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130 Pages
Page 103
Homily VII., against the rich, follows much the same line of argument as VI. Two main considerations are urged against the love of worldly wealth; firstly, the thought of the day of judgment; secondly, the fleeting and unstable nature of the riches themselves. The luxury of the fourth century, as represented by Basil, is much the same as the luxury of the nineteenth.
"I am filled with amazement," says the preacher, "at the invention of superfluities. The vehicles are countless, some for conveying goods, others for carrying their owners; all covered with brass and with silver. There are a vast number of horses, whose pedigrees are kept like men's, and their descent from noble sires recorded. Some are for carrying their haughty owners about the town, some are hunters, some are hacks. Bits, girths, collars, are all of silver, all decked with gold. Scarlet cloths make the horses as gay as bridegrooms. There is a host of mules, distinguished by their colours, and their muleteers with them, one after another, some before and some behind. Of other household servants the number is endless, who satisfy all the requirements of men's extravagance; agents, stewards, gardeners, and craftsmen, skilled in every art that can minister to necessity or to enjoyment and luxury; cooks, confectioners, butlers, huntsmen, sculptors, painters, devisers and creators of pleasure of every kind. Look at the herds of camels, some for carriage, some for pasture; troops of horses, droves of oxen, flocks of sheep, herds of swine with their keepers, land to feed all these, and to increase men's riches by its produce; baths in town, baths in the country; houses shining all over with every variety of marble,--some with stone of Phrygia, others with slabs of Spartan or Thessalian. [632] There must be some houses warm in winter, [633] and others cool in summer. The pavement is of mosaic, the ceiling gilded. If any part of the wall escapes the slabs, it is embellished with painted flowers....You who dress your walls, and let your fellow-creatures go bare, what will you answer to the Judge? You who harness your horses with splendour, and despise your brother if he is ill-dressed; who let your wheat rot, and will not feed the hungry; who hide your gold, and despise the distressed? And, if you have a wealth-loving wife, the plague is twice as bad. She keeps your luxury ablaze; she increases your love of pleasure; she gives the goad to your superfluous appetites; her heart is set on stones,--pearls, emeralds, and sapphires. [634] Gold she works and gold she weaves, [635] and increases the mischief with never-ending frivolities. And her interest in all these things is no mere by-play: it is the care of night and day. Then what innumerable flatterers wait upon their idle wants! They must have their dyers of bright colours, their goldsmiths, their perfumes their weavers, their embroiderers. With all their behests they do not leave their husbands breathing time. No fortune is vast enough to satisfy a woman's wants,--no, not if it were to flow like a river! They are as eager for foreign perfumes as for oil from the market. They must have the treasures of the sea, shells and pinnas, [636] and more of them than wool from the sheep's back. Gold encircling precious stones serves now for an ornament for their foreheads, now for their necks. There is more gold in their girdles; more gold fastens hands and feet. These gold-loving ladies are delighted to be bound by golden fetters,--only let the chain be gold! When will the man have time to care for his soul, who has to serve a woman's fancies?"
[632] A precious, red-streaked marble was quarried in Phrygia. The Spartan or Taenarian was the kind known as verde antico. cf. Bekker, Gallus. p. 16, n. The taste for the "Phrygian stone" was an old one. cf. Hor., Carm. III. i. 41.
[633] The Cappadocian winters were severe. cf. Ep. cxxi., cxcviii., cccxlix.
[634] huakinthous. See L. and S., s.v., and King's Antique Gems, 46.
[635] i.e. she must have ornaments of wrought gold and stuff embroidered with gold.
[636] cf. Hexaemeron, p. 94.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/life-works.asp?pg=103
