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| Chapter XVI. Due measure must be observed in liberality, that it may not be expended on worthless persons, when it is needed by worthier ones. However, alms are not to be given in too sparing and hesitating a way. One ought rather to follow the example of the blessed Joseph, whose prudence is commended at great length.
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Chapter XVI.
Due measure must be observed in liberality, that it may
not be expended on worthless persons, when it is needed by worthier
ones. However, alms are not to be given in too sparing and
hesitating a way. One ought rather to follow the example of the
blessed Joseph, whose prudence is commended at great length.
76. It is clear,
then,486
| 486 Cic. de
Off. II. 15, § 55. | that there ought to be due measure in
our liberality, that our gifts may not become useless. Moderation
must be observed, especially by priests, for fear that they should give
away for the sake of ostentation, and not for justice’
sake. Never was the greed of beggars greater than it is
now. They come in full vigour, they come with no reason but that
they are on the tramp. They want to empty the purses of the
poor—to deprive them of their means of support. Not content
with a little, they ask for more. In the clothes that cover them
they seek a ground to urge their demands, and with lies about their
lives they ask for further sums of money. If any one were to
trust their tale too readily, he would quickly drain the fund which is
meant to serve for the sustenance of the poor. Let there be
method in our giving, so that the poor may not go away empty nor the
subsistence of the needy be done away and become the spoil of the
dishonest. Let there be then such due measure that kindness may
never be put aside, and true need never be left neglected.
77. Many pretend they have debts. Let the
truth be looked into. They bemoan the fact that they have been
stripped of everything by robbers. In such a case give credit
only if the misfortune is apparent, or the person is well known; and
then readily give help. To those rejected by the Church supplies
must be granted if they are in want of food. He, then, that
observes method in his giving is hard towards none, but is free towards
all. We ought not only to lend our ears to hear the voices of
those who plead, but also our eyes to look into their needs.
Weakness calls more loudly to the good dispenser than the voice of the
poor. It cannot always be that the cries of an importunate beggar
will never extort more, but let us not always give way to
impudence. He must be seen who does not see thee. He must
be sought for who is ashamed to be seen. He also that is in
prison must come to thy thoughts; another seized with sickness must
present himself to thy mind, as he cannot reach thy ears.
78. The more people see thy zeal in showing
mercy, the more will they love thee. I know many priests who had
the more, the more they gave. For they who see a good dispenser
give him something to distribute in his round of duty, sure that the
act of mercy will reach the poor. If they see him giving away
either in excess or too sparingly, they contemn either of these; in the
one case because he wastes the fruits of another’s labours by
unnecessary payments, on the other hand because he hoards them in his
money bags. As, then, method487
| 487 Cic. de
Off. II. 15, § 54. | must be
observed in liberality, so also at times it seems as though the spur
must be applied. Method, then, so that the kindness one shows may
be able to be shown day by day, and that we may not have to withdraw
from a needful case what we have freely spent on waste. A spur,
because money is better laid out in food for the poor than on a purse
for the rich. We must take care lest in our money chests we shut
up the welfare of the needy, and bury the life of the poor as it were
in a sepulchre.
79. Joseph could have given away all the wealth of
Egypt, and have spent the royal treasures; but he would not even seem
to be wasteful of what was another’s. He preferred to sell
the corn rather than to give it to the hungry. For if he had
given it to a few there would have been none for most. He gave
good proof of that liberality whereby there was enough for all.
He opened the storehouses that all might buy their corn supply, lest if
they received it for nothing, they should give up cultivating the
ground. For he who has the
use of what is another’s often neglects his own.
80. First of all, then, he gathered up their
money, then their implements, last of all he acquired for the king all
their rights to the ground.488
He did
not wish to deprive all of them of their property, but to support them
in it. He also imposed a general tax,489
that they might hold their own in safety. So pleasing was this to
all from whom he had taken the land, that they looked on it, not as the
selling of their rights, but as the recovery of their welfare.
Thus they spoke: “Thou hast saved our lives, let us find
grace in the sight of our Lord.”490
For they had lost nothing of their
own, but had received a new right. Nothing of what was useful to
them had failed, for they had now gained it in perpetuity.
81. O noble man!491
| 491 Cic. de
Off. II. 23, 83. | who
sought not for the fleeting glory of a needless bounty, but set up as
his memorial the lasting benefits of his foresight. He acted so
that the people should help themselves by their payments, and should
not in their time of need seek help from others. For it was
surely better to give up part of their crops than to lose the whole of
their rights. He fixed the impost at a fifth of their whole
produce, and thus showed himself clear-sighted in making provision for
the future, and liberal in the tax he laid upon them. Never after
did Egypt suffer from such a famine.
82. How splendidly he inferred the
future. First, how acutely, when interpreting the royal dream, he
stated the truth. This was the king’s first dream.492
Seven heifers came up out of the
river well-favoured and fat-fleshed, and they fed at the banks of the
river. And other bullocks ill-favoured and lean-fleshed came up
out of the river after the heifers, and fed near them on the very edge
of the river. And these thin and wretched bullocks seemed to
devour those others which were so fat and well-favoured. And this
was the second dream.493
Seven fat
ears full and good came up from the ground. And after them seven
wretched ears, blasted with the wind and withered, endeavoured to take
their place. And it seemed that the barren and thin ears devoured
the rich and fruitful ears.
83. This dream Joseph unfolded as follows:
that the seven heifers were seven years, and the seven ears likewise
were seven years,—interpreting the times by the produce of cattle
and crops. For both the calving of a heifer takes a year, and the
produce of a crop fills out a whole year. And they came up out of
the river just as days, years, and times pass by and flow along swiftly
like the rivers. He therefore states that the seven earlier years
of a rich land will be fertile and fruitful but the latter seven years
will be barren and unfruitful, whose barrenness will eat up the
richness of the former time. Wherefore he warns them to see that
supplies of corn are got together in the fruitful years that they may
help out the needs of the coming scarcity.
84. What shall we admire first? His
powers of mind, with which he descended to the very resting-place of
truth? Or his counsel, whereby he foresaw so great and lasting a
need? Or his watchfulness or justice? By his watchfulness,
when so high an office was given him, he gathered together such vast
supplies; and through his justice he treated all alike. And what
am I to say of his greatness of mind? For though sold by his
brothers into slavery,494
he took no revenge
for this wrong, but put an end to their want. What of his
gentleness, whereby by a pious fraud he sought to gain the presence of
his beloved brother whom, under pretence of a well-planned theft, he
declared to have stolen his property, that he might hold him as a
hostage of his love?495
85. Whence it was deservedly said to him by
his father: “My son Joseph is enlarged, my son is enlarged,
my younger son, my beloved. My God hath helped thee and blessed
thee with the blessing of heaven above and the blessing of the earth,
the earth that hath all things, on account of the blessings of thy
father and thy mother. It hath prevailed over the blessings of
the everlasting hills and the desires of the eternal
hills.”496
| 496 Gen. xlix. 22, 25, 26. | And in
Deuteronomy: “Thou Who wast seen in the bush, that Thou
mayest come upon the head of Joseph, upon his pate. Honoured
among his brethren, his glory is as the firstling of his bullocks; his
horns are like the horns of unicorns. With his horn he shall push
the nations even to the ends of the earth. They are the ten
thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh.”497
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