Sunday, October 22, 2023
Patristic Economics
Augustine, Sermons 32.21 (Patrologia Latina, vol. XXXVIII, col. 204; tr. Edmund Hill):
On Isaiah 33.13:
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You can't have gold unless someone else loses it.This odd notion, that the amount of money in the world is a fixed quantity and that one man's economic gain necessarily entails another's loss, can also be found in the writings of Jerome, e.g. (my translation):
habere aurum non potes, nisi alius amittat.
On Isaiah 33.13:
Monies are not heaped up for one man except with loss and damage to another man.Letters 120.1:
nisi cum alterius damno et malo, pecuniae alteri non coacervantur.
For all wealth is derived from wickedness, and unless one man has lost, another cannot find.Tractate on Psalms 8.24:
omnes enim divitiae de iniquitate descendunt, et nisi alter perdiderit, alter non potest invenire.
For whoever is rich, cannot be rich unless he has robbed a poor man.
quicumque enim dives est, nisi pauperem exspoliaverit, dives esse non potest.
