Thirtieth Day of Lent: Wealth and Wisdom

For a summary of Passus XI, see Second Sunday of Lent.

At the beginning of Passus XI, Dame Study chastises her husband Perception for trying to teach someone who is unready to receive the teaching, lamenting as she does how the world despises both true learning and caring for the needy:

            “Tobit teaches not so—take heed, you rich,

            How once he told and taught his son to give:

            If you have much, give abundantly; if little, strive to share that freely too.

            And this means no more than “When you command great wealth,

            Be generous with it among those who are in need;

            And if you have little, dear son, take care upon your life

            To gain love with it, though you fare the worse.”

            But no lord now nor learned man would hear such words

            Unless to listen how they might learn to spend less money.

            That’s what lords love now and they term it Dowel,

            For no knowledge now is valued but if deals with earning.”

(The quotation in italics is from the book of Tobit, considered part of the Old Testament by all Christians before the Reformation and still today by Catholic and Orthodox Christians).

Dame Study’s complaint is twofold.  In the first place she laments the fact that the rich cling greedily to their wealth and are more eager to amass more and more of it than they are to share abundantly with the poor.  But she also laments that this same single-minded desire to amass wealth closes off their souls from learning anything worthwhile or from hearing words that might change their attitudes.  Not only do they refuse to give abundantly and thus reject the commandment of God, but they are also only willing to listen to voices that share their warped view of gaining, saving, and maintaining wealth.

Our world is hardly much different from Dame Study’s and, in fact, the problem is probably more acute with us.  Some people today would be willing to sign on to Tobit’s advice to give abundantly if you have much (though I suspect our general idea of “abundantly” would pale in comparison with his), but very few would go in for the second half, and agree that even when we have little we should endeavor to share that too.  After all, isn’t it irresponsible to give to others when your own footing isn’t secure?  That’s what we say to ourselves, at least.  Of course the name for this is selfishness.

This disease is especially acute for those who move in the classes where one employs financial planners and wealth managers to help in that shrewd amassing and maintenance of wealth.  In a Christian society a “wealth manager” would be someone who distributed your wealth to the poor, not someone who helped you get more of it for yourself.  But we do not live in a Christian society: we live in a godless and wealth-worshipping one.  Too seldom do those of us acclimated to the world understand this.

Nor is Dame Study’s second complaint any less familiar to us, that people only value education when it tells them how to make more money.  Time and again we hear politicians today agitating for reform of our educational system so that it can “better equip people for the job market,”—that is, in the words of Study, “we should only value knowledge that deals with earning.”  But the most important things we can learn are not skills for employment or financial prudence, but the virtues and wisdom that make us better human beings.  We tell students preparing yourself for a particular career is “Dowel” and we tell adults that pursuing that career is “Dowel” and we tell the aged that retiring comfortably from that career is “Dowel” but none of that is true.  Dowel is to love God with all you heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.  Dowel is to give abundantly when you have much and, when you have little, to strive to share that too.  Dowel is to learn the things of God and live in them, not the things that have to do with earning.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  The eye is the lamp of the body.  So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!  No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth.”  (Matthew 6:19-24)