THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
There is nothing more wicked than the devil. Everywhere he burdens and distracts his own with useless labors. He not only prevents them from receiving a reward, but also knows how to make them worthy of punishment.
He prescribes for them not only preaching, but also such fasting and virginity as not only deprive them of reward, but bring great harm upon those who observe them. Of them the Apostle says elsewhere: "Having their conscience seared" (1 Tim 4:2).
Therefore, I beg you, let us thank God for everything, because He has both lightened our labors and multiplied the rewards. The rewards received among us by those who live chastely in marriage are not received by those among them who preserve virginity. Those who preserve virginity among heretics are subject to the same punishment as fornicators.
Why? Because they do nothing with a good aim, but with the aim of slandering God's creation and His ineffable wisdom.
Therefore let us not be careless. God has appointed moderate contests for us, requiring no toil. Yet let us not neglect them because of this. If heretics strain their powers in useless labors, what excuse shall we have if we refuse to bear lesser labors, while they are accompanied by a greater reward?
Which of Christ's commandments is heavy and difficult? You cannot remain in virginity? You may marry. You cannot abandon all your property? From what you have, you may share. "At the present time," he says, "your abundance should supply their lack" (2 Cor 8:14).
It seems difficult to despise money and conquer fleshly desire. Everything else requires no expense and no effort. Tell me, what effort is needed not to revile and slander without cause? What effort is needed not to envy the good things of others? What effort is needed not to be captivated by glory?
To undergo torments and endure them is a work of patience. To practice philosophy is a work of patience. To bear poverty is a work of patience. To contend with hunger and thirst is a work of patience.
But even if none of this existed, it would still be possible to enjoy what one has, as befits a Christian, and not envy another's goods. What effort is there in this? Envy is born from nothing other than attachment to present things, or rather every evil is born from this.
If you counted wealth and the glory of the world as nothing, you would not envy those who possess them.
But since you look at them with amazement, value them highly, and fear for them, envy and vainglory trouble you. Everything comes from valuing the goods of the present life highly.
Do you envy someone because he is rich? Yet he is the one who deserves pity and tears. But you will immediately say with a smile: I deserve tears, not he. You too deserve tears, not because you are poor, but because you consider yourself wretched.
When people grieve though they have no grief, we weep for them not because any misfortune has befallen them, but because without misfortune they consider themselves unfortunate. Suppose someone had been freed from fever and had completely recovered, yet continued to groan and toss about while lying in bed. Tell me, would he not deserve tears more than those suffering fever?
Not because he has a fever, for he no longer has one, but because, being beyond all danger, he thinks he is still in danger. You too deserve tears because you consider yourself wretched, not because of poverty. Because of poverty, you are even very fortunate.
Why do you envy the rich man? Because he subjects himself to greater anxieties and the heaviest slavery? Because he is bound by his possessions like a dog by countless chains?
Evening came, night arrived. Yet for him this time of rest is a time of confusion, displeasure, sorrow, and care. Has a noise been heard? He immediately jumps up. Has someone been robbed? Though he has lost nothing, he is more troubled than the one who lost something.
That man lost once, and after grieving ceased to be troubled. But the rich man is troubled without ceasing, even when night comes, the boundary of our troubles, the relief of our misfortunes, the medicine for wounds.
Those possessed by some severe illness often do not listen or yield when comforted by friends, relatives, household members, and even parents. They are even angered by their words, because cruel illness torments our souls more than any heat. But when sleep compels them to rest, they cannot even lift their eyelids.
As a body heated and exhausted by struggling under burning rays finds rest in a place watered by many springs and cooled by a light breeze, so night brings our soul to rest in sleep. Or rather, it is not night or sleep that does this, but God, foreseeing the misery of the human race, arranged all this.
Yet we do not pity ourselves. As enemies to ourselves, we have invented a torment stronger than natural necessity and rest, sleeplessness from wealth. "Anxiety over wealth drives away sleep" (Sir 31:1).
See how great God's care is. He did not leave rest and the use of sleep to our will. He subjected them to natural necessity, so that we might receive the benefit even against our will. For sleep belongs to nature.
But we, as though hating ourselves intensely, as though warring against others and oppressing others, invent for the sake of money a torment stronger than this natural necessity.
Has day come? The rich man fears informers. Has night come? He trembles at robbers. Does death threaten? More than death, he is struck by the thought that his possessions will go to others. Does he have a child? He wishes to be richer, and everything seems to him poverty. Does he have no children? He grieves still more.
Do you consider happy the man whom nothing can gladden? Do you envy him, tossed by waves, while you are in a quiet harbor, poverty?
Truly this also is the weakness of human nature, that people do not use good things properly. Even while in happiness, they are weighed down. This is so here.
But when we pass there, listen to what the rich man says, the possessor of countless goods, as you call them, though I would not call them goods, but indifferent things. Listen, then, to what this possessor of countless goods says, and what he needs: "Father Abraham," he says, "send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented" (Lk 16:24).
Suppose this rich man endured nothing of what I have described. Suppose he spent his whole life peacefully and without cares. Yet why do I say his whole life? It was one moment, for life is a moment. Our whole age before the endless age is as one moment.
If everything went according to his desire, is he not wretched according to his own words, and even more according to his deeds? Did wine not flow upon your table? But now not even a drop of water is in your power, and you greatly need it.
Did you not despise the poor man covered with sores? Now you would like to see him, but no one permits it. He was at your gate, but now he is in Abraham's bosom. You reclined beneath spacious roofs, but now you are in the fire of Gehenna.
Let the rich hear this, or rather, not the rich, but the merciless. He was punished not because he was rich, but because he was without mercy. The rich man who is also merciful can receive every good thing.
The rich man sees no one else but that poor man Lazarus, so that, remembering his own deeds, he may know that he suffers justly. Was there not a great multitude of righteous poor? But that very man appears to him who had lain before his gate, teaching both him and us how good it is not to trust in wealth.
Poverty did not hinder Lazarus at all from receiving the Kingdom. Wealth did not help the rich man at all to escape Gehenna. Who then is poorer? Who are the beggars?
In truth, the poor man is not the one who has nothing, but the one who desires much. The rich man is not the one who has acquired much, but the one who needs nothing.
What use is it to acquire the whole world and live more sorrowfully than one who has nothing? Free will makes rich and poor, not abundance of possessions and not scarcity.
You who are poor, do you wish to be rich? You can, if you wish, and no one prevents you. Despise the wealth of the world. Count it as nothing, as though it did not exist. Cast away the desire for wealth, and you are rich.
He is rich who does not wish to be rich. He is poor who does not wish to be poor. As the sick man is not the one for whom sickness is easier than any health, but the one who groans even in health, so it is here.
The poor man is the one who cannot bear poverty and who, even in wealth, considers himself poorer than the poor. The poor man who bears poverty better than the rich is far richer.
Tell me, why do you fear poverty? Why do you tremble? Is it from hunger, thirst, or cold? Is it not from these? No, there is no one who has ever endured such want. "Look at the generations of old and see: who trusted in the Lord and was put to shame?" (Sir 2:10).
Again: "Look at the birds of heaven: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feeds them" (Mt 6:26). No one can point us to a single person who suddenly perished from hunger and cold.
Why then do you tremble at poverty? You have nothing to say to this. If you have what is necessary, why do you fear poverty? Because you do not have a multitude of slaves? This is deliverance from mastery, continual happiness, and freedom from cares.
Or because you do not have vessels, beds, and furnishings made of silver? What more than you does the one who has acquired all this have for enjoyment? Nothing. The use of things is the same, whether they are made of this material or that.
Or because you are not fearsome to many? Never be so. What pleasure is there in some trembling and fearing you? Or because you fear others? But it is possible not to fear. "Do you wish not to fear the authority? Do good, and you will have praise from it" (Rom 13:3).
But they say, we are despised and easily wronged. Yet it is not poverty, but vice, that most produces this. While many poor people spend their whole life without cares, rulers, rich men, and the powerful find it harder to escape all evildoers, robbers, and grave-robbers.
What poverty does to you, wealth does to the rich man. Those who wish to do evil do it to you out of contempt, but to the rich man out of hatred and envy. In the latter case the evil is greater than in the former, because the motive for evil is stronger.
The hater does everything with every strain and force. The despiser often even spares the one he despises. For the poor man, the very fact that he is poor and cannot have power serves for salvation.
When we say to the one wronging a poor man, What great thing will you do if you destroy this man? If you kill one poor man, how great will your reward be? By these words we calm his anger.
But when envy rises against the rich, it does not subside until it has done what it wants and poured out its poison. Do you see that the good lies neither in poverty nor in wealth, but in our intention?
Let us direct it toward the good and make it prudent. If it is given a good direction, neither wealth will be able to deprive us of the Kingdom, nor poverty to harm us. We shall bear poverty with meekness, having in it no obstacle to receiving future goods, nor even present ones.
We shall enjoy present goods and attain heavenly ones. May we all be counted worthy of them by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, dominion, and honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
"For I know that this will turn out for my salvation," the salvation to come. Can it fail to happen, when even hostility against me and envy assist my preaching? "Through your prayer," he says, "and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope."