the strength of faith. While, therefore, we have time, as the Apostle says, let us work that which is good toward all, but especially toward those who are of the household of the faith. And let us not fail in doing good, for in due season we shall reap. This present life, then, is the time of sowing, and the day of recompense is the time of harvest, when each one shall receive the fruit of his seed according to the measure of his sowing.

But concerning the yield of that harvest no one shall be deceived, since there the measure of spirits, rather than of outlay, shall be reckoned; and they shall render as much little from little as much from much. And therefore, most beloved, let the apostolic institutions be satisfied. And because the first collection will be next Lord's Day, prepare yourselves all for a willing devotion, so that each one according to his means may have a share in the most sacred offering. The very alms themselves will plead for you, and those who are helped by your gifts; that you may always be fit for every good work, in Christ Jesus our Lord, who lives and reigns through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.