De amore diuitiarum, et quod in eis anivia
The Restless Pursuit of Wealth
The greedy person is driven by an insatiable desire for money, believing it to be the ultimate key to controlling their own fortune.
It never rests. Those who care only about piling up wealth want to believe there’s no better way to live than the one they’ve chosen over everyone else. To satisfy their need, different people try different things. No danger is too great if the hope of deceptive money shines bright. The love of money overcomes nature itself and turns things that are nearly impossible into manageable tasks. To the greedy, nothing seems vile or sordid; even when the crowd hisses at them, they console themselves, and they even applaud themselves the moment they gaze upon the coins in their chest. You might believe that Petronian saying forced upon everyone: 'Whoever has money sails with a secure breeze and steers his fortune by his own will.' Let him marry Danaë, and he may even command Acrisius to believe that she is Danaë.
The Servitude of Greed
The pursuit of wealth often leads to a life of moral compromise, social climbing, and the indignity of living as a parasite.
Let him write poems, give speeches, shout, and argue every kind of case; let him be greater than Cato. Let him hold the lawyer's 'he obeys, he does not obey,' and let him be whatever Servius and Labeo were; I speak of many things—ask for whatever you want with money in hand, and it will come; the money chest holds Jupiter locked inside. As long as he can make a profit, no part of the world seems out of reach, and the fire of greed burns hotter than the heat of the torrid zone itself. That’s why he trades goods from where the sun rises to where the evening region grows warm. He rushes into the enemy with full force; they clash, and in a moment, swift death or joyful victory follows. Another man is happy to sit with the proud, so that through his familiarity with the great, he might more easily reach the wealth he desires. If he can, he involves himself in some office; if not, it’s enough to be enrolled even in the register of courtiers, because the mere enrollment is profitable. It makes at least some room for parsimony, than which no tax is more useful; for he saves most conveniently on his own expenses when someone else's purse pays the bill. One serves in the court until gray hair, or rather, the court consumes even that. It's rare for someone whom the court has led to old age to return home, even if they're cast out. If they do leave, they die of hunger, because, as Sidonius says, they aren't fed so much by their own bread as by someone else's; it's tastier, and it has a certain innate sweetness that comes from being someone else's. Someone who has always abused what belongs to others doesn't know how to use what's his own. When honest duties are exhausted, he isn't ashamed to play the part of a parasite or a mime. What indignities he'll suffer before he finally leaves! Think of Trebius sitting at Virro's table. He has the same purpose and always the same mindset: he considers it the highest good to live off someone else's bread, and to endure with a patient spirit things that neither Sarmentus at Caesar's unfair tables nor the lowly Galba would have tolerated.
The Folly of Hoarding
Greed manifests not only in the pursuit of money but in the stubborn hoarding of material goods, which distances the soul from God.
There are countless ways people rush toward profit, either openly or in secret; and if someone isn't overcome by the love of money, he's sometimes conquered by a desire for material things. Most people value horses, clothes, trained birds, hunting dogs, and vast herds of cattle and sheep—along with all the varied trappings of the world—more than money, and they exhaust their entire strength in acquiring or holding onto these things, since it would be beyond human capacity to run through every single one of them. The madness of all greed comes down to two points: either a person craves what belongs to others too intensely, or they guard their own too stubbornly. Anyone who demands what they lack, exceeding the bounds of necessity and use, is craving it too intensely. Things that are removed from actual use are also held onto more greedily. But who would doubt that things which slip away from their owners without ever being used are useless to them? It's clear that greed should not only be avoided but detested, for it removes and distances its followers far from heavenly things, from the fellowship of the Divine, and from the experience of heavenly bliss. In fact, all things that are closer to heavenly realities desire less and gather fewer things. The birds of the air don't sow, reap, spin, gather into barns, or build up stores; instead, they cast off all anxiety for tomorrow.✦ By contrast, mice and reptiles hoard for the future. They are said to be generations for whom the earth is their food, and they live sparingly on that same earth, fearing that it might fail them—the very earth into which they will, without a doubt, eventually dissolve.
The Soul's Infinite Capacity
Because the soul is spiritual and infinite, it can never be satisfied by material things, finding rest only in God.
People can think what they want, but I don't believe a greedy person can ever be satisfied—unless, perhaps, Epicurus would argue that someone who is starving, parched with thirst, and wasting away can enjoy the pleasure of a full feast. Both are indeed starving, but the greedy person hungers more destructively, for they are always in need and can never be satisfied. The hunger of the soul is greater than that of the body; and unless God pours Himself into it, it can never be filled at all. For since a spiritual nature, by its own power, grasps physical things in such a way that it is not stretched by any size, and since one thing does not block another from being grasped because its place is already taken, and since the more things are conceived, the more room there is for them—it is clearer than light that a physical object cannot fill the soul, which is spirit; for the whole world is too narrow for the capacity of the soul. From this it's clear that the soul doesn't find rest in the whole world, unless perhaps Epicurus thinks that someone lying in a narrow, cramped prison, resting on thorns, finds rest comfortably.
Read the original Latin
non quiescit. Qui solas diuitias congerere curant, nichil in uita potius credi uolunt uia quam ceteris praetulerunt. Vt eis indib gentia expleatur, diuersa probantur a diuersis. Nullum graue periculum est, si spes dolosi nummi refulgeat. Ipsam fere naturam uincit amor pecuniae et res pene impossibiles ad possibilem redigit facultatem. Auaro nichil uile uidetur aut sordidum; et sibilante populo seipram consolatur, immo et sibi applaudit simul ac nummos contemplatur in archa. Petronianum illud ingestum omnibus credas: Quisquis habet nummos, secura nauiget aura fortunamque suo temperet arbitrio. Vxorem ducat Danaen ipsumque licebit Acrisium iubeat credere quod Danaen.
Carmina componat, declamet, concrepet, omnes et peragat causas, sitque Catone prior. lurisconsultus ' paret, non paret ' habeto, atque esto quicquid Seruius et Labeo, Multa loquor; quiduis nummis praesentibus opta, et ueniet; clausum possidet archa louem. Dum itaque quaestum faciat, nulla pars mundi uidetur inaccessibilis et ipsius torridae estum maior auaritiae ignis exuperat. Inde est quod: Hic mutat merces surgente a sole ad eum quo uespertina tepet regio. Hic toto impetu fertur in hostem; concurritur; horae momento cita mors uenit aut uictoria leta; alius superbis gaudet assidere Kminibus ut ex familiaritate maiorum facilius ad opes quae desiderantur aecedat. Si potest, uersatur in aliquo ministerio; sin autem, sufficit uel in matricula curialium esse conscriptum; sola siquidem conscriptio quaestuosa est. Vt minimum locum parsimoniae facit, qua nullum uectigal utilius; suis enim commodissime parcit quem loculi exhibent alieni. Militatur in curia usque ad canos, immo et illos consumit curia.
Vix est ut quem curia perduxit ad canos domum redeat uel exclusus. Si migrauerint, fame pereunt; quia, ut ait Sidonius, eos non tam bonus pascit quam panis alienus; suauior enim est et quiddam ab alieno innatae dulcedinis habet. Nescit uti suo qui semper abusus est alieno. Si honesta finiuntur officia, parasiti partes non erubescit explere uel mimi. Quae indigna patietur antequam exeat! Apud Virronem Trebium a cogites discumbentem. Nam et huic idem propositum et semper eadem mens est ut bona summa putet aliena uiuere quadra, et ea patienti perferre animo quae nec Sarmentus iniquas Cesaris ad mensas nec uilis Galba tulisset. Innumerabiles uiae sunt quibus palam aut clanculo properatur ad quaestum; et quem non subigit amor pecuniae, interdum superat cupiditas specierum.
Equos, uestes, aues armatas, uenaticos canes, numerosos greges armentorum et pecorum, et uariam mundi supeUectilem (quoniam per singula currere uircs humanas excedit) plerique pecuniae praeferimt et totius hominis uires exhauriunt in adquirendis his aut tenendis. Nam in his duobus articulis furor totius auaritiae constat quod immoderatius appetit aliena aut sua tenacius seruat; et quidem immoderatius appetit quisquis quod deest, legem necessitatis excedens et usus, exposcit. Tenentur quoque auidius quae usui subtrahuntur. Ea uero, quae sine usu possessoribus elabuntur, inutilia sibi esse quis dubitaf? Auaritiam uel ex eo non modo fugiendam sed detestandam constat quod a celestibus procul sectatores suos, a consortio diuinitatis et usu celestis beatitudinis, remouet et elongat. Omnia siquidem, quo celestibus uiciniora sunt, minus cupiunt et congregant pauciora. Volatilia celi neque serunt neque metunt neque nent neque congregant in horreis nec penum construunt sed omnem excludunt sollicitudinem crastini. E contra mures et reptilia congerunt in futurum; et generationes perhibentur esse quibus terra est in cibum; et eodem parce uiuunt, timentes ne quando eis terra deficiat, in quam tamen ipsae proculdubio resoluentur.
Sentiat unusquisque quod uult, ego auarum posse fieri compotem uoti non credo, nisi forte et Epicurus famelicum et siti aridum et languentem plenae uoluptatis iocunditate frui consentiat. Siquidem uterque famelicus est, sed perniciosius esurit auarus qui semper indiget et satiari non potest. Maior enim est hiatus mentis quam corporis; et, nisi seipsum Deus infundat, omnino nequit impleri. Nam, cum natura spiritualis uirtute propria sic corporalia comprehendat ut nulla quantitate distendatur, nec res una loco praeoccupato alterius impedimento sit quo minus illa comprehendatur, et quo plura concipiuntur, eo pluribus loeus est, luce clarius est quia res corporalis animam, quae spiritus est, implere non potest; totus enim mundus angustus est ad animae quantitatem. Ex quo patet quod in eo toto anima non quiescit, nisi forte in angusto clausum ergastulo spinis subpositis incubantem Epicurus quiescere moUiter opinatur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.6.26 — Look at the birds of the air: they do not reap, nor gather into barns, nor store away grain — and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth far more than they?
Policraticus companion
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