Anf-03 v.iv.v.xxxiii Pg 6
What in the Punic language is called Mammon, says Rigaltius, the Latins call lucrum, “gain or lucre.” See Augustine, Serm. xxxv. de Verbo domini. I would add Jerome, On the VI. of Matthew where he says: “In the Syriac tongue, riches are called mammon.” And Augustine, in another passage, book ii., On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, says: “Riches in Hebrew are said to be called mammon. This is evidently a Punic word, for in that language the synonyme for gain (lucrum) is mammon.” Compare the same author on Ps. ciii. (Oehler).
For when advising us to provide for ourselves the help of friends in worldly affairs, after the example of that steward who, when removed from his office,4776 4776 Ab actu.
relieves his lord’s debtors by lessening their debts with a view to their recompensing him with their help, He said, “And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,” that is to say, of money, even as the steward had done. Now we are all of us aware that money is the instigator4777 4777 Auctorem.
of unrighteousness, and the lord of the whole world. Therefore, when he saw the covetousness of the Pharisees doing servile worship4778 4778 Famulatam.
to it, He hurled4779 4779 Ammentavit.
this sentence against them, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”4780 4780
Anf-03 v.iv.v.xxxiii Pg 6
What in the Punic language is called Mammon, says Rigaltius, the Latins call lucrum, “gain or lucre.” See Augustine, Serm. xxxv. de Verbo domini. I would add Jerome, On the VI. of Matthew where he says: “In the Syriac tongue, riches are called mammon.” And Augustine, in another passage, book ii., On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, says: “Riches in Hebrew are said to be called mammon. This is evidently a Punic word, for in that language the synonyme for gain (lucrum) is mammon.” Compare the same author on Ps. ciii. (Oehler).
For when advising us to provide for ourselves the help of friends in worldly affairs, after the example of that steward who, when removed from his office,4776 4776 Ab actu.
relieves his lord’s debtors by lessening their debts with a view to their recompensing him with their help, He said, “And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,” that is to say, of money, even as the steward had done. Now we are all of us aware that money is the instigator4777 4777 Auctorem.
of unrighteousness, and the lord of the whole world. Therefore, when he saw the covetousness of the Pharisees doing servile worship4778 4778 Famulatam.
to it, He hurled4779 4779 Ammentavit.
this sentence against them, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”4780 4780
Anf-03 v.viii.xxvi Pg 14
Isa. li. 9, Sept.
that is to say, in that innocence which preceded the fall into sin. For how can words of this kind of exhortation and invitation be suitable for that Jerusalem which killed the prophets, and stoned those that were sent to them, and at last crucified its very Lord? Neither indeed is salvation promised to any one land at all, which must needs pass away with the fashion of the whole world. Even if anybody should venture strongly to contend that paradise is the holy land, which it may be possible to designate as the land of our first parents Adam and Eve, it will even then follow that the restoration of paradise will seem to be promised to the flesh, whose lot it was to inhabit and keep it, in order that man may be recalled thereto just such as he was driven from it.
