Ambrose (339-397 A.D.) “On Naboth”: Part IV. What good are those houses and luxuries you can’t afford? How we can become truly rich?

[Reading Time: 17 minutes]

Click here for Part I, Part II and Part III.

Following the homily to its conclusion, we now offer the final instalment of this extraordinary—and incisively relevant—homily.

What good are those houses you can’t afford?

And for which you will be judged?

[61.] Or are you uplifted by spacious halls?

They should instead arouse compunction; because, although they might hold a crowd, they exclude the voice of the poor (although there is no point in hearing what has no effect once it has been heard).

Furthermore, your palace (regia) itself does not serve to embarrass you, since in building it you spent far more than your changing condition affords (opes vicissitudinis tuae supergressus es);

and yet you still didn’t succeed (nec tamen eas vincebas).

You clothe your walls and you strip (exuit) human beings.

A naked man cries out in front of your house and you ignore him;

A naked man cries out and you are worried about what marbles you should use for your floor.

A poor man looks for money and has none.

A man begs for bread, and your horse champs on the gold [bit] under his teeth.

Precious ornaments delight you, while others have no grain.

What a judgement, O rich man, you are bringing on yourself!

The people are starving

and you close up your granaries;

The people are wailing

and you twist your jeweled ring.

Unhappy man, in whose power it lies to save the lives of so many from death, and yet there is no will to do so!

The stone in your ring could save the life of an entire people.

Hear of the actions of one truly rich

[62.] Listen closely to what kind of praise befits a rich person:

“I have freed,” it says,

“the poor from the hand of the mighty.

And I have helped the orphan, who had no one to help him.

The blessing of the one who was about to perish came upon me,

the mouth of the widow blessed me.

I was clothed in righteousness.

I was the eye of the blind, the foot of the lame;

I was the father of the weak” (Job 29:12–16).

And still further:

“Outside my gates no stranger has dwelled,

yet my door has been open to everyone who came.

But even if I sinned by imprudence, I did not hide my fault;

nor did I fear the multitude of the people,

such that I would not tell of it in their presence

if I had allowed a weak person to go out my door with empty bosom” (Job 31:32–34).

He also mentioned that he ripped up the “debtor’s pledge” (chirographum) when [the debtor] returned it, without recovering what was owed him (cf. Job 31:35–37 [again referencing the Old Latin which follows the Septuagint].

But why should I repeat these things too?

That he says that he wept over everyone who was sick?

And groaned when he saw a man in need, though he was well off?

And that they were evil days for him when he observed what he had and others lacked? (cf. Job 30:25–26)

The stark differences between true and false riches

[63.] If he says this—

he who never made a widow weep;

who never ate his bread and did not give some to the orphan;

whom from his youth up he fostered, fed and raised with the love of a parent;

who never despised the naked;

who covered the dead;

who with the fleece of his sheep warmed the shoulders of the weak;

who never oppresse the orphan (cf. Job 31:16–21);

who never delighted in riches;

who never gloated over the downfall of his enemies (cf. Job 31:29).

And if he

who did these things, began from the height of wealth, to be in need;

if he kept nothing of his vast possessions but the fruit of mercy alone

—then what shall become of you?

who know not how to use your possessions;

who at the pinnacle of wealth go through days of impoverishment,

because you give nothing to anyone and come to no one’s help?

How will your riches affect you?

[64.] You are, then, the custodian of your riches and not their master.

You who bury gold in the ground are, indeed, its servant and not its lord.

“For where your treasure is,

there also is your heart” (Mt 6:21).

Hence in that gold you have buried your heart in the ground.

Sell your gold, rather, and purchase salvation;

Sell your precious stone and purchase the kingdom of God;

Sell your field and buy back for yourself eternal life.

What I say is true because I am adducing words of truth:

“If you wish to be perfect,’ it says,

“sell all that you have and give to the poor.

And you will have treasure in heaven” (Mt 19:21).

And do not be saddened when you hear this, lest it also be said to you:

“How difficult it is for those who have money to enter into the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:23).

Rather, when you read this, reflect that death can snatch these things from you;

Or one more powerful than you can take them away.

Why then do you want little things instead of great things;

empty things instead of eternal things;

treasures of money instead of treasures of grace?

The former are corruptible, the latter endure.

Riches that are consumed into nothing

Or which “make your debtor God…”

[65.] Reflect that you do not possess these things by yourself.

The moth possesses them with you;

rust, which consumes money, possesses them (cf. Mt 6:19-20).

Avarice has given these partners to you.

But see whom grace would place in your debt:

“The lips of the righteous shall bless the one who is prodigal with his bread.

And there shall be a testimony of his goodness” (Sir 31:23).

It makes your debtor God the Father,

Who, like one in debt to a good creditor,

pays the interest on the loan with which the poor person was helped.

It makes your debtor the Son,

Who says:

“I was hungry and you gave me to eat;

I was thirsty and you gave me to drink;

I was a stranger and you took me in;

Naked and you clothed me” (Mt 25:35–36).

For he says that

whatever was given to any of the least ones (minimis)

was given to Him (cf. Mt 25:40).

How you can become rich

[66.] You know not, O man, how to pile up wealth.

If you wish to be rich,

be poor to this world

so that you might be rich to God.

The one who is rich in faith is rich to God;

The one who is rich in mercy is rich to God;

The one who is rich in simplicity is rich to God;

The one who is rich in wisdom, the one who is rich in knowledge—they are rich to God.

There are those who possess an abundance in poverty;

and who are in need as far as wealth is concerned.

The poor abound whose

“deepest poverty has abounded in the riches of their simplicity” (II Cor 8:2);

and

“the rich have been in need and have gone hungry” (cf. Ps 34:10).

For not in vain does Scripture say:

“The poor shall be put over the rich;

And their own slaves shall lend to their masters” (Job 42:17);

[Note: This quotation is again taken from the texts of the Old Latin, which follows the Septuagint. And here in the final verse of Job (not included in our modern English Bibles) there is an eschatological reversal:

"But it is written that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raises...and the poor shall be set over the rich, and their own slaves shall lend to their masters."

("Scriptum est autem eum rursum resurrecturum cum iis quos Dominus resuscitat...pauperes autem praeficientur divitibus, et servi sui commodabunt dominis suis.”)

For the rich and those who are masters sow what is useless and evil;

from which they do not gather fruit but pluck off thorns (cf. Mt 7:15-20).

And therefore the rich shall be subject to the poor;

And slaves shall lend spiritual things to their masters, just as the rich man asked that the poor Lazarus would lend him a drop of water.

You also, O rich man, can fulfill these words:

“Give to the poor and you have lent to God.”

For

“He who gives to the poor lends to God” (Prov 19:17).

Psalm 76:1 Where God “is known”

[67.] Here now is the holy David in the seventy-sixth Psalm, beautifully singing a hymn to God that addresses the Assyrian.

That is to say, which is against the Assyrian of

“spiritual wickedness” (cf. Eph 6:12);

the vain and foolish “prince of this world” (cf. John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11).

It begins in this way:

“God is known in Judah” (Ps 76:1a).

That is to say, God is known—not among the wealthy, nor among the noble and the powerful—but in the believing soul.

“And in Israel,” it says, “His name is great” (Ps 76:1b);

Not among princes and consuls—but in the one who sees God.

For Israel is the one in whom a deep faith has been able to attain to the knowledge of God.

Psalm 76:2 Dispositions of peace amidst the violent onslaught

[68.] “And his place,” it says, “was established in peace” (Ps 76:2),

where a tranquil disposition is not agitated by the surges of the different desires;

not disturbed by the tempests of avarice;

not set ablaze by the fire of longing for riches.

He it is who catches sight of eternal things and

“dwells in Zion”(cf. Ps 76:2),

He it is who

“breaks” all the instruments of spiritual warfare,

destroying the “bows” (cf. Ps 76:3) with which the devil is wont to aim fiery arrows (cf. Eph 6:16) that burn grievous passions in the breasts of human beings.

But those arrows can do no harm to the righteous person, whose light is God. So far removed is he from the horrible and gloomy darkness that the Adversary can have no place in him.

He who has been accustomed to find his way even into princes;

just as he found his way even “into” the traitor Judas (Luke 22:3),

cutting down the gates of his faith like “trees” in a forest (Ps 74:5);

so that he would have access to his heart and invade the tabernacle of the eternal “Name” (Ps 74:7), consecrated by the office of Apostle that had been conferred on him.

In such a way, therefore, he [the Adversary] comes just like a lawless usurper (tyrannus), may enter in by violence;

But the Lord in his loving way casts light on his servants and illumines the darkness of this world with their shining merits and the brightness of their virtues.

The peaceful and mild, who are settled in sober tranquility of mind, possess this grace before God;

But those with foolish hearts are disturbed;

and they themselves are responsible for their own agitation, because they are tumbled about by their billowing desires and rise and fall as if they were on the open sea.

Do we possess wealth? … Or our wealth possess us?

[69.] Who these might be he clearly said:

“All the men of wealth” (Ps 76:5).

He said “all” and excluded no one.

And well did he say

“the men of wealth” (omnes viri divitiarum);

not

“the wealth of men,”

in order to show that they are not the possessors of their wealth, but are possessed by their wealth;

For the possession must belong to the possessor;

not the possessor to the possession.

Whoever, then, does not use his property as a possession and knows not how to give and dispense to the poor is the slave and not the master of his goods; for he watches over what belongs to others like a servant and does not use what is his like a master.

When it comes to a disposition of this kind, then, we say that the man belongs to the wealth and not the wealth to the man.

“For there is a good understanding in those who use it” (Ps 111:10);

But the one who does not understand cannot claim for himself the grace of understanding, and hence, is lulled into a woozy torpor and falls asleep. Men of this sort, therefore, “sleep their sleep” (cf. Ps 76:5)—that is, they sleep their own sleep, not Christ’s.

And those who do not sleep the sleep of Christ do not have the rest (requiem) of Christ or rise in the resurrection of Christ, Who says:

“I slept and rested and arose (exsurrexi),

because the Lord will support me” (Ps 3:5).

Who drives our chariot?

[70.] In this world there also is a “sleep” for those who are considered deserving of a rebuke from heaven (cf. Ps 76:6), who have mounted horses that they were unable to rein in.

We read elsewhere that either the Church or the soul says:

“He made me the chariots of Aminadab” (Song of Sol 6:12).

If, then, the soul is a chariot, see if the flesh is not a horse; whereas the strength of the mind is the driver, which rules over the flesh and restrains its urges with the reins of prudence, as if they were some sort of horses.

They have “fallen asleep,” then, who have mounted the pleasures of the body but exercise no governance over them. For that reason they are called by preference riders rather than horses or drivers; because a driver uses his authority to drive his horses with discipline and skill, so that he may

urge on the swift,

restrain the unruly,

recall the weary and

transform the hesitant in accordance with his own desire.

Hence, when Elijah was taken up and carried by chariot as if to heaven, Elisha cried out to him:

“Father, father, the driver of Israel and its horseman!” (II Kings 2:12).

This means:

“You who ruled over the Lord’s people with good leadership have, thanks to your steadfastness, received these chariots and these horses racing toward the divine;

because the Lord has approved you as a director of human minds;

and therefore, like a good charioteer, you are crowned victor in the race with an eternal reward.”

We also read in the prophet Habakkuk what was said to the Lord himself:

“You shall mount upon your horses

and your riding is salvation” (Hab. 3:8).

For He drove His apostles, whom he directed to different places so that they might preach the Gospel everywhere in the world.

“You shall mount”—it says this as if to a driver rather than to a rider.

For a horseman mounts, to be sure, but in order to control and not merely to sit down because he is lazy and sluggish in his weary mind and cannot keep up his pace.

The “horse and rider” … “He has hurled into the sea”

[71.] Of the horseman one may read:

“And the horseman will fall backward,

awaiting the salvation of the Lord” (Gen 49:17-18).

For, since no one is without fault, even if a horseman were to fall and be perverted by earthly vices. [That is] if he did not yet despair of rising again and was confident of the divine mercy, he would still attain to salvation.

But, with regard to the “rider,” there is a clear indication that he is considered reprehensible when Moses himself says in the Canticle of Exodus:

“Horse and rider He has hurled into the sea” (Ex 15:21).

And in Zechariah the Lord spoke and said:

“I shall strike every horse with madness

and its rider with foolishness” (Zech 12:4).

He did not speak of the horse alone, but of the rider as well, just as you have it in Exodus too:

“Horse and rider.”

For when there is a rider who cannot control his own horse, the horse itself rushes headlong and its fury carries it off to steep and dangerous places.

Why then, O rich, do you trust in horses?

“Vain is the horse for safety?” (Ps 33:17).

Why do you applaud yourselves in chariots?

“These are in chariots and these are on horses;

But we are exalted in the name of the Lord.

They have been bound and have fallen;

But we have arisen and been set upright” (Ps 20:7-8).

Do not love those that neigh after pleasure.

Do not, O rich, be aroused by the snorting of voluptuousness.

Terrible is the Lord and no one, however powerful and rich, can resist Him;

from heaven He hurls His judgement.

Confession and celebration of the true “feast”

[72.] It is good that you should be still, cease from your misdeeds and stand in awe

of God’s power.

Therefore it was said to the parricide Cain [which in 4th-century legal and moral rhetoric was often used for any murder of kin],

“You have sinned (Peccasti),

Be still” (Quiesce, Gen 4:7 [from the Vetus Latina Text]),

so that he might put an end to his sinning.

Let your thoughts be confessed to the Lord.

Do not say:

“We have not sinned.”

Paul said:

“Although I am conscious of nothing in myself,”

yet he added,

“still I am not justified because of this” (1 Cor 4:4).

You too, although you are conscious of nothing, still confess to the Lord, lest there be anything that escapes you. For the one who confesses to the Lord and brings to confession his fragmentary thoughts

“will celebrate the festal day” in the sanctuary of his mind.

And will feast, not with the

“leaven of malice and wickedness,”

but with the

“unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (I Cor 5:8).

Returning to the Lord what He has given to us

[73.] And so in conclusion the prophet says, addressing you:

“Pray and make a return to the Lord your God” (Ps 76:11).

This means:

“Do not dissemble, O rich; the day is pressing on.

Pray for your sins.

Return gifts for the good things that you have.

You have received from [God] what you may offer;

What you pay back to Him is His.”

“The gifts that I give,” He says, “and the gifts that have been given to Me—the gifts, in other words, that You offer Me—are My gifts;

I myself gave them to you and bestowed them upon you.”

Hence the prophet says:

“You do not stand in want of my good things” (Ps 16:2).

“And therefore I offer You what is yours,

since I have nothing that You have not given me.”

Giving in faith and humility

[74.] It is faith that makes gifts acceptable; and it is humility that commends offerings.

“Because of his faith Abel offered a greater sacrifice to God” (Heb 11:4).

The oblation of Abel was more pleasing than the oblations of his brother Cain (cf. Gen 4:3-5), because his faith was greater.

How is it that the sacrifices of a poor man are more pleasing than those of a rich man?

The poor man is richer in faith, wealthier in moderation. And although he is poor, he is of those of whom it is said:

“Kings shall offer you gifts” (Ps 68:29).

For the Lord Jesus takes delight not in those who make offerings, all clad in purple;

but in those who rule over their own dispositions;

who by the authority of their mind exercise dominion over bodily licentiousness (lasciviam).

Prayer leading to action: Give back to the Giver of “all”!

[75.] Pray, then, O rich!

There is nothing that is pleasing in your works.

Pray for your sins and misdeeds and return gifts to the Lord your God.

Make a return in the poor person.

Pay back in the needy person.

Lend in that destitute person to whom, on account of your misdeeds, you cannot otherwise be reconciled.

Make Him your Debtor, Whom you fear as an Avenger.

“I shall not accept,” He says,

“calves from your home or goats from your flocks;

For mine are all the beasts of the forest” (Ps. 50:9-10).

“Whatever you offer,” He says, “is mine,

Because the whole world is mine.

I do not demand what is mine;

But from what is yours you can offer the zeal of your devotion and faith.

I take no delight in the flattery of sacrifices;

Only, O man,

‘offer to God a sacrifice of praise

and pay your vows to the Most High’” (Ps. 50:14).

Asleep in darkness “on account of their riches;”

Or awakened to God through prayer

[76.] Or at least it will be acceptable if we understand it in this way—

that He said that the rich have slept their sleep;

that He sent out in advance the Lord’s rebukes against them;

that He concocted (machinatus sit) something dreadful (atrox);

and that He proclaimed a power that the rich could not withstand.

Turning to all, He says:

“Let the rich sleep;

Let the rich be rebuked.”

“You pray and make return to the Lord your God.

All who are round about Him offer gifts” (Ps 76:11).

That is, give thanks, O poor;

“because God is not a respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34).

Let them build up their wealth.

Let them hoard their money.

Let them heap up treasures of gold and silver.

You pray—you who have nothing else.

You pray—you who have this alone, which is more precious than gold and silver.

You return gifts—you who are not far from the Lord,

“who are round about Him;”

For

“you who were distant have been brought close” (Eph 2:13).

But those who seem to themselves to be close on account of their riches and power have become distant because of their avarice.

For no one is outside except the one whom wrongdoing has shut out, just as it cast out Adam from paradise and shut out Eve (cf. Gen 3:23-24).

No one is distant except the one whom his own misdeeds have banished.

God cannot be “bought off” by riches, but demands “more from the one whom He has given more”: The example of Saul

[77.] Therefore you pray, you who are nearby.

And return gifts

“to the One Who is terrible;

to Him Who cuts off the breath of princes;

to Him Who is terrible among the kings of the earth” (Ps 76:11-12);

because by no rich man’s recompense will He be bought off;

by no arrogance on the part of the powerful will He be moved,

He Who apportions the penalties for wrongdoing;

Who demands more from the one to whom He has given more (cf. Luke 12:48b);

Who conferred a kingdom on Saul when he was a private citizen (cf. I Sam 9-11),

although He took away his kingdom and his life because he did not keep His commandment (cf. I Sam 31);

Who on account of their faithlessness made many kings captives of the Gentiles and took them from the people of their fathers (cf. II Kings 17:5-25).

And, with reference now to the narrative at hand, Who ordered that King Ahab, ungrateful for the good things that he had received from heaven, be slain in such a way that his wounds would be licked by dogs.

For, because he who could not be satisfied by the wealth of an entire kingdom, he lusted after (concupivit) a poor man’s vineyard

and was brought lower than utter destitution by the Lord;

and thus, no one was found to wash his wounds; no one to cover his body;

Human kindness failed in his regard,

and canine savagery took its place.

Clearly the avaricious man found worthy ministers for his own funeral.

God’s sentence reversed??

[78.] At this point the question arises as to how to read what the Lord said to Elijah:

“Have you seen how Ahab has been afflicted (conpunctus est) at My presence?

I will not bring evils in his days,

but I will bring evils in the days of his son” (I Kings 21:29).

Or how to say that penance is efficacious before the Lord?

“Behold, the king was moved before the face of the Lord,

and he went away weeping, rent his garments, covered himself in goat’s hair (cilicium)

and was clothed in sackcloth from the day when he killed Naboth the Jezreelite” (I Kings 21:27).

The result was that mercy moved God and changed his sentence.

Therefore, either his penance was inefficacious and did not bend a merciful Lord or the oracle was false;

for Ahab was overcome and slain (cf.I Kings 22:34–37).

How the bond of mercy was undone—Enter Jezebel

[79.] But consider that he had Jezebel for his wife,

under whose influence he was inflamed;

who turned his heart and made him accursed on account of his horrible sacrilege

—She, then, recalled him from his penitential disposition.

The Lord, however, cannot be considered fickle if He did not think that the promise which He had made when [Ahab] confessed [his guilt] should be kept when he was unmindful of his confession.

How Ahab himself undid God’s mercy

[80.] Listen to something else that is still truer.

The Lord kept the terms of His sentence,

even though [Ahab] was unworthy, but was heedless of the divine benefits in his regard.

The king of Syria [Ben Hadad II] had started a war. He was conquered and kept for pardon. Although a captive, he was set free and sent back to his kingdom (cf. I Kings 20:1, 29–34).

In keeping with the divine sentence Ahab not only escaped, but even triumphed;

yet through his own foolishness he armed against himself the enemy by whom he would be conquered.

He was, to be sure, warned by the prophet, who said:

“Give thought and see what you should do” (I Kings 20:22).

He had been warned, I say, because the help of heavenly grace was due in respect to the servants of the king of Syria, since he had said:

“The God of the mountains is the God of Israel”—and not the god Baal.

“Therefore, they have overcome us” (I Kings 20:23, 28).

The final chapter: A prophecy and a strange prophetic action

[81.] “Hence, if we do not completely overcome them,

they will set up satraps in place of the king of Syria” (I Kings 20:23–24 [Vetus Latina]).

In this way he would eliminate their strength and the king’s power.

And so in the first encounter he conquered, so that he put the enemy to flight (cf. I Kings 20:20); in the second he conquered, whereupon he sent his captive back to his own kingdom (cf. I Kings 20:29).

It was on this account that there sprang up a clear oracle concerning his defeat, when one of the sons of the prophets said to his neighbor:

“‘Slay me.’

But the man refused to slay him” (I Kings 20:35-42)

And he said,

“‘Because you did not obey the word of the Lord,

behold, when you leave me,

a lion will kill you.’

And he left him, and a lion found him and killed him” (I Kings 20:36–37).

And after this another prophet stood before the king of Israel and said to him,

“The Lord says this:

‘Since you let go from your own hand the man of destruction,

behold, your life shall be in place of his life

and your people in place of his people’” (I Kings 20:37-42).

It is obvious from these oracles, then, that the Lord keeps His promises even with regard to the unworthy;

but that the wicked are either overcome by their own stupidity or condemned for a second transgression, even if they have escaped the snares of the first transgression.

But it behooves us to act in such a way that we may be worthy by reason of our good works and may merit to receive what has been promised by the almighty God.

Amen.