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| Connection Between Covetousness and Idolatry. Certain Trades, However Gainful, to Be Avoided.
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Chapter XI.—Connection Between Covetousness and Idolatry.
Certain Trades, However Gainful, to Be Avoided.
If we think over the rest of faults, tracing them
from their generations, let us begin with covetousness, “a root
of all evils,”230
wherewith, indeed,
some having been ensnared, “have suffered shipwreck about
faith.”231
Albeit covetousness
is by the same apostle called idolatry.232
In
the next place proceeding to mendacity, the minister of
covetousness (of false swearing I am silent, since even swearing is not
lawful233
)—is trade adapted for a servant
of God? But, covetousness apart, what is the motive for acquiring? When
the motive for acquiring ceases, there will be no necessity for
trading. Grant now that there be some righteousness in business, secure
from the duty of watchfulness against covetousness and mendacity; I
take it that that trade which pertains to the very soul and spirit of
idols, which pampers every demon, falls under the charge of idolatry.
Rather, is not that the principal idolatry? If the selfsame
merchandises—frankincense, I mean, and all other foreign
productions—used as sacrifice to idols, are of use likewise to
men for medicinal ointments, to us Christians also, over and
above, for solaces of sepulture, let them see to it. At all events,
while the pomps, while the priesthoods, while the sacrifices of idols,
are furnished by dangers, by losses, by inconveniences, by cogitations,
by runnings to and fro, or trades, what else are you demonstrated to be
but an idols’ agent? Let none contend that, in this way,
exception may be taken to all trades. All graver faults extend
the sphere for diligence in watchfulness proportionably to the
magnitude of the danger; in order that we may withdraw not only from
the faults, but from the means through which they have being. For
although the fault be done by others, it makes no difference if it be
by my means. In no case ought I to be necessary to
another, while he is doing what to me is unlawful. Hence I ought
to understand that care must be taken by me, lest what I am forbidden
to do be done by my means. In short, in another cause of no
lighter guilt I observe that fore-judgment. In that I am interdicted
from fornication, I furnish nothing of help or connivance to others for
that purpose; in that I have separated my own flesh itself from stews,
I acknowledge that I cannot exercise the trade of pandering, or keep
that kind of places for my neighbour’s behoof. So, too, the
interdiction of murder shows me that a trainer of gladiators also is
excluded from the Church; nor will any one fail to be the means of
doing what he subministers to another to do. Behold, here is a more
kindred fore-judgment: if a purveyor of the public victims come over to
the faith, will you permit him to remain permanently in that trade? or
if one who is already a believer shall have undertaken that business,
will you think that he is to be retained in the Church? No, I
take it; unless any one will dissemble in the case of a
frankincense-seller too. In sooth, the agency of blood pertains
to some, that of odours to others. If, before idols were in the
world, idolatry, hitherto shapeless, used to be transacted by these
wares; if, even now, the work of idolatry is perpetrated, for the most
part, without the idol, by burnings of odours; the frankincense-seller
is a something even more serviceable even toward demons, for idolatry
is more easily carried on without the idol, than without the ware of
the frankincense-seller.234
| 234 [The aversion of the
early Christian Fathers passim to the ceremonial use of incense
finds one explanation here.] | Let us interrogate
thoroughly the
conscience of the faith itself. With what mouth will a Christian
frankincense-seller, if he shall pass through temples, with what mouth
will he spit down upon and blow out the smoking altars, for which
himself has made provision? With what consistency will he exorcise his
own foster-children,235
to whom he affords
his own house as store-room? Indeed, if he shall have ejected a
demon,236
let him not congratulate himself on
his faith, for he has not ejected an enemy; he ought to have had
his prayer easily granted by one whom he is daily feeding.237
No art, then, no profession, no trade, which
administers either to equipping or forming idols, can be free from the
title of idolatry; unless we interpret idolatry to be altogether
something else than the service of idol-tendence.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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