10 At first these men are being described. “There shall go forth as if out of fat their iniquity”....A poor beggar commits a theft; out of leanness has gone forth the iniquity: but when a rich man abounds in so many things, why does he plunder the things of others? Of the former the iniquity out of leanness, of the other out of fatness, has gone forth. Therefore to the lean man when you say, Why have you done this? Humbly afflicted and abject he replies, Need has compelled me.
Why have you not feared God? Want was urgent. Say to a rich man, Why doest thou these things, and fearest not God?— supposing you to be great enough to be able to say it— see if he even deigns to hear; see if even against yourself there will not go forth iniquity out of his fatness. For now they declare war with their teachers and reprovers, and become enemies of them that speak the truth, having been long accustomed to be coaxed with the words of flatterers, being of tender ear, of unsound heart.
Who would say to a rich man, You have ill done in robbing other men's goods? Or perchance if any man shall have dared to speak, and he is such a man as he could not withstand, what does he reply? All that he says is in contempt of God. Why? Because he is proud. Why? Because he is fat. Why? Because he is devoted for a victim. “They have passed over unto purpose of heart.” Here within they have passed over. What is, “they have passed over”? They have crossed over the way. What is, “they have passed over”?
They have exceeded the bounds of mankind, men like the rest they think not themselves. They have passed over, I say, the bounds of mankind. When you say to such a man, Your brother this beggar is; when you say to such a man, Your brother this poor man is; the same parents you have had, Adam and Eve: do not heed your haughtiness, do not heed the vapour unto which you have been elevated; although an establishment waits about you, although countless gold and silver, although a marbled house does contain you, although fretted ceilings cover you, thou and the poor man together have for covering that roof of the universe, the sky; but you are different from the poor man in things not your own, added to you from without: yourself see in them, not them in you.
Observe yourself, how you are in relation to the poor man; yourself, not that which you have. For why do you despise your brother? In the bowels of your mothers you were both naked. Forsooth, even when you shall have departed this life, and these bodies shall have rotted, when the soul has been breathed forth, let the bones of the rich and poor man be distinguished! I am speaking of the equality of condition, of that very lot of mankind, wherein all men are born: for both here does a man become rich, and a poor man will not always be here: and as a rich man does not come rich, so neither does he depart rich; the very same is the entrance of both, and like is the departure.
I add, that perchance you will change conditions. Now everywhere the Gospel is being preached: observe a certain poor man full of sores, who was lying before the gate of a rich man, and was desiring to be filled with crumbs, which used to fall from the table of the rich man; observe also that likeness of yours who was clothed with purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. It chanced, I say, for that poor man to die, and to be borne by the Angels into the bosom of Abraham: but the other died and was buried; for the other's burial perchance no one cared....Brethren, how great was the toil of the poor man!
Of how long duration were the luxuries of the rich man! But the condition which they have received in exchange is everlasting....Deservedly too late he will say, “Send Lazarus,” “let him tell even my brethren;” since to himself there is not granted the fruit of repentance. For it is not that repentance is not given, but everlasting will be the repentance, and no salvation after repentance. Therefore these men “have passed over unto purpose of heart.”
Source: The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms (New Advent)