From: Isidore of Pelusium, monk at Pelusium
To: Prohairesios
Date: ~410 AD
Context: Isidore identifies greed as uniquely dangerous among the passions because unlike anger or lust, it has no natural satiety — the more it is fed, the more it demands.
Almost every other passion, Prohairesios, has a peak, knows a decline, and understands satiety. Anger burns hot and then cools. Lust pursues its object and, having obtained it, abates. Even grief eventually exhausts itself.
But the love of money has no such natural limit. It does not subside when fed; it expands. The man who wanted a hundred drachmas and obtained them does not rest — he now wants a thousand. The man who accumulated a thousand wants ten thousand. Each acquisition becomes the floor of the next desire, never the ceiling of it.
This is why the scripture says that the love of money is the root of all evils — not merely because of what it tempts its possessor to do in order to obtain more, though that is catastrophic enough, but because of its internal logic. Every other passion contains within itself the seed of its own exhaustion. This one does not. It is self-reinforcing rather than self-limiting.
Guard yourself against it with particular vigilance, Prohairesios. The ordinary defenses work for ordinary passions. This one requires something stronger: the deliberate cultivation of contentment, which is the only disposition incompatible with greed.
scholasticos[11]? On the living Word. You have in your possession, I am informed, a collection of discourses which delight the ear, but which do not nourish the soul. You are in need of the Living Word, which he who lacks is a (mere) sounding brass [12]. If then you acquire this, it is a sweet-sounding instrument for God and well – tuned for men.
Context:Isidore identifies greed as uniquely dangerous among the passions because unlike anger or lust, it has no natural satiety — the more it is fed, the more it demands.
Almost every other passion, Prohairesios, has a peak, knows a decline, and understands satiety. Anger burns hot and then cools. Lust pursues its object and, having obtained it, abates. Even grief eventually exhausts itself.
But the love of money has no such natural limit. It does not subside when fed; it expands. The man who wanted a hundred drachmas and obtained them does not rest — he now wants a thousand. The man who accumulated a thousand wants ten thousand. Each acquisition becomes the floor of the next desire, never the ceiling of it.
This is why the scripture says that the love of money is the root of all evils — not merely because of what it tempts its possessor to do in order to obtain more, though that is catastrophic enough, but because of its internal logic. Every other passion contains within itself the seed of its own exhaustion. This one does not. It is self-reinforcing rather than self-limiting.
Guard yourself against it with particular vigilance, Prohairesios. The ordinary defenses work for ordinary passions. This one requires something stronger: the deliberate cultivation of contentment, which is the only disposition incompatible with greed.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.