Same-day wage; sell and give; gleanings; no interest to brother

Cyril: …of those in your cities, you will give back his wage the same day. The sun will not set upon him, because he is poor, and upon him he has the hope; and he will not cry down against you toward the Lord, and there will not be sin in you.’ You understand then that he persuades to dread the cry-down of the poor man, driving together unto mutual love? And the new Writing also through Christ, bringing in the perfectly good, ‘Sell the belongings,’ it says, ‘and give alms, and behold all things will be well-wayed for you’; which indeed some of those who have believed have also done. ‘For they were bringing prices of fields and houses, and were setting them beside the feet of the apostles, and it was being distributed to each, according as anyone had need.’ And since the law is an elementary teacher, and carries back unto beginnings of the oracles of God, it commands to make as somehow a fore-practice of the path unto this the ungrudging as in few things; for this reason it says: ‘And if you should reap your harvest in your field, and should forget a sheaf in your field, you will not turn back to take it; it will be for the poor and the sojourner and the orphan and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the works of your hands; and if you should gather olives you will not turn back to glean the things behind you, it will be for the sojourner and the orphan and the widow, and you will remember that you were a house-slave in the land of Egypt, for this reason I command you to do this word. And if you should vintage your vineyard, you will not vintage it again the things behind you, it will be for the sojourner and the orphan and the widow, and you will remember that you were a house-slave in the land of Egypt. For this reason I command you to do this word.’ For it is beautiful in good cheer to remember labors, and the more ancient affliction; for the matter calls toward love of the poor, and the breadth of fair weather does not allow forgetting the evils in want.

Palladius: Truly.

Cyril: And see how most craftily and very urbanely he unhabits us from the worse things, and persuades us to be eager away from the unpitying, and leads us toward the better, and embarks us into the modes of mutual love; for he urges, if they should somehow need something, to lend out to brothers, and he bars interests, and commands to push away increasings. And having further ordered that one must not be burdensome, nor lie upon those who owe, he bids to make a release of debts. And he writes thus: ‘You will not take interest from your brother—interest of silver, and interest of foods, and interest of every matter—what you should lend to the alien, you will not take interest; that the Lord your God may bless you in all your works upon the earth which you are entering there to inherit.’ For as far as concerns the lawgiver’s wish, the right-handed and honor-loving of the things in breadth of surplus would have lain ungrudgingly for alien and brothers together; ‘For to everyone asking you give,’ says Christ, ‘and from the