Cum Saturninus et Aurelianus acti essent in exsilium

Homily When Saturninus and Aurelian were Exiled, and Gainas Left the City; and on Love of Money. 1. I have been silent for a long time, and after a long interval I have returned again to your love. But it was not due to any indolence or bodily laziness, but rather because I was calming the disturbances, stilling the waves, correcting the storm, rescuing the shipwrecked, and hastening to lead those who were becoming submerged to a harbor and calm. For I am a common father to all, and it is necessary to care not only for those who are standing but also for those who have fallen; not only for those who are borne along in fair weather, but also for those who are tossed by the waves; not only for those in safety, but also for those in danger. For these reasons I withdrew during the past time, going about, exhorting, entreating, and supplicating the authorities to resolve the calamity. And since those gloomy events have come to an end, I have returned again to you who are in safety, who are sailing with great calm. I went to those others in order to dissolve the storm; I have returned to you so that a storm may not arise. I went to those others to deliver them from sorrows; I have come to you so that you may not fall into gloomy circumstances. For just as one must care not only for those who are standing but also for those who have fallen, so again one must care not only for those who have fallen but also for those who are standing: for the former, that they may rise; for the latter, that they may not fall; for the former, that they may be delivered from the evils that beset them; for the latter, that they may not fall into the sorrows that are anticipated.

For nothing is stable, nothing immovable among human affairs, but it imitates a raging sea, and each day gives birth to strange and grievous shipwrecks. Everything is full of uproar and turmoil; everything is crags and precipices; everything is reefs and shoals; everything is fears, dangers, suspicions, tremblings, and anxieties. No one trusts anyone; each fears his neighbor. That time is perhaps at hand which the prophet described when he said: Do not trust in friends, and do not hope in rulers; each of you shall keep away from your neighbor; from your bedfellow guard yourself against confiding in her. Why so? Because it is an evil time, because every brother will trip up his brother, and every friend walks deceitfully. There is no safe friend, no steadfast brother. The good of love has been abolished; civil war holds everything, civil war, and not even this is manifest, but it is veiled. Countless masks everywhere. Many are the sheepskins, countless the hidden wolves everywhere; and one would live more safely among enemies than among those who seem to be friends. Those who yesterday were courting, flattering, kissing hands, have suddenly now appeared as enemies, and having thrown off their masks, have become more bitter than any accusers, accusing and slandering concerning the very things for which they formerly expressed gratitude.

What then is the cause of all these things? The love of money, the madness for avarice, the incurable disease, the furnace that is never extinguished, the tyranny that is spread throughout the whole world. For this reason we also, what we said before, we will not cease saying now, although many formerly reproached us and said: Will you not stop arming yourself against the rich with your tongue? Will you not stop constantly warring against such people? Is it I who war against them? Is it I who arm myself against them? Is it not I who say and do everything on their behalf, while they themselves have sharpened swords against themselves? Has not the experience of events shown how I, the one who rebukes and constantly reproaches, sought their advantage, while rather those who rebuke us by saying these things are enemies? See how our words have been fulfilled in actual events. Did I not always say that wealth is a fugitive, passing from this one to that one? And would that it only changed hands, and did not also kill; would that it only moved, and did not also destroy. But now it both abandons them bereft of its protection, and hands them over to the sword, and leads them to the precipice, being a treacherous traitor, and warring especially against those who love it. It is a thankless fugitive, a merciless murderer, an untamable beast, a cliff steep on all sides, a rock full of perpetual waves, a sea cut through by countless winds, a tyrant harshly commanding, a master more severe than any barbarian, an implacable enemy, an irreconcilable foe, never ending its hostility toward those who possess it. But poverty is not such a thing; on the contrary, it is the opposite of what has been said.

For it is a place of refuge, a calm harbor, perpetual security, delight free from dangers, pure pleasure, untroubled life, wave-tossed existence, invincible prosperity, mother of philosophy, bridle of madness, abolition of punishment, root of humility. Why then, tell me, do you flee from this and pursue that hostile, man-slaying thing, more savage than any wild beast? For such is love of money; such is the madness for wealth. Why do you settle a perpetual enemy within yourself? Why do you provoke the beast, which you ought to tame? And how could it become tame, you say? If you would submit to my words, even now when the disasters are fresh, when the calamity is at its height, when all are in turmoil and dejection. How then can the beast be freed from being a beast? For I can change it, if you are willing; such is the power of words. How then could it be transformed from its savagery? If we learn how it becomes fierce. How then does it become fierce? Just as lions, leopards, and bears, when confined and shut up in darkness, rouse their fury and increase their anger; so also wealth, when confined and buried, roars more than a lion and always stirs up trouble. But if you bring it out of the darkness and scatter it into the bellies of the poor, the beast becomes a sheep, the enemy a protector, the reef a harbor, the shipwreck calm. For you would see this also in the case of ships: when the cargo is beyond the proper weight, it sinks the vessel; but when it is proportionate, it sails with a fair wind. This very thing happens also in our households.

of poverty and want in a time of plenty. For if you are so disposed, you will manage your wealth with great prudence, and you will bear poverty when it comes with great courage. For what is not expected, when it befalls, confounds and disturbs; but what is hoped for, when it happens, does not bring much disturbance. So you gain these two good things: neither to be intoxicated and beside yourself in prosperity, nor

to be disturbed and agitated at a change to the opposite, especially if you are always to anticipate the opposite; for expectation suffices in place of experience. What I mean is this: are you wealthy? Expect poverty each day. Why and for what reason? Because this expectation will be able to benefit you greatly. For he who expects poverty, while in wealth, is not puffed up, not inflated, not dissipated, not covetous of others' goods; for the fear of expectation, present like some tutor, chastens, calms the mind, and does not allow evil offshoots from love of money to grow, preventing and cutting them off with the fear of opposites as with a kind of sickle. 4. This, then, is one very great good you will gain; another, no less than this, is not to be afraid when poverty itself arrives. Therefore, let expectation of distressing things anticipate, so that experience of painful things may not come; for this reason experience comes, because expectation is not present; since if that expectation were to set a person right, there would be little need of this experience. And a witness to this is the prophet Jonah in the case of the Ninevites: as they, hoping by the prophet's prediction to fall into an incurable calamity, by the expectation of the evils to come turned away the wrath; but the Jews, not being persuaded by the prophet foretelling the capture of Jerusalem, suffered the horrors. For a wise man, having feared, turns aside from evil; but the fool, trusting, mingles with it. He who expects to become poor, while living in prosperity, will not quickly become poor; for what you were unwilling to gain from expectation, you will learn well from experience.

While you are in wealth, expect poverty; while you are in prosperity, expect famine; while you are in glory, hope for obscurity; while you are in health, await sickness. Constantly examine the nature of human affairs, which is no better than the streams of rivers, and more unstable than smoke dissolving into air, and more insignificant than a passing shadow. If you philosophize on these things, neither will good things be able to puff you up, nor painful things to humble you; if you do not cling violently to good things when they are present, you will not be pained when they depart. If you accustom your mind to the expectation of opposites, often the opposites will not even be present, and if they do come, they will not seize you violently. 5. And so that you may learn that I do not say these things by guesswork, I wish to relate to you an ancient story. There was a certain man, wonderful and great, and renowned throughout the whole world, the blessed Job, the athlete of piety, the crowned victor of the world, who passed through all contests, who set up countless trophies against the devil. He was rich and poor, glorious and contemptible, with many children and childless; he was in royal courts, and he was also on a dunghill; he was in splendid raiment, and after that in a plague of worms; he enjoyed countless attentions, and after that endured countless insults, with servants rising up against him, friends reproaching him, and his wife plotting against him.

All things flowed to him from the beginning as from a fountain: abundance of wealth, magnitude of power, a surrounding of glory, peace and security, honors and attentions, health of body, good fortune in children, and there was nothing painful there. Wealth with security was present to him, and unbroken prosperity, and quite reasonably so, for God fortified him from every side. But later all those things flew away, and countless storms then encamped upon that house, all successive and continuous, and every one of them excessive. For all that he had was being snatched away at once: servants, children were being buried by a violent and untimely death, slaughtered at the table and the banquet, not by knife and sword, but by an evil spirit that shook the house. And after this, his wife armed her own contrivances and brought them against the just man. And servants and friends, some spat in his face, as he himself says: "For they did not spare my face from spittle." Others trampled upon him, and he was cast out of the whole house, and his dwelling was

Then it was a dung heap, and springs of worms burst forth; from every side the adamant was drenched with blood and ichor, and taking a potsherd he scraped away the ichor, becoming his own executioner. And there were successive pains, and unbearable tortures, and night more grievous than day, and day more dreadful than night, as he says: "When I lie down, I say, 'When will it be day?' And when I rise, I say again, 'When will it be evening?' And I am filled with pains from evening until morning." And everything was precipices and crags; there was no one to comfort him, but countless ones trampled upon him. Yet in such a storm and truly unbearable waves, he stood noble and unshaken against all. And the cause of this was what I said: that when he was wealthy, he expected poverty; when he was healthy, he awaited sickness; when he became father of so many children, he hoped to become childless at once. And he always unrolled this fear within himself, and always nurtured this anguish, knowing the nature of human affairs and considering their transience. Therefore he also said: "The fear that I feared came upon me, and the danger that I dreaded met me." For he always went in his thoughts toward it, awaiting it, hoping for it, expecting it; for this reason, when it arrived, it did not disturb him. "I neither made peace nor rested nor took repose, and wrath came upon me." He did not say, "I do not make peace, nor do I rest," but, "I did not make peace," in the past time. For even if circumstances made me proud, the expectation of grievous things did not allow me to rest. Even if excessive good fortune made me live luxuriously, the anguish of what was expected drove away my security.

Even if present circumstances compelled him to enjoy them, the concern for what was expected cut this short. For this reason, what he had practiced in his thoughts, when he saw these things actually happening, he bore nobly, the struggles long rehearsed, and what had been anticipated in expectation, seeing them present he was not disturbed. That he was not even strongly attached to these good things when they were present, hear what he says: "But even if I rejoiced when much wealth came to me, if I stored up gold as my strength, if I trusted in a precious stone, if I laid my hand on countless things." What are you saying, man? Do you not rejoice when wealth flows around you? Not at all, he says. Why so? Because I knew its instability and transience, I knew that possession is not permanent. And I see, he says, the sun shining and setting, the moon waning; for it is not in their power. What he means is this: If the stars in heaven, which shine continuously, undergo some change—the sun setting, the moon waning—how is it not utter folly to consider earthly things permanent and fixed? For this reason he neither rejoiced excessively when they were present, nor grieved bitterly when they were gone, because he well knew their nature. Hearing these things, beloved, let us neither be oppressed by poverty nor puffed up by wealth; but preserving an unchangeable mind in the change of circumstances, let us reap the fruit of philosophy, so that we may both enjoy pleasure here and attain future goods. May we all attain these, by the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ.