Rich & Poor

READERS will understand that, to allow the Messenger staff to have their summer break, contributors must submit their September material a little earlier than usual. This makes it slightly harder to be topical. However, I am fairly sure that the economic problems of the world will not have been solved by this autumn, so I make no apology for returning to a topic I have written on previously. What does St. Anthony offer us, by way of advice, in our modern situation?

Before turning to the Saint’s actual writings, let us look at the background to his life and times. In the mid-12th century, about fifty years before Anthony was born, King Afonso I of Portugal reconquered a large tract of territory that had been occupied by the Moorish invaders for centuries. Throughout western Europe, society was ordered in a ‘top-down’ way: Kings had great lords for their subjects, great lords had lesser lords, and these had various tenants, vassals and ordinary people under them. The king’s personal estates may not have been large, but he commanded the loyalty of all those under him. In time of war they were required to furnish him with the military forces he needed.

 

The rich men

 

In Portugal, the top class was called the ricos homens – the ‘rich men’. They could afford to employ, command and equip both horsemen and infantry. The horse-riders were superior in military value, and included local landowners who could afford to equip themselves with animals and armour. These were the knights, equites in Latin, cavalheiros in Portuguese, the cavaliers or cavalry in English. After the siege of Lisbon, King Afonso settled a number of his knights on lands around the city, who became local ‘squires’ with farmland and, usually, a town house as well. Such, almost certainly, was Anthony’s grandfather. The Saint’s family were not great nobles, but were (in our terms) ‘upper middle class’.

St. Francis’ family in Assisi was slightly less esteemed, belonging to the merchant class, but probably as well-off economically. Below them, in both town and country, there were many, many people who were definitely poor – even abjectly poor. The point I wish to make is, as in our own day, in those days there was a small proportion of very wealthy people, a large proportion of very poor people, and a considerable number of people comfortably off in between – today more so in developed countries.

 

Union with Christ

 

Francis and Anthony turned their backs on their comfortable upbringing in order to identify with the poor: or, more precisely, to identify with Christ who became poor for our sakes. They did not agitate for the forcible dispossession of the rich, as some heretical movements did. Instead, they appealed to the consciences of the rich, shaming their selfishness and inviting them to share generously with their less fortunate brothers and sisters.

It is right that we should work for a truly just society, that we should expect political leaders to make fair laws, that we should protest against injustice. But as Christians we know that human legislation can never on its own make people just and fair in themselves. Our brothers and sisters are not just the poor, but also the rich. They (perhaps even more urgently) need conversion to Christ, a radical turning away from greed and selfishness to serve the living God.

 

Giving something up

 

However, what about the people in the middle? The people like us? It is tempting to say, in times of economic hardship, that the rich should contribute more. So they should, but there are relatively few of them. It is for the middle classes, the comfortably off, to accept a greater share of the sacrifices, and to lessen proportionately the burden on the poor. The first apostles were not drawn from the very poorest – Peter and Andrew, James and John, were fishermen who owned their boats and employed people to work for them. Matthew was a revenue official. They really did give up something to follow Jesus, just as Francis and Anthony did centuries later.

Some of Anthony’s most trenchant criticism of the rich comes in his treatment of the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Sermons II, 6-30). The rich man (his name is not given, ‘Dives’ is just the Latin for ‘rich’) lives in a big house, wears fine clothes and has sumptuous meals every day. Lazarus the beggar sits outside his gate, completely neglected by those in the house. Only the dogs befriend him. It is a case of “The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate,” in the words of the 19th century hymn. That hymn continues, “God made them high and lowly, and ordered their estate.” Whether one is born into riches or poverty is a matter of Divine Providence, not personal merit. Dives is not condemned because he was born rich, or even because by his efforts he became rich. He is condemned because he failed to have compassion on those far less fortunate. He need not have given Lazarus a free handout. Could he not at least have given him a job, however menial, to preserve his human dignity?

 

Many scourges

 

It occurs to me that there is a moral dilemma in today’s developed world. We have invented many labour-saving devices, and in doing so we have increased the profits of the few, but decreased the job opportunities of the many. Unemployment is a scourge in many affluent countries: what is the responsibility of wealthy shareholders to create more jobs, even at the expense of their dividends? The story of Dives and Lazarus is still relevant, although the social context is different.

In the outcome of the story, where the rich man is damned, he is rebuked by Abraham, firstly because he still wants Lazarus to be at his beck and call, and secondly because he wishes to warn only his brothers of the danger they are in. He still fails to see that Lazarus too is his brother, and that the warnings against greed and selfishness are already contained in the Commandments. “Beloved brothers,” says St. Anthony, “let us ask God who is love to give us love for the poverty of Lazarus, and abhorrence for the wealth of the rich man.” Riches are relative: the comfortably-off are still wealthy compared with the very poor. What are we asked to do?