St. Kosmas Aitolos on using ill-gotten money to pay for good works.

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There is a long-standing practice in many cultures for people to try to justify or cleanse themselves through making big donations or building public institutions. It can be surprising to learn how many monuments, buildings and the like were paid for by men who lived truly evil lives.

St. Kosmas Aitolos tells us that such generosity will do little for evil persons:

Those of you who earn your bread by means of your toil and sweat should rejoice, because that bread is blessed; and if you give a little of it as alms it is reckoned as much. But those who live by means of injustice and grasping should mourn, for what you thus acquire is cursed; and if you give alms out of these they do not benefit you at all, being fire that consumes you.

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