It was easy for him to say, I will open my barn, I will call together the needy, but he has no thought of want, only of amassing; for it follows, And he said, This will I do, I will pull down my barns. Thou doest well, for the storehouses of iniquity are worthy of destruction. Pull down thy barns, from which no one receives comfort. He adds, I will build greater. But thou shalt complete these, wilt thou again destroy them? What more foolish than labouring on for ever. Thy barns, if thou wilt, are the home of the poor. But thou wilt say, Whom do I wrong by keeping what is my own? For it follows also, And there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. Tell me what is thine, from whence didst thou get it and bring it into life? As he who anticipates the public games, injures those who are coming by appropriating to himself what is appointed for the common use, so likewise the rich who regard as their own the common things which they have forestalled. For if every one receiving what is sufficient for his own necessity would leave what remains to the needy, there would be no rich or poor.
Reproduced in full. Translation: Oxford 1841 (Newman), public domain (Public domain).
Also cites: ubi sup.