“Not so much out of necessity has gold become enviable by people as that with it most of them can provide for their pleasures.
There are three reasons for the love of money: pleasure-seeking, vainglory, and lack of faith. And more serious than the other two is lack of faith.
The hedonist loves money because with it he lives in luxury; the vain person because with it he can be praised; the person who lacks faith because he can hide it and keep it while in fear of hunger, or old age, or illness, or exile. He lays his hope on it rather than on God the maker and provider of the whole creation, even of the last and least of living things.
There are four kinds of people who acquire money, the three just mentioned and the financial administrator. Obviously only he acquires it for the right reason: so that he might never run short in relieving each one’s need.”
Maximus Confessor (c. 580-662) Christian monk, theologian, and scholar, in Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings, trans. by George C. Berthold (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985) 63.