Orations

¹⁸ One of us has oppressed the poor, and wrested from him his portion of land, and wrongly encroached upon his landmark by fraud or violence, and joined house to house, and field to field, to rob his neighbour of something, and been eager to have no neighbour, so as to dwell alone on the earth. Another has defiled the land with usury and interest, both gathering where he had not sowed and reaping where he had not scattered, farming, not the land, but the necessity of the needy.

Another has robbed God, the giver of all, of the firstfruits of the barnfloor and winepress, showing himself at once thankless and senseless, in neither giving thanks for what he has had, nor prudently providing, at least, for the future. Another has had no pity on the widow and orphan, and not imparted his bread and meagre nourishment to the needy, or rather to Christ, Who is nourished in the persons of those who are nourished even in a slight degree; a man perhaps of much property unexpectedly gained, for this is the most unjust of all, who finds his many barns too narrow for him, filling some and emptying others, to build greater ones for future crops, not knowing that he is being snatched away with hopes unrealised, to give an account of his riches and fancies, and proved to have been a bad steward of another's goods.

Another has turned aside the way of the meek, and turned aside the just among the unjust; another has hated him that reproves in the gates, and abhorred him that speaks uprightly; another has sacrificed to his net which catches much, and keeping the spoil of the poor in his house, has either remembered not God, or remembered Him ill— by saying “Blessed be the Lord, for we are rich,” and wickedly supposed that he received these things from Him by Whom he will be punished. For because of these things comes the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Because of these things the heaven is shut, or opened for our punishment; and much more, if we do not repent, even when smitten, and draw near to Him, Who approaches us through the powers of nature.