Psalms 144:14

Their oxen are fat. Pharaoh too saw in a dream fat Egyptian oxen. Their oxen are fat. The Israelite peoples are lean, the Egyptians are fat. For you may see that the masters of the heretics do nothing else, except pursue riches. They pursue riches, and they despise the poor Christ. Their oxen are fat. Beautifully he says, fat oxen: whose God is the belly, and whose glory is in their confusion.

There is no ruin of the wall, nor passage. Does it not seem to you to be obscure what is said, There is no ruin of the wall, nor passage, nor outcry in their streets? You will find heretics unschooled with difficulty: for all the heretic masters are equipped with worldly knowledge. They do not have the apostolic net, but the little chains of dialectic. There is no ruin of the wall, nor passage. If ever they are in disputations, when they begin to dispute with you, their words are so brief, so enclosed with artful speech, that it is difficult to escape from there. For when they have bound you with their syllogisms, and have shut you in, and have woven and built up the syllogism for you like a wall, you cannot fall down, you cannot pass through, you are held enclosed. There is no ruin of the wall, nor passage. And when they have held you there as though enclosed in a certain ring, then you will not be on the narrow way that leads to life, but on the broad one that leads to death. Nor outcry in their streets. Jesus cries out, and calls to himself, and says: Let him who thirsts come and drink. The outcry of Jesus is on the narrow way; in the streets of the heretics it is not.

"their oxen are fat: their hedge is not broken down, nor their road, nor is their crying in their streets" (ver. 14). Is not this then happiness? I ask the sons of the kingdom of heaven, I ask the offspring of everlasting resurrection, I ask the body of Christ, the members of Christ, the temple of God. Is not this then happiness, to have sons safe, daughters beautiful, garners full, cattle abundant, no downfall, I say not of a wall, but not even of a hedge, no tumult and clamour in the streets, but quiet, peace, abundance, plenty of all things in their houses and in their cities? Is not this then happiness? or ought the righteous to shun it? or findest thou not the house of the righteous too abounding with all these things, full of this happiness? Did not Abraham's house abound with gold, silver, children, servants, cattle? What say we? is not this happiness? Be it so, still it is on the left hand. What is, on the left hand? Temporal, mortal, bodily. I desire not that thou shun it, but that thou think it not to be on the right hand. ...For what ought they to have set on the right hand? God, eternity, the years of God which fail not, whereof is said, "and Thy years shall not fail." There should be the right hand, there should be our longing. Let us use the left for the time, let us long for the fight for eternity. "If riches increase, set not your heart upon them."