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| That Jupiter is Also Called Pecunia.
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Chapter 12.—That Jupiter is Also
Called Pecunia.
How elegantly they have accounted
for this name! “He is also called Pecunia,” say they,
“because all things belong to him.” Oh how grand an
explanation of the name of a deity! Yes; he to whom all things
belong is most meanly and most contumeliously called Pecunia. In
comparison of all things which are contained by heaven and earth,
what are all things together which are possessed by men under the
name of money?274
| 274 Pecunia,that is, property; the original meaning of
pecunia being property in cattle, then property or wealth of
any kind. Comp. Augustin, De discipl. Christ.
6. | And this
name, forsooth, hath avarice given to Jupiter, that whoever was a
lover of money might seem to himself to love not an ordinary god,
but the very king of all things himself. But it would be a far
different thing if he had been called Riches. For riches are one
thing, money another. For we call rich the wise, the just, the
good, who have either no money or very little. For they are more
truly rich in possessing virtue, since by it, even as
re
spects things necessary for the body, they are content
with what they have. But we call the greedy poor, who are always
craving and always wanting. For they may possess ever so great an
amount of money; but whatever be the abundance of that, they are
not able but to want. And we properly call God Himself rich; not,
however, in money, but in omnipotence. Therefore they who have
abundance of money are called rich, but inwardly needy if they are
greedy. So also, those who have no money are called poor, but
inwardly rich if they are wise.
What, then, ought the wise man to
think of this theology, in which the king of the gods receives the
name of that thing “which no wise man has desired?”275
| 275 Sallust, Catil. c.
11. | For had
there been anything wholesomely taught by this philosophy
concerning eternal life, how much more appropriately would that god
who is the ruler of the world have been called by them, not money,
but wisdom, the love of which purges from the filth of avarice,
that is, of the love of money!E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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