Section 4

But if you wish, let us turn our discussion to Abraham, whom everyone continually brings forward to us above all others. Did he not have a wife? Did he not have children? I say to you the very thing you say to us. He had a wife, but he was not admirable because he had a wife. He had wealth, but it was not because he had wealth that he pleased God. He had children, but he was not called blessed because he had children. He possessed three hundred and eighteen servants born in his household, but he was not admired because of this. Do you want to know why he was admired? Because of his hospitality, his contempt for wealth, and his self-control.

Tell me, what belongs to a philosopher? Is it not to despise wealth and glory and to rise above envy and every passion? Come, then: let us bring Abraham forward, strip away the externals, and show you what kind of philosopher he was. First, he counted his homeland as nothing. He heard, “Go out from your land and from your kindred,” and immediately he went out. He was not bound to his house, or he would not have left. He was not bound by attachment to familiar companions or by anything else. Above all, he despised glory and money. After winning a war and being offered the spoils, he rejected them with contempt.

His son too was admired, not because of wealth but because of hospitality; not because of children but because of obedience; not because he had a wife but in connection with his wife’s barrenness. They counted the present life as nothing. They did not devote themselves to making money; they looked down on all such things.

Tell me, which plants are best? Are they not those that have strength in themselves and are harmed neither by rain nor hail nor violent winds nor any other such disturbance, but stand exposed and disregard them all, needing neither walls nor fences? Such is the philosopher; such is that kind of wealth. He has nothing and has everything; he has everything and has nothing. A wall is not something within the plant but something outside it; a fence does not belong to its nature but is placed around it from outside.

And tell me this: what kind of body is strong? Is it not one that is healthy and is overcome neither by hunger nor by abundance of food, neither by cold nor by heat? Or is the strong body the one that is vulnerable to all these things and needs cooks, weavers, hunters, and physicians in order to stay healthy? The person who is truly rich, the true philosopher, is the one who has no need of such things.

This is why the blessed Apostle said, “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Do not surround them with external fences. Wealth is such a fence, and so is glory. When these fall—and fall they will—the plant stands naked and vulnerable. It not only gained nothing from them in the past; it was actually harmed. Those very fences, by preventing it from being trained to withstand the assaults of the winds, prepared it to collapse all at once when the fences fell. Wealth therefore does more harm than good when it leaves people untrained for the changes and hardships of life.

Let us prepare our children, then, so that they can withstand everything and are not bewildered by what comes upon them. Let us bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, and a great reward will be stored up for us. If people who make statues of kings and paint their portraits receive such honor, will we who adorn the royal image—for the human being is the image of God—not receive countless blessings when we restore the likeness? The likeness consists in the virtue of the soul: when we train our children to be good, free from anger, and ready to forgive injuries—for all these belong to God; when we train them to do good, to love others, and to count the things of the present life as nothing.

Let this, then, be our task: to shape and order both ourselves and them as we ought. Otherwise, with what confidence will we stand before the judgment seat of Christ? If a man whose children are unruly is unworthy of the episcopate, how much more is he unworthy of the kingdom of heaven. “What are you saying? If we have a disorderly wife or disorderly children, will we be held accountable?” Yes, if we have not carefully done everything that was ours to do. Our own virtue by itself is not enough for salvation. If the man who failed to put the one talent to work gained nothing but was punished, it is clear that our own virtue alone is not enough; we must also care for the virtue of others entrusted to us.

Let us therefore take great care for our wives, great care for our children and servants, and great care for ourselves. As we bring both ourselves and them into proper order, let us ask God to help us in this work. If He sees us concerned about it and taking care over it, He will help us; but if He sees us paying no attention, He will not extend His hand. God does not give His help to us while we sleep, but while we ourselves are also laboring. A helper is not the helper of someone who does nothing, but of someone who is himself at work.

Yet the good God is able by Himself to bring the work to completion, so that we may all be counted worthy to obtain the promised blessings, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom glory, dominion, and honor belong to the Father together with the Holy Spirit, now and always and unto ages of ages. Amen.