PRIMITIVE EQUALITY - GREGORY NAZIANZEN

Imitate God’s liberality and there will be no more poor’ (Apostolic Constitutions). Let us not kill ourselves heaping up money when our brothers are dying of hunger … Let us imitate God’s law of creation. He makes the rain fall on the righteous and the wicked and makes his sun rise upon all human beings without distinction.

Human beings have accumulated in their coffers gold and silver, clothes more sumptuous than useful, diamonds and other such objects that are evidence of war and tyranny; then a foolish arrogance hardens their hearts; for their brothers in distress, no pity. What utter blindness! They do not realize that poverty and riches, social contrasts and other such distinctions were late arrivals among human beings. They spread like epidemics. They were inventions of sin. But in the beginning ‘it was not so’ (Matthew 19.8)

Hold fast then to that primitive equality, forget subsequent divisions. Attend not to the law of the strong but to the law of the Creator. Help nature to the best of your ability, honour the freedom of creation, protect your species from dishonour, come to its aid in sickness, rescue it from poverty … Seek to distinguish yourself from others only by your generosity. Be like gods for the poor, imitating God’s mercy. Humanity has nothing so much in common with God as the ability to do good … You who are Christ’s servants, his brethren and fellow-heirs, while it is still not too late, help Christ, feed Christ, clothe Christ, welcome Christ, honour Christ …

Gregory Nazianzen On Love of the Poor, 24-27,40 (PG 35,274-7,285)