The poor are rejected while flatterers are rewarded; the fire is the devil's defeated assault

And they do not gain only the brilliant feasting itself. They also go away with their hands filled with costly gifts, and they learn from us that it is more profitable to pursue such things and practice them, rather than the virtues. But if a poor man should stand before us, barely able to speak from hunger, we turn away from the one of the same race, we loathe him, we run off in haste, as if afraid that by walking too slowly we might share in his very misfortune. And if he should bow his head to the ground, ashamed of his calamity, we say he is a worker of hypocrisy. But if he should look at us boldly because of the heavy goad of hunger, we call him shameless and violent. And if he happens to be covered with sound clothing someone has given him, we drive him away as insatiable, and we swear that he pretends poverty. But if he is covered with rotten rags, we chase him off again as stinking. And neither by mixing the name of his Creator into his supplications, nor by constantly adjuring us that we may not fall into such sufferings, can he bend our merciless choice. For these reasons I suspect the fire of hell will be heavier for us than it was for that rich man. Now if the occasion allowed and sufficient strength were present, I would have gone through everything concerning that man, as the Book has shown, and paid you the full work of my words. But now it is time to release you who are weary. And you yourselves, if we have omitted anything through weakness of thought and tongue, fashion it for yourselves and apply it like medicines to the wounds of your souls. For give an opportunity to a wise man, and he will be wiser, says the Scripture (Proverbs 9:9). And God is able to make every grace abound to you, so that, always having all sufficiency in everything, you may abound in every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8). But now, as you see, the word has already been brought down to harbor for us, and some brothers are leading it back again to the course of counsel, bidding us not to pass over what was wondrously done yesterday by the Master, nor to keep silent about the trophy that the Savior set up against the devil's madness, but to give you an occasion for the leaping of hymns. For again, as you know, the devil displayed his own madness against us, and arming himself with a flame of fire, he marched against the folds of the church. But again our common mother conquered, and turned the enemy's device back upon him, and nothing remained to him except to make his hatred public. Grace blew against the enemy's blasts. The temple remained untouched. The storm brought by the enemy was not strong enough to shake the rock on which Christ built the sheepfold of his own flock. He who long ago quenched the furnace in Babylon was stationed with us now as well (Daniel 3:49-50). How do you think the devil groans today, not having enjoyed the attempt on which he had set his desire? For the hostile one kindled a pyre next to the church, to damage our prosperity. And the flame, fanned from every side by his violent blasts, poured over what lay beneath it and fed on the air nearby, compelled to touch the sacred precincts and dragging us down into a share of the calamity. But the Savior made it flow back upon the one who kindled it, and commanded his madness to contract again upon himself.