On Love of Money
Most wise teachers usually place this many-headed demon of love of money after the sensual tyrant we have described. So that we, though our lack of wisdom, might not depart from the order of the wise, we too will follow the same arrangement and rule. Let us therefore speak briefly about this illness, and then say a few words about its healing.
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Love of money is idolatry, the daughter of unbelief, an excuse for one’s weaknesses, a predictor of old age, a forewarning of famine, a diviner of drought.
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The lover of money is a blasphemer of the Gospel and a voluntary apostate. He who has acquired love has scattered his money; but he who says he possesses both deceives himself.
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He who mourns over himself has renounced even his own body and does not spare it in time of need.
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Do not say that you gather money for the sake of the poor; for the widow’s two mites purchased the Kingdom of Heaven.
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A lover of hospitality and a lover of money met each other; and the latter called the former senseless.
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He who has conquered this passion has cut off cares; but he who is bound by it never prays purely.
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Love of money begins under the guise of almsgiving, but ends in hatred of the poor. The lover of money is merciful while he is gathering wealth; but once he has accumulated it, he tightens his hands.
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I have seen those who were poor in money, yet through living with the poor in spirit became spiritually rich—and forgot their former poverty.
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A money-loving monk is not subject to idleness; he constantly recalls the Apostle’s word: If any would not work, neither should he eat (2 Thess. 3:10); and also: These hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me (Acts 20:34).
The sixteenth struggle: He who has gained victory in it has either acquired the love of God or cut off vain cares.
—St. John Climacus, The Ladder
On Falsehood
Iron striking stone produces fire; so too do idle talk and jesting give birth to falsehood.
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Falsehood is the destruction of love; and perjury is a rejection of God.
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No sensible person will consider lying a small sin; for there is no vice against which the All-Holy Spirit has spoken such a terrible judgment as against falsehood. If God shall destroy them that speak a lie (Ps. 5:6–7), what then will befall those who weave lies together with oaths?
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I have seen people who gloried in lying and in idle talk, and by their wit and jokes provoked laughter, thereby destroying in their hearers compunction and sorrow of spirit.
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When the demons see that at the very outset we try to withdraw from listening to the frivolous speech of a harmful storyteller, as from a deadly infection, they attempt to deceive us with two thoughts: “Do not grieve the speaker,” or “Do not set yourself above others as more pious.” Flee at once, do not delay; otherwise, during your prayer, your mind will be filled with images of those frivolities. Not only avoid such conversations and gatherings, but even break them up piously by introducing the remembrance of death and the Last Judgment—for it is better in this case to incur a little vainglory than to become the cause of common benefit.
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Hypocrisy is the mother of falsehood and often its cause. Some say that hypocrisy is nothing other than a training in lying and the inventor of falsehood, with which is joined a punishable oath.
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He who has acquired the fear of God has put away falsehood, having within himself an incorruptible judge—his conscience.
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As with all passions, so also in falsehood we observe various degrees of harm; for one judgment awaits the man who lies out of fear of punishment, and another him who lies without any necessity.
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One lies for amusement, another for sensual pleasure, another to make those present laugh, and yet another to ensnare his neighbor and do him harm.
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Torture by rulers may drive out falsehood; but an abundance of tears destroys it completely.
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The fabricator of lies excuses himself with good intentions, and what is in truth the destruction of the soul he considers a righteous deed. The liar presents himself as an imitator of Rahab and thinks to save others by his own ruin.
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When we are completely purified from falsehood, then, even if occasion and necessity demand it, we may use it, though not without fear.
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An infant does not know falsehood; neither does a soul purified from malice.
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One who is made merry by wine speaks truth involuntarily; so also the mind intoxicated with compunction cannot lie.
The twelfth step: He who has ascended to it has acquired the root of the virtues.
—St. John Climacus, The Ladder
From: Readings For Every Day of Great Lent, Ed. N. Shaposhnikova (Moscow: Danilov Monastery, 2025).
