Love of Money: The Heavy Sickness of the Soul
By Photios Kontoglou
By Photios Kontoglou
“Make for yourselves money-bags that do not grow old, an unfailing treasure in the heavens, where no thief comes near” (Luke 12:33)
“The love of money is the root of all evils” (1 Tim. 6:10)
Of all the sicknesses that afflict the human soul, the most disgusting, in my judgment, is love of money, stinginess. From a young age I detested it. And now, although with age I have changed my mind about many things, about stinginess I have not changed. I would rather deal even with a murderer than with a miser. For the murderer may have killed in a surge of soul, in anger, and later repented, whereas the miser is a cold calculator, rotten to the bone. In the murderer you may find some feelings; in the miser you will find none. The miser is of course always selfish, loving only himself, but many times he is a monster worse even than the selfish man, because he may not even love himself, and may let himself die of hunger.
With this, man shows how he can fall into a condition that no other animal reaches. Only he, who called himself “king of the animals,” arrives at such disgusting foolishness that, out of his stinginess, he hides his money in the mattress or the pillow and dies of hunger. Have you ever seen a stingy dog? Or a donkey that has plenty of hay to eat and yet does not touch it, and is found dead from hunger? You see how the miser becomes mad, and indeed the most unpleasant, the most repulsive kind of madman.
But even the one who is habitually greedy and does not reach the extreme I described, he too has upon him a certain coldness. You approach him with hesitation. You cannot deal with him freely, because he too is buttoned-up, “tight-fisted,” as they say. For stinginess makes him a hypocrite and suspicious.
Money is a dangerous thing, and very poisonous for the soul. Many begin with thrift, and little by little they become lovers of money; in the end Mammon mounts them. Through love of money the heart of a person narrows, just as through generosity it widens. The miser is stingy also in his feelings; he cannot have anything noble within him. How can such a person make a sacrifice for another?
The love of money brings the greatest misfortunes upon humanity. Judas, the lover of money, betrayed Christ. And most quarrels among people, the disputes within families, the wars that devastate the world and fill it with blood — all have as their cause the cursed money. Interests.
The Church, during Holy Week, chants many hymns that condemn love of money. It calls Judas “offspring of vipers, deceitful, a traitor, lawless,” and it exhorts us to drive away from ourselves love of money.
This evil sickness today is very widespread and very heavy, a worldwide passion that eats hearts like a worm, in East and West. Never have people loved money so much as today. For modern man is materialistic; he does not believe in another life, because he does not believe in God, and he throws himself headlong to enjoy this life. This life, which, before you can even see it, passes and disappears like a shadow. This shadow, then, the wretched man today chases, and struggles and destroys himself for this shadow, thinking that with money he accomplishes something.
I have known quite a few of those who have great wealth, and I have seen their anxiety and their unhappy happiness. I do not speak of those who are prevented from enjoying life because of illnesses or other misfortunes, but of those who have health and every means to live well. They have everything except happiness. Happiness, true happiness, is very far from them, first because life is something unstable, like the needle of Nasreddin Hodja that stood upon an egg. Happiness without certainty cannot exist. The rich man is constantly uneasy; he fears what will come tomorrow, what the day will bring. Moreover, riches bring disturbance, complications, cares, and whoever is burdened with many cares cannot be happy, because he is never alone with himself. And whoever is never alone with himself does not know what happiness is. The spring from which happiness flows is not the Bank, nor the money chest, but the human heart.
Source: From the book Mystical Flowers, Papadimitriou Publications. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
