Humanities Studios: Pedagogy, Psychology, Philosophy

Philosophical-theological critique of greed in the work De Nabuthae of Ambrose of Milan

Mariia Smetaniak
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Abstract

The relevance of the research lay in the fact that a systematic analysis of early Christian criticism of greed allowed one to outline the origins of the Church’s social ethics and to correlate the origins with contemporary debates on property inequality. The aim of the work was to reconstruct the philosophical-theological foundations of the condemnation of avaritia in the sermon De Nabuthae of Ambrose of Milan and to assess the contribution to the formation of the Latin patristic concept of property. The methodology was based on historical-genetic analysis of the text, comparative exegesis of Stoic and biblical concepts, as well as on socio-economic hermeneutics of the late imperial context. In the course of the research, it was found that Ambrose interpreted avaritia as a form of idolatry, which replaced the worship of God with the cult of things and destroyed the vertical relationship between God and man. Exegetical analysis showed that Naboth appeared as an image of a martyr for justice, while Ahab functioned as a symbol of corrupt state authority. The rhetorical devices of anaphora, antithesis, and apostrophe directed pastoral polemic at the magnates of Milan and appealed to voluntary restitution of illegally acquired property. The synthesis of the Stoic dichotomy “use – abuse” with the biblical motif of stewardship formed a programme of mercy, sacrifice, and justice, which was later developed in the scholastic concept of the social function of property. The research also demonstrated that the sermon incorporated ancient legal argumentation, legitimised ecclesiastical intervention in private property disputes. The conclusions obtained clarified the genealogy of the Latin critique of economic inequality and provided conceptual guidelines for further interdisciplinary studies of Christian economic ethics. The practical significance of the work lay in the fact that it clarified terminological and conceptual aspects of Ambrosian critique of greed and could serve as a source of reference material for further research on early Christian social ethics

Keywords

colonate; mercy; justice; Stoic dichotomy; biblical narrative; classical Latin philology

Suggested citation
Smetaniak, M. (2025). Philosophical-theological critique of greed in the work De Nabuthae of Ambrose of Milan. Humanities Studios: Pedagogy, Psychology, Philosophy, 13(3), 112-129. https://doi.org/10.31548/hspedagog/3.2025.112
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