On Wealth and Poverty by John Chrysostom

For this is wantonness, and savageness, and inhumanity, and brutishness, and lasciviousness. …When Christ is famishing, do you revel in such luxury, act so foolishly? …Another, made after the image of God, is perishing of cold and you’re furnishing yourself with such things as these? O the senseless pride! …Do you pay such honor to your excrements as to receive them in silver? I know you’re shocked at hearing this but it’s the women who make such things who ought to be shocked and the husbands that minister to such distempers.

He once railed against the foolish fad among wealthy women of using silver chamber pots. While his candor on the subject delighted the masses, it caused him no end of trouble with the ruling classes and clergy. Yet it must be pointed out that he was not opposed to wealth per se, but against the misuse of it, especially conspicuous consumption and the cruel chasm between rich and poor that characterized the great cities of the empire. John was often more bold than tactful, especially when it came to the excesses of wealth.

A constant theme in these sermons is Christ’s concern for the poor.

One of Chrysostom’s most enduring legacies lies in the homilies that fortunately have come down to us-in the hundreds. His eloquence and rhetorical gifts posthumously earned him the sobriquet “Goldenmouth” (Gk. 347-407) was an archbishop, preacher, the ologian, and reformer who lived in the early days of the Byzantine empire.

On Wealth and Poverty by John Chrysostom