17. Love of Money.

A priest who has devoted himself to the service of God willingly, and not from

extraneous motives, tends to think of all Christians who are accomplishing their salvation

(i.e. coming to confession) as people wishing to devote their lives to perfecting

themselves spiritually and so are engaged in struggling only with their remaining sinful

passions: pride, lust and anger. It is therefore very difficult for him to understand a person

who, although he both believes and is mindful of the future life and avoids serious sins,

yet has other gods apart from the true God. Such are lovers of money — hard-hearted

misers and covetous of material gain. Although disturbances of anger, self-love and lust

frequently draw a man away from God, yet they burst into the soul as blind outbursts, as

enemies attacking it against its will. Avarice and meanness, however, are not blind,

stormy outbursts, but represent a calm, consciously held attitude of mind and direction of

will. How can they remain in the soul of a Christian as he listens to Christ foretelling His

Dread Judgement and to His many statements about the impossibility of salvation for

those who hope in riches? Nevertheless, for many pious people who love the Church and

live in a sober fashion, enrichment is often the guiding aim in all their activity, for all

their life. These are not infrequently people with a strong will and self-control —

characteristics required both for maintaining a pious life in the Church and for acquiring

riches. Let us recall the rich youth in the Gospel: “All these things have I kept from my

youth up, what lack I yet?” Perhaps a rich heir can “keep all these things” (i.e. fulfill the

commandments), but one engaged in making or multiplying riches, or a miser, is of

course unable to do so. Such a person must unfailingly have turned away those in need,

not helped his kinsfolk, not supported the Church, cast his business partners into poverty

— in short, been heartless and harsh.

How can this be combined with piety? Naturally, by means of a self-deception

which suggests the thought that it is absolutely essential for the good of the family to

increase one’s wealth and guard the family inheritance stingily. Or, it may inspire one to

reinterpret all the words of our faith which condemn love of money in a sense favourable

to oneself, or attempt to prove that all those in need and asking for one’s help are idlers

and drunkards. In order to calm his conscience, such a person sometimes makes

donations to the Church or to good causes, but such are trifles in comparison with what

he has obtained by wronging his neighbors so that he cannot altogether calm himself, but

is just trying to deceive himself. Therefore he is anxious and irritable, capricious and

despotic, like the heroes of our writers: Ostrovsky, Gorbunov and others. A businessman

in the south of Russia built a large, splendid church and summoned his old uncle to

admire the wonderful structure. “Yes, it’s a big, splendid church,” said the old man, “it’ll

hold a lot of people; but still, not so many as you’ve fleeced and cheated: you could never

get all of them into this big church.”

The old man could talk like that, but it is hard for a spiritual father to do the same,

and this is not only because he must not condemn and discredit those few donors and

benefactors who still exist in our sinful times. There is another reason: it is not easy to

draw the line between keeping riches, which is permitted, and enslavement to the passion

of avarice, which is forbidden. Industry and trade are necessities for the nation and for

society, and they will only flourish through the efforts of strong manufacturers and

traders. Their zealous work for the nation and state is combined with increasing their own

wealth, and if they were to renounce the desire to get rich, they would hardly be likely to

devote their thoughts and efforts to making their enterprises flourish. Almost the same

applies to the owners of small estates and even to ordinary farmers. Of course, if he

shows willingness to do so, the priest will not seek to restrain him from acting like

Matthew the publican and the sons of Zebedee — leaving his business and following the

Lord, to a monastery, for example. But we must remember that the Lord gave this

command (it was a command, and certainly not advice, as our miserable commentaries

have it) — to the rich youth only when it turned out that he was subduing the passions in

himself and was following God’s commandments in everything, and consequently was

spiritually mature enough to step onto the path of total dedication to God and the Church

(“and come and follow Me”).xxxi

But what is to be done with people who are well-intentioned but still not strangers

to the passion of avarice and are involved in an enterprise connected with the increase of

their earthly well-being?

Of course, when parishioners have a lucid conscience and themselves admit their

subjection to the passion of avarice, the priest must talk to them directly about it. But

misers and lovers of money who do not realise their sinful state must first be questioned

about the obviously sinful deeds and acts which self-interested people usually commit.

They are enumerated in the catechismxxxii at the exposition of the second commandment.

When the person confessing admits to cheating a few times in business or doing a partner

a bad turn, or refusing to help a widowed relative or a student nephew, then ask him why

he acted so dishonestly and harshly. Does this mean that his wish to increase or preserve

his property has already become a passion for the sake of which he is losing the voice of

conscience? Let him not think that this does not stop him seeming to be a good person

and Christian. Judas — (it is especially useful to mention Judas in these cases) — was

also a man of prayer and a believer; he even healed the infirm and the possessed as the

other Apostles did (Luke 9:6, 10:17): but he succumbed to the passion of avarice, and to

what depths did he then descend? Was it not of him that the Lord said, “Woe to that man

by whom the Son of Man is betrayed: it were better for that man if he had not been

born,” and again, “Have I not chosen twelve, but one of you is a devil?” And so,

“Behold, O lover of money, this man through money came to hang himself. Flee the

insatiable desire which dared to do such things to the Master.”xxxiii

It is extremely important that the lover of money should realize that he is in the

hands of a pernicious passion. If a priest achieves this, he has done something more

difficult than convincing a fornicator, a drunkard or an angry person of this. These

passions clearly show themselves for what they are by their hideous consequences, but

self-interest is a passion with an aura of respectability, which not in frequently conceals

itself from its victims. “What? Have I got to give away everything arid become a

beggar?” asks the perplexed sinner. “No, the time for that has not yet come. First you

must come to hate your passion, and then, when it prevents you from doing an act of

generosity by threatening you with ruin, trample it down; do this, to begin with, at least in

those cases where, on considering the matter calmly, you realize that you will not suffer

any ruin. When you have done the good deed, ask yourself if you have not obtained a

different kind of profit, better than money. Has not at least a part of the joy you have

given to the other person been passed on to you also? Is not your heart gladdened with a

sweet hope when you are able to apply to yourself those eloquent, exceptional petitions

which the Church makes on behalf of those who have given to her: “Sanctify those who

love the beauty of Thy house; glorify them with Thy divine power.”xxxiv The Church calls

church-builders “blessed” and “ever-memorable” even during their life, as well as after

death. Do not hate those who ask your help, but rather your pernicious passion. You will

not be ruined by benevolence, but meanness and self-interest make a man hateful for all

those around him, not excluding his own family. You can start doing good to your

neighbour simply by not avoiding it in those cases where it will not hinder or put a stop to

your business, but there can be no such limitations when it is a question of ceasing to do

evil to your neighbours. Even if it seems that without deceiving people or ruining your

rival you cannot even put your business matters straight; that you will incur a

considerable loss of property if you do not permit yourself to do some dishonest practice;

then doom yourself to loss, even to ruin, rather than increase your possessions to the

accompaniment of the tears and curses of your neighbours and criminal acts in general, if

you do not wish to be like Judas. Let not the words of St. John Chrysostom fall upon you:

“A rich man is a robber or the son of a robber.” A spiritual father should strictly condemn

robbers and revolutionaries, reminding them of the tenth commandment and the rule of

the Nomocanon, according to which a thief or robber must return what he has stolen and

add a fifth part of the value. Even then he can only receive Communion after two years

have passed, but those who have seized Church property are not to communicate for

fifteen years (Rules 46, 47, 49, 50 and others).

Robbers of Church property are subject to excommunication. About deceptions

and extortion which one is supposedly forced to commit through fear of one’s own ruin,

you must point out that no official or sentry or judge is justified in breaking his oath

through fear of people or of poverty. In the same way, if a trader or land-owner cannot

preserve his prosperity without deceit or causing disaster to his adversary, let him doom

himself to loss or even ruin, but not fall short of the demands of honesty.

Concluding our talk about the struggle with avarice we will say that the priest, in

advising his parishioner to overcome it by works or almsgiving, should advise him not

only to throw pennies to beggars and cadgers, but also of his own initiative to help those

whom he knows to be in need, even if they are not dying of hunger. If he has the time and

enthusiasm, he can seek out cases of need and verify them. Only by helping others can a

Christian increase in himself the virtue of brotherly love and turn his heart away from

avarice. The priest must be especially careful about advising people to give money to the

Church and benevolent institutions, so as not to give them cause to suspect him of selfinterest

and thus deprive all his exhortations of their force.

The examples we have given here of spiritual exhortations against various

passions do not, of course, exhaust all the possible means of curing them: that would

provide enough material to fill a thick book. Of the passions indicated by the fathers we

have left gluttony, sloth, and idle-talking without detailed examination, but what are we

to say about such secondary sins when “From the sole of the foot even unto the head

there is no soundness in it: but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not

been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment” (Is. 1:6). Of course, it is

fitting to talk also about these at confession, but we will limit ourselves to giving

directions for the healing of more pressing spiritual sicknesses, in the form of separate

sins and falls into sin.