These are the considerations which one must keep in view, that he may
answer the question whether any evil happens to the faithful and godly
which cannot be turned to profit. Or shall we say that the question is
needless, and that the apostle is vapouring when he says, "We know that
all things work together for good to them that love God?"[48]
They lost all they had. Their faith? Their godliness? The possessions
of the hidden man of the heart, which in the sight of God are of great
price?[49] Did they lose these? For these are the wealth of Christians,
to whom the wealthy apostle said, "Godliness with contentment is great
gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can
carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith
content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare,
and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction
and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which,
while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced
themselves through with many sorrows."[50]
They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Rome, if they
owned their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle, who
himself was poor without, but rich within,--that is to say, if they
used the world as not using it,--could say in the words of Job,
heavily tried, but not overcome: "Naked came I out of my mother's
womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord
hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass:
blessed be the name of the Lord."[51] Like a good servant, Job
counted the will of his Lord his great possession, by obedience to
which his soul was enriched; nor did it grieve him to lose, while
yet living, those goods which he must shortly leave at his death.
But as to those feebler spirits who, though they cannot be said to
prefer earthly possessions to Christ, do yet cleave to them with a
somewhat immoderate attachment, they have discovered by the pain
of losing these things how much they were sinning in loving them.
For their grief is of their own making; in the words of the apostle
quoted above, "they have pierced themselves through with many
sorrows." For it was well that they who had so long despised these
verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience. For
when the apostle says, "They that will be rich fall into temptation,"
and so on, what he blames in riches is not the possession of them,
but the desire of them. For elsewhere he says, "Charge them that
are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in
uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all
things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works,
ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for
themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may
lay hold on eternal life."[52] They who were making such a use of
their property have been consoled for light losses by great gains,
and have had more pleasure in those possessions which they have
securely laid past, by freely giving them away, than grief in those
which they entirely lost by an anxious and selfish hoarding of them.
For nothing could perish on earth save what they would be ashamed to
carry away from earth. Our Lord's injunction runs, "Lay not up for
yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and
where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also."[53] And they who have listened
to this injunction have proved in the time of tribulation how well
they were advised in not despising this most trustworthy teacher,
and most faithful and mighty guardian of their treasure. For if
many were glad that their treasure was stored in places which the
enemy chanced not to light upon, how much better founded was the
joy of those who, by the counsel of their God, had fled with their
treasure to a citadel which no enemy can possibly reach! Thus our
Paulinus, bishop of Nola,[54] who voluntarily abandoned vast wealth
and became quite poor, though abundantly rich in holiness, when the
barbarians sacked Nola, and took him prisoner, used silently to pray,
as he afterwards told me, "O Lord, let me not be troubled for gold
and silver, for where all my treasure is Thou knowest." For all his
treasure was where he had been taught to hide and store it by Him who
had also foretold that these calamities would happen in the world.
Consequently those persons who obeyed their Lord when He warned them
where and how to lay up treasure, did not lose even their earthly
possessions in the invasion of the barbarians; while those who are
now repenting that they did not obey Him have learnt the right use
of earthly goods, if not by the wisdom which would have prevented
their loss, at least by the experience which follows it.
But some good and Christian men have been put to the torture, that
they might be forced to deliver up their goods to the enemy. They
could indeed neither deliver nor lose that good which made themselves
good. If, however, they preferred torture to the surrender of the
mammon of iniquity, then I say they were not good men. Rather they
should have been reminded that, if they suffered so severely for
the sake of money, they should endure all torment, if need be, for
Christ's sake; that they might be taught to love Him rather who
enriches with eternal felicity all who suffer for Him, and not
silver and gold, for which it was pitiable to suffer, whether they
preserved it by telling a lie, or lost it by telling the truth. For
under these tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him, no one
preserved wealth save by denying its existence. So that possibly
the torture which taught them that they should set their affections
on a possession they could not lose, was more useful than those
possessions which, without any useful fruit at all, disquieted
and tormented their anxious owners. But then we are reminded that
some were tortured who had no wealth to surrender, but who were
not believed when they said so. These too, however, had perhaps
some craving for wealth, and were not willingly poor with a holy
resignation; and to such it had to be made plain, that not the actual
possession alone, but also the desire of wealth, deserved such
excruciating pains. And even if they were destitute of any hidden
stores of gold and silver, because they were living in hopes of a
better life,--I know not indeed if any such person was tortured on
the supposition that he had wealth; but if so, then certainly in
confessing, when put to the question, a holy poverty, he confessed
Christ. And though it was scarcely to be expected that the barbarians
should believe him, yet no confessor of a holy poverty could be
tortured without receiving a heavenly reward.
Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian low. But
this, too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious endurance of
it. For those whom famine killed outright it rescued from the ills
of this life, as a kindly disease would have done; and those who were
only hunger-bitten were taught to live more sparingly, and inured to
longer fasts.