Avarice
Avarice [1]
(from Lat. avarus, from aveo, crave, strive after), an undue love of money. Avarice consists not merely in seeking after worldly wealth too eagerly, or by unjust means, but in loving it excessively, even though it be our own. Avarice is in its nature sin, and, according to St. Paul, a kind of idolatry. Gregory the Great enumerates seven particular sins which spring from avarice, or, as he calls them, "daughters of avarice," viz. treasons, frauds, lies, perjuries, restlessness, violences, hardness of hearts (Mor. in Jobum, lib. 31, cap. 17). The cause of this vice is really unbelief. It "is because men believe not Providence, therefore do they so greedily scrape and hoard" (Barrow On the Creed, Sermon I). It grows by indulgence, and is strongest in the aged, as if, by a penal irony, they who can least enjoy riches should most desire, them (Wesley, Sermons, serm. 130).
