Okay. Not really. But still, John Couretas writes in a post at Acton PowerBlog (Chrysostom on the Poor):
From On Living Simply, Sermon XLIII. (HT: American Orthodox Institute Observer, et al.):
Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm.
Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again. Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold form the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people’s hearts first — and then they will joyfully share their wealth.
Lest anyone think I post this to cast St. John Chrysostom as some sort of proto-free marketer, that is not the point. …
This also reminds me of something I posted earlier John Chrysostom on Trade. Chrysostom wrote:
"First we are taught love in the very manner in which we were created, for God, having created a single human being, decreed that we should all be born from it, so that we might all see ourselves as one and seek to keep the bond of love among ourselves as one and seek to keep the bond of love among ourselves. Secondly, God wisely promoted mutual love through our own trade and dealings. Notice that God filled the earth with goods, but gave each region its own peculiar products, so that, moved by need, we would communicate and share among ourselves, giving others that of which we have abundance and receiving that which we lack.
The same is true of each of individually, for God did not grant all knowledge to all, but rather medicine to one, construction to another, art to a third, so that we would love each other because we need each other."
And he wrote …
"He {God} likewise made us to stand in need of one another, that thus he might bring us together, because necessities above all create friendships. For no other reason neither suffered He all things to be produced in every place, that hence he might compel us to mix with one another … And accordingly that we might easily keep up intercourse with distant countries, he spread the level of the sea between us, and gave us the swiftness of the winds, thereby making our voyages easy."
Even 1600 hundred years ago, there were anti-government tea-partying Republicans! 😉
Not hardly. Chrysostom is considerably more complex. But how fun it is to proof text.
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