Chapter VIII.
Of our very own possessions in which the beauty of the soul is seen or its foulness.
We ought then to take the utmost care that our inner man as well may cast off and make away with all those possessions of its sins, which it acquired in its former life: which as they continually cling to body and soul are our very own, and, unless we reject them and cut them off while we are still in the flesh, will not cease to accompany us after death. For as good qualities, or charity itself which is their source, may be gained in this world, and after the close of this life make the man who loves it lovely and glorious, so our faults transmit to that eternal remembrance a mind darkened and stained with foul colours. For the beauty or ugliness of the soul is the product of its virtues or its vices, the colour it takes from which either makes it so glorious, that it may well hear from the prophet "And the king shall have pleasure in thy beauty," [1227] or so black, and foul, and ugly, that it must surely acknowledge the stench of its shame, and say "My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness," [1228] and the Lord Himself says to it "Why is not the wound of the daughter of my people closed?" [1229] And therefore these are our very own possessions, which continually remain with the soul, which no king and no enemy can either give or take away from us. These are our very own possessions which not even death itself can part from the soul, but by renouncing which we can attain to perfection, and by clinging to which we shall suffer the punishment of eternal death.
[1227] Ps. xliv. (xlv.) 12.
[1228] Ps. xxxvii. (xxxviii.) 6.
[1229] Jer. viii. 22.
Chapter IX.
Of three sorts of possessions.
Riches and possessions are taken in Holy Scripture in three different ways, i.e., as good, bad, and indifferent. Those are bad, of which it is said: "The rich have wanted and have suffered hunger," [1230] and "Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation:" [1231] and to have cast off these riches is the height of perfection; and a distinction which belongs to those poor who are commended in the gospel by the Lord's saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;" [1232] and in the Psalm: "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him," [1233] and again: "The poor and needy shall praise thy name." [1234] Those riches are good, to acquire which is the work of great virtue and merit, and the righteous possessor of which is praised by David who says "The generation of the righteous shall be blessed: glory and riches are in his house, and his righteousness remaineth for ever:" [1235] and again "the ransom of a man's life are his riches." [1236] And of these riches it is said in the Apocalypse to him who has them not and to his shame is poor and naked: "I will begin," says he, "to vomit thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest I am rich and wealthy and have need of nothing: and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I counsel thee to buy of me gold fire-tried, that thou mayest be made rich, and mayest be clothed in white garments, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear." [1237] There are some also which are indifferent, i.e., which may be made either good or bad: for they are made either one or the other in accordance with the will and character of those who use them: of which the blessed, Apostle says "Charge the rich of this world not to be high-minded nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in God (who giveth us abundantly all things to enjoy), to do good, to give easily, to communicate to others, to lay up in store for themselves a good foundation that they may lay hold on the true life." [1238] These are what the rich man in the gospel kept, and never distributed to the poor,--while the beggar Lazarus was lying at his gate and desiring to be fed with his crumbs; and so he was condemned to the unbearable flames and everlasting heat of hell-fire.
[1230] Ps. xxxiii. (xxxiv.) 11.
[1231] S. Luke vi. 24.
[1232] S. Matt. v. 3.
[1233] Ps. xxxiii. (xxxiv.) 7.
[1234] Ps. lxxiii. (lxxiv.) 21.
[1235] Ps. cxi. (cxii.) 2, 3.
[1236] Prov. xiii. 8.
[1237] Rev. iii. 16-18.
[1238] 1 Tim. vi. 17-19.
[1239] Cf. S. Luke xiv. 19 sq.