The third logismos of the instinctual desires, according to Evagrius, is greed. The striving for possessions is an essential part of human life, and it contains a longing for rest. Possessions lead us to expect that we will have no more cares and will be able to calmly spend our time living.
But experience shows that possessions can possess us, that we are possessed by our striving for more and more things. Evagrius portrays the consequences of greed through some effective images. While the person with nothing is compared to a high-flying eagle, soaring freely in the air, unburdened by cares, he says of the rich:
“But those who are very well off are shackled with cares and tied like a dog to a chain. Even when they are forced to emigrate, they bear the memory of their goods around with them like a heavy burden and a useless weight. They are tormented by sadness, and whenever they reflect, they are cruelly plagued. They leave their possessions behind and are tortured by grief.
And even when death comes, they give up the present world with a pathetic lament. They surrender their souls and yet do not bid farewell to their possessions, which rather drag them along with them, since passion holds them down.”
Our hunger for possessions is never satisfied if we direct it only to earthly things. However many things we own, this cannot quench our deepest longing for rest and contentment, for harmony with ourselves.
Hence the New Testament transforms this desire by pointing us to an inner possession: to the pearl of great price, to the treasure buried in the field. We can find immeasurable riches in ourselves, in our soul, when we find God and all the possibilities God has given us. And when we turn toward this inner wealth, our striving for external possessions will not become immoderate.
Nowadays, of course, one sometimes sees the demonization of possessions and the ideological glorification of poverty, neither of which is especially helpful. Poverty is sometimes confused with an absence of culture. If poverty is only a negation of life, then it doesn’t set us free. Genuine poverty deals humanely with the desire for possessions. It admits this striving, but it relativizes it, because it knows of a deeper wealth.
Only for the sake of this inner value can we let go of external possessions, can we become increasingly free from greed.
~Anselm Gruen, Heaven Begins Within You: Wisdom from the Desert Fathers
