The Market as God

Harvey Cox

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780674973152
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

"Essential and thoroughly engaging…Harvey Cox's ingenious sense of how market theology has developed a scripture, a liturgy, and sophisticated apologetics allow us to see old challenges in a remarkably fresh light."
—E. J. Dionne, Jr. We have fallen in thrall to the theology of supply and demand. According to its acolytes, the Market is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. It can raise nations and ruin households, and comes complete with its own doctrines, prophets, and evangelical zeal. Harvey Cox brings this theology out of the shadows, demonstrating that the way the world economy operates is shaped by a global system of values that can be best understood as a religion.Drawing on biblical sources and the work of social scientists, Cox points to many parallels between the development of Christianity and the Market economy. It is only by understanding how the Market reached its "divine" status that can we hope to restore it to its proper place as servant of humanity."Cox argues that…we are now imprisoned by the dictates of a false god that we ourselves have created. We need to break free and reclaim our humanity."
— Forbes "Cox clears the space for a new generation of Christians to begin to develop a more public and egalitarian politics."
— The Nation

III

History: Following the Money

9

The Bishop and the Monk: Augustine and Pelagius

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal.

—Matthew 6:19–20

No religion is immune from the spell of The Market or from the persuasive influence of skillfully deployed wealth. From the earliest years of Christianity, pecuniary values have affected its history in a variety of ways. “Follow the money” also obtains in the realm of faith. It did in the early centuries of Christianity, and it still does today.

Tracing some of the history of this semi-Faustian deal might help us see how it persists in our own day. But the trail is often twisting and overgrown. Official histories of doctrine have succeeded in obscuring the monetary tracks involved in the controversies they describe with layers of theological grandiloquence. For example, one of the most famous disputes ever to have taken place in Christendom, at least until the Reformation, was the prolonged altercation between Augustine, the bishop of Hippo in North Africa (later known as Saint Augustine), and his principal adversary, the British-born monk Pelagius. Unknown by most people today, their long argument occupied center stage in the early decades of the fifth century. It focused on undeniably theological issues such as free will, original sin, and the nature of grace.¹ But the way in which the dispute was settled was the result of many factors that have little to do with the relative importance of faith and works or the inner life of the Trinity.

Few people today, including serious Christians, have even heard of the Augustine-Pelagius row, but its repercussions can still be felt in disputes—albeit using different language—on such topics as whether “biology is destiny” and “nature versus nurture.” More significantly for our purposes, the role that money played in the way the quarrel ran its course provides a pertinent case study of how wealth and political power have often tipped the balance in what were cast as purely theological debates.

First, let’s be acquainted with the principals. Augustine, the inquisitive and venturesome son of a middle-class family in Roman Africa, is well known as one of Christianity’s most influential thinkers. But he earned that reputation, and his position as bishop of Hippo, only after a long period of searching and trying out the various philosophical options that were on offer during his youth. In this respect, he resembles many of the earnest students I have taught over the years. They are often in what one of them described to me as “search mode.” Augustine was an ambitious student and his parents had to stretch to support his continuing education. But, even as he indulged in considerable partying and reveling in adolescent pleasures—this was the phase of his life to which his famous prayer, “Lord, make me chaste; but not yet,” is attributed—he was also entranced by ideas. He read widely, captivated at one point by the poetic meditations of Cicero. This was followed by a period when he felt drawn to Manichaeism, and after that, to Neoplatonism. Both appealed to his reason while Christianity, at least at first, did not. All the while, however, his mother Monica, a Christian, exercised a quiet influence on her restless young intellectual. Finally, largely under the influence of Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, Augustine became a Christian, and was baptized on Easter Sunday of the year 387. The rest of Augustine’s life is well documented. He became the bishop of Hippo in 391, but never laid aside his spiritual and philosophical endeavors. He wrote a number of books, such as his Confessions, On the Trinity, and The City of God, that became pillars of western theology. (Augustine was respected but never as revered in the Eastern Orthodox world.)²

Much less is known about Pelagius (circa 354–420) even though, during the years of his clash with Augustine, both were viewed as world-class theologians. This paucity of evidence on Pelagius can be put down to fact that he ultimately lost the argument. Many of the records of his life were not preserved, and even some of his key writings have not survived. We do know that he was a stocky, swarthy monk who lived simply and without ostentation, and that he came to Rome in the early fifth century. He was probably a Celt; Saint Jerome, one of his critics, once declared that his thinking had been dulled by too much Scottish porridge. But Pelagius was well educated, fluent in both Greek and Latin, and well versed in theology. For the most part, even his opponents admired him as an exemplary Christian, and in no way a grim one. Although he was shocked by the moral debauchery he found in the Eternal City, Pelagius still nourished a sunny and hopeful view of life. But this made him a severe critic of the theology of Augustine, which he viewed as pessimistic and even fatalistic.

Pelagius soon became well known throughout ancient Rome. An eloquent orator, he taught a robust version of human free will, and was an unyielding opponent of the idea of predestination he saw Augustine promoting. Augustine in turn accused him of denying the need for divine aid in performing good works. Other critics, too, understood him to have asserted that humans were not wounded by Adam’s sin and were perfectly able to fulfill the law without divine assistance. It is true that Pelagius denied Augustine’s theory of inherited original sin. In support of his position, he and other like-minded thinkers cited Deuteronomy 24:16, which says that children should not die for the crimes of their parents, and that “only for their own crimes may persons be put to death.” Still Pelagius held that all people ultimately needed to be saved by God’s grace.

He was well known in Rome for the self-denying quality of his public life as well as for the power and persuasiveness of his speech. His reputation earned him praise early in his career even from such pillars of the Church as Augustine, soon to become his nemesis, who referred to him as a “saintly man.” However, he was later accused of lying about his own teachings in order to avoid public condemnation. He was questioned by the Synod of Diospolis in 415, but given a clean bill of theological rectitude. The Synod concluded:

Now since we have received satisfaction in respect of the charges brought against the monk Pelagius in his presence and since he gives his assent to sound doctrines but condemns and anathematises those contrary to the faith of the Church, we adjudge him to belong to the communion of the Catholic Church.³

Thus it seems, at least on paper, that Pelagius had won. But his victory was short-lived. The battle was not over, and much of the quarrel involved not what the two men disagreed on, but on what they chose to emphasize, and—as it unfolded—what financial and political powers they could muster. On this front, Augustine held a distinct advantage. After a series of bitter disputes, in which Pelagius appeared to be prevailing, the tide turned. Eventually, at another Council of Carthage, organized by Augustine and his allies in 418, Pelagius was declared a heretic. He spent most of his later life defending his doctrine against Christian theologians who held that he was spreading novelties in the Faith that were unknown to the apostolic tradition.

Pelagius’s ideas, however, continued to circulate. His interpretation of the doctrine of free will became known as Pelagianism and maintained a following—sometimes by people who were not aware of either the label or the source of their perspective. Even now, sixteen centuries later, some Baptists, many Methodists, a variety of liberal Christians, and of course religious humanists subscribe to his views on free will. On the opposing side, the ideas have been condemned by Calvinists and other Protestants. Perhaps somewhere between are Roman Catholics, who officially disapprove of his theology but are sometimes accused by Protestants of promulgating “semi-Pelagianism” because they do not fully embrace the Reformation doctrine of sola fide—that is, justification by grace through faith alone. Pelagius provides a poignant example of how a thinker can sometimes be defeated, yet continue, in his case for centuries, to be influential.

Although it took place long ago, the substance of the argument between Augustine and Pelagius remains intriguing. To what extent are human beings, caught as we all are in the currents of heredity, the negative pressures of society, cultural determinants, and our formidable capacity for self-deception, still capable of becoming truly moral beings? Pelagius thought we could. An illustration of his views on man’s “moral ability” can be found in his “Letter to Demetrias.” Pelagius was in the Holy Land when, in 413, he received a letter from a member of a renowned North African family in Rome. One of the aristocratic ladies who had been among his followers, Anicia Juliana, was also writing to a number of other eminent Western theologians, including Jerome and possibly Augustine, for moral advice for her fourteen-year-old daughter Demetrias, who was already worried about whether being rich endangered her soul. She also fretted about whether as a sinner she could make worthy decisions about how to use the fortune she would inherit. Pelagius used his answer to the letter to argue his case for morality, stressing his views of natural sanctity and man’s moral capacity to choose to live a holy life. He assured the girl that even though she—like every other person—was a sinner, she could still make sound moral choices. This letter is perhaps the only extant writing in Pelagius’s own hand. Ironically, it was thought to be written by his detractor Jerome for centuries, even though Augustine himself references it in his work, On the Grace of Christ. It is a ringing affirmation of the inborn moral capacity of human beings.

No doubt thanks to his being labeled a heretic, little of Pelagius’s work has come down to the present day, except in the quotations of his opponents—rarely a fully reliable source. However, more recently, some have defended Pelagius as having been badly misunderstood. His supporters argue that his thinking is in fact highly orthodox, following in the tradition established by the early fathers and in keeping with the teaching of the church in both the East and the West. As church historian Ian Bradley writes, “From what we are able to piece together from the few sources available … it seems that the Celtic monk held to an orthodox view of the prevenience of God’s grace, and did not assert that individuals could achieve salvation purely by their own efforts.”⁴ His “heresy” had more to do with nuances and the way Pelagius was interpreted by his sometimes less precise disciples. But it also had much to do with the influence of his well-heeled enemies. Let us then now “follow the money” to see what roles they played in this dispute.

When Augustine and his followers finally vanquished Pelagius, despite the initial reluctance of the pope to support Augustine, it was not only theological ideas that won the day. Augustine needed funding to fight the battle. Fortunately for him his party had won an earlier struggle with a movement called the Donatists (purists who refused to accept fellowship with Christians they considered too willing to compromise). Augustine’s people succeeded in having them officially labeled as heretics, which led to their estates being confiscated by the empire. Those Catholics who had followed Augustine then inherited those estates along with the revenues that went with them: the fruits of ecclesial victory. Consequently, they were able to draw on ample resources for the many expenses involved when they took their new case against Pelagius to the imperial court. The quiet whisper of cold cash spoke as persuasively there as it always has in politics, including the politics of religion. Despite the fact that Pelagius and the theologians who supported him had appeared to be winning the contest, the match was turned. As one historian with a proclivity for sports metaphors writes, it “may well have ended in a draw; instead, it went into ‘extra’ time and at the end of that, Augustine and his team won with the help of questionable decisions made by the referees and the touch judges.”⁵

It seems that the pocketbooks of Augustine’s followers were especially influential because of the financial disarray of many of the noble families. The latter might have been close to the imperial court, but their wealth had been decimated by the Vandal raiders who had only recently swept through their areas and devastated their properties. Moreover, the money Augustine’s team was able to deploy was backed up by skillful politicking. Some of these families were in such reduced circumstances that they had refused to contribute to a common pot of funds being raised to buy off the barbarian intruders, and their reluctance had caused dissension and tension with the other nobles. Everyone shared an interest in reestablishing unity. Thus, while conflicting theological positions had been acceptable before the invasions, now any such discord was regarded as divisive and inadmissible. It was time to stick together, politically and religiously, against the plunderers from beyond the Alps. Augustine’s depiction of Pelagius as a divider played into this prevailing sentiment. Division was bad, and money was welcome.

A timely death also helped their cause. The pope who had supported Pelagius died, and a new pope assumed the throne of Peter. Pope Zosimus was more amenable to the noble families—and more in need of their support. Thus the papacy, the nobles, and the emperor came into alignment. Pelagius and his thousands of supporters throughout the empire soon found themselves on the losing side. It is a chapter in Christian history that illustrates how much the weight of wealth can bear upon disputes which appear on the surface to be purely doctrinal. Perhaps any church rushing to point out The Market’s hard-boiled pragmatism should not fail to see the beam that is in its own eye.

Being on the wrong side, however, did not by any means silence Pelagius or those who supported him. A new, young bishop of Eclanum named Julian, who was a brilliant thinker albeit one without many friends in high places, picked up where Pelagius left off. Unlike Augustine, who had never learned Greek, Julian knew both the language and the rich philosophy of the eastern part of the empire. He fought Augustine convincingly on the intellectual level. He detected (rightly, many think) traces of the Manichean dualism of Augustine’s earlier philosophy in his Christian theology. The dualistic Manichaeists, for example, in their zealous rejection of all things fleshly and worldly, were deeply suspicious of sex, even within marriage. In many of his writings, Augustine, who had fathered a son by a mistress he later rejected, seemed to take a similar position. Since he taught that original sin was passed on from generation to generation through sexual intercourse, it seemed to some of his readers that avoiding sex altogether was the most prudent course.

Julian disagreed. He taught that sex was a gift of God for the propagation of the human race, and he warned any laypeople who might be tempted to take Augustine’s side that, if they wanted to have a family, then supporting someone with such a negative view of sex and marriage was hardly a sensible choice. Also, Julian contended that Augustine’s doctrine of original sin easily led to a destructive fatalism. He saw Augustine as a kind of Manichaen-dualist wolf in Christian sheep’s clothing. This is surely something of a caricature. But the bishop of Hippo, for one, took him seriously, and wrote page after page of argument trying to refute Julian’s views. This all went on many centuries ago, but it can hardly be said...