Wealth and poverty in the early church

Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 1.1 (50.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Christians live as foreigners; why build up possessions here?
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 1.2 (50.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Investing here prevents return to the true city.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 1.6 (50.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Keep only what is sufficient and be ready to leave.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 2.4 (51.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The parable concerns rich and poor.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 2.5 (51.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The rich is poor in prayer; the poor is rich in prayer. The rich support the poor.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 2.6 (51.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The poor pray for the rich who support them.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 8.9.1 (75.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Two-thirds dry sticks are believers who grew rich and proud and lived like pagans.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.20.1 (97.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The thorny mountain: the rich and the overbusy.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.20.2 (97.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The rich avoid fellow believers for fear of being asked for help.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.20.3 (97.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · It is hard for the rich to enter God's kingdom.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.30.4 (107.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The round stones are believers whose wealth dimmed them but who stayed faithful.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.30.5 (107.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · God trimmed their wealth, leaving enough to do good.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.6.5 (14.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Round stones are the rich, who deny the Lord in persecution to keep their wealth.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.6.6 (14.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The rich become useful to God only when their wealth is cut away.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.6.7 (14.7)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Hermas himself became useful once he lost his wealth.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.9.3 (17.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Excess harms the rich, want harms the poor.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.9.6 (17.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The groans of the poor will rise to God against the proud rich.
2 Clement 6.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · No one can serve God and money.
Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim fragment) 30Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The pitiless rich roll on red-hot stones.
To the Philippians 4.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Love of money is the root of every trouble, so believers should arm themselves with righteousness and first learn to keep the Lord's commandment themselves.
To the Philippians 11.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Polycarp grieves over Valens, a presbyter at Philippi who misused his office, and warns the church against greed.
To the Philippians 11.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · A leader who cannot control his own greed cannot teach others, for greed is idolatry and the saints will judge the world.
Epistle of the Apostles 46Anonymous · ca. 140-170 · Christ bids the apostles preach without fear of the rich, and says that one who is not rich but gives to the needy will be called a benefactor.
Acts of John 32Anonymous · ca. 150–200 · In the theatre John begins his sermon to the Ephesians on the care of the soul, wealth and poverty.
Sentences of Sextus 18Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A wise man who despises money is like God.
Sentences of Sextus 76Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Love of money shows love of the things of the flesh.
Sentences of Sextus 116Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Gold does not rescue the soul from evils.
Sentences of Sextus 137Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · The desire of possessing is the origin of avarice.
Sentences of Sextus 140Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Everything that a man has beyond what is necessary is his enemy.
Sentences of Sextus 192Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Honour no one because he has much money.
Sentences of Sextus 193Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · It is hard for a rich man to be saved.
Sentences of Sextus 228Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Those whose God is common and the same Father are impious unless their possessions too are common.
Sentences of Sextus 294Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · The riches of the wise are self-control.
Sentence 18 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A wise man without possessions is like God.
Sentence 76 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Love of money is proof of love of the body.
Sentence 137 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Desire for possessions is the beginning of greed.
Sentence 192 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Honour no one because he has much money.
Sentence 193 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · It is hard for a rich man to be saved.
Sentence 228 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Where God is common to all, and that as Father, it is not pious that their possessions should not be common.
Sentence 294 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · The wealth of a philosopher is self-control.
Sentence 300 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · To store up treasure is not humane, and to take it away for oneself is not the mark of a philosopher.
Sentence 377 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · It is better to be without possessions than to have many possessions and not share them.
Diatessaron, section 26Tatian · ca. 160-180
Diatessaron, section 28Tatian · ca. 160-180
Diatessaron, section 29Tatian · ca. 160-180
Diatessaron, section 31Tatian · ca. 160-180
Diatessaron, section 39Tatian · ca. 160-180
Fragment 5Clement of Alexandria · late 2nd–early 3rd century · On Job 1:21: Job departs naked not of property but of sin; the newborn's wailing and swaddling foreshadow death, man alone is born naked so that need may teach him wisdom and the arts, and Job, stripped of everything, gave thanks.
Fragment 47 (Letters; Sacra Parallela 313 (on wealth and poverty))Clement of Alexandria · late 2nd-early 3rd century · God allows both wealth and poverty so that people may do good to one another.
The Instructor 2.3.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Gold and silver cups, costly vessels, and luxurious furniture are useless and harmful; the time is short.
The Instructor 2.3.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paul's teaching on living “as though not” applies all the more to luxury; the Lord bids us sell our goods and follow him, possessing only faith, confession, and kindness.
The Instructor 2.3.37Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Riches end in Hades; household goods should be judged by usefulness, not costliness, since a plain knife, basin, lamp, or bed serves just as well.
The Instructor 2.3.39Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wealth ill-used is vice's citadel and love of money the root of all evils; luxury extends even to golden chamber pots. True wealth is freedom from desire, and wisdom is bought only with the Word.
The Instructor 2.12.120Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God gives necessities openly and hides luxuries; all things are made for sharing, and the loving person says “Why should I not share?”; spending on people is better than on jewels.
The Instructor 3.6.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wealth should be used worthily and shared; stripped of finery, masters are no different from slaves; the good man stores up treasure in heaven by giving to the poor.
The Instructor 3.6.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wealth is like a snake, dangerous unless handled with knowledge; the true riches are virtue and wisdom; the rich man is the one who gives, not the one who keeps.
The Instructor 3.6.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Only the good, the Christians, can possess true goods: righteousness and the Word; the one who asks God receives, so the godly possess all things.
The Instructor 3.7.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Elijah's simple meal and the Lord's command to carry no purse teach frugality: Christians should share, give up excess possessions and servants, and travel light, household and all.
The Instructor 3.7.39Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Husband and wife should travel together with frugality; the body is the measure of possessions; generosity is the staff for the road to heaven, and like a well it refills as it gives.
Against Heresies 4.2.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The parable of the rich man and Lazarus first teaches that no one should live in luxury and forget God.
Against Heresies 4.30.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Israel’s taking of the Egyptians’ goods was just and a type; Christians too live on goods acquired from pagans, who owe them far less than Egypt owed Israel.
Against Heresies 4.30.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Israel took only a small wage for long, cruel slavery; the heretics who blame them carry Caesar’s coin earned by others’ labour.
Prophetic Extracts 47.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Christ commands not giving up possessions but managing them without attachment; and God's providence extends beyond those living in the flesh.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Flatterers are treacherous, because they inflame the pride that wealth already produces, when they should cut it away; the exalted will be humbled.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 2.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Some rich people, hearing that a camel passes through a needle's eye more easily, despair of salvation and give themselves entirely to this world.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The man had great wealth; Jesus says how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom, and the disciples are amazed.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Jesus says a camel passes through a needle's eye more easily than a rich man enters the kingdom; what is impossible with men is possible with God.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 11.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · “Sell your possessions” does not mean throwing money away, but banishing from the soul its attachment and anxious desire for wealth.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 11.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Mere poverty is not a virtue; otherwise all beggars, even those ignorant of God, would be the most blessed.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · It is better to have enough and to help others; if no one had anything, no one could share.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The Lord commands us to make friends with wealth and store up treasure in heaven.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ stayed with rich tax collectors like Zacchaeus and Levi without telling them to give up their money, but only to use it justly.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · If Christ commanded both giving to the needy and giving up all money, he would contradict himself; wealth that benefits others should not be discarded.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Possessions and money are prepared by God as material and tools for good use.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Wealth serves either justice or injustice; the blame lies not with it but with the human mind that chooses how to use it.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 15.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · One who gives up wealth can still be rich in passions, which continue to choke the reason.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 16.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich man who holds his wealth as God's gift for the sake of others, is not its slave, and could lose it calmly, is the “poor in spirit” whom Christ blesses.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 17.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The one who carries wealth in his heart instead of God's Spirit, always wanting more, cannot desire the kingdom; where one's mind is, there is one's treasure.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 17.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · So there is a good and a bad wealth, one to be gained and one to be discarded; and poverty is blessed when it is spiritual.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 19.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · True wealth is wealth of virtues; counterfeit wealth is outward possession, which passes away.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 20.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · It is difficult but not impossible for the rich to be saved, if they turn to spiritual wealth and learn to use indifferent things well.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 24.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · If one can master one's wealth, Christ does not take it away; but if it masters you, cast it off.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · There is no wrong in having earned a living before faith, or in being born by God's providence into a wealthy family.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · If birth into wealth excluded one from life, God would be unjust.
Miscellanies 2.5.22Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ, whose Father is God, is the truly noble; Plato too calls the wise man rich, free, beautiful, and king, agreeing with Scripture that riches lie in the soul and freedom comes from the truth.
Miscellanies 3.6.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's command to give and lend presupposes private property, refuting Carpocrates' “community”; he identifies himself with the needy, and the old covenant also commands giving to the poor.
Miscellanies 3.6.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scripture presupposes givers and receivers, as the world consists of opposites; Christ's call to the rich young man exposed his failure to love his neighbor and taught him to share out of love.
Miscellanies 3.6.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ forbids not wealth rightly used but greed; the generous gain eternal riches by sharing, while the hoarder, like the rich fool, stores up treasure on earth and loses his soul.
Miscellanies 4.5.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Poverty, like pain, distracts the soul with getting a living, while health and sufficiency leave it free for God, as Paul wishes believers free from anxiety.
Miscellanies 4.5.23Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The martyr chooses the hoped-for pleasure through present pain; pain and pleasure are not evils in themselves; the poets disagree whether wealth is a good or a blinding evil.
Miscellanies 4.5.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The poets call wealth blind and a bad teacher of manliness; poverty is akin to wisdom; love of money ruins cities; virtue is true currency.
Miscellanies 4.6.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's beatitudes apply to spiritual and material states; the one who is persecuted, poor, or hungry for righteousness' sake is a witness, a martyr, to righteousness.
Miscellanies 4.6.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some allegorize the rich man's “possessions” as passions, but God distributes goods justly, and the command is to despise them and follow Christ; the rich man lacked love of neighbor; one should come to Christ for the good itself, not fear or reward.
Miscellanies 4.6.31Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those who refuse the supper are held back by passionate attachment to possessions; the foxes are the earthbound greedy, the birds the heavenly-minded; poverty too, badly borne, brings cares that choke the word like thorns.
Miscellanies 4.6.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God silences the boastful and rises for the poor; Christ belongs to the humble; the treasures of earth that thieves break into are possessions, anxieties, and bodily loves; the true treasure is with God, gained by sharing.
Miscellanies 4.6.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The broad road to destruction is profligacy, lust, and ambition; the rich fool loses his soul; Christ warns against greed and anxiety and bids us seek first the kingdom, and the small things will be added.
On Idolatry 11Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Trade breeds covetousness and lying, and trades that supply idol worship, such as selling sacrificial animals or incense, make a Christian the idols' agent.
On Idolatry 12Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · The excuse “I have nothing to live on” is answered by Christ's words and examples: the disciples left everything, and faith does not fear hunger.
Octavius 36.3Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christian poverty is a glory, since frugality strengthens the mind.
Octavius 36.4Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The truly poor are those who always want more; Christians are rich toward God.
On Patience 7Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Christians should bear loss of property patiently, since nothing is truly theirs; patience in loss trains them to give freely, whereas pagans value money above the soul.
Acts of Thomas 36Anonymous · ca. 200–250 · Thomas tells the youth that God promises unseen goods beyond wealth and luxury, urges the crowd to lift themselves above earthly things to see Christ, and assures the repentant that sins of ignorance are overlooked.
Acts of Thomas 66Anonymous · ca. 200–250 · Thomas, about to leave, urges the believers to abide in the faith, leaves the deacon Xenophon in his place, and warns against trust in wealth and beauty.
Acts of Thomas 138Anonymous · ca. 200–250 · Misdaeus blames Charisius, strikes Thomas with a chair, and has him dragged to judgment; the king's son Vazan questions Thomas, who contrasts the temporary kingdom with the eternal King he serves.
Acts of Thomas 145Anonymous · ca. 200–250 · Thomas thanks Christ for showing him that earthly wealth is loss and for making him poor, a slave, and a prisoner for his sake, and prays that his labor may not be in vain.
Didascalia 3.6–7 (Latin)Anonymous · first half of the third century · Widows who seek gain and gossip are not heard in prayer, but the quiet widow who prays night and day and works to give to others is heard at once, like the widow of the two coins.
Didascalia 4.4 (Latin)Anonymous · first half of the third century · Those who receive alms in hypocrisy or out of idleness will give account, and the hoarder is like a serpent sleeping on its treasure.
On Dice-Players 6Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Gambling breeds perjury, quarrels, and ruin, squanders inherited wealth, and is joined with nights spent with prostitutes.
Commentary on Daniel 3.6Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-204 · Do not trust in kings or seek their favour, for their gifts are passing and their friendship dangerous; hope in the living God.
Against Marcion 4.14Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The Beatitudes on the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the persecuted echo the Creator's constant care for the lowly in the Psalms and Isaiah, and fulfill Isaiah 61, so they belong to the Creator's Christ.
Against Marcion 4.15Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The woes on the rich, the full, the laughing, and the praised are the Creator's own warnings from the law and prophets; the same God who blesses the poor rebukes the rich, so there is one God, not two.
Against Marcion 4.33Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's sayings on God and mammon, on the Pharisees' self-justification, and on the law and the prophets lasting until John show one God, the Creator, whose law is fulfilled rather than destroyed.
Against Marcion 4.36Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The parables of the persistent widow and of the Pharisee and the publican, the rich young ruler, and the blind man who called Jesus “son of David” all show that Christ taught prayer to, and obedience toward, the Creator, and was truly David's descendant.
On Flight in Persecution 12Tertullian · ca. 208–213 · Buying off persecutors with money is only flight by another means and a form of denial; Christ bought Christians with his blood, the apostles never ransomed themselves, and what Christians owe God in persecution is their blood, not coins.
Fragments on Job, column 81Origen · ca. 220-254 · God lets us argue our case with him, and Eliphaz's false charges against Job describe real sins of creditors who strip the poor.
PG 12:1157 (Ps 4 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Afflictions cannot be evils, since the Apostle boasts in them and the righteous are always afflicted, as Job’s trials show; the literal blessings of the law (lending to nations, health, wealth) do not fit the saints, and true health and wealth belong to the soul.
PG 12:1201 (Ps 11 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · On Ps 12:4–6 (LXX 11:5–7): the Lord arises for the poor and needy, as Paul’s sufferings and thanks show, and appoints in salvation; only the words of the Lord are pure, like silver purified seven times.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.19.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Essenes share all property; newcomers sell their goods for a common fund distributed by need.
Commentary on John 10.137Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ drives out the traders from the soul, overturning the tables of the love of money.
Commentary on John 19.58Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen wishes all would give their whole wealth to God.
Commentary on John 19.138Origen · ca. 230–248 · Whoever lays up treasure on earth is from below; whoever lays up treasure in heaven is born from above.
Commentary on John 20.180Origen · ca. 230–248 · Likewise the devil does not want money but wants people to love it.
On Prayer 29.6Origen · ca. 233–234 · Poverty, wealth, and moderate means each bring their own temptations.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 49Origen · 235 · Persecution tests whether the word fell on rocky ground or good soil; those who endure bear fruit a hundredfold and should despise the cares and riches of this world.
Homilies on Ezekiel 9.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · Sodom’s pride grew from plenty, like that of the rich man who ignored Lazarus; such arrogance makes anyone a “Sodomite” in the sense of Ezek 16:49.
Homilies on Judges 2.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Bowing the knee to Baal is any sin; whatever a person loves above all is his god, so avarice, lust, and ambition are idolatry.
Homilies on Leviticus 15.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The houses are the heavenly dwelling built by fear of God and right living; lighter sins can always be redeemed by repentance, while for graver crimes repentance is granted only once.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 1.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · “Hope in the Lord and do goodness” and “dwell in the land” mean cultivating the land of one’s own soul; “delight in the Lord” means enjoying the delicacies of understanding Scripture, and the Lord gives the heart what it naturally asks, understanding.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 2.8Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · As God’s soldier has the armor of Eph 6, the devil’s soldier has contrary arms; sinners “draw the sword” when they sin shamelessly and shoot the arrows of poisonous speech at the poor, against which we should be rich in spiritual goods.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 3.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Literally, a little gained honestly is better than wealth gained unjustly; spiritually, the simple believer’s small faith is better than worldly learning, though best of all is to be rich in the whole of Scripture and in good works. The breaking of the sinners’ arms is read in several ways.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 9.9Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Whatever the sinner weaves, such as wealth, offices, and honors, is as vain as a spider’s web.
Homilies on Jeremiah 7.3Origen · ca. 240 · Israel, worshipping foreign gods in the holy land, was sent into exile; Christians who make gods of the belly or money will be cast out of the church, but those who worship God in this foreign world will go to the holy land.
Homilies on Jeremiah 16.4Origen · ca. 240 · Moses saw God in the angel of the burning bush; those who stay on the “mountains” and lay up treasure in heaven, unlike the rich fool, will be taken to rest; they need not hide from God as Adam did, nor go out from his face like Cain.
Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes 4Gregory Thaumaturgus · 3rd century · Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 4: oppression, envy, the lonely miser, the strength of companionship, and the wise youth better than the foolish king.
Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes 5Gregory Thaumaturgus · 3rd century · Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 5: guard the tongue, keep vows, fear God; greed brings no satisfaction, but enjoying God's gifts is good.
Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes 6Gregory Thaumaturgus · 3rd century · Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 6: wealth not enjoyed, long life without goodness, and insatiable desire are worse than a stillbirth.
To Theopompus on the Impassibility and Passibility of God, section 31Gregory Thaumaturgus · if authentic, ca. 240-275 · If human philosophy hastens to heal sick souls, God, the teacher of all philosophy, must go willingly to those struck down by sufferings; love of money is the soul's sickness, and envy has no place in God.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.72Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Human nature must always love something; love is rightly used only when directed to God and the virtues, not to money, glory, lust, or even the liberal arts.
Against Celsus 2.41Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers that poverty and persecution are not true evils, as the examples of Socrates, Democritus, Crates, and Diogenes show; Celsus cannot point to any wickedness in Jesus.
Against Celsus 6.16Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims Jesus garbled Plato's saying about the rich, but Origen finds it absurd that the unlettered Jesus read Plato, and hints at the deeper meaning of the camel and the needle.
Against Celsus 7.18Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus sets Moses' promises of wealth and conquest against Jesus' teaching on poverty and non-retaliation, but Origen replies that the law's promises were never meant literally, since the righteous prophets lived in poverty.
Against Celsus 7.21Origen · ca. 248 · The law's promise of wealth and rule is fulfilled spiritually in people like Paul, rich in knowledge, who “lent” the gospel to many nations and ruled them by the Word.
Against Celsus 7.23Origen · ca. 248 · Jesus' warnings against wealth, power, and wisdom refer to wealth that distracts, domineering rule, and worldly wisdom, not to the spiritual riches and wisdom that the law promises.
Commentary on Matthew 11.9Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen explains Corban from what a Hebrew told him: a gift dedicated to the poor released a son from supporting his parents, a tradition that annulled God’s commandment; he warns church leaders who misuse the fund of the poor, like Judas.
Commentary on Matthew 15.15Origen · ca. 246–248 · Selling everything is possible: the Cynic Crates did it for philosophy, and the first believers in Acts did it; Ananias and Sapphira died under the force of Peter’s rebuke, and bishops should encourage such renunciation.
Commentary on Matthew 15.16Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen raises the difficulty that selling one’s goods cannot by itself free a person at once from anger, grief, fear, desire, and pleasure, or make him wise, and so cannot by itself make him perfect.
Commentary on Matthew 15.19Origen · ca. 246–248 · The young man’s going away grieving shows how hard it is to stop thinking wealth and glory good; read literally, he is half praiseworthy for keeping the commandments and half blameworthy for preferring his possessions.
Commentary on Matthew 15.20Origen · ca. 246–248 · Jesus says a rich man enters the kingdom with difficulty, not that he cannot; the camel and the needle’s eye show the narrowness of the entry, which God alone can make passable.
Commentary on Matthew 15.21Origen · ca. 246–248 · Read literally, Peter’s claim to have left everything is valued by God for its intention, not for the size of what he left—his nets, and probably his house, wife, and family—and Jesus answers with a great promise.
Commentary on Matthew 16.21Origen · ca. 246–248 · The church is now the living temple, but some in it, perhaps even its leaders, make it a den of robbers through greed and luxury; Christ weeps over it and will come to scourge and cleanse it.
Commentary on Matthew 16.22Origen · ca. 246–248 · The three kinds driven from the temple are worldly church members, deacons who enrich themselves from funds for the poor, and bishops and presbyters who appoint unworthy rulers over the flock; Christ will judge them at his second coming.
To Donatus 12Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · The rich are tormented by fear for their wealth, possessed by it, and share it with no one.
To Quirinus 3.61Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The love of money and possessions is condemned, for it profits nothing and leads to ruin.
On the Dress of Virgins 7Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 249 · True riches are spiritual; Christians renounced the world's pomps in baptism and must imitate Christ, doing God's will rather than loving the world.
On the Dress of Virgins 10Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 249 · A virgin should not boast of wealth; Scripture says riches pass like a shadow, and Peter, though he had no gold, was rich in Christ's grace.
On the Dress of Virgins 11Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 249 · Riches should be used for the poor and for heavenly treasure; wealth, like any gift of God, may be misused, and a great fortune is a temptation unless it redeems sins.
On the Lord's Prayer 20Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Riches are dangerous, like the rich fool's; the perfect give to the poor and store up treasure in heaven.
On Jewish Foods 6Novatian · ca. 250–258 · Freedom from food laws is not license for gluttony; Novatian points to Christ's beatitudes, Lazarus, and Paul, and denounces Christians who drink wine on an empty stomach in the morning.
In Praise of Martyrdom 17Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Rank and wealth are worthless compared with salvation, and Christ has set family ties below the confession of the truth, promising a hundredfold to those who lose their life for his name.
On the Lapsed 11Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Love of property kept many from fleeing and made them fall; Christ's call to sell all and follow him would have kept them free.
On the Lapsed 12Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Those possessed by their wealth cannot follow Christ; Scripture warns against the love of money and promises great reward to those who lose everything for Christ's sake.
To Demetrian 10Cyprian of Carthage · 252–253 · Pagans should judge themselves: civil injustice, hoarding, and greed during the plague cause more suffering than war, drought, or disease.
On Works and Almsgiving 9Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 253 · Almsgiving will not impoverish, for Scripture promises that those who give will lack nothing and that God provides for those who seek his kingdom first.
On Works and Almsgiving 10Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 253 · Fearing to lose one's wealth, one loses one's soul; as Paul says, we brought nothing into the world, and the love of riches ruins faith.
On Works and Almsgiving 13Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 253 · Fear for the future is only an excuse for avarice, which enslaves; like the rich fool, the miser will lose all, so he should share his wealth with Christ.
On Works and Almsgiving 15Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 253 · The rich who bring no offering to the Eucharist but eat what the poor offered should learn from the poor widow, whom Christ praised for giving all she had.
On Works and Almsgiving 22Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 253 · Cyprian imagines the devil taunting Christ that pagans spend fortunes on worthless games for him, while Christians, promised eternal life, will scarcely give to the poor.
Canonical Epistle, canon 2Gregory Thaumaturgus · ca. 254–264 · Those who profited from the invasion by plunder are to be excommunicated, lest God's wrath fall on the whole people and on the bishops who fail to act.
Lepr. 16Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Christ purifies humanity as Joshua the high priest was given clean garments; the rich man in purple and the proud Pharisee show that outward finery displeases God, while the poor are to be honored.
Lepr. 17Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Usurious bishops and greedy laity are the leprous warp and woof of the church; Christ's teaching on wealth, enemies, and trust in the Father condemns them.
Vit. 6Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · What can be lost was only lent; earthly goods wither like grass, so we should seek the lasting goods and be content with enough.
Vit. 7Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Christ, John the Baptist, and the poor widow show that one should despise temporal goods, renounce the broad way, and serve the needy for an eternal reward.
Against the Nations 7.12Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Gods who grant favors only in return for sacrifices would be venal, favoring the rich over the innocent poor and caught between warring peoples.
Church History 2.17.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Acts likewise records that believers sold their property and shared it according to need.
Church History 6.3.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · He refused others' offers of help and lived in extreme poverty.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 47Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Archelaus answers Manes's contrasts: Jesus' teaching on retaliation advances from justice to goodness, the spoiling of Egypt was just wages, and Jesus too accepts gifts from the rich.
Homilies 15.10Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter explains that poverty alone does not save; Jesus blessed the faithful poor who do not sin.
Letter to Zenas and Serenus 14Anonymous · 4th century (disputed) · Counsel on wealth and poverty, and the prize awaiting those who run within the rule.
Divine Institutes 2.6.3Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Under the guise of religion people worship the wealth that drives crime and war.
Divine Institutes 3.21.2Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Plato proposed that all property be held in common for the sake of equality.
Divine Institutes 3.21.3Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Common property is doubtful, but let it pass.
Divine Institutes 3.22.7Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Private ownership gives matter for virtue; community only licenses vice.
Divine Institutes 3.23.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Lesser philosophers boast of despising money.
Divine Institutes 3.23.2Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · They throw away inheritances out of perverse fear.
Divine Institutes 3.23.4Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Democritus abandoned his land rather than giving it away.
Divine Institutes 3.23.5Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · A philosopher threw his money into the sea.
Divine Institutes 5.5.5Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · In the golden age people lived simply and held land in common.
Divine Institutes 5.5.6Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · God gave the earth for the common use of all.
Divine Institutes 5.6.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Greed, born of contempt for God, concentrated wealth in few hands.
Divine Institutes 5.6.2Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The greedy hoarded necessities to enslave others.
Divine Institutes 5.6.3Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · They made unjust laws to protect their plunder.
Divine Institutes 5.15.4Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · True riches lie in good use and contentment.
Divine Institutes 6.1.8Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · They seek wealth by any means for display and luxury.
Divine Institutes 6.4.8Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Riches hinder travel on the narrow way.
Divine Institutes 6.6.10Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Pagans thought using wealth rightly meant thrift.
Divine Institutes 6.12.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Wealth's true fruit is using it for others and for justice.
Divine Institutes 6.12.33Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Poverty, praised by philosophers, is a harbor from care.
Divine Institutes 6.12.34Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Wealth exposes its owner to danger.
Divine Institutes 6.12.35Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Entrust wealth to God, where no thief or rust can reach it.
Divine Institutes 6.12.36Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Throw off wealth to run freely to God.
Divine Institutes 6.13.11Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Riches placed in justice are the only true wealth.
Divine Institutes 7.1.17Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Poverty makes people capable of virtue.
Divine Institutes 7.1.19Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The poor believe more easily than the rich.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.11.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Essenes own nothing privately and share all things.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.12.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Voluntarily poor, they count contentment as wealth.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.12.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Greed has destroyed natural human brotherhood.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.14.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Gold and silver are the lowest part of the earth, not true goods.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.14.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Plenty breeds greed for gold, mere earth, and endless strife.
Preparation for the Gospel 9.3.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · New members give their property to the community.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.35.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Proverbs and Plato both warn against wealth and poverty.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 60.9Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Despise money and store up treasure in heaven.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.4.33Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Jesus taught his disciples a philosophical life of poverty and trust in providence, surpassing the law.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.5.76Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The apostles lived in poverty, as Peter’s words to the lame man show.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.6.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Jesus taught poverty; his disciples would not have obeyed or recorded it had he sought money.
Book 1, lines 619–642Juvencus · ca. 330 · The sound eye; no one can serve God and riches; do not be anxious for food and clothing.
Book 3, lines 498–521Juvencus · ca. 330 · The rich young man asks about eternal life, is told the commandments and to sell all and follow, and goes away sad.
Book 3, lines 522–547Juvencus · ca. 330 · The camel and the needle; with God salvation is possible; the apostles will sit on twelve thrones; a hundredfold reward.
Demonstration 6.1Aphrahat · 337-345
Demonstration 14.3Aphrahat · 337-345 · Leaders in the church have become greedy usurers and corrupt judges, favouring the rich and despising the poor, so that the prophets' indictments fit their day.
Demonstration 14.23Aphrahat · 337-345 · Desire and greed ruined Adam, Esau, Pharaoh, Achan, Eli's sons, Saul, Ahab, Gehazi, Judas, and Ananias.
Demonstration 14.24Aphrahat · 337-345 · Greed is never satisfied, as kings and rich men show, while the poor are content with little; happy is the one whom desire has not mastered.
Demonstration 20.3Aphrahat · 337-345 · The law requires the hired worker's wages to be paid the same day, lest he be cheated.
Demonstration 20.6Aphrahat · 337-345 · The parable of the rich fool warns those who store up treasure for themselves and are not rich toward God.
Demonstration 20.7Aphrahat · 337-345 · In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man is Israel, enriched by God's gifts, and the dogs who lick Lazarus's sores are the nations who receive Christ's Body.
Demonstration 20.9Aphrahat · 337-345 · The deaths of the rich man and Lazarus are told; the rich man is the people and the poor man is the Savior, who became poor for us.
Demonstration 20.16Aphrahat · 337-345 · Christ commands inviting the poor and making friends by unrighteous mammon; the friends who receive us into eternal tents are God and his Christ, and true treasure is laid up in heaven.
Demonstration 20.17Aphrahat · 337-345 · The blessed poor are those poor in spirit who use wealth for others, like Abraham, Lot, Job, and Zacchaeus; the rich young man went away sad; the reader should urge givers to sow generously.
Demonstration 22.10Aphrahat · 337-345
Life of Constantine 4.29.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Constantine rebuked greedy officials and warned that all must give account to God.
Life of Constantine 4.30.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Constantine drew a grave's length on the ground to rebuke a greedy courtier.
Catechetical Lecture 8.5Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · All creation serves God, who patiently bears with sinners until judgment; wealth is not the devil's but God's gift, which used well can even open the kingdom of heaven.
Catechetical Lecture 8.7Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Against heretics who condemn possessions and bodies, Cyril argues that wealth is God's gift, the devil being at most a temporary steward of it.
Cento, lines 517–538Proba · ca. 360 · Christ tells the rich young man to despise wealth and give to the poor, and he goes away sad; the disciples put out to sea and a storm rises.
Commentary on Matthew 5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 353–355 · Hilary treats secret prayer, fasting, treasure in heaven, the eye as lamp, the two masters, freedom from anxiety (applied to the resurrection body), the lilies as angels, the grass as the nations destined for fire, and judging and the beam in the eye.
Commentary on Matthew 19Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 353–355 · Hilary leaves the question of divorce untouched (referring readers to the words of Jesus, the disciples, and Paul), explains the three kinds of eunuchs, reads the children as the nations, and the rich young man as Israel trusting in the law, with the camel through the needle as the nations entering by the gospel.
Life of Antony 2Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Hearing Christ’s words to the rich man read in church, the young Antony gave away his family land to his village.
Life of Antony 17Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Renouncing possessions is a small price for the kingdom of heaven; the monks should acquire the virtues, which alone go with them after death.
Letter 150Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Written in the name of Heraclidas, a young man turned from public life to the ascetic life, to his friend Amphilochius: he asks for a teacher, and reports bishop Basil's teaching on poverty and almsgiving.
Homilies on the Psalms 14.7Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil opens his second homily on Psalm 14 (15), on Ps 15:5a, by condemning lending at interest from the Law and the Prophets and by portraying the moneylender's hypocrisy toward the needy borrower.
Homilies on the Psalms 14.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil describes the borrower's brief luxury and long misery, urges the poor to sell their goods rather than borrow, and explains interest (tokos, “offspring”) as an unnaturally fertile beast.
Homilies on the Psalms 33.6Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil explains Ps 34:8–10: tasting the Lord's goodness through experience of the Word whets insatiable desire; fear of God makes one lack no virtue; Israel the rich became poor of the Word while the seekers from the nations lack no good, for the true good is God, not bodily goods, which Paul lacked.
Homilies on the Psalms 48.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil sets the Christian end of life, the blessed life under God's rule in the age to come, against the philosophers' ends (knowledge, action, pleasure), relates the psalm title “to the end” to the victory of Christ, and begins on Ps 49:1–2, a summons to all nations, earthborn and sons of men, rich and poor.
Homilies on the Psalms 48.10Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · On Ps 49:16–20 Basil answers those who doubt providence because the unjust prosper: the rich man takes nothing with him but a shroud and a little earth; the poor are comforted hereafter, as with the rich man and Lazarus. The worldly man praises God only in prosperity, as the devil charged against Job; the sinner knows God only by ancestral custom, and both he and the authors of false teaching will not see the light; the homily closes by lamenting man, honored but become like the beasts.
Homilies on the Psalms 61.4Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · On Ps 62:7 Basil calls blessed the one who glories only in God and in the cross of Christ, unlike those who glory in bodily strength or in the killing of war.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 47Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's forty-seventh rule, on treasure in heaven, with Rules 48 (on mercy, sharing, poverty, freedom from anxiety and the duty to work) and 49 (on not going to law or taking revenge), whose headings the scan lost.
Letter 121Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 360–390 · Gregory urges the heirs of a dead woman to pay her bequest to the church gladly and in full, laying up treasure in heaven.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.21Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Riches should make us grateful and generous; gold is rightly used by feeding the hungry and freeing captives, whereas the unbelieving people trusted in the law's shadow and human traditions.
Tractates on the Psalms 61.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Psalm 61 (62) teaches fear of God, patient endurance, and contempt for wealth, the root of all evils.
Tractates on the Psalms 61.8Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Love of money is the root of iniquity; riches, even when they come freely, must not hold the heart, since they do not go with us beyond death.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.5.13Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Comparing the Septuagint's "profit" with another version's "greed", Hilary shows that the psalmist turns from the money the world calls profit.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.14.9Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Wealth, glory, and noble birth make people proud, but in God's sight almsgiving, poverty of spirit, and humility are true riches and nobility.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.16.16Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Gold and topaz, the most prized of metals and gems, are less to the psalmist than God's commandments.
Tractates on the Psalms 122.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The rich man and Lazarus show the reversal of fortunes: the poor sufferer is comforted, the self-indulgent rich man tormented.
Tractates on the Psalms 124.10Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The bonds to avoid are not marriage, which Paul does not call criminal, but the chains of money-making and trade that ensnare faith.
Tractates on the Psalms 138.34Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The 'eyes' are the apostles and priests, the light of the church; if they are darkened by worldly cares and avarice, the whole body falls into darkness.
Tractates on the Psalms 143.22Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Christ laid down his life freely, beyond the reach of the sword; the worldly prosperity the psalm describes is falsely called blessed, for the truly blessed people is the one whose God is the Lord.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.15Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Wealth and poverty are unequal only outwardly; the necessities of life are common to all, and virtue is equally possible and equally demanding for rich and poor.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.16Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Rich and poor test and train each other; true blessedness is virtue, and in health and pleasure the poor man often has more than the rich.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 90Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Law guards against idolatry, the gravest injustice, which robs God of his honour, and against love of money, the root of injustice to others.
Commentary on Ephesians 5.5Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · The shameless, the unclean, and the greedy have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God, and greed is idolatry because it seeks from idols the goods of this world or divides worship among many.
Oration 14.1Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory opens his discourse on love for the poor by calling all his hearers fellow paupers before God and asking which virtue deserves the first place.
Oration 14.5Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Every virtue is a road to salvation, but the greatest part of love is love for the poor and the suffering, above all for those wasted by leprosy; Gregory reflects on his own bond with the body.
Oration 14.18Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Our soul’s sickness, insensibility to the poor, is worse than leprosy; Gregory refuses to enjoy his goods unless he shares them, and reminds his hearers how unstable all human prosperity is.
Oration 14.24Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory warns the rich not to be bad stewards who hoard while others starve, citing a saying of Peter and the prophets’ threats against greed and luxury.
Oration 14.25Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · God gave the earth and the means of life to all in common; wealth, poverty, and slavery came later with sin, but in the beginning man was free and rich in paradise.
Oration 14.26Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Through envy and the serpent’s deceit inequality divided the human family; Gregory urges the strong and rich to look to the Creator’s law, help the needy, and so imitate God’s mercy.
Oration 14.34Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Health and wealth are not to be admired for themselves, nor sickness and poverty despised: a Job may lie hidden among the sick, and Lazarus was saved through poverty while the rich man suffers.
Oration 14.36Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · God’s concern for the wronged poor shows how much he values kindness to them; almsgiving cleanses the soul’s leprosy, and the wounded soul is healed by Christ when it shows mercy to the sick.
Oration 16.18Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory lists the sins behind the disaster: seizing the land of the poor, usury, withholding first-fruits, neglecting widows and orphans, hoarding, injustice, and attributing ill-gotten wealth to God.
Oration 16.19Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory rebukes grain profiteers who exploit famine, the greedy who idolize wealth, proud officials, and the luxurious who are unmoved by others’ ruin.
Oration 26.10Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory compares the true philosopher to a mythical plant that thrives by being cut, showing how he turns every circumstance (birth, age, beauty, health, wealth, or their opposites) into virtue.
Oration 32.22Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory says God gives the necessary goods of creation, like air, water, sun, and health, to all in common, while luxuries belong to a few.
Oration 36.12Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory closes by exhorting philosophers, the rich, the luxurious, and the whole city of Constantinople to virtue, generosity to the poor, and contempt for the games.
Oration 40.33Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Baptism must reform character as well as wash away sins; it does not forgive the continued keeping of ill-gotten goods; those raised from the tomb of sin should not bind themselves again.
Oration 43.34Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Basil's leadership of the church showed itself in many works, above all in the great famine, when grain dealers were hoarding and profiteering.
Tractates 1.3.2Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno shows from Paul and Jeremiah that the world's wisdom is folly, and describes worldly wisdom, strength and riches as the foundations of vice.
Tractates 1.3.5Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno rebukes Christians who think it just to keep their own and seek more, citing Christ's command to sell all and give to the poor.
Tractates 1.9.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno begins a sermon against avarice, the root of all evils, which no longer counts as a crime because it has seized everyone.
Tractates 1.9.2Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno describes how avarice overrides every law and bond, sets families against each other, and ends in shameful death.
Tractates 1.9.3Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno warns the avaricious that death fears neither riches nor honour, and a little earth will at last satisfy rich and poor alike.
Tractates 1.9.4Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno describes the usurer, the man who closes common land, and the grain-hoarder who profits from famine.
Tractates 1.9.5Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno shows that gold, the idol of the nations, can neither heal nor save nor go with its owner into the grave.
Tractates 1.10.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno begins a second sermon on avarice, which seizes every class of people, never grows old, and spares no one.
Tractates 1.10.4Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno shows how avarice sets spouses, parents and children against each other and leads to contempt of God.
Tractates 1.11.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · In a short address Zeno sums up why God hates avarice and promises eternal life to those who conquer it.
Hexaemeron 7.3Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · Fish that devour one another, the crab, and the octopus illustrate greed, deceit, and flattery among men; yet the fishes also keep their appointed regions.
Homilies 3.6Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · The poor and lowly should not despair, since as human beings made by God's hands and in his image they possess gifts of nature and of grace greater than wealth.
Homilies 6.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Prosperity is a trial like affliction; the rich fool, blessed by God's kindness, answered with miserliness and was as troubled by his plenty as the poor by their want.
Homilies 6.2Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · The rich fool's miserliness is set against the generosity of the earth, the sufferings of the poor who must sell their children, and the judgment that condemns those who do not share; what the rich hold back belongs to the needy.
Homilies 7.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Basil recalls that the rich young man is not the testing lawyer of Luke, since he asked sincerely.
Homilies 7.3Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Wealth beyond need goes on luxuries invented by the devil or is buried in the ground; those who keep every commandment but this one are shut out like a traveller who stops at the city gate.
Homilies 7.4Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · The rich who adorn walls and horses but neglect the poor will have no answer at the judgment; greed is insatiable, swallows up neighbors like Naboth, and knows no bounds.
Homilies 7.6Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Basil sets the judgment seat of Christ before the greedy rich and exposes gold and gems as mere stones; the plea that wealth is needed for children is a pretext for greed.
Homilies 7.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · The childless who postpone giving to the poor until their wills are written gain nothing, since there is no reward after death and wills can be prevented or forged.
Homilies 7.9Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Bequests made only at death are no virtue; Basil urges the rich to take their wealth with them by giving it now, following Christ who became poor for us.
Homilies 8.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Even animals share pasture; Christians should imitate the common life of the first church and Joseph's generosity, giving the soul its share as a bride to be presented to Christ.
Homilies 21.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Life is a road on which the devil lies in ambush among worldly delights; wealth, food, lust and power cannot be truly ours, but only the soul, the body as its vehicle, and the virtues.
Homilies 21.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Basil urges giving to the poor, warns that the rich who lavish money on flatterers while spurning beggars are worse than the rich man of the parable, and closes his exhortation.
Homilies 22.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Disdain for the body frees one from love of wealth, flattery and the craving for reputation; virtue is the provision for the endless age to come.
Homilies 23.2Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · A martyr is praised for his own virtue, not his ancestry; Mamas was a poor shepherd, a calling shared by Abel, Moses, Jacob and David, and by Christ, who is both shepherd and king.
Commentary on 1 Timothy 6:6Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Contentment with what one has is great gain for the believer, while greed harms oneself and others.
Commentary on 1 Timothy 6:7–8Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Since we bring nothing into the world and take nothing out, believers should be content with food and clothing, as Job confessed.
Commentary on 1 Timothy 6:9–10Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The love of money is the root of all evils, and a greedy cleric is especially harmful because many follow his example.
Commentary on 1 Timothy 6:11Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The man of God must flee greed and will be rewarded for it.
Commentary on 1 Timothy 6:17–19Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The rich must hope in God, not wealth, and share their goods, gaining through this image of life the true and eternal life shown in Christ’s resurrection.
Commentary on Colossians 3:5Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The sins to be put to death include greed, which is idolatry because, as idolatry steals God's name, greed seizes for one person the goods God made common to all.
Commentary on Ephesians 5:3Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Greed, ranked with sexual immorality, is a grave sin incompatible with holiness.
Commentary on Ephesians 5:5Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Greed is idolatry because it hoards for oneself what God gave for all; believers must not be deceived by pagan appeals to ancient custom.
Question 32, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · That God made both rich and poor means they share one nature; neither is to be despised or honored for wealth, but for their conduct toward God.
Question 32, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The rich should share with the poor, since God gave the earth to all, so as to be rich in heaven; the godly poor will be rich there when the worldly rich are in want.
Question 34, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · God makes poor and rich in that his law rewards the disciplined and generous with plenty and brings want on its despisers.
Question 79, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The didrachma was a poll tax, for Christ owned nothing; Christians should hold their goods without trusting in them, ready to give them up for the faith.
Question 115, section 50Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Christians who envy the prosperous or listen to astrologers show weak faith, since God made the world a testing ground and promised Christians their reward in heaven, not on earth.
Question 124, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Almsgiving is more praiseworthy in the poor, like the widow with her two coins, because they give trusting in God rather than in their wealth.
Question 124, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Theft is worse in the rich, who steal from abundance and often from the poor, than in the poor, who steal from need.
Question 124, section 3Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Righteousness is more admirable in the poor, who keep it under the pressure of need.
Question 124, section 7Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Lust is worse in the poor, who lack the means to indulge it, while chastity is more praiseworthy in the rich, and most of all in a king, who could sin with impunity and abstains only for fear of God.
On Virginity 4Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 370–371 · Pride, greed, envy and the other passions spring mainly from the ties of marriage and the world; the one who withdraws from that torrent, like the angels who do not marry, is free to pursue virtue, a wealth that is never diminished.
Letter 14.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome argues from Paul that sexual immorality and greed are forms of idolatry and that a monk may keep no possessions.
Letter 14.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Heliodorus, who has vowed the perfect life of a monk, to renounce his inheritance and the dangers of the city.
Letter 22.31Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome warns Eustochium against greed and anxiety about material needs, citing Christ's teaching on trusting the Father's provision.
Letter 22.32Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome contrasts the showy luxury and charity of rich Roman women with the Scriptures' teaching on contentment and trust in God.
Letter 52.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains the name 'cleric' as meaning that the Lord is his portion, and warns Nepotian against wealth, business, and familiarity with women.
Letter 52.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome deplores the legacy-hunting of clergy and monks that led emperors to forbid them to receive inheritances.
Letter 53.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome invites Paulinus to come and urges him to give up his property without delay.
Letter 58.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome praises Paulinus for giving up his wealth and says that what matters is not having been to Jerusalem but living well.
Letter 60.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome describes Nepotian's renunciation of his property, his reluctant ordination, and his humble and studious life as a presbyter.
Letter 60.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome recalls how Nepotian begged for and treasured Letter 52, and contrasts his poverty with money-seeking monks.
Letter 66.8Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Pammachius to give all his wealth to the truly poor and to follow Christ, making secular learning serve him like the captive woman of Deuteronomy.
Letter 77.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome praises Fabiola's charity after her restoration: she sold her property, founded a hospital, and nursed the sick with her own hands.
Letter 79.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains why he writes to Salvina, a young widow at the imperial court whom he does not know, to console her on the death of her husband Nebridius.
Letter 79.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome argues that wealth rightly used gave Nebridius material for virtue, explaining how a rich man may pass through the eye of a needle.
Letter 79.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome relates how Nebridius, though married and unable to give up everything, spent his income on the poor, and insists he praises him without self-interest.
Letter 100.15Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Theophilus condemns avarice as insatiable like hell itself, breeding slander, strife, and murder, and bids Christians bear wealth and poverty with an even mind.
Letter 108.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome passes over Paula's famous ancestry to praise her own virtues, noting that by giving up Rome she became celebrated throughout the world, and that her humility earned the glory she fled.
Letter 118.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome, refusing flattery, urges Julian to sell all and follow Christ as the rich young man was told, and to give his dead daughters' shares to the poor.
Letter 118.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Julian to follow Pammachius and Paulinus in giving not only his goods but himself to God, citing the poor widow, Abraham, and the apostles.
Letter 118.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Julian not to be half monk and half worldling, reminding him that life is short and that Lazarus, not the rich man, was comforted after death.
Letter 120.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Answering Hedibia's first question, Jerome urges a childless widow who wishes to be perfect to sell her goods and give to the poor, especially to believers, while allowing a lesser path.
Letter 121.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets the parable of the unjust steward as an encouragement to mercy, and quotes Theophilus of Antioch's allegory of Paul as the steward who reduced the debts of Gentiles and Jews.
Letter 123.14Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome warns Geruchia against compromising company and against anxiety over property, citing Paul’s care for his reputation, Jacob, and the poverty of the apostles.
Letter 125.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome describes the perilous voyage of merchants across the Red Sea to India for gems and gold, guarded by monsters, as an image of avarice.
Letter 125.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · If merchants risk so much for perishable wealth, the merchant of Christ should give everything for the pearl and the hidden treasure.
Letter 125.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome recalls a monk whose hoarded wealth, collected as alms for the poor, came to light at his death and was left to his heirs.
Letter 125.16Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome satirizes false monks who keep their wealth, pose in public, trade for profit or fall into melancholy, and says monastery life will train Rusticus out of such habits.
Letter 125.20Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome commends Rusticus to Bishop Proculus of Marseilles and to the example of Bishop Exuperius of Toulouse, who gave all to the poor, and urges him to follow the naked Christ.
Letter 127.13Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Marcella, beaten by the Goths who sought her gold, protects Principia, rejoices in her poverty, and dies some months later.
Letter 130.14Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Demetrias to use her wealth for the poor, monasteries, and the servants of God rather than for building ornate churches.
Letter 132.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine sets James 2:10 in its context of favouring the rich over the poor, and asks whether it really makes such a person guilty of every sin.
Letter 132.18Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine notes that favouring the rich is a grave sin if it concerns church offices, and in daily life when one inwardly values people by their wealth.
Letter 145.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome warns Exuperantius against amassing wealth that Christ commands to be given away.
Letter 145.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Exuperantius to give away what he has and join him with his brother.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.17.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ebion's name means “poor,” as his faith is.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.17.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They claim the name “poor” from the apostolic community of goods.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 61.3.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The apostles and the Savior owned nothing.
On Cain and Abel 1.21Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · Avarice is an insatiable sickness of the soul; true riches are the hidden treasures of heaven, poverty of spirit, virtue and faith.
On Cain and Abel 2.16Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · When wickedness departs, virtue enters: Christ left Judas when Satan entered him, but Zacchaeus, renouncing avarice, received Christ and restored what he had taken.
Apostolic Constitutions 4.4.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · The miser is like a serpent guarding treasure, and his wealth will not help him on the day of wrath.
Apostolic Constitutions 4.4.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · The miser trusts in gold as his god and is everyone’s enemy, his own included.
Apostolic Constitutions 4.4.4Anonymous · ca. 380 · Ill-gotten wealth will be lost to strangers.
Homily 3Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–394 · On Eccl 2:4–6 Gregory praises the confession of faults as a lesson for the church, and contrasts Solomon’s houses, vineyards (with the warning of Lot’s drunkenness), parks and pools with the true adornment of the soul: Scripture, the virtues and the spring of divine teaching.
Homily 4Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–394 · On Eccl 2:7–11 Gregory condemns the owning of slaves as arrogance against God, since every human being bears God’s image and was made to rule only over irrational creatures, then attacks love of money and lending at interest, and the singers and cupbearers of the banquet, concluding that every pleasure is like writing on water.
On Tobit 60Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Peter, who had no silver or gold, lent the lame man healing in Jesus’ name, the true lending of the just.
Psalm 48Apollinaris of Laodicea · uncertain (fourth to sixth century) · A paraphrase of Psalm 48 of the Septuagint (Psalm 49): wealth cannot ransom a soul; the rich fool goes down to Hades like a beast, but God will redeem the soul from death.
To a Young Widow, section 7John Chrysostom · ca. 380-386 · Chrysostom urges the widow to store her wealth in heaven, reminds her that her husband's hoped-for prefecture was uncertain and dangerous, and promises that by imitating his life she will be joined to him again in a union better than marriage.
On the Beatitudes 1199Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · As there are two kinds of wealth, so there are two kinds of poverty: lacking virtue is wretched, but being poor in vices is blessed; poverty of spirit is voluntary humility, the one divine trait humans can imitate, after the example of Christ who became poor for us.
On the Beatitudes 1207Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Homily 1 ends: true poverty of spirit sheds earthly wealth to rise light toward God and shares with the poor, so as to reign with Christ who became poor. Homily 2 begins: the Beatitudes are like the rungs of a ladder, though the earth seems oddly to follow heaven.
On the Beatitudes 1261Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · At the last judgment, before the throne and the angels, the merciful man will be praised by those he helped, a reward worth more than all gold; the miser who buried his wealth will be dragged to the dark fire and reproached by those he neglected.
Canonical Letter, Migne PG 45:233Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390 · Gregory notes that covetousness goes unpunished and is common among clergy, then sets penance for robbery (as for murder) and for secret theft (almsgiving or labour), and distinguishes pardonable from unpardonable grave-robbing.
On the Lord's Prayer 1121Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Craftsmen, teachers, litigants, and judges forget prayer and trust their own skill; hence greed, quarrels, and injustice multiply; if prayer came first and God were remembered, sin would find no entry.
Liber Orsiesii 21Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · Since the superiors provide everything, the monks must own nothing and not go back to worldly possessions.
Liber Orsiesii 22Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · The monks should keep only the clothing the rule allows; those who divert common goods to themselves face the rich man's fate.
Liber Orsiesii 26Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · Monks must not keep or lodge private property, not postpone giving up their goods until death, and not profane the monastery as the house of God.
Liber Orsiesii 31Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · Monks who have left everything yet cling to avarice and self-interest stand under the prophets' rebuke.
Canons on the Letters of Paul 37Priscillian · ca. 380–400 · The righteous reject avarice through voluntary poverty, content with food and clothing.
Eleven Tractates 9.123Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The gospel favours the poor, but the rich are not without hope if they are rich in good works and climb step by step toward God.
On the Complaints of Job and David 2.12Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · The wicked have “grown old” in riches, which bring anxiety and shame at death; the blessed man’s inheritance is the Lord.
On the Complaints of Job and David 2.22Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · The wicked have no true posterity; their hoarded wealth is empty as a cobweb, and the miser’s mind is a mine from which nothing comes out.
Second Apology of David 57Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · In Nathan’s parable the rich man is the Jewish people rich in the law, the poor man the Christian people, whose poverty in spirit inherits the kingdom.
On the Life of Moses 369Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · The equal portions of manna teach contentment with daily need; hoarded manna breeding worms is the undying worm of greed; the double portion kept for the Sabbath is the treasure laid up in this life, the “preparation,” for the rest of the life to come.
On Naboth 1Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The story of Naboth is repeated daily, as the rich covet and seize the land of the poor, who are driven out with their families.
On Naboth 2Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The earth was made common to rich and poor alike; nature begets all naked and the grave makes all equal.
On Naboth 3Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Riches buried with the rich man profit no one, and the wealth he leaves burdens good heirs or is wasted by bad ones.
On Naboth 4Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich man is truly poor, since avarice grows with wealth and he combines the ambition of the rich with the craving of a beggar.
On Naboth 5Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · King Ahab, rich in means, was poor in spirit, while Naboth, poor in land, was content; greed makes the rich man poor.
On Naboth 11Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich seek to exclude others more than to gain for themselves, claiming for a few a world created for all.
On Naboth 12Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Isaiah's woe on those who join field to field condemns the rich, who, unlike the animals that seek company, drive out their neighbors.
On Naboth 13Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Naboth refused to sell his ancestral inheritance; the rich should likewise not squander their inheritance on vice.
On Naboth 16Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The poor fast from need; the rich fast from avarice, neither using their wealth nor letting others use it.
On Naboth 17Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The miser starves himself to hoard wealth for heirs who wish him dead and will squander it.
On Naboth 18Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Ambrose tells of a rich miser who rationed his own bread and grudged eating an egg, an instance of God's justice punishing greed by self-inflicted hunger.
On Naboth 20Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The luxury of the rich costs the lives of the poor who labor and die to supply it, as Herod killed John the Baptist for a dancer's reward.
On Naboth 21Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Ambrose describes a poor man, ruined by a powerful creditor, forced by hunger to decide to sell his own children.
On Naboth 25Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich man ignores the poor man's plight and Scripture's command to spend for a brother, while his wife spends on luxury what could free the poor.
On Naboth 27Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Riches cannot lengthen life, cure illness, or free from death, and the rich who gave nothing to the poor find nothing at the end.
On Naboth 28Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich man, like Dis, god of the dead, is an insatiable whirlpool of greed, a slave of sin more wretched than any slave.
On Naboth 29Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich man cannot sleep for greed, like the rich fool in the parable, to whom God said that his soul would be required that night.
On Naboth 31Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich fool complains of want amid abundance, more wretched than the poor, since he alone is to blame.
On Naboth 33Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich fool, hoarding for higher prices, should have imitated Joseph and fed the poor; his barns are storehouses of iniquity.
On Naboth 35Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The greedy man profits from scarcity and fears abundance lest it reach the poor, claiming the earth's produce to deny it to others.
On Naboth 36Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Riches are goods only when given to the poor, by which one lends to God and becomes bread to the hungry and father to orphans.
On Naboth 37Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The safest storehouses for grain are the poor, widows, and infants, where it is kept forever and returns with increase.
On Naboth 41Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich should not even seize others' goods; Jezebel figures avarice, which promises possessions by false charges and murder.
On Naboth 45Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Ambrose confronts the rich man who uses contracts and false witness against the poor, setting God's law and the judgment of conscience against him.
On Naboth 53Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · What is given to the poor is not a gift but the return of what belongs to them, since the earth was given in common to all.
On Naboth 54Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich man's pride in birth and luxury is vain; all are born alike, and the gold he displays is dug by the poor, who are denied it.
On Naboth 55Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Gold is a stumbling block, and the rich man who keeps himself from it is so rare as to be marveled at, as Sirach says.
On Naboth 56Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich adorn walls and horses with marble and gold while the naked and hungry cry at their doors; a single jewel could save a whole people.
On Naboth 57Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Job, the model rich man, rescued the poor, widows, and orphans and yet lost everything but the fruit of mercy; how much worse for the rich who give nothing.
On Naboth 58Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich man is only steward of his wealth; he should sell it to buy eternal life, as Christ told the rich young man.
On Naboth 60Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · True riches are faith, mercy, simplicity, and wisdom; the rich who give to the poor lend to God.
On Naboth 63Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · 'Men of riches' are possessed by their wealth; not using it for the poor, they sleep their own sleep, not Christ's, and will not rise with him.
On Naboth 67Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The rich should pray and render to God, through the poor, the gifts he gave them; God seeks not sacrifices but faith, praise, and mercy.
On Naboth 68Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Alternatively, the call to pray and offer is addressed to the poor, who are near to God, while the rich are made far off by avarice.
On Naboth 69Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · God, terrible to kings, cannot be bought; Saul lost his kingdom, and Ahab, who coveted the poor man's vineyard, died with dogs licking his blood.
On the Duties of the Clergy 1.28Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Christian justice rejects the philosophers’ permission to retaliate and their view of private property, teaching mutual help from Scripture, while avarice and ambition destroy justice.
On the Duties of the Clergy 1.30Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Beneficence joins good will to giving: it must be honest, unboastful, ordered by need, faith, kinship, and circumstance, after Paul’s teaching on equality in 2 Corinthians 8.
On the Duties of the Clergy 1.36Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · True fortitude defends the wronged and conquers oneself, despising external goods for the sake of virtue, and the clergy above all must scorn worldly gain and trade.
On the Duties of the Clergy 1.49Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Christians must keep the image of Christ and of the virtues, not the devil’s image of anger and avarice, for riches are vain and strip us of God’s image.
On the Duties of the Clergy 2.4Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Virtue’s blessedness is neither lessened by pain nor increased by pleasure or wealth, as Moses, Aaron, Daniel, Elijah, and the Beatitudes show.
On the Duties of the Clergy 2.5Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Riches and pleasures hinder blessedness, while virtue alone suffices for it, so that Naboth, the patriarchs, Joseph, David, and Job were blessed in their sufferings.
On the Duties of the Clergy 2.14Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Prudence joined with justice makes a man fearless and contemptuous of money, and those in high office above all must not serve wealth.
On the Duties of the Clergy 2.17Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · A counsellor must be a pattern of virtue, humble and content like Joseph and Paul, free from deceit and greed.
On the Duties of the Clergy 2.25Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Benefits should go to the poor rather than the rich, for the poor are grateful and make the Lord their debtor, and Peter healed rather than enriched the lame man.
On the Duties of the Clergy 2.26Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Avarice is an ancient vice, as Achan, Balaam, and Delilah show, and wealth beyond one’s use brings only the burden of guarding it.
On the Duties of the Clergy 3.6Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Hoarding grain to raise prices in famine, however defended as industry, is avarice condemned by Scripture; Joseph opened the granaries, and the rich fool’s barns brought him nothing.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.27.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The profit he shuns is money, which the saint counts as loss for Christ.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.32.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Greed snares rich and poor; delight should be in God’s precepts, not passing successes.
Exposition of Psalm 118 6.32.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The greedy man, however much land he adds, is cramped by his own greed; the seeker of God’s testimonies walks in a broad place.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.5.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The Levite, possessing nothing, is richer than landowners, for his portion is God, possessor of all.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.8.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The poor are despised, but their portion and treasure are in heaven.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.9.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The rich, deafened by money, do not hear; so it was with the rich young man.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.9.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Jesus told the rich man to sell everything so that God might be his portion.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.11.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · God himself, not worldly wealth, is the hundredfold reward of those who give up everything.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.23.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Mercy to the poor is justice, for God gave the earth in common; greed made it private property.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.39.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Solomon prayed to be spared both riches and poverty, the two greatest temptations.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.39.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Even Solomon feared riches and poverty; few, like Job, remain unshaken through loss.
Exposition of Psalm 118 9.21.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Peter, without silver or gold, truly preferred God’s law; the greedy and legacy-hunters do not.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.26.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · We walk among Christ’s images; to harm the poor is to insult their maker.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.37.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The greedy do not find God enough; only those content with God can say “I am yours.”
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.37.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The rich young man found God not enough; the apostles, who left everything, could say “I am yours.”
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.42.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · While others heap up property, the prophet’s whole inheritance is God’s statutes and Christ.
Exposition of Psalm 118 14.36.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Riches are the devil’s snare, which Christ, owning nothing of the devil’s, broke.
Exposition of Psalm 118 14.37.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Avarice and luxury are the bait of the devil’s snare.
Exposition of Psalm 118 18.16.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Our inner temple must not become a house of trade or a den of robbers through greed.
Letter 15.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine warns Romanianus not to trust his present prosperity and urges him to use temporal goods faithfully while seeking eternal ones.
Letter 31.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine wants Paulinus and Therasia in Africa as a visible example, since their renunciation of great wealth fulfils gladly what the rich young man heard with sadness.
Letter 104.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine quotes his earlier letter: the offenders' lives and livelihood are to be spared, and only the wealth with which they live wickedly, which paid for idols and the burning of the church, may be taken.
Letter 104.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine does not wish them reduced to the poverty of old Roman heroes, but only that fear for their superfluous wealth restrain them from further crimes.
Letter 126.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that the people loved Pinianus's renunciation of wealth rather than coveting it, as they had loved his own renunciation of his small inheritance.
Letter 130.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · God, for whom it is easy to save the rich, has inspired Proba's concern to pray, and the rich must hope in God, not in riches.
Letter 130.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Many saints gave their riches to the poor; Proba must at least not set her heart on her wealth, and the judgment of her conduct belongs to God.
Letter 130.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Honors and a sufficiency of goods may be fittingly sought, not for themselves but for the good of others and of bodily health.
Letter 138.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The decline of Rome began long before Christ, as Sallust and Juvenal testify, through avarice and luxury, not through Christian teaching.
Letter 140.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · There were martyrs before Christ, and in the New Testament there are faithful rich people who use wealth well; Christ's cry expresses the martyrs' voice, who seem forsaken but submit to the Father's will.
Letter 140.66Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The nations will turn to the Lord; the 'rich of the earth', the proud, also come to Christ's table and receive his body and blood, but are not satisfied because they do not imitate his humility.
Letter 153.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Only the just truly possess what they have; civil law restrains bad possessors until the godly reach the eternal city, and Augustine closes his letter to Macedonius.
Letter 157.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Against the claim that the rich cannot be saved, Augustine cites the wealthy patriarchs and the parable of Lazarus, carried to rich Abraham's bosom.
Letter 157.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Christ told the rich young man that keeping the commandments leads to life and that selling everything is the counsel of perfection, so the rich who keep the commandments can be saved.
Letter 157.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Christ's saying about the camel and the needle must be read with his assurance that what is impossible for men is easy for God.
Letter 157.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The Pelagians claim that the rich enter the kingdom only by selling everything, not by remaining rich and doing good.
Letter 157.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Whether the rich keep their wealth or sell it, salvation is God's work, not human power, and those who sell everything must also credit grace.
Letter 157.32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The command to leave house and lands applies when persecution forces a choice between possessions and Christ; then the rich must give them up.
Letter 157.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Every Christian renounces his possessions either by giving them away or by being ready to lose them for Christ; those who renounce the world only in words fail when tested.
Letter 157.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · True Christian rich people use their wealth for hospitality and charity and are ready to lose wealth, family, and life for Christ.
Letter 157.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine has himself embraced voluntary poverty and urges it on others, but without condemning Christians who live chastely in marriage and use their wealth well.
Letter 167.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine sets out the context of James 2:1–11 and the apparent consequence that partiality to the rich makes one guilty of every crime.
Letter 189.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine urges Boniface to conjugal chastity, sobriety and detachment from riches, to humility and prayer, and to ready forgiveness of others.
Letter 211.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that sisters of delicate upbringing and the convalescent may receive more, and urges all to count frugality as true riches.
Letter 247.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine rebukes the landowner Romulus for demanding a second payment from poor tenants who had already paid his agent.
Letter 262.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine relates that the husband abandoned continence in anger after Ecdicia gave away almost all her property to two wandering monks without his knowledge.
Letter 262.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that a wife may not dispose of her goods as she pleases, since she belongs to her husband, citing 1 Pet 3:5–6.
Soliloquies 1.10Augustine of Hippo · 386–387 · Augustine tells Reason that he no longer desires riches or honors, has resolved not to marry, and seeks food and bodily comforts only as health requires.
Soliloquies 1.11Augustine of Hippo · 386–387 · Reason asks whether Augustine would still want wealth, honor, or a wealthy wife if they served the pursuit of wisdom, and Augustine answers that he would accept them only as means, not desire them for themselves.
Homilies on Matthew 4.11John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The three youths served God from love, not for reward, and prayed for their whole people; today the golden image is mammon, and Christians should prefer the furnace of poverty to its worship, as Lazarus did, rather than face the furnace of sin.
Homilies on Matthew 4.14John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Closing exhortation of Homily 4: almsgiving is the dew that joins us to the poor in their furnace and quenches the fire of hell; the poor who give thanks are like the three youths; despising the world makes one worthier than the world.
Homilies on Matthew 9.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Earthly homeland and noble descent count for nothing, as Scripture shows (the patriarchs seeking a better country; Samuel's and Moses' sons; Esau; Israel); only virtue matters; wealth, which bars the way to heaven, should be despised, as the rich man's poverty in Hades shows.
Homilies on Matthew 9.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Closing exhortation of Homily 9: hoarded wealth invites famine, murder, and plots; love of mammon enslaves and blinds, as with the foolish virgins and Judas; only love of heaven frees us from it.
Homilies on Matthew 12.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Closing exhortation of Homily 12: Christians who build mansions and buy estates contradict their claim to be bound for heaven and confirm pagans in worldliness; as salt and light they will be judged for others' ruin; love of money must be broken.
Homilies on Matthew 13.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The three temptations sum up all temptation (belly, vainglory, greed), the devil works also through people, and as with Job he uses both wealth and poverty, but is overcome by refusing him in deed as well as word.
Homilies on Matthew 14.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The call of Peter and Andrew by the sea is a second call after John’s account, and their immediate obedience, faith, and honest poverty are held up as examples.
Homilies on Matthew 14.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The sinner must feel and confess his sins before the judgment while there is time, and the rich in particular are shown to be prisoners bound by the love of money.
Homilies on Matthew 20.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · One who does virtue for spectators insults virtue itself; then, having uprooted vainglory, the root of avarice, Christ gradually teaches contempt for money, warning against treasure on earth exposed to moth and thieves.
Homilies on Matthew 20.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Treasure on earth is lost to moth and thieves and enslaves the heart; the single eye that lights the body stands for the mind, which avarice blinds, darkening the whole life.
Homilies on Matthew 20.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Avarice enslaves the mind, a worse fate than prison, and robs the rich of the very pleasure and security they seek; darkened by it, they fear imaginary dangers and are soft in everything except the service of money.
Homilies on Matthew 20.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The rich, like rope dancers, dare everything for money and nothing for virtue, blinded doubly; the love of money is not true desire but slavery, and the only safe treasure is one deposited in heaven, which is also a seed bearing deathless fruit.
Homilies on Matthew 21.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · No one can serve God and mammon, which enslaves its lovers as Job, its master, was not enslaved; then Christ shows that freedom from anxiety is possible, from God’s gift of life and body and from the birds, who are fed without care.
Homilies on Matthew 21.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Many still live the apostolic life of complete renunciation, but Chrysostom asks his hearers for now only to give up greed and luxury and to give alms generously, as a first step toward the summit.
Homilies on Matthew 23.9John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The pursuits of this life are children’s games with a punishment attached; the almsgiver and the patient man are shown to be far greater than the rich man and the man in power.
Homilies on Matthew 28.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The licentious and the covetous are worse than the demoniacs among the tombs; the covetous man, a monster in his desires, can be freed only by seeing how his greed brings him loss even in money.
Homilies on Matthew 33.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christians must train in peace like athletes so as to be ready for persecution; Job, trained in contempt of wealth, care for his children and chastity, bore not only his visible losses but also harder unseen trials.
Homilies on Matthew 38.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Virtue’s yoke is light, as the joy of the voluntarily poor and of the martyrs shows, while covetousness, anger and love of the body weigh the soul down; Chrysostom urges his hearers to take up Christ’s yoke.
Homilies on Matthew 44.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · We are responsible for the loss of the word, for it is not wealth but the deceitfulness of wealth that chokes it; the good ground bears different measures of fruit, and salvation needs attentive hearing, courage and contempt of riches together.
Homilies on Matthew 47.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Harvest and sowing name different things; the treasure and the pearl teach that the preaching must be preferred to everything, and the net warns that faith without a good life does not save; the scribe of the kingdom brings out old and new, and Chrysostom draws the members of virtue, whose head is humility.
Homilies on Matthew 47.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Matthew himself, humble, merciful and courageous, is an image of virtue; almsgiving, the heart of virtue, is necessary for salvation, while hoarded wealth rots the soul and the voluntarily poor are rich beyond kings.
Homilies on Matthew 51.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · No one can be wronged except by himself: the robber harms himself as a fevered man harms himself by snatching water, so the robbed should pray for the robber, and all should flee love of money, a madness worse than a madman’s sword.
Homilies on Matthew 52.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · God planted mercy in nature itself, so that mercy is what makes a man a man and like God; but alms given from robbery heal nothing, for the robber must restore many times over, and offering the goods of the poor is like killing a son before his father.
Homilies on Matthew 55.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Those who toil for wealth while neglecting the soul are like slaves in the mines; Christ’s coming in the Father’s glory shows the Son’s one glory and essence with the Father, and his judgment, rewarding each by his deeds, should make us repent more than the Ninevites.
Homilies on Matthew 61.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom lists God’s benefits and then the daily sins of soldiers, tradesmen and landowners, and explains why the king threatened the debtor with sale and then forgave him the whole debt.
Homilies on Matthew 63.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom defends the rich young man from the charge of deceit, though calling him a lover of money, and explains “No one is good but God” as a contrast between human goodness and God’s, not a denial of Christ’s goodness.
Homilies on Matthew 63.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ leads the rich young man up by stages, sets the prize of heavenly treasure before the command to sell all, and teaches that the love of money, which grows by what it gets, can be cured only by giving it up.
Homilies on Matthew 64.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · On Peter’s “we have left everything,” Chrysostom says Peter asked on behalf of the poor, and explains the promise of twelve thrones by God’s rule in Jeremiah that promises and threats depend on the hearer’s conduct, so that Judas is excluded.
Homilies on Matthew 66.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Even giving from a tenth of their revenues would let the rich of Antioch feed the poor; they pay the emperor’s taxes under compulsion and should pay God’s first, since the poor are an army praying against the demons on their behalf.
Homilies on Matthew 73.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom rebukes Christian women for vanity and both spouses for neglecting each other’s virtue, condemns marriages contracted for money, urges men to seek a pious wife rather than a rich one, and rejects the proverb that pleasure is worth choking for, citing Sirach and Proverbs.
Homilies on Matthew 74.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · As we spare no expense on sick servants, we should bring our sick souls to the spiritual physicians—Paul, the evangelists, the prophets, Christ—whose remedies for the fever of covetousness (contentment, treasure in heaven, sharing with the needy) cost nothing and make us richer.
Homilies on Matthew 75.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Rehearsing the many kinds of war foretold, all overcome by the preaching, Chrysostom refutes astrological fate, urges honest ignorance over false theories, and explains that God gives wealth to some and only permits it to others until the judgment.
Homilies on Matthew 76.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The angels gather the risen saints and the clouds catch them up; Chrysostom laments that the parables that follow threaten us with the loss of heaven for want of a little effort, and urges his hearers to give to Christ what they must lose anyway, since he repays more than any borrower.
Homilies on Matthew 77.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ hides the hour of the end and of each death so that we may always be ready; the parable of the faithful and wise servant, whose questions no more prove ignorance than God’s questions in Scripture, applies to teachers, rulers and the rich, who must administer what they have faithfully and wisely for others.
Homilies on Matthew 80.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The woman who anointed Christ at Bethany, emboldened by his staying with a healed leper, came not for bodily healing but to honor him; he accepted her offering against the disciples’ objection, linked it to his burial, and foretold that it would be told throughout the world.
Homilies on Matthew 80.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Judas, though taught daily by Christ, sold him for a little money because he let the love of money grow through carelessness; this unnatural passion makes a man useless and wretched even as a king, while the virtuous poor man, whom no one can harm, is truly rich.
Homilies on Matthew 81.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ’s gentle rebuke of the traitor teaches forbearance; Judas is guilty because he acted from wickedness, though Christ’s wisdom turned his crime to our salvation, and no one is wicked by necessity; the love of money that blinded him is a madness worse than demon possession.
Homilies on Matthew 81.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The covetous go about the city naked of virtue, unashamed because so many are like them; they live in a moral desert, are themselves tombs carrying dead souls, wound themselves with cares, and at the judgment will be punished in every parable of Christ.
Homilies on Matthew 81.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Right belief does not save the covetous, who are hated even by their own kind; love of money, unlike other passions, cannot be blamed on bodily temperament; life is a sea with a different storm at each age, and only those who resist the passions at each stage reach harbor with spiritual cargo.
Homilies on Matthew 83.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ went to meet his betrayer to show that his passion was voluntary; Judas’s kiss, trading on his Master’s gentleness, shows the frenzy of covetousness, which tyrannizes even more than lust, while the money it hoards is neither enjoyed nor secure, and only poverty is beyond the reach of every plotter.
Homilies on Matthew 83.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The lover of money is grieved by all and finds no pleasure in what he hoards, while the luxurious are slaves of many passions; wealth darkens the mind, and the true adornment of a house is not costly furniture but almsgiving and prayer, which bring Christ in, as with Zacchaeus, Matthew and Cornelius.
Homilies on Matthew 90.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The grave cloths left in the myrrh, the bribe and the admission that the body was gone all confirm the resurrection; in Galilee the risen Christ sends the disciples to baptize all nations with the promise of his presence to the end. His commands are easy; it is the love of money, not poverty, that enslaves, and poverty is a safe harbor and a school of self-command.
Homilies on Matthew 90.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Poverty is a beautiful maiden and avarice a monster: the saints shone in poverty, its eye and mouth are pure, and the insults and hunger of the poor are shared by Paul and by Christ; Peter was blessed not for healing the lame but for leaving his money, and the hearers should at least spend on the needy and seek no more than they need.
On what sort of wives to marry, section 3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom says that even an incorrigible wife must not be cast out, explains Paul's teaching on marriage as a great mystery of Christ and the church, warns against marrying for money, and begins the story of Abraham's servant seeking a wife for Isaac.
On Elijah and Fasting 69Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Isaiah's oracle on Tyre, a luxurious city, shows luxury as the root of vices and the mother of avarice.
On Elijah and Fasting 70Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The Phoenician merchants' restless seafaring for gain is condemned; the sea was made for beauty, not trade, as Jonah's flight by sea shows.
On Elijah and Fasting 71Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The sea was given for food, not for the restless trade that greed drives, so that the sea itself cries, 'Be ashamed, Sidon.'
Hexameron (Exameron) 5.14Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The greedy rich man is like the sheatfish full of smaller fish: he too will be caught.
Hexameron (Exameron) 6.52Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The poor share the beauty of creation, God's great house, and sound sleep, and will be rewarded hereafter.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.15.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Blessedness lies not in wealth, power, birth, beauty or health.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.19.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The rich man who claimed to keep the commandments could not take the next step.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.28.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Riches are an evil sickness, as Ecclesiastes says.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.28.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The rich cannot sleep for anxiety over their wealth.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.28.6Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Avarice makes men lukewarm and spreads sickness to all.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.46.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Wealth, display and office pass like a shadow; better to feed the poor.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.46.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · We leave the world naked; possessions pass to others and cannot save from death.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.11.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The pious must not envy and imitate the dishonest rich.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.11.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Worldly glory withers like grass; do not compete with the wicked.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.12.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The true riches are those of God's word.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.17.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Worldly goods are no reward of virtue; the crown comes after victory.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.24.5Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · True riches are wisdom and good works; the poor whom sinners attack are the poor in spirit.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.28.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Not riches as such but the riches of sinners are condemned.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 38.23.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Faith serves God, avarice the tempter; the rich man does not know his heir.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 38.23.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Riches pass to unknown and often ungrateful heirs.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 40.4.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The blessed man is the one who understands, by faith, the poverty of Christ, who became poor in taking our impoverished flesh.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 40.5.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Christ’s poverty enriches us; its riches are seen in the simplicity of the sacraments.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 40.5.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · There is a good poverty of spirit and a rich poverty in small gifts given in faith.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.93.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The poverty in question is the blessed poverty of spirit, to which the kingdom of heaven belongs.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.93.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Since poverty opens heaven, let us neglect earthly riches, as the first Christians laid their money at the apostles’ feet.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.93.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The saints of old practised gospel poverty, as the apostles left everything to follow Christ.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 48.17.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The faithless have no true riches; the greedy man’s “fruits” are only money, and Christ bids him sell all.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 48.17.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Riches pass like a river; the worldly wise perish and leave their wealth to strangers.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 48.23.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Do not fear the rich, for they take nothing with them at death.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 48.24.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · All worldly things are empty; the rich man enters the tomb alone, taking nothing.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 48.24.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Lazarus the poor man rests in Abraham’s bosom; the rich man, once blessed in his lifetime, is tormented.
Sermon on the Eight Beatitudes 2Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388-407 · Chromatius explains the first two steps: voluntary poverty for God's sake, and meekness, which is possible only for those who have renounced worldly cares.
Tractates on Matthew 3.2Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains that the blessed poor are those who renounce worldly riches for God, like the apostles, or who keep humility of spirit.
Tractates on Matthew 11.2Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius teaches that Christians should give up even more than a litigant demands, training them to despise possessions in persecution.
Tractates on Matthew 16.1Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius warns against storing up earthly treasure, recalling the rich fool and the rich young man.
Tractates on Matthew 16.3Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains that those who store treasure in heaven keep their hearts there, and cites Paul's instruction to the rich.
Tractates on Matthew 17.3Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains that no one can serve two masters, God and the devil, and that mammon is the avarice the devil inspires.
Homily 14Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · On Song 5:13–16 Gregory continues the description of the bridegroom's body as the church: the cheeks are teachers who give plain, guileless food; the lips are preachers whose lily-bright words drip the myrrh of dying to the world (Paul with Thecla, Peter with Cornelius); the golden hands are faithful stewards (Judas the warning); the belly is the pure heart as a tablet of the law; the legs are the pillars of the church, or the two great commandments; and "this is my close one" is Christ as the Good Samaritan.
Life of Hilarion 18Jerome · ca. 390–392 · Hilarion delivers Orion of Aila from a legion of demons and refuses his gifts.
Life of Hilarion 28Jerome · ca. 390–392 · Hilarion smells avarice in the chickpeas of a covetous monk, and even the oxen refuse them.
Sermon 8.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The tenth commandment against covetousness is opposed by the death of the firstborn: legacy hunters, coveting others' goods under a show of right, lose the firstborn of their heart, which is faith.
Sermon 14.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The "poor man" left to God in Psalm 10 is not simply the beggar, of whom there are many, but the poor in spirit, among whom all Christians must be.
Sermon 14.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The great danger of riches is pride; the humble rich man, like Zacchaeus, is the truly poor.
Sermon 14.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · A beggar objects that the kingdom belongs to the poor like Lazarus, not to the rich like the man who feasted and was tormented.
Sermon 14.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Lazarus was carried into the bosom of Abraham, a rich man who was poor because he was humble, believing God and crediting all his good to God.
Sermon 14.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul, another poor man, shows that the root of evil is the desire to be rich: a beggar who covets riches is worse than a rich man who has set a limit to his greed and makes friends with his wealth.
Sermon 14.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The true poor man is a member of Christ, who, rich as the Creator of all things, became poor in his birth and passion for our sake.
Sermon 21.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Gold is God's good gift; those who blame God for it should give distinction to gold by using it for the poor, as they claim they would if they had it.
Sermon 32.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Riches given to worldly men lead to oppression and spending on shows, so God’s refusal is mercy; earthly gain is always another’s loss, but righteousness can be shared without loss.
Sermon 32.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The psalm’s picture of many children, adorned daughters, full barns, and flocks is the “happiness” of the proud, Goliath-like man; like the rich fool in the Gospel, those who rest in it are rejected, however innocently they gained it.
Sermon 36.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Scripture commends humble rich people, since pride is the disease of riches; the proud rich man is like a wineskin blown up with air, not filled.
Sermon 36.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Believers are rich within, as a living root in winter, and their riches will appear when Christ comes; the rich of this world too belong to Christ if they are humble and do not trust in uncertain wealth but store treasure in heaven.
Sermon 36.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul counsels the rich to hope in God and be rich in good works, giving readily; the rich man and Lazarus show where the false life of riches ends.
Sermon 36.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The proverb’s next verse shows that it speaks of inner riches: the hypocrite pretends to righteousness he lacks, while the truly rich are humble, the poor in spirit.
Sermon 36.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rich fool stored his harvest in barns instead of redeeming his soul by alms; the bellies of the poor are a safer storehouse, keeping treasure in heaven.
Sermon 38.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · People endure great hardships for avarice but refuse to labor for God’s promises; like the ant in summer, we should store up God’s words while things go well, for tribulation and death come to all.
Sermon 38.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rich young man, afraid of death amid his riches, asked about eternal life but would not move his treasure to heaven; by loving it wrongly he lost it.
Sermon 38.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God bids us move our riches from earth to heaven and has made the poor our porters, citizens of heaven who will repay there what we give them here.
Sermon 39.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We brought nothing into the world and are guests at God’s table; Paul condemns not wealth but the desire to be rich, which plunges people into ruin.
Sermon 39.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rich must put away pride and trust in uncertain wealth and be rich in good works, for God feeds the poor through them.
Sermon 39.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Money should not be loved but used for good works; those who hoard it live a false life, like a beggar dreaming of riches who wakes with nothing in his hands.
Sermon 39.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God makes some poor to test the rich; each should give according to his means, even a cup of cold water, but alms avail only for those who change their life, not as a bribe to sin with impunity.
Sermon 41.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rich man would not keep faith with Lazarus in his poverty, and so could not share his rest; his mocking of the prophets is answered by Abraham.
Sermon 41.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rich man received his good things in this life, which he took for his only life; Lazarus’s good things were deferred to the life hidden with Christ, which the rich man now sees but cannot share.
Sermon 45.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The promised land and mountain must not be understood as earthly estates, for restraining desire now in hope of greater earthly gain is still avarice, like children who serve rich parents for their inheritance; true piety serves for nothing, like Job.
Sermon 47.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God belongs whole to each who says “My God,” as a word or the light belongs whole to all; rich and poor reach him alike by loving him, and he possesses us as his field while we possess him as our God.
Sermon 48.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Even now it goes badly with the wicked, because they suffer their own evil selves; riches are goods to do good with, but only judgment and justice make a person good.
Sermon 50.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God says the gold and silver are his so that the rich will neither refuse to give to the poor nor grow proud when they give.
Sermon 50.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God administers gold and silver as a just judge: they give the good occasions of kindness and torment the bad with fear of loss.
Sermon 50.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Something truly belongs to the one who uses it well; all the more do gold and silver belong to God, who created them and justly distributes them.
Sermon 50.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Gold is a lesser good given to good and bad alike; it is called “mammon of iniquity” because only iniquity calls it riches, while true riches adorn the inner man and end all want.
Sermon 50.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Lord condemns avarice but teaches the right use of earthly wealth: use the “mammon of iniquity” to make friends, so as to receive the true riches that are one’s own.
Sermon 60.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Man, made in God’s image, is troubled in vain, heaping up treasure without knowing for whom; life is toil, and the miser’s soul burns with anxiety.
Sermon 60.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Even if wealth flows in, the miser is troubled in vain, for he will die, and his sons too will die or squander it or repeat his vanity.
Sermon 60.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The hoard may fall to thieves or invaders, as many have recently suffered; since the miser can only say “perhaps,” he does not know for whom he gathers, and is troubled in vain.
Sermon 61.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Only God, always good, makes evil men good; earthly goods like money cannot make us good, but we can do good with them, giving to the poor and so increasing justice.
Sermon 61.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Scripture condemns not riches but the greed to become rich; the rich are charged above all not to be proud, for pride is the worm of riches.
Sermon 61.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul charges the rich not to be proud or trust uncertain riches, but to be rich in good works and share, storing up a foundation for the true life; giving is not loss but moving one’s goods.
Sermon 61.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Rich and poor need only food and covering; the rich may keep their habitual luxuries, but should give their superfluities to the poor, their companions on the same road.
Sermon 77.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The banquet of the kingdom is not fleshly feasting; true riches are needing nothing, and true health is immortality.
Sermon 85.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s word to the rich young man is plain: whoever wants life must keep the commandments, if not the greater counsels then at least the lesser ones.
Sermon 85.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ said it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom than for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye; but the poor must not boast of poverty, for the godly rich may outdo them.
Sermon 85.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul commands the rich of this world not to be proud nor to hope in uncertain riches, but in the living God.
Sermon 85.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rich must be rich in good works, giving and sharing their bread here to receive Christ, the living bread, hereafter.
Sermon 85.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The poor must be content with what suffices, for godliness with sufficiency is great gain, and the desire to become rich is avarice, the root of all evils.
Sermon 85.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Rich and poor meet on the road of this life, both made by God: the rich must help, the poor must not defraud, so that all may reach the kingdom.
Sermon 86.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ does not want us to lose our goods but to store them in heaven, so that our hearts may go before us where Christ our head has gone.
Sermon 86.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rich young man went away sad, though Christ did not tell him to lose his wealth but to keep it safe in heaven by giving it to the poor.
Sermon 86.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Avarice cannot promise a future, and saving for children is no excuse: children often lose inherited wealth, and they can acquire it as their parents did.
Sermon 86.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Giving one child’s share to Christ is easy counsel; luxury’s “do well by your soul” is answered by the parable of the rich fool.
Sermon 86.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rich man and Lazarus show the reversal that awaits the luxurious rich after death.
Sermon 107.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “All greed” includes keeping one’s own greedily, not only seizing what belongs to others, for life does not consist in possessions; the rich fool, whose land prospered, planned only to store his surplus.
Sermon 107.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God called the rich man a fool because he wanted many good things but did not want his soul to be good; his soul was required of him that very night.
Sermon 107.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “All greed” includes lust beyond one’s wife, idolatry, and even honest attachment to one’s own property, which can lead a judge to give an unjust verdict for fear of losing what he has.
Sermon 107.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Even a poor man faces the test of greed if a powerful man threatens to take his savings unless he bears false witness; Christ tells him to let his goods go, for no one can take Christ from him.
Sermon 107.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Beyond greed for money there is greed for life: one who is threatened with death unless he lies should let his body be killed rather than kill his soul by false witness, perhaps becoming a martyr.
Sermon 113.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Those who already hold ill-gotten money should, like Zacchaeus, give it to the poor and restore what they took, but must not remain evil themselves.
Sermon 113.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · True riches are treasures in heaven; the psalm shows that only “foreign sons” call those happy who have earthly wealth, while the truly happy people are those whose God is the Lord, who is our inheritance and the farmer who cultivates us.
Sermon 123.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The angels ascend and descend to Christ because he is both above with the Father and below in his members, as his words to Saul show; he is rich as God and poor as man, hungry and naked in the poor.
Sermon 123.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Every rich person is God’s beggar, asking daily for bread; Christ asks the rich to give him, in the poor, from what he gave them, promising to repay heavenly and eternal things.
Sermon 125.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The number forty signifies the fulfillment of righteousness, which is fasting from love of the world; love is like the soul’s hand, which cannot grasp God while it clings to the world, so those who possess must hold their goods without being held by them.
Sermon 142.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Without love even tongues, prophecy, faith, and giving all to the poor are nothing; Christ told the rich man to sell all and then follow him, that is, imitate his humility, which Peter, though he had left everything, had not yet learned when he denied him.
Sermon 164.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The burdens each bears himself are sins; Christ calls the burdened to be refreshed, while avarice and sloth pull a man in opposite directions and avarice drives him across the seas instead of giving to the poor at his door.
Sermon 164.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Poverty is the poor man's burden and wealth the rich man's; by giving, the rich man lightens both burdens, as two fellow travelers on God's road share provisions.
Sermon 177.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Taking 1 Timothy 6:7–10 as his text, Augustine notes that almost everyone condemns avarice in words but keeps it in deeds; not having it is far greater than denouncing it.
Sermon 177.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Pagan philosophers also condemned avarice, but only Christ's school adds “flee these things and pursue righteousness, faith, love”; Christians, adopted sons, should use goods like an inn on a journey, not an estate.
Sermon 177.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · On life's short journey, one needs only food and clothing; one should flee the love of money, master gold by giving it, and pursue the inner riches of righteousness and faith that no thief or shipwreck can take, as Job did.
Sermon 177.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul condemns wanting to become rich, for desire always seeks what it lacks; avarice is like dropsy, in which the more one drinks, the more one thirsts.
Sermon 177.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · One who is already rich must not want to be rich nor be proud: the rich and poor are equal before birth, death, fever, and decay; the rich should possess without love and not be possessed.
Sermon 177.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God alone, who made all things and holds their patterns in himself, suffices; the soul that leaves him to have more, like the prodigal son, loses everything, and Adam's first sin was avarice, for God did not suffice him.
Sermon 177.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rich should prove their freedom from love of money by giving readily, an exchange in which they give earthly things and receive heaven and God himself; against anxious fears for the future, God's promise “I will not leave you” is a written bond.
Sermon 178.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Most “contradict” not by words but by bad lives; if the rich fool who only hoarded his own crops was condemned, how much worse those who seize other people's property.
Sermon 178.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God's “Fool” is a sentence of damnation; and the rich man of Luke 16 was condemned not for robbery but only for his lack of mercy to Lazarus, so robbers can expect worse.
Sermon 239.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The greedy should seek not the things Christ made but Christ himself, who though rich became poor for us, so that our poverty might be restored.
Sermon 259.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Giving alms with one’s own hand adds humility to kindness; treasure entrusted to Christ through the poor is safe, and even the widow’s two coins buy the kingdom of heaven.
Sermon 261.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God cannot be pointed out but is known from his works; to see him the heart must be cleansed of phantoms and of avarice, which drags mud into it.
Sermon 261.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · To see God the heart must be cleaned for his coming; avarice fills the chest and breaks the conscience, while Job, having lost everything, was full and brought forth praise.
Sermon 296.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · If the world suffers more now, it is because God’s will has been made known by the Gospel and is despised; the servant who knows his master’s will and stores treasure on earth, not in heaven where the Goth cannot take it, is beaten with many stripes.
Sermon 301.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · What awaits the righteous in heaven cannot be explained; so believers should not envy the wicked or count worldly riches happiness, which is a burden and a danger, but pass beyond everything changeable to the unchangeable God.
Sermon 302.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · People will give up all their goods to the treasury to live a little longer, but not superfluities to Christ to live forever; begging in this world and reigning with Christ cannot even be weighed against each other.
Sermon 311.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Gold, like the tongue, is good or bad according to its user; some goods belong only to the good, such as faith and love, others like money and health are shared by good and evil; to the objection that God should give earthly goods only to the good, Augustine replies that it is meant to teach us.
Sermon 311.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God gives earthly goods to the wicked too so that the good will not prize them; riches given in answer to prayer often make a person worse, and God, as a Father, urges us to ask him for better things, for himself.
Homily 20.3 on EphesiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom urges husbands to seek virtue rather than beauty or wealth in a wife, and explains that a wife is the husband's own flesh as believers are members of Christ's body.
Homily 20.6 on EphesiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom tells wives not to reproach their husbands with poverty and husbands never to strike their wives, and urges a simple wedding without lewd songs and gentle instruction of the young bride.
Homily 20.7 on EphesiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom gives a model speech for a husband to his young bride, urges common prayer, marriage to a poorer rather than a richer wife, and the sharing of all property; the section ends with the opening text of the next homily (Eph 6:1–3).
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains treasure in heaven and the single eye as the pure intention behind our acts: what counts is the mind with which a deed is done, since its outcome is uncertain.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains that no one can serve God and mammon, identifies mammon’s master with the devil, and warns against despising God through presumption on his mercy.
Against Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani 18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 394 · Augustine answers the claim that Deuteronomy's earthly blessings contradict Christ's call to self-denial: God gives earthly goods to the fleshly and heavenly goods to the spiritual, and both Testaments place true happiness in God alone.
Against Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 394 · Augustine answers the claim that God's promise of riches to his friends contradicts the beatitudes on poverty, showing that the gospel also promises the earth to the meek and the Old Testament also ranks wisdom far above wealth.
Against Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani 20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 394 · Augustine answers the claim that the earthly blessings of Leviticus 26 contradict Christ's sending out of the apostles without money: these were concessions, not commands, and temporal gifts taught a fleshly people to love God and prefigured eternal gifts.
Against Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani 24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 394 · Augustine reads the ant of Proverbs 6 spiritually, as gathering God's word in peaceful times against tribulation, and shows that “do not think about tomorrow” forbids anxiety, not provision.
Life of Saint Martin 25Sulpicius Severus · ca. 396–397 · Sulpicius describes his visit to Martin, who washed his feet and urged him to follow the example of Paulinus in renouncing wealth.
Confessions 13.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Repentance and keeping the commandments make the dry land appear; the rich young man's thorns choked the word.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 5.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus claims that his renunciation of family, property, and pleasure shows that he accepts the gospel better than his catholic questioner.
Tractates 18Gaudentius of Brescia · ca. 397-410 · A letter to Serminius on the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16:1–13): its plain lesson is almsgiving with goods entrusted by God; allegorically the steward is the devil, who 'lowers the debts' by weakening faith (wheat) and good works (oil) through heresy and vainglory.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · Augustine begins his model address to an uneducated city dweller seeking eternal rest, showing that riches, honours, taverns, shows, and pleasures cannot give the rest that is found only in God.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Cyprian lamented greedy, fraudulent bishops in his own communion, yet did not separate from them but shared the Lord’s table with them; either the church still existed then, or the Donatists have no origin.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Greed is no small sin, since Paul calls it idolatry and excludes the greedy from God’s kingdom; Cyprian nevertheless shared the Eucharist with greedy bishops, separating from them in heart to avoid schism.
On the Work of Monks 32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · Leaving the world profits even a monk who works: the rich man's pride is healed by humble labor, and the poor man passes from private gain to a common life, like the Roman heroes who put the commonwealth first.
Verses to the Grace of the Lord 61–90Pomponius · 5th century(?) · Tityrus teaches that contempt of wealth and faith lead to the blessed abodes while the greedy are punished, and then begins to sing of the Father's work from the creation.
Dialogues 1.5Sulpicius Severus · ca. 404–406 · The old host turns out to be a presbyter of a humble brushwood church; his people neither buy nor sell, and he refuses gold for the church.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 34.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We must do what Christ commanded, follow him, before claiming his promise; many have done what the rich young man refused, with the Lord loosing their fetters.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 40.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We must stretch out our desire for the glory to come, loving God more than money and using the world like an inn on a journey, trusting him who called us.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 62.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Lord's money-box shows that the church may keep funds, provided God is not served for money.
Against Vigilantius 14Jerome · 406 · Jerome argues that alms should go especially to the holy poor and that selling all, as Christ counseled, is the higher way.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 10.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Avarice demands hard labour for uncertain gain, but God, who asks only to be loved, is always found by those who love him; love is the end and consummation of all our works.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.25Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Even Moses, Aaron, and Samuel were corrected by God for sin; only Christ was scourged without sin; and even Augustine's upright opponents do not claim to be sinless.
City of God 1.10Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that Christians who lost property, were tortured, or starved in the sack lost nothing essential, and that those who had stored their treasure in heaven were not harmed.
City of God 2.19Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine contrasts the silence of the gods on morals with the Christian Scriptures' constant teaching against avarice and luxury, and says Christians must bear even a corrupt state while aiming at the heavenly commonwealth.
City of God 2.20Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine satirizes the kind of state his opponents want, one devoted to wealth, pleasure, and license so long as it is safe, and compares it to the house of Sardanapalus.
City of God 5.18Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine sets famous Roman sacrifices for earthly glory (Brutus, Torquatus, Camillus, Mucius, Curtius, the Decii, Regulus, Cincinnatus, Fabricius) against the Christian's duty, so that believers may neither boast nor fall short.
City of God 7.12Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine ridicules the naming of Jupiter as 'Money' and contrasts money with true riches, which are virtue and wisdom.
On Faith and Works 27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · Augustine's own interpretation: the foundation is faith working through love; gold and silver are wholehearted devotion to God, while wood and hay are carnal attachments to lawful goods, lost with painful “fire”; grave sin destroys the foundation itself.
On the Good of Widowhood 26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 414 · Widows should replace carnal pleasures with reading, prayer, psalms, almsgiving, fasting, and vigils, and beware lest suppressed desire turn into avarice.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.4Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Sin, not any weakness in God, withholds his blessings; the impious who prey on others like fowlers are found even in the church, ruled by avarice.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.6Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Those grown rich by preying on others neglect justice for the orphan and the poor and will be punished.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.18Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Prophets and priests, given to avarice, promise false peace to the powerful and feel no shame at their abominations.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.34Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The church becomes a den of robbers when crimes and the greed of its leaders fill it; Christ, made poor for us, is shamed by our riches.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.108Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Sacrifices cannot remove the sins of a people that worships idols; likewise church leaders and the rich cannot buy mercy with gifts that are publicly praised.
Commentary on Jeremiah 3.75Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The partridge that hatches others' eggs figures the unjustly rich who will lose their wealth at death, or the devil who gathers through heretics souls not his own and will be abandoned.
The Institutes 4.3John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · A candidate must wait for ten days at the gate enduring rejection and insults, and must keep no money at all.
The Institutes 4.4John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · The monks refuse a novice's money even for the community, lest he become proud or later demand it back.
The Institutes 4.5John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · The new monk is stripped of his own clothes before the brothers and clothed by the abbot, learning to own nothing and trust in God.
The Institutes 4.13John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Egyptian monks own nothing but their basic clothing and mat, and may not even say "my" of anything.
The Institutes 4.14John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Though their work earns much, each monk takes only two small loaves, does no private work, and regards himself as a servant, not an owner.
The Institutes 4.15John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Cassian contrasts the Egyptians with Gallic monks who keep keys, seals, and hoards, and promises examples from the elders' lives.
The Institutes 7.1John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Love of money, the third vice, is not natural but arises from a lukewarm renunciation.
The Institutes 7.2John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Love of money is easy to avoid at first, but once admitted becomes the root of all evils.
The Institutes 7.5John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Envy and love of money have no natural root, so they are easy to avoid but very hard to cure once they take hold.
The Institutes 7.6John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Love of money, being the root of all evils, is hard to cure and must not be taken lightly.
The Institutes 7.7John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Love of money begins with plausible fears about sickness and old age, leads to secret trade, and ends as idolatry, loving the emperor's image on coins instead of God's image.
The Institutes 7.9John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · The monk with hidden money grows insolent, complains, seeks grievances, and stirs others up before leaving.
The Institutes 7.10John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Separated from the community like a sheep from the flock, the avaricious monk works day and night for gain and abandons prayer and fasting.
The Institutes 7.11John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Some avaricious monks even take women to guard their money, and fall into ruin as 1 Timothy 6 warns.
The Institutes 7.14John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Love of money takes three forms, illustrated by Gehazi, Judas, and Ananias and Sapphira.
The Institutes 7.15John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Those who fear to give up their wealth should not begin monastic life at all, as Deuteronomy and the parable of the king going to war teach.
The Institutes 7.16John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Some monks misuse "it is more blessed to give" to keep their wealth, against Christ's command to sell everything.
The Institutes 7.17John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Paul and the Jerusalem believers gave up their means and lived by labour or gifts; those who gave to them were not more blessed than they.
The Institutes 7.19John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Basil told a senator who kept part of his wealth that he had ceased to be a senator without becoming a monk.
The Institutes 7.21John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · The victory over avarice is to keep not even a single coin, and to root out the very desire to possess.
The Institutes 7.22John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Even the poor can be guilty of avarice in desire, just as one can commit adultery in the heart.
The Institutes 7.25John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Peter's judgment on Ananias and Sapphira for keeping back part of their property parallels Judas's fate; both sins grew from love of money.
The Institutes 12.26John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Such monks keep, retake, or acquire money, and build their whole life on a ruinous foundation.
Commonitorium 1.481–510Orientius of Auch · ca. 420-450 · Avarice, the root of all evil everywhere, turns God's harmless gifts to wrong use: trade sends men to shipwreck, iron is made into weapons, and fire is used to burn houses and bodies.
Commonitorium 1.541–570Orientius of Auch · ca. 420-450 · Lavish houses, vessels and clothes add nothing to rest or need; wealth stays in the world, so it should be given away while one is alive and sent ahead to heaven.
The Conferences 1.6John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Those who renounce great wealth but then quarrel over a pen or a book show that renunciation without love, which is purity of heart, is fruitless.
The Conferences 3.7John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The first renunciation is worthless without the second and third; like Israel longing for Egypt, monks who renounce outwardly but keep their vices gain nothing, as 1 Cor 13 shows.
The Conferences 3.9John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Scripture speaks of evil, good, and indifferent riches; indifferent riches, such as wealth, become good or evil according to their use.
The Conferences 4.21John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Monks who renounced great wealth but guard their mats, baskets, and books with the same covetousness have only exchanged, not cut off, their passion.
The Conferences 5.8John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Love of money, being unnatural, is easily extinguished by true renunciation, unlike the natural vices such as gluttony, which assail even the best monks all their lives.
The Conferences 6.3John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Only virtue is truly good and only sin truly evil; riches, power, health, life, death, poverty, and injuries are indifferent, good or bad according to their use.
The Conferences 9.5John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The Lord names surfeiting, drunkenness, and worldly cares as what weighs down the heart; monks escape the literal forms but fall into spiritual forms of them, including acquiring more money, clothing, or cells than need requires.
The Conferences 16.6John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Joseph gives six foundations of lasting friendship: contempt for possessions, cutting off one’s own will, preferring peace to everything, never being angry, healing a brother’s anger against oneself, and daily remembrance of death.
The Conferences 18.5John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Piamun traces cenobitic life to the Jerusalem church of Acts, whose common life was kept by those who withdrew when the church as a whole grew lax.
The Conferences 24.23John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Christ’s yoke is easy for one who has renounced all possessions and his own will, for then no loss, want, command, or persecution can trouble him.
The Conferences 24.24John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The yoke seems heavy only because monks keep wealth and self-will, by which the devil torments them; those who leave the royal road for crooked paths are torn by thorns, while the humble who bear Christ’s yoke stand firm.
Sermon on the Life of Honoratus 32Hilary of Arles · ca. 430 · On his deathbed Honoratus exhorted the officials of Arles not to fear death, to war against the vices of the body, and to despise riches.
Theodotus, ACO I.1.2, homily 73.10Theodotus of Ancyra · 431 · When prophets, law, and angels failed, God came himself, not in terror as at Sinai but in poverty, born in a manger, so that all might approach him; Isaiah's ox and donkey point to that manger.
Theodotus, ACO I.1.2, homily 73.12Theodotus of Ancyra · 431 · Christ's poverty in the manger reveals the wealth of his Godhead; the magi and the angels worshipped one and the same God; the star was an angelic power, not a real star.
Letter to Valerian, paragraph 8Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 432 · Wealth and honours hold men bound to the world; wealth, the root of evils, is gathered unjustly, invites violence, passes to uncertain heirs, and turns love away from oneself to outward things.
Letter to Valerian, paragraph 10Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 432 · Of all the wealth and power of recent kings nothing went with them but their faith and piety; true wealth and honour are to be transferred to heaven, where nothing is lost.
On 1 Cor 7:7.30Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Theodoret applies 1 Cor 7:29–31 to the use of wealth, citing Ezekiel's rams and Isaiah's levelling of ranks in the age to come.
Part 1, chapter 39Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · The manna and the meat figure Christ, the bread from heaven, and his flesh given in the passion; the hoarded manna that rotted warns against greed, and the rock struck at Horeb is Christ, pouring out blood and water.