Thorns And Riches

Alia autem ceciderunt in spinas, et creverunt spinae, et suffocaverunt ea. Spinas autem divitias interpretatur idem Salvator. Nec mirum videri debet quare spinis divitias comparaverit, cum illae pungant, istae delectent. Recte enim spinae vocantur, quia cogitationum suarum punctionibus mentem lacerant. Et cum usque ad peccatum protrahunt, quasi inflicto vulnere cruentant, simulque crescentes spinae sementem suffocando ad fructum pervenire non sinunt, quia exaggeratio divitiarum mentem strangulando spiritales virtutum fructus gignere non permittit; quin potius, si quid viriditatis habere potuit, squalore asperitatis suae illud transcendendo opprimit, et vitalem succum funditus in eo interimit. Rabanus Maurus, Commentariorum In Matthaeum, Liber V, Caput XIII Source: Migne PL 107.940d-941a

Others fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them... 1 The Saviour interprets the thorns as riches. And one should not wonder why He compared riches to thorns, when thorns hurt and wealth delights. Rightly they are called thorns which with their points wound the thoughts of the mind. And when they draw one to sin, it is as an infliction of bloody wounds, and at the same time the seed choked by the thorns is not able to grow because the heaping up of riches strangles the soul and it cannot bring forth the spiritual fruit of the virtues, but rather, even if it does have some greenness, the roughness of its bitter state overwhelms and suppresses it and the living fruit in it is killed off. Rabanus Maurus, Commentary On The Gospel of Saint Matthew, Book 5, Chapter 13 1 Mt 13.7