Archive, Readings
Desert Fathers 28
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A brother who had taken leave of the world and distributed his possessions to the poor, while keeping a bit for his own use, came to see Abba Antony. Having heard these things, Abba Antony said to him: ‘If you want to become a monk, go to such-and-such a village: buy meat and place it on your naked body, then come back here.’ The brother did as he was told. As a result, dogs and wild birds tore his body apart. Once he had returned to the elder, the latter asked if he had followed his counsel. The brother displayed his lacerated body. Then Abba Antony said: ‘Those who take leave of the world yet want to hang on to riches are torn apart just like this by demons who wage war on them.’
From the Acts of the Apostles we learn how the early Church constituted itself after Pentecost. The Apostles, having received the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire, preached and exhorted people in Jesus’s name. But the Christian project was not just about proclamation. It sought to lay foundations for a new model of society. ‘Save yourselves’, Peter told Israelites who had first thought he was drunk, so quaint was his enthusiasm, ‘from this corrupt generation’ (Acts 2.40).
In what way was it corrupt? The word Scripture uses is suggestive. Peter calls ‘this generation’ geneá skoliá. To be skoliós is to be twisted or tangled. The ancient Greeks gave the name skolión to a special type of drinking song sung at banquets for it was picked up by reclining guests following a zig-zag course. A generation described in these terms is one that can’t walk straight. It is not the Apostles, it turns out, who are sozzled; it is the world, wearily drunk on its self-sufficiency, pragmatic pleasure-seeking, thrills, and aimless meandering.
What the Church holds out instead is the prospect of a community that has a goal. Acts tells us how this course was defined: ‘All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts’ — all quite admirable: the Christians’ example earned them the esteem and goodwill of all. To stick to such a standard over time, though, costs. It just does not come naturally to us to share stuff, not to mention cash, with others. How can we know that they are really needy, and so deserving? How can we be sure they will loyally stand up for us when we have needs? It is tempting, and seems so sensible, to keep a little stash of private resources tucked away for rainy days, just in case.
And so we find the luminous reality of the first Jerusalem Church ominously darkened by the shades of Ananias and Sapphira. The two, whose story is told in the fifth chapter of Acts, were idealists set on pursuing the observance which the Christians practised and preached, laying their goods ‘at the apostles’ feet’ so that all might be held in common. That is how the early Church could be ‘of one heart and one soul’: people’s money was where their mouth were. Ananias and Sapphira, though, had through property sales come into some funds they somehow thought lay outside the apostolic covenant. While surrendering most of the money, they kept a certain sum back. It brought them to a bad end. When Peter confronted Ananias with his lying, Ananias promptly fell down and died. Three hours later Sapphira, Ananias’s wife, returned from running errands. Peter gave her a chance to put things right. He asked, ‘Did you and your husband sell the land for such and such a price’, that is, the amount given over to the community? Sapphira answered, ‘Yes, we did!’ Peter said, ‘Not, but you didn’t!’ Then she, too, fell down and died. ‘And great fear’, writes St Luke, ‘seized the whole church and all who heard of these things.’
Peter’s reproach was not motivated by pique that all the couple’s money had not been given to the firm whose managing director he was. He told Ananias: ‘While [the land] was yours, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal?’ Ananias could have done anything with it, that was his business. The scandal lay in the fact that he had pretended to make a total gift, yet had not.
This is likewise the essence of the story of the young man who came to see Antony. Antony asks with characteristic courtesy: ‘Do you want to be a monk?’ If the young fellow didn’t, he could carry all the shekels he liked. If he did, though, even a slight retraction of the oblation on which his life was premised would compromise him at every level. It would make of him a man torn apart, a man with a divided heart whose treasure may have been partly in heaven, yet partly fixed, too, in his pocket. The drastic lesson Antony taught was not by way of punishment. It offered enlightenment, saying: ‘Look, this is what you are doing to yourself! Stop while you can!’
St Paul writes in one of his letters: ‘Each of you must give as you have made up your mind’. If you want to throw a small coin into a beggar’s hat, that is estimable; but do not pretend to give all you have if you are giving only a part. There will, then, be no gratuity in your gift, or joy, or fecundity. This holds for any one who has made vows of consecration, whether in priesthood, religious life, or marriage.
