Scandal And Wealth

Quod Dominus dicit, Qui autem scandalizaverit unum de pusillis istis, id est, ex humilibus, quales vult esse discipulos suos, non obtemperando, vel etiam contraveniendo, sicut de Alexandro aerario Apostolus dicit: expedit ei ut mola asinaria suspendatur collo ejus, et praecipetur in profundum maris: id est, congruit ei cupiditas rerum temporalium, cui stuli et caeci colligantur, eum devinctum pondere suo deducat ad interitum. Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensi, Quaestiones in Evangelium Secundum Matthaeum, Liber Primus, XXIV Source: Migne PL 35.1327-8

When the Lord says, 'He who shall scandalise one of these little ones,' 1 that is, one of the humble, which He wishes his disciples to be, not by compulsion or indeed by opposition, as the Apostle says of Alexander the coppersmith, 2 'it will be better for him that the millstone of the donkey be hung around his neck and he be cast into the depth of the sea,' 3 that is, it befits that the desire for temporal things, to which the foolish and blind are bound and crushed by its weight, leads to ruin. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Questions on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Book 1, 24 1 Mt 18.6 2 2 Tim. 4.14