Debt & Sin
St. Augustine Changed the Meaning of Forgiveness
The major theme of this essay is debt forgiveness, a practice widely observed by early agricultural societies—until the Romans forfeited economic sustainability by not forgiving debts.
Key Takeaways:
The ideas of the Greek philosopher Plato enjoyed a revival in the Late Roman Empire, which heavily influenced the rise of Christianity.
St. Augustine reinterpreted the forgiveness commanded by Jesus to mean forgiveness for sin, rather than forgiveness of debt.
The notions of “sin” and “debt” remain conceptually and etymologically linked to this day.
A Brief Genealogy of Platonism
Plato wrote his most famous work, the Republic, around 375 BC. There, he laid out his classic “Allegory of the Cave,” where he suggested that the sensory universe we experience is merely an illusion—like shadows flickering on a cave wall. Plato believed these shadows emanate from a hidden, unseen realm of idealized perfection. He considered philosophy to be the key to transcending the illusion and glimpsing this “Realm of Ideals.”
Five centuries later, the Roman Empire was on its last legs. Ghoulish wealth inequality plunged that society into economic dysfunction, and a profound pessimism settled over the dying empire like a miasmal fog. Under these gloomy conditions, Platonism underwent a revival in two major stages.
The first Platonic movement to sweep the Empire was Gnosticism. Living through the chaotic decline of Roman society convinced the Gnostics that the god of the Bible was evil. While they accepted Plato’s basic framework with twin realms, they couldn’t reconcile the notion of a loving god with the constant pain and suffering they were experiencing. Instead, they concluded that an evil God condemns or traps humankind in a universe of woes.
Neoplatonism was the second Platonic movement, and it was a direct reaction to the pessimism of the Gnostics. The Neoplatonists were horrified by the idea of an evil god. While they couldn’t deny the fallen state of the world, the Neoplatonists held that evil was the result of distance from God. As darkness is the absence of light, so the Neoplatonists believed that evil was the absence of God. According to them, the point of life is to ascend out of an illusory realm of darkness toward the light of God’s grace.
The influence of these two Platonic revivals on Christianity cannot be overstated. Augustine of Hippo adapted the Platonic framework with two realms into the Christian framework of heaven and earth we still recognize today. In their 1950 book The Age of Faith, Will and Ariel Durant wrote that Platonism “became for Augustine the vestibule to Christianity.”
The Forgiveness of St. Augustine
Christianity started out as a reaction to the cruel economic hierarchy of the Roman Empire. The forgiveness Jesus preached about was originally economic in nature. He demanded a return to the traditions of periodic debt forgiveness that had guard-railed virtually all pre-Roman societies. Jesus prescribed an antidote to the grotesque wealth inequality and constant debt crises that, according to Rome’s own historians, cannibalized that civilization.
As a youth, Augustine had been a rake who occupied himself with wine, women, and song. But after finding these pursuits ultimately hollow, Augustine wanted to be forgiven for his immoral behavior. To him, the forgiveness commanded by Jesus was not forgiveness of economic debts, but forgiveness from sin. Augustine believed good moral acts to be the vehicle for a Platonic ascent out of our fallen world and into an ideal realm of perfection. Platonism heavily informed this reinterpretation of Christian forgiveness.
As the popularity of Christianity exploded, the Roman ruling class stopped their merciless persecution of Christians and co-opted that faith as their new state religion. But rather than accepting Jesus’ message of economic justice, the Roman elite endorsed Augustine’s conception of forgiveness instead. His version was much more economically convenient for the Roman ruling class because it deemphasized economic populism.
Because Augustine’s interpretation of Christianity was accepted by the Roman elite, it went on to become the version bequeathed to us by history. In the end, the Roman oligarchy went down with their ship rather than broadly forgiving debts owed to them by the working class.
The Difference Between Debt & Sin
The stamp of Christianity’s origin as a reaction to economic injustice can still be found in the New Testament. There, a wrathful Jesus violently expels moneylenders from the Temple of Solomon. Variations of the phrase, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” appear in three gospels. And although the word “sin” (or sometimes “trespass”) replaces the word “debt” in newer translations, the 1611 King James Version of the Bible gives the Lord’s Prayer as “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”.
If someone falls into debt through a lack of financial continence, one could say that they should bear the guilt for their sin. Falling into sin and falling into debt can mean precisely the same thing. Because debt and sin are related concepts, they’re also related words.
The etymologies of the words “sin” and “debt” are still directly connected in many modern Indo-European languages. German is a prime example. If you bump into someone in Germany, you might say “entschuldigung” by way of an apology. It means “excuse me” and literally translates into English as something like “faultness”. Meanwhile, in German accounting, debt is also called “schuld”.
These linguistic connections reveal a complex etymological and conceptual relationship between the notions of debt and sin. Though St. Augustine’s 4th century reinterpretation of Christianity might seem like a radical departure from the original faith, debt and sin were not the distinct concepts in his day that they are for us today.
Conclusion
St. Augustine reinterpreted Christianity in a way that made it palatable to a Roman oligarchy that had abandoned traditions of periodic debt forgiveness observed by their Babylonian, Greek, and Jewish forbears. Against the spiraling wealth inequality that resulted, Christianity emerged as a populist revolt. But Augustine stepped onto the stage of history by enunciating a version of Christianity in which forgiveness was for sexual peccadillos or other personal moral failings. The last emperors of Rome installed Augustine’s interpretation of Christianity as their state religion during the twilight of the empire. But by doing so, they foreclosed on its potential to save Rome from disaster.
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Further Materials
But Christianity’s character changed as it became Rome’s state religion under Constantine. Instead of its earlier critique of economic greed as sinful, the Church accepted the Empire’s maldistribution of land and other wealth. The new official religion merely asked that the wealthy be charitable, and atone for personal sin by donating to the Church. Instead of the earlier meaning of the Lord’s Prayer as a call to forgive personal debts, the new sins calling for forgiveness were egotistical and, to Augustine, sexual drives especially. The financial dimension disappeared.
Michael Hudson, The Collapse of Antiquity, 2023, Page 30
Excellent piece, Nathan. David Graeber in DEBT… also speaks of 'debt' and 'sin' as similar concepts. He writes of the (I think) the blood debt as a precursor of money, as if Joe cuts off Tom's nose, Tom's family demands recompense from Joe's family. Handily, these are all codified!
Have always loved the varied artwork you add to these!