Pruning the Roots of Evil
[…] ῥίζα γάρ πάντων τῶν κακῶν ἐστιν ἡ φιλαργυρία […]
[…] because any evil can spring from a lust for 30 pieces of silver […]
— I Timothy 6:10 partial, translation D. Moser*
And, just like that, it was done!
Alright, everyone, time for bed. … because that’s how Our Mam ended the story every night and off to bed we went if we didn’t want a quick swat for punctuation.
But Mam, what happened next? And how did it happen?
We don’t know a bit of that, darlin’, so off to bed with you.
I let it go and went on with my life, years and years, and now that I tell the tale to my own children I give them the same warning and send them off (to the same beds, as it happens), though I still wonder.
What does it mean, that old word, salary? It’s not in my dictionary. Dollars to doughnuts? Worth your weight in gold? Meaningless terms.
After putting the kids to bed one night, I drove over to her house for a visit.
“What happened, Mam? I know it happened when I was just little; something happened and the world changed. I lie in bed and think about it still, without a ghost of a thought for what it was.”
“Well, there was a thing in the world. I just … I don’t have words for it any more. It drove us and tortured us and was in every thought we had from up until down, waking to death, and never left us, not even in our dreams; we were slaves of its every whim and it without a trace of any nature at all of its own, just what we endowed it with. Our desires, our lusts, our friendships, our whole lives enveloped with need for that thing that owned every thought we had.
“Then, one morning, it was gone. We had our house and our clothes, and our food, and we went off into life to make what we wanted. I don’t even remember what the thing was called; every trace disappeared right out of my mind; only a few painful, muddled memories are left. The same happened to everyone.
“I called the landlord the day after, asked her if she wanted us to leave the house and live somewhere else. She said stay on, take care of the place. I went to the hardware store the next day. They gave me a new roofing hammer, asked me to remember them come tomato harvest, and offered the use of their smokehouse for the November hogs. I went by my … the place I cleaned twice a week, and swept the floor, just like always, said hello to the folks wandering in and out of the office. Some of them had confused smiles, but, for once, no one was scolding anyone else. I never did feel the need to go back. I hope they got their floors swept. Maybe they do it themselves, now. After a while, I came back home and worked in the garden, put in a few more rows of rutabagas for the pigs o’ the winter, checked on the walnut trees, spent some time getting a roast into the oven for supper. Then I climbed up and worked on the roof for a bit, replaced the shakes where the turkeys had made a little crack.
“It was a good day, that day.” She sat, sipping at tea with a satisfied look on her face.
“But, Mam, that’s the same story you always told,” I said. “What caused all that?”
“I don’t know at all, Hun,” she said. “There wasn’t any more than that. Maybe if you checked with some other folks you might get a better idea. I think it was a miracle.”
* This is the section of the bible verse that was rendered in the King James Translation as “[T]he love of money is the root of all evil […]”. I first read it in Koine Greek many years ago, and have always felt that the faith-based, Biblical translations did not get at the “real” meaning of the epigram, nor did they any justice to the pithy economy of the Greek, with its dense layers of multiple allusions. In particular it seemed obvious to me that the phrase “love of money” did not fit the Greek word, φιλαργυρία, or philargyria. The translation as “love of money” seemed to be overly reductionist, as it is a simple one-to-one guess at well known Greek roots, philos, brotherly or manly love, and argyria, relating to silver or coin; it also ignores the homoerotic overtones of philos amongst the Neoplatonists of biblical times and the resonance of payment in pieces of silver, not to mention the synonymy with cupidity. I realize that my approach to the translation is a little at odds with much current practice in Classical (and Christian) translation, as it attempts a literate restatement, almost a re-writing, rather than a literal translation. This approach, I believe, results in greater clarity of understanding, which clarity is a reasonable approximation of the writer’s original intent, while retaining some of the resonance of the original. Plus, it inspired the little fable.
