Often, too, the work would cease and then suddenly rise up afresh, slightly bigger or with some more elaborate variety. When rivers flow into the sea, most of their water is drained away before ever it reaches the mouth, and so it was with this money, for most of what had been collected for this church was appropriated in advance and wasted on other things.
While Romanus manifested his piety in these activities, he showed himself a rogue from the very start, because he used money which had been contributed for quite different purposes than the building of his church. Doubtless it is a beautiful thing to love the House of the Lord, and make it magnificent, as the Psalmist tells us, and it is a fine thing to love the Tabernacle of His Glory.
Such devotion is indeed noble
It is better to suffer disgrace many times in the eyes of men by serving God thus, than to gain worldly riches. Such devotion is indeed noble, and who, of those that are zealous in His service and filled with the Spirit of the Lord, would bring themselves to despise it? But, surely, there should be nothing to mar this devotion. It cannot be right, in order to show one’s piety, to commit great injustices, to put the whole state in confusion, to break down the whole body politic.
He who rejects the harlot’s offering, who utterly despises the sacrifice of the ungodly, as though the wicked were no better than a dog– how could He in any way draw near a building, however rich and glorious, when that building is the cause of many evils? The symmetry of walls, the encircling columns, the hanging tapestries, the magnificent offerings, and the other things of like splendour – what can they contribute to the sacred object of piety?
Surely it is enough that a man’s soul be clothed in godliness, that his heart be dyed in the spiritual purple, that his deeds be righteous, his thoughts full of grace. In a word, it is sufficient if a man be without guile, and because of this simple faith there is builded up within us a temple of another sort, a temple acceptable to the Lord and beloved by Him. The philosophy Romanus knew was concerned with the scholar’s inquiries, the syllogisms**37 “sorites” and “outis”, but in his works he had no idea at all how to show forth that philosophic spirit.
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