Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The Instrumentality of Wealth
The Instrumentality of Wealth
Jan 21, 2026 4:49 PM

Clement of Alexandria, Who is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?, trans. William Wilson, ch. XIV:

Riches, then, which benefit also our neighbours, are not to be thrown away. For they are possessions, inasmuch as they are possessed, and goods, inasmuch as they are useful and provided by God for the use of men; and they lie to our hand, and are put under our power, as material and instruments which are for good use to those who know the instrument. If you use it skilfully, it is skilful; if you are deficient in skill, it is affected by your want of skill, being itself destitute of blame. Such an instrument is wealth. Are you able to make a right use of it? It is subservient to righteousness. Does one make a wrong use of it? It is, on the other hand, a minister of wrong. For its nature is to be subservient, not to rule. That then which of itself has neither good nor evil, being blameless, ought not to be blamed; but that which has the power of using it well and ill, by reason of its possessing voluntary choice. And this is the mind and judgment of man, which has freedom in itself and self-determination in the treatment of what is assigned to it. So let no man destroy wealth, rather than the passions of the soul, which are patible with the better use of wealth. So that, ing virtuous and good, he may be able to make a good use of these riches. The renunciation, then, and selling of all possessions, is to be understood as spoken of the passions of the soul.

Wealth, like liberty, is not an ultimate end in itself. Wealth is the good product of a rightly ordered economic system. Liberty is the result of a properly functioning political structure. These are both penultimate realities.

But to what end are wealth and liberty (economics and politics) to be subsumed? I know no better answer than to say, “To glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Hannah More: Pioneer of Voluntary Christian Schools
“Action is the life of virtue … and the world is the theatre of action.” Read More… Hannah More (1745–1833) was a most extraordinary woman. A poet and playwright mixing with the leading figures of her day in the theater and arts, she found evangelical faith and deployed her considerable writing skills in support of William Wilberforce’s campaign against the slave trade. These same talents were harnessed in advocacy of evangelical Christianity through a series of influential tracts and pamphlets....
The Satanic Virtues
Milton did not err in his depiction of the Devil in Paradise Lost, and modern times show it to be thus. Read More… I’ve been rereading Milton’s Paradise Lost. I am not alone in this; earlier this year, every time I checked Twitter, someone menting on Paradise Lost. There seemed to be a gravitational pull toward Milton’s epic. Many people, from Jaspreet Singh Boparai at The Critic to Ed Simon at LitHub, found menting on this very old poem—and not...
Thomas Howard: Separating Art and Media
The author of Evangelical Is Not Enough and Christ the Tiger had much to say on the subject of high culture and the “permanent things.” A new collection of his essays keeps his ideas alive at a time when everything seems terribly disposable. Read More… True art is a hard sell in an era in which media is predominant. Today, successful media is immediate, snappy, flashy, pervasive, and geared toward influencing the public to buy something and/or think a certain...
The Real Threat to Economic Freedom
A new book argues that some Big Players are working behind the scenes to make it increasingly impossible for us to own anything. Are things really that bad? And if so, do the offered solutions make sense? Read More… The tyrannical collusion between global and corporate elites and the U.S. government leaves us teetering on the edge of losing everything and owning nothing, according to Carol Roth in her new book, You Will Own Nothing: Your War with a New...
Recovering the Melting Pot
History demonstrates that ethnic and racial fractionalization always ends in societal collapse. Crafting a new melting pot can save this country and the West. But it won’t be easy. Read More… Up until a few decades ago, it mon to think of the United States as a melting pot. People from all over the world e to this great country, adopt American values, and learn English while also bringing a piece of their former culture to mix into the broader...
Walker Percy’s Guide to These Deranged Times
Lost in the Cosmos was derided when first published 40 years ago yet remains an irresistible test of the extent to which we remain mysteries even to ourselves. Read More… Forty years ago, the philosopher and novelist Walker Percy published what is easily the strangest book of his writing career. Lost in the Cosmos distills the major themes of both his novels and his philosophical essays into a little over 250 pages of multiple-choice questions (and peculiar answers), hypotheticals, and...
Discriminating Harvard
Harvard has a long history of taking race and religion into consideration when admitting students, unfortunately. Read More… The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA), which invalidated the use of race as a criterion for college admissions, dominated several summer news cycles and prompted no shortage of opinion pieces and responses. Little of mentary focused, however, on the long plicated history that the university at the...
God vs. Absurdity
There have been many attempts to prove the existence of God and disprove a sui generis universe in which sentient life is a mere accident of the Big Bang. A new book offers some fresh insights into why theism is a better explanation than naturalism for understanding reality, including the ability to do science. Read More… “In fact, the fundamental claim of this book is that if one believes the world actually is intelligible—that things make sense, and ultimate explanation...
Golda: The Right Leader at the Right Time
Fifty years ago, Israel was stunned by a surprise attack, the beginning of what became known as the Yom Kippur War. A new film starring Oscar-winner Helen Mirren as Golda Meir details the arduous decision-making process of a prime minister responsible not only for the lives of young soldiers but the very survival of her country, even as she barely clung to life herself. Read More… On the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas launched...
The Resurrections of Doctor Who: Why the Time Lord Has Endured for 60 Years
The beloved sci-fi TV show Doctor Who is entering its seventh decade. The secret to its success is surprising. Read More… The publicists at the BBC weren’t thrilled, one imagines, when their Doctor Who leading man spoke candidly about why he loved the program so much. “People always ask me, ‘What is it about the show that appeals so broadly?’” Peter Capaldi said in 2018. “The answer that I would like to give—and which I am discouraged from giving because...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved