have those who possessed him shut him up with bars and doors, placing their slaves round about for guards. But he has over-persuaded these very servants, and has fled away together with his guards; dragging his keepers after him like a chain, so little security was there in this custody. What then can be more faithless than this? what more wretched than men devoted to it? When men endeavour with all eagerness to collect so frail and fleeting a thing, they do not hear what the prophet saith: “Woe unto them who trust in their power, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches.”1100 Tell me why is this woe pro- nounced?—“He heapeth up treasure,” saith he, “and knoweth not for whom he will gather it,”1101—forasmuch as the labor is certain, but the enjoyment uncertain. Very often you toil and endure trouble for enemies. The inheritance of your wealth after your decease, coming as it does, in many instances, to those who have injured you, and plotted against you in a thousand ways, has assigned you the sins for your part, but the enjoyment to others! 14. But here, it is worthy of enquiry, for what reason he does not say, “Charge those who are rich in the present world, not to be rich; charge them to become poor; charge them to get rid of what they have;” but, “charge them, not to be high-minded.” For he knew that the root and foundation of riches is pride; and that if any man understood how to be unas- suming, he would not make much ado about the matter. Tell me, indeed, for what reason thou leadest about so many servants, parasites, and flatterers, and all the other forms of pomp? Not for necessity, but only for pride; to the end that by these thou mayest seem more dignified than other men! Besides, he knew that wealth is not forbidden if it be used for that which is necessary. For as I observed,1102 wine is not a bad thing, but drunkenness is so. A covetous man is one thing, and a rich man is another thing. The covetous man is not rich; 349 he is in want of many things, and while he needs many things, he can never be rich. The covetous man is a keeper, not a master, of wealth; a slave, not a lord. For he would sooner give any one a portion of his flesh, than his buried gold. And as though he were ordered and compelled of some one to touch nothing of these hidden treasures, so with all earnestness he watches and keeps them, abstaining from his own, as if it were another’s. And certainly, they are not his own. For what he can neither determine to bestow upon others, nor to dis- tribute to the necessitous, although he may sustain infinite punishments, how can he possibly account his own? How does he hold possession of those things, of which he has neither the free use, nor enjoyment? But besides this,—Paul is not accustomed to enjoin everything on every man, but accommodates himself to the weakness of his hearers, even, indeed, as Christ also did. For when that rich man came to him, and asked him concerning Life, he did not say at once, “Go, sell that thou hast,”1103 but omitting this, he spoke to him of other com- 1100 Ps. xlix. 6. 1101 Ps. xxxix. 6. 1102 Hom. I. 1103 Matt. xix. 16. 484 Homily II