Remember the poor: Early Christian reception of a Jewish communal responsibility

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. G. Barclay
Keyword(s):  
Early Christian ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Communal Responsibility

scholarly journals Philanthropy and Human Flourishing in Patristic Theology

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 362
Author(s):  
Helen Rhee
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Unique Challenge ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Institutional Aspect ◽  
The Common ◽  
Spiritual State

This article grounds early Christian theologies and practices of philanthropy in their varied complexities in a larger patristic vision of human flourishing. For patristic authors (second to fifth centuries), human flourishing is grounded in God’s creative intent for material creation, including nature and material goods, that are to be shared for common use and common good, and also to be a means of distributive justice. Based on God’s own philanthropia (“love of humanity”, compassionate generosity), when Christians practice it mainly through almsgiving to the poor and sharing, they mirror the original image (eikon) of God, undo their crime of inhumanity, retain a Christian identity and virtue, and thus restore a semblance of God’s creative intent for the common good. This fundamental social virtue, philanthropia, is, in fact, an attendant virtue of salvation (the goal of creation, including humanity), in reversing the effects of the fall and restoring human flourishing. I then examine patristic authors’ presentations of how wealth presents Christians in concrete situations with a unique challenge and opportunity to demonstrate their spiritual state and persevere in their salvation by eliminating vices (e.g., greed) and cultivating virtues (e.g., detachment), and thereby to affirm and confirm their Christian identities. Finally, I explore the institutional aspect of philanthropy in the (post-) Constantinian era as the Christian church took on the task of caring for the poor of the whole Roman society as a result.

An Eastern Orthodox Perspective on Economic Life, Property, Work, and Business Ethics

2001 ◽  
pp. 143-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley S. Harakas
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Moral Tradition ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Internet Ethics ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
The Church

Eastern Orthodox Christianity carries forward a moral tradition from the earliest Christian period, in the belief that scriptural and patristic teaching remains applicable to the contemporary economic sphere of life. The Church Fathers focused on the ownership of property and the ethical acquisition of wealth and its use; they stressed special concern for the poor and disadvantaged. Carried forward through the Byzantine and modern eras, these early Christian understandings now can be applied through a basic and elementary natural law morality to business activities. The Orthodox approach embodies traditional virtue and character ethics as well. The essay concludes by applying these Orthodox approaches to two current issues: the charging of interest and internet ethics.

Tragical Conscience

2020 ◽  
pp. 136-178
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers
Keyword(s):  
Literary Culture ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Social Parasites ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Married People ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Religious Vocation

This chapter investigates yet another frontier of tragical mimesis in early Christian literary culture: the retraining of the Christian moral conscience to envision human existence in its graphically and concretely tragic dimension. Christians were to be educated in sustained awareness that they were a part of the same “vanity” to which all of creation had been subjected, a crucial discipline of which was the sympathetic contemplation of specific groups in their social and cultural foreground that lived under a seemingly constant tragic yoke. The bulk of the chapter concentrates on four such groups consistently brought to Christians’ attention, particularly by episcopal preachers. First were the indigent and diseased, whose suffering played out a tragedy into which all Christians were being called as dramatis personae engaging Christ himself through the poor. Second were social parasites, society’s “tragic comics” whose antics and theatrics in striving to make a living from more fortunate patrons tested Christians’ ability to overcome revulsion with compassion. Third were married people and ascetics/monastics: marrieds because the institution of marriage was a symbol of the tragic vulnerability and volatility of even the most intimate of human relationships, and ascetics/monastics because their religious vocation parodied both the tragedy and the comedy of human existence. Fourth were “unbelieving” Jews, long conceived in Christian eyes as the bearers of the tragic legacy of rejection of Jesus as the Christ.

Recovering the Word of God Today with and among the Poor

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-330
Author(s):  
Anastasia Lott
Keyword(s):  
Word Of God ◽  
Professional Expertise ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Reflection Process ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Methodological Errors ◽  
Informal Groups

The author explores the tension between popular biblical reflection in small, informal groups and professional exegetical interpretation as a challenge to openness and collaboration. Some ideological and methodological errors may occur in popular interpretation and also many wonderful experiences as the community responds to authentic biblical challenges to Christian action. Literature on the Exodus, creation, prophetic themes, wisdom, early Christian community, and Jesus of the poor have been especially fruitfully pursued by these communities. The exegete is challenged to put professional expertise at the service of these groups to help support, integrate, and authenticate the interpretive reflection process.

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