Why did St. John Chrysostom rebuke the wealthy?

He often criticized them not because they were wealthy, but because of their laziness and idleness. When he spoke of the poor, he meant those who work hard, praising them not for their poverty, but for their hard toil at their jobs, and for supporting themselves by the work of their hands and improving the lot of their families. St. John Chrysostom says, “For if poverty were taken away, the whole order of life would be abolished, and every mode of living would be disturbed: there would be neither a sailor nor a governor, nor a farmer, nor a cement-maker, nor a weaver, nor a tailor, nor a carpenter, nor a blacksmith, nor a tanner, nor a baker, nor any other workman … if all were rich, all would also live in idleness, and thus everything would be lost and corrupted.”¹⁰³³

1028 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 20 (NPNF I/11:133–134; 133) amended.

1029 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to Polycarp 5 (ANF 1:95); cf. Tertullian, Apology , 43 (ANF 3:49).

1030 Tertullian, On Idolatry 11 (ANF 3:67–68).

1031 St. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen 4 (ANF 2:184ff).. 1032

Didascalia Apostolorum: Syriac Version Translated , trans., R. Hugh Connelly (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929) 13: p. 129.

1033 St. John Chrysostom, On Hannah (De Anna) 5.3 (PG 54: 673).