Byzantine Christian Philanthropy

The University of California Press remains one of the few public academic presses I know of to take such longstanding and in-depth interest in early Christian history, including Syriac Christianity. They have recently published a new book, The Rich and the Pure: Philanthropy and the Making of Christian Society in Early Byzantium by Daniel Caner (University of California Press, 2021), 440pp. About this book the publisher tells us this:

A portrait of history’s first complex Christian society as seen through the lens of Christian philanthropy and gift giving

As the Roman Empire broke down in western Europe, its prosperity moved decisively eastward, to what is now known as the Byzantine Empire. Here was born history’s first truly affluent, multifaceted Christian society. One of the ideals used to unite the diverse millions of people living in this vast realm was the Christianized ideal of philanthrōpia. In this sweeping cultural and social history, Daniel Caner shows how philanthropy required living up to Jesus’s injunction to “Give to all who ask of you,” by offering mercy and/or material aid to every human being, regardless of their origin or status.

Caner shows how Christian philanthropy became articulated through distinct religious ideals of giving that helped define proper social relations among the rich, the poor, and “the pure” (Christian holy people), resulting in new and enduring social expectations. In tracking the evolution of Christian giving over three centuries, he brings to the fore the concerns of the peoples of Early Byzantium, from the countryside to the lower levels of urban society to the imperial elites, as well as the hierarchical relationships that arose among them. The Rich and the Pure offers nothing less than a portrait of the whole of early Byzantine society.

Marxism and Psychoanalysis (I)

Before the month of May--the month of the birth of both Freud (whose usefulness to Christianity I've argued elsewhere), and Marx--passes, let me return to a book I mentioned on here some time ago: David Pavón-Cuéllar's Marxism and Psychoanalysis: In or Against Psychology (Routledge, 2017), 242pp. It is a sharply worded and polemically argued book published late last year. Why this book, and why now? I cannot speak for the author, of course, but if ever we needed irrefutable evidence for the central thesis of this book, we have it in the rise of Jordan Peterson, about whose execrable tract I wrote at length here.

That thesis is one I have long suspected myself: viz., that too much of contemporary academic psychology, especially in North America, is uninterested in human nature except insofar as it can be turned into a handmaid to advanced capitalism. As Ian Parker (about whom more below) notes in the foreword, "this is a book that meticulously documents how and why psychology is the enemy of both psychoanalysis and Marxism" (x).

This notion of enmity confirms what I have long suspected and seen with my own eyes: academic psychology seems to be populated by, and to produce, nothing more than compliant, well-adjusted but badly formed and intellectually shallow members of the upper-middle class: as Pavon-Cuellar will argue later in the book, "psychology is so powerful among the privileged that it makes them forget the economy" (77). Anyone who has been forced to sit through a workplace seminar on "mindfulness" will immediately recognize this as true. If further proof is needed, then once again look to Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist of dangerously shallow learning (as another clinician and colleague of his makes painfully clear here) who is not at all unrepresentative of others in his guild. His book, as my above-linked review tried to make clear, totally ignores economic factors--indeed, scorns the very introduction of them as a distraction to his mythologizing about the libido dominandi of lobsters.

Even as a mere sophomore in psychology a quarter-century ago now in Canada I was shocked by trying to enter into conversations with my professors thinking they would of course have had basic formation in philosophy, history, literature, theology and much else. They had none. Nothing in my experience since then has led me to alter this view.

Seared into my memory is a conversation with my professor in child developmental psychology for whom I wrote a paper analyzing the then-new reports on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Canada. I titled it "Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me" and footnoted that line to, of course, Mark 10:13. In bright red pen, she circled this and scrawled, deadly earnest: "Who is Mark?" When, discussing the paper with her, I explained it was the name of the gospel writer in, you know, this thing called the Bible she appeared scarcely to have heard of it.

Not long after, in reading Robert Coles' biography, Anna Freud: the Dream of Psychoanalysis, I came across and have since often quoted the distinction that she makes in there and he quotes approvingly: between technicians and healers. Most of my psychology professors were technicians, adept in describing the patterns and apparent thought processes of, e.g., bees; in testing the workings of a sparrow's memory; or breaking down in painful detail the multivariate regression analysis of a study of rats on crack. But they couldn't have cared less about individual human beings, never mind wider cultural questions like economic justice, which would have rocked the boat and threatened their funding lines. So one must look elsewhere than today's "conformist psychology" (Jacoby) to find people who see the revolutionary potential in Freud and the tradition he bequeathed to us.

One such person, from within contemporary British psychology, who sees the revolutionary potential and criticizes the conformism, is Ian Parker, author of the foreword to Pavon-Cueller, and author of his own many works, including Revolution in Psychology: from Alienation to Emancipation. I am part-way through this book, and finding deeply edifying. I will say more about it another time, but for now can tell you it's a very worthwhile book.

He also has a brand new book just out, which I have ordered: Psy-Complex in Question: Critical Review In Psychology, Psychoanalysis And Social Theory.

To be fair, Freud himself was far from a revolutionary or a Marxist in many ways. While having achieved a relatively secure life as a member of the professional classes (he trained as a neurologist), he was nonetheless aware of the revolutionary potential of some of his ideas (recall, e.g., his famed comment to Jung as they are getting off the boat in 1909 in Freud's first and only trip to America: "They don't realize that we are bringing them the plague"!) but he was loathe to see the world rocked more than it had been during and after the Great War. He avoided political commentary and engagement as far as possible, which I find very understandable given that he was aware of the precarious place Jews occupied, especially in inter-war Mitteleuropa. Those who worked out some of the political implications of his thought have done so relatively recently--e.g., Eli Zaretsky, the late Paul Roazen, and perhaps most masterfully, as I showed on here, Todd McGowan.

Sure enough, psychoanalysis took hold in America, but it was, within short order and allowing for a few exceptions such as  Otto Fenichel, a psychoanalysis willingly defanged, domesticated, professionalized, medicalized by its own members; perhaps even worse, it was further largely captured by the rise of American ego psychology, which of course was embedded in the categories and patterns of capitalism. Along the way a few questions were raised about this--by, e.g., Erich Fromm, who saw connections between Marx and Freud--but such voices always remained a minority even during the heyday of psychoanalysis, which has now been over for thirty years, perhaps longer.

Why, then, return to such a tradition and such figures as Marx and Freud, whom Peterson and others gleefully conflate as the source of all evils in the past century? I think there is value in doing so not just to illuminate the conformism of psychology, but more especially because both Marxism and psychoanalysis alike remain powerful critics of conformism and idolatry within Christianity--to say nothing of the wider culture. To Pavon-Cuellar's book, then.

The author, a professor of psychology at the Unisersidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo in Morelia, Mexico, begins by asserting that almost all schools of modern psychology "shroud precisely that which Marxism and psychoanalysis strive to uncover" (6). This shrouding is motivated in part by an abstract idealism which seeks to avoid facing the "concrete material totality" of the body in the world today, especially the body of the worker in the economic conditions of the world today (13).

In his second chapter, Pavon-Cuellar argues that there is an important continuity between Freud and Marx even as they would of course have openly disagreed with one another on certain matters: "both will always be authentic materialists" (36). Both, moreover, recognize the lingering power of history, especially traumatic history, and know that it cannot simply be set aside. But both also assert that we are not prisoners of that past but can begin to liberate ourselves from it if we are willing to stand up and stand apart from that history. Thus both Freud and Marx are anti-conformists.

From here the book reviews various schools of psychology and psychoanalysis, noting that Lacan is the most anti-psychology of all psychoanalytic schools today. It then looks at Marxist psychologies before attempting to reconstruct a critical-practical meta-psychology, as we shall see.

Continues. 

God's Poverty....and Ours

I noted here how I came to read Herbert McCabe, and some of the connections I spied in some of his writings to our father among the saints, Sigmund of Vienna.

Now in this Lenten season, when our focus should be less on our efforts towards fasting and other sometimes suspect "ascetical" works, and more on serving others, the poor above all, I want to draw your attention to a short but compelling sermon in McCabe's God, Christ, and Us.

By the end of my first year teaching here in Indiana, I heard loud and clear from my Catholic students that they had had the what drilled into them rather well by twelve years of Catholic schooling, but nobody had ever explained to them the who. So ever after one of the challenges I set for every class I teach, at least if it bears a THEO prefix, is to help students to understand not just a teaching or even its underlying logic, history, or rationale; but to see how and where God is, how and where, sometimes obscurely or partially, a given "doctrine" points beyond itself, reveals more than itself by revealing God. We are commanded to shun murder and adultery not merely because it makes for more felicitous social relations; we shun them because it is not God's nature to kill or betray those whom he loves.

In this case, then, to the Lenten question of "Why should we help the poor" we must reply not just by way of moral exhortation ("Scripture commands you so to do"), or psychological appeal ("How can we not feel compassion for their plight?"). Scripture, as the venerable scholar Raymond Collins has made clear in a recent study, Wealth, Wages, and the Wealthy: New Testament Insight for Preachers and Teachers, does demand that we help, and does issue dozens of dire warnings about wealth, but why? Is God just the biggest social justice warrior (to use today's infelicitous argot) of all?

Perhaps we can understand why God wants us to help the poor, for we presume that God must be compassionate; but why does He also have to bore on with His condemnations of the wealthy (Matt. 13:22; 19:16ff; Mark 10:23; Luke 16:19ff; etc.)? Why can't God just let us enjoy our wealth and possessions? Even if we recognize the often subtle ways in which possessions and wealth corrupt us, surely that's a risk worth running?

McCabe is helpful here in showing us that, as with all sound teaching, the Christian teaching on poverty and its beatitude, and the Christian condemnation of wealth and possessions, are so because both are an icon of God. In this short reflection, "Poverty and God," McCabe begins by claiming that "the movement from riches to poverty, from having to not having, can be a movement not only to being more human but to being divine." Why is that? It is so because God is poor and has no possessions: "We cannot speak literally of the riches of God. But I think we can speak literally of the poverty of God....He is literally poor because he simply and literally has no possessions. He takes nothing for his own use."

As McCabe continues, "God's creative act is an act of God's poverty, for God gains nothing by it. God makes without becoming richer." To which I would add: God makes and gives without becoming poorer, either. In reflecting on this, my mind freely associated to McCabe's other chapters on prayer, and the rather freeing realization came that, as McCabe counsels, in praying for very real and practical things, we should feel no guilt as though we are somehow depriving God of something, or short-changing others if He gives it to us first. God, in other words, is not sitting on a gigantic but finite bank account from which our prayers function as so many withdrawals, depleting His capital. If that were so, would He have counseled us to pray for our daily bread--rather than asking for bread once in a while or once in a lifetime?

On Hoarding and Saving

A forthcoming study puts me in mind of an interview I did with Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen about her book They Who Give from Evil: The Response of the Eastern Church to Moneylending in the Early Christian Era, which treats how the Greek Fathers viewed questions of money, possession, usury, and related social teachings.

This new study, Managing Financial Resources in Late Antiquity: Greek Fathers' Views on Hoarding and Saving, is co-authored by Gerasimos Merianos and George Gotsis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 256pp.

About this book we are told by the publisher:

This book examines the views of Greek Church Fathers on hoarding, saving, and management of economic surplus, and their development primarily in urban centres of the Eastern Mediterranean, from the late first to the fifth century. The study shows how the approaches of Greek Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Isidore of Pelusium, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, to hoarding and saving intertwined with stances toward the moral and social obligations of the wealthy. It also demonstrates how these Fathers responded to conditions and practices in urban economic environments characterized by sharp inequalities. Their attitudes reflect the gradual widening of Christian congregations, but also the consequences of the socio-economic evolution of the late antique Eastern Roman Empire. Among the issues discussed in the book are the justification of wealth, alternatives to hoarding, and the reception of patristic views by contemporaries.

What is the Common Good?

When I teach courses on the social teachings of Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, my students invariably want a more fleshed out answer to the question "What is the common good" than what is supplied in the abstract and often unhelpfully vague treatments of it found in, e.g., the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published by Rome more than a decade ago.

Perhaps help is now at hand in the form of Daniel K. Finn's new book, Empirical Foundations of the Common Good: What Theology Can Learn from Social Science (Oxford UP, 2017), 272pp.

About this collection we are told:

The idea of the common good was borrowed by the Fathers of the early Catholic Church from the rich philosophical traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. It has been a fundamental part of Catholic thinking about social, political, and economic life throughout the Catholic intellectual tradition, from Augustine and Aquinas to modern Catholic social thought in the encyclicals of popes in recent centuries. Yet this history has been rooted in the traditions of philosophy and theology. With the rise of the social sciences in the nineteenth century as distinct disciplines no longer limited to the methods of their philosophical origins, humanity has learned a great deal more about the human condition. Empirical Foundations of the Common Good asks two questions: what have the social sciences learned about the common good? how might theology alter its understanding of the common good in light of that insight?

In this volume, six social scientists, with backgrounds in economics, political science, sociology, and policy analysis, speak about what their disciplines have to contribute to discussions within Catholic social thought about the common good. Two theologians then respond by examining the insights of social science and exploring how Catholic social thought can integrate social scientific insights into its understanding of the common good. This volume's interplay of social scientific and religious views is a unique contribution to contemporary discussion of what constitutes "the common good."

Orthodox Christian Social Thought

I have often heard it said that Eastern Christian thought has a great deal of catching up to do compared to the developments in Catholic social teaching since Leo XIII's landmark Rerum Novarum. Though many Eastern Fathers--some of them noted on here--have of course written treatises about poverty, hunger, and treating the downcast, not a lot has been written in the modern period taking account of very different socioeconomic contexts. But that is changing, and a new book from the Orthodox priest-scholar Gregory Jensen aims to help: The Cure for Consumerism (Acton Institute, 2015), 154pp.

Volume 2 in Acton's series on Orthodox social thought, this latest installment, according to the publisher, has the following focus:

Despite the rapid increase in human flourishing since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, critics of the market economy insist that it leads inevitably to consumerism and other excesses of materialism. Those who make this indictment—including sociologists, political pundits, and religious leaders—also ignore how economic liberty has brought about one of the most remarkable achievements in human history: an 80 percent reduction in world poverty since 1970. The Cure for Consumerism examines popular prescriptions for addressing consumerism that range from simply consuming less to completely overhauling our economic system. In this lively and accessible book, Rev. Gregory Jensen synthesizes insights from the spiritual tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church with modern social science to craft a clear understanding of consumerism, to offer real solutions to the problems, and to put faith and economic freedom to work for both the common good and the kingdom of God.

I've been in touch with the author about an interview, and hope to have that up here over the summer.

Tolstoy and his Disciples

Pre-revolutionary Russian history, as an article we published in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies about a decade ago now revealed, was rather more dynamic on questions of socio-economic reform than the usual picture of complete stagnation and aristocratic repression one often hears about. One person involved in stirring things up was the celebrated novelist Leo Tolstoy, about whom a new study has just been published this year: Charlotte Alston, Tolstoy and his Disciples: The History of a Radical International Movement (I.B. Taurus, 2014), 288pp.

About this book we are told:

As the vast empire of Imperial Russia struggled with the emancipation of the serfs after 1861 and creeped inexorably towards revolution, Leo Tolstoy underwent what he termed a 'spiritual awakening'. Advocating an extreme internationalism and the principles of non-violence, Tolstoy inspired a legion of followers who formed thousands of cooperatives and collective farms across Russia and Europe. These disciples had a major impact: in revolutionary Russia, these 'Tolstoyans' were seen as a threat to the Bolsheviks, and Lenin singled them out for repression. Decades later, Mahatma Gandhi would cite the movement as an inspiration for his campaign of peaceful resistance against the British Empire. Here, Charlotte Alston provides the first in-depth historical account of this remarkable phenomenon and its impact on European and Russian history, providing an important re-assessment of Tolstoy's impact on the political history of the modern world.

The Evil of Moneylending

Just released late last year is a book that manages to be both 'ancient and ever new,' that is, to draw on ancient sources still relevant today in our ongoing discussion about fiscal issues and policies in  the world's economies: Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen, They Who Give from Evil: The Response of the Eastern Church to Moneylending in the Early Christian Era (Pickwick, 2012), 207pp. I asked the author, who teaches at Pacific Lutheran University, for an interview and here are her thoughts:

AD: Tell us a bit about your background.

BLI: Well let me begin by saying “thank you” to you for this opportunity to answer some questions about myself and my work. I was born and raised in western Washington State, on the Puget Sound. I completed my Bachelor’s Degree in English and Education, and taught English in the public school system in Oregon state for a few years. Though I enjoyed my job and knew that I was called to the vocation of teaching, still I desired to study the early history and theology of the Christian church. I took a leave from teaching and returned to school; I completed my Master’s degree in theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California, and then my PhD at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto. After I graduated I returned to teaching, but not to the junior high classroom. I returned to the Pacific Northwest, where I teach as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Pacific Lutheran University.

AD: What led you to write this book in particular?

BLI: This began as a dissertation. I was directed towards this topic by my Doctor-Father, T. Allan Smith at the Faculty of Theology (St. Michael’s). Many dissertations emerge from places of deep passion for students; this was not my situation. That said, I found myself quite wooed by the topic of usury and by those about whom I was writing; quite quickly, their concerns became mine. I cannot help but think that this had something to do with the fact that I did not grow up with wealth and as a graduate student I was deeply in debt.

After I completed the dissertation I assumed that I would put this away and move on, but people were interested, and so I kept working on it. From the dissertation I produced an article for the Journal of Early Christian Studies, a chapter for the book Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for Twenty-First-Century Christian Social Thought (Catholic University of America Press, 2011) and another chapter for a forthcoming compendium on the social justice theologies of the patristic authors. While these projects seemed to close the chapter on this topic for me, enough people encouraged me to revisit the dissertation and revise it for publication as a monograph. I found myself rewriting large sections in light of what I have learned since 2004, and so I am ultimately glad that I revised the work for those who are interested in the social justice theologies of early Christian authors.

AD: Your title already "telegraphs" a rather stark view of many early Christian leaders about money-lending. In what did the evil consist? 

BLI: The evil for patristics lies in the deception of the one who lends, and this is an attitude that has quite ancient roots. The one who lends operates under the pretext of helping someone in need; while it appears as if the lender is offering assistance, in fact they are setting up a condition of debt from which it is often unlikely that the impoverished individual will successfully emerge. I compare this in my book to a usurer throwing an anvil rather than a rope to a person who is drowning. That said, the one who borrows is not off the hook, and individuals are cautioned—especially in the works of Basil and Gregory—to refrain from borrowing money for an extravagant lifestyle. In such cases, they are not innocent.

AD: You open with a chapter on Basil and Gregory of Nyssa and most of your focus is on them. What led you to them in particular? 

Well they are exceptional because they are the only two Greek patristic theologians to write sermons dedicated solely to this topic. Other writings on usury were simply tangential portions embedded in writings that had other intentions. In the Latin west there is Ambrose, but his sermon on this topic draws directly from Basil. So I was interested first in the scarcity of the topic, then on the fact that these two brothers—from affluent families, no less—are both writing on usury, and they are the only ones devoting concentrated attention to it. Then I was intrigued by secondary scholarship that seemed to dismiss Gregory’s contribution though my interpretation was that Gregory had something unique to offer. My desire to go forward with this project was supported by the patristic scholar Paul Fedwick, who felt that it was a good time to reassess the value of these sermons, most especially that of Gregory.

Basil the Great

AD: Are there other patristic sources, in addition to Basil and Gregory, who are important for or influential upon the questions of moneylending?  

It is worth pointing out that patristic theologians of both the Eastern and Western realms of the Empire were in agreement on the subject of usurious lending; though legal, usury was understood as contrary to divine law, and therefore any interest at all was condemned. This does not mean that the patristics did not recognize that lending did take place; it just meant that they did not agree that it should. In the Eastern Empire, Clement of Alexandria relies on biblical precedent in the Hebrew Scriptures for his statements in the Stromata against usurious practices, and Cyril of Jerusalem lists usury in his On the Ten Points of Doctrine within a list of sins that includes tavern-hunting, necromancy and witchcraft! Gregory of Nazianzus also condemned the practice in his poignant Oration 16. John Chrysostom is probably the most important and condemning of the practice; apart from our brothers Basil and Gregory, he has the most to say about moneylending and wealth in general. Many of Chrysostom’s homilies argue that the only investment worth making is in heaven; therefore one should give to the poor as Christ and earn interest for themselves in heaven, not on earth. Of the Latin fathers, perhaps the most important is Ambrose’ De Tobia; though his text lifts whole sections from Basil’s sermon, nevertheless his contribution is both important and provocative. It is worth noting also that the patristic theologians East and West inherited their attitudes from philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria, Plutarch, Aristotle and Plato. In this way, the Christian authors stand in a tradition of great thinkers on this topic.

AD:  Some Christians today would say that these early strictures about interest, usury, and related notions are no longer applicable because the economies of our time--at least in most of Europe, North America, and Australasia--are so vastly different. What are your thoughts on that?  

Yes, I hear this often. But while our economic systems and structures for handling finance have radically changed, people have not. We continue to have problems associated with greed and abundance, and we continue to fail to solve the problem of scarcity. A great example of this is that in late November—just after the holiday in the United States devoted to domestic arts—I read in the news that between thirty to fifty percent of food is wasted globally due to problems with storage, rigid adherence to expiry dates on packages and a need for fruits and vegetables to match an aesthetic criterion that is unreasonable. It takes no technology to fix this problem; it takes only a willingness to be morally responsible to the needs of the people and the planet. One might choose to purchase and eat food that is not perfect, or to not buy foods in bulk if they may go to waste. Or, if something might go to waste one could quickly share it with someone who might need it. These are three simple solutions, and this same type of thinking is found in the writings of Basil and Gregory. For example Basil (drawing on the works of Plutarch and from Proverbs), encourages those in need to avoid borrowing if they can, and to look first to their own resources first before enslaving themselves to money-lenders. He writes “Do you have metal plates, clothing, beasts of burden, utensils of every kind? Sell them; permit all things to go except your liberty.” This is as good a suggestion today as it was then, so while the systems are different, I think that the solutions are still appropriate. I do think that these early strictures about interest and usury are as applicable today as they were in the fourth century.

AD: The end of your first chapter references the subprime lending and mortgage crisis that sent much of the world into economic tumult in the last five years. Were they alive today, what advice would the Cappadocian brothers give to these problems?

I think that Basil would not have soothing words to say to those who tried to live beyond their means and borrowed too much, but I also think that he would take banks to task for holding out the promise of low interest to people who are not able to understand fully what financial deal they are making. I think that we can turn to John Chrysostom for the most extreme response to the evil of the type of lending that has been so disastrous for our country, for he equates a moneylender in his Homily Five on Matthew with a murderer: “under the cloak of kindness he digs the pitfall deeper, by the act of help burdening a man’s poverty, and in the act of stretching out the hand thrusting him down, and when receiving him as in harbor, involving him in shipwreck, as on a rock, or shoal, or reef.” Elsewhere Basil agrees with this sentiment, that one who has it in their good to do power but instead does evil is equated with a murderer, and Gregory refers to a usurer as a “murderous physician” who kills rather than heals. This is not an image of their own making, for the Hebrew Scriptures equate financial sins with murder, and Psalm 15—the Psalm on which Basil and Gregory focus their sermons—notes that the usurer will not be counted among those who will dwell on the Lord’s “holy hill.” Even Cato the Elder when asked “What do you think of lending at usury?” replied, “What do you think of killing a man?” So, what do I think of those who lent to those who did not have the capacity to pay their mortgages? Well, what do you think of killing someone?

AD: You note (p.109) that no Father was as adamant as John Chrysostom in his denunciations of affluence and usury. What are the problems he sees? Is his thinking broadly representative of the other sources you look at? 

I would agree that he is broadly representative of the sources, not only in his theology but also in his method. Like the other Fathers whom I highlight in the text, Chrysostom includes usury in homilies devoted to other subjects, but the financial concerns are brought into the discussion as part of something larger. As well, with respect to the problems that he sees regarding unjust financial transactions, Chrysostom is largely concerned with the direction of people’s investments. In other words, they are investing in transitory, material things rather than in that which is divine, or Heaven. Of course this seems odd to many who do not come from an Orthodox or Catholic background with a tradition of the Fathers; how can one invest in Heaven? To understand what this means for the Fathers, one has to understand something of their anthropology and theology. If God is accessible through God’s uncreated energies, then investing in Heaven is possible in the “here and now” because when one aids someone in need, then one is responding to God. This is a concept that all of the Greek Fathers seem to share, but it does seem that for Chrysostom it is a theme to which he returns many times. Gregory of Nyssa also promotes this same way of thinking about giving as “investing in heaven,” going so far as to call God a debtor to us! But of course what he means by that is that God, who gives from God’s abundance, is the model for giving.

 AD: How do you, and the Fathers, understand the problem of moneylending in directly theological terms? That is, usury is condemned (presumably) not just because of socioeconomic problems it creates for people, but also because such practices do not reflect who God is. What images of God, what descriptions of His nature, emerge from the Christian tradition's treatment of usury? 

BLI: All of the Fathers on whom I write are approaching their topic through the lens of asceticism and monasticism. In other words, they are individuals who have intentionally divested themselves of unnecessary wealth and they live among a community that supports that ideal. Of course, we have to recognize that they lived during an age when ecclesiastical leaders were expected to be connected to monastic communities and being an “ascetic” had become rather part of the job description of the professional religious. Further, they had communities that supported them spiritually, emotionally and materially, so to divest oneself of wealth while still be provided for is hardly the same thing as divesting oneself of wealth and not knowing a single soul in the city. As well, these were all individuals who were classically educated, and so their image of God is very much shaped by that education. Their theology has an impact on their understanding of economic practices as each moment, each financial interaction, becomes for them—and for us as well—an opportunity to meet God in the poor. However, this also means that something of God’s nature (the divine energies) cannot be approached or known as long as human nature is dressed in the garments of sin and stained by avarice. Gregory of Nyssa, in his Sermon 5, Forgive us our Debts, writes that an evil response by the wealthy to the poor distorts the inherent goodness of creation. This is ultimately, for Gregory, tied up in his Christology, for a proper understanding of shared human nature on the part of the giver will move both the giver and the receiver towards an original state of purity. In this way, acts of benevolence and goodness clarify the divine image that both parties are capable of demonstrating. “For as you practice goodness,” he writes, “you are clothed in Christ and as you become like Christ you become like God.”

AD: Sum up for us what you hope to accomplish with this book, and then tell us what you are working on now.  


First, I hoped that this book might provide a helpful history of the development of lending in the Greek, Roman and Hebrew cultures. Many times books on economic history are pretty formidable, and so I attempted to write a history that would be accessible to those with more than a passing interest but yet not necessarily students of ancient economies or legal systems. Second, I felt strongly that Gregory of Nyssa did not receive due treatment in secondary materials that analyzed his work; it felt too often that his sermon was treated as a mere copy of Basil’s, when in fact it was Ambrose who lifted who passages out of Basil’s sermon! I think that many times Gregory’s writings on similar topics of Basil’s were his way of saying “I have something to contribute as well,” and that is an attitude that we should model. I think it would have been challenging to have been the sibling of Basil, and even though Gregory has in no way suffered with respect to academic treatment of his theology, still, with respect to this one sermon I felt that it warranted—and that he deserved—a closer look.

What I am working on now is something quite different. I am completing for Ashgate a manuscript on the writing of John Moschos, a late sixth, early seventh century monk who composed a document known as the Pratum Spirituale, or The Spiritual Meadow. Along with his companion Sophronios, Moschos traveled around Palestine and Sinai and collected what we call “beneficial tales,” very brief stories most often focused on monastic life. Moschos is an enigmatic figure, and my manuscript seeks to uncover through close analysis of select tales in his text what we might be able to learn of the social history of the early Byzantine monks and lay people at a turning point in the history of the Eastern Empire. Now this seems like a project that is unrelated, but it is actually the topic of finances that led me back to Moschos’ Pratum. Years ago I realized that many of the tales dealt with—in some way—problems of scarcity, greed and financial suffering. So when it was time to embark on a new scholarship project I found my way into the text through, once again, the theme of social justice.

The Evil of Money-Lending

As the interminable opéra bouffe drags on in Washington over the "debt ceiling" and "fiscal cliff," a new book lands on my desk from the publisher quite unexpectedly: Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen, They Who Give from Evil: The Response of the Eastern Church to Moneylending in the Early Christian Era (Pickwick Publications, 2012), xiii+207pp.

The author, who has written reviews for Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies recently, is a visiting professor at the Pacific Lutheran University. About her book the publisher tells us: 

The purpose of They Who Give from Evil is to consider the financial and salvific implications of usury on the community and the individual soul as it is addressed within the sermons of a selection of early Christian Greek authors, in the historical context of the fourth century Roman Empire. Although focusing on two Greek texts, St. Basil's Homily on Psalm Fourteen and Against Those Who Practice Usury by St. Gregory of Nyssa, Ihssen is able to shed fascinating insight on Roman life and illustrate the rich social justice theologies of the patristic world.

I look forward to seeing this book discussed further in the new year, and also to interviewing the author.