In the New Testament of The Bible, one of the most interesting accounts of Jesus of Nazareth was his encounter with a wealthy, young man who sought eternal life. After telling Jesus that he had kept all the commandments, he asked, "What do I still lack?" An unexpected answer came in Jesus' reply, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come follow me." Realizing he had to sacrifice his riches, the lad left despondently. Jesus then reportedly turned to his disciples, who had witnessed the exchange, and said, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God." Jesus' followers were stunned. One of them asked - or perhaps they collectively asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus replied, "With God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:16-26)..
In our consumer-driven world, this message has been all but lost on most Christians. For one devoted Christian of the fourth century, however, materialism was the antithesis to a faithful life, and he considered Jesus' pronouncements against the accumulation of worldly goods as the central message of his teachings.
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Constantine (272-332AD) will always appear in history books as the Emperor to have legitimized Christianity in the Roman Empire. Yet one of his religious advisers, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (240-320AD), has been largely lost to history. This is regrettable. Not only was Lactantius one of the most consequential 'Church fathers' due to his theological influence but his major work, Divine Institutes (303-311), represents one of the finest analyses of power, wealth and class ever written. Rather than Karl Marx (1818-1883) or Max Weber (1864-1920), perhaps Lactantius - 1,500 years earlier - ought to be considered the 'father of sociology.' In order to appreciate the relevance of his thought to our time, several passages from Divine Institutes follow (in italicized bold print) with analysis.
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'The gifts of heaven they (the wealthy) made out to be their own - not for humanity's sake, for they had none of that, but to sweep up every means that could serve their acquisitive greed.'
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Lactantius establishes and denounces the self-interested mindset behind a ruling class of wealthy individuals (5-10% of the population) who unjustly came to power over society. His phraseology could not be more straight-forward. These avaricious usurpers of society, a society founded upon the principles of liberty and relative equality, have no humanity. They have become something other than human in making the pursuit of wealth both the means and the ends of their lives.
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'They had laws passed which represented as 'justice' the grossest inequities and injustices, to protect their rapacious practice and purpose against mass resistance.'
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Do you live in a country where the wealthy have disproportionate influence over lawmaking? Are laws made to serve the interests of the rich and powerful elites more than honest working men and women? In this passage (as in the last one), Lactantius reveals the process whereby a small cadre of wealthy people work together to design a system of laws to protect their interests. This, of course, is base corruption. Any action taken to challenge their oligarchical rule is dubbed 'radical' and banished from political discourse. Yet, what is 'radical?' Is it not radical to allow a small group of people to possess untold wealth while up to a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line - and the majority of the population works fifty, sixty and seventy hours a week just to eke out a living? If that is not radical, then nothing is radical.
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'And since there was actually no trace of justice in them (the wealthy, ruling class) - which would have been expressed in humanity, equality and compassion - they began to find satisfaction in arrogant and inegalitarian self-promotion, which put them on a higher rank than others, with retinues of staff, armed guards and distinguishing dress.'
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The sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) may have coined the phrase 'conspicuous consumption' in his well known book The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), but he was certainly not the first one to have linked the relationship between wealth, consumption and claims to social status. Indeed, Lactantius clearly understood how the wealthy socially-construct their worlds by assigning social values to the acquisition of luxury goods and create degrees 'status' based on the number of servants or the kinds of fine accoutrements one wears in public. Note how Lactantius defines arrogance as being 'inegalitarian.'
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'To be rich is not a matter of having, but of using riches for the tasks of justice.'
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The words in red (having and using) were stressed by Lactantius. As well they should be - as the Christian definition of 'rich' can only be in terms of having the spirit of love and compassion toward all people. According to Jesus of Nazareth, this 'Holy Spirit' is God's gift and makes a faithful person, who is willing to sacrifice his or her possessions, far richer than a person who has material wealth but little empathy and no spirit of sacrifice. For those with means beyond what is necessary, it is his or her duty to put their means at the disposal of the less fortunate. That is the sign a true Christian - a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.
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In his 'Sermon on the Mount,' Jesus contrasted the two definitions of wealth quite clearly telling his followers, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...For where your treasure is, your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19) He then added, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon (money)." (Matthew 6:24). For Jesus and Lactantius, there was no middle ground.
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A Legacy for Lactantius
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In 2011, revolts and revolutions swept across the Middle East and North Africa due to the tyranny of privileged elites. In London, thousands of young people rioted day-after-day due to being economically and socially marginalized. In Washington, DC, thousands sleep in homeless shelters every night, and hundreds sleep outside while only a few miles away in Georgetown - millionaires arrive home in BMWs and sit down to extravagant dinners in their multimillion dollar townhouses. Similar tales can be told in Russia, Brazil and throughout the world.
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Something is terribly wrong.
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Whether one is a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a religious person of any faith or an atheist, extreme wealth inequality is ethically indefensible. So, why is it tolerated across the globe? No one wants perfect equality. That dangerous experiment ended with the Soviet Union. What do most people want? Most people want what is needed. We all need a system that is fair, humane and compassionate - where no one is homeless and everyone is dignified with gainful employment. No more, no less.
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Is that possible? Whether God is Love or Love is God, anything is possible.
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But only if we act.
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(Image: Lactantius)
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Key Source
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Oliver O'Donovan and Joan Lockwood O'Donomvan eds. From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook of Christian Political Thought (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999)
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J Roquen