The Rich and the Pure: Philanthropy and the Making of Christian Society in Early Byzantium by Daniel Caner (review)

Daniel Caner, in The Rich and the Pure: Philanthropy and the Making of Christian Society in Early Byzantium, distinguishes among five religious gift categories that developed in the Eastern Roman Empire between the fourth and seventh centuries c.e.: alms (eleēmosynē), charity (agapē), material blessings (eulogiai), fruitbearings (karpophoriai), and liturgical offerings (prosphorai). Caner argues that these categories developed partly as an effort to fulfill Jesus’s command to “give to all who ask of you” (Mt 5.42; Luke 6.30), what became known as universal philanthropy. Caner further argues that professional religious people, particularly monks, used these last three categories (blessings, fruitbearings, and offerings) to justify their accumulation of sacred wealth in light of expectations of holy men and women (as “the perfect” of Mt 19.21) to renounce all worldly wealth. In addition to answering the important questions of how Christian leaders sought to fulfill Jesus’s command to extend universal philanthropy and how holy men sought to explain their newly attained wealth from state subsidies and lay gifts, Caner also answers the question of what types of relationships each of these gifts sought to create and maintain.

After a brief Prologue, in which Caner explains his inspiration for the book, and Introduction, in which he underlines the complementary relationship between philanthropy (philanthrMpia) and asceticism (aktēmosynē) in the minds of early Byzantine Christians, Chapter One describes the wealth and giving practices within early Byzantium. Caner explains how imperial gifts influenced the giving practices of bishops, who might use gifts in an effort to win the support of other church authorities, including abbots, for allegiance to a particular doctrinal position. This chapter also clarifies how monasteries sought to reconcile their newfound wealth with their adoption of voluntary poverty by forbidding private possession of land and assets, but not communal ownership. Chapter Two describes how early Byzantine bishops and monks responded to Jesus’s command “to give to all who ask of you.” Bishops accomplished this feat by prioritizing the ptōchoi (the formerly wealthy who had fallen into poverty) over the penōtes (those born into poverty); monks fulfilled the command by providing separate accommodations at monasteries to holy people, laypeople, and poor people. Chapter Three discusses how John Chrysostom advocated direct almsgiving as a way for laypeople to acquire the virtues of humility and compassion, and abbots in the fifth century sought to inculcate these same virtues in their monks through diakonia (acts of service) toward strangers and fellow monks. The fifth century also saw monks begin to replace bishops as patrons of and mediators for the poor.

Following this introductory material, Caner sets out to prove his thesis in Chapters Four to Seven. In Chapter Four, he provides a helpful distinction between alms/almsgiving and charity. While both almsgiving and charity are caritative practices, alms were given from one’s surplus wealth while charity came from one’s essential wealth. Furthermore, almsgiving typically involved material resources and became a method for laypeople to atone for their post-baptismal sins while charity particularly came to govern master-disciple relationships in monasticism and often involved the master’s willingness to assume part or all responsibility for his disciple’s sins.

In Chapters Five to Seven, Caner distinguishes between blessings, fruitbearing/firstfruits, and liturgical offerings. Typically involving items of small monetary value such as dirt, oil, bread, fruits, and small amounts of cash, blessings originated from God’s abundance and thus, were thought to be untainted wealth. They are the closest thing to a disinterested gift, incurring no obligations on the recipient to reciprocate. Fruitbearings/firstfruits offerings were either tithes or the best part of a person’s harvest offered to holy people as gratitude for their intercessory prayers. Liturgical offerings were typically given by laypeople for the purpose of remembrance after their own or a loved one’s death. They...