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.

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.