Reference no: EM133594248

Lactantius, from the Divine Institutes

As we've seen, central to Jesus's ministry was the salvation of the individual soul; the ultimate aim of Christian believers was to enter the kingdom of heaven, not create heaven on earth. And yet the ethical teachings of Jesus held clear implications for worldly behavior and social interactions. And the social ills of this world, which intensified and worsened across the Roman Empire over the third and fourth centuries, presented Christians with moral challenges hard to overlook. This late Roman world was one of striking inequalities; throughout the provinces as well as in Rome itself, a great polarization of wealth separated the many from the few. By the fourth century, some Christians had also come to share in this wealth, a development many found troubling. Hadn't Jesus himself once said, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God"? What were the responsibilities of the rich in alleviating the suffering of the poor and the needy? What was the point, for that matter, in amassing such wealth in the first place?

The following passages come from one important Christian voice of the early fourth century, that of Lactantius, who draws upon classical themes as well as Scripture in warning of the destructiveness of unbridled greed, while arguing on behalf of the common good.

Acquisitiveness was the source of all these evils, acquisitiveness which sprang out of the contempt of true majesty. It was not simply that those who had plenty of something would not share it with others, but they actually got hold of others' goods and turned them all to their private profit; so that, whereas previously property had been a matter of one person contributing his labor for the use of all, now it was the concentration of goods in a few wealthy households. First they began to accumulate and monopolize the necessaries of life and keep them inaccessible, to bring others under their power as slaves. The gifts of heaven they 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. They had laws passed which represented as "justice" the grossest inequities and injustices, to protect their rapacious practice and purpose against mass resistance. So they laid claim to authority to sanction what force, resources, and sheer unscrupulousness had achieved for them.

And since there was actually no trace of justice in them-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. This is the origin of honors, marks of nobility, official status: relying on the terror of the axe and sword, they were to rule a cowed and craven people with the "right of masters." Such was the condition of human life introduced by the king who, after driving his father out by war, established not a kingdom but an unprincipled tyranny by force of arms, destroying that "golden age" of justice and forcing men to be harsh and conscienceless-all by the singular means of diverting worship from God to himself, a demand enforced by terror of his pitiless power. . . .

For God who gives being and life to men wished us all to be equal, that is, alike. He laid down the same terms of life for us all, making us capable of wisdom and promising us immortality, excluding nobody from the benefits of heaven. And so, as he gives us all a place in the daylight, waters the earth for us all, provides nourishment and precious, relaxing sleep, no less does he endow us all with moral equality. With him there is no slave or master. Since we all have the same father, so we are all alike his freeborn children. No one is poor in his eyes, except for want of justice; no one is rich except in moral qualities. No one is prominent, except in being incorruptible; no one is famous, except for works of mercy performed on a grand scale; no one has the title "Excellency" without accomplishing all the stages of moral growth. And that is why neither the Romans nor the Greeks could sustain justice, since they had so many levels of disparity in their societies, separating poorest from richest, powerless from powerful, the obscure from the most elevated dignities of royal state. Where all are not alike, there is no equality; and inequality is enough to rule out justice, the very point of which is to afford like treatment to those who have entered this life on like terms. . . .

But someone will say, "Don't you have poor and rich, slaves and masters, in your community [of Christians]? Aren't there distinctions between one member and another?" Not at all! That is precisely the reason that we address one another as "Brother," since we believe we are one another's equals. Since human worth is measured in spiritual not in physical terms, we ignore our various physical situations; slaves are not slaves to us, but we treat them and address them as brothers in the spirit, fellow slaves in devotion to God. Wealth, too, is no ground of distinction, except insofar as it provides the opportunity for preeminence in good works. To be rich is not a matter of having, but of using riches for the tasks of justice; and those whom one would suppose poor are actually no less rich, in that they are short of nothing and hanker after nothing. Yet although our attitude of humility makes us one another's equals, free and slave, rich and poor, there are, in fact, distinctions which God makes, distinctions in virtue, that is: the more just, the higher. For if justice means behaving as the equal - of inferiors, then, although it is equality that one excels in, yet by conducting oneself not merely as the equal of one's inferiors but as their subordinate, one will attain a far higher rank of dignity in God's sight. It is true, the brevity and fragility of everything in this transitory life makes men compete with one another for status-a most repellent, most self-assertive style of behavior, and entirely irrelevant to mature rationality, since this whole realm of earthly preoccupation runs counter to the values of heaven. For as "the wisdom of men is utter folly with God" (1 Cor. 3:19) . . . so it follows that one who achieves earthly prominence is insignificant and contemptible to God.

Leaving aside all the highly regarded goods of this world that militate against virtue and weaken our mental resources, what security is there in rank, wealth, or power, when God can bring even kings lower than the low? And so among the commands which God took care to give us, he included this in particular: "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (Matt. 23:12). We learn from this wholesome prescription that whoever adopts a modest, unassuming style in the sight of men, stands out with distinction in the sight of God. There is truth in the quotation from Euripides, which goes: 'What are taken here for evils may be known in heaven for goods."

defend the above authors as being the most consistent, in your opinion, with the message of Jesus as presented in the Gospel selections from Mark and Matthew.

Explain Lactantius's emphasis upon social relations, the equality of humankind and the need for justice;