Angelus News | May 7, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 9

done with his hands. So
you can see the symbols
of all trades inscribed
along with the names of
Christians throughout the
burial chambers in the
catacombs.
Jesus learned his approach
to work from his
father, St. Joseph — who
learned it surely from the
Book of Genesis. The
biblical understanding
of labor — as something
positive, honorable, and
holy — was uniquely
Jewish. It did not come
naturally to other peoples.
The Greeks, in fact, disdained
manual laborers
and tried to minimize
their participation in
democracy. Socrates
held that full citizenship
should be granted only
to the leisured classes
— and, in fact, citizens
should be forbidden “to
exercise any mechanical
craft at all.” Aristotle
agreed, adding, “No man can practice
virtue who is living the life of a mechanic
or laborer.”
The Greek historian Herodotus observed
that this attitude toward laborers
was universal. “I know that in Thrace
and Scythia and Persia and Lydia and
nearly all foreign countries, those who
learn trades are held in less esteem
than the rest of the people, and those
who have least to do with artisans’ work
… are highly honored.”
Yet the Jews never looked at work that
way. We read in the Talmud that “A
man has a duty to teach his son a trade.
… Anyone who does not teach his
son a trade, teaches him to steal.” And
elsewhere the rabbis said, “Seven years
lasted the famine, but it came not to
the craftsman’s door.”
Jews — and later Christians — saw
profound dignity in workers and their
works. The synagogues and churches
in antiquity were filled with laborers,
who worshiped a Laborer and whose
Scriptures preserved not the arguments
of philosophers, but the stories of
people who got work done. Abel was
a herdsman. Noah was a sailor. Jacob
leaned into a plow. St. Peter and St.
John were fishermen. St. Paul made
tents and canopies.
These men got dirty and sweaty every
day. And so the tradition-minded
Greeks and Romans could dismiss
them as ignoble.
The idea that ordinary labor had
dignity — the idea that ordinary work
could be something divine — this was
one of those crazy Christian ideas that
scandalized the pagan world. It was
like the idea of a crucified God, or of
ordinary people eating God at Mass.
Pagans mocked them. But Christians
seemed to revel in every insult. The
Church Fathers didn’t hesitate to
portray Jesus working at various trades.
And everyone recognized this as a
radical idea.
The pagan gods were projections of
the upper classes, and the Greek and
Roman myths were narratives of the
horrible mischief of a leisurely life.
But the God of the New Testament
was a carpenter, whose earthly father
was a carpenter, and
whose Father in heaven
was not drinking and
womanizing, but always
toiling. Jesus told his
opponents, “My Father
is working still, and I am
working” (John 5:17).
A 16th-century illustration of St.
Clement of Alexandria by French
Franciscan explorer and writer
André Thevet.
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The lesson was not lost
on the early Christians.
St. Clement of Alexandria,
writing around
A.D. 190, reminded new
converts that there was
no need for them to quit
their jobs: “Tend to your
farming if you’re a farmer;
but know God while you
labor in the fields. Sail if
navigation is your profession,
but invoke always
the celestial pilot.”
And such preaching was effective. It
converted people in every walk of life.
St. Clement’s contemporary, Tertullian
of Carthage, boasted of the Church’s
explosive growth. “We emerged only
yesterday, and we have filled every
place among you — cities, islands,
fortresses, towns, marketplaces, military
camps, tribes, companies, palace, senate,
forum. We have left nothing to you
but the temples of your gods.”
In the world, Christians were as omnipresent
as God; and, like their God,
they were working still. The new Christian
faith led them not to abandon
their duties, but to excel in them. And
this distinguished Christianity from
other world religions.
Their work was holy. They learned
this from Jesus, who had learned
it from his father — St. Joseph the
Worker.
Mike Aquilina is the author of many
books, including “St. Joseph and His
World” (Scepter, $11.48). He is a contributing
editor for Angelus News.
22 • ANGELUS • May 7, 2021