The Institutes 7.1–7.31

Our third conflict is against filargyria, which we can call love of money: a foreign war, outside nature, which in a monk takes its beginning from nothing else than the sloth of a corrupt and torpid mind, and usually from a renunciation badly begun and founded on a lukewarm love for God. For the other incitements of the vices, implanted in human nature, seem to have their beginnings in us as if inborn; in a way they are rooted in the flesh and almost as old as birth itself, and they come before the discernment of good and evil; and although they seize a man first, they are overcome by long labour.

But this disease, coming on later and approaching the soul from outside, is as much the easier to guard against and reject, as it is, when neglected and once admitted into the heart, more deadly than all and harder to drive out. For it becomes the root of all evils, putting forth many shoots that kindle the vices.

For example, do we not see the simple movements of the flesh not only in boys, in whom innocence still precedes the discernment of good and evil, but even in little children and infants at the breast? Although they have not even the beginning of any lust in themselves, they show that movements of the flesh are present in them by a natural incitement. Likewise, do we not see the fierce stings of anger already strong in little children, and before they know the virtue of patience, we see them moved by injuries and feel insults offered to them in words, even in jest; and sometimes, though they lack strength, the will to revenge, spurred on by anger, is not lacking. I do not say this to call the nature of our creation to account, but to assert that of these movements which proceed from us, some have been implanted in us for a useful purpose, while others are brought in from outside by the fault of negligence and the choice of an evil will. For those fleshly movements we mentioned above have been usefully implanted in our body by the Creator's providence for the renewal of offspring and to raise up the propagation of posterity, not for committing the shameful acts of debauchery and adultery, which are condemned even by the authority of the law. And do we not understand that the stings of anger were given to us most healthfully, so that, being indignant at our own vices and errors, we might rather be occupied with virtues and spiritual pursuits, showing all love to God and patience to our brothers? We know too how great is the usefulness of sadness, which is counted among the other vices when it is changed into a contrary disposition. For it is both most necessary when it is according to the fear of God and very deadly when it is according to the world, as the apostle teaches, saying: "For the sadness that is according to God produces a repentance leading to lasting salvation; but the sadness of the world produces death."

So if we have said that these movements were implanted in us by the Creator, he will not on that account seem to be at fault if we, abusing them wickedly, prefer to twist them to harmful services, and choose to be sad over fruitless and worldly gains rather than for saving repentance and the correction of vices, or if we are angry, not usefully with ourselves, but with our brothers, against the Lord's prohibition. And if someone chooses to twist iron, which was provided for a necessary and useful service, to the killing of the innocent, he will not on that account defame the maker of the material, if he has used for harm what the other provided as fit and necessary for the use of good living.

We say, however, that certain vices grow up without any preceding natural occasion, by the choice of a corrupt and evil will alone, such as envy and this very filargyria. Since they have no beginnings in us from natural instinct, they are contracted from outside. Yet the easier they are to guard against and the more convenient to avoid, the more wretched they make the mind they have occupied and possessed, and they scarcely allow it to reach the remedies of health: either because those who have been wounded by vices which they could have ignored, avoided, or very easily overcome do not deserve to be cured by a swift medicine, or because, badly founded, they are unworthy to take on the structure of the virtues and the summit of perfection.

Therefore let this disease seem worthless and contemptible to no one; for just as it can very easily be avoided, so, if it has taken possession of anyone, it scarcely allows him to reach the remedies of health. For it is a receptacle of vices and the root of all evils, and it becomes the tinder of inextricable wickedness, as the apostle says: "The root of all evils is filargyria," that is, love of money.

When, then, this vice has taken possession of the relaxed and lukewarm mind of a monk, it first tempts him with a small sum, describing to him certain just and seemingly reasonable pretexts for which he ought either to keep back some money for himself or to acquire it. For he complains that what is provided in the monastery is not sufficient and can hardly be endured by a sound and strong body. What is to be done if bad health of the flesh should arise and nothing of his own has been put aside with which to support his weakness? The monastery's provision is very meagre, and its neglect of the sick very great. If there is nothing of his own with which to take care of the body, he must die miserably. Even the clothing provided is not enough, unless he procures the means of getting other clothes for himself. Finally, he cannot stay long in the same place or monastery; and unless he has provided himself with money for the journey and the fare for a voyage overseas, he cannot move when he wishes, and, constrained by the necessity of poverty, he will always have to endure a laborious and wretched life without any progress, and, always poor and naked, have to be supported by the property of others, not without reproach. So when he has snared his mind with thoughts of this kind, he considers how he can acquire at least one denarius. Then he anxiously seeks out some private work he can do without the abbot's knowledge. Selling it secretly and having at last got the coin he wanted, he is tormented more sharply and violently about how to double it, uncertain where to put it or to whom to entrust it. Then he is distracted by a heavier care as to what he may buy with it, and by what trade he can double it. And when this wish too has turned out well for him, a greedier hunger for gold grows, and it is roused the more violently the greater the sum of gain that is added. For with the increase of money the madness of desire increases. Then long life is promised him, bent old age, various and lengthy illnesses, which cannot be endured in old age unless a larger sum has been prepared in youth. So the unhappy soul is driven on, bound in the serpent's coils, while with more wicked care it longs to increase the substance wrongly gathered, bringing forth for itself a plague by which it is more cruelly inflamed; and wholly possessed by the thought of gain it looks with the eye of its heart at nothing else than how it can get money, by which it can fly away as quickly as possible from the discipline of the monastery, keeping faith nowhere where some hope of a coin can gleam. For this it does not shudder to commit the crime of lying, perjury, or theft, to break faith, or to be filled with the harmful fury of anger if it falls short of its hope of profit anywhere; it does not fear to go beyond the bounds of honesty and humility; and in all things gold and the hope of gain become its god, as the belly does for others. Hence the blessed apostle, foreseeing the harmful poisons of this disease, declared it not only to be the root of all evils but also the service of idols, saying: "And avarice (which in Greek is called philargyria), which is the service of images." You see, then, to what a fall this madness grows step by step, so that it is even declared by the apostle's voice to be the service of idols or images, because, passing over the image and likeness of God, which one who serves God devoutly ought to keep unstained in himself, it has chosen to love and guard, in place of God, the images of men stamped on gold.

Growing worse by such advances in falling away, he is no longer willing to keep, I will not say the virtue, but even the shadow of humility, love, or obedience. He is indignant at everything, grumbles and sighs at every task, and, keeping no reverence any longer, is carried headlong to the precipice like a hard-mouthed horse without a bridle. Content neither with his daily food nor with his usual clothing, he declares that he will not put up with these things any longer; he proclaims that God is not only there, and that his salvation is not confined to that place alone; and he groans heavily that he will perish at once unless he takes himself off somewhere quickly.

So, having his coins as provisions for his instability, fitted on him like wings for his protection, and already ready to move, he answers every command insolently, and, behaving as a stranger and outsider, he neglects and despises whatever he sees needs correction. And although he secretly possesses hidden money, he complains that he does not even have shoes and clothes, and is indignant that they are given him too late. And if by the elder's arrangement any of these things has been given first to one who is known to have nothing at all, he burns with greater stings of anger and thinks he is despised as an outsider; not willing to put his hands to any work, he finds fault with everything that the needs of the monastery compel to be done. Then he carefully seeks occasions for being offended or angry, lest he should seem to leave the discipline of the coenobium for a slight cause. Yet not content to move away alone, lest he be thought to have left through his own fault, he does not cease to corrupt as many as he can by secret whisperings. And if bad weather has cut off his passage by road or sea, he sits all that time with a restless and anxious heart and does not cease to sow and stir up discontent, believing that he will find comfort for his departure and an excuse for his fickleness only by bringing a mark or stain on the monastery.

So he is driven on, kindled more and more by the torches of his money, which, once possessed, never allow a monk either to stay in a monastery or to live under the institution of a rule. And when, like some wild beast, it has separated him from the company of the flock, and has made him a sheep fit for prey by being deprived of companions, and easy to devour by being deprived of fellowship, it compels him — who previously had disdained to do the light tasks of the monastery — to labour tirelessly day and night in the hope of gain. It does not allow him to keep the solemn prayers, the measure of fasts, or the rule of vigils; it does not let him fulfil the duties of honourable intercession, provided only that he can satisfy the madness of avarice or meet his daily needs, kindling the fire of desire while he believes he is putting it out by acquiring.

From here some, falling over a sheer precipice, are carried to death in irretrievable ruin. Not content to possess alone the money which they either never had before or kept back from a bad beginning, they seek the company of women to guard what has been wrongly gathered or kept. And they entangle themselves in such harmful and deadly occupations that they sink down to the depths of hell, since they refuse to accept that apostolic saying, that having food and clothing they should be content with what the frugality of the monastery provides; but wishing to become rich they fall into temptation and the snare of the devil and many useless and harmful desires, which plunge men into ruin and perdition. "For the root of all evils is covetousness," that is, filargyria, "which some, desiring it, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows."

I know of someone who thinks himself a monk and — what is worse — flatters himself about his perfection. When he had been received into a coenobium and was being warned by his abbot not to return to what he had given up in renouncing, but to free himself from filargyria, the root of all evils, and from earthly snares; and, if he preferred to be cleansed from his former passions, by which the abbot saw him most heavily pressed at every moment, to stop aiming at things he had not possessed even before, fettered by whose bonds he could certainly not reach the cleansing of his vices — he did not hesitate to answer him with a savage face: "If you have many things with which to support others, why do you forbid me to have them likewise?"

Let these things seem to no one either superfluous or tiresome. For unless the kinds of wounds have first been set out and the origins and causes of the diseases have been traced, neither can a fitting cure of medicine be applied to the sick nor the safeguard of perfect health be given to the healthy. For these things and many more than these are usually brought out in conference by the elders, who have experienced countless falls and ruins of various persons, for the instruction of the younger. Often recognizing many of them in ourselves as the elders set them out and revealed them, as though we too were struck by the same passions, we were cured without the shame of embarrassment, since we silently learned both the remedies and the causes of the vices that attacked us. We have covered or passed over some of these, not out of respect for the body of the brotherhood, but lest perhaps the book, falling into the hands of those who seem less trained in this way of life, should reveal to the inexperienced things which ought to be known only to those who toil and hasten to reach the summit of perfection.

This sickness, then, is a threefold disease, condemned by all the fathers with equal abhorrence. The first is the one whose stain we have described above, which, deceiving the wretched, persuades them to heap up what they did not possess even before, when they lived in the world. The second compels them afterwards to take back and desire again what they had cast away at the beginning of their renunciation. The third, contracted from a bad and faulty beginning and starting from imperfection, does not allow those whom it has once infected with this lukewarmness of mind, terrified by fear of poverty and distrust, to strip themselves of all the world's possessions; and keeping money or property, which they certainly ought to have cast away in renouncing, it never lets them reach the perfection of the gospel. We find examples of these three ruins in the holy Scriptures too, condemned with no light punishment. For Gehazi, wishing to acquire what he had not possessed even before, not only did not deserve to possess the grace of prophecy, which he was to receive from his master as by hereditary succession, but on the contrary was covered with everlasting leprosy by the curse of the holy Elisha. Judas, wishing to take back the money he had cast away when he followed Christ, not only fell into betraying the Lord and lost the rank of apostle, but did not even deserve to end his life by the common way of death, and closed it with a violent death by his own hand. Ananias and Sapphira, keeping back some part of what they had possessed, were punished with death by the apostle's word.

Concerning those, then, who, while saying that they have renounced this world, are broken by unbelief and afraid to be stripped of earthly wealth, it is commanded mystically in Deuteronomy: "If there is any man who is fearful and faint-hearted, let him not go out to war; let him go and return to his house, lest he make the hearts of his brothers fear, as he himself is terrified with fear." What, I ask, could be clearer than this testimony? Does not Scripture clearly prefer that they should not take on themselves even the beginning or the name of this profession, rather than, by their corrupting exhortation and example, call others back from gospel perfection and weaken them with faithless terror? So they are ordered to withdraw from the battle and return to their house, because no one can fight the Lord's battles with a double heart (for "a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways"), and, considering, according to that parable of the gospel, that one who goes out with ten thousand cannot fight against a king coming with twenty thousand, they should ask for peace while he is still far off, that is, they should not even take up the beginning of renunciation rather than, carrying it out lukewarmly afterwards, involve themselves in greater danger. For "it is better not to vow than to vow and not to pay." And it is beautifully described that this one comes with ten thousand and that one with twenty; for the number of the vices attacking us is greater than that of the virtues fighting for us. "But no one can serve God and mammon," "and no one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

These, then, try to bring back their former avarice by a kind of authority of holy Scripture, which, interpreting it with a faulty understanding, they are eager to corrupt and distort to their own desire — the saying of the apostle, or rather of the Lord. Not fitting their life or understanding to the sense of the Scriptures, but doing violence to the Scriptures to suit the desire of their lust, they want them to agree with their opinions, and they say it is written: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." By a most perverse interpretation of this they think that the Lord's saying is weakened, in which it is said: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Under this pretext they think they ought not to cast away their riches, declaring themselves more blessed if, supported by their former property, they also give to others out of its abundance, while they are ashamed to take on for Christ the glorious nakedness with the apostle and are unwilling to be content with the work of their hands or the frugality of the monastery. It remains for them either to recognize that they are deceiving themselves and have by no means renounced this world while brooding over their former riches, or, if they wish to experience the profession of a monk in deed and act, to scatter and cast away everything, keeping nothing of what they had renounced, and to glory with the apostle in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness.

As if he too could not likewise have been supported by his former means — he who testifies that he was not undistinguished even in the order of this world, since he asserts that from birth he was honoured with the dignity of a Roman citizen — if he had judged this more suitable for perfection! And as if those at Jerusalem who, being owners of lands or houses, sold everything, kept back nothing at all for themselves, brought the prices, and laid them at the apostles' feet, could not have supported the needs of their bodies from their own means, if this had been judged more perfect by the apostles or if they themselves had proved it more useful! But casting away all their property at once, they preferred to be supported by their own labour or by the contribution of the Gentiles. Writing to the Romans about the cost of supporting them, and commending to them his own ministry in this, and subtly encouraging them to this contribution, the holy apostle says: "But now I am going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints who are in Jerusalem. For they were pleased, and they are their debtors; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual things, they ought also to minister to them in fleshly things." To the Corinthians too, showing the same concern for them, he urges them to prepare more carefully before his coming the contribution which they were planning to send for their use: "Now concerning the collections that are made for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. On the first day of the week let each of you lay up by himself, storing what pleases him, so that collections may not be made when I come. And when I come, whomever you approve by letters, these I will send to carry your gift to Jerusalem." And to encourage them to a more generous contribution, he adds: "And if it is fitting that I also go, they will go with me" — that is, if your offering is such as to deserve to be escorted by me too. To the Galatians also, when he divided the ministry of preaching with the apostles, he testifies that he agreed this same thing with James, Peter, and John: that although he took up the preaching to the Gentiles, he would by no means reject concern and care for the poor who were at Jerusalem, who, renouncing all their property for Christ's sake, had undergone voluntary poverty. "And when they had seen," he says, "the grace of God that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should preach among the Gentiles and they among the circumcision; only that we should remember the poor." He testifies that he fulfilled this with all care, saying: "which I also was eager to do." Who, then, are more blessed? Those who, lately gathered from among the Gentiles and not able to climb to gospel perfection, still clung to their property — in whom the apostle counted it great fruit if only, called back from the worship of idols and from sexual immorality and things strangled and blood, they had received the faith of Christ together with their possessions? Or those who, satisfying the saying of the gospel and carrying the Lord's cross daily, wanted nothing of their own property left to them? And when the blessed apostle himself, bound by chains and prisons, or hindered by the hardship of travel, and for these reasons unable to provide his usual food with his own hands as he was accustomed, asserts that he received the supply of his need from the brothers who had come from Macedonia (for he says, "What was lacking to me the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied," and he himself tells the Philippians, "For you yourselves also know, Philippians, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone; for even in Thessalonica you sent once and again for my need") — will those people, according to the opinion they have formed with a lukewarm mind, be more blessed than the apostle, because they are found to have given to him of their property? No one, however mad, will dare to say this.

Therefore, if we wish to obey the gospel precept and to be imitators of the apostle and of that whole primitive church, or of the fathers who in our times have succeeded to their virtues and perfection, let us not rest in our own definitions, promising ourselves gospel perfection from this lukewarm and wretched state; but following in their footsteps let us by no means seek to deceive ourselves, and let us seek the discipline and training of the monastery in such a way as to renounce this world in truth, keeping nothing of what we have despised, with unbelief holding us back, and let us obtain our daily food, not by hidden money, but by our own work.

A saying of Saint Basil, bishop of Caesarea, is reported, spoken to a certain Syncletius who was sluggish with the lukewarmness we have described. Although he said that he had renounced this world, he kept back for himself some of his own property, unwilling to be supported by the work of his own hands and to acquire true humility by nakedness, the grinding of work, and submission to the monastery. "You have lost Syncletius the senator," Basil said, "and have not made Syncletius the monk."

So if we wish to contend lawfully in the spiritual contest, let us drive this deadly enemy too out of our hearts. Just as it is no great virtue to overcome him, so it is shameful and full of disgrace to be conquered by him. For to be thrown by a powerful opponent, although there is pain in the fall and groaning in the loss of the victory, still gives the defeated some consolation from the strength of the adversary; but if the enemy is feeble and the kind of struggle weak, a more shameful confusion is added beyond the pain of the fall, and a disgrace heavier than the loss.

This will be the highest victory and lasting triumph over it: that, as they say, the conscience of a monk should not be defiled even by the smallest coin. For it is impossible that one who has been overcome in a tiny sum and has once received the root of desire in his heart should not at once be set ablaze by the fire of greater desire. For the soldier of Christ will be victorious and secure and a stranger to every attack of desire only so long as this most wicked spirit has not sown the beginnings of this desire in his heart. Therefore, although in all kinds of vices the head of the serpent must generally be watched, in this one especially it is fitting to be more carefully on guard. For if it has been let in, it will grow strong on its own material and stir up more violent fires for itself. And so not only must the possession of money be avoided, but the very will for it must be driven entirely out of the mind. For it is not so much the effect of filargyria that must be avoided as its disposition that must be cut off at the root; for it will profit nothing not to have money if the will to possess it is in us.

For it is possible that even one who does not have money is by no means free from the disease of filargyria, and that the benefit of nakedness profits him nothing, because he has not been able to cut away the vice of desire; he has enjoyed the good of poverty, not by the merit of virtue, and has put up with the burden of necessity not without sickness of heart. Just as the word of the gospel declares that those who are not defiled in body have committed adultery in the heart, so it is possible for those who are not at all burdened by the weight of money to be condemned in feeling and mind with the lovers of money. For it was the opportunity of having that was lacking to them, not the will, which is always wont to be crowned by God more than necessity. So we must hasten, lest the rewards of our labours perish in vain. For it is wretched to have endured the effects of poverty and nakedness, but to have lost their fruits through the fault of an empty will.

Do you wish to know how deadly and how harmful this tinder, unless it is carefully cut out, grows to the destruction of the one who has conceived it, and sprouts with every kind of shoot of the vices? Look at Judas, counted among the apostles: because he would not crush the deadly head of this serpent, see how it destroyed him with its poison, and, entangled in the snares of desire, to what a crime of sheer precipice it drove him, so that it persuaded him to sell the Redeemer of the world and the author of human salvation for thirty pieces of silver. He would never have fallen into so wicked a crime of betrayal had he not been infected with the disease of filargyria, nor would he have become sacrilegiously guilty of denying the Lord unless he had first been accustomed to rob the purse entrusted to him.

This is a monstrous and clear enough example of this tyranny, which, as we said, once it has taken the soul captive, allows it to keep no rule of honesty and cannot be satisfied by any addition of gain; for the end of this madness is reached not by riches but by nakedness. For although Judas had received into his power, entrusted to him, the purse assigned to the care of the poor, so that, satisfied at least by the abundance of money, he might set a limit to his desire, the abundance of it made him burn with a more abundant tinder of desire, so that he now chose not to rob the purse secretly but to sell the Lord himself. For the madness of this desire surpasses all the heaps of riches.

Finally, the chief of the apostles, taught by these examples, knowing that one who has anything cannot control the reins of desire, and that its end lies not in a small or great sum but in the virtue of nakedness alone, punished with death Ananias and Sapphira, whom we mentioned above, because they had kept back something of their property for themselves; so that the death which Judas had brought on himself of his own accord for the guilt of betraying the Lord, these received for the lie of their desire. How great a likeness of crime and punishment meets here too! There betrayal followed filargyria; here falsehood. There the truth is betrayed; here the crime of lying is committed. For although the outcome of their deeds seems different, one end meets in both. For he, fleeing poverty, desired to take back what he had cast away; they, lest they should become poor, tried to keep back something of their property, which they ought either to have offered faithfully to the apostles or to have distributed entirely to the brothers. And therefore the condemnation of death follows in both cases, because both crimes sprouted from the roots of filargyria. So if so severe a sentence went out against those who did not desire other people's property but tried to spare their own, and had no desire of acquiring but only the will of keeping, what should be thought of those who desire to gather money they never possessed, and, displaying nakedness before men, are proved rich before God by the disposition of desire?

They are known to be lepers in spirit and mind, after the likeness of Gehazi, who, desiring the perishable money of this world, was covered with the contagion of unclean leprosy. By him he has left us a clear example that every soul polluted with the stain of desire is covered with the spiritual leprosy of the vices and is counted unclean before God under an everlasting curse.

So if, in the desire for perfection, you have left everything and followed Christ, who says to you, "Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me," why, having put your hand to the plough, do you look back, so as to be declared by the voice of the same Lord not fit for the kingdom of heaven? Set on the housetop of the gospel height, why do you come down to take anything from your house, that is, of the things you formerly despised? Placed in the field and in the work of the virtues, why do you run back and try to clothe yourself again with the property of the world, of which you stripped yourself in renouncing? But if, overtaken by poverty, you had nothing to leave, much less ought you to acquire what you did not possess before. For you were prepared in this way by the Lord's kindness so that you might run to him more readily, unhindered by any snares of money. Yet let no needy man be broken on this account; for there is no one who has not something to leave. Whoever has cut off at the root the desire to possess the goods of the world has renounced all of them.

This, then, is the perfect victory over filargyria: that we do not allow the little spark of even the smallest coin to remain in our heart, certain that we shall no longer have the power of putting it out if we foster in ourselves the material of even the least of this spark.

We shall be able to keep this virtue unimpaired in no other way than by remaining in the monastery and, according to the apostle, being content with food and clothing.

So, keeping in memory the condemnation of Ananias and Sapphira, let us shudder at keeping back any of the things we vowed to give up entirely when we renounced. Let us also fear the example of Gehazi, who for the fault of filargyria was punished with the everlasting penalty of leprosy, and let us beware of acquiring anything we did not possess before. And also, dreading both the deed and the end of Judas, let us avoid with all our strength taking back any of the money we have once cast away from us. Above all, considering the condition of our frail and uncertain nature, let us beware lest the day of the Lord, coming like a thief in the night, should find our conscience stained by even a single obol; for it would make void all the fruits of our renunciation and cause what was said in the gospel to the rich man to be addressed to us too by the Lord's voice: "Fool, this night they require your soul of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" And, taking no thought for tomorrow, let us never allow ourselves to be torn away from the discipline of the coenobium.

We are certainly not permitted to fulfil this, nor even to remain under the rule of the institution, unless the virtue of patience, which proceeds from no other source than the fountain of humility, has first been founded in us with firm solidity. For humility knows how to cause no disturbances to anyone, and patience how to bear with magnanimity those caused to it.