Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.

The saying expresses a recognizably Stoic diagnosis of moral weakness: when a person’s deepest commitments (“religion,” in the broad sense of reverence, conscience, or devotion to the good) are not aligned with what they most value and protect (“treasure,” i.e., wealth, status, comfort, or any prized external), the external will win in moments of conflict. Epictetus repeatedly argues that only what lies within our moral purpose (prohairesis) is truly “ours,” while externals are indifferent and unstable. Read in that light, the line warns that piety or principle cannot survive as a mere ornament; it must be treated as the highest good, otherwise it will be traded away whenever it becomes costly.