The Law of the Righteous and the Vanity of Luxury

Our God and Savior does not instruct men by decisive and dogmatic decrees alone, so as to hate evil and love virtue, but He also provides clear lessons of the good life through vivid examples, advancing us through both deeds and words to the grasp of a good and God-loving life.

In this same way, even now, having warned us often through prophetic and evangelical mouths, and not only so but also through a familiar voice, to turn away from the proud and exalted wealth, and to love a philanthropic mind and a poverty lived with justice, so that the good counsel might be more firmly established, He proves the word with practical examples and writes through the narrative the rich man and the poor man (Luke 16:19-31).

He shows the one the enjoyment of ambition and the other the distressed life, and the end of both lives in that to which they arrived, so that, having considered the truth for the benefit of others, we might become prudent judges of our own.

A certain man was rich and was clothed in purple and fine linen. Through two concise names, the word examines and mocks the sprawling and immoderate dissipation of those who wealthily live badly. For the color of the purple is costly and elaborate, but the use of the fine linen is not necessary. For those choosing a prosperous life, it is simple, familiar, and friendly to measure the use of necessary things according to need, and to flee from the vain emptiness of the one dragged by and the many-layered diversion as the mother of evil.

And so that we may learn the power of this said thing more clearly, let the use of clothing be first recognized, to what extent and by what limits it will be received, encompassing prudence. What then...

The law of the righteous says: God created the sheep with an easy nature, whose wool grows straight. Taking this ready material, give to the weaver's art the substance, and fashion for yourself a tunic and a garment, so that you may escape the hardship of winter and the harm of the scorching ray.

If you also have need of lighter clothing during the season of summer, God gave the use of linen for a wider enjoyment; and it is easy for you to acquire from there a beautiful covering, simultaneously wearing and refreshing through its lightness. And enjoying these things, one confesses to the Creator the grace for which He provided not only us, but also the security for living.

But if, leaving behind the sheep and the wool and the necessary preparation of the Creator of all things, one, dividing the fine fabric through vain thoughts and reckless desires, seeks the fine fabric and gathers the threads of the Persian worms, weaving a spider-like web, and coming toward the flower-colored dye, pays a lavish wage, so that having hunted the murex from the sea, he may anoint the garment with the blood of the animal—this is a man exceeding in excess, being colored by his possessions, having no place to pour out the surplus. And because of this, it is reasonable that such a person is scourged by the Gospel, being accused as foolish and effeminate, being mocked by the worlds of brave maidens.

Others again are lovers of the same vanity; rather, having practiced more evil, they have not even set the limits of foolish thought at what has been said, but having discovered some empty and curious weaving, which imitates the power of the saffron garment in its chest-fold toward the crocus, and marks the forms of all animals with its veils, having loved the art of making garments for themselves, for women, and for children, being multicolored with flowers and myriad images; they are playing, not striving.