That which today the Lord is read to have answered Peter as he questioned Him, the hearing of many has perceived to have been spoken figuratively to the Apostles themselves, to teachers only, and to those who preside over the Churches. Peter asks: 'Lord, do You speak this parable to us, or also to all?' To whom the Lord answered: 'Who, do you think, is the faithful and prudent steward, whom the lord has set over his household, to give them in due time their measure of wheat? Blessed is that servant whom his lord, when he comes, shall so find doing: truly I say to you that he will set him over all that he possesses. But if that servant say in his heart:'
'my lord delays his coming, and shall begin to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and be drunken; the lord of that servant will come in a day when he does not expect, and in an hour when he does not know, and will cut him asunder, and will appoint his portion with the unbelievers.' This similitude indeed constrains first of all the prelates of the Churches, but this figure exempts absolutely no man, no mortal, for while it speaks to the steward, it answers all, though one alone asks: If there is anyone who has received nothing from God, he will not fear the reckoning of the stewardship, the office of a steward. O man, if you have received this very thing which you give, how will you deny that you have received what you have?
He who dispenses the goods of the Church will render an account of the heavenly stores, of the divine granaries; he will present his reasons. And the greater the trust he receives, the greater the debt he does not doubt he must repay, the Lord saying: 'To whom more is committed, more will be demanded of him' (Luke XII). And elsewhere: 'The mighty shall be mightily tormented' (Wisdom VI, 7). The higher a man has ascended, the higher he falls. What is higher than heaven? From heaven he falls, who sins amid heavenly things; he rushes into despair who gives offense in the very eyes of the Ruler; and he lacks excuse who commits a crime with the Judge Himself as witness. Or what defense does he hope for, whom the testimony of the Judge accuses?
Thus the devil, though he was an angel, and dwelt always most illustrious and shining both in heaven and before God, while he tempts the ears of God, while he grows proud in God's sight, was cast down headlong to earth, to the nether regions, and is changed from an angel into a devil; and he who was a minister of pardon was made a leader of punishments. Hence it is that the Apostle admonishes the man of our order, lest he fall into the pride and the snare of the devil.
The dispenser therefore of the divine word and the steward of heavenly doctrine, who stands continually before the Lord, dwells ever among the altars, and never withdraws from the eyes of God, who takes up the causes of sinners and the sorrows of the people, offers and heaps up prayers, receives, reports back, and restores what has been obtained, being wholly transformed from a man into an angel — he cannot sin except in the very face of God, amid the holy of holies, so as to take up for himself a crime there whence he was wont to bring back pardon for others. Finally, Nadab and Abihu, priests, the sons of Aaron the priest, while they presumed to profane the altars with strange fire, were consumed by the fire of that very altar, so that they might take punishment from the sacrifice, they who had made sin out of propitiation (Leviticus X):
which sin drunkenness had stirred up in them; for the odor of wine had put to flight the odor of the incense, and the fire of drunkenness had provoked the flame of the altar. Wherefore, because, estranged by wine, they had carried strange fire, they are at once reported extinguished by the divine fire. Drunkenness in another is a crime; in a priest it is sacrilege, because the one kills his own soul with wine, but the priest extinguishes the Spirit of holiness, the Apostle saying: 'Quench not the Spirit' (I Thessalonians V, 19). Rightly, among the other things which today's sermon censures in the wicked steward, it condemns the madness of wine, saying: 'But if that servant say, my lord delays his coming, and shall begin to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and be drunken.'
He fittingly said, to eat and drink and be drunken and to beat. Drunkenness is the mother of slaughter, the parent of quarrels, the begetter of frenzy, the misshapen mistress of wantonness: he who has it, does not have himself; he who has it, is not a man; he who has it does not commit sin, but is himself sin. Drunkenness is a flattering demon, a sweet poison, a voluntary madness, an invited enemy, an enticement away from honor, and an injury to modesty: let no Christian know it, let not even a priest touch it so much as by hearing, lest he who is the pattern of virtues should thereby become the example of vices, and be found so.
But since enough has been said to us and to ecclesiastical men, let us inquire how the Savior's answer holds all men, so that there is no one who is found a stranger to God's stewardship — let us search out the Apostle's saying: 'There is no power but from God' (Romans XIII, 1). If all power is from God, then from God also the king has obtained the royal dignity of stewardship.
So the general, so the soldier, so the governors of provinces, so the rulers of cities — all these will render an account, if in anything they have exceeded the measure of the power entrusted to them; whether the king kept justice, whether he held to equity, whether he moderated his power, whether he did not neglect mercy, whether he so held the balance of his weight that its scale did not incline, tipped to either side of his power, whether he bore care for all, whether he procured the peace of the citizens, whether he so tempered the taxation that neither did sufficiency fail the soldier, nor was the taxpayer worn out.
The general also will render his reasons to God, if he offered to his followers an example of virtue, if he was ever-watchful in his outposts, if untiring in his marches, if he sought the peace of all by his own labor. The soldier too will render an account, if he obeyed his orders, if he oppressed no one, if he balanced the pay he received with most just labor. The judge also will endure the supernal Judge of his own judgment. And you who are the master of your house, I wish you to consider yourself a steward set over it, more than a master, so that you may show your spouse a sincere charity, and prudently pour into her the doctrine which you have learned in the Church; her whom the Apostle commanded to keep silence in the Church, and to learn at home with you teaching, saying: 'Let the women keep silence in the Churches;'
'but if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home' (I Corinthians XIV, 34). To your children give a sober affection, a solicitous care, and nourish them faithfully in the discipline of the Lord. To your servants render the food and clothing that are their due; remit their faults, temper your threats, command discipline, and hold them as brothers in the heavenly race, whom you possess as subjects in worldly servitude. You too, servants, owe fidelity to your master in the very servitude that you bear, for he who does not render due obedience to his fleshly master with a devout and pure heart, is held liable to God, who sees the heart, before he is liable to man — to God, who has made you an equal through grace, whom condition had made unequal in servile lowliness. What shall I say of the rich man? Who, the more he has, so much the more he owes.
Some things are wanting here. Finally, he returns all at once, and hands it over all at once to another; but if he is unwilling to return it, let him commit it in parts, piece by piece. And you, O poor man, do not reckon the stewardship committed to you a small one, that of poverty, if you bear it patiently, if you are not ungrateful, if you are sober and frugal even in your very need; if you give thanks to the one who gives, and do not heap blasphemous injuries upon the one who does not give; if you seek only as much as mercy gives, not as much as importunate greed compels. Surely you too, O poor man, who gladly ask, give also gladly to those who ask. But perhaps you say, I have nothing: let there be a will to give, and the means of bestowing will not be lacking; set out your chair for the one who comes, set out your table, your candlestick, your lamp:
surely, out of that which you have received, gratefully set it forth. Thus Elijah (III Kings XVII), thus Elisha (IV Kings IV), when they turned aside to the empty and destitute dwellings of widows, abundantly supplied what the widows lacked. And the Lord added, to confirm this similitude, saying: 'But that servant who knew his lord's will, and did not prepare himself, and did not act according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he who did not know, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few.' He indeed who sins through conscience rightly pays the penalties of conscience more heavily; but even the latter, through the faults of ignorance, will not escape the stripes of ignorance: for as it is not permitted to despise God, so it is not permitted to be ignorant of Him.