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These are the considerations which one must keep in view, that he may
answer the question whether any evil happens to the faithful and godly
which cannot be turned to profit. Or shall we say that the question is
needless, and that the apostle is vaporing when he says, "We know
that all things work together for good to them that love God?"
They lost all they had. Their faith? Their godliness? The
possessions of the hidden man of the heart, which in the sight of God
are of great price? Did they lose these? For these are the wealth of
Christians, to whom the wealthy apostle said, "Godliness with
contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world,
find it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and
raiment, let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall
into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts,
which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is
the root of all evil; which, while some coveted after, they have
erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many
sorrows."
They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Rome, if they
owned their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle, who
himself was poor without, but rich within, that is to say, if they
used the world as not using it, could say in the words of Job,
heavily tried, but not overcome: "Naked came I out of my mother's
womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the
Lord hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to
pass: blessed be the name of the Lord." Like a good servant, Job
counted the will of his Lord his great possession, by obedience to
which his soul was enriched; nor did it grieve him to lose, while yet
living, those goods which he must shortly leave at his death. But as
to those feebler spirits who, though they cannot be said to prefer
earthly possessions to Christ, do yet cleave to them with a somewhat
immoderate attachment, they have discovered by the pain of losing these
things how much they were sinning in loving them. For their grief is
of their own making; in the words of the apostle quoted above, "they
have pierced themselves through with many sorrows." For it was well
that they who had so long despised these verbal admonitions should
receive the teaching of experience. For when the apostle says,
"They that will be rich fall into temptation," and so on, what he
blames in riches is not the possession of them, but the desire of
them. For elsewhere he says, "Charge them that are rich in this
world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches,
but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that
they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute,
willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good
foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal
life." They who were making such a use of their property have been
consoled for light losses by great gains, and have had more pleasure in
those possessions which they have securely laid past, by freely giving
them away, than grief in those which they entirely lost by an anxious
and selfish hoarding of them. For nothing could perish on earth save
what they would be ashamed to carry away from earth. Our Lord's
injunction runs, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,
where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and
steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
And they who have listened to this injunction have proved in the time
of tribulation how well they were advised in not despising this most
trustworthy teacher, and most faithful and mighty guardian of their
treasure. For if many were glad that their treasure was stored in
places which the enemy chanced not to light upon, how much better
founded was the joy of those who, by the counsel of their God, had
fled with their treasure to a citadel which no enemy can possibly
reach! Thus our Paulinus, bishop of Nola, who voluntarily
abandoned vast wealth and became quite poor, though abundantly rich in
holiness, when the barbarians sacked Nola, and took him prisoner,
used silently to pray, as he afterwards told me, "O Lord, let me
not be troubled for gold and silver, for where all my treasure is Thou
knowest." For all his treasure was where he had been taught to hide
and store it by Him who had also foretold that these calamities would
happen in the world. Consequently those persons who obeyed their Lord
when He warned them where and how to lay up treasure, did not lose
even their, earthly possessions in the invasion of the barbarians;
while those who are now repenting that they did not obey Him have
learnt the right use of earthly goods, if not by the wisdom which would
have prevented their loss, at least by the experience which follows
it.
But some good and Christian men have been put to the torture, that
they might be forced to deliver up their goods to the enemy. They
could indeed neither deliver nor lose that good which made themselves
good. If, however, they preferred torture to the surrender of the
mammon of iniquity, then I say they were not good men. Rather they
should have been reminded that, if they suffered so severely for the
sake of money, they should endure all torment, if need be, for
Christ's sake; that they might be taught to love Him rather who
enriches with eternal felicity all who suffer for Him, and not silver
and gold, for which it was pitiable to suffer, whether they preserved
it by telling a lie or lost it by telling the truth. For under these
tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him, no one preserved
wealth save by denying its existence. So that possibly the torture
which taught them that they should set their affections on a possession
they could not lose, was more useful than those possessions which,
without any useful fruit at all, disquieted and tormented their anxious
owners. But then we are reminded that some were tortured who had no
wealth to surrender, but who were not believed when they said so.
These too, however, had perhaps some craving for wealth, and were
not willingly poor with a holy resignation; and to such it had to be
made plain, that not the actual possession alone, but also the desire
of wealth, deserved such excruciating pains. And even if they were
destitute of any hidden stores of gold and silver, because they were
living in hopes of a better life, I know not indeed if any such person
was tortured on the supposition that he had wealth; but if so, then
certainly in confessing, when put to the question, a holy poverty, he
confessed Christ. And though it was scarcely to be expected that the
barbarians should believe him, yet no confessor of a holy poverty could
be tortured without receiving a heavenly reward.
Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian low. But
this, too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious endurance of
it. For those whom famine killed outright it rescued from the ills of
this life, as a kindly disease would have done; and those who were
only hunger-bitten were taught to live more sparingly, and inured to
longer fasts.
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