Self-Indulgence

The umbrella collects three instances in which a wealthy figure organizes his life around the satisfaction of his own appetites. The first is a first-person retrospective; the other two are parables. In each, the same pattern surfaces — abundant means, deliberate self-feeding, and a verdict that follows.

Solomon's retrospective

The Preacher records his own program in the first person: "And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I did not withhold my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced because of all my labor; and this was my portion from all my labor" (Ec 2:10). The decision is explicit and exhaustive — nothing the eyes wanted was withheld, nothing the heart wanted was refused. The verse names the result a "portion" — the speaker's share extracted from his work.

The rich fool

The first parable shows the same logic in a man who has only just become rich. "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully" (Lu 12:16), and the surplus prompts a private deliberation: "What shall I do, because I don't have a place to bestow my fruits?" (Lu 12:17). His resolution is to enlarge the storage and address his own soul: "Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry" (Lu 12:19). The reply from outside the soliloquy reverses the calculation: "You foolish one, this [is] the night they demand back your soul from you; and the things which you have prepared, whose will they be?" (Lu 12:20). The man's program has assumed a horizon of "many years"; the verdict shortens it to a single night.

The rich man who feasted every day

The second parable opens on a sustained pattern rather than a single decision: "Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day" (Lu 16:19). The frame is daily, ongoing, and externally visible — purple, fine linen, sumptuous fare — and stands as the introduction to a narrative that turns on the contrast between this life and what follows it.