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| Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection. |
The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557.
The 1903 footnotes are shown as [ ] and my own as [ ].
👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown.
Sancte Thoma
Ora pro nobis.
Of Covetise (Pt 2 of 2)
Covetous men be proud
Methought always that ye covetous niggards, how lowly soever ye looked, would, if ye were well searched, prove yourselves proud and highhearted. For surely, make they never so meek and humble countenance, they have much pride in the mind, and put their trust in their goods, making their good their God. Which thing is the cause that our Saviour Christ said it were as hard for the rich man to come into heaven as a great cable or a camel to go through a needle’s eye[1]. For it is not sin to have riches, but to love riches.
If riches come to you, set not your heart thereon, saith holy Scripture[2]. He that setteth not his heart thereon, nor casteth not his love thereon, reckoneth, as it is indeed, himself not the richer by them, nor those goods not his own, but delivered him by God to be faithfully disposed upon himself and others, and that of the disposition he must give the reckoning. And, therefore, as he reckoneth himself never the richer, so is he never the prouder.
But he that forgetteth his goods to be the goods of God, and of a disposer, reckoneth himself an owner, he taketh himself for rich. And because he reckoneth the riches his own, he casteth a love thereto, and so much is his love the less set unto God. For, as holy Scripture saith, “Where thy treasure is, there is thine heart”[3] ; where, if thou didst reckon the treasure not thine, but the treasure of God delivered thee to dispose and bestow, thy treasure should be in earth, and thy heart in heaven.
But these covetous folk that set their hearts on their hoards, and be proud when they look on their heaps, they reckon themselves rich, and be indeed very wretched beggars – those, I mean, that be full christened in covetise, that have all the properties belonging to the name, that is to wit, that be as loth to spend aught as they be glad to get all. For they not only part nothing liberally with other folk, but also live wretchedly by sparing from themselves. And so they reckon themselves owners, and be indeed but the bare keepers of other men’s goods. For sith they find in their heart to spend nothing upon themselves, but keep all for their executors, they make it even now not their own while they use it not, but other men’s, for whose use and behoof they keep it. But now let us see, as I said before, how the remembrance of death may quicken men’s eyes against this blind folly of covetise. For surely it is an hard sore to cure; it is so mad that it is much work to make any good counsel sink into the heart. Wilt thou see it proved ? Look upon the young man whom Christ Himself counselled to sell that he had, and give it to poor folk, and come and follow Him[4]; he clawed his head and went his way heavily because he was rich ; whereas, St Peter and other holy apostles, at the first call, left their nets, which was in effect all that they had, and followed Him. They had no great things whereupon they had set their hearts, to hold them back. But, and if their hearts had been sore set upon right small things, it would have been a great let[5].
And no marvel though covetous be hard to heal. For it is not ethe[6] to find a good time to give them counsel. As for the glutton, is ready to hear of temperance, yea, and to preach also of fasting himself, when his belly is well filled. The lecherous, after his foul pleasure past, may suffer to hear of continence, and abhorreth almost the other by himself. But the covetous man, because he never ceaseth to dote upon his goods, and is ever alike greedy thereupon, whoso giveth him advice to be liberal, seemeth to preach to a glutton for fasting, when his belly is empty and gapeth for good meat. Scantily[7] can death cure them when he cometh.
I remember me of a thief once cast at Newgate, that cut a purse at the bar[8], when he should be hanged on the morrow. And when he was asked why he did so, knowing that he should die so shortly, the desperate wretch said that it did his heart good to be lord of that purse one night yet. And in good faith methinketh, as much as we wonder at him, yet see we many that do much like, of whom we nothing wonder at all. I let pass old priests that sue for advowsons[9] of younger priests’ benefices. I let pass old men that hover and gape[10] to be executors to some that be younger than themselves, whose goods, if they would fall, they reckon would do them good to have in their keeping yet one year ere they die.
But look if ye see not some wretch that scant[11] can creep for age, his head hanging in his bosom, and his body crooked, walk pitpat upon a pair of patens with the staff in the one hand and the paternoster[12] in the other hand, the one foot almost in the grave already, and yet never the more haste to part with anything, nor to restore that he hath evil gotten, but as greedy to get a groat[13] by the beguiling of his neighbour as if he had seven score years to live.
The man that is purblind[14] cannot see far from him. And as to look on death we be for the most part purblind, all the many, for we cannot see him till he come very near us. But these folk be not purblind but stark blind, for they cannot see him when he cometh so near that he putteth almost his finger in their eye.
Sure the cause is for that they willingly wink and list[15] not to look at him. They be loth to remember death, loth to put this ointment on their eyes. This water is somewhat pricking, and would make their eyes water, and, therefore, they refuse it. But surely if they would use it, if they would as advisedly remember death as they unadvisedly forget him, they should soon see their folly and shake off their covetise. For, undoubtedly, if they would consider deeply how soon they may – yea, and how soon they must – lose all that they labour for, they would shortly cease their business, and would never be so mad greedily to gather together that other men shall merely soon after scatter abroad.
If they thought how soon in what painful plight they shall lie a-dying, while their executors afore their face ransack up their sacks, they would, I ween, shortly empty their sacks themselves. And if they doubt how far that death is from them, let them hear what Christ saith in the Gospel to the rich covetous gatherer, that thought to make his barns and his warehouses larger, to lay in the more, because he reckoned in himself to live and make merry many years. And it was said unto him : “Thou fool, this night shall they take thy soul from thee ! and then these things that thou hast gathered, whose shall they be?”[16] And holy St Bernard saith that it may be said unto him farther: “Thou that hast gathered them, whose shalt thou be ?”
A gay golden dream
If we would well advise us upon this point, and remember the painful peril of death that we shall so soon come to, and that of all that we gather we shall carry nothing with us, it would cause us to consider that this covetous gathering and niggardous keeping, with all the delight that we take in the beholding of our substance, is in all our life but a very gay golden dream, in which we dream that we have great riches, and in the sleep of this life we be glad and proud thereof. But when death shall once waken us, our gay golden dream shall vanish, and of all the treasure that we so merely dreamed of we shall not (as the holy prophet saith[17]) find one penny left in our hands. Which if we forget not but well and effectually remembered, we would in time cast covetise out of our heads, and leaving little business for our executors after our death, not fail to dispose and distribute our substance with our own hands.
If thou knewest very certainly that after all thy good gathered together thou shouldst be suddenly robbed of all together, thou wouldst, I ween, have little joy to labour and toil for so much ; but rather as thou shouldst happen to get it, so wouldst thou wisely bestow it there as need were, and where thou mightest have thank therefore, and on them specially that were likely to help thee with theirs when thine were all gone. But it is so that thou art of nothing so sure as that death shall bereave thee of all that ever thou keepest, and leave thee scant a sheet. Which thing if we did as well remember as we well know, we should not fail to labour less for that we shall so lose, and would put into poor men’s purses our money to keep that death, the cruel thief, should not find it about us, but they should relieve us therewith when the remnant were bereft us.
Footnotes
[1] Matt. xix. 24, Mark x. 25, Luke xviii. 25.
[2] Ps. lxi. 11.
[3] Matt. vi. 21.
[4] Matt, xix, Mark x, Luke xviii.
[5] Hindrance.
[6] i.e., easy.
[7] Scarcely.
[8] In the courtroom.
[9] The right of presenting' to a vacant benefice.
[10] i.e., to desire earnestly.
[11] Scarcely.
[12] i.e., rosary beads.
[13] A fourpenny piece or any small sum.
[14] Almost blind; partially sighted; having impaired vision generally.
[15] Wish.
[16] Luke xii. 20.
[17] Be not thou afraid, when a man shall be made rich, and when the glory of his house shall be increased. For when he shall die he shall take nothing away; nor shall his glory descend with him. Ps. xlviii. 17-18.
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SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.
The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.
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