What then can be less trustworthy than Mammon, seeing that for his sake one travels, and ventures, and is slain? “But who,” it is said, “will pity a charmer that is bitten with a serpent?” For we ought, knowing its cruel tyranny, to flee that slavery, and destroy that grievous longing. “But how,” saith one, “is this possible?” By introducing another longing, the longing for Heaven. Since he that desires the kingdom will laugh covetousness to scorn; he that is become Christ’s slave is no slave of mammon, but rather his lord; for him that flieth from him, he is wont to follow, and to fly from him that pursues. He honors not so much his pursuer as his despiser; no one doth he so laugh to scorn, as them that desire him; nor