_And behold one came and said to Him: Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?_ Some reject this young man as insidious and bad. I, however, would not deny that he was a lover of money, and unable to resist it, since Christ convicted him of this; but I should not admit that he was insidious, because it is not safe to make a venture upon what is unknown, especially in accusations, and because St. Mark has removed this doubt. For he says _that running up and kneeling before_ Him, he asked Him a question, and again, that _Jesus, looking upon him, loved him_. But great is the tyranny of money as we gather from this; for even if we be quite faultless as to other things, it alone spoils everything else. St. Paul too justly called it the root of all evils. _The love of money_, he says, _is the root of all evils_. Now, why did Our Lord answer him by saying, _No man is good_. Because the youth approached Him as a mere man, as one of many, and a Jewish teacher: on this account Our Lord spoke as man to man with him. For He frequently answers according to the secret mind of those who come to Him, as, for instance, when He says, _We adore what we know_, and, _If I bear witness to Myself, My witness is not true_. When, then, He says, _No man is good_, He does not say it to repudiate His own goodness—far from it; for He does not say, ‘Why do you call _Me_ good? I am not good,’ but, _No man is good_, that is, no man at all. When He speaks in this way, He is not defrauding men of all goodness, but making a distinction as to God’s goodness. So He added: _Only God is good_. And He did not say, ‘Only my Father,’ that you may know that He did not disclose Himself to the youth. Thus, higher up, He called all men bad, saying, _But if you who are bad know how to give good gifts to your children_. And if He called them wicked in this place, He did not condemn human nature as altogether bad (for He says _you_, not ‘you, the human race’). He so called them, because He was putting the goodness of man by the side of the goodness of God, and therefore He added, _How much more will your Father give good gifts to those who ask Him_. And, you may say, what necessity or advantage was there that He should answer the young man in this way? He leads him up by degrees, teaches him to put off all deception, withdraws him from the things of earth, nailing him to God, inducing him to seek the things to come, to know the good, the root and foundation of all things, and to refer honour back to Him. And thus when He says, _You shall call no man master upon earth_, He said it to make a distinction as to Himself, that they might learn Who was the first Beginning of all things. For, so far, the young man had shown no slight willingness by rushing eagerly to embrace this love; and whilst others had come, some to tempt, others for the curing of disease, whether it was their own or their neighbours’, he had come and had spoken for the sake of eternal life.