Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS AND THE MODERN WORLD 161
But here again the envious have succeeded in usurping the New Testament
message. The doctrine, progressively secularized, came to mean a
mission to establish an egalitarian society, to achieve a levelling-out, a state
of uniformity here and now, in this world. The egalitarian utopia is respectably
cloaked in the stuff of the New Testament. Since all will be equal
before God (and have been created equal ab initio for the purpose of
ultimate transcendental equality), all must be as equal as possible in society
here on earth. This doctrine cannot, without chicanery, be read anywhere
into the New Thstament. Nor should the fact be overlooked that the realization
of an egalitarian society would render the context of Christian
ethics, for a greater part, superfluous. 30
30 See, e. g., Theodoros Nikolaou, Der Neid bei Johannes Chrysostomus, Bonn, 1969.