But Judas Iscariot, standing beside him, says, ‘I think a little money can never harm a person on a journey.’
But I say, ‘Whoever knows Me as this host does, who was also with Me in Sychar, knows that one can get along quite well with Me even without money. Look, I have no pocket in My coat, still less any money, and yet I led many hundreds through Judea and Samaria to this place. Ask them how much this journey cost each of them!
And I tell you further that very soon I will feed many thousands without having any more money with Me than now.
I tell you: true and full trust in God is worth more than all the treasures of the earth, with which you may help your flesh for a short time, but never your soul. But if you have corrupted and thus lost your soul, what can you afterward give to ransom your soul?’
Judas says, ‘Yes, yes, you are right; but for certain things a person must still have money.’
I say, ‘How much money did Moses have when he led the Israelites out?’ Judas says, ‘He had gold, silver and precious stones in great quantities!’
I say, ‘He did indeed, but that also held him back from entering the promised land. Can you grasp that?’
Judas says, ‘I would nevertheless think that, in the case of Moses, the prophet of all Jehovah’s prophets, it was not the gold and silver he had to take from Egypt at God’s command that was to blame. Rather, it was that in a weak hour his faith relied too little on Jehovah’s faithfulness.’
I say, ‘And what was the reason that one day he became so? The One who then let Moses grow weak precisely because of the thought of gold and silver stands here and tells you this. It is indeed written in an image, but as I have proclaimed it to you, so it is and was in reality.’
Judas says, ‘Very well, I believe you that it was so then. But now the king of Rome and half the earth has introduced money as a legal means of exchange to facilitate necessary dealings among people, and we are obliged to use it. And I think that if it is no sin to offer money in God’s treasury, it will also be no sin to give that same money to a poor person so that he can provide for himself for a few days. Thus, for the poor’s sake alone, it is good to take money on a journey, since the state has legally introduced it. So the host Coban could certainly have kept his few silver groschen with him.’
I say, ‘You carry a well-filled purse, yet yesterday you gave nothing to the three poor people who implored you for alms. So I think you yourself do not make the praiseworthy use of money for which you have commended it to Me.
But as for the money in God’s treasury, I tell you quite openly: it is an abomination of desolation—if not so much for the few poor in spirit who think they are securing heaven through it, then all the more for those who take the money from the treasury and squander it at night with prostitutes for hire. As long as there was no money, there were no public prostitutes as there are now. But now that there is money and all sorts of small coin, there are prostitutes for hire in great numbers in Jerusalem, as in almost every other town, and men sin with them day and night. And when those who possess much money no longer find the local women to their taste, they have maidens brought from the upper lands, buy them in Greece, and then practice the most shameful fornication with them in Judea. And see, all this and a thousand times more is the blessing of your highly praised money!
But that is only the beginning of the curse that lies upon money.
Times will come that will be worse than those when Noah built the ark, and they will have gold and silver to thank for their misery. Nothing but a fire from the heavens that consumes all the filth of hell will deliver people from the misery of miseries!’
Judas says, ‘Yes, yes, you are a prophet without equal and can know such things. But if money is put to good use, surely that cannot be wrong?’
I say, ‘Yes, if people wished to put it to good use, it would be as good as everything else on earth, which can likewise be used well or badly. But the great difference is this: when you go into a town, you must carry all sorts of things on your shoulders, either implements or foodstuffs, and in exchange you receive something else you need, and prepared food and drink. That is admittedly inconvenient, but it is also inconvenient for being tempted into sin. For if you come with goods and a bundle, or draw a cart full of implements, and go with it to a prostitute and wish to sin with her for a few pots or bowls, she will mock you and laugh at you, and you are spared the sin. But if you come to her with gold and silver pieces, she will not mock you and laugh at you, but lead you into her chamber of debauchery and entice you to sin in all sorts of ways, to coax all the more gold and silver from you. Thus money is convenient, but also exceedingly enticing and convenient for sin.
And that is why Satan brought it into this world, so that through it sin might be committed more easily and more often in the world. Do you still not understand how a good opportunity is the best means of breeding thieves?’
Judas says, ‘Yes, yes, that is correct. But if one wished to keep all sorts of thieves away by ensuring that they found nothing among people they could covet, an enormous amount would have to change among humanity. First, all people would have to be equally poor in all earthly goods; second, they would have to look alike, like male and female sparrows; and third, no one could be wiser than all the others. But as long as that is not so, all speaking, teaching and performing signs is in vain. Many will indeed heed it, but ten times as many will remain as they are despite all teaching and all signs, unless indeed they just as easily, if not more easily, become ten times worse than before. For every person has some self-love and wants a modest provision. So quite naturally everyone thinks first of himself and only then of others, and surely one cannot blame him for that. Not everyone can have a house and land, for then, for every newborn child, God would also have to bring a plot of land and a house into the world with him and let them grow with him. But since that does not happen, and those born earlier have long appropriated every patch of earth so that most newborn children cannot possess even a foot’s breadth of soil, in the end nothing remains for them but either to make themselves indispensable to the idle owners through all sorts of knowledge and thus enter the service of the earth’s rich owners in one way or another, or to turn to theft so as not to have to take up the heavy beggar’s staff. If then the better portion of those who own neither land nor house receive nothing but money for their services and save as much of it as possible so that they have something for their old age, I find nothing wrong in that at all. In money I see a new creation of land and soil for all those who have come into this wretched earth through begetting and birth without any possessions they could ever even hope for. And I must openly confess that God Himself, who cannot or will not create a new piece of land for every newborn child, has given rulers the good idea of creating money, through which the children of the propertyless too can obtain necessary provision, often better than provision consisting in land and soil. Surely God cannot wish the children of the propertyless to perish! For plainly they cannot help having been born into the world, and with the same needs of life as the children of property owners.
Even if I concede everything you have already taught to you, who may also be the greatest prophet ever to have walked this earth, I still do not accept your explanation of the harmfulness of money. For just as money can become harmful in your view, so can everything else. If I had the sheep, oxen, cows, calves, donkeys, chickens and doves, all the fruits and all the bread stolen in our land just since David’s time, I would be the richest man in all Israel! And in former times, when there was no money, fornication was practiced just as much and on an even greater scale than today, as in Sodom and Gomorrah and in Babylon.
I do not mean to claim that you are wrong in what you say about money. But where on this wretched earth is there anything with which a thousand kinds of wickedness have not already been committed? Yet if God does not curse such things so immeasurably for their bad use, how should He now be so angry at money in particular and worthy of a curse?’
I say, ‘Whatever someone loves, he also has enough understanding to praise. But you love money excessively and therefore know very well how to praise it. So I will say nothing more to you about it, for what one loves, one also knows how to praise. But in a time not too far away, you will yet come to know the curse of money. Now no more of it. The road to Capernaum is easy to travel, and we must reach Capernaum before sunset and seek lodging there.’