Excerpts from Basil’s Sermon to the Rich

They should be happy and contented, but they feel dissatisfied and are upset that they are still not as rich as one or two of the super-rich. When they catch up with one tycoon, they immediately want to be made equal to somebody richer; and if they surpass him, the desire is transferred to another. These people do not cease from their drive for power, till, having risen very high, a fall from their great height dashes them to the ground.

“The eye is not filled with seeing,” and the money lover is not satisfied with getting. “Hell does not say, ‘Enough’”; neither does the covetous man ever say, ‘Enough.’ When will you make use of your present things? When will you enjoy them, you who are forever involved in a struggle to acquire? “Woe to them that join house to house, that add field to field,” so that they may take from their neighbour. But what do you do? Don’t you seek a thousand excuses to take what belongs to your neighbour? My neighbour’s house, they say, blocks the sunlight, they make a noise or they shelter vagrants. You, being more powerful than them, harass them, and kick them out, and drag them into court, and hound them, never ceasing till you have succeeded in making them homeless.

What was it that killed Naboth the Jezreelite? Was it not Ahab’s desire for his vineyard? He was a wicked neighbour in the country, and a wicked neighbour in town, a covetous man. And just as a river, flowing from a little source, little by little gathers into an unrelenting surge, and with a violent deluge sweeps away whatever stands in its way: so, it is with a covetous man who has come into great power. The profit of wickedness provides him with additional power. For when those already hurt are forced to make good their losses, they bring harm and injury upon others. Nothing withstands the force of wealth: all things succumb to its tyranny; all things cringe before its dominion—since each wronged person has a greater incentive not to be afflicted by some additional wrong than to seek redress of prior damages. It drives the yoke of oxen, it ploughs, sows, and reaps the things that don’t belong to it. If you dissent, expect a thrashing; if you complain, and write about outrages, you’re likely to be arrested, and end up behind bars; hired stooges stand waiting, ready to put your life in danger. Therefore, you see it as favourable if you can give something to be free of these things.

When will you take a rest from works of iniquity, so that you might seriously consider the kind of end towards which these preoccupations are leading you? Won’t you set before your eyes the judgment seat of Christ? What will you have to say for yourself, when all those you have wronged stand about you in a circle, crying against you before the righteous Judge? What will you do? What lawyers will you bribe? What witnesses will you produce? How will you corrupt that wholly undeceivable Judge? You’ll find no slick advocate there, no verbal spin, to hide the truth from the Judge of truth. No lackeys follow you, nor money, nor dignity of place; deserted by friends. For all around, in whatever direction you turn your gaze, you clearly see the images of your misdeeds: here the tears of orphans, the widow’s anguish; elsewhere the poor you stepped on, servants you tore to shreds, neighbours you enraged: all will withstand you; the wicked choir of your evil deeds will tangle you in snares. For just as the shadow trails the body, so do sins trail souls, giving a precise outline of their actions. Thus, there is no prevarication there, but the mouth and every shameless thing are stopped. Each man’s own actions are called to witness against him, not by sounding a voice, but according to the very appearances of whatever was done.

How should I set before your eyes these horrors? If you hear, if you are stirred, be mindful of that day in which “the wrath of God shall be revealed from heaven.” (Romans 1:18). Bear in mind Christ’s glorious coming, when the dead shall arise, “they that have done good, to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation.” (John 5:29). Then there will be eternal shame to sinners, “a fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” Let these things cause you to mourn, and do not mourn because of the commandment. Where shall a healing be found for your soul? If horrors don’t terrify, if glories don’t attract, we are talking to a heart of stone.

For whom did death ever show consideration, in deference to wealth? Or what disease is kept away by money? Gold is a reel of souls, fishhook of death, and bait of sin. What a pretext for war are riches; for whose sake arms are forged, and swords are sharpened? Relatives ignore nature for the love of it; brothers eye each other murderously. Because of the love of wealth the wilderness breeds bandits, the seas breed pirates, the cities breed sycophants. Who is the father of lies? Who creates forgery? Who is the parent of perjury? Isn’t it wealth, the compulsion for all this? One says, “I need money on account of the children.” A fine excuse for greed: you use your children as an excuse. Don’t blame the innocent: they have their own Lord. And who will guarantee you of your child’s intentions, that what you give will be rightly used?

For wealth turns out to be, for many people, a minister of impurity. Or don’t you hear Ecclesiastes, who says, “I have seen a sore malaise, riches kept in store for one who comes after a man, to his hurt.” (Ecclesiastes 5:13). And again, “I left it for the man who should come after me. And who knows if he shall be a wise man or a fool?” (Ecclesiastes 2:18 f.). Doesn’t your own soul belong to you more intimately than any child? Isn’t it joined to you by a more intimate closeness than anything else? Give to it the first privileges of inheritance, provide it with a richer living; and afterwards distribute to your children what they need to get by in life. Often it happens that children who have received nothing from their parents have gone on to establish estates for themselves; but as for your soul, if you don’t take care of it, who will pity it?

Now, what plausible causes of stinginess shall the childless fling at us? “I don’t sell my possessions, neither give to the poor, on account of life’s necessities.” Therefore, the Lord is not your teacher, neither does the Gospel direct your life, but you are a law unto yourself. For if the Lord has ordered these things as necessary to you, and you, for your part, write them off as impossible. “But,” you say, “after I’ve enjoyed these things all my days, when my life is over, I will cause the poor to inherit the things I formerly possessed, and in a written testament I will declare them to be the owners.” When you no longer exist among mankind, then you become a lover of mankind. When I see you dead, then I shall be able to say that you love your brother, when you are lying in the tomb, and decomposing in the earth. But when you were alive you passed your time wallowing in life’s luxuries, floating along enjoying yourself, and wouldn’t bear to cast a glance to the poor. When you die then, what sort of action is ascribed to you? What sort of wage is owed you for labour? Show the works, then ask for the returns. Nobody does business after the market closes, neither does anyone come up to be crowned after the games have ended or prove his valour after the war is over. Neither then can you practice godliness after this life has ended. Again, you promise to write up your benefactions in black and white. So, who shall announce to you the time of your departure? Who will be your actuary, to guarantee the mode of your death? How many have been snatched away in violent accidents, not even able to let go a cry in their pains? How many have been made delirious by fever? Why then do you wait for a time when you may no longer be in command of your faculties? There is no one to help; and he who sits by, waiting for an inheritance, is ready to manipulate everything towards his own profit, turning all your intentions to no purpose. At that time, turning your gaze here and there, and seeing the void that surrounds you, you will perceive your foolishness: then you will groan for the mindlessness you showed in putting off the commandment, at that hour when your tongue lies slack, and your trembling hand is jerked by spasms, since neither by voice nor in writing shall you be able to indicate your intent. And indeed, even if you’ve written everything clearly, and have expressly declared all things by voice, a single letter interpolated into the text suffices to change its meaning: one counterfeit seal, two or three false witnesses, and the whole inheritance is passed over to others.

Why then do you deceive yourself, misusing wealth now for carnal enjoyment, and promising for the future things which will no longer be under your control? As this sermon has shown, it is an evil counsel that says: Living, I’ll enjoy my pleasures; dead, I’ll do what’s been commanded. Abraham also says to you, “You received your good things during your life.” The narrow, straightened way does not admit you, since you haven’t put off the bulkiness of your wealth. You departed still carrying it; you didn’t toss it aside, as you’d been directed. While you lived, you set yourself above the commandment; after death and decomposition, then you value the commandment above your enemies. For, in order that so and so should receive nothing, it says, “Let the Lord receive . . .” Read what it says in your will: “I wanted to continue to live and enjoy the things that were mine.” So, death deserves the thanks, not you. For if you were immortal, you would never have remembered the commandments. “Be not deceived: God is not mocked.” (Galatians 6:7). Dead things are not brought to a sacrificial altar: bring forth a living sacrifice. An offering taken from one’s excess is not acceptable. But in your case, those things you had in excess all your life are what you present to your benefactor. If you dare not welcome honourable men to your home with kitchen leftovers, how dare you offer leftovers to appease God?

Consider then the end of covetousness, you who are rich, and cease from your passionate affection towards legal tender. However much you adore wealth, to that very extent you should rather leave not one thing behind that belongs to you. You want everything to be your own, you want to bring everything with you. But possibly your own servants will not clothe you for the world to come, but will skimp on your burial, cheerfully bestowing the savings upon your inheritors. Or perhaps they will philosophize against you then: “How tasteless and inappropriate,” they’ll say, “to beautify a corpse, and to give expensive burial to someone who can no longer perceive.” What? should we not, in fact, accessorize present company with expensive, swanky apparel, rather than bury a dead person’s most valuable garments along with him? What good is a monument over the grave, and a pompous burial, and useless expenditure? It is right that things needful for life be made use of by the living.”

Such things they’ll say, getting back at you for your meanness, and using your effects to ingratiate themselves with your heirs. Get a head start on them, then. Prepare your own self for burial. Piety makes a lovely winding-sheet. Come away fully dressed: make wealth your peculiar beauty. Take it with you. Believe in the good counsel in Christ, who loves you, who for us became poor, so that through His poverty we might become rich, who gave Himself as a ransom for us. Whether then, because, as He is wise, He immediately sees what is helpful to us, let us trust in Him; or because He loves us, let us pray to Him; or because He does us good, let us do good in turn.

And let us, in any case, do the things He has directed us to do, so that we may become inheritors of the everlasting life which is in the same Christ, to whom be glory and power, world without end. Amen.