Expositions on the Book of Psalms (continued)
PSALMS. 173
Psatm XLIX.] ON : THE unrighteousness: or perhaps this very thing is unrighteousness, that thou hast and another hath which I must quit, and I think not for myself of an eternal house, where I shall alway be. When not, thou aboundest and another needeth. Of| he thinketh to make for himself a monument of this mammon of unrighteousness, of these riches which the unrighteous call riches, make to thyself friends, and thou shalt be prudent: thou art gaining for thyself, and art not cheating. For now thou seemest to lose it. Wilt thou lose it if thou place it in a treasury? For boys, my brethren, no sooner find some money, wherewith to buy something, than they put it in a moneybox,' which they open not until afterwards: do they, because they see not what they have got, on that account lose it? Fear not: boys put in a money-box, and are secure: dost thou place it in the hand of Christ, and fear? Be prudent, and provide for thyself against the future in Heaven. Be therefore prudent, copy the ant, as saith the Scripture :? " Store in summer, lest thou hunger in winter;" the winter is the last day, the day of tribulation ; the winter is the day of offences and of bitterness: gather what may be there for thee for the future: but if thou doest not so, thou wilt perish both imprudent and unwise. marble or of sculpture, he is deeming as it were of an eternal house: as if therein this rich man would abide! If he would abide there, he would not burn in hell. We must consider that the place where the spirit of an evil doer abideth, is not where the mortal body is laid: but " their tombs shall be their house for ever. Their dwelling places are from generation to generation." " Dwelling places" are wherein they abode for a season: "house" is wherein they will abide as it were for ever, that is to say, their tombs. Thus they leave their dwelling places, where they abode while they lived, to their families, and they pass as it were to everlasting houses, to their tombs. What profit to them are " their dwelling places, from generation to generation"? Now suppose a generation ard generation are sons, grandsons there will be, and great grandsons ; what do their dwelling places, what do they profit them? What? Hear: "they shall invoke their names in their lands." What is this? They shall take bread and wine to their tombs, and there they shall invoke the names of the dead. Dost thou consider how loudly was invoked the name of the rich man after his death, when men drank them drunk at his monument, and there came down not one drop upon his own burning tongue? Men minister to their own belly, not to the ghosts of their friends. The souls of the dead nothing doth reach, but what they have done of themselves while alive: but if they have done nought of themselves while alive, nothing doth reach them dead. But what do the survivors? They will but "invoke their names in their lands."
13. But that rich man3 too died, and a like funeral was made for him. See to what men have brought themselves: they regard not what a wicked life he led while he lived, but what pomp followed him when he died! O happy he, whom so many lament! But the other lived in such sort, that few lament. For all ought to lament a man living so sadly. But there is the funeral train; he is received in a costly tomb, he is wound in costly robes, he is buried in perfumes and spices. Secondly, what a monument he hath! How marbled! Doth he live in that same monument? He is therein dead. Men deeming these to be good things, have strayed from God, and have not sought the true good things, and have been deceived with the false. To this end see what followeth. He who gave not the price of the redemption of his soul, who understood not death, because he saw wise men dying, he became imprudent and unwise, in order that he might die with them. And how shall they perish, who 'shall leave their riches to,ahens".2. sin ¢ 14. But do those same aliens indeed serve them who are called their own? Hear in what they serve them, observe how they are ridiculed : why hath he said, "' to strangers'"'? Because they can do them no good. Nevertheless, wherein do they seem to themselves to do good? "And their tombs shall be their house for ever" (ver. 11). Now because these tombs are erected, the tombs are a house. For often thou hearest a rich man saying, I have a house of marble
15. "And man though he was in honour perceived not, he was compared to the beasts without sense, and was made like to them" (ver. 12).
. . . They ought, on the contrary, to have made ready for themselves an eternal house in good works, to have made ready for themselves everlasting life, to have sent before them expenditure, to have followed their works, to have ministered to a needy companion, to have given to him with whom they were walking, not to have despised Christ covered with sores before their gate, who hath said, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."+ However, "man being in honour hath not understood." What is, " being in honour'? Being made after the image and likeness of God, man is preferred to beasts. For God hath not so made man as He made a beast : but God hath made man for beasts to minister to: is it to his strength then, and not to his 4 Matt. xxv. 40, 1 Thesaurario, 7 Prov. vi. 8, xxx. 25. 3 Luke xvi. 22,