Let us then escape from the disease; for it is not possible, indeed it is not, to escape from the fire prepared for the devil, unless we get free from this sickness. But free we shall get to be if we lay to mind how Christ loved us, and also how He bade us love one another. Now what love did He show for us? His precious Blood did He shed for us when we were enemies, and had done the greatest wrong to Him. This do thou also do in your brother's case (for this is the end of His saying “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye so love one another as I have loved you”); or rather even so the measure does not come to a stand.
For it was in behalf of His enemies that He did this. And are you unwilling to shed your blood for your brother? Why then do you even shed his blood, disobeying the commandment even to reversing it? Yet what He did was not as a due: but you, if you do it, are but fulfilling a debt. Since he too, who, after receiving the ten thousand talents, demanded the hundred pence, was punished not merely for the fact that he demanded them, but because even by the kindness done him he had not become any better, and did not even follow where his Lord had begun, or remit the debt.
For on the part of the servant the thing done was but a debt after all, if it had been done. For all things that we do, we do towards the payment of a debt. And this is why Himself said, “When you have done all, say, We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do.” If then we display charity, if we give our goods to them that need, we are fulfilling a debt; and that not only in that it was He who first began the acts of goodness, but because it is His goods that we are distributing if we ever do give.
Why then deprive yourself of what He wills you to have the right of? For the reason why He bade you give them to another was that you might have them yourself. For so long as you have them to yourself even you yourself hast them not. But when you have given to another, then have you received them yourself. What charm then will do as much as this? Himself poured forth His Blood for His enemies: but we not even money for our benefactor. He did so with His Blood that was His own: we will not even with money that is not ours.
He did it before us, we not even after His example. He did it for our salvation, we will not do it even for our own advantage. For He is not to have any advantage from our love toward man, but the whole gain accrues unto us. For this is the very reason why we are bidden to give away our goods, that we may not be thrown out of them. For as a person who gives a little child money and bids him hold it fast, or give it the servant to keep, that it may not be for whoever will to snatch it away, so also does God.
For He says, Give to him that needs, lest some one should snatch it away from you, as an informer, for instance, or a calumniator, or a thief, or, after all these are avoided, death. For so long as you hold it yourself, you have no safe hold of it. But if you give it Me through the poor, I keep it all for you exactly, and in fit season will return it with great increase. For it is not to take it away that I receive it, but to make it a larger amount and to keep it more exactly, that I may have it preserved for you against that time, in which there is no one to lend or to pity.
What then can be more hard-hearted, than if we, after such promises, cannot make up our minds to lend to him? Yes, it is for this that we go before Him destitute and naked and poor, not having the things committed to our charge, because we do not deposit them with Him who keeps them more exactly than any. And for this we shall be most severely punished. For when we are charged with it, what shall we be able to say about the loss of them? what pretext to put forward? What defence?
For what reason is there why you did not give? Do you disbelieve that you will receive it again? And how can this be reasonable? For He that has given to one that has not given, how shall He not much rather give after He has received? Does the sight of them please you? Well then, give much the more for this reason, that you may there be the more delighted, when no one can take them from you. Since now if you keep them, you will even suffer countless evils. For as a dog, so does the devil leap upon them that are rich, wishing to snatch from them, as from a child that holds a sippet or a cake.
Let us then give them to our Father, and if the devil see this done, he will certainly withdraw: and when he has withdrawn, then will the Father safely give them all to you, when he cannot trouble, in that world to come. For now surely they that be rich differ not from little children that are troubled by dogs, while all are barking round them, tearing and pulling; not men only, but ignoble affections; as gluttony, drunkenness, flattery, uncleanness of every kind. And when we have to lend, we are very anxious about those that give much, and look particularly for those that are frank dealers.
But here we do the opposite. For God, Who deals frankly, and gives not one in the hundred, but a hundred-fold, we desert, and those who will not return us even the capital, these we seek after. For what return will our belly make us, that consumes the larger share of our goods? Dung and corruption. Or what will vainglory? Envy and grudging. Or what nearness? Care and anxiety. Or what uncleanness? Hell and the venomous worm! For these are the debtors of them that be rich, who pay this interest upon the capital, evils at present, and dreadful things in expectation.
Shall we then lead to these, pray, with such punishment for interest, and shall we not trust the same to Christ (4 manuscripts om. τᾥ) Who holds forth unto us heaven, immortal life, blessings unutterable? And what excuse shall we have? For how do you come not to give to Him, who will assuredly return, and return in greater abundance? Perhaps it is because it is so long before He repays. Yet surely He repays even here. For He is true which says, “Seek the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added to you.” Do you see this extreme munificence?
Those goods, He says, have been stored up for you, and are not diminishing: but these here I give by way of increase and surplus. But, besides all this, the very fact of its being so long before you will receive it, does but make your riches the greater: since the interest is more.
Source: Homilies on Romans (New Advent)