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The Vine and the Elm Tree: the Patristic Interpretation of Jesus’ Teachings on Wealth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

J. A. McGuckin
J. A. McGuckin*
Affiliation:
LSU College of Higher Education, Southampton
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Extract

If patristic tradition on the subject of wealth and possessions often appears ambivalent in its attitudes, then perhaps one of the reasons for this is that this tradition grows from an exegesis of Gospel teachings on the subject that themselves are far from being straightforward, even though they are immensely forthright. Clement of Alexandria, for example, has frequently been accused of twisting the simple and immediately obvious demand of Jesus: ‘Sell all you have and give to the poor’ (Mark 10.21) and subverting a radical vision of Jesus into a comfortable exhortation that any pious property-owner, bourgeois or aristocratic, could be happy to live with. If the rich young man had understood Christ’s real message, as Clement would have it (not so much to renounce his ownership of goods as to free his heart from attachment to them), then he might not have had such a crisis about following Jesus. Whether or not Clement’s case is, in the end, convincing as an exegesis, it none the less successfully raises all the implicit problems of interpreting the New Testament teachings on wealth in any kind of universalist sense—as teachings that are meant to apply to all, and for all time. And there are, consequently, many dangers in being too ready to dismiss Clement’s allegorism as an anachronistic exegesis, not least the danger of reverting to a different kind of biblical fundamentalism than the one Clement thought he was attacking; for contemporary biblical criticism, as it attempts to separate out the original message of Jesus and the insights of his later disciples, and to locate the original words in their correct historical and sociological milieu, has rightly warned us against over-confidence in our historical interpretations of Gospel material.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 24: The Church and Wealth , 1987 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1987

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References

1 Throughout Mark’s Gospel Jesus is characterized as giving instructions to his disciples ‘in a house’. The house at Mark 2.15, if one considers the story 2.15–17 as originally independent from 2.13–14, as it was, means Jesus’ own house at Capernaum in which he acts as host for many guests.

2 Cullmann, O., The johannine Circle (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Brown, R., The Community of the Beloved Disciple (London, 1979)Google Scholar.

3 Compare 1 Kings 19.19–21.

4 For a consideration of the other possible matrices of thought see The Kingdom of God ed. Chilton, B. (London, 1984)Google Scholar. Compare especially the work represented there of E. Grässer, N. Perrin, and T. F. Glasson.

5 Compare McGuckin, J. A., ‘The Sign of the Prophet: Jesus’ Doctrine of Meals’, Scripture Bulletin 16, 2(1986), pp. 35–40 Google Scholar.

6 One which I would posit as beginning to take place after the death of John, but finally confirmed by the relative failure of the Galilean preaching-tour as this was analysed during the winter at Capernaum before the last missionary journey south in the spring of his final year.

7 Mark 6.8–13; 10.28–31.

8 He allows the travellers to take a staff and sandals, whereas the ‘O’ version forbids anything at all to be taken. Mark possibly means to imply by these ‘allowances’ that the scope of missionary evangelization is to be much greater, in the event, than the mere traversing of Galilee. It is a point of Pauline ideology close to his heart, as Mark 13.10 reveals.

9 Matthew and Luke independently preserve the original version and agree together, against Mark, that nothing at all is allowed to the travelling disciples. Mark’s version clearly goes out of its way to allow two exceptions.

10 The Lukan ‘woe’ at 6.20, 24 might suggest otherwise, but it is a highly vexed question as to whether this or Matthew 5.3 is the more authentic version, if Luke has adapted the traditions because he wanted to develop such a ‘theology of poverty’ this is no evidence for Jesus’ views on the matter.

11 Compare Isaiah 58.6–8; Zephaniah 2–3.

12 For example, Luke 12.15–31.

13 Mark 4.18–19; 6.8–11; 10.17–31.

14 The text of the Shepherd [Eng. tr. and critical text in Lightfoot, J. B., The Apostolic Fathers (London, 1980)]Google Scholar seems to have undergone several editorial stages. J. Quasten [Patrology, 1 (Utrecht, 1972), pp. 92, 96] suggests that they are all from die author’s hand. At the end of the work (Shepherd, Similitude, 9) the earlier sense of imminent Parousia has clearly dimmed.

15 Shepherd, Vision 3.2.

16 Ibid., Vision 3.6.

17 Ibid.: ‘Otan perikopë autõn ho ploutos’.

18 The same thought surfaces with remarkable similarity in Cyprian’s time. He explains the lapse of so many believers as the result of the Church’s use of the time of peace to build up personal wealth. In the time of trial it could not bear to lose it and so apostasized. De Lapsis, 6. 10–12.

19 Shepherd, Similitude 9.30.

20 Ibid., Similitude 9.31.

21 Hebrews 13.14.

22 Quite a rejection of the Lucan ‘woe’ (Luke 6.24).

23 Shepherd, Similitude 9.20. This is again based on Mark 4.19, comparing the rich Christians to choking weeds. They are ‘entangled in many various kinds of business’, and as a result their attachment to the ‘servants of God’ is broken, ‘for they are afraid that the servants will ask them for something’. The author allows that the rich may still repent and ‘may make up now for what they neglected in earlier days, and thus do some good. Then they shall live before God, but if they abide in their deeds they shall be delivered … to death’.

24 Adv. Haer., 4.20. 2: ‘Eipen hë graphe’.

25 Com. in Rom., 10.31.

26 Compare Athanasius, Ep. Fest., 39 (an. 305);Eusebius, HE, 3.3.6.

27 Quis Dives Salvetur 13.

28 The terms of Clement’s argument in his treatise are also very close to Seneca’s De Beata Vita. Both writers independently follow similar philosophical premisses to a similar conclusion.

29 Vita Antonii: Eng. tr. Meyer, R. T., Ancient Christian Writers, 10 (London, 1950)Google Scholar.

30 Verses against the Rich: Moral Poems, 28, PG 37, cols 856–84.

31 De Nabuthe (a defence of the rights of poor landholders in the face of rapacious landlords); also Exp. Ev.Lucae 8.8–13.

32 Sermo 12.4, In Ep. I ad Tim. cited below.

33 Sermo 39.4–6; Sermo 60.8. 8;Ep. 157.23.

34 For example, Basil the Great, On the Rich Fool, PG 31, cols 261–77; Gaudentius of Brescia, Sermo 13; Eucherius of Lyons, De Contemptu Mundi. Many of the pertinent texts have been assembled in Shewring, W., Rich and Poor in Christian Tradition (London, 1948)Google Scholar and Ramsey, B., Beginning to Read the Fathers (London, 1986), pp. 182–96 Google Scholar.

35 For example, ‘I do not say “You are damned if you have possessions”, I say, “You are damned if you presume on them; if you are puffed up by them; if you consider yourselves important because of them; if because of them you disregard the poor; if you forget your common humanity because you have so much more of vanities.”’ Enn. in Ps., 72.26; see also Serm.39.46, and Serm. 60.8.8; Zeno of Verona, Trad. 1.5.3.11; Paulinus of Nola, Ep. 3221.

36 As apparently did some Pelagians in Augustine’s day. He refuted their appeal for a literal observance of the Gospel demands by citing the example of the patriarchs who enjoyed both riches and the favour of God. Ep. 157.23.

37 Paphlagonia c.AD 345.

38 Compare Luke 14.26; Matthew 6.6.

39 Ep. 120.1. Compare Eucherius of Lyons, De Contemptu Mundi (PL 50, col. 716): ‘What is wealth but a token of villainy?’