ViCe AnD VirTue 53 more specific alterations concerning sexual relations and wine. more than in the discussion of pride, there is a greater concern for restricting behavior to avoid temptation. in comparison to the Greek text, the Lat- in calls for greater caution and vigilance regarding women and wine, absolutizes various prohibitions and the applicability of the teaching, and consistently elevates the consequences of succumbing to desire. God’s perception and punishment of these sins is strengthened, but the Latin also emphasizes the social consequences of sins of desire and the damage such sins do to one’s own soul. iV. Avarice/Greed and Charity The vice of greed is a relatively minor theme in Ben Sira’s book, appearing explicitly only in the discussion of the proper use of wealth in 14,3-10. However, in his discussion of banquet etiquette in 31,12- 15 (cf. 37,29) the related vice of gluttony is condemned. On the other hand, the corresponding virtue of generosity, especially to the poor and to one’s friends, is much more prominent in Ben Sira’s book (e.g. 3,30 – 4,10; 7,10; 12,1-6; 14,11-19; 17,22; 29,1-20; 35,3-4; 40,17.24). The vice of greed, however, is the subject of an addition after 10,8 in Grii (found in Lucianic manuscripts and in the Syro-Hexapla): For there is no one more wicked than the lover of money because such a person makes commerce even with his own soul. This bicolon was likely prompted by the Greek’s addition of “money” to the causes of imperialistic war in 10,8b 49 and reflects gen- eral condemnations of avarice as among the most serious vices, if not the most serious (cf. T. Judah 18,3; Diogenes Laertius, Vit. phil. 6.50; Sib. Or. 3,235; Pseudo-Phocylides 42; Philo, Flaccus 60; 1 Tim 6,10). The word for “lover of money”, φιλάργυρος, is rare in biblical litera- ture, appearing elsewhere only in the similarly severe claim about avarice in 1 Tim 6,10, but also in the vice list in 4 macc 1,26. The sec- ond line makes a word-play on the idea of commerce to highlight the self-destructive nature of vice 50. While the condemnation of avarice in absolute terms and the characterization of it as self-destructive find reflections in the moral literature of late antiquity, they also conform to general trends toward absolutizing in the expanded Greek text 51. 49 See ZieGLer, Sirach, 169. 50 BuSSinO, Greek Additions, 108-112. 51 keArnS, Expanded Text, 64-65.