De virtute animi

Homily 8. That virtue of soul is more honorable than all things. When I count the goods of life often to myself, and find creation full of many things from every side and productive of countless goods for the race, I see nothing better than to love the beauty of soul, nor anything more fitting to human nature. For what wealth is so becoming to humanity as the abundance of pious hopes? Who is so illustrious from power as from a mind honored by the king of all? What pleasure from luxury is as great as that of a conscience feasting on life-giving teachings? Whatever good you may bring forward, you would find nothing by which a man is so exalted as by a divinely inspired mind. For of the other goods there is some communion with us even for the irrational animals: for example, the enjoyment of the sunlight is a fine thing, but it lies before beasts as well; the good provision of foods, but they also partake of these; the lovely graces of beauty, but you would find beauty flashing even from birds; the much-vaunted gift of strength, but this advantage belongs also to oxen; the much-desired accumulation of wealth, but you would see even shellfish rich with treasures of pearls. The nature of irrational animals is not without share in any of our fleshly boasts, nor is it inferior in any of our bodily advantages.

From them alone there is one concession to us, and in only one advantage are they surpassed by us. What is this? The worth of judgment, through which man is like God, using mind as the pilot of beings, administering the affairs of creation with understanding, traversing the heaven with reason, leading the obedient with thought, guiding the difficulty of the unruly sea with wisdom, preserving what grows with foresight, revealing what appears with knowledge, mastering the fine art of beings, as the creator does. And God, indicating these things from the beginning concerning us, cried out: Let us make man according to our image. And the honor of the image is both fearful and benevolent: fearful, as an image of a terrifying archetype. For it is no small danger that one might cause offense by staining the image with the stain of sin; benevolent, as a great gift before labors, which the creator prepared for us before birth. For let us make, he says, man according to our image. Before formation we are honored with care. For to each of the beings, while providing existence, he kept authority as commander, and created the entire nature of visible things by command, speaking commandingly to non-existent things: Let there be light; let there be firmament; let there be luminaries for illumination; let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls; let the earth bring forth quadrupeds according to kind!

But since man had to be created, leaving aside the commander, he took up the self-doer; leaving aside the one who roughly composes the synthesis of beings, he considered the generation of man; leaving aside saying to the earth, "Bring forth man!" Since he was unable to create man alone, he summons partners to the molding, and as though needing fellow workers, he cried out, "Let us make." Not because he needed study for skill, nor because he required fellow workers for formation, but by the pretense of study and cooperation he indicated that he was fashioning a race that was cared for and very great. In the honor and education, a certain guidance of the race toward piety is hidden. For he cast out all of creation from deification, entrusting it to an image of his own monarchy; for everything great is considered an image of the king. Second: "Let us make man according to our image." And foreseeing the ingratitude, he did not dull the affection; for the sun ought not to fail to shine because of those blind to its ray. For this reason, even foreseeing the transgression, he caused philanthropy to rise; and foreseeing the future, he did not remove the honor; and foreknowing the insolence, he did not withhold the grace, delighting in those being formed, so that even as a temporary measure it might unlearn insatiability, and provide a pretext for God for a second gift toward an eternal beginning. For an end is terrible for the correction of insatiability. For what benefit is there of insatiable creation to one who will soon lie dead? To one who passes through life as a road, the burden of superfluities is vain. For we possess life as a road, not a fatherland. Thus the Lord calls it in the Gospels: "Be well-disposed toward your adversary as long as you are on the road with him.

The name of the road is fittingly given to life; for life is measured by intervals like a road. It is a temporary inn for both rich and poor, a brief rest for those passing through. For our days pass by like a shadow. Where are the first years of our life? They have passed like a phantom of a shadow, they have run by like the shading of a form. How great is the interval of our remaining life? Suppose a generous long life, a life of a hundred years; if you wish, give a threefold increase in years, and you will not provide anything permanent from these worldly things, whether one prides himself on wealth, is flooded with luxury, shines with the height of thrones, or whatever brilliant things of life he carries about. For all things are like the witherings of flowers, all are subject to a mournful succession, being rotten even at the time they flourish; for they have anxiety of dangers throughout. Wealth worries about robberies, luxury is dangerous with diseases, changes attend dominions; and having wrestled with manifold dangers and wasted away with countless cares, one has death preserved for him, an unbreakable adversary, not confined by places, not flattered by gifts, not moved by laments, a sudden snatcher. He who yesterday was in wealth, today suddenly in a tomb; he who yesterday was at a banquet of luxury, today in the list of the dead; he who yesterday was on thrones, the next day in swaddling clothes; he who yesterday was among flatterers, shortly after among worms. Where is the joy of the counted purses?

Where is the boast of the income from possessions? Where is the difference between a rich man’s corpse and a poor man’s? Where is the middle ground between a king and a beggar? Death is the successor of both, the tomb is the conclusion of each—except that no one has a retinue of grave goods. Well said is Paul’s utterance: “A great provision is piety with self-sufficiency.” For we brought nothing into the world, and it is clear that we can carry nothing out. An invincible syllogism for self-sufficiency: that none of the things acquired goes out with their acquirers. “For,” he says, “we will be able to carry nothing out.” What, he says, do you carry out what you do not transfer? Why do you hold what is not held? The end of self-sufficiency is useless to those who have acquired. For however much a person may gather, it will end in shelter and food for him, and of all the rest, life is the heir. And we owners are beguiled by wills, granting in writings what we cannot take, letting go of what we cannot hold, as if, if we could hold it, we would not yield it to another. And the preamble of the will reveals the intention: “If only I might live,” it says, “and be master of my own.” The document writes with the voice of one both clinging and yielding, and the deed of the document prays against itself: “If only I might live, and be master of my own.” Not even when we are at our last breath do we let go of the love of money. “But if,” it says, “I should suffer something human, I wish so-and-so to be heirs.” You will be inherited even if you do not wish it; nature has disposed that you be inherited even unwillingly. Even if you do not write an heir for your money, the money will find an heir; even if you leave it to no one, you will be able to carry out nothing of what you acquired. I do not say this as though making a will is a bad thing.

For a prophet somewhere exhorts a man: "Make arrangements concerning your house, for you are dying and will not live." But I am ridiculing our earthly choices, because we judge the wealth transmitted from these things to those as more valuable than things that have no successors. Truly, piety is a great source of revenue; it is not subject to the successions of death, it is not scattered by the writings of wills, it is not inherited by others, leaving behind the one who acquired it. The God-loving man is his own treasury, his own heir of his own substance; he travels with the wallet of piety, he takes along the wealth of hopes, he carries the income of virtues as he journeys, he finds heaven as his home, he mingles with the banquet of the righteous, he reaps an eternal reward worthy of a kingdom, he approaches the king with boldness, crying out: "You are the one who restores my inheritance to me." Christians have their aim toward those things; for those things birth is blessed, because one will attain a vision beyond thought, divine: the sudden opening of men, the marvelous transformation of the earth, the trumpets that from eternity raise the dead, the righteous borne through the air, the angelic revelries manifest to the eyes, the descent of the Lord upon the earth before the eyes of the world. Oh, how great it is that those who now love them warmly should then, upon approaching, cry out in response: "Remember, Lord, how we walked before you with truth and did what is pleasing before you," and while crying out, immediately hear in response one crying out: "And I know my own, and I am known by my own." Let us then turn away from excessive concern for worldly things; let us lighten the soul of earthly burdens.

Let us pass on in thought to what is to come. Let us fall in love with treasures that have no successor. Let us preserve the dignity of the royal image with the purple robe of virtue. Having been appointed to rule over the things of life, let us not turn the kingdom into slavery. Before all wealth, let us seek the protector of wealth. For, it says, the rich have become poor and have hungered, but those who seek the Lord will not be deprived of any good. Glory to him for ever and ever. Amen.