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?[269] 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 respects 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?"[270] 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!