Cankered Gold

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. 

James 5.

The cankered gold that eats the flesh like fire is obviously a spiritual metaphor.  But in our prosaic way, we got to talking about what kinds of reactions can actually corrode gold.  We couldn’t think of anything and a little research shows there isn’t much under normal conditions.  Gold cleans up nicely.

Then someone mentioned Alas, Babylon.  There are some striking passages about irradiated gold which slowly kills the wearer.  If you want to really get what James is saying, read Alas, Babylon.