Insatiable desire makes the rich poor

But you say you are poor, and I agree. For a poor man is one who lacks many things, and the insatiable nature of desire makes you lack many things. You are eager to add ten more talents to your ten; when they become twenty, you seek another twenty, and what is added never stops your impulse but kindles your appetite. Just as for drunkards the addition of wine becomes an occasion for more drinking, so the newly rich, after acquiring much, desire more, feeding the disease with each addition, and their eagerness turns to the opposite. For what they have, great as it is, does not gladden them as much as what they lack grieves them, whatever they imagine is missing; so their soul is always wasting away with cares, as they carry their rivalry beyond all measure. They ought to rejoice and give thanks for being wealthier than so many, but they are distressed and tormented because they fall short of one or two of the super-rich. When they overtake this rich man, they immediately contend to equal the richer one; and if they reach him, they transfer their eagerness to the next. Just as those climbing ladders always lift their foot to the step above and do not stop until they reach the top, so these people do not cease their rush for power until, raised high, they hurl themselves down from a great height. The Creator of all things devised the seleucis bird to be insatiable for the benefit of human beings; but you have devised your own soul to be insatiable for the harm of many. Whatever the eye sees, the greedy person desires. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the money-lover with taking (Ecclesiastes 5:10 [4:8 LXX]). Hades never said, “Enough,” and the greedy person never said, “Enough.” When will you use what you have? When will you enjoy it, always gripped by the labors of acquisition? Woe to those who join house to house and bring field near field, so that they may take something from their neighbor (Isaiah 5:8). And what do you do? Do you not make countless pretexts to take your neighbor’s property? “My neighbor’s house blocks my light,” he says, “it causes disturbances,” or “it shelters runaways,” or whatever charge he happens to make, driving out, pushing out, always dragging and tearing, he does not stop until he brings upon them the necessity of moving away. What killed Naboth the Jezreelite? Was it not Ahab’s desire for the vineyard? A wicked fellow citizen in the city, wicked in the fields, is the greedy person. The sea knows its boundaries; the night does not overstep its ancient limits. But the greedy person does not respect time, does not recognize a boundary, does not allow the order of succession, but imitates the force of fire: it seizes everything, it devours everything. And just as rivers, rushing from a small first beginning, then with gradual additions taking on irresistible growth, sweep away whatever stands in their path by the violence of their current, so those who have advanced to great power, taking from those already oppressed the ability to wrong more people, enslave the remaining ones through those already wronged, and their abundance of wickedness becomes for them an increase of power. For those who have already suffered evil, providing forced assistance, join in carrying out the harms and injustices against others. For what neighbor, what fellow citizen, what business partner is not swept away? Nothing withstands the violence of wealth. Everything bows to its tyranny, everything cowers before its power, since each of the wronged has more reason not to suffer again than to get justice for what has already happened. He drives his teams of oxen, plows, sows, and harvests what does not belong to him. If you speak against it, there are beatings; if you lament, charges of insult; you are hauled away, you will live in prison, the sycophants are ready, as they put you in danger of your life. You will be glad, by giving something more, to be rid of troubles.