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How elegantly they have accounted for this name! "He is also called
Pecunia," say they, "because all things belong to him." Oh how
grand an explanation of the name of a deity! Yes; he to whom all
things belong is most meanly and most contumeliously called Pecunia.
In comparison of all things which are contained by heaven and earth,
what are all things together which are possessed by men under the name
of money? And this name, forsooth, hath avarice given to Jupiter,
that whoever was a lover of money might seem to himself to love not an
ordinary god, but the very king of all things himself. But it would
be a far different thing if he had been called Riches. For riches are
one thing, money another. For we call rich the wise, the just, the
good, who have either no money or very little. For they are more
truly rich in possessing virtue, since by it, even as re spects things
necessary for the body, they are content with what they have. But we
call, the greedy poor, who are always craving and always wanting.
For they may possess ever so great an amount of money; but whatever be
the abundance of that, they are not able but to want. And we properly
call God Himself rich; not, however, in money, but in
omnipotence. Therefore they who have abundance of money are called
rich, but inwardly needy if they are greedy. So also, those who have
no money are called poor, but inwardly rich if they are wise.
What, then, ought the wise man to think of this theology, in which
the king of the gods receives the name of that thing "which no wise man
has desired?" For had there been anything wholesomely taught by this
philosophy concerning eternal life, how much more appropriately would
that god who is the ruler of the world have been called by them, not
money, but wisdom, the love of which purges from the filth of
avarice, that is, of the love of money!
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