Behold, imperious greed commands us that, making light of divine things, we should ponder the ruinous gains of earthly possessions, that we should place all our solicitude and care in them, that we should boast of them with a diseased vanity, that, puffed up by the greatness of a more far-reaching patrimony, we should neglect to become poor in spirit. O unheard-of crime! Despising the sweet yoke of Christ, we take up by a voluntary inclination of mind the iron rule of greed; and, having set aside our Lord's light burden, which does not oppress its subjects but lifts them up, we heap upon our necks a leaden weight, which can be laid down more quickly than borne:
for greed itself, which lays this weight upon us who are willing of our own accord to be subjected to it, can be despised more easily than satisfied; and therefore those who have willingly given themselves over to it as it assaults will no longer have the will to resist it as it tyrannically domineers. And this comes about by the just judgment of God, that we who were unwilling to resist greed as it was entering can no longer resist it once it has entered. O the servitude of a mind miserably overcome, to be lamented wretchedly! O the intolerable rule of demonic greed! which, out of its own enemies whom it can conquer, makes its own conquerors; it promises huge things, and, deceiving by the promise of temporal goods, drives the wretched and pitiable into base deeds.
It holds us bound in chains of gains that are penally sweet, and captive under its dominion; nor does it drag us unwilling, but, what is worse, wherever it wishes, it leads us willing. It lays waste in us whatever of modesty and shame it finds; and those whom it has already bound to its triumphs it disarms with all the forces of honor, suspecting them as it were of coming to their senses: lest at any time we should rebel against it, against whom we were unwilling to wage war. It snatches us away, and scatters us, greedy of acquiring, far and wide through every kind of acquisition. It permits the soul no freedom, nor the body any stability, the soul wandering restlessly, nor the body at rest;
and like certain corpses cast out as food for the wild birds and beasts, it hands over its captives to the unclean spirits, not to be torn, but to be devoured by the most greedy jaws of deadly crimes; and yet not so that they may cease to be, but that they may live in punishment. In short, they carry about their own funerals in bodies still living, that is, at once living and dead. Hence it is that, while living in sin, we feel by the very delight of enjoying carnal things how much the increase of heaped-up wealth gratifies us; and how great a poverty of virtues we endure, being as it were dead to the virtues, we do not perceive.