Teaching Christianity
own time have been customarily treated as vicious and condemned, and only those acts to be approved of and praised which are acceptable to those among whom they live. Thus it can happen that if scripture either commands something which does not accord with the customs of the hearers, or censures something which does fit in with them, they assume they are dealing with a figurative mode of speech—if, that is, their minds are bound by the authority of God's word.[25] Scripture, though, commands nothing but charity, or love, and censures nothing but cupidity, or greed, and that is the way it gives shape and form to human morals.
Again, if people's minds are already in thrall to some erroneous opinion, whatever scripture may assert that differs from it will be reckoned by them to be said in a figurative way. The only thing, though, it ever asserts is Catholic faith, with reference to things in the past and in the future and in the present. It tells the story of things past, foretells things future, points out things present; but all these things are of value for nourishing and fortifying charity or love, and overcoming and extinguishing cupidity or greed.
16. What I mean by charity or love is any urge of the spirit to find joy in God for his own sake, and in oneself and one's neighbor for God's sake; by cupidity or greed any impulse of the spirit to find joy in oneself and one's neighbor, and in any kind of bodily thing at all, not for God's sake. Now what unrestrained greed does by way of corrupting the human spirit and its body can be called infamous, while whatever it does to harm someone else can be called criminal.[26] And all sins fall into these two categories, but infamous deeds come first. When these have drained the spirit dry and reduced it to a kind of want, it bursts out into criminal acts in order to eliminate obstacles to its infamous behavior, or to secure assistance in it.
Again, what charity does, or love, to profit self is usefulness, while whatever it does to profit the neighbor is called kindness. And here usefulness comes first, because one cannot profit one's neighbor with what one does not have oneself. For the more the kingdom of greed is whittled away, so much the more is that of love increased.
11, 17. So then anything we read of in the scriptures as coming from the person of God or his saints that sounds harsh and almost savage in deed and word is of value for whittling away the kingdom of greed. And if its meaning is crystal-clear, it is not to be referred to something else, as though it were said figuratively, like this from the apostle: He is storing up for himself wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will pay back each and all according to their works; to those indeed who by patient endurance in doing good are seeking glory and honor and imperishability, eternal life; to those however who are given to quarrels and who distrust the truth while they trust iniquity, wrath and indignation. Tribulation and distress upon every human soul that works evil, Jew first and also Greek (Rom 2:5–9). But this is being addressed to those who are being overthrown together with their greed,[27] because they have been unwilling to overcome it.
But when the kingdom of greed is being undermined in those people it used to dominate, we have this plain statement: But those who are Jesus Christ's have crucified their flesh, with its passions and lusts (Gal 5:24), except that in these instances too some words are to be treated as metaphorical, such as "the wrath of God" and "have crucified"; but they are not so many, or so placed, as to obscure the plain sense and make it all into an allegory or a riddle, which is what I properly call a figurative expression. But coming to what Jeremiah was told, Behold, I have set you today over nations and kingdoms, to pull down and to destroy, and to scatter and to rout (Jer 1:10), it is undoubtedly all a figurative utterance, to be referred to that end which we have mentioned.