Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

other men’s springs; provide your comforts from your own reservoirs. Have you household
vessels, clothes, beast of burden, all kinds of furniture? Sell these. Rather surrender all than
lose your liberty. Ah, but—he rejoins—I am ashamed to put them up for sale. What then
do you think of another’s bringing them out a little later on, and crying your goods, and
getting rid of them for next to nothing before your very eyes? Do not go to another man’s
door. Verily ‘another man’s well is narrow.’ 503 Better is it to relieve your necessity gradually
by one contrivance after another than after being all in a moment elated by another man’s
means, afterwards to be stripped at once of everything. If you have anything wherewith to
pay, why do you not relieve your immediate difficulties out of these resources? If you are
insolvent, you are only trying to cure ill with ill. Decline to be blockaded by an usurer. Do
not suffer yourself to be sought out and tracked down like another man’s game. 504 Usury
is the origin of lying; the beginning of ingratitude, unfairness, perjury.…
. . . . . . . . . . .
“But, you ask, how am I to live? You have hands. You have a craft. Work for wages.
Go into service. There are many ways of getting a living, many kinds of resources. You are
helpless? Ask those who have means. It is discreditable to ask? It will be much more discreditable
to rob your creditor. I do not speak thus to lay down the law. I only wish to point
out that any course is more advantageous to you than borrowing.
. . . . . . . . . . .
“Listen, you rich men, to the kind of advice I am giving to the poor because of your inhumanity.
Far better endure under their dire straits than undergo the troubles that are bred
of usury! But if you were obedient to the Lord, what need of these words? What is the advice
of the Master? Lend to those from whom ye do not hope to receive. 505 And what kind of
loan is this, it is asked, from all which all idea of the expectation of repayment is withdrawn?
Consider the force of the expression, and you will be amazed at the loving kindness of the
legislator. When you mean to supply the need of a poor man for the Lord’s sake, the
transaction is at once a gift and a loan. Because there is no expectation of reimbursement,
it is a gift. Yet because of the munificence of the Master, Who repays on the recipient’s behalf,
it is a loan. ‘He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord.’ 506 Do you not wish the
Master of the universe to be responsible for your repayment? If any wealthy man in the
town promises you repayment on behalf of others, do you admit his suretyship? But you
do not accept God, Who more than repays on behalf of the poor. Give the money lying
useless, without weighting it with increase, and both shall be benefited. To you will accrue
503 Prov. xxiii. 27, LXX.
504 ὥσπερ ἀλλότριον θήραμα. Ed. Par. Vulg. ὥσπερ ἄλλο τι θήραμα.
505 cf. Luke vi. 34, 35.
506 Prov. xix. 17.
Exegetic.
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