21. [XX.]—Love the Root of All Good Things; Cupidity, of All Evil Ones.

The “capacity,” then, of which we speak is not (as he supposes) the one identical root both of good things and evil. For the love which is the root of good things is quite different from the cupidity which is the root of evil things—as different, indeed, as virtue is from vice. But without doubt this “capacity” is capable of either root: because a man is not only able to possess love, whereby the tree becomes a good one; but he is likewise able to have cupidity, which makes the tree evil. This human cupidity, however, which is a vice, has for its author man, or man’s deceiver, but not man’s Creator. It is indeed that “lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world.”47    1 John ii. 16. And who can be ignorant of the usage of the Scripture, which under the designation of “the world” is accustomed to describe those who inhabit the world?

CAPUT XX.

21. Illa ergo possibilitas, non ut iste opinatur, una eademque radix est bonorum et malorum. Aliud est enim charitas radix bonorum, aliud cupiditas radix malorum; tantumque inter se differunt, quantum virtus et vitium. Sed plane illa possibilitas utriusque radicis est capax; quia non solum potest homo habere charitatem, qua sit arbor bona, sed potest etiam cupiditatem, qua sit arbor mala. Sed cupiditas hominis quae vitium est, hominem habet auctorem, vel hominis deceptorem, non hominis creatorem. Ipsa est enim concupiscentia carnis, et concupiscentia oculorum, et ambitio saeculi, quae non est ex Patre, sed ex mundo est (I Joan. II, 16). Quis autem nesciat, mundi nomine solere appellare Scripturam, a quibus habitatur hic mundus?