As I read and reread this sermon from the fourth century, the more impressively relevant it is becomes apparent. Consider this passage remembering that its economic crimes and sins are to be taken in relation to actual, chattel slavery which he presented earlier in it. This was a sermon which he read out in Church, to a congregation, during an actual service, as a whole and not as I'm presenting it in parts. And remember that there is a good deal of evidence that he may have read it on Easter, the highest day in the Christian calendar even as it was developing. It is as fresh today as the news of banking crimes, the massive criminality of the lending industry and other forms of theft allowed under contracts.
Only animate beings have the distinction between male and female. God the Creator said "Increase and multiply" [Gen 1.28] that one generation might give birth to a succeeding one. But from what kind of marriage does the birth [tokos] of gold derive? What sort of conception brings it to fruition? I am aware of the pains belonging to such a birth from the prophet's words, "Behold, he has travailed with unrighteousness, has conceived trouble and has brought forth iniquity" [Ps 7.14]. Such is that birth which avarice yields [J.345], iniquity begets and hate delivers. When urgently pressed, the person who always conceals abundance swears not to be pregnant with a purse and begets usury [tokos] out of desire for gain. He assumes the ambition of a money-lender devoted to material gain in the same way a person extinguishes a flame with oil. The calamity of a loan has no remedy; instead, it becomes worse. Just as arable land becomes dry and automatically produces thorns, so do the usuries [M.673] of the arrogant abound. A person extends his hand with money in the same way a fishing line conceals a hook with bait; similarly, a wretched person eager for wealth is drawn by a concealed hook. Such are the benefits of usury. Anyone who forcefully takes or steals provisions is a violent and rapacious person, but the person who reveals in public the injustice he committed in contracts and so bears bitter witness to the distress it caused and who acknowledges his [J.346] transgression is loving, kind, a guardian and the like. Gain which results from stealing is called theft, a euphemism for the bitter deprivation of a debtor. Such miserable persons are indeed despicable: "I collected for myself both silver and gold" [2.8], but a wise person learns from what Ecclesiastes has listed and enumerated. In this way we may learn from his experience of the need to guard against evil before its assault and not to be associated with thieves and harmful beasts by taking heed of such dangers before they occur.
"The calamity of a loan has no remedy; instead, it becomes worse." That is the common experience of anyone who has the burden of student loans imposed on them whereas in the past the cost of public universities and even private ones was largely lifted through laws and programs which have been purposely destroyed in the past fifty-years. Note the continuation of that phrase I took as a title, "Anyone who forcefully takes or steals provisions is a violent and rapacious person, but the person who reveals in public the injustice he committed in contracts and so bears bitter witness to the distress it caused and who acknowledges his transgression is loving, kind, a guardian and the like. Gain which results from stealing is called theft, a euphemism for the bitter deprivation of a debtor." Consider that no one above the lowest levels has been jailed for the part their crimes in the loan driven economic crisis in 2008, let off by the Ivy Leaguers in charge of regulatory and legal departments of the governments, the friends and colleagues of the crooks, who are also friends and colleagues with the media.
The more I read of Gregory of Nyssa, the more obviously relevant it is in our lives today, the more the connection between slavery and more petty expressions of the same crime against morality and humanity become obvious.
How far we have fallen.
ReplyDeleteImagine any pastor in any church giving the equivalent sermon today. And on Easter?
You'd lose your pulpit before evening fell.
Sometimes there's a benefit to not having a congregational system, but only sometimes. I can't imagine most priests under most of the Bishops in North America giving such a sermon or even reading relevant portions of this one. If they would do it in the Episcopalean or Orthodox churches and cathedral named in his honor would be an interesting thing to find out.
DeleteGregory of Nyssa was, for a time, deposed from his position as Bishop, but reinstated. I wish I knew how much preaching like this might have played in that, most of the things I've read attribute it to his struggle with various heretical factions.
I'm finding that thinking about his family, which produced an amazing number of saints, two brothers, a sister, his grandmother, and his grandfather who was a martyr, how precarious even at that state the position of Christianity in the late Roman empire was, pretty instructive. He was, repeatedly, flying in the face of entrenched powers in economic and other terms at a time when a new emperor could take power and slaughter all of them. It was an age of heroism such as you find only in people like Oscar Romero, Archbishops in Africa and those under threat from other terrorists today. I'm looking into Archbishop Pavel Peter Gojdic, who died in prison under the communist government but whose work in resisting the Nazis got him named as Righteous Among The Nations at Yad Vashem, as well as being beatified in Rome. The age of the martyrs didn't end with the Roman period, despite what recent books trying to diminsh or debunk that era might assert. Of course the pop atheist response would be "not enough lions".
Sometimes there's a benefit to not having a congregational system, but only sometimes. I can't imagine most priests under most of the Bishops in North America giving such a sermon or even reading relevant portions of this one. If they would do it in the Episcopalean or Orthodox churches and cathedral named in his honor would be an interesting thing to find out.
DeleteGregory of Nyssa was, for a time, deposed from his position as Bishop, but reinstated. I wish I knew how much preaching like this might have played in that, most of the things I've read attribute it to his struggle with various heretical factions.
I'm finding that thinking about his family, which produced an amazing number of saints, two brothers, a sister, his grandmother, and his grandfather who was a martyr, how precarious even at that state the position of Christianity in the late Roman empire was, pretty instructive. He was, repeatedly, flying in the face of entrenched powers in economic and other terms at a time when a new emperor could take power and slaughter all of them. It was an age of heroism such as you find only in people like Oscar Romero, Archbishops in Africa and those under threat from other terrorists today. I'm looking into Archbishop Pavel Peter Gojdic, who died in prison under the communist government but whose work in resisting the Nazis got him named as Righteous Among The Nations at Yad Vashem, as well as being beatified in Rome. The age of the martyrs didn't end with the Roman period, despite what recent books trying to diminsh or debunk that era might assert. Of course the pop atheist response would be "not enough lions".