THE EARLY CHURCH AND PROPERTY CONCEPTS
The Chiliasm of the early Christians had a direct bearing upon their
attitude toward the property institutions and property concepts of the
time. Neither the declension of Chiliasm nor the progressive
socialization of the Church can be understood without some consideration
of the attitude of the Christians toward property, and conversely the
effect of the existing economic system upon the Christians.
The early Church made its appearance in a world where the institution of
private property was supreme in fact and very largely unquestioned in
theory. It is recognized with perfect clearness by all the ancient
thinkers who refer to the subject that their civilization was based upon
the property rights of man in man. It is not true that slavery was
invariably considered part of the unalterable law of nature. Aristotle
expressly states that a sufficient development of mechanistic technology
would abrogate slavery. But such a technological development was not
expected nor indeed wished for. Contempt for mechanical processes of
industry was universal, with the dubious exception of the application of
science to military engines. There is a similar unanimity in regard to
commercial enterprise. Money obtained by ordinary mercantile methods was
considered as dishonestly acquired. It was assumed as self-evident that
the merchant had to be a thief. Interest on money was of course
reprobated as contrary to nature.[1] Return from landed property was
almost the only socially reputable form of income--with the exception of
spoils of war. Free wage labor was so unimportant that the Roman law did
not even develop a set of legal principles regarding it.
The Jewish property system, which originally had some notable
peculiarities of its own, had by the first century A.D. become of
necessity so like the Roman that the differences may for our purposes be
disregarded. The more so as Christianity very early came almost
exclusively under the influence of the Roman institutions and concepts
in this regard. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that Roman practice in
regard to property was widely at variance with Roman theory, with the
result that serious moral disintegration came over persons engaging in
commercial enterprises. The moral lapses of the early Christians are
largely to be set down to this cause, on the principle that a
destruction of moral integrity in one respect makes other delinquencies
easy.
With respect to the attitude of Christ towards contemporary property
institutions, it is unnecessary for our purpose to regard any
conclusions of modern criticism. The synoptic gospels were uncritically
accepted by the early Church and we are concerned merely with what was
commonly accepted as the teaching of Christ.
Perhaps as convenient a way as any of illustrating the breadth of view
in Christ's attitude toward property institutions would be to take a
single illustration and apply to it the whole range of property concepts
found in the teachings of Christ. No single illustration is so applied
in the Gospels as we have them, but the principles will be the clearer
for the consistent use of the same illustration. We shall take as our
type case one which Christ himself used; the case of a thief who steals
a coat. The teachings of Christ about property can conveniently be put
down under four heads, each illustrating, by a different way of treating
the thief, a different property concept.
First: The ordinary or conventional manner of treating the thief, based
on the concept of the morality and sacredness of private property; i.e.,
catching the thief, recovering the stolen property and punishing the
crime by fine or imprisonment or torture. This conventional standard of
morality and attitude towards property is illustrated, e.g., in the
story of the man with one talent in the parable. It is very concisely
summed up in the expression: "To him that hath shall be given and he
shall have abundance and from him that hath not shall be taken away even
that which he hath."
Second: What may be called for convenience the socialistic manner of
treating the thief--no implications either good or bad being intended by
the use of the term socialistic. This treatment would consist of
catching the thief, recovering the stolen property but letting the thief
go free with merely an admonition to future good behavior. This
treatment is based on the concept that the institution of private
property has only a partial validity and that violations of private
property rights are to be blamed not alone upon the violator but upon
society at large in equal degree. This attitude is illustrated in the
case of the woman taken in adultery: "Neither do I condemn thee; go and
sin no more." The illustration is perhaps more apt than appears at first
glance for female chastity is and was legally possessed of tangible
economic value i.e., adultery was viewed as a violation of a property
right belonging to the husband of the adultress.
Third: What may be termed the anarchistic manner of treating the
thief--here again no implications either good or bad are intended by the
employment of the term anarchistic. This treatment consists essentially
in pacificism, in Tolstoi's non-resistance. It is purely negative and
allows the thief to get away with the stolen coat without anyone making
any move to recover the property. This treatment is based on the concept
that private property institutions have no validity at all, but that the
only valid property arrangement is that of pure communism. This attitude
toward property is illustrated by such sayings of Christ as "Of him that
taketh away thy goods ask them not again;" "Resist not him that is
evil," etc.
Fourth: What may be distinguished as the specifically Christian manner
of treating the thief--using the word Christian as appertaining strictly
to the founder of the Church. This treatment consists of running after
the thief not for the purpose of capturing and punishing him; not even
for the purpose of recovering the stolen coat but for the purpose of
giving him a vest and an overcoat in addition to what he has stolen. It
amounts to the direct encouragement and reward of the thief for doing
what is presumably a meritorious action by stealing. This way of
treating a thief is not socialistic, or communistic; it is not even
anarchistic. It is something as far beyond anarchy, as anarchy is beyond
socialism, or socialism beyond ordinary conventional individualism. It
is specifically and peculiarly and uniquely Christian, using that word
as above defined. This treatment is not based on any concept of any kind
of property institution. Its logical, intellectual position is the
denial of the validity or worth of any property institutions, private or
communistic. It involves indeed the destruction of the very concept
property as implying possession by right of social agreement. This
attitude of Christ toward property finds expression in such sayings as:
"From him that taketh away thy cloke withhold not thy coat also."
"Blessed are ye poor." "Woe unto you that are rich." It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle, etc. etc. The great bulk of
Christ's statements about property are to be classified under this
fourth head. The views are probably connected, with just what degree of
closeness it is impossible to say, to the belief in the immediately
imminent catastrophe of the world. With somewhat less certainty, it may
be ventured that certain of Christ's sayings which we have listed as
anarchistic are perhaps influenced by the same idea.
It is of course obvious that the above four fold division is not exact
in the strict scientific sense, or that any teaching of Christ
concerning property can be unhesitatingly classified under one head or
another. Still less is anything intended to be implied as to the
existence or non-existence of any underlying, universal, theological
principle which would reconcile apparent divergencies. Theological
metaphysics as such, lie outside the scope of this chapter which is
intended as an objective study of concepts of property. From an
objective point of view it is evident that the four divisions
imperceptibly shade into one another and form a continuous series,
nevertheless for the sake of convenience it may be considered as
approximating a rational organization of the material under distinct
heads.
Immediately after the time of Christ the Christians in Jerusalem
developed a communistic organization. "All that believed were together
and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and
parted them to all men, as every man had need." "Neither said any of
them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they
had all things common. Neither was there any among them that lacked; for
as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the
prices of the things that were sold and laid them at the apostles' feet;
and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."[2]
It is doubtless true that the participants in this communistic society
believed themselves to be living according to the principles and
precepts of Christ. Yet there is some evidence which would lead to the
conclusion that perhaps this experiment was less a deliberate and
reasoned out endeavor to organize a permanent society on a new economic
basis, than an instinctive movement, entered upon under the influence of
a belief in the immediately imminent second advent of Christ and
therefore expected to be of only very limited duration. The collections
subsequently taken up in other Christian communities 'for the relief of
the poor saints in Jerusalem' would seem to lend color to this view of
the matter.
In St. Paul's teaching about property there is a fundamental
inconsistency. He makes statements which taken separately are applicable
to particular situations but which are not in harmony with one another.
He loyally supported the established right of private property, even in
slaves. But at another time he pronounced that property right depended
upon service rendered. In one place we have: "Slaves obey your masters"
in another: "If any will not work neither let him eat." But if a man's
slaves obey him he can eat without working. There is no suggestion of
communism in St. Paul's writings. If all the 'property passages' in the
epistles are collected and read in connection with their contexts two
facts come into prominence, First: Property institutions as such have
only a relative validity. They are not viewed as ends valuable in
themselves but are subordinated to religious ends, and the concept of an
immediately imminent second advent lies at the base of this relative
valuation.[3] Second: Economic arrangements of the existing social
order, like similar political arrangements, are to be strictly conformed
to, in spite of their merely relative validity, for fear of jeopardizing
the more important religious movement.[4] St. Paul whether consciously
or not, is, in regard to social institutions, an evolutionary
revolutionist. He would doubtless have been the first to admit that his
doctrine of human brotherhood, for example, would eventually overthrow
his doctrine of slavery, supposing--as there is no ground for thinking
he did suppose--that time enough elapsed for his doctrine of brotherhood
to permeate the general social consciousness. In so far as property
concepts are concerned it would probably be difficult to maintain that
there is any essential divergence between the teachings of St. Paul and
some at least of the teachings of Christ. St. Paul was by nature an
ecclesiastical statesman. He seems to have taken such of Christ's
property concepts as served his purposes and ignored the others.
In the epistle of St. James are to be found very bitter complaints as to
the working of property institutions. These complaints are so serious as
to suggest the inevitable attempt to make over the institutions and the
fact that no such attempt is indicated is due to the manifestly lively
expectation of the second advent. Yet even so it was necessary for the
writer to council patience to his brethren.[5]
In the Revelation there is a passage, xviii, 12 seq., quite in the
manner of the most violent of the ancient prophets or the modern
anarchists. In this passage property is conceived as evil and the
destruction of civilization as it then was, is conceived as a cause of
rejoicing to saints, apostles, and prophets. On the other hand the New
Jerusalem in the same book[6] is a 'wholesale jewelers paradise' and
involves the property concepts of those cities of Asia Minor who did
most of the jewelry manufacturing of the Roman Empire. It is very
doubtful how far anything in such a description can be said to embody
property concepts but the ideal put forth is the communistic enjoyment
of incredible luxury.
The epistle of Clement of Rome has only incidental references to
property. They can be well summed up in the quotation:[7] "Let the rich
man provide for the wants of the poor; and let the poor man bless God,
because He hath given him one by whom his need may be supplied." There
is manifestly no question of tampering with received property
institutions and concepts on the part of the writer of such a sentence.
It is equally evident that such an attitude in regard to property is
eminently well calculated to enable the holder to propagate specifically
theological opinions with a minimum of interested opposition.
The Didache holds a naïve and touching communistic creed.[8] "Thou shalt
not turn away from him that hath need but shalt share all things with
thy brother and shalt not say that they are thine own." This passage,
the only one on the subject in the Didache, would seem to indicate that
the institution of private property existed as a matter of fact in the
writer's community, but that the validity of it was not acknowledged.
The position may perhaps be called one of conceptual and constructive
communism.
The Epistle of Barnabas holds exactly the same view in almost exactly
the same words:[9] "Thou shalt communicate to thy neighbor all that thou
hast, thou shalt not call anything thine own."
Early in the second century we come upon the Ebionites who in the matter
of property held very strong views.[10] The stricter of them made
poverty a condition of salvation. They refused to acknowledge the
validity of the concept property--that is in theory. In practice some of
them seem to have been influenced by the doctrine and practice of the
Essenes in regard to communism.
All through the second century we find a continuous succession of
heretical sects, Gnostics and others, who held either the doctrine of
the wickedness of property-ownership as such, 'holy poverty,' or else
objected to individual ownership of property and preached or practiced
communism in such degree as might be possible under the circumstances.
Of these sects it is sufficient to name the Marcionites 110 A.D. The
Carpocratians 135 A.D. The Procidians 160 A.D.(?) The Basilidians 138
A.D. It is evident that there was in progress in the second century an
ascetic movement which later took on the forms of Manichaeism and
Christian asceticism. The Church consistently opposed all these sects
and maintained the validity of private property without condemning
communism as such, except in extreme cases, such as that of Epiphanes of
Alexandria, a Carpocriation, who in a book on Justice, 125 A.D., defined
virtue as consisting in absolute communism of goods and women.
To return to orthodox Christianity, Hermas shows very clearly the
inconsistencies which beset Christian theory and practice in the first
half of the second century. All who are rich must be deprived of their
wealth in order to be good Christians.[11] Yet this deprivation of
wealth must be only relative; there must be wealth enough left for the
giving of alms.[12] There is no trace of communism in Hermas and no
praise of poverty as such. The chief justification for the existence of
property institutions would seem to be that they are social structures
which can be utilized for the giving and receiving of alms. Perhaps one
paragraph is worth quoting as giving possibly the earliest formulation
extant of the property concepts that finally became dominant. "The rich
man has much wealth but is poor in matters relating to the Lord because
he is distracted about his riches and he offers very few confessions and
intercessions to the Lord and those which he does offer are small and
weak, and have no power above. But when the rich man refreshes the poor
and assists him in his necessities, believing that which he does to the
poor man will be able to find its reward with God--because the poor man
is rich in intercessions and confession and his intercession has great
power with God--then the rich man helps the poor in all things without
hesitation; and the poor man, being helped by the rich, intercedes for
him, giving thanks to God for him who bestows gifts upon him. And he
still continues earnestly to interest himself for the poor man, that his
want may be constantly supplied. For he knows that the intercession of
the poor man is acceptable and influential with God. Both accordingly
accomplish their work. The poor man makes intercession; a work in which
he is rich, which he received from the Lord, and with which he
recompenses the master who helps him. And the rich man in like manner,
unhesitatingly bestows upon the poor man the riches which he received
from the Lord. And this is a great work and acceptable before God,
because he understands the object of his wealth and has given to the
poor of the gifts of the Lord and rightly discharged his service to
Him."[13]
The inconsistent and irreconcilable nature of the evidence about early
Christian property institutions is well illustrated in Justin Martyr.
Two short extracts are sufficient for the purpose. "We who valued above
all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we
have into a common stock and communicate to every one in need."[14] "We
carry on us all we possess and share everything with the poor."[15]
The second of these passages would indicate that the first is not to be
taken in a too literal and comprehensive sense. It may perhaps be
ventured as an opinion that the truth of the matter, as regards the
Christians of whom Justin wrote, is that the concept of private property
was largely invalidated and that personal possessions were thought of as
owned in common while the 'common stock' consisted in reality of
contributions--it may be large contributions--given for the relief of
necessity among the members.
The account preserved to us in Lucian of the Christian communities of
Judea in the later half of the second Century would seem to bear out
this opinion. Lucian says: "The activity of these people in dealing with
any matter that affects their community is something extraordinary. They
spare no trouble, no expense. Peregrine all this time was making quite
an income on the strength of his bondage. Money came pouring in. You see
these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they
are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and
voluntary self devotion which are so common among them and then it was
impressed upon them by their original law giver that they are all
brothers from the moment that they are converted and deny the gods of
Greece and worship the crucified sage and live after his laws. All this
they take quite on trust with the result that they despise all worldly
goods alike, regarding them merely as common property."[16]
In Tertullian we find the same contradiction as regards private
ownership and communism which has already been noted in Justin. The
contradiction is more glaring, but possibly the explanation of the real
situation is similar. The following two extracts from the same chapter
bring this contradiction out in high relief: "Family possessions which
generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among
us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods
with one another. All things are common among us but our wives." "On the
monthly collection day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but
only if it be his pleasure and only if he be able, for there is no
compulsion, all is voluntary."[17]
Tertullian was a Montanist and one of the most serious charges made
against the Montanists was that some of their prophets received interest
on money loaned by them.[18] Tertullian is above suspicion in this
respect. He demonstrates by quotations from both the Old and New
Testaments that it is absolutely contradictory to Christianity. Interest
on money is the only property institution in regard to which the
teaching of the early Church is consistent. Every reference we have in
regard to this practice condemns it--not mildly as a venial offense--but
fiercely and savagely as a heinous crime like incest or murder.
"Fenerare est hominem occidere" is a favorite formula. In this respect
the most pronounced apologists of private wealth like Clement of
Alexandria are in perfect accord with the most pronounced communists
like Tertullian. The only difference to be noted is one of emphasis. In
the earlier writers there are relatively few references to interest,
which may perhaps be due to the fact that in the earlier time there were
relatively few Christians possessed of surplus means requiring
investment. As might naturally be expected, the writers of the period
after the establishment of Christianity as a legal religion make more
frequent and more bitter reference to the matter. The vehemence of
denunciation indulged in by these later writers almost exceeds
credibility. The most improbable and strained exegesis is resorted to in
an effort to explain away the words of Christ in the parables of the
pounds and talents. But this vehemence is by no means confined to the
Nicene and post-Nicene fathers. So statesmanlike a bishop as Cyprian, in
a long railing accusation against certain opposition bishops brings
forth as their final sin that they had "multiplied gain by usury."[19]
Usury is not to be taken, of course, in its present sense of excessive
or burdensome interest and it is evident that Cyprian did not use it in
such a sense. He is simply condemning interest as such. In the minds of
the early Christians the difference between taking five percent interest
or fifty percent was exactly the same as the difference between stealing
one dollar or ten. The sin was essentially the same irrespective of the
particular amount involved. Indeed this comparison is scarcely a valid
one; for taking interest was conceived as a much worse sin than plain
robbery. It is perhaps worth noting that the moral distinction between
interest and usury is of very late development. The credit, if it be
such, of making it, is to be ascribed to Calvin and is not unconnected
with the predilection of certain types of pecuniary interest for that
reformer's system of ecclesiastical polity. The Roman law did indeed fix
a maximum legal rate of interest, varying at different times and even
at the same time for different forms of commercial risk. During the
first three centuries A.D. it was, for example, consistently twelve
percent on ships and varied from six to twelve percent on other forms of
investment. But this has little moral connotation.
Early Christian condemnation of interest on loans was by no means
confined to the expression of opinion by church writers. Council after
council legislated against it with ever increasing severity. The
forty-fourth Apostolic Canon prohibited the practice to clerics. The
Council of Elvira 310 A.D. forbade it to both clerics and laity. The
Council of Arles 314 A.D. provided that clerics guilty of the practice
should be deposed from the ministry. The seventeenth canon of the
Council of Nicea 325 A.D. provided that they should be excommunicated.
The penalty is reiterated in the twelfth canon of the First Council of
Carthage 345 A.D. There is no need to continue the list. It is
sufficient to say that nearly every council whose canons have come down
to us has legislation against interest. Again and again it is absolutely
forbidden to clergy and laity alike under the severest ecclesiastical
penalties--and it is necessary to remember that after 325 A.D. these
penalties could, if need be, be enforced by governmental authority.
This attitude of the early Church toward interest on loans is a matter
of very considerable historical importance. Although, as we shall
endeavor to show later, the ecclesiastical laws were frequently and
largely evaded, they still had such influence that their contribution to
the sum of economic forces which accomplished the overthrow of ancient
civilization is by no means an insignificant one. Nor did the influence
of this attitude cease at the fall of Rome. It rather increased
thereafter and for several centuries, the so-called "Dark Ages,"
civilization was strangled by the power of this idea of the sin of
usury. To this day the Roman Church regards interest on money as a
reprehensible thing which, however, is not, for practical reasons, to be
spoken of as sinful by the clergy.[20] This attitude has been no
inconsiderable factor in the relatively late industrial development in
Catholic countries.
The early Christian concept of interest was not an idea original with
Christianity. It was not derived from Christ at all. It was taken over
bodily from Old Testament Judaism and contemporary pagan philosophy. It
is a well known fact that the views of Plato and Aristotle, of Cicero
and Seneca on interest, correspond in a very astonishing way to the
views of Deuteronomy and Isaiah, of the Psalms and Ezekiel. The strength
of the concept in the early Church was due to this fact. In regard to no
other concept was there such a unanimity of opinion. The Christian
convert found that the sacred scriptures of his new faith confirmed in
the strongest language the condemnation of interest which he had become
familiar with from the writings of the noblest pagan philosophers. When
reason and religion were in accord it is not wonderful that their
judgment was accepted--as a theory.
In spite of this union of pagan philosophers and Hebrew prophets, of
Christian Fathers and Ecclesiastical Canons, the condemnation and
prohibition of interest on money was a theory only. A very ordinary
knowledge of classical civilization is sufficient to explain the reason
of this. More nearly than any other institution, the financial machinery
of antiquity corresponds to that of modern life. Trusts and millionaires
were phenomena of their economic life as of ours. Banks were numerous
and ubiquitous. They were of all sizes and degrees; from the great
metropolitan corporation with correspondents all over the civilized
world, to the hated money lender in a shabby office on a side street.
The great bankers were men of the first importance in society. From
their number were regularly recruited the officials of the imperial
treasury. They were almost without exception men of the strictest
financial integrity. The Roman banking laws protected the depositor more
securely than the laws of any modern nation, and these Roman laws were
rigidly enforced. Every banking institution had to obtain government
authorization in order to do business and this authorization was
withdrawn on the discovery of the smallest discrepancy in the accounts.
The regular rate of interest on ordinary deposits was four percent;
under certain peculiar conditions the rate went as low as two and a half
and as high as six percent. The rate published by a bank had to be paid
even though payment swept away the banker's entire private property. The
banker lost everything before the depositor lost anything. The banks
were used by the government in carrying out such fiscal measures as
could not be conveniently handled by the treasury department directly.
They played a still more important part in the ordinary commercial life
of the times. A relatively small volume of business was, or could be,
carried on by transfers of specie. The great bulk of commercial
transactions were of necessity carried on by checks, drafts, discounts,
bills of exchange and similar instruments of credit. It was a
matter of simple impossibility for any man in ordinary commercial or
industrial life to carry on his business for even a single day without
participating directly or indirectly in transactions involving loans and
interest.
Our excuse for reciting these commonplace details of Roman commercial
life is that their very commonplaceness explains the discrepancy between
early Christian theory and practice in the matter of interest. It would
be an easy task to convict the early Christians of hypocritical pretense
in this regard. Nothing more would be necessary than to print their
theory in one column and their practice in a parallel one. Yet the early
Christians were not hypocrites. As regards sincerity of profession they
compare very favorably with any religionists of any age. As a matter of
fact the historians have long ago shown that it is altogether impossible
and unjust to argue from a sect's opinions to their feelings and
actions. To quote Macauley[21] "Only imagine a man acting for one single
day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they
profess or act up to all that they believe. Imagine a man acting on the
supposition that he may safely offer the deadliest injuries and insults
to everybody who says that revenge is sinful; or that he may safely
intrust all his property without security to any person who says it is
wrong to steal. Such a character would be too absurd for the wildest
farce." "The law which is inscribed on the walls of the synagogues
prohibits covetousness. But if we were to say that a Jew mortgagee would
not foreclose because God had commanded him not to covet his neighbor's
house, everybody would think us out of our wits."[22] Yet that Jew is no
hypocrite in his religion. He is sincerely and honestly devoted to his
faith and will sacrifice time and money; will undergo social obloquy and
contempt in support of it. So it was with the early Christians. By the
process of abstracting their theory and practice of interest from the
social matrix which alone makes the theory or practice intelligible, it
is easy to show a logical inconsistency. It would be equally foolish and
false to deduce from this inconsistency any conclusions one way or the
other as to early Christian morality. It is if course no aim of this
thesis to attack or defend any religious or moral opinions. It is a
matter entirely apart from our present concern to evaluate interest or
non-interest in ethical terms. Our purpose is not to explain away the
inconsistency of the early Christians. Admitting the inconsistency in
the fullest degree, our aim is to explain it as natural, and, under the
social conditions then prevailing, practically inevitable. The early
Christians left funds to care in perpetuity for the family burial
lot.[23] Under any religious creed; Pagan, Jewish, or Christian, decent
provision for the care of graves of relatives was not only admissible,
it was a positive demand of social reputability; to say nothing of the
demand of natural affection.
Similarly annual agapes were established by bequests as a charity to the
poor brethren.[24] These agapes were no innovation. As an institution
they were perfectly familiar and in universal observance among the
pagans. The agapes were simply ordinary Roman silicernia with the name
changed. To the Romans, founding a silicernium was like wearing a toga
or going to a bath. It possessed the sanction of law and the benediction
of religion; but its real compulsion lay in social custom. No person
could escape this pressure of the mores and retain self respect, to say
nothing of the respect of others. The pagan silicernium was morally
respectable; it perpetuated friendship and promoted good feeling. There
was no reason for avoiding it, if avoidance had been possible--as it was
not. The Christians not only preserved this pious institution; they
improved it. Their annual agapes fed the poor, which the silicernia,
excellent as they were, seldom did.
The explanation we have endeavored to give of the endowment of family
burial lots and annual agapes is applicable, mutis mutandis, to other
cases of interest. It therefore is not surprising to learn that
Callixtus (pope 218-223 A.D.) was a banker previous to his elevation to
the papacy; that large numbers of Christians, particularly widows and
orphans--entrusted their money to his bank, and that he had large loans
out at good interest to Jewish bankers.[25]
The truth is that the early Christian horror of interest, while
absolutely honest and even desperately sincere, was a strictly
legalistic, ceremonial, and ritualistic horror. It was purely formal and
was not at all concerned with any economic principle. The thing that was
wicked, was not income from capital invested, but income _in the form of
interest on money_. To own a ship and sail it and make profits from
ownership by freight charges was perfectly honest, but to invest money
in a shipping corporation and receive dividends was wicked. So it was
honest to own a building and get money as rent. It was immoral to invest
money in the construction company that erected that building and receive
income in the form of interest. Rent, profit, and interest are merely
three forms of the same thing, income from invested capital. Any
endeavor to distinguish between them in this respect is entirely devoid
of moral or economic justification. The ancient Church fathers were as
well aware of this as we are. The real point and importance of their
concept of interest was their defense of that concept. That defense was
a curious one and illustrates the difference between ancient and modern
reasoning on economic matters--and on other matters also. The difference
in a word is that of mistaking means for ends on the theory of course
that we moderns are right and the prophets, philosophers, Christian
fathers, et al. wrong. According to modern social science, interest is
merely a means adopted for the attainment of certain ends--economic,
educational, religious or whatever. The goodness or badness of interest
is to be judged strictly and solely by the convenience and economy with
which it serves these ends. If any other property institution can, in a
given situation, serve a given end more easily and more cheaply than the
institution of interest, then, in that situation, the institution of
interest--other things being equal--is immoral and should be abolished.
If, in the given situation, no other property institution can serve the
given end more easily and more cheaply than the institution of interest,
then that institution is moral and should be retained. That is, from the
modern sociological point of view, the institution of interest is
inconceivable except as a means to some end outside itself. As a means
it is to be judged in a purely objective and pragmatic manner by the
ordinary standards of cost price, economic, social, and other.
The method of the ancients is entirely otherwise. Assuming still the
correctness of the modern viewpoint, which viewpoint be it said is not
unassailable and indeed is assailed by divers radicals, socialists and
others, but for the most part persons lacking in pecuniary reputability;
the mistake then, that the Early Church fathers make is that of taking
the means for an end. They have many arguments against interest but all
these arguments can be criticised for this one error. The fathers
elevate interest to the dignity of an end in itself. Interest, qua
interest, is condemned. It is taking advantage of a brother's necessity.
It is grinding the face of the poor. It is producing pride, luxury, and
vice. As soon as moral value is attached to anything, it of course, is
viewed as an end in itself. If it be true that interest is an end in
itself, then the fiercest diatribes of the fathers are none too severe.
Assuming their premises, their conclusions follow inevitably. The modern
man--he is not unknown--who talks about the "sacred rights" of private
property is guilty of the same error as the ancient Christians, the
error of mistaking means for ends. The early Christians could not see
that the property institution of interest is neither good nor bad except
as it is good or bad _for something_. The _something_ determines the
judgment. As a matter of historical fact the condemnation of interest
developed in certain early stages of human civilization and at those
stages interest was socially detrimental. At those stages, however, it
was exceedingly rare and correspondingly infamous. In any country where
there is abundance of good, free land the phenomenon of interest on
money will disappear, provided labor is free. So it disappeared in the
northern states of this Union in the later part of the 18th century.
These phenomena caused the southerners to adopt slavery though all their
English traditions had declared it immoral for more than three
centuries. The relation of interest to slavery under a condition of free
land is the relation of cause and effect, i.e., the requirement of
interest will produce slavery and the abolition of interest will abolish
slavery.[26] These social phenomena are of importance in our
consideration of the early Christian doctrine of interest. That doctrine
was largely evaded and disobeyed but it still had great effect and that
effect was toward the abolition of slavery. We do not mean that this
economic doctrine alone resulted in the abolition of slavery, or even
that it was a chief cause in the abolition of slavery, it was not obeyed
well enough to be such a chief cause; but so far as it was obeyed, it
tended in that direction.
The net result of all Christian teaching together was to prolong the
existence of the institution of slavery for two centuries, perhaps for
three. The doctrine of the sinfulness of interest however, worked toward
emancipation and forced slavery in its later end to become almost wholly
agricultural, i.e., to yield income as rent. Slaves cannot be employed
in commerce or industry in sufficient numbers to be profitable where the
institution of interest is banned as it was in the 'dark ages.' The
Christian concept of interest undermined ancient civilization by
abrogating, slowly but surely, the institution of property by which such
gangs of 'manufacturing slaves' as made the fortune of Crassus, could
alone be made profitable. It is an historical curiosity that it
accomplished this result without any attack on the institution of
slavery itself.
As soon as Christian doctrines became widespread enough to produce
important social results we find Christian slave owners manumitting
their slaves in considerable numbers. It is no derogation to the
influence of the doctrine of human brotherhood or to the humanity of the
Christian slave owners to mention the fact that the doctrine of the
sinfulness of interest, by tending to make slavery unprofitable, aided
in the process of bringing to light the real content of the doctrine of
human brotherhood, and of making the humane practice of manumission
easier by the removal of certain economic impediments.
In order to understand properly the working of the prohibition of
interest and its relation to manumission, it is necessary to carry the
analysis one step farther to its ultimate physical basis, which was the
conditioning factor of actual practice and eventually of theory also.
The exhaustion of the soil of western Europe which was the result of
ancient methods of agriculture, together with the rising standard of
living and the competition of other more fertile agricultural regions
like Egypt and North Africa resulted in the substitution of the
latifundi for small landholdings.[27] As the pressure continued the
latifundi in turn became economically unprofitable under forced labor
(slavery) and large tracts of land were abandoned. In order to put this
land under agriculture again the charge upon it had to be reduced by the
substitution of (relatively) free associated labor, villeinage or
serfdom. But this change cut off the economic margin upon which the
structure of ancient civilization was built and is the ultimate economic
reason assignable for the fall of Rome. Of course the collapse of the
empire could, theoretically, have been avoided had the Romans of the
first three centuries A.D. been content to live the toilsome and frugal
life of the Romans of the early republic. But this was an utter
impossibility in practice. This slowly working and hardly understood
decline in the relative and actual ability of ancient agriculture to
sustain the weight imposed upon it, enables us to see why the sinfulness
of interest could be steadily indoctrined even though steadily evaded,
by Christians from the beginning, while manumission was not taught at
all in the beginning and only worked up to the dignity of a pious action
relatively late.[28] It also explains why manumission of household and
personal slaves preceded that of agricultural slaves. Of course there is
nothing peculiarly Christian about this later phenomenon and the
operation of other causes is discernable, but it is important for our
purpose to observe that Christian practice, and Christian theory in
property matters in the long run, followed the broad lines of the
underlying economic evolution.[29] The application of this to the origin
of Christian monasticism and to the revival of communistic theories by
the later Church fathers lies at the very outside limit of our study but
will be briefly touched on after we have considered the final overthrow
of the communistic property concept as they appear in the earlier
fathers up to and including Tertullian.
Clement of Alexandria 153-217 A.D. has the distinction of being the
first Christian theological writer who clearly expounds the concept of
private property which has held sway without substantial change in the
Church until the present time. This statement does not apply to the
doctrine of receiving interest on money. In respect to this doctrine
Clement is in perfect accord with all other early Christians both
before and after himself. Indeed he specifically states that the Mosaic
prohibition against taking interest from one's brother extends in the
case of a Christian to all mankind. But in regard to all other property
institutions Clement's attitude is essentially that of any modern
Christian of generous disposition.
In all that Clement has to say about property, and the 'bulk' of his
'property passages' is as great as that of all previous Christian
writers together, he speaks like a man on the defensive. Indeed there
has come down to us no other Christian writing earlier than his time
which presents his view, with the dubious exception of some passages in
Hermas. The fact seems to be that while Clement is undoubtedly
presenting an apologetic for the existing practice in the Church of his
day, that practice was felt to be more or less open to attack in the
light of certain scripture passages. Communism as an existential
reality was gone by the time of Clement--whatever may have been the
extent--probably a limited one--to which it had existed in the earlier
ages. But while communism as a fact was dead, communism as an idea or
ideal of Christian economy was not dead. Indeed Clement's views about
the morality of wealth were so different from those of previous writers
that a great modern economist[30] in treating of this subject ventures
the opinion, though doubtfully, that the reason why Clement, alone among
the great early theologians, was never canonized by the Church was that
he ran counter to popular belief on this subject. This opinion is
probably erroneous. Clement's theological opinions have a semi-Gnostic
tinge quite sufficient to explain the absence of his name from the
calendar of saints.
Clement justifies the institution of private property. He justifies, on
the highest ethical and philosophical principles, the possession by
Christians of even the most enormous wealth. His apologetic is not an
original one. He borrows it bodily from Plato. Indeed he quotes Plato
verbatim, invocation to Pan and the other heathen gods included.[31] The
originality lies in applying this Platonic doctrine to the exposition of
Christian scripture. Clement's method is strictly that of Biblical
exegesis. In the well known sermon or essay on: "Who is the Rich Man
that shall be saved" he takes up practically all of the scriptural
passages which seem opposed to the institutions of private property and
explains them in so modern a spirit that the whole sermon might be
delivered today in any ordinary Church and would be readily accepted as
sound and reliable doctrine. His thesis is that wealth or poverty are
matters in themselves indifferent. That riches are not to be bodily
gotten rid of, but are to be wisely conserved and treated as a
stewardship intrusted to the owner by God. That charity to the poor
should be in proportion to one's wealth and that a right use of wealth
will secure salvation to the upright Christian even though he possesses
great riches all his life and leaves them to his heirs. The wealth that
is dangerous to the soul is not physical possessions, but spiritual
qualities of greed and avarice.
His views can be best expressed by himself. We give two characteristic
passages from the sermon above referred to.[32] "Rich men that shall
with difficulty enter into the kingdom, is to be apprehended in a
scholarly way, not awkwardly, or rustically, or carnally. For if the
expression is used thus, salvation does not depend upon external things,
whether they be many or few, small or great, or illustrious or obscure
or esteemed or disesteemed; but on the virtue of the soul, on faith and
hope and love and brotherliness, and knowledge, and meekness and
humility and truth the reward of which is salvation." "Sell thy
possessions. What is this? He does not, as some off hand conceive, bid
him throw away the substance he possesses and abandon his property; but
he bids him banish from his soul his notions about wealth, his
excitement and morbid feeling about it, the anxieties, which are the
thorns of existence which choke the seed of life. And what peculiar
thing is it that the new creature, the Son of God intimates and teaches?
It is not the outward act which others have done, but something else
indicated by it, greater, more godlike, more perfect, the stripping off
of the passions from the soul itself and from the disposition, and the
cutting up by the roots and casting out of what is alien to the mind."
"One, after ridding himself of the burden of wealth, may none the less
have still the lust and desire for money innate and living; and may have
abandoned the use of it, but being at once destitute of and desiring
what he spent may doubly grieve both on account of the absence of
attendance and the presence of regret."[33]
We have now come to the beginning of what is in many respects the most
interesting period in the history of property concepts. It is a period
in which everything is upside down and wrong end to. In that strange age
we find a famous archbishop, one of the world's noblest orators, a man
of the most spotless integrity and the most saintly life, publicly
preaching in the foremost pulpit of Christendom doctrines of property,
the implications of which, the most hardened criminal would scarcely
venture to breathe to a gang of thieves.[34] We find the most learned
scholar of the century, in the weightiest expositions of Christian
Scripture, penning the most powerful apologetic of anarchy that is to be
found in the literature of the world.[35] We find one of the greatest of
the popes, a man whose genius as a statesman will go down to the latest
ages of history, setting forth in a manual for the instruction of
Christian bishops, property concepts more radical than those of the
fiercest Jacobins in the bloodiest period of the Terror.[36]
Stranger still, these incredible performances are the strongest proofs
of the wisdom and piety of the men responsible for them. These men are
today honored as the saviors of civilized religion and their images in
bronze and marble and painted glass adorn the proudest temples of the
most conservative denominations of Christians. The strange history of
these famous men: Athanasius, the two Gregories, Basil and Chrysostom in
the East; Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome and Gregory in the West, lies
outside the limits of our study. But the explanation of their desperate
and uncompromising communism can be given in a word. It was the
communism of crisis: the communism of shipwrecked sailors forced to
trust their lives to a frail lifeboat with an insufficient supply of
provisions. These great Christian scholars, enriched by all the
accumulated culture of their civilization, saw that culture falling into
ruin all around them; they felt the foundations of that civilization
trembling beneath their feet. To vary the figure, they beheld the rising
tide of ignorance and barbarism rapidly engulfing the world and with
desperate haste they set to work rebuilding and strengthening the ark of
the Church that in it, religion, and so much of civilization as
possible, might be saved till the flood subsided. Their task, perhaps
the most important and most urgent, that men have ever had to perform,
was of such a nature that they cared not what they wrecked in order to
accomplish it. They ripped up the floor of the bridal chamber for timber
and took the doors of the bank-safe for iron.
These rhetorical figures are violent; but they are less violent than the
reality they are intended to express. Monasticism was the last desperate
hope of civilized Christianity and these men knew it. To establish
monasticism they degraded the sanctity of marriage and denounced the
sacredness of property. They conferred the most sacred honors upon the
lowliest drudgery;[37] they turned princes into plowmen and nobles into
breakers of the soil. Some historians, judging them by the different
standards of a later age, have pronounced them fanatics led astray by
vulgar superstition. But judged by the needs of their own age, judged by
the inestimable services rendered to the world by the monastic system
they instituted, they are entitled to a place far up in the list of the
wisest and the ablest of the human kind.
Sketchy and imperfect as the above study necessarily is, it nevertheless
gives the primary facts which are essential to an understanding of the
important part played by property concepts and property institutions in
the transformation of early Christianity from a predominantly
eschatological to a practically socialized movement.
We have seen,[38] that the earliest generations of Christians took over
from contemporary Judaism a strongly Chiliastic eschatology. The logical
consequence of such an eschatology is an indifference to, or
undervaluation of, the existing social arrangements including the
property concepts and institutions. One form easily taken by this
indifference and undervaluation is that of practical communism. We
accordingly find in the Acts and in such early writings as the Didache
and the Epistle of Barnabas a distinctly communistic theory and the
traces of more or less effort to put this theory into some degree of
practical effect. Chiliasm and communism in these writers go together
naturally.
Pari passu with this logical, communistic Chiliasm we can trace the
development of an illogical, individualistic Chiliasm in St. Paul,
Clement of Rome and Hermas. It is already manifest even at this early
stage, that the weight of influence and power of control in the
Christian societies is on the side of the individualists. This is due to
two causes. In the first place the communists among the Christians
worked under a great handicap. The underlying economic institutions of
society can indeed be changed. But they can be changed--on any
considerable scale--only very slowly and by enormous effort. At any
attempt to change them a thousand interested and determined antagonists
at once arise. It is not too much to say that had all Christians
insisted upon communism as an essential element of the Christian faith
and practice, Christianity in the Roman world could never have developed
into anything more than an unimportant sect. The very fact that
Christianity spread as rapidly as it did in the first century of its
existence is proof that the communists in the Church made very little
headway. It was hard enough to combat pagan religion and philosophy. Had
the property institutions been attacked also, the primary religious
objects would have been lost sight of in the conflict.
In the second place the more practical minded Christian leaders would be
antagonistic to a doctrine and practice which alienated many persons who
might otherwise be won to the Church, and practically minded persons
outside the Church regarded the individualists with more favor and were
more easily influenced by them to become Christians themselves. The
early importance attained by the Church of Rome is to be largely
ascribed to the predominance in its councils of such practical
persons.[39] Communism had no hold there at all and Chiliasm was never
allowed to interfere with the practical workings of society.
By the time of Justin the three concepts; Chiliasm, Communism, and
Individualism had arrived at a modus vivendi. According to this
arrangement Chiliasm and Communism held sway as theories while
individualism ruled in the world of fact. This agreement proved very
satisfactory and for more than half a century was the accepted
thing. It is seen in full force in Tertullian.
There is a general tendency, due to the natural effects of use and
disuse, for theories which do not correspond to realities to become
discredited, even as theories. Conversely realities which at first lack
theoretical justification tend to accumulate such justification with
the lapse of time. It is therefore not surprising to find by the
beginning of the Third Century, a movement to discard theoretical
Chiliasm and communism and to validate by theoretical apologetic the
actually existing individualism. These two processes in the nature of
the case are closely connected with one another and it is not by mere
chance that they find a common exponent in Clement of Alexandria. That
famous opponent of Chiliasm is equally well known as the justifier of an
extreme individualism. He greatly facilitated the spread of Christian
theology by liberating it from the burden of an eschatological theory
increasingly hard to reconcile with reality and also by bringing the
economic teachings of Christianity into conformity with current
practice. As noted above, there was one economic doctrine which neither
he nor any other early Christian teacher ever attempted to reconcile
with the facts, and it is undoubtedly true that the doctrine of the
sinfulness of interest was alike detrimental to the spread of
Christianity and to the general well being of society as it then
existed. The reasons why this particular reality i.e., interest on
money, was so slow in receiving its theoretical justification are
numerous. The only ones that need concern us here are that the
opposition to be overcome in this case was much more formidable than in
the cases of Chiliasm and communism and the fact that this inconsistency
on the part of the Christians did not in reality offer any very serious
obstacle to the growth of the Church. Communism had no great body of
Biblical authority at its back. There are indeed some texts in its favor
but there are plenty of an opposite nature. The doctrine had no great
popular prejudice in its favor. In addition it was insuperably difficult
of realization in fact. It was otherwise with interest. The theoretical
prejudice against interest was almost as great among the Jews and Pagans
as among the Christians themselves. The Scriptures were unequivocal in
their denunciation of it. Furthermore the correlative institutions of
rent and profit offered so many opportunities to disguise the fact of
interest that it was exceedingly easy to retain the theoretical
opposition without ceasing the actual practice. Although Clement's
condemnation of interest was probably merely an inherited prejudice it
is by no means impossible that he considered that an attempt to justify
it would endanger his defense of the more fundamental institution of
private property. At any rate his course can be defended as a practical
one under the circumstances. Whatever may be said of its consistency,
the Christian custom of condemning the theory and winking at the
practice of interest worked well. The inconsistency which seems so
glaring to us, was probably very largely unperceived by the ancient
pagans--they had exactly the same inconsistency themselves.
In regard to Chiliasm and property, practically the same attitude
prevailed. It worked indeed even more easily. In the West there seems to
have been a considerable Chiliastic tradition. So long as this tradition
did not result in any practices which interfered with the actual
progress of the Church, the Fathers were content to let it alone. It did
not, till at least the Third Century, hinder the acceptance of Christian
doctrine by the pagans and may even have aided the process among some of
the lower classes. Its long survival can be taken as sure proof that it
did not effect either the development of the hierarchy or the
institution of property.
As regards property of man in man, the superior power of the Christian
religion to keep slaves in subjection accounts in no small measure for
its relatively rapid rise to power in the ancient world. The pagan
religion was inferior in usefulness to the Christian religion because it
could not keep the slave contented with his position. The next world in
the pagan theology was only a worse copy of this world. Christianity, in
glaring contrast to paganism, proclaimed that the despised and afflicted
were to sit on golden thrones in the next life. The more they were
exploited in this life, the brighter their crown in the next one. The
pagan slave was dangerous. The whole pre-Christian literature of
Classical antiquity shows the ever present fear of a servile outbreak.
There were good grounds for that fear. Outbreaks were frequent and of a
most ferocious character. On more than one occasion they threatened the
very existence of the ancient civilization. Christianity was able to
make the slave contented to be a slave. It was economically an enormous
advance over paganism. A master whose slaves were Christians was not
afraid of being murdered by them. Not only was the master's life secure,
his property was secure also. The pagan slaves were notorious thieves.
The Christian slave did not rob his master. These facts gave
Christianity an enormous leverage in its efforts to force its way into
social recognition. It went far toward securing a favorable disposition
toward the new religion on the part of the influential, wealthy, and
conservative elements in the population.
Into the general economic changes which began to operate toward the end
of our period it is not our purpose to enter, but it is worth notice
that the efforts made by the Church to save itself in the general ruin
which overtook the ancient world, chiefly the institution of
monasticism, were such as to secure more firmly than ever the hold of
the Church upon society. The Church rapidly became an economic factor of
the first importance. The only secure basis of lasting social influence
is economic. Christianity by teaching the virtues of honesty, frugality,
simplicity, and charity laid the foundations of her subsequent triumph,
and when she had great societies of men and women working hard and
living plainly and adding all their accumulations to institutions
belonging to the Church and directly under the supervision and control
of the ecclesiastical authority, the Church paved the way for her
subsequent domination of the civil government. Monastic communism, being
economically superior to Chiliastic Communism, inevitably superseded it.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cf. Plato, Laws, V, 742. Aristotle, Politics, 1:X, XI. Cicero, De
Officus, II, XXV. Seneca, De Beneficus, VII, X.
[2] Acts IV.
[3] I. Cor. vii 30.
[4] Rom. xiii 3.
[5] Jas. Chap. V.
[6] Chaps. 21-22.
[7] Chap. xxxviii.
[8] Did. IV. 8.
[9] Barn. XIV. 16.
[10] Schaff, Vol. 1.
[11] Past. V. vi. 6.
[12] Past. S. IX. XXX. 5.
[13] Past III. 2.
[14] Apol. I. IV.
[15] Apol. I. xiv.
[16] De Mort. Per. XIV.
[17] Apol. XXXIX.
[18] Eus., E. H., V. 18.
[19] De Lapsis, VI.
[20] See Pronouncement of the Sacred Penitentiary, 11 Feb., 1832.
[21] Sir James Macintosh.
[22] Civil Disabilities of the Jews.
[23] Lourie, Monuments of the Early Church, Chap. II.
[24] Lourie, _ibid._
[25] Cf. Hypolytus.
[26] A. Loria. Cf. Economic Basis of Society. (Int.)
[27] Cf. A. Loria, Economic Foundations of Society. (Int.)
[28] Circa 200(?).
[29] Cf. K. Marx, Das Kapital, Vol. 1.
[30] F. Nitti in Catholic Socialism.
[31] Phaedus, The Laws, in Strom. II, 6.
[32] Chap. XIV.
[33] Chap. XXXI.
[34] Chrysostom, Sermons Rich Man and Lazarus, etc.
[35] Jerome, Commentaries.
[36] Gregory, Pastoralis Cura.
[37] Laborare est orare.
[38] Chap. I.
[39] E.g., Clement and Hermas.