Mammon of untruths

Having thus revealed his critical wit, Prof. Bogdashevsky in the same article gives a sample of his exegetical creativity. He explains the parable of the unrighteous steward. “And the Lord praise the unrighteous steward: he praised him not for his unrighteousness, but for his wisdom, that is, worldly experience, resourcefulness, foresight; the fact of the unrighteousness of the house manager is clearly shown in the words: unrighteous house manager; the landlord praises only the wise care of the housebuilder for the future, but does not approve of the means he has chosen for this.” So, according to Bogdashevsky, if “the master praised the unfaithful (unrighteous) steward,” then it means “unrighteousness is presented” as not worthy of praise. This is a clear example of scholastic evasion, corrected by cheap piety. The Gospel text must be understood in reverse to this interpretation. If the master praised the unfaithful (unrighteous) steward, then it means he praised the unfaithful steward, and, therefore, the parable teaches us precisely unfaithfulness (unrighteousness), even if this thought is disgusting to cheap piety and elementary ethics. In fact, read the parable: a steward is refused a position; he is in a hurry to enter into a deal with debtors; and so “the lord praised the unfaithful steward because he acted wisely” (v. 8). Here it is truly “immediately obvious to everyone” that the master praised the manager for his insight, for the “means he chose” to ensure his future. Only those experienced in scholasticism can evade this direct meaning of the parable. - Recommending to us the infidelity of the steward, the parable stipulates: “for the sons of this age are more shrewd than the sons of light in their generation.” We are encouraged to imitate the steward's infidelity for our own purposes, in our own way—we are encouraged to act in a manner similar to the steward's infidelity. Further, Bogdashevsky writes: make friends with unrighteous wealth - “from the mammon of unrighteousness (ἐ κ του μαμωνατης ἀ δικιας), that is, not from wealth acquired by unrighteousness, or wealth to which all sorts of sins of unrighteousness are attached, but from deceptive, transitory wealth, unreliable (cf. v. 11: in an unrighteous estate). Ἀ δικος means here: invalid, in contrast to the truly existing, real... The meaning of the words (Article 10 and I) is quite clear, if by “small”, “unrighteous estate”, “strange” - we mean mammon - earthly wealth, material goods, and by “many”, “true estate”, “yours” - we mean true spiritual goods, or benefits kingdom of God." In conclusion, from this explanation the professor draws a moral conclusion: “if earthly goods are “foreign” for the children of the world and their possession is entrusted only in order to, with their correct use, gain the mercy of God; then the sons of light should not be attached to them with all their hearts, believing in them unconditional good.” Regarding this moral conclusion, it should be noted that this is the morality about which the scripture says: “You are neither cold nor hot; Oh, that you were cold or hot! But because you are warm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth” (Apoc. III, 15.16). This is a walking morality, the morality of the “kulaks” who donate to the bells and give alms. G. Bogdashevsky teaches in the name of the gospel “not to become attached to earthly goods with all your heart, not to place unconditional good in them.” But this lukewarmness is not the language of the gospel!... Regarding what was proposed by prof. Bogdashevsky’s explanation of the “mammon of untruth” should be noted that it is old and has already “fed up” us. We find an excellent presentation of this opinion in. Shower. Thurs. 1890 in Art. “The Steward of Untruth,” where we read (I, p. 378): “By mammon of unrighteousness we do not mean criminal or dishonestly acquired property, but legal wealth or material well-being in general. The expression means: wealth or possession of that which is not true in relation to the highest and heavenly truth of man. Therefore, it is also called: small in comparison with the great, untrue in comparison with the true, alien in comparison with ours, serving an idol and not God.” The same idea is developed in the same magazine for 1903 (Dec.) in an article by another author, “The Parable of the Unrighteous Steward,” where we read (p. 720): “by unrighteous wealth one should understand all earthly property in general, without regard to the means of acquiring it, and by true wealth, one’s own and many, one should understand the blessings of the kingdom of heaven.” I must note that this article, without giving anything new in comparison with the previous one, is lower than it in presentation, due to the uncertainty and instability of the main idea, in contradiction of which the author further explains the name of earthly wealth as unrighteous in the sense that “it leads to the violation of the moral law,” and concludes that “The Lord commanded to treat earthly estates completely opposite to how the persons in the parable - the sons of this age - treated him,” which obviously contradicts the Gospel text. The question arises, why does Mr. Bogdashevsky repeat this explanation again?.. I am not satisfied with this accepted explanation and offer my own. However, calling the following explanation of the parable my own, I must make a reservation: I have not seen this explanation among commentators, but I cannot guarantee that it may have been accepted by one of the many commentators. Yesterday I read Bogdashevsky’s article, now I’m responding to him, and I have neither the time nor the desire to deliberately deal with comments. Whether my opinion is original or unoriginal, I do not attach any “deliberate” importance to this. I will not repeat the difficulties that the parable presents for commentators: they have already been pointed out more than once. I will only note those difficulties and perplexities that are caused by the accepted translation and the usual explanation. Here is the most important of them. In the expression of Art. 9 mammon of unrighteousness - unrighteous wealth (μαμωναςτηςαδικιαςαδικοςμαμωνας art. 11) corresponds to the Russian adjective “unrighteous” in Greek. genus. noun της αδικιας. Likewise, in Art. 8 An unrighteous house builder is an unfaithful steward according to gr. the same is conveyed by the word τηςαδικιας. So the same Greek word in the same parable is translated into Russian once as unfaithful steward, and another time as unrighteous wealth. Meanwhile, the power of the parable is obvious in the repetition of one word - once in application to the ruler, one of the sons of this age, and another time in application to wealth, i.e., meaning the attitude of the sons of the kingdom to wealth. In the same way, the explanation of the word unrighteous (wealth) should be applicable (of course, mutatis mutandis) to the word unfaithful (steward). More reasonable and consistent commentators understand this relationship and the (usual) explanation of “unjust wealth” is also applied to the “steward of unrighteousness.” “The expression: steward of unrighteousness should be understood in the same sense. This does not mean that the steward was a completely dishonest person and acted without any conscience, but that, firstly, he unjustly or negligently managed someone else’s property and, secondly, he ruled over what, in comparison with the supreme truth, is not true truth, that is, earthly wealth.” Here, in the last words, the emphasis is on what is not true - in the wealth that was entrusted to the steward, and not in the steward, which the clan contributes to. pad. “untruth”, as if the ruler of untruth ruled untruth. But this deception must be eliminated. case, remembering that there is a gender here. case has the meaning of an adjective, why μαμωναςτηςαδικιας art. 9 ὁ ἀ δικοςμαμωνας art. 11, so that Mammon is an unrighteous wealth, and (even more so) a builder of unrighteousness, an unrighteous housekeeper. It is noteworthy that in the synodal glory. translation under Mammon Art. 9 left to give birth. untruths, and with the house builder Art. 8th generation translated by adjective. So, unrighteousness is in the steward, and applying the usual explanation of “unrighteous wealth” to the steward will give the concept of an “invalid, untrue steward,” but such a concept buries itself, because in the parable there is a real steward, and not “perishable and fleeting” (the usual epithets of earthly goods). Αδικιας must be explained equally in application to wealth and in application to the steward, but one must move not from wealth to the steward, from the unknown to the known, but vice versa, since in the parable the steward is an image, and the mammon of unrighteousness is the signified, symbolized by the image. What a steward of untruth is, it is easy to understand - it is, as translated in Russian, an unfaithful steward, that is, one who has not justified the trust of the master, who is unfaithful to the interests of the estate that was entrusted to him. In the image of the supply manager, his infidelity and his cunning are exposed, nothing more. All the guesses and arguments of commentators about the properties of the ruler and the particular features of his infidelity only confuse the matter and obscure the schematic image 1 . The image itself is very clear - this is an unfaithful and shrewd ruler. In other parables, images of a faithful servant are given (πιστοςδουλος), i.e. a slave who has justified the trust of his master, who is faithful to the interests of the entrusted property, who has increased the entrusted property (Matthew XXIV, 45; XXV, 21; Luke XIX, 17 cf. XII, 42). If the steward τηςαδικιας is actually and literally an unfaithful steward (in the indicated sense), then the wealth της αδικιας is also unfaithful wealth, but of course mutatis mutandis, since there is a person, and here a thing, it is unfaithful wealth, i.e., the interests of which are disloyal, which is squandered. Although the word infidel is used both actively and passively, both in relation to a person and in relation to a thing, although it is a gender. gr. της αδικιας may also be obj. and subject., however, in Russian in the indicated sense, infidel is not used when applied to a thing (incorrect business would mean one in which a person loses, which does not live up to hope). Therefore, in Russian, the second τηςαδικιας is inconvenient to translate as an adjective, but it is necessary (as in the Glorious Synod. unrighteous steward and mammon of unrighteousness) to translate: unfaithful steward and wealth of unfaithfulness, mammon of unfaithfulness (unfaithfulness to wealth). The steward and wealth are compared, the mediating member of the comparison is infidelity, sometimes active, sometimes passive: the steward is unfaithful, because he does not respect the interests of the estate, does not increase it, squanders it, and wealth is the mammon of infidelity, since they do not respect his interests, they squander it. The infidelity of the manager inevitably causes the infidelity of the estate: the manager is unfaithful (the subject of infidelity), trace. the estate is the mammon of infidelity (the object of infidelity). We are commanded in the parable: just as the steward was unfaithful to the wealth, so we must be unfaithful to the wealth. But both of them are unfaithful in their own way: the shrewd steward was unfaithful to the estate in earthly - selfish calculations (subjective unfaithfulness), and the sons of light must be unfaithful to wealth for the sake of the kingdom of God, why in relation to them subjective unfaithfulness is obscured and objective unfaithfulness appears, that is, the emphasis is on the object of unfaithfulness - μαμωνας της αδικιας αδικοςμαμωνας. So, the parable teaches: just as the unfaithful steward was shrewd in his way, so we must acquire for ourselves eternal abodes through mammon’s unfaithfulness, that is, unfaithfulness to the interests of wealth. The manager is characterized by personal use of his infidelity; for the sons of light is characteristic (in their attitude to wealth) - the objective fate of wealth; for the first - what he made for himself from wealth, for the second - what will become of the wealth in their hands. That the understanding of unfaithful wealth in the sense of unfaithfulness to wealth is true, this is clear from what is below, in Art. 13, God and mammon are presented as two masters who cannot be served at the same time: the sons of light, serving God, must hate mammon and not care about wealth. Mammon της αδικιας art. 9 is the same as hatred of mammon, carelessness about wealth v. 13 is equally disloyalty to the interests of wealth, waste of it. We now need to find out why the sons of light are required to be unfaithful to wealth, why wealth is an object of unfaithfulness for them. Evangelical ethics is defined from two sides: from the content side and from the formal side. In content, gospel ethics is based on the principle of love. In formal terms, it is characterized by absoluteness. In the Gospel, an infinite number of zeros are added to the unit denoting the ethical value, the particle “all” is added to every ethical rule, and the bonds are removed from every ethical movement. “Love”, “farewell”, “do good” all this existed before Christianity; love everyone, love to death, forgive endlessly, give away all your property - this is the gospel ethic. And love, as a principle, is characteristic of Christian ethics because only love “covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything” 2. The same is the evangelical ethics, in particular, in relation to the issue of wealth. We will not present the full Gospel teaching on wealth. Let us pose only one question: is it possible, according to the Gospel, for a rich man to be saved? (To be saved, that is, to receive the fullness of the gospel blessings, is to be saved in reality, and not legally in the sense of reward after death). Perhaps, but only under one condition and one way - by distributing the entire estate. Christian charity is absolute in nature. “Sell your possessions and give alms” (Luke XII: 33): this is the gospel commandment. Such a gospel commandment is difficult to fulfill. The less a person has, the easier it is for him to live according to the gospel. The poor widow put only two mites on the church and she had already “put in all her food that she had” (Luke XXI, 4). The gospel makes the poor happy. It is difficult for a rich man to do the same even under favorable conditions. The young man kept the commandments “from his youth”, so that the Lord loved him, and yet such a good young man, having heard the command: “Sell everything that you have, and give to the poor” - embarrassed by this word, he went away with sadness, because he had a lot of property (Luke XVIII 18 - 23 par.). How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (24.25). This evangelical point of view on wealth is completely new for paganism and Judaism. The pagan philosopher calls monetary charity an easier matter than charity, especially for the rich (faciliοr - locupleti praesertim). He advises charity from interest, and not from capital, and condemns charity from capital, since such generosity destroys itself and becomes impossible in the future (largitio, quae fit ex re familiari, fontem ipsum benignitatis exhaurit. Ita benignitate benignitas tollitun qua quo in plures usus sis, eo minus in multos nti possis. Cicer. De off. II, 15)... The Jews considered wealth a gift from God, a reward for righteousness. True, the best of them felt the moral gravity of the means by which wealth is acquired. But they saw the peculiarity of wealth that it in itself makes it possible to atone for all sins and, in particular, those associated with its acquisition, that is, through charity. For them, the question was alive: what part of the estate should be spent on charity. The tributary Pharisee “gave a tenth of all that he acquired.” It was a very broad charity. But this is not what the gospel requires. Unlike paganism and Judaism, the gospel teaches that a rich man can enter the kingdom of God only by becoming a beggar - wealth serves the gospel only by disappearing, melting. Therefore, the sons of light are characterized by infidelity to wealth. “Make friends for yourself by being unfaithful to mammon, so that they will receive you into eternal abodes” (v. 9): friends receiving the sons of light is also figurative language - friends receiving them into eternal abodes is the same as the blessings of the kingdom of God. “Achieve the blessings of the kingdom of God by being unfaithful to wealth.” That in the parable there is unfaithfulness to wealth, leading to its impoverishment, this finds the following textual confirmation. Verse 9 reads: Make friends for yourself (by being unfaithful to wealth), so that when you become poor, they will be honored. become poor (ἐ κλ ί πητεtex. rec.), they accepted you into eternal abodes.” The translation “you become impoverished” incorrectly conveys the meaning of the Greek verb, which is why commentators replace it with: when you die (stop, stop). But this is not enough, and the reading here is incorrect. You need to read ὁ ταν ἐ κλιπῃ when it becomes scarce, when it stops, that is, wealth. “Make friends for yourself by being unfaithful to wealth, so that when they become scarce, they will receive you into eternal abodes.” But such unfaithfulness to wealth (in its way, evangelical) is the highest loyalty to God, as is explained in verses 10 - 12. The usual explanation of these verses is quite satisfactory. You just need to pay attention, firstly, to the transition from Art. 9 to 10. Here we encounter the boldness of thought characteristic of the gospel, the freedom of transitions that follow the logic of ideas, and not the logic of words. Eg. Christ explains to Simon the Pharisee that he who is more forgiven will “love” more. Hence literally (according to the logic of the textbooks) it would be necessary to make the following application to the sinner wife: “her many sins are forgiven so that she may love a lot”; but Christ makes the following (unexpected for elementary logic) conclusion: “Her many sins are forgiven because she loved much; and to whom little is forgiven, he loves little” (Luke VII, 40 – 47). We encounter a similar transition in the parable under consideration: “make friends by being unfaithful to wealth... faithful in little is faithful in much,” etc. The idea is this: unfaithfulness to wealth is the highest loyalty to God. In this regard, it is easy to explain the words: “and the lord praised the unfaithful steward, because he acted wisely.” To explain this, they try to either whitewash the manager, excuse him, justify, or denigrate the master, saying this: “the master, despite the harm caused to his interests by the fraudulent trick of the manager, praised this trick because he was the same son of this century as the manager, because he treated and acted in relation to earthly property in the same way as the manager, because he considered immoral means permissible in the acquisition of property, if only these means achieved the goal” (D. Thur. 1903 Dec. pp. 715 – 716). Both are in vain. In the image of the influent gentleman, the face of the Heavenly Father is visible. In reality, the owner would not praise such a manager, just as “a master, having girded himself, would not serve his servants” (Luke XII, 37 cf. XVII, 7 - 10); in fact, the owner would have been surprised at the manager’s dexterity and would have involuntarily and internally approved of it, as we say to ourselves about the enemy: “he deftly tricked me.” But just as behind the image of an unfaithful steward lies disloyalty to the wealth of the sons of light, and in their infidelity to their wealth their loyalty to God is manifested: so in the involuntary surprise or approval of the owner, the merciful praise of the Heavenly Father is visible to the sons of light, imitating “in their own way” an unfaithful, but shrewd steward, just as in the image of “a master serving his servants” the features of the one who is designated by the image are already visible - that one Lord, who “served” (Luke XXII, 27). Secondly, you need to pay attention to the Greek words that denote faithfulness and unfaithfulness in the parable. In Russian, Greek words are not maintained, but in Slavic “unrighteous” and “faithful” alternate respectively with the Greek αδικος or αδικιας and πιστος. In the parable, of course, there is a double infidelity and fidelity: infidelity (unrighteousness) in relation to property or wealth, and fidelity to God. The first infidelity (unrighteousness) is well denoted in Greek by the word αδικιας or αδικος, and the second faithfulness is also well denoted by the word πιστος. I will not make extracts from Greek dictionaries. It is enough to note that the word πιστις in the gospel denotes religious faith itself, faith in God. Δικη - justice, giving everyone their due. It is one thing δικη in relation to power, another thing is δικη in relation to friends, to a contract, etc. It can be δικη in relation to things: in particular, δικη in relation to land - cultivating it, in relation to wealth - preserving and increasing it 3. It is clear from this why the infidelity of the steward, who squandered his property, and the infidelity of the sons of light to wealth are designated by the words αδικιας, αδικος, and the loyalty of the sons of light to God by the word πιστος. We encounter a remarkable alternation of unfaithfulness, unrighteousness (αδικος) and faithfulness (πιστος) in verses 10 – 12: faithful (ὁ πιστος) in few, and faithful in many (πιστος) is; and the unrighteous (r. infidel ἀ δικος) is in small and in many ways unrighteous (ἀ δικος). If you are not faithful (to God πιστοι) in an unrighteous (ἀ δ ί κῳ) property, who has faith in you (πιστεθσει) in the true; and if you are not faithful (to God πιστοι) in another’s property, who will give you yours? (Here earthly and external wealth is contrasted with eternal internal goods). We have explained the idea of ​​the parable. Now the last question about translation: how to maintain words and thought? In this case, first of all, it is necessary to recognize the merits of the Slavic translation (and the shortcomings of the Russian one - I mean the synonymous edition). If you choose the lesser of two evils, then it is better to preserve the Slavic sayings that we are talking about in the Russian translation: the unrighteous steward, the mammon of unrighteousness, the faithful in little, the unrighteous in little... The clear idea of ​​the parable is conveniently connected with these sayings. I call it evil (lesser) that Slavic sayings would remain without translation. In Russian it is clearer to say: the steward is unfaithful, unfaithful to wealth (mammon of infidelity), but in this case there is no distinction between the faithful (πιστος) and the unfaithful (αδικος). You can translate ἀ δικιας (taking not the general idea of ​​δικη), but its particular application to property, wealth) careless, careless. “One man was rich and had a steward, against whom it was reported that he was wasting his property.... And the master praised the careless steward for acting wisely; for the sons of this age are more perceptive in their generation than the sons of light. And I tell you: make friends for yourself by not caring about wealth, so that when they become scarce, they will receive you into eternal abodes. Faithful in little is faithful in much; and he who is worthless in little things is also worthless in many things. So if you were not faithful in worthless wealth, who will believe you what is true? And if you have not been faithful in what belongs to others, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate one and love the other; or one will be zealous and neglect the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Note In this translation, it was possible to maintain the unity of the translation “steward τηςαδικιας” and “wealth της αδικιας”, changing (as in the famous translation) gen. subject. and obj. (which has no correspondence in Russian forms) in the appendix. and exists. But for αδικος below we had to take another root “unfit”, although still related (to please - to please). For the word itself unsuitable cf. Greek ἀ δικοςο ἰ κετης. I believe that the differences between αδικιας and αδικος and the transition in thoughts from 9 to 10 art. it is enough to translate these words so differently. Wed. Above is a note about the schematic images of a shepherd, a mercenary, a wolf. I am not developing these thoughts in detail, since I soon hope to begin publishing the study “Faith and Living According to the Gospel.” I reveal the idea of ​​the word, and that’s all. You might be interested in: