1883 Haydock Douay Rheims Bible
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| Ephesians 5:3 | *But fornication and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not so much as be named among you, as it becometh saints: Colossians 3:5. | Covetousness.{ Ver. 3 and 5. Covetousness, avaritia, pleonexia. See St. Jerome on these verses, who expounds it of an insatiable lust, as to the sins of uncleanness and impurity. (p. 380.) But see also St. Chrysostom who, by pleonexia, (Chap. 4:19.) expounds, an immoderate desire of riches: chrematon om. ig. (p. 829.) And here, hom. xvii. p. 847, o gar auto chrematon eromen, kai somaton. And hom. xviii, on the fifth verse, he expounds the word, pleonektes, os estin eidololatres, qui est idolatra, of him who is, properly speaking, an avaricious man; who adores mammon, or riches, who takes pains to leave an inheritance to others, and deprives himself of it, etc. (p. 853.) chruso douleuontes, 851.|} The Latin word is generally taken for a coveting or immoderate desire of money and riches. St. Jerome and others observe, that the Greek word in this and divers other places in the New Testament may signify any unsatiable desire, or the lusts of sensual pleasures; and on this account, St. Jerome thinks that it is here joined with fornication and uncleanness. But St. Chrysostom in the last chapter, (ver. 19. hom. xiii. and Ephesians 5:3.) shews that by the Greek word is understood avarice, or an immoderate desire of riches, when he tells (hom. xviii) that this sin is condemned by those words of Christ, Luke 16:13. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Witham) |