This homily seemed to Mabillon to be linked with the one we published above as no. 102: 'On that which is written in Isaiah, chapter 1: The innkeepers mix water with wine,' where St. Maximus treats of the ministry of the altar, and teaches that the priesthood is a trade not of riches but of souls. Since therefore this same argument is here resumed, and by the same doctrines the worldly trafficking of clerics is condemned, no one can doubt that this homily is to be conceded to the same Maximus. To the authority of the Codex Sangallensis, and the judgement of Mabillon and of Galland, who published it again, there is added the testimony of Codex 90 of Holy Cross in Jerusalem, where it is homily 23, with which we collated Galland's reading and in some places emended it. In the aforesaid codex of Holy
Cross the title is: 'Likewise, from the same, what follows'; for it follows a homily entitled: 'On that which is written: Render unto God the things that are God's, and concerning those who wage warfare.' Earlier we rebuked clerics who engage in trade in an unseemly manner, and chastised them, as it were, with a just sentence: but if we consider rightly, our office is truly a business; and the function of the priestly ministry is a certain function of spiritual merchandise. For we expend earthly things in order that we may attain heavenly ones; we lay out worldly moneys in order to acquire eternal riches: we feed others from our own hunger, so that our nourishment may not perish but increase.
For what does the refreshing of the poor through us mean, what the clothing of the naked, what the visiting of prisoners, except that the outlay which is expended on them is not spent but augmented; and the trafficking of silver, as it were, is preserved with a certain interest of gain? For a hungering poor man is a certain treasure to the rich. For he does not eat the alms given, but guards it. Though the flesh be dissolved, and the man be reduced to dust, yet the holy work lives on in him and remains, and will be for you at the day of judgement a fit witness—he who is to himself, as regards his own feeding, a useless labourer: so that credit may quickly be given to you for your works, when credit is not given to him for his own deeds. See therefore whether almsgiving is not a business.
What you have lavished on a friend perishes for you; only what you have given to a beggar does not perish for you. For at the day of judgement the poor profit you, but friends and sons profit nothing. They will plead your cause; these will not even be able to defend their own. For the office of Christianity is a certain merchandise, and the function of priests is a precious trade. For we have received the moneys of the Lord—that is, the words of the Saviour—to be dispensed to the peoples; concerning which words the Lord says in the Gospel to that grasping and unskilled trafficker of the priesthood: 'Thou wicked servant, thou oughtest to have put my money to the bankers at the table, and at my coming I should have exacted it with interest' (Matt. 25).
For he is accused, because by keeping silent he reserved to himself the precepts of the Godhead entrusted to him, which he ought to have multiplied by preaching. He will be accused, I say, because he did not sow by dispensing what he might reap by gathering; as the Apostle says: 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap' (Gal. 6). For the Lord says: 'At my coming I should have exacted it with interest.' Understand therefore that there is a business where, as it were, interest is demanded according to the terms: but not that interest by which the minds of the greedy are fed with the lucrative repayment of money, in which the debt is repaid to the creditor, yet the debt is not cancelled; but that interest is demanded where the reckoning is not of coins, but the conduct of morals is computed, where the matter is not of the capital of a loan, but inquiry is made concerning the capital of salvation.
For we are debtors, and we are held liable for a debt, not by a handwriting of letters, but by a handwriting of sins. Whence also the Apostle says, speaking of the Lord: 'Blotting out the handwriting which was against us' (Col. 2): and the rest. Of this debt, therefore, we are commanded to pay the interest; for the Lord makes mention of this debtor in the Gospel, saying that he is to be delivered to the exactor, to be cast into prison, and not to be released until he pay the last farthing (Matt. 5). Of these words, then, brethren, we too owe the interest; for since 'usury' (usura) is so called from 'using' (utendo), we shall have to give account how we use these words. For the Gospel does not preach in vain, the Apostles do not proclaim without purpose, the priests do not speak without cause:
into whosoever's ears the holy voice has come, they will either be blessed for their devotion, or held guilty for the testimony borne against them. Here it ends.