Work of Human Hands: The Fathers and the Revaluing of Labor
By Mike Aquilina ( bio - articles - email ) | Mar 08, 2023 | In Way of the Fathers (Podcast)
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Plato scorned manual labor. Aristotle believed that “no one who leads the life of a worker or laborer can practice virtue.” Plotinus, Celsus, and Herodotus agreed that work was ignoble and contemptible. Pagan religion reflected these precepts of the philosophers. In such a world, Christianity seemed revolutionary. The churches were full of laborers, who worshipped a Laborer—and whose Scriptures preserved NOT the syllogisms of philosophers, but the stories of people who got jobs done. Implicit in the writings of the Fathers is a radical and new idea: a theology of work.
LINKS
Paul Veyne, A History of Private Life, Volume I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium https://www.amazon.com/History-Private-Life-Pagan-Byzantium/dp/0674399749/
Jose H. Gomez, All You Who Labor: Towards a Spirituality of Work for the 21st Century https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjlepp/vol20/iss2/11/
Mike Aquilina, Work, Play, Love: How the Mass Changed the Life of the First Christians https://catholicbooksdirect.com/products/work-play-love-how-the-mass-changed-the-life-of-the-first-christians
Mike Aquilina, How Christianity Saved Civilization ...And Must Do So Again https://catholicbooksdirect.com/products/how-christianity-saved-civilization-and-must-do-so-again
Mike Aquilina’s website https://fathersofthechurch.com
Mike Aquilina’s books https://catholicbooksdirect.com/writer/mike-aquilina/
Theme music: Gaudeamus (Introit for the Feast of All Saints), sung by Jeff Ostrowski. Courtesy of Corpus Christi Watershed http://www.ccwatershed.org
Mike Aquilina is a popular author working in the area of Church history, especially patristics. He is executive vice-president and trustee of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, a contributing editor of Angelus (magazine) and general editor of the Reclaiming Catholic History Series from Ave Maria Press. See full bio.
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