"After he has got his money, at first a man is bright and joyous; he shines with another's splendour, and is conspicuous by his altered mode of life. His table is lavish; his dress is most expensive. His servants appear in finer liveries; he has flatterers and boon companions; his rooms are full of drones innumerable. But the money slips away. Time as it runs on adds the interest to its tale. Now night brings him no rest; no day is joyous; no sun is bright; he is weary of his life; he hates the days that are hurrying on to the appointed period; he is afraid of the months, for they are parents of interest. Even if he sleeps, he sees the lender in his slumbers--a bad dream--standing by his pillow. If he wakes up, there is the anxiety and dread of the interest. The poor and the usurer,' he exclaims, meet together: the Lord lighteneth both their eyes.' [501] The lender runs like a hound after the game. The borrower like a ready prey crouches at the coming catastrophe, for his penury robs him of the power of speech. Both have their ready-reckoner in their hands, the one congratulating himself as the interest mounts up, the other groaning at the growth of his calamities. Drink waters out of thine own cistern.' [502] Look, that is to say, at your own resources; do not approach 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 the security of its safe keeping. The recipients will have the advantage of its use. And if it is increase which you seek, be satisfied with that which is given by the Lord. He will pay the interest for the poor. Await the loving-kindness of Him Who is in truth most kind.
"What you are taking involves the last extremity of inhumanity. You are making your profit out of misfortune; you are levying a tax upon tears. You are strangling the naked. You are dealing blows on the starving. There is no pity anywhere, no sense of your kinship to the hungry, and you call the profit you get from these sources kindly and humane! Wo unto them that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter,' [507] and call inhumanity humanity! This surpasses even the riddle which Samson proposed to his boon companions:--Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.' [508] Out of the inhuman came forth humanity! Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles, [509] nor humanity of usury. A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. [510] There are such people as twelve-per-cent-men and ten-per-cent-men: I shudder to mention their names. They are exactors by the month, like the demons who produce epilepsy, attacking the poor as the changes of the moon come round.
"Here there is an evil grant to either, to giver and to recipient. To the latter, it brings ruin on his property; to the former, on his soul. The husbandman, when he has the ear in store, does not search also for the seed beneath the root; you both possess the fruit and cannot keep your hands from the principal. You plant where there is no ground. You reap where there has been no sowing. For whom you are gathering you cannot tell. The man from whom usury wrings tears is manifest enough; but it is doubtful who is destined to enjoy the results of the superfluity. You have laid up in store for yourself the trouble that results from your iniquity, but it is uncertain whether you will not leave the use of your wealth to others. Therefore, from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away;' [512] and do not give your money upon usury. Learn from both Old and New Testament what is profitable for you, and so depart hence with good hope to your Lord; in Him you will receive the interest of your good deeds,--in Jesus Christ our Lord to Whom be glory and might for ever and ever, Amen."
(iii.) The Commentary on Isaiah. The Commentary on Isaiah is placed by the Benedictine Editors in the appendix of doubtful composition, mainly on the ground of inferiority of style. Ceillier is strongly in favour of the genuineness of this work, and calls attention to the fact that it is attested by strong manuscript authority, and by the recognition of St. Maximus, of John of Damascus, of Simeon Logothetes, of Antony Melissa of Tarasius, and of the Greek scholiast on the Epistles of St. Paul, who is supposed to be OEcumenius. Fessler [513] ranks the work among those of doubtful authority on the ground of the silence of earlier Fathers and of the inferiority of style, as well as of apparent citations from the Commentary of Eusebius, and of some eccentricity of opinion. He conjectures that we may possibly have here the rough material of a proposed work on Isaiah, based mainly on Origen, which was never completed. Garnier regards it as totally unworthy of St. Basil. Maran ( Vit. Bas. 42) would accept it, and refutes objections.
Among the remarks which have seemed frivolous is the comment on Is. xi. 12, that the actual cross of the Passion was prefigured by the four parts of the universe joining in the midst. [514] Similar objections have been taken to the statement that the devils like rich fare, and crowd the idols' temples to enjoy the sacrificial feasts. [515] On the other hand it has been pointed out that this ingenuity in finding symbols of the cross is of a piece with that of Justin Martyr, [516] who cites the yard on the mast, the plough, and the Roman trophies, and that Gregory of Nazianzus [517] instances the same characteristic of the devils. While dwelling on the holiness of character required for the prophetic offices, the Commentary points out [518] that sometimes it has pleased God to grant it to Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar for the sake of their great empires; to Caiaphas as the high priest; to Balaam, because of the exigencies of the crisis at which he appeared. The unchaste lad [519] who has some great sin upon his conscience shrinks from taking his place among the faithful, and is ashamed to rank himself with the weepers. So he tries to avoid the examination of those whose duty it is to enquire into sins [520] and he invents excuses for leaving the church before the celebration of the mysteries. The Commentary urges [521] that without penitence the best conduct is unavailing for salvation; that God requires of the sinner not merely the abandonment of the sinful part, but also the amends of penance, and warns men [522] that they must not dream that the grace of baptism will free them from the obligation to live a godly life. The value of tradition is insisted on. [523] Every nation, as well as every church, is said to have its own guardian angel. [524]
The excommunication reserved for certain gross sins is represented [525] as a necessary means enjoined by St. Paul to prevent the spread of wickedness. It is said [526] to be an old tradition that on leaving Paradise Adam went to live in Jewry, and there died; that after his death, his skull appearing bare, it was carried to a certain place hence named "place of a skull," and that for this reason Jesus Christ, Who came to destroy death's kingdom, willed to die on the spot where the first fruits of mortality were interred. [527]
On Is. v. 14, "Hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure," [528] it is remarked that these are figurative expressions to denote the multitude of souls that perish. At the same time an alternative literal meaning is admitted, the mouth being the opening through which the souls of the damned are precipitated into a dark region beneath the earth.
It is noted in some mss. that the Commentary was given to the world by an anonymous presbyter after St. Basil's death, who may have abstained from publishing it because it was in an unfinished state. Erasmus was the first to undertake to print it, and to translate it into Latin but he went no further than the preface. It was printed in Paris in 1556 by Tilmann, with a lengthy refutation of the objections of Erasmus.
[472] De Vir. Illust. cxvi.
[473] Instit. Div. i.
[474] Ecc. Hist. iv. 26.
[475] cf. Letterccxxiii. § 5, p. 264. It is believed that tachygraphy was known from very early times, and Xenophon is said to have "reported" Socrates by its aid. The first plain mention of a tachygraphist is in a letter of Flavius Philostratus (A.D. 195). It has been thought that the systems in use in the earlier centuries of our era were modifications of a cryptographic method employed by the Christians to circulate documents in the Church. No examples are extant of an earlier date than the tenth century, and of these an interesting specimen is the Paris MS. of Hermogenes described by Montfaucon, Pal. Gr. p. 351. The exact minutes of some of the Councils--e.g. Chalcedon--seem to be due to very successful tachygraphy.
[476] Vit. Bas. xli. 4.
[477] cf. Fessler, p. 512.
[478] cf. Epp. cv., clx. § 2, cxcviii. § 3, and cclxiv. § 4.
[479] See p. 101.
[480] "Origène sacrifiait tout au sens mystique Eusèbe le faisait aller de pair avec le sens historique. Comme lui St. Basile respecte scrupuleusement la lettre; mais comme lui aussi, il voit sous la lettre tous les mystères du Nouveau Testament et surtout des enseignements moraux. Les différents caractères que présente son interprétation sont un moyen presque infaillible de connaitre la date des ses grands travaux exégétiques. Aussi ne doit-on pas hésiter à assigner aux premiêres années de sa retraite la composition du commentaire d'Isaïe, dans lequel domine à peu près exclusivement l'interpétation morale; à sa prêtrese celle des homilies sur les Psaumes, où il donne une égale importance au sens moral et au sens mystique, mais en leur sacrifiant sans cesse le sens littéral; à son épiscopat, enfin. l'Hexaméron, qui, sans négliger les sens figurés, s'attache surtout à donner une explication exacte de la lettre." Fialon, Et. Hist. p. 291. The theory is suggestive, but I am not sure that the prevalence of the literal or of the allegorical is not due less to the period of the composition than to the objects the writer has in view.