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St. Basil the Great Pronouncements of the Cappadocians on Issues of Poverty and Wealth Mary Sheather Did the Cappadocians, Basil of Caesarea and the two Gregorys, have anything significant, and significantly Christian, to say to the social and economic problems of their time? We know their outstanding contribution to fourth-century theological debate, and from references to ‘the Cappadocians’ we may conclude that discussion of Cappadocian spirituality and theology implies a recognition of a certain uniformity of approach in the work of these three writers, despite differences in personality and gifts. Whether this applies also to that portion of their writings dealing with social and economic issues is not so often considered, although more attention has been paid to this aspect of their work in recent years. Such material, it must be said, does not bulk large in the Cappadocian corpus.
As well as making incidental comments in works not specifically on social issues, each Cappadocian Father composed relatively short homilies or orations on the plight of the poor and the duties of the rich. Basil in Destruam used a reflection on the text ‘I will pull down my barns’ from Luke 12:18ff. to deal with the special temptations to which the rich may fall prey, and to castigate their shortcomings and suggest how they should behave towards the poor in the community. In divites takes Matthew 19:16ff., on the rich young man, as the inspiration for an attack on excessive concern for material goods at the expense of one’s poorer neighbours. Gregory Nazianzen in On the Love of the Poor (De pauperum amore) paints a vivid picture of the life of those whose poverty is exacerbated by illness, and proposes an appropriate, compassionate response. Gregory of Nyssa in two shorter works on loving the poor (De pauperibus amandis) adds advice on how to redress social evils to previous homilies on over-indulgence.
This examination of the homilies will seek to determine to what extent, individually or as a group, the Cappadocians were influenced in these works by their Christian convictions and outlook, and how profound an impact the homilies have made on Christianity’s subsequent approach to issues of social justice. It is obvious that we are not expecting to find here works of such immediate impact on the social and economic life of the time as to suggest that they should fall into the category of The Communist Manifesto. Their authors initiated no wide-ranging social upheavals, and would quite possibly have been alarmed had their counsel been adopted by their audience in any comprehensive fashion. We should, however, note Tawney’s comment in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism:
Because doctrine and conduct diverge, it does not follow that to examine the former is to hunt abstractions. That men should have thought as they did is sometimes as significant as that they should have acted as they did, and not least significant when thought and practice are at variance.
The homilies of our three writers all attack what they see as errors in conduct and attitude in their congregation. Pagan philosophers such as Musonius and Epictetus had performed a similar function for their readers and listeners. We may therefore find that some of the commonplaces of ethical exhortation will be shared by pagan and Christian writers, and we will need to distinguish attitudes—they could scarcely be called doctrines—which are specifically ‘Christian’ from those held by many thoughtful, ethically serious pagans.
The significance of nature
One word that occurs significantly frequently in such discussions in these works is physis most commonly translated as ‘nature’. This is one of a number of terms which suggest that the attitude of the Cappadocians to conditions of wealth and poverty was intertwined with their beliefs and theories on several other issues. ‘Nature’, as it is employed in these writings, may refer to the nature of the universe, the way things are (or should be), or human nature, common to all. In general, it has a positive connotation. In association with the word ‘common’—koine—it refers to the nature that rich and poor share, a fact forgotten by the rich, who care only for themselves (so says Basil in Destruam).
Gregory Nazianzen refers to ‘coming to the help of nature’, implying by the context that he is referring to that which is shared by all humanity. This is indicated more directly earlier in the homily, when he speaks of the nature which we and those who are wretched all share. We may note in passing that the ‘we’ addressed here are assumed to be the rich or at least the well off, not the poor themselves. He asks whether we will consider ourselves to be of a superior nature to the disadvantaged, and thus deny our kinship. For Gregory the bestowal of reason on human beings alone has made us all kin.
For Basil, it is the promptings of nature which are denied when a poverty-stricken parent feels compelled to sell a child into slavery. The person who exploits such misery also ignores any consideration of nature. Gregory of Nyssa also notes that we are human beings, deliberating about humans, with nothing distinctive besides our common nature. This is most tellingly demonstrated for Gregory by the basic condition of life common to all: birth, the need for food and drink, and eventual dissolution. For Basil too the equalising effect of the grave is a powerful argument. Gregory of Nyssa also used similar expressions on our common nature when apostrophising an individual ‘brother’ whom he exhorts to make the nature common to all the basis of his reflections.
Original basic equality
Neglect of nature and natural ties is associated by Basil with the evil that results when wealth becomes the main object in life. Such an approach disregards the basic equality of all human beings before God, which Gregory Nazianzen strongly affirms when he discusses the origin of property and describes God as providing all with the necessities of life in equal measure, without boundaries or restrictions of law—an example of his goodness (chrestotes). The antinomies of poverty and wealth, freedom and slavery, he believes to be relatively late developments in the history of humankind. Envy, strife and the deceptive tyranny of the serpent in the Garden of Eden are all blamed for the decline from the primitive state of equality. Gregory does not suggest that there is no hope of restoring this original simplicity, since he urges: ‘look to the original equality, not the later division, nor the law of the powerful, but the law of the creator; help nature as much as you can, honour the original freedom’.
Basil has a similar understanding, although he does not refer to an original state of equality in his discussion of the way our social relationships may be compared to the seating arrangements in a theatre. He suggests that the wealthy, keeping to themselves what should be for general use, are like theatre-goers holding on to their seats when others arrive for the next performance, as if they had permanent possession. Gregory of Nyssa makes reference to the rivers and streams which God gave ‘common and unadorned’ to all, and encourages giving to the poor by pointing out that all things belong to God the father of us all.
Pagan equivalents?
Pagan writers of a range of philosophical persuasions would accept much of what was written by the Cappadocians on the nature shared by all humanity. Epictetus (c. ad 60–138) refers to ‘the greatest and supreme and most comprehensive community...composed of men and God’ and notes that ‘from God have descended the seeds not only to my father and grandfather, but to all beings which are generated on the earth and produced, and particularly to rational beings—for these only are by their nature formed to have communion with God, being by means of reason conjoined with him’. God is also referred to as ‘a good king and a true father’, in a section where Epictetus assures the reader of God’s providence. The consequences of such awareness are related to the moral development of individuals, but Epictetus, in discussing the treatment of slaves, reminds the slave-owner that the slave is ‘his own brother, who has Zeus for his progenitor’. The master needs to recall that slaves are ‘kin, brethren by nature, offspring of Zeus’. Cicero too connects a predisposition to friendship with the essence of being human. By nature, he notes, we have inborn a sense for esteeming and a love of benevolence. Without this, ordinary social life would become impossible, and he rejects need as the primary impulse to friendship.
A certain linking of ethical imperatives to an assumed divine order is not, therefore, exclusive to Christian writers, nor did it originate with them. What is different is the nature of the disparity typically addressed. Pagan philosophers who address the issue are at pains to point out that the slave one owns is human. The concern of our writers is for the poverty-stricken and ill who are not part of one’s own household.
Poverty a punishment?—a theodicy
A problem that emerges for theologians dealing with the obvious inequalities in the human race as it now exists is to explain how this state of affairs has come about if God is, as they assert, a loving father who regards all his children as of equal value. If the Fall is blamed for disrupting the original equality and harmony, should Christians attempt to redress the current inequalities or rather see them as the will of God, perhaps even as deserved punishment for the individuals concerned?
Basil turns the question around to the rich man, suggesting rhetorically that God is hardly unjust in distributing to us unequally the necessities of life: ‘So why are you rich and this person over here poor? Isn’t that so that you may receive the recompense for kindness and faithful stewardship, and this [poor] person be honoured by the great rewards for longsuffering?’. Gregory Nazianzen deals directly with possible explanations for the uncertainties of life. He suggests that the wise may believe that good will in fact come to those who are good themselves (an obvious motive for charity!); or, if such people encounter evil, it is there for a purpose known to God, and not as a punishment; or, finally, those who are good, when misfortune strikes, demand from others the generous display of humanity (philanthropia) which they previously bestowed. Gregory also forcefully attacks those Christians who suggest that God allocates affliction and good fortune, and that we should not interfere in God’s plans. He suggests that Christians who truly acknowledge God as their benefactor and show gratitude will be the very ones who in fact show generosity in their turn to those in need.
The duty of stewardship
What, then, beyond our common nature, should impel us to care for the poor? What is the standpoint from which the Cappadocians make their recommendations on behaviour? For Gregory Nazianzen the benefits of life in society which Cicero describes as derived from human sociability are all to be seen as coming from God. Thus, as well as being the dispenser of the beauty and order of the physical world, we should also see God as providing us with human arts and sciences, social relations, and the establishment of humankind as lord and king (over nature). To this list we should add our being made ‘son of God, co-heir with Christ and, indeed, even divine’. The message here is that the recipients of such benefits should themselves show beneficence. Here is direct reference to a specifically Christian motivation.
The relationship which should prevail in society, it seems, is one that should in some sense restore the primitive equality. The concept of stewardship is introduced to suggest how this should be done. Gregory Nazianzen sees wealth as a charge to be administered for the benefit of the poor, and cites the words of Amos (wrongly attributed in the text to Micah) on the evil of those who indulge in luxuries while the poor starve. Gregory of Nyssa describes the wealthy person who refuses to give a portion of his goods to others as a bitter tyrant, an uncivilised person with no spirit of compromise , an insatiable beast . Basil believed that the rich should see themselves as servants of God, stewards to fellow slaves. The goods they administer should be regarded as in effect belonging to others. Riches exist, in Basil’s view, to be a service to living.
Imitate Christ—see Christ in the poor
A telling point for our writers is Christ’s voluntary assumption of the ‘poverty’ of our human nature. The message to be derived from this may work in two ways. It may suggest firstly that we who are rich, at least relatively speaking, should imitate Christ by stooping down to those in need: ‘the king of heavenly blessedness became human for you and covered himself in our flesh...with its soul trapped within, to heal your pangs with his own touch—and do you flee your kin?’, asks Gregory of Nyssa rhetorically. In the same vein, Gregory Nazianzen reminds his hearers that Christ died for the sins of the whole world, that those whom they despise bear his image, even if their bodies are wasted by disease, and that, if they are deprived of earthly happiness, they are still co-heirs of eternal life. The poor look to us as we look to God when we lack anything, he notes earlier in this work. Basil, at the end of his address to the rich, calls for trust in the good counsellor, Christ, who made himself poor for us, so that we might be enriched by his poverty. This paradox, derived from 2 Corinthians 8:9, here has the effect of suggesting that as Christ counted poverty no disgrace, so neither should those rich in the world’s goods despise those in need.
Another use of such references to Christ as having become poor is to suggest that we should see Christ in the poor, in effect a role reversal which turns an act of charity into one of thanksgiving, a part payment of a debt of gratitude for redemption—‘make a return to our benefactor’, says Basil. Gregory of Nyssa quotes Matthew’s Gospel account of the Last Judgment—‘inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these you did not do it to me’ (Mt. 25:45)—to warn his hearers of what may await them. Gregory Nazianzen also notes this passage and points out that the condemnation is made not on the basis of commandments broken, but because there has been lack of care for Christ, represented by the poor. He also affirms the spiritual sonship and heavenly destiny of those who are feeble and of no account in human estimation. They bear the divine image, he reminds the audience, perhaps better than we do. As Gregory of Nyssa notes: ‘they have taken upon themselves the person of the Saviour who lent us his person to shame those who hate the poor as people hold up images of the emperor to defend themselves’.
Prudential charity
This compassionate approach contrasts oddly with another form of appeal which frequently appears in these works, whereby a prudential concern for the eternal destiny or even the earthly reputation of the hearers is the motivation. Basil points out that if you give to the hungry, what is given becomes your own, with extras. In the homily In divites, he advises that one make wealth a distinctive ornament (by employing it well). Take one’s wealth with one, follow the precepts given, so that ‘we may become heirs of eternal life in Jesus Christ’. Rather disconcertingly, Basil emphasises the folly of greed in terms of the risk it involves with regard to the gaining of eternal life. He points out that giving money to buy a horse causes no one to shed tears, but the suggestion of almsgiving, with the prospect of the kingdom of heaven for reward, is liable to meet with alarm and refusal. The excuse often put forward, that one needs to maintain property to leave to one’s heirs, is rebutted by Basil with the comment that one’s children are surely no dearer to oneself than one’s own soul. (Yet when looking at the case of parents forced to sell a child into slavery, the sundering of family ties is described as unnatural.) This call to look to one’s own soul smacks of self-serving rather than true spirituality, even if one’s children’s earthly welfare (as also one’s own) may legitimately be deemed of small account in comparison to eternal life.
Gregory Nazianzen also on occasion prompts his audience to acts of charity by pointing out the changeability of human affairs. Those who are wise, he observes, may reflect that God often bestows the good things of this world on the pious. Further on in the same speech, Gregory advises his hearers to concentrate on that which alone is true and good, cultivating their souls by performing deeds of charity, sharing goods with the poor so as to be rich in heavenly benefits. Even his exhortation to do for the poor all that we would do for Christ concludes with a reminder of the reception into ‘eternal tabernacles’ as a reward, but in this case the reference is to Luke 16:9, with Jesus’ ironic injunction to make friends with the mammon of iniquity if one has no other way of ensuring one’s salvation.
Gregory of Nyssa, after reassuring his hearers that they are unlikely to contract illnesses such as leprosy by tending the sick, concludes with the comment that if there is no risk in exercising charity in this way, and what is to be gained is the kingdom of heaven—in the long term—what is to prevent the command of love from operating? Such appeals, even where the goal is the laudable one of inducing the reluctant to bestow some of their wealth on the needy, tends to strike a jarring note in works whose overall tone is rather different. Intention, we feel, should count for something.
The emphasis on opposites
A feature typical of the homilies is the stress on contrasts: between this world and the next, rich and poor, soul and body. Such contrasts, to the advantage of the spiritual over the material, would no doubt seem especially appropriate in works emphasising disregard for appearances and earthly, material values. That this is no necessary reflection of the way things really are in the sight of God is a point fittingly made here, but also one to be expected in our writers on cultural and theological grounds. Gregory Nazianzen contrasts the sickness of the soul (from which his audience may be suffering) with the sickness of the poor, on whose behalf he is appealing. The former complaint, he warns, is much more serious than the latter. He notes that, paradoxically, the poor could be raised through their humility and enriched through their poverty. This inversion of values is a challenge to his contemporaries, but one which was familiar to pagan philosophers, especially the Cynics and the Stoics, who made much of the differences between the ‘true’ king and the apparent king on the throne, the ‘true’ rich man, or possibly woman, and the person who is rich in the world’s estimation. Gregory makes the same point when he notes that there is an opposition between earthly and heavenly values, such that what is taken from the stomach is given to the spirit. Earlier in the same passage he expressed the opposition somewhat differently: give a portion to the soul, not to the flesh only; give a portion to God, not to the world only.
Basil too notes that the rich person will embellish lifeless objects but pay no care to adorning his or her soul. Such a contrast is consistent with the ambivalent attitude to the body that we find throughout these homilies. For Gregory Nazianzen the body is both foe and friend, kin and fellow-slave. (Note the word homodoulos, applied also by Basil to the poor in order to make a point about spiritual equality.) ‘I am the image of God and mixed up with mud; which I love as a fellow-slave and reject as an enemy, which I flee as a bond, and honour as co-heir.’ Gregory’s concluding clause in this section of his speech acknowledges the body’s essential supportive role in the spiritual journey: ‘I must make my way to God through actions’. A too-gentle treatment of this ally, however, will lead to danger, and such a possibility has Gregory exclaiming: ‘What I fear, I embrace, what I love, I fear! Before I come to battle I am reconciled, before I have made peace I am at odds with [the body] again’. Gregory’s comments here take him rather off the topic as he considers the reason why God may have created humans in this way. He concludes that such an arrangement is to keep us from becoming too proud and forgetful of God as our originator.
Gregory of Nyssa’s observations on the body-soul relationship are significantly different. He notes that when the soul is set free from its connection with that which is pitiable and earthly, it is seen with its own beauty. But Christ’s own embracing of human flesh with all its ‘smelly, filthy’ qualities, for our healing, is seen as a model for the healthy who should thus embrace the sick. Putting off the flesh when eternal life is won is nonetheless an enticing prospect, perhaps naturally gaining an extra emphasis when Gregory is pointing out the irrelevance of an infected, decaying body to one’s spiritual fate. Despite such ambivalence, Gregory shows a deep appreciation of the natural world.
The tone of these observations could be paralleled with writings of the pagan philosophers. From the time of Plato onwards, a suspicion of the flesh, or more precisely a prizing of the soul at the expense of the body, was a commonplace. In a sense this goes along with the reversal of commonly accepted values, by which the true king, wise person and so on, might not be the one who is flourishing in the world’s eyes. Just as Diogenes might actually be more kingly than Alexander, when one realised what a ‘real’ king should be like, so a leper might be more healthy, inwardly, than someone who, in apparent health, looked down on the outcast. The charge to attend to such people in their physical wants does suggest that physical well-being, paradoxically, has a certain value, otherwise helping them in this way would not gain spiritual reward.
The lure of gold
Succumbing to the lure of gold and the drive for conspicuous consumption demonstrated a misuse of this potential to do good with material possessions. Abundance of wealth, in Basil’s view, suggested a lack of generosity—or whence came this superfluity? ‘The more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in charity.’ He proceeds to describe the folly of those who dig up gold from the ground only to re-bury it for safety. Jewels, after all, are but stones, yet such goods, which should be employed for the assistance of others, and be a ransom of the soul—have become a source of damnation, leading to wars and similar evils. Basil is at his most persuasive when he notes that a rich man’s ring could free a poor person from debt, or provide homes and clothes for the destitute. Everything seems to be turned into gold and still there is never enough of it; everything is done for the sake of gold. Nature’s bounty contrasts favourably with the greedy man’s lack of this quality. He compares the luxurious homes of the rich to children’s sandcastles, destined to perish, thereby showing the folly of those who put their trust in such ephemera. Gregory Nazianzen uses a similar image when he suggests that those who rely on their current material prosperity are like children drawing in the sand. Those who will listen are exhorted to be rich not only in gold, but also in virtue.
For Gregory of Nyssa, colourful accounts of the self-indulgence of the rich suggest the depredations which are made on nature to bring the choicest fare to those who are never satisfied. He also depicts the life of luxury of effeminate men and shameless women in the style of the daughter of Herodias. The wealthy person he shows disregarding the poor, though possessed of an abundance from which he could pour out consolation, like water on a parched plant. Such a person might well be one of those who would look to his animals’ welfare before that of the poor.
A theme such as this, however dramatically rendered, was not new. It was a favourite with classical pagan authors. Not only philosophers but poets also regularly linked the lust for gold with social evils such as wars, and vices such as envy and hatred. Thus Seneca condemned avarice and the urge for private possession (for example in Epistula XC), and the poet Tibullus blames gold for the wars which afflicted humankind, linking the evils of wealth and its pursuit to the decline from a primitive Golden Age of simplicity and equality. It is therefore not surprising that our writers have recourse to such motifs.
Basil in his advice to young men on reading the pagan poets was willing to accept whatever of value pagan culture had to offer, and he, his brother and his friend were deeply impregnated with much of the ethos of their society, to the extent that this seemed compatible with their faith. From the earliest days of Christianity, ethical principles which by their austerity and nobility chimed in with evangelical counsels were eagerly advanced as reinforcing the validity of Christian claims, and often viewed as ultimately derived from Hebrew scripture.
Love of the poor
To assess the extent of the Cappadocians’ indebtedness to their Christian roots for their outlook on social issues, we note the elements which are imbued with biblical and Christian images and attitudes, perhaps here provided with a new perspective suitable to their era. The most significant of these elements are the seeing of Christ in the poor and the imitation of his self-giving by acts of charity. An obvious difference from pagan commentary on the issues discussed here is the very existence of whole speeches (as opposed to mere asides inserted into a main theme) devoted specifically to relations between rich and poor. While we have noted emphasis by pagan writers on the distinguishing features of the human race which make us all kin, works dealing with the love of the poor, so expressed, do not appear in the classical writings to my knowledge. A theoretical acknowledgment of equality and a harking back to an age when property did not exist may appear in classical texts, but counsels encouraging love and involvement with the poor and the physically unappealing are not present.
Basil, noting how the rich often claim to be poor, agrees: ‘Truly you are poor in humanity, poor in faith in God, in eternal hope’. He suggests that the one who loves his neighbour as himself will have (or should have) no more possessions than his neighbour: ‘the more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love’. Gregory Nazianzen asserts that love of the poor is the chief part of the love recommended by Christ and St Paul. This involves showing compassion to those who are poor and in trouble. We should care for the bodies of others as we care for our own, being one body in Christ. Gregory notes the central place that attention to the poor receives in scripture, and his concluding peroration returns to the image of seeing Christ in the poor: ‘as long as we may, let us visit Christ, let us care for Christ, nourish and clothe Christ...through the poor daily on the earth’. For Gregory of Nyssa mercy and doing good are dear to God; the poor are beloved of God; the virtue of doing good (to others) is what holds life together—it is the mother of the poor, the teacher of the rich.
Such encouragement to action, which should not remain at the level of words, is within a biblical framework which at times is perhaps mere rhetorical adornment, but is also often an interweaving of the text with references embodying a tradition of social concern from the Hebrew Scriptures, especially the prophets (but also the Psalms and Job most notably). References to the New Testament link Gospel passages and epistles by means of the common motifs of the duty of charity and the prospect of the kingdom of heaven.
There are variations in the tone and emphasis among the three writers. Gregory Nazianzen becomes expansive and emotional as he dwells on his theme, more so than the other two, although there is pathos in Basil’s account of children sold into slavery. Gregory of Nyssa introduces an image of a pristine world of nature, with the implication that all should have access to the earth’s bounty. All at times make statements which seem surprisingly radical, even ‘levelling’, although these are perhaps not to be taken too seriously.
Results
In his funeral oration for Basil, Gregory Nazianzen noted that his friend, by his word and exhortation, ‘opened up the storehouses of the rich’ and fulfilled the words of scripture on the duty of feeding the hungry (ch. 35). His establishment of a hospice for the sick, ‘storehouse of piety, common treasury of the wealthy’, is praised by Gregory (ch. 63) as the fulfilment of his exhortation not to despise our fellows or dishonour Christ by inhumanity to the unfortunate (although even here the motive of self-interest enters in a reference to the spiritual benefits to be derived from charity). We note too that in the community of women established by Basil’s sister Macrina, differences of social rank were abolished.
On balance we may fairly conclude that the Christian dimension infuses the works we have examined and provides them with a quality which is both typical of the Cappadocians and not to be found in their non-Christian counterparts. Concern for the workings of the social order may not be seen as the most characteristic feature of these theologians, yet it may have lit sparks in strange places. When William Cobbett wished to berate his contemporaries in early nineteenth-century England for their lack of compassion and the harshness of the prevailing laws, he quoted Basil, even if, following Puffendorf, he did ascribe the quotation to Ambrose. ‘It is the bread of the hungry which you detain: it is the raiment of the naked which you lock up’.
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