The Folly of Waste and the Stewardship of Death

lifting up the fragrance to the head. For of such things even Isaiah is a severe accuser. Let the hand of the commandments also be remembered, so that it may not touch all things without restraint. Let it stretch out toward almsgiving, not toward plunder; let it keep its own, not gather the things of others; let it touch the weak and injured bodies through good visitation, not those trembling and occupied with fornication.

The word showed us how we are not masters of ourselves, but stewards. For everything subject to laws and commands is a slave and obedient to the Lawgiver. If even the members of our body are not free by their own power, but are regulated toward activities by a masterly will, what would anyone say regarding those who claim to have unrestrained ownership of gold and silver and earth and other things?

Nothing, man. You are a slave and all that is yours belongs to the Lord. For a slave does not have free property. For you were made naked unto this light; you received what you have according to the law of your Lord; either inheriting from a father, since thus God ordained—for parents, he says, divide things among children like dogs—or having acquired prosperity from marriage, and marriage and that which is upon it are ordained by God, or from commerce and agriculture and other opportunities, God having worked through them.

Behold then, it was shown that you received things that are not yours. Let us see then what else has been commanded to you and what kind of management is required over those things. Give to the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the injured, do not leave behind the destitute, the one cast out in the crossroads. Do not worry about yourself, nor care how you will live in the future. Even if you work these things, he says, you shall be honored by the Lawgiver; but if you disobey the commandment, you shall be punished bitterly.

I do not see these things as belonging to one who is self-willed or one living with absolute authority, but on the contrary, many and continuous commands show me a man reigning strongly and requiring accountability through masterly laws and the established constitution as a duty.

As for us, how we, having life as something irrational, look around at the wretched and the laboring being finished by misfortunes, yet we spend money willingly on vanities, feeding a multitude of the useless...

And they are drawn to the company of evil spirits; and again they scatter wealth on beast-fights and wild beasts, showing no pity even toward those in the hippodromes; and again they spend their prosperity on wonder-workers and imitators and the following destructive things!

We suffer a thing that is empty and near to madness. For where the expenditure brings in immeasurable profit and immortal salvation, we hold the silver very tightly, as if we would not let even a few obols fall from the hand; but where the loss becomes the sin of sinners and the cause of myriads of punishments and of that very punishment through fire, we flow out by our own command. And ambition anticipates the request; and having opened all doors, we let the wealth go out to those outside. This mindset is not that of slaves waiting for the master, but of profligate, drunken, and dissolute youths.

If you wish, listener, to see the fear of a steward managing what was entrusted with sober piety, unfold the book of David; seek those words where the man of many deeds says to God concerning his own end: 'O Lord, make known to me my end, and who is the number of my days, so that I may know what I am lacking' (Psalm 39:4). See how the disposition of the one who has made a vow is viewed through the word as if in an image: that he is bound, and he foresees the future and awaits the judgment, and he examines the appointed time, so that the unexpected arrangement might not seize him at the moment of departure; and having calculated, he seeks to see what the deficiency of his sojourn is, so that having hurried, he might make up for it before the one leading out comes.

For truly, the end of each of us is an image of a steward, if we were to compare one another's individual matters: what the dying man suffers, and what the one being cast out of the stewardship endures. Likewise, the one who is finishing also hands over the administration to others, just as a steward hands over the keys; that one is cast out of a field, this one of the whole world as if of a single village. The steward withdraws, having suffered for his own labors, such as vineyards, gardens, and houses; so what do you think the one who is finishing suffers? Does he not grieve for his possessions? Does he not look with pity upon his substance, as he is being torn away from it without choice, far from treasures?