The Sojourn at Rome

132:5.1A cer­tain rich man, a Ro­man cit­i­zen and a Stoic, be­came greatly in­ter­ested in Je­sus’ teach­ing, hav­ing been in­tro­duced by Ang­a­mon. Af­ter many in­ti­mate con­fer­ences this wealthy cit­i­zen asked Je­sus what he would do with wealth if he had it, and Je­sus an­swered him: “I would be­stow ma­te­rial wealth for the en­hance­ment of ma­te­rial life, even as I would min­is­ter knowl­edge, wis­dom, and spir­i­tual ser­vice for the en­rich­ment of the in­tel­lec­tual life, the en­no­ble­ment of the so­cial life, and the ad­vance­ment of the spir­i­tual life. I would ad­min­is­ter ma­te­rial wealth as a wise and ef­fec­tive trus­tee of the re­sources of one gen­er­a­tion for the ben­e­fit and en­no­ble­ment of the next and suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions.”

132:5.2But the rich man was not fully sat­is­fied with Je­sus’ an­swer. He made bold to ask again: “But what do you think a man in my po­si­tion should do with his wealth? Should I keep it, or should I give it away?” And when Je­sus per­ceived that he re­ally de­sired to know more of the truth about his loy­alty to God and his duty to men, he fur­ther an­swered: “My good friend, I dis­cern that you are a sin­cere seeker af­ter wis­dom and an hon­est lover of truth; there­fore am I minded to lay be­fore you my view of the so­lu­tion of your prob­lems hav­ing to do with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of wealth. I do this be­cause you have asked for my coun­sel, and in giv­ing you this ad­vice, I am not con­cerned with the wealth of any other rich man; I am of­fer­ing ad­vice only to you and for your per­sonal guid­ance. If you hon­estly de­sire to re­gard your wealth as a trust, if you re­ally wish to be­come a wise and ef­fi­cient stew­ard of your ac­cu­mu­lated wealth, then would I coun­sel you to make the fol­low­ing anal­y­sis of the sources of your riches: Ask your­self, and do your best to find the hon­est an­swer, whence came this wealth? And as a help in the study of the sources of your great for­tune, I would sug­gest that you bear in mind the fol­low­ing ten dif­fer­ent meth­ods of amass­ing ma­te­rial wealth:

132:5.3“1. In­her­ited wealth—riches de­rived from par­ents and other an­ces­tors.

132:5.4“2. Dis­cov­ered wealth—riches de­rived from the un­cul­ti­vated re­sources of mother earth.

132:5.5“3. Trade wealth—riches ob­tained as a fair profit in the ex­change and barter of ma­te­rial goods.

132:5.6“4. Un­fair wealth—riches de­rived from the un­fair ex­ploita­tion or the en­slave­ment of one’s fel­lows.

132:5.7“5. In­ter­est wealth—in­come de­rived from the fair and just earn­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties of in­vested cap­i­tal.

132:5.8“6. Ge­nius wealth—riches ac­cru­ing from the re­wards of the cre­ative and in­ven­tive en­dow­ments of the hu­man mind.

132:5.9“7. Ac­ci­den­tal wealth—riches de­rived from the gen­eros­ity of one’s fel­lows or tak­ing ori­gin in the cir­cum­stances of life.

132:5.10“8. Stolen wealth—riches se­cured by un­fair­ness, dis­hon­esty, theft, or fraud.

132:5.11“9. Trust funds—wealth lodged in your hands by your fel­lows for some spe­cific use, now or in the fu­ture.

132:5.12“10. Earned wealth—riches de­rived di­rectly from your own per­sonal la­bor, the fair and just re­ward of your own daily ef­forts of mind and body.

132:5.13“And so, my friend, if you would be a faith­ful and just stew­ard of your large for­tune, be­fore God and in ser­vice to men, you must ap­prox­i­mately di­vide your wealth into these ten grand di­vi­sions, and then pro­ceed to ad­min­is­ter each por­tion in ac­cor­dance with the wise and hon­est in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the laws of jus­tice, eq­uity, fair­ness, and true ef­fi­ciency; al­beit, the God of heaven would not con­demn you if some­times you erred, in doubt­ful sit­u­a­tions, on the side of mer­ci­ful and un­selfish re­gard for the dis­tress of the suf­fer­ing vic­tims of the un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances of mor­tal life. When in hon­est doubt about the eq­uity and jus­tice of ma­te­rial sit­u­a­tions, let your de­ci­sions fa­vor those who are in need, fa­vor those who suf­fer the mis­for­tune of un­de­served hard­ships.”

132:5.14Af­ter dis­cussing these mat­ters for sev­eral hours and in re­sponse to the rich man’s re­quest for fur­ther and more de­tailed in­struc­tion, Je­sus went on to am­plify his ad­vice, in sub­stance say­ing: “While I of­fer fur­ther sug­ges­tions con­cern­ing your at­ti­tude to­ward wealth, I would ad­mon­ish you to re­ceive my coun­sel as given only to you and for your per­sonal guid­ance. I speak only for my­self and to you as an in­quir­ing friend. I ad­jure you not to be­come a dic­ta­tor as to how other rich men shall re­gard their wealth. I would ad­vise you:

132:5.15“1. As stew­ard of in­her­ited wealth you should con­sider its sources. You are un­der moral obli­ga­tion to rep­re­sent the past gen­er­a­tion in the hon­est trans­mit­tal of le­git­i­mate wealth to suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions af­ter sub­tract­ing a fair toll for the ben­e­fit of the pres­ent gen­er­a­tion. But you are not ob­li­gated to per­pet­u­ate any dis­hon­esty or in­jus­tice in­volved in the un­fair ac­cu­mu­la­tion of wealth by your an­ces­tors. Any por­tion of your in­her­ited wealth which turns out to have been de­rived through fraud or un­fair­ness, you may dis­burse in ac­cor­dance with your con­vic­tions of jus­tice, gen­eros­ity, and resti­tu­tion. The re­main­der of your le­git­i­mate in­her­ited wealth you may use in eq­uity and trans­mit in se­cu­rity as the trus­tee of one gen­er­a­tion for an­other. Wise dis­crim­i­na­tion and sound judg­ment should dic­tate your de­ci­sions re­gard­ing the be­quest of riches to your suc­ces­sors.

132:5.16“2. Ev­ery­one who en­joys wealth as a re­sult of dis­cov­ery should re­mem­ber that one in­di­vid­ual can live on earth but a short sea­son and should, there­fore, make ad­e­quate pro­vi­sion for the shar­ing of these dis­cov­er­ies in help­ful ways by the largest pos­si­ble num­ber of his fel­low men. While the dis­cov­erer should not be de­nied all re­ward for ef­forts of dis­cov­ery, nei­ther should he self­ishly pre­sume to lay claim to all of the ad­van­tages and bless­ings to be de­rived from the un­cov­er­ing of na­ture’s hoarded re­sources.

132:5.17“3. As long as men choose to con­duct the world’s busi­ness by trade and barter, they are en­ti­tled to a fair and le­git­i­mate profit. Ev­ery trades­man de­serves wages for his ser­vices; the mer­chant is en­ti­tled to his hire. The fair­ness of trade and the hon­est treat­ment ac­corded one’s fel­lows in the or­ga­nized busi­ness of the world cre­ate many dif­fer­ent sorts of profit wealth, and all these sources of wealth must be judged by the high­est prin­ci­ples of jus­tice, hon­esty, and fair­ness. The hon­est trader should not hes­i­tate to take the same profit which he would gladly ac­cord his fel­low trader in a sim­i­lar trans­ac­tion. While this sort of wealth is not iden­ti­cal with in­di­vid­u­ally earned in­come when busi­ness deal­ings are con­ducted on a large scale, at the same time, such hon­estly ac­cu­mu­lated wealth en­dows its pos­ses­sor with a con­sid­er­able eq­uity as re­gards a voice in its sub­se­quent dis­tri­bu­tion.

132:5.18“4. No mor­tal who knows God and seeks to do the di­vine will can stoop to en­gage in the op­pres­sions of wealth. No no­ble man will strive to ac­cu­mu­late riches and amass wealth-power by the en­slave­ment or un­fair ex­ploita­tion of his broth­ers in the flesh. Riches are a moral curse and a spir­i­tual stigma when they are de­rived from the sweat of op­pressed mor­tal man. All such wealth should be re­stored to those who have thus been robbed or to their chil­dren and their chil­dren’s chil­dren. An en­dur­ing civ­i­liza­tion can­not be built upon the prac­tice of de­fraud­ing the la­borer of his hire.

132:5.19“5. Hon­est wealth is en­ti­tled to in­ter­est. As long as men bor­row and lend, that which is fair in­ter­est may be col­lected pro­vided the cap­i­tal lent was le­git­i­mate wealth. First cleanse your cap­i­tal be­fore you lay claim to the in­ter­est. Do not be­come so small and grasp­ing that you would stoop to the prac­tice of usury. Never per­mit your­self to be so self­ish as to em­ploy money-power to gain un­fair ad­van­tage over your strug­gling fel­lows. Yield not to the temp­ta­tion to take usury from your brother in fi­nan­cial dis­tress.

132:5.20“6. If you chance to se­cure wealth by flights of ge­nius, if your riches are de­rived from the re­wards of in­ven­tive en­dow­ment, do not lay claim to an un­fair por­tion of such re­wards. The ge­nius owes some­thing to both his an­ces­tors and his progeny; like­wise is he un­der obli­ga­tion to the race, na­tion, and cir­cum­stances of his in­ven­tive dis­cov­er­ies; he should also re­mem­ber that it was as man among men that he la­bored and wrought out his in­ven­tions. It would be equally un­just to de­prive the ge­nius of all his in­cre­ment of wealth. And it will ever be im­pos­si­ble for men to es­tab­lish rules and reg­u­la­tions ap­pli­ca­ble equally to all these prob­lems of the eq­ui­table dis­tri­bu­tion of wealth. You must first rec­og­nize man as your brother, and if you hon­estly de­sire to do by him as you would have him do by you, the com­mon­place dic­tates of jus­tice, hon­esty, and fair­ness will guide you in the just and im­par­tial set­tle­ment of ev­ery re­cur­ring prob­lem of eco­nomic re­wards and so­cial jus­tice.

132:5.21“7. Ex­cept for the just and le­git­i­mate fees earned in ad­min­is­tra­tion, no man should lay per­sonal claim to that wealth which time and chance may cause to fall into his hands. Ac­ci­den­tal riches should be re­garded some­what in the light of a trust to be ex­pended for the ben­e­fit of one’s so­cial or eco­nomic group. The pos­ses­sors of such wealth should be ac­corded the ma­jor voice in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the wise and ef­fec­tive dis­tri­bu­tion of such un­earned re­sources. Civ­i­lized man will not al­ways look upon all that he con­trols as his per­sonal and pri­vate pos­ses­sion.

132:5.22“8. If any por­tion of your for­tune has been know­ingly de­rived from fraud; if aught of your wealth has been ac­cu­mu­lated by dis­hon­est prac­tices or un­fair meth­ods; if your riches are the prod­uct of un­just deal­ings with your fel­lows, make haste to re­store all these ill-got­ten gains to the right­ful own­ers. Make full amends and thus cleanse your for­tune of all dis­hon­est riches.

132:5.23“9. The trustee­ship of the wealth of one per­son for the ben­e­fit of oth­ers is a solemn and sa­cred re­spon­si­bil­ity. Do not haz­ard or jeop­ar­dize such a trust. Take for your­self of any trust only that which all hon­est men would al­low.

132:5.24“10. That part of your for­tune which rep­re­sents the earn­ings of your own men­tal and phys­i­cal ef­forts—if your work has been done in fair­ness and eq­uity—is truly your own. No man can gain­say your right to hold and use such wealth as you may see fit pro­vided your ex­er­cise of this right does not work harm upon your fel­lows.”

132:5.25When Je­sus had fin­ished coun­sel­ing him, this wealthy Ro­man arose from his couch and, in say­ing farewell for the night, de­liv­ered him­self of this prom­ise: “My good friend, I per­ceive you are a man of great wis­dom and good­ness, and to­mor­row I will be­gin the ad­min­is­tra­tion of all my wealth in ac­cor­dance with your coun­sel.”