Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Eugene Burnand, “Parable of the Dishonest Steward”

He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’ Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’

So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own? “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Luke 16:1–13)

Anyone may readily learn the meaning and view of the Savior’s words from what follows. For He said, “If you have not been faithful in what is another’s, who will give you what is your own?” And again, we say what is another’s is the wealth we possess. For we were not born with riches, but, on the contrary, naked; and we can truly affirm in the words of Scripture, “that we neither brought anything into the world, nor can we carry anything out.” For the patient Job also has said something of this kind: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb; naked shall I return.” It is therefore no man’s own by right of nature that he is rich and lives in abundant wealth, but it is a thing added on from the outside, and is a chance matter. And if it cease and perish, it in no respect whatsoever harms the definitions of human nature. For it is not by virtue of our being rich that we are reasonable beings, and skillful in every good work, but it is the property of our nature to be capable of these things. That therefore, as I said, is another’s which is not contained in the definitions of our nature, but, on the contrary, is manifestly added to us from the outside. But it is our own, and the property of human nature to be fitted for every good work, for as the blessed Paul writes, “We have been created for good works, which God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

When therefore any are unfaithful in what is another’s, in those things namely, which are added to them from the outside, how shall they receive that which is their own? How shall they be made partakers of the good things which God gives, which adorn the soul of man, and imprint upon it a divine beauty, spiritually formed in it by righteousness and holiness, and those upright deeds which are done in the fear of God.

Let those of us then who possess earthly wealth open our hearts to those who are in need. Let us show ourselves faithful and obedient to the laws of God and followers of our Lord’s will in those things which are from the outside, and not our own, that we may receive that which is our own, even that holy and admirable beauty which God forms in the souls of men, fashioning them like unto Himself, according to what we originally were.

Cyril of Alexandria, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Luke 109