Memento Mori!
By telling the tale, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) taught the lesson in his Politics:
It is anomalous that wealth should be of such a kind that a man may be well
supplied with it and yet die of hunger…
The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17 or 18 AD) recounts the story in Metamorphoses:
In a drunken stupor, the satyr Silenus, schoolmaster and foster father of Dionysus, god of wine-making and fertility (among others), went missing, ultimately passing out in the rose garden of Midas, who entertained him for ten days and nights. On the eleventh day, Midas returned him to the god, who rewarded him with the promise of granting him a singular wish. Midas asked that whatever he touched be turned to gold.
When he discovered that even his food hardened and his drink turned into golden cubes, Midas cursed his “gift.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 – 1864), one of America’s earliest novelists, offered his twist on the tale in The Golden Touch, the story of a king more fond of gold than anything else in the world – with the possible exception of his daughter Marygold. He was a king unwilling to give up his “golden touch” even for food.
“Our pretty Marygold could endure it no longer. She sat, a moment, gazing at her father, and trying, with all the might of her little wits, to find out what was the matter with him.
“Then, with a sweet and sorrowful impulse to comfort him, she started from her chair, and, running to Midas, threw her arms affectionately about his knees. He bent down and kissed her. He felt that his little daughter’s love was worth a thousand times more than he had gained by the Golden Touch.
“’My precious, precious Marygold!’ cried he.
.
“But Marygold made no answer.
“Alas, what had he done? How fatal was the gift which the stranger bestowed!
“The moment the lips of Midas touched Marygold’s forehead, a change had taken place. Her sweet, rosy face, so full of affection as it had been, assumed a glittering yellow color, with yellow tear-drops congealing on her cheeks. Her beautiful brown ringlets took the same tint. Her soft and tender little form grew hard and inflexible within her father’s encircling arms.
“Oh, terrible misfortune! The victim of his insatiable desire for wealth, little Marygold was a human child no longer, but a golden statue!”
Except for a national football championship (the Miami Hurricanes’ last was in 2001) or a Dolphins’ Super Bowl victory (not since 1974), almost nothing in Miami garners more newspaper inches or television news minutes than a multimillion-dollar divorce. Throw in attempted murders and a death and the story takes on a seemingly eternal life of its own.
In December, a probate court put the value of his share of the family fortune – cash, stocks, real estate, yachts, luxury cars, businesses and other properties – at $115 million. That didn’t include the nearly $44 million half-share of the nation’s largest Hispanic-owned homebuilders’ group that would pass to his wife when he died. During divorce proceedings, he presented documentation claiming the couple’s net worth in 2021 was either $153 million or $359 million, later asserting that the larger amount was a joke.
News reports say she helped him establish the company – “as husband and wife” - in 2013, but by 2022, as the marriage – his second - disintegrated, he was in no mood to share. According to FBI reports, she accused him of “attempted murder, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress by slowly poisoning [her] with fentanyl and hiring hitmen squads, who followed [her] for days, and then brandished a firearm at [her] and her daughter.” All this “caused [her] to be hospitalized on various occasions and suffer serious physical injury and emotional distress.”
In addition, months before his death, she claimed that her husband “executed a sham trust agreement… that purports to divest [her] of [her] interest in [the 2013 company] and illegally assign, transfer, and/or convey [his] membership shares in [the company] (which belong to [her] upon his death) to the trust for the benefit of third parties [actually his relatives, but that’s another story]. This was done without [her] knowledge or consent.”
FBI and court documents indicate he either directly or indirectly hired a total of nine men – ultimately promising his henchmen $300,000 - to kill his wife because she turned down his $20 million offer to end their thirty-two-year marriage that, by 2022, had amassed a net worth of at least $150 million.
On July 15, 2024, he skipped out on a divorce hearing, claiming – according to his wife and local media – that he was “mentally and emotionally” impaired and so “overwhelmed and distraught” that he could not attend. That night, according to news and police reports, he put his personal and corporate legal papers in order.
In the sunrise hours of July 16, as FBI agents gathered outside his $8 million Coral Gables home, he shot and killed himself.
In the aftermath of his death, her attorney told a Miami-based NBC news outlet, “Sometimes money, or power or any other type of influence aspects (sic) will turn people even against those that they loved or love.”
Aristotle, Ovid, Nathaniel Hawthorne, an ugly all-about-the-money Miami divorce find their echoes in all three of the Synoptic – Matthew, Mark and Luke – Gospels.
From Matthew 19:16-22:
“And behold, a man came up to him, saying, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.’ He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The young man said to him, ‘All these I have kept. What do I still lack?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”
Respectfully (because their writings have been popular for centuries and ours’ certainly won’t be known after we’re gone), Matthew, Mark and Luke might have gotten it just a little bit wrong.
Perhaps it would have been better had the Gospel writers – and Jesus – added “and he was possessed by them – for he had great possessions and he was possessed by them.”
Or they might have added “And, like Hawthorne’s Midas, he had great ambitions and was willing to sacrifice his own integrity to become even more powerful.”
For example:
Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Bernie Moreno on a September 9,
2024 Instagram post:
"Kamala Harris and Sherrod Brown are responsible for flooding Springfield, Ohio with thousands of illegal Haitians who are sucking up social services and even reportedly killing and eating pets. We need to deport illegals, not invite them to wreak havoc on our communities."
Presidential candidate Donald Trump in a September 10, 2024 presidential debate:
“In Springfield (Ohio), they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Presidential candidate Donald Trump in a September 18, 2024 New York speech:
"In Springfield (Ohio), they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there.” When Haitians go to school in Springfield, Ohio, they “take the place of our children in school” and “each one will have a private interpreter."
Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona:
“… the Capitol Police officer that did that shooting appeared to be hiding, lying in wait and then gave no warning before killing her.”
Representative Andrw Clyde of Georgia
“You know, if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the sixth, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”
Were the Gospel writers still here (or had they returned in recent years), they might cite Senator Ron Johnson’s May 19, 2021 response to the events of January 6:
“Even calling it an insurrection, it wasn’t. I condemned the breach, I
condemned the violence, but to say there were thousands of armed
insurrectionists breaching the Capitol intent on overthrowing the
government is just simply a false narrative. … By and large it was
peaceful protest except for, there were a number of people basically
agitators that whipped the crowd and breached the Capitol.”
In coming days - soon, we will observe Ash Wednesday. [For our non-Episcopalian/Anglican or Roman Catholic friends, please don’t mark the days by telling folks “Happy Ash Wednesday” or “Happy Good Friday.”]
On March 5, Christians will present themselves in churches worldwide to be marked on their foreheads with a cross of ashes and, reflecting Genesis 3:19, will be admonished “Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.”
Remember: You will die.
Significantly (and not well recognized by many of the politicians who will make every effort for their cross-of-ashes to be seen and photographed), by tradition the ashes are those of the remaining palms of last Palm Sunday.
Palm Sunday…
When we recall that crowds – like those of today’s political rallies - in Jerusalem shouting “Hosanna!” as they greeted Jesus as a miracle-worker and the new great leader, the man who would, they believed, liberate them and overthrow the army of foreigners who had invaded their land.
Good Friday…
When the same crowds jeered “Crucify him! Crucify him” and mocked as his lungs collapsed under the weight of his body and he slowly suffocated - nailed to a cross.
The Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia, written in Latin around the year 530 AD, cautions “Keep death daily before your eyes” – “Memento mori.”
French-Algerian saint and martyr Charles de Foucauld wrote that his only ambition was that he “should cling to nothing but the will of God.” Canonized by Pope Francis on May 15, 2022, Charles wrote, “I must try and live as if I were to die a martyr today. Every minute I must imagine I am going to be martyred this very evening.”
That should be the Lenten Resolution of every American politician and all men and women of Faith: “I must try and live as if I were to die a martyr today…”
The Midas of Aristotle, Ovid and Hawthorne saw only the gold, could heard only the acclaim of his sycophants, aspired only to the power. In Hawthorne’s words, he became “the victim of his insatiable desire for wealth.”
Memento mori!