Conferences

Of three sorts of possessions.

Riches and possessions are taken in Holy Scripture in three different ways, i.e., as good, bad, and indifferent. Those are bad, of which it is said: “The rich have wanted and have suffered hunger,” and “Woe unto you that are rich, for you have received your consolation:” and to have cast off these riches is the height of perfection; and a distinction which belongs to those poor who are commended in the gospel by the Lord's saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;” and in the Psalm: “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him,” and again: “The poor and needy shall praise your name.” Those riches are good, to acquire which is the work of great virtue and merit, and the righteous possessor of which is praised by David who says “The generation of the righteous shall be blessed: glory and riches are in his house, and his righteousness remains for ever:” and again “the ransom of a man's life are his riches.” And of these riches it is said in the Apocalypse to him who has them not and to his shame is poor and naked: “I will begin,” says he, “to vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say I am rich and wealthy and have need of nothing: and know not that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I counsel you to buy of me gold fire-tried, that you may be made rich, and may be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of your nakedness may not appear.” There are some also which are indifferent, i.e., which may be made either good or bad: for they are made either one or the other in accordance with the will and character of those who use them: of which the blessed, Apostle says “Charge the rich of this world not to be high-minded nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in God (who gives us abundantly all things to enjoy), to do good, to give easily, to communicate to others, to lay up in store for themselves a good foundation that they may lay hold on the true life.” These are what the rich man in the gospel kept, and never distributed to the poor—while the beggar Lazarus was lying at his gate and desiring to be fed with his crumbs; and so he was condemned to the unbearable flames and everlasting heat of hell-fire.