st john chrysostom on wealth and poverty

If, on the other hand, you see someone with few needs, you should count him the richest of all, even if he has acquired nothing. So if you see someone greedy for many things, you should consider him the poorest of all, even if he has acquired everyone’s money.

A non-material definition of wealth and poverty: “We ought to consider this definition of poverty and wealth.

Let us not therefore call them fortunate because of what they have, but miserable because of what will come, because of that dreadful courtroom, because of the inexorable judgment, because of the outer darkness which awaits them” (36-37). They are a kind of robbers lying in wait on the roads, stealing from passers-by, and burying others’ goods in their own houses as if caves and holes.

“You should think the same way about those who are rich and greedy.

It is a natural and perhaps unavoidable feature of human nature to compare our situation with others: “the sight of another person in good fortune laid on him an extra burden of anguish, not because he was envious or wicked, but because we all naturally perceive our own misfortunes more acutely by comparison with others’ prosperity” (30).

But we, as if we had come into the world for this purpose, spend everything for eating” (27-28).

At the beginning life was not made for eating, but eating for life. For we were not born, we do not live, in order to eat and drink but we eat in order to leave. Another way of saying this is that our desires and consumption must be rightly ordered: “…let us accustom ourselves to eat only enough to live, not enough to be distracted and weighed down. Our use of earthly and natural goods must be oriented toward higher and spiritual goods.Fill your belly so moderately that you may not become too heavy to bend your knees and call upon your God (27).” As for you, my beloved, if you sit at table, remember that from the table you must go to prayer. There is danger in luxury: “In this way luxury often leads to forgetfulness.There are six sermons in this text, based on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Readings in Social Ethics: John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty, part 1 of 3.

St john chrysostom on wealth and poverty