Annotation LXXXV

”The young man says to him, ‘All these I have kept from my youth.’” — Matthew 19:20

Whether it is lawful to procure for oneself, from the goods left at [one's] death, suffrages after this life.

Basil, at the end of the sermon which he delivered on this passage, seems to explode the custom of those who, dying, prescribe that, from the goods left at [their] death, suffrages be made for them after death. For thus he speaks: “Do not err; God is not mocked. What is dead is not brought to the altar: bring [rather], he says, thy living victim. He who offers from the surplus is not admitted. Superfluous and rejected [things], if they be offered, lack grace.

But wilt thou offer to thy benefactor [the things] that shall be left over to thee after thy whole life [is done]? If thou darest not to receive distinguished men with the leavings of [thy] table, how darest thou to appease God with leavings?” John Damascene noticed this passage, and disclosed its right understanding in the sermon On the Care to be Taken for the Dead, writing in this manner: “Well does that great Basil both speak and teach; but see to whom — namely, to the avaricious, to plunderers, to those who have known neither covenant nor mercy — as he himself testifies, saying: ‘We are speaking to a stony heart; and as long as thou wast alive, thou wast given over to delights and pleasures, and thou didst overflow [with them], not bearing that the poor should so much as look upon thee; [now] that thou art dead, what reward, thinkest thou, [is due]? What fruit shall be given to thy work?’ And again: ‘The neighboring house makes mine dark; and the avaricious [man] neither reveres time, nor knows bounds, but, like fire, invades and lays waste all things, and, like a rapid torrent rushing with force, drags [things] cast [before it] along with itself.’ And other [things] like these, known to all who diligently attend to that most holy book of his. From which [it is] clear that the discourse was elaborated against those who have no care for the poor.” These [things says] Damascene on Basil’s behalf — [Basil] whom I too believe not to have wished, by these words, to take away the force of the suffrages which the faithful shall have arranged to be made for them after death, but rather to have wished to commend those [good works] which each does for himself while he lives.