How can one approve those who seem to dominate in this world, if they do less than they can? The Scripture praises precisely the one "who could have sinned but did not, who did not run after gold." Gold must follow you, and not you gold. In fact, gold is a good thing—certainly God created nothing evil. Don't you be evil, then, and the gold good. See here, I place some gold between an upright person and a dishonest one. If the dishonest person takes it, the poor are oppressed, magistrates corrupted, laws broken, social life upset. Why? Because a dishonest person took the gold. If the upright person were to have it, the poor would be sustained, the naked clothed, the oppressed liberated, prisoners redeemed. How much good is derived from the gold the honest person has, and how many evils from the gold of the dishonest person! To what end, therefore, do you say in disgust, "And what if gold did not exist at all?" You should not love gold. If you are dishonest, you will follow gold. If you are upright, it will follow you. What does "it will follow you" mean? That you will rule it and not be made its servant, because you will possess it, rather than being possessed by it.

Herein we ought to be imitators of the disciples, that when any question of doubt arises among us, and we find not how to settle it, We should with one consent go to Jesus, Who is able to enlighten the hearts of men to the explication of every perplexity. We shall also consult some of the doctors, who are thought most eminent in the Churches. But in that they asked this question, the disciples knew that there was not an equality among the saints in the kingdom of heaven; what they yet sought to learn was, how they were so, and lived as greater and less. Or, from what the Lord had said above, they knew Who was the best and who was great; but out of many great, who was the greatest, this Was not clear to them.