CHAPTER XII. Answer to the objection based on the saying about the camel going through the eye of a needle (Matt. xix. 24, etc.).

[First study the narrative of the rich man coming with his depraved ideas. Christ wished to lead him up through his riches to what was higher.]

It was not the case, as you declare, that his riches shut him out from the kingdom; on the contrary, they would bring him in, if he were sober and managed them well. For as a soldier, when he uses his armour skilfully and well, becomes famous through it, and noble and conspicuous, and through it has an honoured entry to the king and makes a show within his palace; and again through it he becomes notable for an archer's powers, and has a peaceful time in the cities; but if he puts it on badly, and does not wear it as he ought, he becomes subject through it to capture by every foe, and through it he is cast out of the precincts as a traitor, and the spoil is taken off by the enemy; while through it he is seen to be unpurified, and so is set aside, and is punished by being cut off from life. And no one in all this blames the armour, but the man who did not use it rightly. No one, when he sees a man glittering in a suit of armour, says that it is this that causes his glory, but the zeal of him that uses the weapons.

[And it is just so with the man of letters, the statuary, etc.] And when a man has wealth and manages it well, he becomes a partaker of the heavenly kingdom, but when he abuses it, he is shut out from it, and does not suffer this experience as a result of the wealth, but as a reasonable result of his own baseness. Nor indeed is a man who improperly persists in his poverty |71 praiseworthy on account of it. For many are poor, and they are not all praiseworthy, but each is properly so on account of his own experience. It is not his wealth that harms the rich man, but his unseemly course of life shows the wealth to be useless and unbeneficial; neither does his poverty lead the poor man up to heaven, but his bent of mind conduces to make his poverty profitable to his soul. For in rich and poor alike it is the nature of upright conduct and the disposition towards it that give lustre to his right action.

[Just as the same medicine will affect various people differently, so both riches and poverty may make a man either good or bad.] But in any case no one is put to shame in the life eternal who has lost his wealth through love of the kingdom of heaven, nor has he missed the mark through falling from his own possessions. For by giving what he has, he has received what he had not. By setting aside the earthly burdens which are grievous to be borne, he has received a fame which is light and unburdensome.

[Let me give you one instance out of many of the way that earthly riches may lead a man up to the heavenly. Job, as a rich man, fed the hungry and clothed the naked, and when the time came, he welcomed poverty aright, and looked on worms as goodly pearls. His riches always included virtue, and his poverty the love of his Maker.]

You must not therefore think that the Lord was making an absolute pronouncement when He said : "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle¹³⁹ than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." For many are found within the kingdom who have become rich. And yet with good cause He casts ¹⁴⁰ the rich man outside heaven, saying: " Hardly shall they that have |72 riches enter into the kingdom of heaven." Those who have them and do not impart them, and give no share to those who have none, but confine their wealth to their sole and personal enjoyment of life, and never have friendly intercourse with poor men, neither giving comfort to pitiable poverty nor alleviating the wants of those who are in trouble; those who turn their converse away from them that deserve mercy, and avoid the griefs of the despised as if they were a pollution --- these men are strangers to the kingdom of heaven.

No one comes within sight of a court of law without an advocate,¹⁴¹ no one ascends the judgment-seat who bears the suspicion of an accusation, no one appears before a king who is implicated in any form of complaint ;¹⁴² no one departs to a feast who is soiled and stained, no one introduces feasting along with burdens, no one enters a palace who bears indications of a tyrant's instincts. It is as advocates of the rich that the poor exist; without them wealth is unprofitable in the sight of God. Marks of wickedness exist, and a man must cast these away and show himself free. Their existence betokens the suspicion of accusations, and the better way is to put this out of the way by one's own management, and openly serve the Divine. The accompaniments of abundance manifest themselves as spots and blemishes in men, and it is right thus to disperse these by better reasoning, and to press in to the blessed feast.¹⁴³ The guarding of possessions is a heavy burden, and it is righteous to shake off the burden and to march unencumbered to the assembly above.¹⁴⁴ Possessions turn into accusations of covetousness, and it is profitable to cast them away quickly, and to ride into the kingdom of heaven apart from them, if indeed a man truly believes |73 that a kingdom of holy ones does exist in heaven. But if he does not believe it, why does he bother himself at all in arguing at random without faith ?