Annotation XCV

”And he cast out those selling and buying.” — Matthew 21:12

Whether it is lawful for Christians to exercise trade.

The author of the Opus imperfectum, homily 38, judges that all merchants are to be cast out of the Church — and especially those who buy things, not that they may exercise a craft upon them, but that they may sell them more dearly. And he speaks in this manner: “No Christian ought to be a merchant; or, if he wishes to be [one], let him be cast out of the Church.” And below: “I will show you who is not a trader — that you may understand that all who are not [conformed] to this rule are traders: that is, whoever purchases a thing, not that he may sell the thing itself whole and undefiled, but that he may make a work out of it, he is not a trader. For he who purchases for himself material to work with, from which to make a work — he does not sell the thing itself, but rather his own craftsmanship: that is, he who sells a thing whose valuation is not in the thing itself, but in the craftsmanship of the work — that is not trading. For instance, a smith buys iron and makes a tool; but that tool has not as much of iron as it is worth, but is priced according to the work of the tool. But he who buys a thing that he may profit by giving [selling] it whole and unchanged — he is the merchant who is cast out of the temple of God.” St. Thomas, in the Secunda Secundae, question 77, noting this passage as [being] Chrysostom’s, says that it is not to be understood of every kind of merchant, but only of those who set the ultimate end of the whole business in gain. For gain itself too can be lawfully sought by merchants — not as the ultimate end, but for the sake of another necessary and honorable end. And to this sense also, he says, is to be referred what Cassiodorus brought forth against traders, in the exposition of Psalm 70. See above, Annotation 187 of book 5.