Sermon 356
15. I have said that the presbyters living with me as my companions have nothing of their own, and among them is also the presbyter Barnaba. But I have heard rumor tossed around about him, above all that he has bought a villa from my dear and honored son, Eleusinus. It is not true; Eleusinus donated it to the monastery, he didn't sell it. […]
It is also said about Barnaba that in the year he was in charge he deliberately ran up debts, so that I, wanting the debts to be paid, would give in to his request to be granted the farm at Victoriana; as though he had said to me, "To enable me to pay my debts, give me the farm at Victoriana for ten years." This too is simply not true. But there was something which gave rise to the rumor. He did contract debts that had to be paid. I paid off some of them, insofar as I could. There remained something which was also owing to that monastery which God had established through him. So since the debt remained outstanding, we started looking around for means of paying it off. Nobody offered to rent that farm, other than a man who was offering a rent of forty solidi. But we saw that the farm could yield much more than that, to pay off the debt more quickly. So I entrusted it to him, so that the brothers should not look for a profit from letting the farm, but should put down whatever the farm yielded to the reduction of the debt. It's a matter of trust. The presbyter is quite ready to put somebody else in charge, who would pay the brothers from the farm's profits.
[…] The site on which the monastery has been established was also donated by my honored son Eleusinus, already mentioned, to the presbyter Barnaba before he was ordained a presbyter. […]
(trans. E. Hill, slightly altered)
