"The reason why salvation seems more difficult
for the rich than for the poor is complicated."
 |
| "I would see the rich as athletes" - Clement of Alexandria |
As I’ve explored the work of Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215), I’ve enjoyed imagining a parody book entitled Early Christian Sources in Milk Toast Christianity. Clement and his writings on the rich young ruler would demand their own chapter as he represents a key step along the journey of Christianity losing its edge.
A member of elite Alexandrian society, Clement became the head of the catechetical school in Alexandria c. 200 and his teachings and writings reflect an indebtedness to Platonism and Stoicism that often appear to eclipse his appreciation of the Gospels themselves. He is frequently advocating for finding a passionless middle way. On sex, for instance, while he argues that both abstinence and promiscuity are unnatural, he is also among the first to say that sex between married couples should be primarily for procreation rather than mutual pleasure. This position still undergirds much of Roman Catholic sexual ethics and remains a cherished theological framework for making heterosexual couples’ sexual lives miserable and for categorizing homosexuality as unnatural.
So thanks, Clement.
Despite the ways in which many of his theological ideas have become culturally acceptable among Christians, Clement was controversial in his time of the late second and third centuries. He represents one of the closest relationships to Greek philosophy within early Christianity, whose insistence - derived from Plato - that knowledge increases one’s moral worth was often perceived as elitist and unhealthy.[1] Further, his theological framework for a pastoral and inclusive approach to the wealthy was a departure from other Christian thinkers of his time, and he is often cited as embodying the accommodationist end of the spectrum of Christian thinkers on wealth.[2]
In the second and third centuries, as Christianity advanced into the higher ranks of society, the wealth of newer members became a theological problem that had to be addressed. These communities would have wrestled with Jesus’ exchange with the rich young ruler wherein Jesus concludes that it is more possible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to be saved[3]. This position would have surprised but also warmed the hearts of the earliest Christian communities who lived just at or below subsistence level and who were the inheritors of a well-developed “pious poor and oppressive rich” tradition. As the wealthy became members of Christian communities, new questions emerged. Could the rich be saved? Did the rich have to give away their possessions before membership in the Christian assemblies? What was happening when the rich gave alms to the poor in exchange for the prayers of the poor? Clement of Alexandria is one of the first Christian thinkers outside of scripture to comprehensively address wealth and salvation.
In The Rich Young Ruler, written for the wealthy of Alexandria, Clement urges them to not take Jesus’ encounter literally but figuratively. He spiritualizes both wealth and poverty and argues that Jesus’ true intention was to call both the wealthy and poor to become ‘poor in spirit’. Poverty in spirit requires a dispassionate attitude toward wealth, which he compares to an athletic challenge for both the wealthy and poor. In this way, he is among the first Christian thinkers to portray the pious rich and unworthy poor, the externally poor person who is so rich in vices and jealousy for wealth that they are unworthy of the compassion and alms of the rich. For Clement, wealth is as morally neutral as a tool -- the craftsman’s paintbrush, for instance -- which can be used for good or ill. Its proper use by the wealthy is to participate in a ‘divine exchange’ of purchasing one’s salvation through redemptive almsgiving to the poor.
There are many reasons to explore Clement of Alexandria's The Rich Young Ruler, including the fact that his defense of wealth and the wealthy has become the framework for how many Christians view the responsible stewardship of wealth and possessions today.[4]
Is Wealth Harmless?
Clement is equivocal in his depictions of the morality of wealth. At the outset, he describes wealth as “a dangerous and deadly disease” and one which endangers the salvation of the wealthy.[5] Identifying himself as a member of Alexandria’s elite, he states that “it is difficult to keep one’s self from being enticed by and dependent on the lifestyle that affluence offers, but it is not impossible. Even when surrounded by affluence we may distance ourselves from its effects and accept salvation.”[6] In first acknowledging the inherent risks to one’s salvation that wealth poses, Clement would seem to share the perspective of biblical tradition and many second century writings such as the Shepherd of Hermas on wealth, but by the end of The Rich Young Ruler he has laid aside these concerns and makes a vigorous defense for the harmlessness and moral neutrality of wealth:
So thanks, Clement.
Despite the ways in which many of his theological ideas have become culturally acceptable among Christians, Clement was controversial in his time of the late second and third centuries. He represents one of the closest relationships to Greek philosophy within early Christianity, whose insistence - derived from Plato - that knowledge increases one’s moral worth was often perceived as elitist and unhealthy.[1] Further, his theological framework for a pastoral and inclusive approach to the wealthy was a departure from other Christian thinkers of his time, and he is often cited as embodying the accommodationist end of the spectrum of Christian thinkers on wealth.[2]
In the second and third centuries, as Christianity advanced into the higher ranks of society, the wealth of newer members became a theological problem that had to be addressed. These communities would have wrestled with Jesus’ exchange with the rich young ruler wherein Jesus concludes that it is more possible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to be saved[3]. This position would have surprised but also warmed the hearts of the earliest Christian communities who lived just at or below subsistence level and who were the inheritors of a well-developed “pious poor and oppressive rich” tradition. As the wealthy became members of Christian communities, new questions emerged. Could the rich be saved? Did the rich have to give away their possessions before membership in the Christian assemblies? What was happening when the rich gave alms to the poor in exchange for the prayers of the poor? Clement of Alexandria is one of the first Christian thinkers outside of scripture to comprehensively address wealth and salvation.
In The Rich Young Ruler, written for the wealthy of Alexandria, Clement urges them to not take Jesus’ encounter literally but figuratively. He spiritualizes both wealth and poverty and argues that Jesus’ true intention was to call both the wealthy and poor to become ‘poor in spirit’. Poverty in spirit requires a dispassionate attitude toward wealth, which he compares to an athletic challenge for both the wealthy and poor. In this way, he is among the first Christian thinkers to portray the pious rich and unworthy poor, the externally poor person who is so rich in vices and jealousy for wealth that they are unworthy of the compassion and alms of the rich. For Clement, wealth is as morally neutral as a tool -- the craftsman’s paintbrush, for instance -- which can be used for good or ill. Its proper use by the wealthy is to participate in a ‘divine exchange’ of purchasing one’s salvation through redemptive almsgiving to the poor.
There are many reasons to explore Clement of Alexandria's The Rich Young Ruler, including the fact that his defense of wealth and the wealthy has become the framework for how many Christians view the responsible stewardship of wealth and possessions today.[4]
Is Wealth Harmless?
Clement is equivocal in his depictions of the morality of wealth. At the outset, he describes wealth as “a dangerous and deadly disease” and one which endangers the salvation of the wealthy.[5] Identifying himself as a member of Alexandria’s elite, he states that “it is difficult to keep one’s self from being enticed by and dependent on the lifestyle that affluence offers, but it is not impossible. Even when surrounded by affluence we may distance ourselves from its effects and accept salvation.”[6] In first acknowledging the inherent risks to one’s salvation that wealth poses, Clement would seem to share the perspective of biblical tradition and many second century writings such as the Shepherd of Hermas on wealth, but by the end of The Rich Young Ruler he has laid aside these concerns and makes a vigorous defense for the harmlessness and moral neutrality of wealth:
“What harm has been done by one who builds economic security and frugality prior to becoming a Christian? What is to be condemned if God, who gives life, places a child in a powerful family and a home full of wealth and possessions? If one is to be condemned for having been born into a wealthy family through no personal choice, that person would be wronged by God who would offer a worldly life of comfort but deny eternal life. Why would wealth ever have been found within creation if it causes only death?”[7]
Although this position describes many Christians’ understanding of wealth today, Clement’s position represents a significant departure from most Christian thinkers of the first through third centuries. In what follows, I will highlight three perspectives on how wealth and the wealthy are depicted in the Gospels, the popular devotional text Shepherd of Hermas, and in the writings of John of Chrysostom.
The Pious Poor and the Oppressive Rich
In light of how far mainline Christianity has come from being a denomination of the poor, it is easy to forget that the Gospels were composed by and for communities representing the 82-92% of the Roman Palestinian population that was “near or at subsistence level, struggling for survival and sustenance, particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and diseases.”[8] Jesus and his disciples inherited and elaborated on a “pious poor and oppressive rich” tradition that developed in the post-exilic Second Temple period, an apocalyptic worldview forged in extreme inequality caused by wealth being concentrated in the hands of a small group of pro-Roman aristocracy to the impoverishment of the majority of the population of landless peasants.[9] This view was frequently expressed in apocalyptic visions and hopes for a great reversal, a theme which runs through Mary’s Magnificat in which she describes God as pulling the mighty down from from their thrones and exalting the weak, filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty; the Beatitudes in which Jesus describes the poor and hungry as blessed and, in Luke’s version, proclaims “woe to the rich…”; in Jesus’ frequent invoking of feasts as a symbol of God’s Kingdom, one in which all the social norms are turned upside down as the hungry and poor off the streets are brought in for this celebratory meal; and in the story of Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler himself, to name just a few. These stories and traditions have as their background a deeply-held cultural assumption that, in light of vast inequality between the rich and poor, the acquisition of wealth was, by its very nature, a form of stealing. “Profit making and the acquisition of wealth were automatically assumed to be the result of extortion or fraud. The notion of an honest rich man was a first-century oxymoron.”[10]
Cutting Away One’s Wealth
These themes are continued in The Shepherd of Hermas, a second century text that remained popular among Christians of the second and third centuries and was considered canonical by several of the early Church Fathers.[11] One of the visions described in this text is that of a church tower being constructed out of square stones. Near the tower are round stones which must first be cut into squares before they are able to be used. “For just as the round stone cannot become square unless it is trimmed and loses some part of itself, so also those who are rich in this world cannot become useful to the Lord unless their riches are cut away. Learn first from yourself: when you were rich, you were useless, but now you are beneficial to life.” [12]
Sources of wealth, including inheritance
Clement’s stance on wealth would continue to stand out even through the latter part of the fourth and fifth centuries. John Chrysostom (c.349-407 CE), writing from Antioch, Syria, held that it is impossible to acquire wealth through just means, even when it came to inheritance. “It is true that somebody might argue that he had inherited his wealth from his forefathers, but that would merely mean that his forefathers had stolen it from somebody. The root or origin of this wealth will necessarily be injustice. Nor can one argue that wealth is good merely because the possessor is not greedy, or because he or she practices charity. The fact remains that a rich man cannot explain why he alone has accumulated possessions which the Lord has meant to give to all in common.”[13]
Clement of Alexandria’s belief in the moral neutrality of wealth and inheritance is so striking and unusual that he is frequently described as the extreme, accommodationist end of a range of views on wealth and toward the wealthy. I will now turn to exploring other themes found within his commentary on the rich young ruler.
Key Themes in The Rich Young Ruler
Jesus spoke figuratively, not literally: Clement argues that the rich young ruler’s sin wasn’t that he failed to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor, as a literalist interpretation of Jesus’ words might suggest. Rather, Clement argues his sin was primarily that he believed Jesus was speaking literally, and not figuratively, in the first place. In this, Clement was drawing from the Alexandrian school of biblical interpretation characterized by an allegorical reading of scripture, one that saw scripture as having a both a superficial and hidden spiritual meaning.[14] “‘Sell all that you possess’: what does that mean? It does not mean as some superficially suppose, that he should throw away all that he owns and abandon his property. Rather he is to banish those attitudes toward wealth that permeate his whole life, his desires, interests, and anxiety.”[15]
Clement of Alexandria’s belief in the moral neutrality of wealth and inheritance is so striking and unusual that he is frequently described as the extreme, accommodationist end of a range of views on wealth and toward the wealthy. I will now turn to exploring other themes found within his commentary on the rich young ruler.
Key Themes in The Rich Young Ruler
Jesus spoke figuratively, not literally: Clement argues that the rich young ruler’s sin wasn’t that he failed to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor, as a literalist interpretation of Jesus’ words might suggest. Rather, Clement argues his sin was primarily that he believed Jesus was speaking literally, and not figuratively, in the first place. In this, Clement was drawing from the Alexandrian school of biblical interpretation characterized by an allegorical reading of scripture, one that saw scripture as having a both a superficial and hidden spiritual meaning.[14] “‘Sell all that you possess’: what does that mean? It does not mean as some superficially suppose, that he should throw away all that he owns and abandon his property. Rather he is to banish those attitudes toward wealth that permeate his whole life, his desires, interests, and anxiety.”[15]
The rich as athletes: In lieu of a literalist interpretation of the rich young ruler, Clement emphasizes that the wealthy must dispossess themselves of their passion and avarice for wealth, an interior act of spiritual discipline that will require great effort. “I would see the rich as athletes,” Clement writes, wherein salvation is tied to the cultivation of the right attitude toward wealth. “Let the Word become your trainee and allow Christ to be the referee of the contest; let the food and drink of the Lord’s new covenant become your nourishment; let the commandments prescribe your exercise.”[16] Because he sees the rich as athletes in need of training, Clement advises Christian communities to develop a pastoral approach to the wealthy, neither treating them with rude contempt nor fawning over the wealthy in the hopes of gaining benefit from their friendship and generosity.
Dispossessing passion and desires: Instead of requiring the wealthy to first rid themselves of their wealth as described in the Shepherd of Hermas, Clement believes that the new and unique message of Christ is that he is asking both the wealthy and the poor to dispossess themselves of their passions and desire for wealth.[17] Reflecting his indebtedness to the Stoics, Clement argues that the literal renunciation of wealth and possessions that Jesus speaks about is better understood as a new command to renounce and eliminate inner passions. “If an affluent person can control the power that wealth brings and remains modest and self-controlled, seeking God and placing God above all else, that person can follow the commandments as a poor individual, one who is free and unencumbered by the wounds of wealth.”[18]
The spiritualization of wealth and the theme of the pious rich and unworthy poor: The next few steps that Clement takes are incredibly important for understanding how Christianity has ended up with an accommodationist approach toward wealth. Having made both wealth and poverty a matter of interior attitudes, Clement proceeds to reverse the ‘pious poor and oppressive rich’ tradition that is woven through the Gospels, and instead describes the pious rich and wicked rich, on the one hand, and the noble poor and wretched poor on the other. “It is not a great thing or desirable to be without any wealth, unless it be we are seeking eternal life. If it were, those who possess nothing - the destitute, the beggars seeking food, and the poor living in the streets, would become the blessed and loved of God, even though they did not know God or God’s righteousness. They would be granted eternal life on the basis of this extreme poverty and their lack of even the basic necessities of life!”[19] It is hard to overstate the extent to which this both contradicts the beatitudes, among many other texts, and (let's be frank) reveals Clement to be a real jerk.
On that same theme, he emphasizes that the ‘genuine poor’ are those who are poor in spirit, no matter their external wealth, while the spurious poor are those whose only possessions are vices. “Again, in the same way there is a genuinely poor person and also a counterfeit and falsely named: the former is the one poor in spirit with inner personal poverty, and the latter, the one poor in a worldly sense with outward poverty. To the one poor in worldly goods but rich in vices, who is not poor in spirit and not rich toward God, God says: ‘Detach yourself from the alien possessions that are in your soul, so that you may become pure in heart and see God.”[20]
The utility of wealth: Having shown how both wealth and poverty are, in fact, inner spiritual matters and the possibility of being pious and rich, Clement then turns to examples in the Gospel in which Jesus assumes the wealthy have wealth to give away (Luke 16:9; Matt 6:20; Matt 25:41-43). After asking how the wealthy could give away their money if they’ve already given it away to the poor, Clement concludes that the wealthy should therefore not give their wealth away but keep it for good use. The primary biblical example Clement uses is Jesus’ parable of the dishonest manager in the Gospel of Luke which ends with Jesus instructing the disciples to use dishonest wealth to make friends for themselves, “so that when it is gone they may welcome you into their homes.”[21] Following this commandment requires one to retain dishonest wealth, Clement reasons. In this, wealth is morally neutral - like a craftsman tool - which can be wielded in a variety of ways. “An instrument, used with skill, produces a work of art, but it is not the instrument’s fault if it is used wrongly. Wealth is such an instrument. It can be used rightly to produce righteousness. If it is used wrongly, it is not the fault of wealth itself but of the user. Wealth is the tool, not the craftsman.”[22] By comparing wealth to a morally neutral tool - such as a paintbrush - he glides over the more difficult, ethical questions with other Christian thinkers who were asking of wealth and the wealthy. Where does this wealth come from? How was it made? Is it ever moral for one family to accumulate so much wealth when others are experiencing persistent hunger?
O excellent trading! Because wealth’s moral value is derived from how it is used, Clement advises the wealthy to set out for a market whereby the wealthy purchase their salvation through redemptive almsgiving to the worthy poor. ‘O excellent trading! O divine business! One purchases immortality for money; and by giving the perishing things of the world, receives in exchange for them an eternal home in heaven!... Spare not dangers and toils, that you may purchase here the heavenly kingdom.”[23]
To be fair, these lines reflect a theology of salvation that was becoming increasingly prevalent among Christians as they tried to understand how the wealthy could fit into their communities. Redemptive almsgiving as a means of the wealthy gaining their salvation fit into the broader patronage system that characterized Roman imperial culture, and became one of the primary ways of cleansing one’s self of post-baptismal sins and to secure the more potent intercessions of the poor on one’s behalf. The previously mentioned Shepherd of Hermas both takes a dim view of the rich and contends that they are in need of the poor, whose prayers are more powerful than those of the rich: “The rich have much wealth, but are poor in the things of the Lord, being distracted by their wealth… The poor are rich in intercession and confession, and their intercessions have great power with God.”[24] As a result, in an image that would be frequently used in later centuries, the Shepherd envisions the ideal relationship between the rich and poor as the symbiotic relationship between an elm, a tree which bears no fruit, and a vine, which bears fruit but needs the elm’s support. The Shepherd of Hermas contends the fruitless elm (the rich) can still provide shade to the fruiting vine (the poor) in times of drought, and through this relationship can come to bear fruit via the vine. In return, the poor - whose prayers are more powerful than those of the rich - intercede to God on the wealthy’s behalf.
Of course, in both Clement’s divine exchange and the Shepherd of Hermas’ vision of the elm and vine, the poor become the objects of the wealthy’s almsgiving, rather than the subjects or participants, and this marks another turning point in Christianity’s complicated relationship with both the wealthy and the poor. Early church scholar Helen Rhee notes, “Unlike the poor in some of the Jewish Second Temple literature or the New Testament writings, the poor in second- and third- century works fade in significance as the self-description of distinct chosen groups and/or as the active recipients and participants in God’s eschatological vision and justice.”[25]
Conclusion
As part of my previous work with the Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF), I sat through many presentations on the Episcopal Church’s theology of fundraising. Many of these presentations began by attempting to establish the biblical basis for stewardship. The story in Genesis of humans being given the earth by God to steward was frequently cited. So too was the temple tithe. Frequently, these presentations focused on the stories and miracles of abundance found within the Gospels. Nevertheless, these biblical references always seemed to me to be a shaky foundation for a well-established, positive outlook toward wealth that couldn't be fully explained through these biblical references.
Further, in interacting with congregations engaged in fundraising, I sensed that the roles of the round stones and church tower described in the Shepherd of Hermas were oftentimes reversed. It seemed the tower had been dismantled and rebuilt around the round stones; some churches would regularly cut away at their own witness to accommodate the theological & political perspective of their wealthier members; and these round stones were frequently euphemistically called “pillars of the community.” While this may have been an inevitability in Christianity's development, it’s worth noting the extent to which this represents a surprising reversal of many first- through third-century Christian thinkers’ approach to wealth and the wealthy, and it is of the sort that I think Clement would have been proud.
Clement of Alexandria is among the first Christian thinkers to deal directly with the presence of the wealthy in congregations and the awkwardness caused by Jesus’ teachings on wealth and poverty. He stands out for his uncritical and even celebratory perspective on wealth, for his emphasis on intellectual elitism, and for the way he developed a spiritualized understanding of poverty that allowed for a ‘pious rich’ and ‘unworthy poor’ tradition to flourish. Frankly, Clement’s theology strikes me as a far more likely source for mainline Christianity’s emphasis on the responsible stewardship of wealth and property than the bible which is forever referencing seemingly irresponsible traditions like the year of the jubilee, giving all one’s money away to the poor, by proclaiming the poor as blessed followed by “woe to the rich.” Indeed, for those seeking a biblical grounding for the theology of responsible stewardship, it’s worth noting how difficult it is to find references to stewardship in the Gospels and one of the only mentions of a steward is that of the unjust steward in Luke 16:9, wherein the steward "gains friends through the use of dishonest wealth” by reducing his own commission on the debts he was collecting. Even here, in other words, Jesus emphasized the giving away of one’s take for the alleviation of the financial hardship of others.
My sense is that the Stoic approach to responsible financial management that so characterizes many approaches to stewardship is actually quite difficult to find in the biblical tradition, and so it fell to other thinkers such as Clement who was heavily influenced by Plato and Stoicism to describe the wealth as a morally neutral and create a framework that emphasizes the importance of accumulating wealth for the sake of right use, a theme that Augustine of Hippo would pick up and develop more thoroughly in the fifth century.
----
[1] McCullough, Diarmaid. A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.147
[2] Rhee, Helen. Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Also, Hennie Stander in “Economics in the Church Fathers” Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Economics.
[3] Matthew 19:16-30; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-30
[4] MacCullough, Diarmaid. A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Page ???
[5] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Location 705
[6] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources.Location 814
[7] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources.Location 844
[8] Rhee, Helen. Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Loc 80.
[9] Rhee, Helen. Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Location 122
[10] Malina & Rorhberg, Rich and Poor and Limited Good, Social Science Commentary, 400-401
[11] Stander, Hennie. “Economics in the Church Fathers” Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Economics.Page 28
[12] Shepherd of Hermas. Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Location 625
[13] Chrysostom, Hom. on 1 Tim. xii - quoted in Stander, Hennie “Economics in Church Fathers” Oxford
[14] McGrath, Alister. Christian Theology: An Introduction, page 171.
[15] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources, Location 764
[16] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Location 724
[17] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Location 793
[18] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Location 844
[19] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Location 774
[20] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Location 804
[21] Luke 16.9
[22] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Loc 793
[23] Clement of Alexandria, The Rich Young Ruler, in Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources. Loc 892
[24] Shepherd of Hermas. Helen Rhee’s Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources.
[25] Rhee, Helen. Loving the Poor, Saving the Rich: Wealth, Poverty and Early Christian Tradition. Loc 2990
Comments
Post a Comment