Article II. On avarice

416. Notion. Avarice, philargyria, is the immoderate love of having possessions or riches.⁵⁰ Such love is disordered a) if riches are acquired not from an honorable end, but from a disordered love of money, which takes delight in heaped-up wealth; b) if riches are acquired with excessive solicitude, so that a man thinks of and desires almost nothing else except temporal gain to be made (Habsucht); c) if riches are retained with excessive parsimony, so that a man deprives himself and his own of things necessary according to the fittingness of his state (Geiz). - Avarice is found not only in the rich but also sometimes in the poor. Ordinarily and rightly it is said that avarice is a vice proper to old men, who often are too tenacious of money and are filled with immoderate care for future necessities. Rarely are young men given to avarice, but rather to the opposite vice of prodigality.

⁵⁰ Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 118, a. 2.

417. Malice. Sometimes it can be discerned with great difficulty whether cupidity for temporal things is illicit or licit. Then such cupidity is certainly sinful when it induces a certain true servitude toward money. Hence sinful avarice is called by St. Paul "the service of idols,"⁵¹ and Christ admonishes: "You cannot serve God and mammon."⁵² But as to discerning the degree of sinfulness, a distinction is needed: avarice which is opposed to justice is from its genus a mortal sin; but that which is opposed only to the virtue of liberality is a venial sin from its genus.⁵³ For avarice can be considered in two ways: in one way, insofar as someone acquires and preserves temporal goods beyond what is due, by stealing or retaining the things of others, for example by an unjust monopoly or syndicate demanding unjust prices for merchandise. Of itself it is clear that such avarice is a mortal sin, since not only the virtue of liberality but also the virtue of justice is thereby injured. Indeed there arises an obligation of restitution on account of justice injured. - In another way avarice is opposed only to the virtue of liberality, insofar as, with the virtue of justice preserved, it induces an exaggerated love of temporal goods. Such avarice, because it is only an excess in love of a thing indifferent and licit according to itself, is not so gravely repugnant to right reason and divine law, and is from its genus a venial sin; nevertheless it can become mortal if "the love of riches grows to such an extent that it is preferred to charity, so that, namely, on account of love of riches someone does not fear to act against the love of God and neighbor,"⁵⁴ as for example to commit perjury, not to hear Mass on a feast day, not to assist the poor who are in grave or extreme necessity.

Avarice is a very base sin, because it is altogether repugnant to the dignity of man that he should be a servant of mammon. Consequently an avaricious man is wont to be despised and held in hatred by all. Hence also it is said: "Nothing is more wicked than to love money; for such a one also has his soul for sale, because in his life he has cast away his inmost things,"⁵⁵ and: "They that will become rich fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition; for cupidity is the root of all evils."⁵⁶

⁵¹ Eph. 5, 5.

⁵² Matth. 6, 24.

⁵³ Cf. S. theol. l. c. a. 4.

⁵⁴ Ib.

⁵⁵ Eccli. 10, 10.

⁵⁶ 1 Tim. 6, 9 sq.

418. Daughters of avarice. By St. Gregory⁵⁷ the following seven vices are assigned as flowing from avarice and serving it: hardness of heart, restlessness, violence, fallacy, perjury, fraud, betrayal.

1. Hardness of heart⁵⁸ toward the poor and neighbors, whom the avaricious man treats without mercy, by not assisting them, by compelling them to pay debts even if they are unequal to it.

2. Restlessness, that is, superfluous and tormenting care for goods to be acquired and for acquired goods to be preserved.

3. Violence, that is, a brutal manner for acquiring goods.

4. and 5. Fallacy and fraud, that is, deceit done either by word or by deed for deceiving one's neighbor and for acquiring money. Many so-called modern "stock-exchange speculations" are stained by fallacies and frauds.

5. Perjury. Since the avaricious man is a servant of mammon, he is deterred by no crime, not even by perjury, in order to seize gain.

6. Betrayal, of which Judas Iscariot, given to avarice, offers the sad example.

⁵⁷ Moral. l. 31, c. 45 (Migne, Patr. lat. 76, 162).

⁵⁸ Hartherzigkeit, hardheartedness.

419. Remedies against avarice are: 1. Meditation on the vanity of all earthly goods. Hence Christ admonishes: "Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where rust and moth destroy, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth destroys, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.... Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you."⁵⁹ Besides, all earthly goods are so unstable and transitory; death comes and separates man from all riches.⁶⁰ 2. Meditation on the example of Christ, who, though he was rich, became needy for us, that by his poverty we might be rich.⁶¹ In his whole earthly life, from the manger even to the cross, Christ always exercised poverty. 3. Works of liberality and charity, for example the giving of alms, donations. - Besides, the vice of avarice is cured with greatest difficulty, both because it creeps in secretly under the pretext of prudent care concerning the future, so that few avaricious men recognize their avarice, and because it flatters under the name of virtue and induces an almost ineluctable servitude.

⁵⁹ Matth. 6, 19 sqq., 33.

⁶⁰ Cf. Luc. 12, 20 sq.

⁶¹ Cf. 2 Cor. 8, 9.