The passion of avarice: the desire to have more and more money

Today, it is impossible to imagine either city or village life without money. Every person needs clothing, food, a roof over their head. Sometimes the desire to have money captivates a person so much that his desires go beyond natural needs.

In society, material values prevail over spiritual ones; more and more often there are people who want to become wealthy and increase their wealth at any cost. However, in Orthodoxy such an insatiable thirst for money is considered one of the most serious sins.

The question arises: what is the love of money, how to overcome this passion in yourself?

Love of money - what's in modern world what does this concept mean? This is a passion that lies in the endless increase in material wealth.

The opposite of this sin is non-covetousness. On Wikipedia you can read a lot of informative information about the love of money, but it is still better to turn to the books of the Holy Fathers, who left us valuable advice on how to deal with this scourge.

There are several types of love of money: greed - the desire to possess what belongs to others and stinginess - the reluctance to give away one’s own.

In the Holy Scriptures one can find many indications that covetousness is a passion, the worship of an idol - the “golden calf”, and not the Lord. This is evidenced by the saying that one cannot serve two masters: both God and mammon.

The ability to make money is also a gift that is given to us from above; of course, you shouldn’t bury your talent in the ground. The Holy Fathers say that when wealth increases, there is no need to put your heart into it.

In addition, the Bible teaches us to be merciful, compassionate, and to share our abundance with people in need.

What kind of sin is covetousness - this is an unnatural attachment to material goods, a passion for things that separates us from the Divine principle, devastates our soul and heart.

On a note! Not every rich person can be called greedy or stingy. This sin can even settle in the soul of a poor person who harbors within himself this strongest sinful lust for money.

In fact, what does such an unnatural desire to own wealth mean? The Holy Fathers claim that this sinful hobby is generated by a lack of faith in God, uncertainty about the future, and the desire to ensure a safe life for oneself, to be recognized and respected.

Unbelief and pride are serious sins that you need to fight throughout your life!

Informative! Church terms: what is it in the church

The Roots of Sin

All Christians know what the love of money, or love of money, is in Orthodoxy, but not only do they not take measures to eradicate this sin, but they also contribute to its imposition.

Nowadays, from infancy, parents instill in their children how important it is to be financially secure and successful. They are the ones who orient their child towards achieving goals and climbing the career ladder.

The older generation consciously instills this dependence in children, because the love of money is in childhood is expressed in the desire to own an expensive thing - a phone, tablet, etc.

How often parents teach to choose friends based on what benefits can be derived from friendship. Nowadays, it is especially important for older people who a friend’s parents work for.

What is love of money is the desire of girls to please guys who own an expensive car or other valuables. The sin of love of money gives rise to many other sins: envy, anger, pride, theft.

Growing up, a teenager begins to think that everything can be bought and sold; money can buy friendship and love.

This is largely facilitated by the media, which teach that it is not a sin to love money, because you can attract the attention of others only by possessing some material object.

Wikipedia says about the love of money that it is one of the eight most serious sins.

Indeed, now many of us spend a lot of time monitoring currency quotes, modern man attends trainings on how to invest your capital more profitably, how to be successful and preferably without making any effort.

We involuntarily receive information that the sin of love of money is not a vice at all, but an outdated and irrelevant concept.

How to detect this sin in yourself?

What kind of sin is love of money is understood by many, especially believers who often visit church and listen to a sermon about destructive passion from a priest. But how can we detect this weakness, because very often we remain “blind” and do not see clear evidence of sin.

So, the symptoms of this “disease” may be:

Expectation of personal gain in everything. A person does not come to the aid of his neighbor if as a result of this he does not receive anything other than the word “thank you.”
Unfair profit. Selling or buying stolen goods, forgery of financial documents, shortchange or misrepresentation.
Corrupt practices. Occupying a certain position, a person authorized by the authorities does not take any measures to solve the problem if he is not presented with gifts or money.
Hoarding and pettiness. A person moves away from God, attending services becomes an empty pastime and a waste of time for him. Sunday and holidays he devotes himself to various activities to increase and accumulate his own wealth. Such people, as a rule, do not want to give alms and become cruel and unmerciful.

Taking care of your own material well-being more than about spiritual and moral development, we become dependent and enslaved.

Some people claim that money brings them freedom and independence. In fact, this is not so: people who have lived their whole lives know what this desire to accumulate means.

Ultimately, destinies are broken, true values are replaced by an endless struggle for power, money, and wealth. Sincere love, friendship, and selflessness disappear from a person’s life.

Passion rising in the soul gives rise to other lusts, for example:

theft;
betrayal;
hypocrisy;
pride;
hatred;
anger;
intemperance;
murder.

Everything happens gradually, a person’s heart is shrouded in ever new sins, his conscience fades away, which ceases to torment him.

Need to know! Everyone knows the story of Judas, who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. So, vices also ripened in his soul every day: first envy, then theft of money donated to the poor, and then betrayal. If we don’t stop in time, each of us will face the same fate.

How to get rid of a vice?

The instructions of the Holy Fathers will help to stifle all manifestations of this sin in oneself. The main thing to remember is the following:

We come into this world naked, with nothing, and we leave it. No one takes wealth, fame, or honor with him.
The Lord cares for the soul of each of us. He knows our needs and desires, so he will definitely help.
One should constantly imagine God's Judgment, which will not spare the greedy, thieves, and criminals.

Useful video: How to defeat the love of money and greed?

Let's sum it up

Today in every Orthodox church you can hear a sermon about the sin of love of money, but not every person is able to see passion. According to the Holy Fathers, it is very simple to determine addiction; the main thing is to answer the question: “Who do I rely on more? On yourself or on God?

Confidence in own strength, lack of faith in God's Providence makes the heart small, the devil controls such a person. To get rid of these passions, you need to wage a constant struggle against wicked thoughts, cultivate in yourself virtues that are opposite to the love of money.

Love of money... Spelling dictionary-reference book

Cm … Synonym dictionary

See: Covetousness, greed, love of money... Brockhaus Biblical Encyclopedia

LOVE OF AVER, love of money, many. no, cf. (book. outdated. inod.). Greed for money, selfishness. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

- @font face (font family: ChurchArial; src: url(/fonts/ARIAL Church 02.ttf);) span (font size:17px;font weight:normal !important; font family: ChurchArial ,Arial,Serif;)   noun. greed for money. Put his love of money aside for now... ... Dictionary of Church Slavonic language

Love of money- greed for money, greed: a sin that leads to a multitude gravest sins and crimes. The root of all evil is the love of money (First Epistle of the Apostle Paul to Timothy 6:10) ... Orthodox encyclopedic dictionary

Love of money- greed for money, greed: a sin that leads to many grave sins and crimes. The Holy Apostle Paul in his first letter to Timothy points out: The love of money is the root of all evil (1 Tim. 6:10) ... Orthodoxy. Dictionary-reference book

Wed. outdated 1. Greed for money. 2. the same as selfishness Explanatory Dictionary by Ephraim. T. F. Efremova. 2000... Modern Dictionary Russian language Efremova

Love of money, love of money, love of money, love of money, love of money, love of money, love of money, love of money, love of money, love of money, love of money, love of money (Source: “Full accentuated paradigm according to A. A. Zaliznyak”) ... Forms of words

- ... Wikipedia

Books

Help, Lord, to overcome my love of money
Help, Lord, to overcome my love of money. The passion of the love of money manifests itself in greed, acquisitiveness, self-interest, envy, the desire for luxury, and bribery. But what is the result?.. John Chrysostom says: “The possession of a money lover is often...

Cult of the Golden Calf
The love of money, the love of money, the cult of material values are the scourges of our time. Our society is a consumer society: consumption of material goods, pleasures, entertainment. And all entertainment requires money. The cult of money has become so integrated into everyday life that exchange rates are mandatory news, broadcast every hour on the radio along with the weather forecast, as if it were so important and necessary for everyone to know. It is firmly driven into people's minds that without a lot of money, without wealth, it is impossible to be happy man that everything can only be purchased with money, and if you don’t have it, then you’re a loser. We saw the book “How to Raise a Future Millionaire” on sale, that is, it is proposed to raise rich people from the cradle, and to target babies for success. Not how to raise an honest, kind, decent person, but how to raise a millionaire!

Unhappy will be this person, whom crazy parents will train from childhood, oriented towards success, career, wealth. He will never find true friendship, he will not find love, faith, because they cannot be bought with money.

The love of money and service to material things is idolatry in pure form, worship of the “golden calf” (although, of course, any passion is an idol): “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24), that is, wealth.

Why is it difficult for a rich person to be saved?
Serving material wealth especially takes a person away from spiritual values. His soul is replaced by another, he becomes a materialist in the full sense of the word. Thoughts and thoughts about earthly goods and values do not leave room for the spiritual. That is why it is said: “It is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 19:23).

God needs a place in our hearts to hold on to something in a person’s soul. Then the person can be helped. What if the heart and soul are occupied only with material things? This does not mean that it is easy for the poor to be saved. Poverty can also give rise to many vices: envy, pride, despondency, murmuring, etc. But the Gospel speaks of the difficulties of salvation for the rich. And from history it is clear that both Christ and the apostles were very poor and had no place to lay their heads. There were many more poor Christians. Although among the saints there were very rich people: Abraham, kings David, Solomon, emperors, princes... It is not wealth in itself that is a sin, but the attitude towards it. Everything that the Lord gives us: talents, wealth is not ours. We are stewards, overseers of all this, this is God’s. And we must not only return what has been given to us, but also return it with interest, multiply it, using these gifts to help others and to save the soul.

But this is often not the case; material values occupy such a dominant position in people’s minds that they hardly remember God, the soul, or their neighbors. It can be very difficult for a believer to communicate with a worldly person. He speaks only about earthly, material things.

In the Gospel we find many parables - short stories– about the rich and wealth. Some of them talk about the correct attitude towards wealth, and some very clearly, figuratively show the madness of people who live only on earthly, perishable values.

In the Gospel of Luke there is the following story: “A certain rich man had good harvest in field; and he reasoned with himself: “What should I do? I have nowhere to gather my fruits.” And he said: “This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will gather all my grain and all my goods. And I will say to my soul: soul! You have a lot of good things for many years: rest, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him: “You fool! This night I will take your soul from you; who will get what you have prepared?” This is what happens to those who store up treasures for themselves, and are not rich toward God” (Luke 12:16–21). Saint righteous John Kronstadtsky, interpreting this parable, seems to ask the rich man: Why are you crazy, saying: “I have nowhere to gather my fruits”? How can there be nowhere? Here are the granaries for you - the hands of the poor: give the gifts of God's goodness, given to many, to many poor people and receive for this from the Lord forgiveness of sins and great mercy; By doing this, you will act in accordance with the will of God, for the Lord gives us abundance to help the poor, “for those who are merciful will themselves receive mercy.”

In this parable, wealth is not condemned at all, but the rich man’s attitude towards it is condemned. He lived his whole life in revelry and joy, and even standing on the threshold of death, he still did not understand why God gave him this property. And it is given only for one thing: to transform material treasures into spiritual, imperishable ones. Help those in need, do good deeds, decorate churches and generally save the soul with the wealth given to you. But for a rich person all this is oh so difficult. A life of contentment and bliss sucks you in and makes you insensitive to the pain of others. The problems and pain of the needy and disadvantaged become infinitely far away. It is difficult for a person who has not experienced what poverty and deprivation are to understand a hungry person. It is no coincidence that the proverb “The well-fed does not understand the hungry.”

There is another parable on this subject in the Gospel. A certain man was rich; “He dressed in purple... and every day he feasted brilliantly. There was also a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate covered with scabs and wanted to be fed with the crumbs falling from the rich man’s table; and the dogs came and licked his sores. The beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell, being in torment, he raised his eyes, saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his bosom and, crying out, said: “Father Abraham! Have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.” But Abraham said: “Child! Remember that you have already received your good in your life, and Lazarus received evil: now he is comforted here, but you suffer” (Luke 16: 19-25). Why did the rich man go to hell? After all, the Gospel does not say that he killed or robbed someone to get his wealth. Well, just think, he loved the daily feasts. In addition, he was a believer, knew Abraham and, probably, even read the Holy Scriptures. But, apparently, he had no good deeds, he had nothing to justify himself with; everything that was given to him as a means of saving his soul was madly spent only on himself. “You already got what you wanted!” - Abraham tells him. All these years, the sick, hungry beggar Lazarus lay at the very gate of the rich man’s house. The rich man even knew his name, but did not take any part in his fate; he was not even given crumbs from the rich man’s table. From wealth and luxury, the rich man’s heart grew fat, and he no longer noticed the suffering of another. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” says Christ. The rich man's heart belonged to earthly treasure. His soul was filled only with serving bodily pleasures; there was no room in it for love for God and his creation - man. Here on earth, he made his choice: to live a spiritual life, not to think about the soul. After death a person can no longer change; if he did not need God here, then he could not be with Him there. It is not the Lord who punishes a person, but the person himself who condemns himself to torment. Heavenly life with the saints and communion with God are even more painful for a sinner than the fire of Gehenna.

Let me give you an example that partially explains this idea. For a believer, prayer, holiday, Sunday services, communication with brothers in faith are joy. But try to force a person who is not only unfamiliar, but also an unbeliever, to stand for three hours at a festive all-night vigil. He won’t stand even for half an hour - he’ll be exhausted and exhausted.

Once I was invited to serve a memorial service at a cemetery. Relatives had gathered, and when I was about to start, suddenly almost all of my relatives and friends, with the exception of three old women, walked away a few meters, turned their backs and lit a cigarette. I asked them not to smoke near the grave and to take part in the funeral prayer, but they just moved away and continued their smoking break. Moreover, near the grave I noticed several bottles of alcohol and snacks. Apparently, the young people were only interested in this part of the event. But God does not force anyone to save. Everyone chooses for himself whether to be with God or outside of Him.

Don't harden your heart
But still, there are quite a few people like the evangelical rich, because most people are far from rich. If these parables applied only to the rich, they would not be written down in the Gospel, for in parables the Lord addresses all people, and therefore to us too.

Living only by earthly interests, not remembering death, forgetting about your neighbors is possible not only with great acquisitions. It’s just that a well-fed life is more conducive to this. When a person has a modest income, he may stop helping those in need, justifying himself by saying that he needs to feed his family: he himself, they say, is not enough. Now, when everyone around is talking about the economic crisis, many are gripped by fear and anxiety about the coming day. And it is very important for all of us now not to harden our hearts, like the rich man in the parable. Remember about those Lazarus who are even worse off than us. The Lord will never leave a merciful and generous person without food. In spiritual life there is such a wonderful principle, even a law: “The hand of the giver will not fail.” The Lord always rewards a person who helps others in abundance, even in earthly life. But for this, of course, you need to have faith and determination.

“I was young, and I am old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants asking for bread: he shows mercy every day and lends, and his descendants will be a blessing” (Ps. 37:25-26), says the psalmist David. Of course, some great wealth and prosperity are not promised here, but one thing is clear: a merciful person will not be left without means of food and everything necessary.

If spouses want to have many children (that is, they make their choice in favor of spiritual wealth), they will also never be left without God’s help. There is a proverb: “If God gave a child, he will also give for a child.” One father with many children said that with each new child, the well-being of their family not only did not decrease, but, on the contrary, grew. God sends help to those with many children in a variety of ways. The Gospel says: “Do not worry and say, “What shall we eat?” or “what should we drink?” or “what should I wear?” Because the pagans are looking for all this and because your Heavenly Father knows that you need all this. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6: 31–33). Christians with many children are not looking for a comfortable, idle life, but rather the Kingdom of God; they live not for themselves, but for their children, raise and educate them, sparing no time and effort, and therefore “the rest is given to them.”

We are now constantly being told that everything can be bought with money. Without money you are nothing, and if you are rich, your possibilities are limited only by the size of your bank account. But even the most primitive and down-to-earth person will understand: not everything can be bought with money; love, friendship, loyalty, talent, good name and even health cannot be bought with money. Is it possible to be happy without this? Happiness is immaterial; it does not depend on wealth. For example, happy in family life, beloved by everyone and a loving poor man himself, is a hundred times happier than any rich man. The Gospel directly says: “A person’s life does not depend on the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). On the contrary, a large estate brings great worries and often sorrow. Sometimes you have to talk with the wives of the “new Russians,” and how sorry you feel for them! Still young strong women, with higher education, all yours free time spend on home improvement, constantly make repairs, argue with builders; all their thoughts are occupied with what furniture to buy, how to arrange it, where to hang pictures, etc., etc. The estate is large and requires constant care. And they go for it best years life. And how much money and effort goes into protecting wealth. Great wealth does not so much please as it enslaves, forces you to serve yourself.

Love of money and other sins
Covetousness, serving the “golden calf”, gives rise to many vices. Murder, robbery, deception - this is what very often lies at the basis of great wealth. It is very difficult to earn a large estate through honest work. A person obsessed with the love of money is ready, if not for everything, then for a lot for the sake of money.

We all wonder where the good, kind, talented films and TV shows have gone, why are there so few gifted writers now who awaken noble feelings in people? Why is a continuous stream of sex, violence, aggression and obscene language pouring down on us from the screens? One of the main reasons is that art has become commercial. Film studios, publishing houses, and television channels want to return their investments with great profits. To do this, their products must suit a mass audience and arouse interest. They invested 40 thousand dollars in the film - you need to get at least 70. It is very difficult to fill the halls showing a really good picture. A pleasant and very rare exception was the film “The Island” by Pavel Lungin, which tells about repentance and revival human soul.

IN Ancient Rome the crowd shouted: “Bread and circuses!” What were the spectacles like then? A theater that glorifies debauchery, brutal bloody gladiator fights and the torture of Christians in the arena of the Colosseum. Both in ancient times and now, the “favorite” folk shows are the same.

The rulers of human thoughts - writers, journalists, filmmakers - have a huge responsibility. “How will our word respond?” After all, what they film or write becomes the property of millions of people. And if a creative person does his work out of love of money, vanity, and his soul is filled with impurity, he is capable of seducing many people. And the worst thing is, if he is truly talented, his destructive work continues even after his death.

I. A. Krylov has one not very well-known, but very instructive fable. Its plot is as follows. Upon death, two people go to hell: the Robber and the Writer. The first, of course, robbed people, and the second:

“I poured poison into my creations,
He instilled unbelief and rooted depravity.”

And so, under the cauldron where the Robber sat, a large fire was lit, and under the Writer the fire barely burned. Centuries have passed, and under the Robber the fire has long gone out, but “under the Writer it is getting angrier from hour to hour.” Appealing to the rulers of hell, the Writer began to ask: “Why such injustice?” And this is the answer:

"He was harmful
So far I have only lived;
And you... your bones have long since decayed,
And the sun will never rise,
So that new troubles do not come to light from you.
The poison of your creations not only does not weaken,
But, spilling, it grows fiercer from time to time.”

And then a terrible picture of the destructive effect of the Author’s books is shown: young men who rebelled against “marriage, superiors, power” and fell into unbelief, an entire country brought to destruction by rebellions and strife under the influence of his writings, etc.

“How many more will be born in the future?
Your books bring evil to the world!”

Now I got very widespread Another vice generated by the love of money is gambling. People lose all their property in casinos and slot machines, sometimes to the point of ruin, sometimes to suicide. The player is driven by two passions: greed and excitement, a thirst for risk and thrills. And the second, as a rule, takes over: a person cannot stop in time and becomes completely dependent on it.

It has been absolutely established that gambling addiction is the same addiction as drug addiction and alcoholism, and is very difficult to treat.

In the modern world we see many examples of human love of money “on an especially large scale.” One such example is Moscow construction. Several years ago, Moscow authorities announced that all dilapidated five-story buildings would be demolished by 2010, and large, comfortable houses would be built in their place. Construction has begun. In the area where I live, in Izmailovo, construction is going on especially rapidly, since the area is promising, green, and there is a park nearby. Three- and five-story buildings were demolished, and in their place houses of 18 and 30 floors were erected. But apparently no one thought that the area was simply not designed for such a huge population. The number of clinics, schools, kindergartens, public transport lines and other things remains the same. All the courtyards, all the streets adjacent to the new buildings were clogged with cars. On the streets along the houses, vehicles are parked in two rows, and between them there is a narrow passage, where cars pass one by one. Traffic jams, congestion... You can’t get into the metro, you can’t take ground transport. And this is only one side of the problem. Living in 30-story skyscrapers is very unsafe. What if there is a fire on the 30th floor? We don't have such fire escapes. Housing problem, which, as is known, “spoiled Muscovites”, of course, was not resolved. Residents of demolished houses are being relocated to new buildings, and only a small percentage of housing is given to those on the waiting list. The rest of the housing stock is sold at a price of several thousand dollars per square meter. People have been queuing for housing for many years, living in terrible conditions, and Moscow is overpopulated. What is the problem? In the love of money. Real estate in Moscow is a goldmine, worth billions of dollars. And in general, life in the capital has simply become impossible due to terrible traffic jams, overcrowding, and poor ecology. And it’s all because of human love of money.

Types of love of money
The love of money has two types: extravagance, squandering and, conversely, stinginess, greed. In the first case, a person, having wealth, madly spends it on entertainment, satisfying his needs, and living a luxurious life. In the second case, he can live very poorly, deny himself everything, but serve wealth as an idol, save, collect and not share with anyone. To languish like Koschey, like the Stingy Knight, over his gold.

The famous American millionaire John Rockefeller, possessing enormous wealth, lived like a poor man. He brought himself to the point of complete nervous and physical exhaustion for fear that his business would fail and he would lose at least part of his wealth. He was seriously ill and followed a strict diet, as he could not eat anything. True, in fairness it must be said that in the second half of his life, Rockefeller radically revised his views and began to spend large sums on charity.

The passion for hoarding and stinginess is a trait inherent not only to the rich. Quite often people ask the question: “What is money-grabbing?”, about which we read in the evening prayer of confession. Mshelomy is the acquisition of things that are unnecessary for us, when they become covered with moss from long storage and inactivity. Very poor people can also suffer from this sin, purchasing and hoarding dishes, clothes, and any other items, filling all the cabinets, shelves and closets with them, and often forgetting even what is where.

The fight against covetousness
How to deal with the passion of love of money? Cultivate in yourself the opposite virtues:

– mercy towards the poor and needy;

– care not about earthly values, but about acquiring spiritual gifts;

- thinking not about materialistic, earthly issues, but about spiritual ones.

Virtue will not come by itself. A person who has a disposition towards the love of money, stinginess, and greed must force himself, force himself to do deeds of mercy; use wealth to benefit your soul. For example, when we give alms, we need to give it not like this: “On you, God, what is not good for us,” but so that it is a real sacrifice, and not a formality. Otherwise, sometimes it turns out that we gave a beggar some small change, which simply stretches our pocket, and we still expect that he will be grateful to us for it. “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Cor. 9:6).

By forcing ourselves to share, give, and help others, we can get rid of the love of money and greed. We will understand that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35), that by giving we can receive greater joy and satisfaction than by hoarding and collecting valuables that sometimes bring us very little benefit.

Many people wonder: who should we give alms to, because sometimes there are doubts about the honesty of the person asking, that he will use our help for good? There is no consensus among the holy fathers here. Some believe that it is necessary to give to everyone who asks, for the Lord Himself knows whether a person asks sincerely or is deceiving, and there will be no sin on us; serve as to Christ Himself. Others say that giving alms should be done with great judgment. It seems to me that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Of course, in any case we will not sin, even if we give to a dishonest person. “Professional beggars” have existed in all centuries, and in the time of the Savior too. And yet, both the Lord and the apostles gave alms to the poor. But if we do not have confidence in a person, we can give him a small amount and provide more generous assistance to those who are truly in need. There is so much grief around us that among our friends and relatives there are probably such people. Good advice contained in the life of the righteous Philaret the Merciful. This saint became famous for his love of poverty and mercy. He had three boxes filled separately with gold, silver and copper coins. From the first, those who were completely poor received alms, from the second, those who had lost their means, and from the third, those who hypocritically lured money out.
Priest Pavel Gumerov

When asked what happiness is for a person, outstanding thinkers of all times, philosophers and poets noted in their works that the greatest happiness is to be able to love and be loved, and then, to have personal freedom, not to be a slave to anyone. Christians would clarify: one must love the Lord in order to properly love a person; and in order to be free and be able to use it correctly, you need to free yourself from your passions. Without this, freedom will be not only a great, but also a dangerous gift. Love is the good that goes into eternal life and becomes its main content; and freedom deepens and expands in communion with God, in the awareness of the royal dignity of man.

Love and freedom are happiness for a Christian

In earthly life, freedom is the possibility of moral choice. In eternal existence, freedom is the deliverance of the human soul from all negatives; this is the entry of a person from a state of struggle with demonic forces and sin into the endless peace of the Divine, where there are no contradictions and confrontations, where the human will is united and fused with the divine will. So, human happiness is love and freedom.

Hatred and love of money are the antipodes of love

Love has two antipodes. The first antipode of hatred is the state of fallen spirits; the second is love of money, which, like hatred, drives love out of the heart. The love of money in its deepest essence is hostility towards man as his potential enemy and invader. The Apostle Paul calls the love of money idolatry, that is, the entry of a person into the dark world of evil - into the region of fallen spirits, and the replacement of God with earthly dust, no matter what images and forms this dust takes.

Love and love of money are not compatible. In the ascent of the soul to God, three steps can be noted: faith, hope and love. The love of money is the loss of hope in God and trust in money; This makes faith dim and love disappears. It seems to the lover of money that God’s providence will abandon him and he, impoverished, will die abandoned by everyone in this world, like a lonely traveler in the desert. Therefore, a money lover grabs onto money as a lifeline in the whirlpools of life, as a panacea for all illnesses and misfortunes. He believes that wealth is the only friend he can rely on, and the rest, in fact, are only encroachers on his property. He expects that if he gets sick, money will be needed for his treatment; if famine comes, he will survive thanks to them, and when he dies, he will leave a will so that the money would be distributed to commemorate his soul, so that it will be useful to him even after death. Left to grow, the love of money turns into passion: a person collects money for the sake of money; Because of them, he is ready to sacrifice not only someone else’s life, but also his own.

A lover of money cannot love God

The money lover forgot about the providence and help of God, which had protected him until now. He collects money for a rainy day, not realizing that he makes every day of his life a rainy day. Fornication, drunkenness, anger are obvious sins; and the love of money is an insidious, hidden sin, it is a baby snake that hides in the human heart, as in its hole, and grows, turning into a dragon.

A lover of money cannot love God, even if he fulfills long prayer rules, visited temples, traveled to holy places and even made some donations. He who has no hope in God has no trust in God, and love requires trust - it itself is trusting by nature.

The money lover loves no one and no one loves him. He plays at love and they play at love with him. The place of Judas’s grave is unknown - and the grave of the money-lover will soon be forgotten: it will smell the same cold as from his heart during life. Having deprived himself of love, the money lover deprived himself of warmth and light, his very soul became corpse-like.

Alexander the Great, dying, ordered his body to be placed in a crystal sarcophagus, with an empty palm facing upward, as a sign that the one who conquered half the world took nothing with him into eternity. If we could see in the spiritual plane a money lover lying in a coffin with an open hand, then we would imagine his palm filled with dirt, into which money - his idol - had turned.

The fate of the money lover is tartarus

The embryo first develops a heart - this is the center of its being; In a corpse, the heart is the last thing to decompose in the body. But the money lover has already killed his heart during his lifetime - it is eaten away by worms, and he passes into the afterlife with a soul filled with metaphysical darkness. There are two especially terrible places in hell: fiery Gehenna and Tartarus. There is no coolness in fiery Gehenna, there is no warmth in Tartarus - there is an eternal cold that permeates souls. The fate of the money lover is tartarus. Whoever extinguished love and mercy in himself during life will, after death, find himself in the realm of impenetrable cold, which is as terrible as fire; this cold pierces him through and through, like ice with its needles.

A money lover cannot love either his children or his parents. Although the voice of flesh and blood speaks in him, he has already given the main thing - his heart - to money and wealth. His children are deprived of what the children of the poor have - love. One writer has a story about how a famous mathematics professor was so stingy that he did not give his high school student even a change for travel. It was subsequently discovered that the son was stealing rare books from his father and selling them to second-hand booksellers, not only to get money, but to take revenge on his parent for his stinginess.

Pushkin has a short work, “The Miserly Knight,” which clearly shows the psychology and degradation of a person for whom the goal of life has become the acquisition of wealth. The stingy baron spares money for his own son so that he can acquire the weapons and clothes necessary for a knight, and goes so far as to accuse his son of attempted parricide before the duke. This drama ends with the father challenging his son to a duel and he accepts the challenge, because since childhood he has killed love and respect for his father in his heart.

Families of money lovers

A stingy husband interferes in all his wife's affairs; he checks expenses down to the smallest detail, asking how much something costs, and sadly shakes his head, as if it is his wife’s fault that prices are so high in the store and at the market. Usually wives do not like and despise stingy husbands. They would rather forgive carelessness and wastefulness than stinginess and pettiness, unworthy of a man. After all, deep down in her soul, until old age, a woman cherishes a romantic dream of a knight husband who would spare nothing for her sake. If she sees him as a cold businessman or huckster, she only tolerates him, despising him in her heart.

The situation is also no better if the wife is obsessed with the passion of stinginess. Her husband is in constant mental stress. He is afraid to spend time with friends, to invite his acquaintances to visit, because he knows that after this reproaches will begin, similar to the hissing of a snake. A stingy woman's house is messy and dirty. She doesn’t want to part with old and unnecessary things, and fills the corners of the apartment with them. Such a woman’s apartment resembles a junk shop, where there are a lot of unnecessary things thrown into a heap. If she has small children, then she buys them clothes that are too large for them, as if for several years in advance, so as not to buy new ones when they grow up. Stingy people usually have few children - one or two children, and sometimes they do not want to have them at all, like an extra mouth that would require additional costs. Poisoning often occurs in such a family, since the housewife feels sorry for throwing away spoiled food, and she prefers to risk her own and other people’s health.

Why are stingy people often single?

A stingy person often abandons marriage and family, not for the sake of abstinence and spiritual life, but because of the expenses associated with family. It seems to him a terrible picture that in his apartment it’s like in kindergarten Children will run and make noise, each of whom must be dressed, fed, put on shoes and taught. A significant part of infanticide occurs due to love of money and stinginess. Parents, having estimated the costs for each born child, come to the conclusion that such costs are not worth a human life.

It’s hard to repent of the love of money

The sin of love of money is one of those sins that is difficult for a person to repent of, because he himself despises this sin in others. At some moments he realizes its baseness, disgustingness and shame. It is easier for him to admit in confession to gluttony, fornication and pride, that he lied to friends, cheated on his wife and even killed a person, than that he could not sleep, worrying to the point of tears about the loss of an item or money that he lent, and they were delaying him with dedication. It is even more shameful to admit that he is suffering and bitterly regrets that under hot hand gave him an expensive thing, and now without this thing life seems empty to him, like after the loss of his most loved one. He rarely talks about this sin in confession, avoiding it, because he is afraid that the priest will give him penance so that he would fight the love of money, for example, give some part of his income to the poor. He may get sick from such a confession or hate the priest as an encroacher on his property. Therefore, a lover of money usually prefers that his passion, rooted in his heart, hide there until the Last Judgment, rather than tear out this poisonous plant with torment and pain.

Stinginess cannot be justified by asceticism

Some religious misers seek their passion in the most spiritual ascetic literature. Having read from the Monk Isaac of Syria and other ascetics that the highest mercy is not physical, but spiritual, which is most manifested in prayer for humanity, the miser seizes on this thought and decides that he has no need to light candles in the church, serve prosphora at the proskomedia, or help those in need. , but one prayer for humanity is enough. Passing by beggars, he mentally prays for them and does not stop to give out alms, so that, in his opinion, the mind would not deviate from God. He does not want to understand that prayer for peace requires self-denial and sacrifice, that for the highest feat it is necessary to go through lower stages, that constant prayer for peace is a burnt offering, which requires a long and difficult struggle with passions, including the love of money.

The love of money alienates us from our neighbors

The Lord teaches us to see our neighbor in every person. The love of money turns someone close to someone distant, then into a stranger, and then into an enemy. Love expands the heart, but the lover of money has narrowed his heart to the size of a wallet. Although he hides his passion, it is visible to people; it cannot but appear, just as a fire in a haystack or the stench of a dead rat rotting somewhere under the floor cannot be hidden.

The love of money can be combined with external virtues, but this is self-deception. The goal of virtue is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, but the heart of a money lover is in a state of paralysis and cannot perceive the grace of God - the invisible light. His inner life occurs on the mental, and not on the spiritual plane. He can rejoice in trips to holy places, experience temple prayer emotionally, even cry with tenderness, but the door of his heart is locked for Christ.

Love of money in the Gospel

The Gospel tells how a rich young man asked Christ how to be saved. The Lord replied: “Sell your property, give it to the poor and follow me.” He called the young man to the highest apostolic service, but he accepted this as a cruel sentence: the desire for eternal life faded, the heavenly treasure was rejected for the sake of the earthly. The young man thought that he had fulfilled the commandments Holy Scripture, but the demon of love of money made him his prisoner. Before him stood the One who embodied truth, salvation and eternal life, and the lover of money chose an idol made from the dust of the earth. The Lord once called to Adam: “Where are you?”, but Adam hid in the bushes, wanting to hide from the face of God; Christ said to the young man: “Follow Me,” but the money-lover turned away from Him and, bowing his head, walked away. Adam listened to the serpent and lost God; but the money lover listened to the demon and lost eternal life.

A lover of money may be distinguished by such virtues as fasting, prolonged prayer, reading the Holy Scriptures, pilgrimages to holy places, meekness in dealing with people, affection, etc. It is easier for him to re-read the entire Psalter than to perform a work of mercy, which would require expenses from him. He will read the Psalter, but will he understand what is said there? Will grace be grafted onto his soul when the idol of the love of money stands in his heart, as in the pagan temple of the image of Moloch and Baal?

A lover of money is like a suicide

Love expands the human heart; it makes him capable of responding like a tuning fork to human pain, empathizing with the suffering of others, and rejoicing in their joy. Love deepens a person's life. It reveals previously unknown containers and spaces of the soul. Whoever loves God, his soul becomes an abyss filled with light; whoever loves a person, his heart exudes warmth. In this regard, the money lover is a suicide: he has compressed and petrified his heart, deprived himself of spiritual light and real communication with God. He may experience an emotional uplift during prayer and worship, like inspiration, and even consider this a state of grace, but there is no grace there, but a refined spiritual experience, a feeling associated with passions, which has nothing in common with spiritual enlightenment. These are mental and emotional states combined with blood and flesh, and the lover of money exudes muddy tears from his eyes, dissolved with vanity.

A lover of money is a potential apostate from Christ. I was told the following incident. One young man lived as a novice for several years in a monastery, was blessed with monastic clothes, was distinguished by a quiet disposition, and the abbot expected him to be an exemplary monk. Rich relatives began to often visit the novice and talk about their affairs. Soon he became sad and told the abbot that he was not suitable for monastic life, but wanted to create a Christian family and have children. Without listening to anyone, he returned to the world and began doing business. He soon stopped going to the temple, and then a terrible misfortune befell him: during the division of income, a quarrel occurred between him and his companion, which turned into a fight, and the former novice inflicted a mortal wound on his former companion, from which he died on the spot. To avoid punishment, he managed to go abroad, and there was no more news about him. The love of money brought this man out of the monastery, forced him to engage in some dubious business, and then brought him to such a state that he became a murderer.

Love of money combined with vanity

Often the love of money is combined with its opposite passion - vanity. Then two demons attack the soul from both sides, each dragging it towards itself: but no matter which demon wins, the win is still Satan’s.

The love of money, combined with vanity, makes a person a constant artist and a liar; he makes generous promises that he does not fulfill, speaks of mercy, which he hates in his soul, does ostentatious good, but in the expectation that he will receive doubly.

Sharing as a type of love of money

There is also a type of love of money called greed. A person is always aimed at getting benefit from everything; he chooses friends based on profit, calculating how much someone is worth and what benefit can be derived from him. Such a person knows how to warm his hands even around charitable causes. Usually such money lovers are outwardly courteous, friendly and affectionate, but it’s all a mask: they look like a bird, with dove eyes and hawk claws.

The Bible says: “Alms cleanses all sin,” but only when it is accompanied by truth and repentance. The son of Sirach writes: “Better is a little with truth than a great thing with untruth.” If you give alms, you have gained a friend, and if you are repaid with ingratitude, then its price will double and triple, and the ingratitude of people will serve to save you. If you have given a debt, but they cannot or do not want to repay you, then perform another spiritual favor: accept it calmly and indifferently, as if you had moved a stone from one place to another.

Stinginess towards yourself

Is there some more special kind stinginess, when a person treats not only others, but himself as an enemy. Such a person deprives himself of the most necessary things: he dresses in old, already worn-out clothes, tries to buy cheap provisions, often spoiled and rotten, so as not to spend an extra penny from the treasury of his idol and master - the demon of love of money. This is some kind of special asceticism - to cut back and deprive yourself of everything in which and where it is possible; only asceticism is not for the sake of God, but for the sake of the demon, not to fight passions, but to serve one of these snakes.

Some money lovers keep money on their chests, afraid to part with it, in the place where the heart enslaved by passion beats, and at night they put the money under the pillow so that their family does not get to it. The favorite pastime of such a money lover is locking himself in a room, counting money, sorting and putting it into bundles, while he falls into some kind of ecstasy.

Usury as a type of love of money

The love of money is the sin of Judas

One is not born a money lover, one is made one. In the beginning, Judas was an apostle; he shared the difficulties and dangers of following his Divine Teacher. His fall did not begin immediately: he kept a donation cup, from which Christ’s disciples bought provisions and also gave alms to the poor. From there he started stealing money. The demon of the love of money deprived Judas of faith in Christ as the Savior of the world, and then completely took possession of him so that he betrayed his Teacher to death for 30 pieces of silver - the price of a slave.

The love of money is the sin of Judas, who from a disciple of Christ turned into a traitor and committed suicide. According to legend, the tree on which he hanged himself trembled with horror and disgust towards the corpse of the traitor. Every lover of money, to some extent, imitates the sin of Judas and condemns himself to the same fate in the future life - being in hell along with the fallen apostle. Saint John Chrysostom, in his sermon on the Gadarene demoniac, says that it is better to deal with a thousand demoniacs than with one money-lover, since none of the demoniacs ever dared to do what Judas did.

How to deal with the love of money?

The love of money must be fought from the very beginning, at its first manifestations. What are the means to combat this sin? First of all, memory of death. Righteous Job, having heard the news that all his property and children had perished, said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I will return. The Lord gave and the Lord took away; Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

A person who has realized the sin of love of money must force himself share with those in need. Some people, having done a good deed, then grumble and complain that they did not receive any gratitude or reciprocal favors in return. But to give for the sake of the Lord means to give freely, without expecting a return. He who gives in order to receive from another in return is like a money changer who cares about his own benefit and, having not received the profit he expected from the transaction, begins to be indignant and grumble.

The Lord allows misers to go broke

It must be said that the Lord often allows miserly Christians to go bankrupt in order to show how dangerous it is to rely on money, that wealth is a fickle friend that can leave a person at any time. Such miserly Christians, not understanding the providence of God, wonder why they pray a lot, but their affairs are worse than those of unbelievers.

In the Gospel, the Lord most severely denounced the Pharisees - these artists of goodness and actors of religion, who wrote sayings from the Law of Moses on the wide sleeves of their clothes in order to have them before their eyes, but in their hearts were written the words: love of money and vanity. You must force yourself by force of will to give alms, especially secret ones, and not tell anyone about it, either directly or in a hint. It will be difficult at first, like doing surgery on own body or burn yourself with a hot iron. But then a person begins to feel joy from the fact that he is fulfilling God’s commandment: he feels the touch of grace on his heart, which gives bright joy, and not dark pleasure, as when thinking about accumulated money. He begins to understand the words of the Savior that it is more blessed to give than to take. He feels the snake crawling out of his heart and thanks God, like a dying person, for returning to life.

Based on materials from an article by Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin), magazine "Holy Fire"

When asked what happiness is for a person, outstanding thinkers of all times, philosophers and poets noted in their works that the greatest happiness is to be able to love and be loved, and then, to have personal freedom, not to be a slave to anyone. Christians would clarify: one must love the Lord in order to properly love a person; and in order to be free and be able to use it correctly, you need to free yourself from your passions. Without this, freedom will be not only a great, but also a dangerous gift. Love is the good that passes into eternal life and becomes its main content; and freedom deepens and expands in communion with God, in the awareness of the royal dignity of man.

Love and love of money are not compatible. In the ascent of the soul to God, three steps can be noted: faith, hope and love. The love of money is the loss of hope in God and trust in money; this makes faith dim and love disappears. It seems to the lover of money that God’s providence will abandon him and he, impoverished, will die abandoned by everyone in this world, like a lonely traveler in the desert. It seems to him that the providence of God, which feeds even small chicks, will leave him sick and poor, that He who protects Israel will doze off and fall asleep. Therefore, a money lover grabs onto money as a lifeline in the whirlpools of life, as a panacea for all illnesses and misfortunes. He believes that with money in his bosom he will be safe in all circumstances, like a man hiding from enemies behind a fortress wall. He believes that wealth is the only friend he can rely on, and the rest, in fact, are only encroachers on his property. He expects that if he gets sick, money will be needed for his treatment; if famine comes, he will survive thanks to them, and when he dies, he will leave a will so that the money would be distributed to commemorate his soul, so that it will be useful to him even after death. Left to grow, the love of money turns into passion: a person collects money for the sake of money; Because of them, he is ready to sacrifice not only someone else’s life, but also his own.

The money lover forgot about the providence and help of God, which had protected him until now. It seems to him that God will “die” and he must take care in advance to provide for himself and his old age. He collects money for a rainy day, not realizing that he makes every day of his life a rainy day. Fornication, drunkenness, anger are obvious sins; and the love of money is an insidious, hidden sin, this is a baby snake that hid in the human heart, as if in its hole, and grows, turning into a dragon.

A money lover cannot love God, even if he fulfills long prayer rules, visits temples, travels to holy places, and even makes some kind of donations. He who has no hope in God has no trust in God, and love requires trust - it itself is trusting by nature.

Money lovers are despised by their own children. And here we see a certain paradox: either children grow up to be as greedy and petty as their parents, who tremble over every coin, or, on the contrary, wasteful, as if out of revenge on those who during their lifetime did not warm them with their warmth, but left an inheritance only because I couldn't take it to the grave. If parents grow up with stingy children, then the same picture is repeated, only turned upside down. Children look at elderly parents as parasites, as a tax that they must unfairly pay, as a hole in the household budget where their money goes, which could be used for more necessary things. Parents feel, or rather they are shown, that they are a burden to their children, that the sooner they die, the better, and the day of their death will become a gift for their children; parents in own home they become like wanderers who were sheltered out of mercy for the night, and who stayed longer than expected.

The picture of life for such spouses is no better. A stingy husband interferes in all his wife's affairs; he checks expenses down to the smallest detail, asking how much something costs, and sadly shakes his head, as if it is his wife’s fault that prices are so high in the store and at the market. Usually wives do not like and despise stingy husbands. They would rather forgive carelessness and wastefulness than stinginess and pettiness, unworthy of a man. After all, deep down in her soul, until old age, a woman cherishes a romantic dream of a knight husband who would spare nothing for her sake. If she sees him as a cold businessman or huckster, she only tolerates him, despising him in her heart.

A stingy woman's house is messy and dirty. She doesn’t want to part with old and unnecessary things, and fills the corners of the apartment with them. Moreover, if she sees a nail or nut on the road, she will pick it up and bring it into the house: why - she doesn’t know herself, maybe someday it will come in handy. Even taking out the trash is associated with her anxiety, as if something might end up in the trash: after all, a crumpled newspaper or piece of cardboard may be needed around the house! Such a woman’s apartment resembles a junk shop, where there are a lot of unnecessary things thrown into a heap. If she has small children, then she buys them clothes that are too large for them, as if for several years in advance, so as not to buy new ones when they grow up. Stingy people usually have few children - one or two children, and sometimes they do not want to have them at all, as an extra mouth that would require additional expenses. Poisoning often occurs in such a family, since the housewife feels sorry for throwing away spoiled food, and she prefers to risk her own and other people’s health.

A stingy person often abandons marriage and family, not for the sake of abstinence and spiritual life, but because of the expenses associated with family. It seems to him a terrible picture that in his apartment, as in a kindergarten, children will run and make noise, each of whom needs to be dressed, fed, put on shoes and taught. A significant part of infanticide occurs due to love of money and stinginess. Parents, having estimated the costs of each child born, come to the conclusion that such costs are not worth a human life.

The sin of love of money is one of those sins that is difficult for a person to repent of, because he himself despises this sin in others. At some moments he realizes its baseness, disgustingness and shame. It is easier for him to admit in confession to gluttony, fornication and pride, that he lied to friends, cheated on his wife and even killed a person, than that he could not sleep, worrying to tears about the loss of the thing or money that he lent, and they were slowing him down. with dedication. It’s even more shameful to admit that he is tormented and bitterly regrets that he gave an expensive thing under a hot hand, and now without this thing life seems empty to him, as after the loss of his most loved one. He rarely talks about this sin in confession, avoiding it, because he is afraid that the priest will give him penance so that he would fight the love of money, for example, give some part of his income to the poor. He may get sick from such a confession or hate the priest as an encroacher on his property. Therefore, a lover of money usually prefers that his passion, rooted in his heart, hide there until the Last Judgment, rather than tear out this poisonous plant with torment and pain.

A person hides and hides the passion of love of money from himself. He tries to justify his stinginess with justice and integrity: “I would rather give money to the poor and beggars than to drunkards and slackers.” But usually this money does not reach the poor. For the stingy, beggars are enemies from whom one must hide or pretend to be poor.

Some misers believe that they do not need to buy candles and prosphora, give alms to the poor, or make donations to the temple, since they are busy with higher work - prayer for peace. However, this is self-deception. Even the apostles gave alms from the little they had. The believing miser is in a state of continuous internal contradiction: he reads teachings on alms as if with blind eyes and listens to the sermon as if deaf. He does not help those in need financially, considering it sufficient if he prays for them. If he decides to give alms, then he gives unnecessary thing or something that needs to be thrown away, and believes that he has fulfilled the gospel commandment.

Another paradox: some religious misers seek their passion in the most spiritual ascetic literature. Having read from the Monk Isaac of Syria and other ascetics that the highest mercy is not physical, but spiritual, which is most manifested in prayer for humanity, the miser seizes on this thought and decides that he has no need to light candles in the church, serve prosphora at the proskomedia, or help those in need. , but one prayer for humanity is enough. Passing by beggars, he mentally prays for them and does not stop to give out alms, so that, in his opinion, the mind would not deviate from God. He does not want to understand that prayer for peace requires self-denial and sacrifice, that for the highest feat it is necessary to go through lower stages, that constant prayer for peace is a burnt offering, which requires a long and difficult struggle with passions, including the love of money.

The demon laughs at such a prayer book, sitting in a puddle and dreaming of the glory of the ancient hermits, as at a small child who considers himself a commander, waving a wooden sword. Such misers read spiritual literature with enthusiasm, like novels, but do not understand that whoever knows more will be asked more strictly. Reading, without actually doing it, only puffs up a person’s mind. But for the most part, the miser does not read or think about such objects, but, seeing a beggar, pretends not to notice him and quickly passes by.

For an unbeliever, this problem does not exist: he is sure that he does not owe anything to anyone. If a believer who is a lover of money, deceiving himself, loses communion with God, then an unbeliever deprives himself of even that little that embellishes earthly life: he stops admiring nature, he is not pleased by the light of the sun, the shine of countless stars that sparkle like scatterings of diamonds does not tell his heart anything. the black abyss of the sky. He may rather wonder how much the sun and stars would sell for if they were put up for auction.

The love of money can be combined with external virtues, but this is self-deception. The goal of virtue is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, but the heart of a money lover is in a state of paralysis and cannot perceive the grace of God - the invisible light. His inner life takes place on the mental, and not on the spiritual plane. He can rejoice in trips to holy places, experience temple prayer emotionally, even cry with tenderness, but the door of his heart is locked for Christ.

The Gospel tells how a rich young man asked Christ how to be saved. The Lord replied: “Sell your property, give it to the poor and follow me.” He called the young man to the highest apostolic service, but he accepted this as a cruel sentence: the desire for eternal life faded, the heavenly treasure was rejected for the sake of the earthly. The young man thought that he had fulfilled the commandments of the Holy Scripture, but the demon of love of money made him his captive. Before him stood the One who embodied truth, salvation and eternal life, and the lover of money chose an idol made from the dust of the earth. The Lord once called to Adam: “Where are you?”, but Adam hid in the bushes, wanting to hide from the face of God; Christ said to the young man: “Follow Me,” but the money-lover turned away from Him and, bowing his head, walked away. Adam listened to the serpent and lost God; but the money lover listened to the demon and lost eternal life.

The life of Saint Andrew the Fool of Constantinople tells about a monk distinguished by his ascetic life, to whom many people came as a great elder for instruction. But the Monk Andrew saw with his spiritual eyes that the monk’s body was entwined with a snake, on which was written “love of money.” He exposed this imaginary ascetic in his secret passion, for the sake of which he performed feats, accepting abundant alms from people. The monk was horrified and repented. But most often, money lovers hate the one who tells them that their condition is disastrous: like a hungry dog bites the hand of someone who is trying to take away a poisoned piece of meat from it.

The money lover is deprived of freedom, he is a slave and a prisoner of his passion. A money lover is always worried: how to get money, how to save it and not lose it. He is chained to them with an invisible chain and cannot mentally part with his unfaithful friend and cruel master. Money fused with him, entered his being, stuck to his body, like the sores of a leper; he cannot free himself from this illness, or rather, he does not want to: parting with money is as difficult and painful for him as cutting out a piece of his own body with his own hand.

There was one incident during the persecution of Christians in Persia. Priest Paul and several nuns, his disciples, were brought to trial. They hid in the desert, but the pagans found them there. Paul was a rich man, and during the persecution his greatest worry was what would happen to his property. The trial has begun. The virgins confessed Christ, refused to renounce their faith and were sentenced to death. It was Pavel's turn. The judge knew that he was a rich man and was glad that there was now a reason to confiscate his property. He asked Paul the same question he asked the nuns: was he a Christian? For the sin of love of money, grace departed from the former priest, his faith disappeared, and he said to the judge: “ What Christ, I don’t know any Christ, but if you command, I will renounce him" The judge was taken aback by such a surprise, saw that the prey was slipping out of his hands, and he himself began to persuade Paul to be courageous, like his spiritual daughters. But Paul answered him: “If the king commands us to offer sacrifices to the gods, then I am ready to fulfill it.”

The judge became angry at these words, because after the sacrifice he had to release Paul, and then he came up with another trick and said: “ To prove to us that you are not a Christian, take a sword and cut off the heads of the condemned virgins yourself." Pavel was horrified. But the love of money won. With a trembling hand, he took the sword and approached the nuns to put them to death. " What are you doing father?- they said, - we are not afraid of death, and so we are sentenced to it, but have pity on your soul, remember how long we were in the desert, how many hardships you endured, how much we prayed together. Don't become our executioner" But he, as if maddened, rushed with a sword at his victims and killed them. Again the judge saw that he could not legally seize Paul’s property, and said to him: “ I must tell the king about your feat so that he himself rewards you.- and ordered him to be sent to prison, and at night he ordered the guards to kill Paul and thus took possession of his estate.

Often the love of money is combined with its opposite passion - vanity. Then two demons attack the soul from both sides, each dragging it towards itself: but no matter which demon wins, the win is still Satan’s.

One person had a significant income. He went to churches, visited monasteries, asked about needs, promised to help, and then disappeared somewhere. After a while he came back looking as if he had forgotten everything he had said and promised. And if they reminded him, he referred to being busy and assured that he would do everything at the slightest opportunity.

One day they began to restore a dilapidated temple. People took part in the work as best they could, and this man told the abbot over the meal that he would undertake the construction of the fence and would pay for the material. Those who did not know this man almost clapped their hands for him, and those who knew remained silent, doubting his words. The abbot turned out to be a trusting man, he postponed the construction of the fence and began to wait for what was promised, like the return of a ship from a long voyage. Time passed. Work has stopped. People, having learned what was the matter, demanded that this man fulfill his promise. It ended with him buying unusable, damaged blocks somewhere and bringing them to the temple. When they were unloaded, it turned out that they were broken, cracked and not suitable for construction. In general, the matter ended with the abbot having to spend money to remove these blocks and throw them in a landfill.

Once a certain person with visiting guests visited the temple and asked that a prayer service be served. After finishing the prayer service, he took out large bill, showed the priest and the guests, asked where the money mug was, and walked up to it, holding money in his hands, and then returned with a satisfied expression on his face. The cleaning lady approached the priest and said quietly: “ Father, I saw how this man quickly changed the money and put one ruble in a mug and hid the rest" The priest replied: “ Don't say anything, don't embarrass him in front of visiting people. I know these hypocrites, he put on a show, and maybe at first he wanted to put it down, but at the last minute his heart ached».

There is also a type of love of money called businessmanship. A person is always aimed at getting benefit from everything; he chooses friends based on profit, calculating how much someone is worth and what benefit can be derived from him. Such a person knows how to warm his hands even around charitable causes. Usually such money lovers are outwardly courteous, friendly and affectionate, but it’s all a mask: they look like a bird, with dove eyes and hawk claws.

The Bible says: " Alms cleanses all sin“, but when it is associated with truth and repentance. The son of Sirach writes: “ Better a little with truth than a great with untruth" If you give alms, you have gained a friend, and if you are repaid with ingratitude, then its price will double and triple, and the ingratitude of people will serve to save you. If you have given a debt, but they cannot or do not want to repay you, then perform another spiritual favor: accept it calmly and indifferently, as if you had moved a stone from one place to another.

The love of money is always associated with mistrust, anxiety, condemnation, fear of losing and the desire to acquire more. The belly of a glutton and the heart of a money-lover will never say enough is enough.

There is also a special type of stinginess when a person treats not only others, but himself as an enemy. Such a person deprives himself of the most necessary things: he dresses in old, already worn-out clothes, tries to buy cheap provisions, often spoiled and rotten, so as not to spend an extra penny from the treasury of his idol and master - the demon of love of money. This is some kind of special asceticism - to cut back and deprive yourself of everything in which and where it is possible; only asceticism is not for the sake of God, but for the sake of the demon, not to fight passions, but to serve one of these snakes.

There are shameful professions: one of them is an executioner, the other is a moneylender. Usury is the most disgusting form of love of money. If the executioner takes a person’s life with one blow or shot, then the moneylender slowly drinks the blood of his victim. A moneylender is a man with a lost heart. In both Christianity and Islam, usury is prohibited, and yet it exists, because the passion of love of money makes a person forget about reward after death and his own soul. The love of money, more than need, encourages unhappy people to sell their bodies as goods in the market. Because of the love of money, gambling houses are opened like wolf pits into which a careless traveler ends up. How many curses lie on these brothels and casinos, how many ruined people commit suicide. Because of the love of money appeared the new kind enrichment - drug trafficking. This white poison destroys the talents and strength of a person, breaks up families, makes people incapable of work, kills in them the feeling of pity and love even for their relatives, turns a person into a beast who is ready to do anything just to get a drug, without which he cannot imagine life.

The love of money is a worm that, having penetrated the human heart, quickly turns into a snake. The Holy Fathers write that the passion of love of money is alien human nature, it is brought from the outside, and therefore at first it is easier to overcome than other passions, but if it takes root in the soul, it becomes more powerful than all the passions taken together. Just as a vine, twining around a trunk, feeds on the sap of a tree and dries it up, so the passion of the love of money enslaves the will, drinks the strength of the soul and devastates the human heart.

The love of money must be fought from the very beginning, at its first manifestations. What are the means to combat this sin? First of all, the memory of death. Righteous Job, having heard the news that all his property and children had perished, said: “ Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I will return. The Lord gave and the Lord took away; Blessed be the name of the Lord!».

A person who has realized the sin of love of money must force himself by willpower to first give what he needs little, and when he experiences the joy of this even small good deed and is convinced that it is better to give than to take, then he can later willingly share even what is necessary with those in need . Some people, having done a good deed, then grumble and complain that they did not receive any gratitude or reciprocal favors in return. But to give for the sake of the Lord means to give freely, without expecting a return. He who gives in order to receive from another in return is like a money changer who cares about his own benefit and, having not received the profit he expected from the transaction, begins to be indignant and grumble.

There is no loss in beneficence. Through man, Christ takes alms, Who promised to repay the giver a hundredfold. By giving to the poor, especially from your own poverty, you can boldly say that you are making Christ Himself a debtor, and the debt does not disappear after Him. If people repay you with ingratitude or even evil for good, then in the eyes of God's gift yours has increased many times over. It has been noticed that many money lovers die suddenly, without having time to repent. Often the wealth they accumulate is quickly and wasted by their heirs. It is also significant that after their death almost no one prays for money lovers, their names are quickly forgotten, and their graves are overgrown with grass.

This sin is especially disgusting among Christians. It must be said that the Lord often allows miserly Christians to go bankrupt in order to show how dangerous it is to rely on money, that wealth is a fickle friend that can leave a person at any time. Such miserly Christians, not understanding the providence of God, wonder why they pray a lot, but their affairs are worse than those of unbelievers.

Greed and stinginess are connected to each other. Greed wants to seize what belongs to others, stinginess is afraid to give up what is its own. We can say that greed is active stinginess, and stinginess is passive greed.

There is another type of love of money - this pettiness, when it is just as painful for a money lover to suffer a small loss as a large one. There are even paradoxical cases when such a person experiences significant losses more calmly than small ones, just as bleeding wounds are easier than injections.

What should money lovers do to overcome this passion? First of all, remember about death, which will take everything away from a person, and about the Last Judgment, at which this destructive passion will be exposed to the whole world.

In the Gospel, the Lord most severely denounced the Pharisees - these artists of goodness and actors of religion, who wrote sayings from the Law of Moses on the wide sleeves of their clothes in order to have them before their eyes, but in their hearts were written the words: love of money and vanity. You must force yourself by force of will to give alms, especially secret ones, and not tell anyone about it, either directly or in a hint. At first it will be difficult, like performing an operation on your own body or cauterizing yourself with a hot iron. But then a person begins to feel joy from the fact that he is fulfilling God’s commandment: he feels the touch of grace on his heart, which gives bright joy, and not dark pleasure, as when thinking about accumulated money. He begins to understand the words of the Savior that it is more blessed to give than to take. He feels the snake crawling out of his heart and thanks God, like a dying person, for returning to life.

Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin)

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