Blessing and Cursing in Relation to Justice

Neither what he has nor what he received, nor the profit nor the interest. 'But the righteous' Ps 112:5 God even more 'shows mercy and gives.' He who receives does not give back, but he himself even more 'shows mercy and gives.' And I say: then the mercy and the benevolence appear, if the receiver is ungrateful. 'He is kind even to the ungrateful and the evil,' Matt 25:34 he gives. Those receiving are ungrateful—for by not giving back what is necessary to give back, they are found ungrateful and evil—but God is still kind even to these. Therefore the righteous even more shows mercy and provides.

The imitator, therefore, of God, 'who shows mercy to the poor and lends to God' Ps 112:4, even if the one being lent to does not provide what he owes to provide, he is still merciful, he still provides. And take for me the parable of the Gospel concerning the talents: 'to each according to his own ability' Matt 25:15 he gave the rational things belonging to him, not to each according to his nature, but according to the ability which he himself had prepared by choice. 'And to the one he gave five, to the other two, to the other one' Matt 25:15. 'The one having received five talents worked with them' Matt 25:16 and doubled them. Having borrowed, he paid back. The one with two likewise. The one having received the one and having buried it in the earth, neither worked with it nor gave interest, he hid it in the earth Matt 25:18.

When you see a man having the ability to do good or to be a philanthropist and not doing it, he has buried what he received into the earth, he has buried it into his own material choice. And being asked for it, when the time remained to 'gather' Matt 25:19 to those who had received the rational silver, he says: 'See, you have the sponge' Matt 25:24. And he accused God, wanting to write his own slowness upon another: 'I knew,' Matt 25:24 he says, 'I knew that you are a hard man, removing what you did not set, reaping where you did not sow; and having been afraid, you hid your silver in the earth' Matt 25:22-23 and to no one did you give it. From which things he said, he had the rebuke and the condemnation: 'Man, wicked slave, you knew that I remove what I did not set' Matt 25:26, if I remove not what is mine, I overstepped my own, not what was received; if 'I reap where I did not sow' Matt 25:23? In any case, they were taking mine, if you had given it on a table so that it might be multiplied. Therefore, even this was deprived. And the sinner, therefore, many times...

If one is rising up but does not pay back what he owes to pay back, his benefits will one day be taken away. He will no longer receive from the righteous, much more from one pitying and providing. 22 For those blessing him shall inherit the land. Those blessing the righteous. One must receive both kinds of returns: namely, the righteous man or God. He who does those things which God requires of him blesses God, so as to say: 'I will bless the Lord at all times' (Ps 112:1). And the righteous man is blessed: 'for the blessing of the Lord is upon the head of the righteous' (Ps 112:3), and: 'this one shall receive blessing from the Lord' (Ps 37:3). 'The land,' that land, concerning which it was said: 'and he will lift you up to inherit the land' (Ps 37:11).

22 But those cursing him shall be destroyed. Therefore the impious one curses the righteous by speaking about him, or toward those whom he speaks to: 'Woe to them, because they have departed from me; they are wretched, because they have done evils against me; I redeemed them, but they spoke lies against me.' 'I,' he says, 'redeemed them,' meaning he led them into the bath of regeneration, having freely granted the complete forgiveness of sins, having wiped out their lawlessness. But they speak lies against me, not doing those things for which they were called. And they had the forgiveness of sins; for not for this purpose did I redeem them, so that they might sin, but so that they might become outside of sin. If, therefore, after the ransoms and the means, someone does something absurd, he speaks lies by saying in a certain way: 'He did not benefit me,' he says lies against him.

23 The steps of a man are directed by the Lord, and he will desire his way (Ps 37:23). The man walks volitionally from the inferior to the superior, from the temporal to the eternal. And to him belongs the willing of the good, since it is 'not of him who runs nor of him who wills, but of the God who shows mercy' (Rom 9:16) to successfully complete the way. 'The steps of a man are directed by the Lord.' The steps are not given; for it is ours to will to walk from the bad to the good. Immediately, indeed, in the epistle of John, he writes: 'We know that we have passed from death to life' (1 Jn 5:13). 'We have passed,' not 'we were led.' God, directing the steps, did not force us into this by violence.