ТОЛПА

Many people disgust and hate a rich man, but a virtuous man is respected and revered. But, you say, they laugh at the poor, even if he is virtuous? They laugh, but not people, but dumb people, which is why you don’t need to pay attention to it. After all, if donkeys mooed and ravens croaked, and all wise people praised, we, of course, would not neglect the opinion of the latter and would not pay attention to the cries of the dumb. And those who highly value real things are like ravens and worse than donkeys. If the king of the earth praised you, you would probably not care at all about the opinion of the crowd, even if everyone laughed at you. Will you really, when the Lord of all praises you, seek more praise from beetles and mosquitoes? And this is what these people really are in comparison with God - and they are not even like this, but even worse. How long will we grovel in the mud? How long will we appoint careless sloths and gluttons as our judges? They can well evaluate dice players, drunkards and those who live for the belly, but they cannot even imagine virtues and vices in their dreams. If someone began to laugh at you because you do not know how to install channels for drainage of water, you, without a doubt, would not be offended, but on the contrary, you would even laugh at the one who reproaches him for such ignorance. Why, wanting to strive for virtue, do you appoint people who do not know it at all as judges? That is why we never succeed in this art. We entrust our work not to experienced people, but to ignorant people; and they judge not as art requires, but according to their own ignorance. Therefore, I beg you, let us despise the opinion of the crowd (9). What benefit, tell me, can a crowd of people bring you? Do you want to know that the people are made up of saints, and not a crowd of people? Bring hundreds of thousands and one saint to war: let's see who does more? Joshua went out into battle and did everything alone; and thus the rest were of no use. A crowd of people, beloved, when they do not do the will of God, is no different from those who do not exist at all. I pray and wish that the Church would be adorned by many people, but by many good people: for this I would willingly allow myself to be torn to pieces. If this is not possible, then I wish that few would be good. Don't you see that it is better to have one precious stone than thousands of small coins? Don't you see that it is better to have a healthy eye than, having lost it, to burden yourself with obesity? Don't you see that it is better to have one healthy sheep than thousands of scabby ones? Don't you see that a few good children are better than many bad ones? Do you not see that in the kingdom there are few, but in hell there are many? What do I need from many people? What's the use? There is no benefit, but rather harm to others. After all, this is the same as if someone, if it was possible to have either ten healthy people or thousands of sick people, brought these thousands to those ten. The majority, when they do nothing good, will bring us nothing other than punishment here and disgrace here. After all, no one will say that there are many of us, but (everyone) will blame us for being useless. This is exactly what [the pagans] always tell us when they hear from us that there are many of us: there are many of you, they say, but bad ones (10). You might be interested in: