Greed, also called “avarice,” is the intense and excessive desire for money and material goods. The earliest Christians were at one in condemning it as sinful rather than a trait beneficial for individuals and society as a whole. These early believers were much closer than we are to the writing of the New Testament and to the unwritten teachings and Bible interpretations of Jesus and His apostles; thus, their perspective should carry some weight.
According to the Apostle Paul, “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). Polycarp of Smyrna was a pastor-bishop and martyr of the first half of the second century. He had known the Apostle John and other early disciples and he repeated this statement in a letter to a Christian congregation. The Christian Sibylline Oracles, a work bearing the name of a pagan prophetess into which early believers had inserted Christian ideals and values, also said that such love is the source of all evil.
Even the desire to accumulate a lot of money is sinful. According to Paul, “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9). The Sibylline Oracles called it a double-edged sword that destroys the spirit.
The New Testament contains other instructions about avarice. First Corinthians 5:9-11 condemns associating with greedy people, especially greedy Christians. It includes the greedy in the same category as idol-worshippers, the sexually immoral, and robbers. Second Corinthians 6:10 states flatly that the greedy will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Hebrews 13:5 exhorts, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have.” Second Peter condemns those who from the motive of avarice exploited Christians with false stories they invented (2:3). It also states, “they are experts trained in greed-an accursed brood!” (2:14).
The early church father who said most against greed was Origen, a preacher, teacher, and author active in the first half of the third century. His Commentary on Romans and sermons on various books of the Bible include over forty-seven disapproving references to avarice. He called greed “most offensive” and considered it as bad as false testimony and violence. He said it is a vice that should be restrained and avoided. Origen preached that Christians should overcome avarice and exterminate it from their land. He warned his hearers not to be harassed by thoughts of it. He further said that avarice violates the Christian virtue of generosity because the greedy shut their hearts from brothers and sisters in need. He opined that avarice is the source of many disputes and quarrels and that it impairs the mental faculties. He even went so far as to say that greed is worse than idolatry and that Jesus does not love those who even think of avarice.
Other early Christian writers disapproved of avarice. Among them was Origen’s predecessor as Dean of the world’s foremost Christian educational institution, Clement of Alexandria. He opined that greed was a symptom of uncontrolled appetite. A second-century collection of “sayings for the Christian life” considered that it demonstrated an excessive love of body. Writing during the earlier part of Origen’s ministry, the church father Tertullian condemned the person who esteems money more than charity to the poor.
Nearly a dozen other writings from the first two centuries of Christianity regarded greed as inconsistent with a Christian lifestyle.
Avarice was seen as an evil not only for its effects on other people but also because it harmed the greedy themselves. Origen called avarice a “sickness of the soul” for which people should come to Jesus for healing. He deplored as unhealthy “lovers of money wholly intent on money and on preserving and gathering it,” whose greed impaired them like sleep “drowsy in their reflections” and existing in “an atmosphere of vain and dream-like fancies.”
Origen’s student Gregory the Wonder Worker called for pity on the person “who is left entirely alone, having neither brother nor son, but prospered with large possessions, lives on in the spirit of insatiable avarice, and refuses to give himself in any way whatever to goodness.” Gregory wrote that such a person is “full of terror to himself.”
A teacher of all believers, Paul the Apostle, wrote in 1 Timothy 6:10: “Some people, eager for money, have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” Ministers especially are to be on guard against greed. According to 1 Timothy 3:3 a pastor-bishop is to be “not a lover of money.” Titus 1:7 prohibits a pastor-bishop from “pursuing dishonest gain.” Origen echoed this in his Commentary on Romans and Polycarp did likewise in his Letter to the Philippians. Perhaps because they handled the money in the early church, deacons were also singled out not to be lovers of money, as it is phrased in some English translations in1 Timothy 3:8.
The early writers exhorted Christians to avoid even temptations to avarice. Origen counsels us not to attend amusements that would inflame our souls to be greedy. Along with the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 5:9-11) he tells us not to be friends or partners with the greedy or even to eat with them. This is particularly the case if the greedy person is a Christian (1 Corinthians 5:11). Second Timothy 3:2-5 also instructs Christians to avoid “lovers of money.”
Thus we have ample witnesses from the early church that avarice is a dreadful or even pitiable vice, especially because it has a negative impact on the greedy persons themselves and on those whom their avarice prevents them from helping. On the one hand, some believe that the selfish, single-minded pursuit of money by every individual will result in a prosperous society and world. On the other, we have the apostles, the church fathers, and other early saints who unanimously condemned this course of action as sin. Which do you choose?
