In addition to their identity as kin, the needy are constructed as heavenly citizens and entitled to civic justice by virtue of their identity as bearers of the divine image. Consequently they are entitled to patronage — in modern language they have “rights” — ultimately by virtue of their relationship to God the creator, who has given them both their human nature and membership in the civic community known as the kingdom of heaven. These are “rights” explicitly dependent on these relational affiliations.
This citizenship depends, further, on a special identification of the poor with Christ, and emphasizing the incarnate nature of deity in Christ. The metaphor of Matthew 25, in which ministering to the poor is ministering to Christ, is a dominant theme throughout all three Cappadocians’ writings on poverty relief. Gregory of Nazianzus especially emphasizes this image at the end of his sermon. To see the poor “as Christ” may, to the modern consciousness, seem to make them into a passive image, a symbol that erases individuality and looks past the needy to the “more worthy” Christ for whom they are signifiers. The Cappadocians, however, do not constrain their image to this passive model. Nazianzen emphasizes the poor persons active participation in the divine and liturgical image. He describes them as
While ίσονομία does not occur in Gregory of Nyssa's two homilies, Nyssen understands the divine nature in the poor as that which entitles them to respect and value, emphasizing that the poor have indeed taken on the very prosōpon of Christ himself “Don't despise these prostrate ones as if they merit no respect. Ask who they are and discover their worth. They have put on the face [τό πρόσωπον] of our saviour. The Lord has given them his own prosōpon [that they might be] the stewards of our hope, the guardians of royalty (οί θυρωροί τής βασιλείας)”
He also reminds his audience to “[r]emember who they are...human beings [ανθρώπων άνθρωποι] in no way different from the common nature” (κοινήν φύσιν).
Nyssen also seeks a restoration to Eden: “Mercy and good deeds,” he says, “are works God loves; they divinize [θεόω] those who practice them and stamp them into the likeness of goodness that they may become the image of the primordial Being” (είκών τής πρώτης). Because the poor are spiritual kin, Nyssen says, “It is just that brothers will reap an equal part of the inheritance.” Thus, by their essential relationship with human and divine, the poor are here constructed as having “equal rights'” to justice, compassion, and all aspects of the heavenly inheritance. By helping the poor, the donors also attain citizenship in the heavenly kingdom; at the end of his first sermon, Nyssen praises the author of Psalm 90, who seeks an appreciation of his own mortality and dies “as an intact and flawless citizen of the world to come. May we all attain the same by the philanthrōpia of our Lord Jesus Christ...”
Thus the Cappadocians here “entitle” the poor, constructing for them a social identity using language evocative of “rights.” Yet these are ever dependent rights. The power of the poor depends on their place of primary honor in the kingdom of God.
It depends on their revisionist identity (in these texts) as kin. The rights of these poor depend on their constructed religious role: as patrons, engaging in civic gift exchanges by receiving alms and effecting redemption.
It depends on their assigned position as legal witnesses before God for justice. These rights ultimately depend on the way the authors understand the poor to image the divine. They are not, here, in any sense “existential” rights, but deliberately depend on a particular religious perspective within a particular culture.
Source: Holman, Susan R. "The Hungry Are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 149-151.
This citizenship depends, further, on a special identification of the poor with Christ, and emphasizing the incarnate nature of deity in Christ. The metaphor of Matthew 25, in which ministering to the poor is ministering to Christ, is a dominant theme throughout all three Cappadocians’ writings on poverty relief. Gregory of Nazianzus especially emphasizes this image at the end of his sermon. To see the poor “as Christ” may, to the modern consciousness, seem to make them into a passive image, a symbol that erases individuality and looks past the needy to the “more worthy” Christ for whom they are signifiers. The Cappadocians, however, do not constrain their image to this passive model. Nazianzen emphasizes the poor persons active participation in the divine and liturgical image. He describes them as
[o]ur brothers in God...born with the same nature...compounded of nerves and bones as we are; more than this, they also have received the same divine image as we have, and have perhaps guarded it better...They have put on the same Christ. . . [and] have been made sharers with us of the same...doctrine, the same Testaments, the same Assemblies, the same mysteries, the same hope, Christ.Gregory of Nazianzus is not here implying that only orthodox church members deserve assistance. In fact, both Nazianzen and Nyssen emphasized the universal nature of God's goodness to all creation. It is precisely in these references to divine identity where we find the language of "human rights” in the Gregories: terms referring explicitly to equality, rights and freedom. Nazianzen exhorts his audience to “resolve to imitate the justice [ίσότης] of God” (Or. 14.24), whose gifts are '‘equally upon all, the just and unjust alike, upholding the dignity of our nature by the worthiness of his gifts” (Or. 14.25). Both authors link this justice with a return to Eden. Nazianzen in fact uses ίσονομία, a Greet: political term meaning “equality of rights.” “At the fall came hatred and strife and the deceits of the serpent...I would have you look back to our primary equality of rights [τήν πρώτην ίσονομίαν] not to the later division...Reverence the ancient freedom [τήν άρχαίαν έλευθερίαν τίμησον]. Reverence yourself. Cover the shame [άτιμία] of your own kindred.”
While ίσονομία does not occur in Gregory of Nyssa's two homilies, Nyssen understands the divine nature in the poor as that which entitles them to respect and value, emphasizing that the poor have indeed taken on the very prosōpon of Christ himself “Don't despise these prostrate ones as if they merit no respect. Ask who they are and discover their worth. They have put on the face [τό πρόσωπον] of our saviour. The Lord has given them his own prosōpon [that they might be] the stewards of our hope, the guardians of royalty (οί θυρωροί τής βασιλείας)”
He also reminds his audience to “[r]emember who they are...human beings [ανθρώπων άνθρωποι] in no way different from the common nature” (κοινήν φύσιν).
Nyssen also seeks a restoration to Eden: “Mercy and good deeds,” he says, “are works God loves; they divinize [θεόω] those who practice them and stamp them into the likeness of goodness that they may become the image of the primordial Being” (είκών τής πρώτης). Because the poor are spiritual kin, Nyssen says, “It is just that brothers will reap an equal part of the inheritance.” Thus, by their essential relationship with human and divine, the poor are here constructed as having “equal rights'” to justice, compassion, and all aspects of the heavenly inheritance. By helping the poor, the donors also attain citizenship in the heavenly kingdom; at the end of his first sermon, Nyssen praises the author of Psalm 90, who seeks an appreciation of his own mortality and dies “as an intact and flawless citizen of the world to come. May we all attain the same by the philanthrōpia of our Lord Jesus Christ...”
Thus the Cappadocians here “entitle” the poor, constructing for them a social identity using language evocative of “rights.” Yet these are ever dependent rights. The power of the poor depends on their place of primary honor in the kingdom of God.
It depends on their revisionist identity (in these texts) as kin. The rights of these poor depend on their constructed religious role: as patrons, engaging in civic gift exchanges by receiving alms and effecting redemption.
It depends on their assigned position as legal witnesses before God for justice. These rights ultimately depend on the way the authors understand the poor to image the divine. They are not, here, in any sense “existential” rights, but deliberately depend on a particular religious perspective within a particular culture.
Source: Holman, Susan R. "The Hungry Are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 149-151.
