Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews

^6. Tell me, I pray you, if some poor man has taken away clay thrown out of your yard, would you for this have summoned a court of justice? Surely not. Why? Lest you should disgrace yourself; lest all men should condemn you. The same also happens in this case. For the rich man is poor, and the more rich he is, the poorer is he in that which is indeed poverty. Gold is clay, cast out in the yard, not lying in your house, for your house is Heaven. For this, then, will you summon a Court of Justice, and will not the citizens on high condemn you? Will they not cast you out from their country, who art so mean, who art so shabby, as to choose to fight for a little clay? For if the world were yours, and then some one had taken it, ought thou to pay any attention to it?

Do you not know, that if you were to take the world ten times or an hundred times, or ten thousand times, and twice that, it is not to be compared with the least of the good things in Heaven? He then who admires the things here slights those yonder, since he judges these worthy of exertion, though so far inferior to the other. Nay, rather indeed he will not be able to admire those other. For how [can he], while he is passionately excited towards these earthly things? Let us cut through the cords and entanglements: for this is what earthly things are.

How long shall we be stooping down? How long shall we plot one against another, like wild beasts; like fishes? Nay rather, the wild beasts do not plot against each other, but [against] animals of a different tribe. A bear for instance does not readily kill a bear, nor a serpent kill a serpent, having respect for the sameness of race. But you, with one of the same race, and having innumerable claims, as common origin, rational faculties, the knowledge of God, ten thousand other things, the force of nature, him who is your kinsman, and partaker of the same nature— him you kill, and involvest in evils innumerable. For what, if you dost not thrust your sword, nor plunge your right hand into his neck, other things more grievous than this you do, when you involve him in innumerable evils. For if you had done the other, you would have freed him from anxiety, but now you encompass him with hunger, with slavery, with feelings of discouragement, with many sins. These things I say, and shall not cease to say, not [as] preparing you to commit murder: nor as urging you to some crime short of that; but that you may not be confident, as if you were not to give account. “For” (it says) “he that takes away a livelihood” and asks bread, it says.