Laudator Temporis Acti

John Chrysostom, Homilies on Colossians 7 (Patrologia Graeca, vol. 62, cols. 349, 351-352; tr. J. Ashworth):

For in point of senselessness wherein do they differ, tell me, from that golden plane tree, who make golden jars, pitchers, and scent bottles? And wherein do those women differ, (ashamed indeed I am, but it is necessary to speak it,) who make chamber utensils of silver?

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What softness is it! What luxury, what wantonness! This is not luxury but wantonness. What senselessness is it! What madness! So many poor stand around the Church; and though the Church has so many children, and so wealthy, she is unable to give relief to one poor person; but one is hungry, and another is drunken [1 Cor. xi.21]; one voideth his excrement even into silver, another has not so much as bread! What madness! what brutishness so great as this?

τί γὰρ, εἰπέ μοι, τῆς χρυσῆς πλατάνου διαφέρουσι κατὰ ἄνοιαν οἱ κεράμια ποιοῦντες χρυσᾶ καὶ χύτρας καὶ ἀλάβαστρα; τί δὲ αἱ γυναῖκες (αἰσχύνομαι μὲν οὖν, πλὴν ἀναγκαῖον εἰπεῖν), ἀμίδας ἀργυρᾶς ποιοῦσαι;

[....]

τίς ἡ βλακεία; τίς ἡ τρυφή; τίς ἡ ὕβρις; οὐ τρυφὴ τοῦτο, ἀλλ' ὕβρις. τίς ἡ ἄνοια; τίς ἡ μανία; Πένητες τοσοῦτοι τὴν ἐκκλησίαν περιεστήκασι, καὶ τέκνα ἔχουσα τοσαῦτα ἡ Ἐκκλησία, οὕτω πλουτοῦντα, οὐδενὶ πένητι ἐπαμῦναι δύναται· ἀλλ' ὁ μὲν πεινᾷ, ὁ δὲ μεθύει· ὁ μὲν καὶ ἐν ἀργύρῳ ἀποπατεῖ, ὁ δὲ οὐδὲ ἄρτου μετέχει. τίς ἡ μανία; τίς ἡ θηριωδία ἡ τοσαύτη;

See Margaret M. Mitchell, “Silver Chamber Pots and Other Goods Which Are Not Good: John Chrysostom's Discourse against Wealth and Possessions,” in William Schweiker and Charles Mathewes, edd., Having: Property and Possession in Religious and Social Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 88-121.