The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

god’s deal 449original sayings of Jesus in the five gospels, five commend love: turn theother cheek, give to the poor, blessed are the poor/hungry/sad, love yourenemy, the good Samaritan. But the four others, among them “render untoCaesar,” commend prudence, at least in their use of the metaphors of economiclife: God’s rule as leaven (Luke 13:20–21, Matt. 13:33), the shrewdmanager (Luke 16:1–8), the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1–15), the mustardseed, which only in the spare version of Thomas 20:2–4 does the seminarregard as fully original.John Dominic Crossan, the former chairman of the Jesus Seminar,offered in 1991 a “reconstructed inventory” of “all the words placed on hislips that actually go back to the historical Jesus.” 16 One can catalogue themby those in favor of worldly prudence (“No man can serve two masters”),those advocating holy foolishness (“Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals”),and those indifferent on the matter (“Human beings will be forgiven alltheir sins”). The result is rather similar to the experiment here with GospelParallels: thirty-eight for prudence, nineteen against (and therefore againabout two to one in favor), and forty-seven indifferent.The seminar proposed a “final general rule of evidence” in the search forthe historical Jesus: “Beware of finding a Jesus entirely congenial to you”(Crossan, p. 5). It is not the case that only original remarks by Jesus constituteChristianity. After all, I remind my fellow believers, the Holy Spiritspeaks through Moses and the prophets, too, and in latter days through allthe saints, and through our holy, catholic, and apostolic church, and indeedthrough the inner light of men and women at the meeting. Nor is it obviousthat the Jesus Seminar has for sure identified the authentic remarks. Theseminar is not universally admired by sophisticated biblical scholars, and isdetested by literalists. Nor does Jesus’ prudential rhetoric imply that hewould have thrilled to the modern bourgeoisie.The point is merely to counter the assumption especially congenial in theWest since 1848 that Jesus was bitterly hostile to the propensity to truck andbarter. No, he was not. Even the Sermon on the Mount, the most socialist ofChristian texts, is saturated with a rhetoric of reward. “Blessed are the poorin spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ...Blessed are the meek, for theyshall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:3, 5). “The kingdom of heaven,” said Jesus ina characteristic simile, “is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on findingone pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it”(Matt. 13:45–46).