CHAPTER XXIV. Household affairs
The care of the church building and all its property he assigned and entrusted in turn to the more capable clergy. He never held the key nor wore his ring, but everything which was received and spent was noted down by these overseers of the house. At the end of the year the accounts were read to him that he might know how much had been received and how much spent, or what still remained to be spent. In many bills he preferred to rely on the fidelity of the overseer of the house rather than to ascertain it by testing and proving his accounts. A house or land or an estate he was never willing to buy. But if perchance anything of the kind was given to the church by someone of his own accord or if it was left as a legacy, he did not refuse it, but ordered that it be accepted. But some legacies I know he refused, not because they could not be used for the poor, but because it seemed just and right that they should rather be in the possession of the children or parents or relatives of the deceased, even though the decedents had not willed to leave these things to them. In fact one of the chief men of Hippo who was living at Carthage wished to give his property to the church at Hippo. Retaining only the interest for himself, he sent the tablets duly attested to Augustine of holy memory, who gladly accepted his offering and congratulated him because he was mindful of his eternal salvation. But some years after this, when as it happened we were visiting in Augustine's house, lo, |99 this benefactor sent a letter by his son and asked that the records of transfer be returned to his son, directing, however, that a hundred pieces of gold should be given to the poor. And when the holy man heard it he mourned that the man had either pretended to make a gift or had repented of his good work. In his grief of mind at this perversity he said what he could, as God put it in his heart, for the man's admonition and reproof. He immediately returned the tablets which had been sent voluntarily and not by request nor on compulsion. The money he spurned, and as in duty bound, he wrote an answer and censured and reproved the man, warning him to make his peace with God in humble repentance for his false pretences and wickedness, that he might not depart from this life under the burden of so great a sin.
He also said frequently that the church might with greater security and sa'fety accept legacies left by the dead rather than gifts from the living which might cause anxiety and loss, and furthermore that legacies themselves should be offered voluntarily rather than solicited. He accepted nothing which was offered him in trust, but did not restrain any of the clergy who wished to accept such gifts. He was not intently concerned nor entangled in the property which the church held and possessed. Yet though following with inmost desire after the greater spiritual things, he sometimes relaxed from his contemplation of things eternal and turned to temporal affairs. But when such things had been arranged and set in order, then as though freed from consuming and annoying cares, his soul rebounded to the more intimate and lofty thoughts of the mind in which he either pondered on the discovery of divine truth or dictated some of the things already discovered or else emended some of the works which had been previously dictated and then transcribed. This he accomplished by working |101 all day and toiling at night. He was a type of the Church on high, even as most glorious Mary, of whom it is written that she sat at the feet of the Lord and listened intently to His word; but when her sister who was cumbered about much serving, complained because she received no help, she heard the words: "Martha, Martha, Mary hath chosen that better part which shall not be taken away from her."
For new buildings he never had any desire, avoiding the entanglement of his soul in these things, since he wished always to have it free from all temporal annoyance. Nevertheless he did not restrain those who desired or constructed them, provided only they were not extravagant. Sometimes, when the money of the church failed, he announced to the Christian people that he had nothing to give to the poor. For the sake of captives and of the many who were in need he even ordered the holy vessels to be broken and melted down and to be distributed to the needy. I would not have mentioned this unless I knew that it was done contrary to the carnal judgment of some. Ambrose, of venerable memory, also said and wrote that in such extremities it should be done without any hesitancy. Sometimes too when the treasury and also the consistory, from which were supplied the things necessary for the altar, had been neglected by the faithful, Augustine would speak of it in the church and remind the people, even as he once told us the blessed Ambrose had dealt with the subject in the church when he was there.