Choosing Company

Etenim si introierit in conventum vestrum vir, aureum annulum habens, in veste candida, introerit autem et pauper in sordido habitu, et intendatis in eum qui indutus est veste praeclara,et dixeritis ei: Tu sede hic bene, pauperi autem dicatis: Tu sta illic, aut sede sub scabello pedum meorum. In hujus expositione sententiae beati Augustini dictis utamur. Si hanc, inquit, distantiam sedendi et standi ad honores ecclesisaticos referamus, non est putandum leve esse peccatum in personarum acceptione habere fidem Domini nostri Jesu Christi gloriae. Quis enim ferat eligi divitem ad sedem honoris Ecclesiae, contempto paupere instructiore et sanctiore? Si autem de quotidianis consessibus loquitur, quis hic peccat, si tamen peccat, nisi cum apud semetipsum intus ita judicat, ut ei tanto melior quanto ditior ille videatur? Hoc enim videtur significasse subdendo. Nonne judicatis apud vosmetipsos, et facti estis judices cogitationum iniquarum.  Sequitur: Audite, fratres, mei dilectissimi. Diligentius, inquit,animadvertite, quia non qui ditiores existunt ad seculum, ii in divino examine sunt meliores. Nonne Deus elegit paupere in hoc mundo, divites in fide, et haeredes regni quod promisit diligentibus se? Pauperes vocat humiles, et qui per contemptam rerum visibilium, fide autem invisibilium divitiarum mundo huic despicabiles parent. Tales namque elegit Dominus noster Jesus Christus dicendo: Nolite timere, pusillus grex, quia complacuit Patri vestro dare vobis regnum. Tales elegit cum parentes sibi pauperes, quorum officio in mundum veniens nutriretur, creavit. Sed hos tamen futuri regni exspectatione praeclaros reddidit ac nobiles. Sanctus Beda, Super Divi Jacobi Epistolam, Caput II Source: Migne PL 93 18-19

If a man enter into your company, wearing a gold ring, in white vestments, and a poor man enter in vile habit, intent on him who has come in with shining garment, you say to him, 'You indeed sit here,' but to the poor man you say, 'Stand over there,' or 'Sit at the footstool of my feet.' 1 In explanation of this passage we shall quote the blessed Augustine: 'If this distinction in matters of sitting and standing refers to Ecclesiastical honours, it is not be thought to be a trivial fault to have respect of persons in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory. 2 For who can bear the choosing of the rich man for the seat of honour in the Church in contempt of the poor man who is more learned and holy? And if this speaks of daily gatherings, who does not err here, if indeed he does sin, unless within himself he judges that the richer a man appears so the better he is?' 3 And this seems to have been signified in the next line: Judging among yourselves, have you not made yourself judges with wicked thoughts? 4 It follows: Hear, my dear brothers. 4 More diligently attend, he says, because it is not those who are richer in the world who are better in the Divine judgement . Did not God choose the poor of the world to be rich in faith and inheritors of the kingdom which he has promised to the lovers of Him? 5  The humble he calls the poor, who with contempt of visible of things, with faith in invisible wealth, despise this world. Such our Lord Jesus Christ chooses, saying, 'Do not fear, little flock, because it has pleased your Father to give to you the kingdom' 6 Such He chose when He made poor parents for Himself, that such nourish Him coming into the world. These whom, however, He made eminent and noble in the hope of the future kingdom. Saint Bede, from the Commentary on the Letter of Saint James, Chapter 2  1 Jam 2.2-3 2 Jam 2.1 3 Augustine, Letter 167.18 4 Jam 2.4 5 Jam 2.5 6 Lk 12.32