Caput XIX. De fraude cavenda
Honest Alms, Not Ill-Gotten Gain
The Lord commands generosity from honest work and forbids greed, showing that fraud gains gold but loses justice.
The Lord himself, who gently urges us to be generous with what we have toward the poor and the suffering, also forbids us from every kind of greed and from making money unjustly. He himself says: Give alms from the honest earnings of your work (Tob. 4:7), and through his own apost, saying: Do not cheat one another (Mark✦ 10:19). Whoever gains anything through fraud loses both justice and fairness. Tell me, greedy one — tell me, covetous one — tell me, wicked one — what have you actually gained? Maybe you say: I've acquired gold? And that's true, you're right.
The Hidden Ledger of the Heart
Fraud may fill the purse but empties the heart of faith, justice, and love, so the greedy lose far more than they gain.
Look: you gained gold through fraud, and you lost faith through injustice. If you could find faith for sale in the marketplace — if you were a good person — how could you have bought it? Why are you not afraid to lose those things that God willed you to have in your heart? You have gold or silver, or something else more precious in your store; but there is loss in your heart. In exchange for all these you have lost a better kind of wealth — that is, faith, justice, and the love of God and of your neighbor. You think about your profit; you don't consider your loss. If you rejoice over this profit, why don't you grieve those losses? So you have lost more than you gained.
Trading Heaven for Earthly Gain
The rich who seize wealth by injustice lose eternal blessedness, trading the light of the heart and the fear of God for fleeting money.
You rich person, you seize by force what you want to have, and through injustice you lose what God wants you to have — that is, eternal blessedness. If every thief or robber had lost the light of his eyes through theft or plunder, would he afterward have committed theft or robbery? Yet he doesn't realize that in such sin he loses the light of the heart, which is better than any bodily light. Rather, you greedy one, give to the poor what you have, so that you may find in heaven what you gave away on earth. Why do you fear losing your money, and not fear perishing completely? To acquire money you bear false witness; you lie; you seize what belongs to others. You swear, you forswear, doing what the law forbids. When you do all these things, why aren't you afraid of burning for eternity?
What Profit to Gain the World?
Scripture warns that life does not consist in possessions, and the greedy who sell their souls for riches will find no rescue on the day of judgment.
Why, greedy one, do you love gold more than your soul? What good will it do you to gain the whole world, if you suffer the loss of your soul (Matt.✦ 16:26)? And the Lord himself says in the Gospel: Beware of all greed, because one's life does not consist in the abundance of what one possesses (Luke✦ 12:15). Don't rich people die just as poor people do? Riches cannot help on the day of judgment, nor will they rescue those who misused them from eternal punishment. Nothing is more wicked than the greedy person who holds his own soul up for sale for a craving for riches.
Avarice That Is Never Filled
Avarice is an endless hunger, always starving and never satisfied, like hell itself.
Avarice knows no limit, and even when it devours everything, it has no idea how to be satisfied. It's always hungry and always destitute. The greedy person is like hell itself — never filled.
Read the original Latin
Dominus ipse, qui nos benignos admonet de nostra substantia pauperibus et miseris esse, prohibet nos ab omni avaritia et injusta pecuniae acquisitione. Qui vero ait: De justis laboribus tuis fac eleemosynam (Tob. IV, 7), ipse per apostolum suum hortatur nos, dicens: Nolite fraudem facere invicem (Marc. X, 19). Qui fraude qualibet aliquid acquisierit, perdit justitiam et aequitatem. Dic avare, dic cupide, dic scelerate, quid acquisisti? Forte dicis: Aurum acquisivi? et verum dicis.
Ecce aurum acquisisti per fraudem, et fidem perdidisti per injustitiam. Si in mercato fidem invenires venalem: si bonus esses, quomodo comparasses eam? Quare non times perdere ea, quae te Deus voluit habere in corde? Aurum habes vel argentum, vel aliud quid pretiosius in area; sed damnum in corde. His omnibus meliores divitias perdidisti, id est, fidem, et justitiam, et dilectionem Dei et proximi. Lucrum tuum cogitas, damnum tuum non consideras. Si huic lucro gaudes, quare illa perdita non plangis? Plus ergo perdidisti quam acquisisti.
O dives, rapis per potentiam quod tibi placet habere, et perdis per injustitiam quod te Deus vult habere, id est, beatitudinem sempiternam. Si omnis fur vel raptor lumen oculorum perdidisset in furto vel rapina, nunquid postea furtum fecisset vel rapinam? Et nescit, quod in ejusmodi peccato lumen perdit cordis, quod melius est omni lumine corporis. Magis, avare, da pauperibus quod habes, ut invenias in coelo quod dedisti in terra. Quid times pecuniam tuam perdere, et non times ut totus pereas? Pro acquisitione pecuniae falsum testimonium dicis, mentiris, rapis aliena. Juras, perjuras, quae lex vetat. Cum haec omnia facis, quare non times, ne totus ardeas in aeternum?
Cur, avare, plus amas aurum, quam animam? Quid enim proderit tibi, si mundum universum lucreris, animae autem tuae detrimentum patiaris (Matth. XVI, 26)? Et ipse Dominus dicit in Evangelio: Cavete ab omni avaritia, quia non in abundantia cujusquam vita ejus, quae possidet (Luc. XII, 15). Nunquid non divites similiter moriuntur, sicut et pauperes? Non prodesse possunt divitiae in die ultionis, nec liberabunt male utentes eis a poenis sempiternis. Nihil est avaro scelestius, qui animam suam habet venalem pro cupiditate divitiarum.
Avaritia modum ignorat, et cum omnia devoret, nescit penitus satiari. Esuriens semper et inops est. Avarus vir inferno est similis, qui nunquam impletur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Mark.10.19 — You know the commandments: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.
- ↩Matt.16.26 — For what will it benefit a person if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will a person give in exchange for their life?
- ↩Luke.12.15 — And he said to them, "Take care, and guard yourselves against every kind of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of one's possessions."
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