On Dice-Players

Therefore we are called the salt of the earth, so that from us all the brotherhood may be seasoned with heavenly wisdom. For since he says: But if the salt shall have become tasteless, it will avail nothing except to be cast out and trodden underfoot by men; this we dread and fear, lest, being secure in the Church because the priestly dignity has been entrusted to us, we be found negligent alongside certain slothful brethren: or lest, while we grant false communion, we lose through the Lord's indignation and reproach that which we received with honor by God's condescension; for the divine Scripture says: Woe shall be to the shepherds. For if the shepherds themselves shall be found negligent, what will they answer to the Lord for the flocks? What will the flocks say before the Lord? That they were harassed by the shepherds? They will not be believed: it is an incredible thing that shepherds could suffer anything from the flock; rather they will be punished on account of their own lie.

And another Scripture says: They have sought thee as a ruler; be not lifted up. Be among them as one of themselves: have care of them and take heed. And again: Consider that the priest is a cultivator, and that all delights are with him, barns full, and that from whatever pasture the sheep desire, he should satisfy them. For in order that it might be established that we, that is bishops, are shepherds of spiritual sheep, that is, of faithful men who are placed under our care, lest any blemish of scab be found in them; the more diligently are they to be examined by us daily, so that, with heavenly medicine applied, their fleeces may grow flourishing, which may serve for the nature of the garment of salvation.

In the Gospel the Lord said to Peter: Peter, he said, dost thou love me? And Peter answered: Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He said: Feed my sheep; and commanding earnestly he confirms it a third time by saying: Feed my sheep.

And since we have received the Episcopate, that is, the Holy Spirit, through the laying on of hands, as a guest in the lodging of our heart; the Apostle warns us and says that we should propose no trouble to our cohabitant: Grieve not the Holy Spirit who is in you; and quench not the light which has shone forth in you. Moreover, how great and fitting martyrdoms await a bishop acting well and admonishing wholesomely, without bodily tribulation: so great also are the torments heaped upon a negligent bishop who brings forth no testimonies from the holy Scriptures; the apostle Paul rouses us, and sets bishops and stewards of the evangelical doctrine in their fitting station and says: As long as the heir is a child, he has stewards and managers; but when he has grown he claims his inheritance.

We also are dispensers and stewards of the Gospel; this too is required among dispensers and stewards, that someone be found faithful and just; if therefore among dispensers and stewards it is required that someone be found faithful and just, what if the sheep offend, and the dispensers offend together with the offenders? Do they not burden themselves with the weight of the offenders?

The apostle Paul makes mention, when, for the teaching and strengthening of Timothy in the firmness of faith, lest anything escape God and lest the evil one intercede against the prayers of the just, he says, provident and solicitous: O Timothy my son, guard what has been committed to thee: despise not the gift which is in thee through the laying on of hands of the elders: gird thyself strongly, and act manfully in thy ministry, and fulfil it with integrity: be a good example to the rest; let no one contradict thee, let no one despise thy youth: rebuke one who sins before many, so that the rest also may have fear, and communicate not in the sins of others. And again: If any brother is named a fornicator, or a worshipper of idols, or covetous, or a robber or unjust, with such a one do not even take food.

And in another place: Whatsoever brother lives after the manner of foreigners, and admits things similar to their deeds, cease to be in his company; for unless thou do this, thou also wilt be a partaker of him. And in the teachings of the Apostles: If any brother offends in the Church, and does not obey the law; let him not be gathered with, until he does penance, and let him not be received, lest your prayer be defiled and hindered. And the Apostle also says again: Put away the wicked from among you.

But if we are taught by the varied and concordant warning of many witnesses not even to eat food with offending brethren; how much more ought such a one to be excluded from the sacrifice of Christ? How great and abundant is the goodness of the Son of God, that, foreknowing the future, he takes counsel for us: lest any one among the brethren be unwarily caught again in the snares of the devil? He commanded us to be solicitous and provident and instructed; because that ancient enemy goes about, assailing the servants of God, tempting in not one manner alone. For his temptations are many, of which these are the beginnings: idolatry, fornications, thefts, rapines, covetousness, fraud, drunkenness, impatience, adultery, murder, jealousies, treachery, false testimonies, false speech, envy, arrogance, cursing, error, and whatever else is similar and agrees with these; among which is the gaming-board.

There stands the manifest snare of the devil, bearing the deadly poison of the serpent, and a corrupting enticement; which, though it seems to be nothing, covers a great destruction in its embrace. What is that, I ask, O faithful, that the hand which has now been cleansed from human wrongs, and admitted to the Lord's sacrifice, and which receives with condescension what pertains to the salvation of the whole man; which rises in the sanctuary to the praise of the Lord; which imprints on foreheads the sign of the cross by which we are protected: which itself consummates the divine sacraments: what is it, I say, that it should again be entangled in the snares of the devil from which it was stripped, and be condemned through those very things? Gambling hands have grown accustomed to a licentious pursuit, that is, to the gaming-board; which is the devil's hunting-snare, and an incurable wound of sin.

I speak of the gaming-board, where the devil is at hand, crouching to catch, and when he has caught, triumphs over his captive through treachery and false testimonies. I speak of the gaming-board; where madness, and fury, and venal perjury hold sway and serpentine discourse. There is rabid friendship, there is the discordant brotherhood of most atrocious crime, there are insults and savage boldness, and a frenzied mind, and fierce impatience. I speak of the gaming-board; where there is the loss of possessions, and the ruin of vast sums of money, a monster, and one that displays a litigious, thieving madness.

O the harmful, sedentary, and slothful wickedness of gamblers! O cruel hands, armed to their own peril, which squander with shameful pursuit the goods of their fathers and the wealth of their grandfathers acquired by sweat: a fierce, harmful, and sleepless hand, armed night and day without ceasing with its own instruments: which by sinning has condemned itself, and after its sins does not cease to go on! O wicked hand, armed to the ruin of its own master, which loses its entire substance for the most sordid coin; and when there were so many means of increasing the family estate and an abundance of many riches, it is now destitute and poor! The gaming-board is what the law hates: the gaming-board is what an ignoble crime follows; where there is manifest temptation and hidden punishment. The gaming-board is the channel of evil, and the supplanting of a friend, which confers no gain but consumes everything.

Hence men become poor, hence they lose their wealth, hence when all their resources are consumed they overwhelm themselves with borrowed money: hence they lose their patrimony without any litigation in the courts. What manner of strife is this, that those whom no one pursues should pursue themselves through envy? That they should scatter their paternal inheritances under the manifold number of bones?

There is also the time when the gamblers themselves, together with prostitute women, in the presence of their patron, celebrate nocturnal vigils behind closed doors: the wretched men, filled with the spirit of the devil, arm themselves against one another: and there they commit a twofold or double crime. There the sound of the dice rattles, there incest works in silence: here, without any regard for his own dignity, without any excuse, one is compelled to yield his goods to the pestilential pursuit; there the deadly poison is drunk in secret. Whence this sacrilegious meditation, whence this crime, we establish by the testimony of its authors. For when a certain man well educated in the study of letters, by much pondering devised this evil and so pernicious a pursuit, by the instigation of the devil alone, who had filled him with his arts; he therefore displayed this art, which he also fashioned to be worshipped in sculptures together with his own image.

He set up therefore his image with the inscription of his own name, at the suggestion of the friend who implanted in his breast the idea of devising this art. Thus then, displaying himself in a comely image, he placed it in some lofty spot; and bearing this gaming-board in his own bosom, so that he might appear as the very player and inventor of this wickedness, whose name ought not to be named by the servants of God. (for he is as shameful in name as he is wicked in deeds) and whosoever servant of God embraces the gaming-board, would be called by the name of its author. For he, when he fashioned himself in statuettes and images, devised another crime, by which he established that he should be worshipped and that sacrifice should be offered to him by his imitators; so that whoever wished to adhere to his pursuit should not stretch forth his hand to the board before he had first sacrificed to the author of it.

Hence it came about that he who had once been a man, and an adulterer guilty of crime, after death came to be worshipped by the profane and erring under a fictitious name of God.

Whoever plays the gaming-board ought also to know sorceries, since he is far from the servants of God, knowing that the sorcerer and poisoner is outside, and again on the day of judgment shall be tormented in the rolling fire. Whoever plays the gaming-board ought first to sacrifice to its author, which is not lawful for Christians, the Lord saying: He that sacrifices to gods shall be rooted out, save to God alone; and again: Sacrifice not to strange gods, lest ye provoke me by the works of your hands to destroy you. Thou who art a Christian and playest the gaming-board, even if thou dost not sacrifice, thou art a partaker in this crime by the law of it. And indeed the Lord meets thee and says: Come out of her, my people, that thou be not partaker of her sins. And again: Depart, depart from thence, go out from the midst of her, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.

Thou, whosoever thou art, a Christian who playest at dice, oughtest first to believe in this place that thou hast not a Christian but a pagan name; and that which pertains to the Lord's sacrifice thou receivest in vain. For thus he says: Every unclean person shall not touch the sacrifice of the Holy One. For Scripture says: Every man eating of the flesh of the sacrifice, and his uncleanness upon him; that soul shall perish from my people.

Whoever you are, O gambler, you call yourself a Christian; which you are not, in that you are a partaker of the world: nor can you be a friend of Christ, who hold friendship with the enemy of Christ. Surely, what madness is that of faithful gamblers, wherein they rave, and with most thievish voices perjure themselves; and, blinded by the darkness of the Devil, lay hands upon one another, curse, devote themselves to destruction, and dishonor the lineage of their parents before assembled crowds. The noise of the dice resounds publicly, their hands hasten to the slaughter of their inheritance: nor does the wretch understand what harms him, when he binds himself to the dice. And he who has already been beaten very often is stirred up again to a more harmful pursuit, at the Devil's urging. O art hostile to those who pursue it, and shameful debauchery!

Which bestows not riches, but nakedness and poverty; a hand that is an executioner, a hand that is harmful, which does not cease even after gains, but plays on even after losses. A Christian who plays at dice pollutes his hand at the sacrifice of the Devil, with those who offer sacrifice in the presence of its author. And therefore the Lord says that He is angered at this: Do not, He says, stretch forth your hands unjustly, lest you provoke me, and I suffer you not to remain long upon the earth; and again: Withhold your hands from injustice, and do nothing evil. And the most blessed apostle Paul likewise says: See, brethren, lest you be conformed to this world, and to its pomps and delights and pleasures; but restrain yourselves from all injustice. For he who sins against God finds no excuse, nor any indulgence, and pardon is given to no one.

In the Gospel the Lord says: If anyone, He says, shall speak blasphemies against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but he who shall have sinned against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither here, nor in the world to come. And again the Prophet says: If a man sin by transgressing against a man, prayer shall be made for him to the Lord: but if he shall have sinned against God, who shall pray for him? And the blessed apostle Paul, steward and vicar of Christ, exercising care for the Church, sets forth and says: You are the temple of God, and in you Christ dwells; if anyone shall violate the temple of God, God shall destroy him. Again the Lord in His Gospel denies sinners, and rebukes them saying: Depart from me, all you who work iniquity; I never knew you.

And the apostle John says: Everyone who sins is not of God, but is of the devil; and you know that the Son of God is to come for this purpose, that He may destroy the sons of the devil.

If you are a Christian gambler, you are the enemy of yourself and of your inheritance. Whoever you are, cease from that madness, O wretch. Why do you hurl yourself further into the snare of death together with the devil? Why do you admit your wealth and riches to so sordid a matter? Why do you entangle yourself in the snares of the world, so as to be judged by the world? Why do you sin by praising your enemy with favors, with whom it is necessary that you be punished? Be rather, not a gambler, but a Christian: scatter your money upon the Lord's table with Christ sitting by, with Angels looking on, and martyrs present: divide your patrimony, which perhaps you were about to lose through savage pursuit, among the poor: commit your riches to Christ the conqueror: be called a servant together with your Lord, comply with godly pursuit, imitate the art of the Lord, which does not lose but rather gains.

Cease from those most thievish ways of yours, restrain your headlong wickedness: let your daily sport be with the poor, let your frequent work be with widows; sell off all your wealth and furnishings for the service of the Church: lay up your gold, and silver, and money in heavenly treasuries; remove your estates and villas to paradise by righteous labor: that your sins may be forgiven you, apply yourself to almsgiving and continual prayers. Play not at dice: where the sport is harmful and the sin mortal; where there is madness without reflection; where there is no truth, but a den of lies. Cut off your hand from it, and turn your heart away from it: draw the darkness of the enemy from your eyes, and purify your hand from the sacrifices of the Devil: drive away from yourself thievish ways, be patient and Christian, be just and provident for yourself and your life in your works.

Flee the devil who pursues you, and flee the dice that is the enemy of your possessions: let wisdom be your pursuit, be instructed by the precepts of the Gospel, stretch forth pure hands to Christ, that you may be able to deserve the Lord, and deign not to look upon the dice. Amen.