Annotation CXXI

”And they took the thirty pieces of silver, and gave them for the potter’s field.” — Matthew 27:6–7

Whether it is lawful for clerics to have possessions of temporal things.

Chrysostom, homily 86 on Matthew, taking occasion from these words, seems to deplore, with a long complaint, the calamity of the prelates and pastors of the Church — that they possess villas, houses, possessions, and wealth of gold and silver; which, he says, it would have been much better [for them] to be retained by laymen than by clerics; because priests and bishops cannot follow Christ unless — the possessions of the churches being left [behind] — they are freed from all secular care. His words run thus: “Let it come into your mind that eight thousand Levites were wont to feed [support] the Jews, and with these the widows and the orphans deprived of parents; but now [they possess] fields, houses, rentals of buildings, vehicles, horses, mules, and many other such [things] on your account; and the Church possesses [them] to your reproach. For it behooved you to retain this treasure of the Church, and [for] the Church to obtain no small fruits from your devotion. But now two evils are committed: for both you, as though you ought to give nothing, contribute nothing; and the priests of God handle [things] foreign to the priesthood. Could not houses and fields be possessed by the Church even in the time of the Apostles? For what reason, then, did they [the faithful], selling [them], offer the money? Because that was assuredly much better. And below: That evangelical [word], ‘Go, and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and follow me,’ etc.,¹ can now opportunely — and deservedly — be said to the presidents of the Church, on account of the broad possessions of the Church. For we cannot follow Christ otherwise, unless we are devoid of all grosser and secular care. But now — alas for the grief! — the priests of God attend to the vintage and the harvest, and to the selling and buying of the fruits,” etc.

This same opinion he repeats more lucidly in homily 15 on the first [epistle] to Timothy, where it reads thus: “It behooves that necessary sustenance be abundantly furnished to the teachers, lest they fail, or be dissolved [in spirit], nor — occupied with the least [things] — deprive themselves and others of the great [things]; so that they may work spiritual [things], having no account of secular [matters]. Of this kind were the Levites — who had no care of secular things, as the laity [do]. To these laity too the care of the Levites was committed, and by the law revenues were established for them — tithes, gold, first-fruits, vows, and very many other [things]. But those [things] were deservedly permitted to them by the law, [as] seeking only present and earthly [things]. But I would boldly say that the prelates of the Church ought to have nothing beyond food and clothing, lest [their] desires be drawn to those [things].” Thus far Chrysostom.

To whom Jerome seems to subscribe, in the little book On the Life of Clerics to Nepotian, saying thus: “Let the cleric, who serves the Church of Christ, first interpret his own name; and, the definition of the name being set forth, let him strive to be what he is called. For if cleros in Greek is called ‘lot’ in Latin: therefore they are called ‘clerics’ — either because they are of the lot [portion] of the Lord, or because the Lord himself is the lot, that is, the portion of the clerics. But he who is either himself the portion of the Lord, or has the Lord [as his] portion, ought so to show himself that he both possesses the Lord and is possessed by the Lord. He who possesses the Lord, and says with the prophet,² ‘The Lord is my portion,’ can have nothing outside the Lord. But if he shall have anything else besides the Lord, the Lord will not be his portion. For example, if [he have] gold, if silver, if possessions, if varied furniture: with these portions, the Lord will not deign to become his portion. But if I am the portion of the Lord, and the measuring-cord of his inheritance, I do not receive a portion among the other tribes; but, like a Levite and priest, I live from the tithes; and, serving the altar, I am sustained by the oblation of the altar: having food and clothing, with these I will be content; and, naked, I will follow the naked Cross.” Thus Jerome. The more recent heretics object and cast these words in our teeth, and by them at the same time animate and inflame avaricious princes to reduce the plundered possessions of the Church and the goods of the clerics into the Treasury, and turn [them] to their own uses.

But if, all hatred removed, they would weigh the sayings of both authors with a pious mind, they will recognize that Chrysostom did not condemn the possession of riches in clerics, but rather the cause on account of which bishops and clerics were compelled to possess and administer riches. This was the inclemency and cruelty of the rich of that age; who, in order to free themselves from the assiduous and burdensome solicitude of finding, providing, handling, and distributing those [things] which would suffice for the daily uses of the clerics and for the other necessities of the poor, had assigned to the prelates of the Church certain estates and farms, and had driven them to procure, from the care and administration of these, the necessaries of life for themselves and for the other poor of the people. This indignity Chrysostom deservedly reprehends —

[Chrysostom], judging it unjust that clerics should be compelled, on account of temporal ministries and the bodily care of the poor, to relinquish the offices of spiritual and sacerdotal functions. Which the Apostles too once complained of, saying, “It is not right for us to leave the word of God, and to serve tables.”³ But if that blessed pontiff [Chrysostom] therefore blames the rich of his time — not because they had given riches to the Church, but because they had given with a mind too little benevolent and grateful, [and] with this end, namely, to free themselves from the tedium and irksomeness of feeding the clerics and the poor — with what mind, with what tongue, with what words do you think he would have deplored, and at the same time detested, if he had lived in this our age, the most wicked princes and tyrants of the heretical factions? — who, to fill the desire of their insatiable avarice, have despoiled the temples of the saints of their treasures, [and] plundered the wealth of the Church (which of old catholic princes had given to the bishops and clerics, either for [their] necessity or for the honor of [their] life), and have reduced the ecclesiastical caretakers to misery and extreme want. But this is not the place for deploring such [things]: we are writing annotations, not declaiming.

But as regards Jerome: St. Thomas, in the latter part of the second volume of the Summa Theologica, question 185, sifting his words, says that he pronounced these [things] not against clerics who use the possession of riches rightly, but against those who abuse the possession of them — so cleaving to their wealth that they neglect the pursuit of piety, and abandon the worship of God and the care of spiritual [things], which ought to be the chief and prior solicitude of all bishops and clerics. There are also [those] who think that Jerome, by these words, gave the clerics not a precept, but a counsel; and that, in exaggerating this counsel, he strove to draw the clerics to that side [of possessing nothing], so that they might at least settle in the middle, and be content with a moderate use of riches — speaking after the manner of those who demand the extremes in order to obtain the moderate; and following the example of those who violently twist to the right a tree bent to the left, so that it, thence returning of its own accord to the middle, may rise up into the straight height of the trunk. Nor do I think it should be passed over here [what] St. Thomas, in the place mentioned above, noted — that there were of old [those] who thought that it is not lawful for clerics, and especially for bishops, to possess riches, on account of the height of supreme perfection which they profess; whom he, rejecting [them] as inept, says [that] it is not necessary that, where there is greater perfection of life, there [too] be greater poverty — since at the very summit of perfect sanctity there can be the greatest opulence. For Abraham — to whom it was said by God, “Walk before me, and be perfect,” etc. — and very many other most perfect men flourished in a great affluence of riches. To this Annotation are to be recalled certain words of Origen from homily 15 on Leviticus, together with the sayings of Hilary from the exposition of Psalm 118, which seem to exclude clerics from the possession of secular things. These you have [in] Annotation 200 of book 5.