"Thou Shalt Be Liberal"

In one of her most important essays, Open Thy Hand Wide [from When I Was A Child I Read Books]  Marilynne Robinson makes an extremely persuasive argument that, contrary to common belief,  liberalism in the traditional American sense of the word, of ample provision of a life to the destitute and poor, equal justice, equality and a democratic governmental system was a direct result of the Calvinism of New England and, especially, the influence of the Geneva Bible, its extensive commentary and even in the choice of words used to translate the original languages of the Scriptures.   If I could find it posted online I would link to it because I think what it says contains some of the most important ideas necessary for the revival of egalitarian democratic governments and socieities I've ever read.

I would like to post the whole thing but I neither have the time to type it all out nor do I wish to risk getting a cease and desist order nor do I want to deprive Marilynne Robinson of any rights to her work.   But I will be typing out sections of it that I think are essential and may go back and paraphrase some other sections as I have time. 

She starts with a short history of the distortion and vilification of Calvinism and how it relates to the program to do the same with the Jewish Bible, that latter effort going back into the classical period. But, most influential for us, she shows how some late 19th and early 20th century writers such as Weber, Santayana, Mencken, Belloc, D.H. Lawrence really got the ball rolling to produce the feeling of certain knowledge of what John Calvin said and what the Calvinist tradition consisted of while actually not knowing anything except what such writers said about both.   It's quite fascinating to fact check the foundations of such common received wisdom that constitute the academic and cultural consensus because it's my experience that a very large part of it is complete bilge, though I have not done it nearly enough in the case of Calvinism.  I'm not a Calvinist, but that's to say I disagree with a percentage of what he said, especially in a few areas where I think he was more of a disciple of Augustine than of Moses or Jesus.   I do find  Marilynne Robinson's point concerning the American liberal tradition and democratic government entirely persuasive.   So I'll just jump into that.

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I know I am stepping into a semantic quagmire.   Harnack himself is called a "liberal" theologian and historian, in the very influential sense the word acquired when the project of dismantling the traditional canon was still relatively new and somewhat controversial.  The fact that words have different meanings in different cultures, that "liberal" is itself a word with very different meanings in American and European contexts, for example, never seems to influence discussion as it ought to.   It is surely significant that the word is used in American discourse from the seventeenth century with insistent reference to scriptural contexts in which it occurs, while in England it is adopted from nineteenth- century French and was first of all a political connotation associated with the French Revolution, at least according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.  But in Renaissance French, liberal, liberalité meant "generous,"  "generosity,"  and of course the word occurs in the English Puritan translations, the Matthew's Bible and the Geneva Bible, which were followed in their use of the term by the 1611 Authorized Version. 

The word occurs in contexts that urge an ethics of non-judgmental, nonexclusive generosity.   Isaiah 32:6-8 in the 1560 Geneva Bible reads as follows:   "The nigard shal no more be called liberal, nor the churl riche.  But the nigarde wil speake of nigardnes, and his false heart wil worke iniquite, and do wickedly, and speake falsely against the Lord, to make emptie the Hungrie soule, and to cause the drinke of the thirstie to faile.  For the weapons of the churl are wicked:  he diviseth wicked counsels, to undo the poore with lying words;  and to speake against the poor in judgement.  But the liberal man wil divise of libeal things, and he wil continue his liberalitie."  The Wycliffe Bible, which was translated from the Latin Vugate, renders the last verse this way:  "Forsoothe a prince schal thenke tho thingis that ben worthi to a prince, and he shal stonde over duykis." (Forsooth, a prince shall think those things that be worthy to a prince, and he shall stand over dukes.)  The New Jerusalme Bible in English is closer to Wycliffe and Jerome [the translator of the Latin Vulgate]: "the noble person plans only noble things, / noble his every move. "  The New International Version has "the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands."  This tradition of translation conveys a sense of an aristocratic virtue and obligation is being praised here. 

Calvin had important support among the French and European nobility, but he was no admirer of the institution.  In his Commentary on Genesis he interprets verse 6:4, "There were giants in the earth in those days, "  as describing the origins of aristocracy.  He says "[U]nder the magnificent title of heroes, they cruelly exercised dominion, and acquired power and fame for themselves, by injuring and oppressing their brethren.   And this was the first nobility of the world.  Lest any one should too greatly delight himself in a long and dingy line of ancestry, this, I repeat, was the nobility, which raised itself on high, by pouring contempt and disgrace on others."  It is no cause for wonder that Calvin chose to democratize a virtue that was so central to his piety and his teaching.  He clearly did not consider "nobility" a synonym for "generosity".  

It is interesting to note certain differences between Jerome's Latin and Calvin's.  Jeromes insipiens, "foolish, " becomes Calvin's sordidius, "base" or "vile."  Fraudlentus, "deceitful,"  becomes parcus, "sparing" or "frugal";  stultus, "foolish,"  becomes sordidus, "vile"; and fraudlenti, "deceitful," becomes avari, "covetous" or "greedy".  In Calvin's reading the text is both harsher and more pointedly relevant to an ethic of generosity.  The word nigarde in the English of the Geneva Bible has an unpleasant sound but only one meaning - it refers to stinginess.  The interpretation offered in the Geneva Bible derives from Calvin's Latin translation from the Hebrew and his gloss of if.  In Calvin's Latin, verse 32:8 reads:  "At liberalis liberalia agitabit, et liberaliter agendo progredictur" He says,  "This relates . . . to the regenerate, over whom Christ reigns;  for, although all are called by the voice of the  gospel, yet there are few who suffer themselves to be placed under his yoke.  The Lord makes them truly kind and bountiful, so that they no longer seek their own convenience, but are ready to give assistance to the poor, and not only do this once or oftener, but every day advance more and more in kindness and generosity."  

Contrary to popular opinion,  Calvin says it is a misreading of the verse to think it means "that the liberal advance themselves,  and become great by doing good;  because God rewards them, and bestows on them greater blessings."     On the contrary, they advance in an increasing liberality;    "[T]rue liberality is not momentary of of short duration.  They who possess that virtue persevere steadily, and do not exhaust themselves in a sudden and feeble flame, of which they quickly afterwards repent."  As he dos always,  Calvin forbids any narrowing of the obligation of generosity.  He says,  "There are indeed many occurrences which retard the progress of our liberality.  We find in men strange ingratitude, so that what we give appears to be ill bestowed.  Many are too greedy, and, like horse-leeches, suck the blood of others.  But let us remember this saying, and listen to Paul's exhortation "not to be weary in well-doing,' for the Lord exhorts us not to mementary liberality, but to that which shall endure during the whole course of our life."  Again, Calvin understands the passage to refer not to n aristocratic virtue but to a Christian imperative.  In fact he sees the Judgment of Christ present in the words of the Prophet; "In this passage, therefore, we are brought to the judgement-seat of Christ, who alone, by exposing hypocrisy, reveals whether we are covetous or bountiful."  

The Geneva Bible has this for Deuteronomy 15:13-14,  a law that specifies the way in which a freed servant is to be dealt with: "And when thou sendest him out fre from thee, thou shalt not let him go away emptie, but shalt give him a liberal rewarde of thy shepe, & of thy corne, and of thy wines; thou shalt give him of wherewith the Lord they God hathe blessed thee."  There is a marginal note that explains this as justice to the worker: "In token that thou . . . acknowledge the benefite which God has given thee by his [the worker's] labours."  

I am going to break in here to point out how different this is from the treatment of the "freed" slaves in the 1860s-70s, which went from the "40 acres and a mule" proposal of General Sherman, in consultation with what were then radical Republicans and abolitionist leaders to the beginning of Jim Crow under the Electoral College imposed compromise that brought Rutherford Hayes to the presidency.   And how different it is from the compensation to workers all over the country.   The liberalism as economic justice and generosity taught by John Calvin is more radical than anything I ever saw out of the secular American left and, unlike those schemes, it was based on an elevation of human beings above the status of natural phenomena and raw materials to be shifted around and governed from above as "the masses".

In the Wycliffe Bible the verses read this way;  "And thou shalt not suffre hym to go away voide, to whom thou hast givve fredom, but thou schalt give lijflode in the weye, of flocks, and of corn-floor."  In the Douay-Rheims, "[Thou] shall give him his way out of thy flocks," and so on.  Having no Hebrew, I look to the Jewish Publication Society translation to umpire those differences, and I find that their version is closer to Jerome and Wycliffe than to the Reformers [Puritans].  They have, "Furnish him out of the flock" - there is no mention of a "liberal reward." In the sermon on this text, Calvin says, "[A]ccording to your abilitie you be bound to recompense them that have travelled for you, & have been the instruments of such blessings.  For if we thank God with our mouthes, confessing that it is he which hath blesed us, & in the mean while make none account of such as he has sent to do us service in the increasi fo our living, by taking paynes and toyle for us;  all our thanking of him is but lip-labor & utter hypocrisy."  For Calvin, every human encounter is of moment, the other in the encouter is always "sent" or "offereed."  So respect for every circumstance is reverence to God.  Here is the Geneva version in Deuteronomy 15:11:  "Because there shal be even some poore in the land, therefore I commande thee, saying, Thou shalt open thy hand unto thy brother, to thy nedie, and to thy poore in thy land."  This more or less agrees with other translations.  There is, however a note in the margin:  "Thou shalt be liberal."

When all is said and done, the word "liberal" and its forms occur only a few times, even in the classic Protestant translations.  Their five occurrences in the King James Version of the Old Testament translate three different Hebrew words, suggesting that the translators were moved rather than required to make use of the  "Blessing," "voluntary," "to fit out with supplies"  -- if my concordance can be trusted, these are alternative translations of the words   translated as "liberal" or "liberally" or "liberality."  Translation is always interpretation in some degree, and, for those who, like Calvin and the classic Calvinists, take the Old Testament to be a revelation of God, or, to use a word almost interchangeable for Calvin, of Christ, then the spirit of law and prophecy are faithfully rendered, whatever questions might arise as to the letter.  All this is of interest because the verses I have quoted, and the word "liberal" itself, supported by the meaning of the verses give to it, are central to American social thought from its beginnings.  

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You can compare that conception of being liberal with the British conception that has gained sway among American "liberals" in the media and academia and, especially, the law and politics, of free markets, free economic competition, the accumulation of wealth in the hands of those who succeed in doing so and who are free to horde and use their wealth to amass power and influence -  all with, at the most, the most stingy of a show of giving to the destitute for the purposes of keeping them in order and sufficiently pacified to be there as a material economic resource.   And when you call such British style "liberalism" what it really is, libertarianism you can see how dangerous it was to not make it clear what you meant when you used the word. 

I do not advocate a complete buying of the program of John Calvin which, as I said, I find a portion of more attributable to Augustine than to the Gospels, the Law and the Prophets.  But I think we have to acknowledge that the traditional American liberalism which is so different from the libertarian-liberalism that has been so damaging, both in terms of policy and the ballot-box poison of the elitist snobbery it came to be associated with in the minds of so many.   A look at the actual governance of Geneva during the time John Calvin was influential there, comparing it to what was going all all over Europe at the same time, is illustrative, as well, but I don't have any more time to do this today.

I am tempted to think a lot more on how those regions in which the King James Version of the scriptures held sway tended to have a different political character than the ones in which the Geneva Bible was more commonly used, the vilified Puritan New England culture which, as Robinson also points out, produced some of the strongest abolitionist agitation, especially when transplanted in such places as Ohio and Iowa and the abolitionist parts of Kansas.   It's no accident that in her most famous novel, Gilead, the radical abolitionist grandfather of old John Ames was originally from Maine, a part of New England which was slower to adopt the mushy Unitarianism that replaced Calvinism in much of  Eastern Massachusetts.  But that will have to wait, too.   The King James Version was commissioned because James I didn't like the radicalism of the Geneva Bible and, especially Calvin's commentary contained in it.  He knew it was not friendly to aristocracy, nobility and royalty.