Letter 214: It is a bold claim — but the calamity threatening the Church does not come primarily from external enemies.

To priests, on the stewardship of the poor. Even though you are without reason and ill-disciplined, still you have it at least by hearsay that long ago the disciples of the divine apostles, selling off their household possessions, brought the proceeds to the church on behalf of the poor. But you, doing the very opposite, gather into your own house, impiously, what belongs to the church and to the poor. Cease, therefore, from this impiety; for a man is called a steward [oikonomos] from distributing what is their own to the poor. And what is their own is, fittingly, the goods of the church.

Πρὸς ἱερεῖς, περὶ τῆς τῶν πενήτων οἰκονομίας. Εἰ καὶ ἀλόγιστος εἶ καὶ ἀνάγωγος· ἀλλ’ οὖν κἂν ἐκ παρακούσματος ἔχεις, ὅτι πάλαι οἱ τῶν θείων ἀποστόλων μαθηταί, τὰ οἴκοι πιπράσκοντες, τῇ ἐκ- κλησίᾳ ὑπὲρ πτωχῶν προσεκόμιζον. Σὺ δὲ πᾶν τού- ναντίον ποιῶν, τὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ τῶν πτωχῶν εἴκοι συνάγεις ἀσεβῶς. Παῦσαι τοίνυν τῆς ἀσεβείας· εἰκονόμος γὰρ εἴρηται παρὰ τὸ οἰκεῖα αὐτῶν νέμειν τοῖς πένησιν, Οἰκεῖα δὲ αὐτῶν, εἰκότως τὰ ἐκκλη- σιαστικά (45).