Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for Twenty-First-Century Christian Social Thought (review)

The eleven papers in this volume originate from a seminar organized by the Centre for Catholic Social Thought of the Catholic University of Leuven in 2007. They are arranged under four headings: “Approaching Patristic Socio-Ethical Texts,” “Contexts for Patristic Socio-Ethical Texts,” “Issues in Patristic and Catholic Social Thought,” and “Reflections on the Theme.” In part 1, Reimund Bieringer undertakes a quick survey of modern hermeneutical theories, highlighting Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, to justify a reading of patristic texts that is future-oriented rather than centered on the world of the text. By contrast, Pauline Allen offers a more conventional overview of patristic writings on social ethics, emphasizing the challenges involved for contemporary theology in making constructive use of patristic writings that support property, slavery, and class distinctions, but at the same time highlighting the limited engagement with patristic thought to be found in official Catholic social teaching documents.

In part 2, Peter Van Nuffelen discusses the encounter between classical and Christian attitudes to care for the poor, with reference to writers of the fourth to sixth centuries. He affirms the “transformative impact” of Christian caritas on ancient society, but argues that caritas was itself transformed by its encounter with the Greco-Roman tradition of liberalitas as a public virtue. Helen Rhee surveys pre-Constantinian eschatology for evidence of God’s judgment on the wealthy and the eschatological benefits of almsgiving. Wendy Mayer focuses on St. John Chrysostom, arguing that his strictures against the wealthy were directed at outsiders as well as his immediate audience, so that his vision for Christian social ethics was evangelistic.

In part 3, Susan R. Holman discusses Cappadocian ideas about the common good, identifying St. Basil of Caesarea’s use of an Aristotelian source and outlining the Cappadocians’ doctrine of a common human nature. Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen surveys usury in patristic texts that decry its effects on society and on the spiritual health of the individual. Brian Matz discusses Basil of Caesarea’s teaching on spiritual detachment from wealth in the wider context of ancient and early Christian thought on private property and its use. Both Ihssen and Matz identify specific points of comparison and contrast between patristic and recent Catholic social teaching, especially with regard to social and economic doctrines. Finally, Thomas Hughson discusses the contemporary significance of the appeal to Constantine to practice justice in Lactantius’s Divine Institutes.

Part 4 contains two reflections—one by Richard Schenk, and one by Johan Leemans and Johan Verstraeten. Both are negative about the outcome of the seminar and about the prospects for a genuine dialogue between patristic and Catholic social thought (this impression is somewhat mitigated by the description of the two papers in the introduction). Schenk seems doubtful of finding much to applaud in patristic social teaching and is impatient with the findings of the historical papers; Leemans and Verstraeten are equally frustrated by the lack of encounter between the study of patristic texts and underlying theological issues. Such negativity seems to underestimate the theologically constructive character of the papers on patristic contexts and themes. Perhaps it betrays a systematicians’ fear of the genuine differences between patristic and modern Catholic social thought—differences that exist whether one stresses the more radical features of the Fathers’ teaching on property and renunciation or their social conservatism on issues such as slavery. The real question at issue thus seems to be not whether patristic texts can somehow be made relevant to today (as the editors and contributors suppose) but whether or not modern Catholic social thought can come to terms with the historical diversity of the Christian tradition.