57.

In the use of this passage, however, we must be very specially on our guard, lest perchance, when we see any servant of God making provision that such necessaries shall not be wanting either to himself or to those with whose care he has been entrusted, we should decide that he is acting contrary to the Lord's precept, and is anxious for the morrow. ¹ For the Lord Himself also, although angels ministered to Him, ² yet for the sake of example, that no one might afterwards be scandalized when he observed any of His servants procuring such necessaries, condescended to have money bags, out of which whatever might be required for necessary uses might be provided; of which bags, as it is written, Judas, who betrayed Him, was the keeper and the thief. ³ In like manner, the Apostle Paul also may seem to have taken thought for the morrow, when he said: "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the saints of Galatia, even so do ye: upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store ⁴ what shall seem good unto him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come ⁵ whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem. And if it be meet that I go also, they shall go with me. Now I will come unto you when I shall pass through Macedonia: for I shall pass through Macedonia. And it may be that I will abide, yea, and winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey whithersoever I go. For I will not see you now by the way; but I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord permit. But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost." ⁶ In the Acts of the Apostles also it is written, that such things as are necessary for food were provided for the future, on account of an impending famine. For we thus read: "And in these days came prophets down from Jerusalem to Antioch, ⁷ and there was great rejoicing. And when we were gathered together, ⁸ there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, every one according to his ability, determined to send relief to the elders for the brethren which dwelt in Judaea, which also they did by the hands of Barnabas and Saul." ⁹ And in the case of the necessaries presented to him, wherewith the same Apostle Paul when setting sail was laden, ¹⁰ food seems to have been furnished for more than a single day. And when the same apostle writes, "Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working ¹¹ with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth;" ¹² to those who misunderstand him he does not seem to keep the Lord's precept, which runs, "Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns;" and, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin;" while he enjoins the parties in question to labour, working with their hands, that they may have something which they may be able to give to others also. And in what he often says of himself, that he wrought with his hands that he might not be burdensome; ¹³ and in what is written of him, that he joined himself to Aquila on account of the similarity of their occupation, in order that they might work together at that from which they might make a living; ¹⁴ he does not seem to have imitated the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. From these and such like passages of Scripture, it is sufficiently apparent that our Lord does not disapprove of it, when one looks after such things in the ordinary way that men do; but only when one enlists as a soldier of God for the sake of such things, so that in what he does he fixes his eye not on the kingdom of God, but on the acquisition of such things.