The common good

The modern Catholic social teaching discussion on the common good is based on
Aquinas’ interpretation of Aristotle’s political justice. Justice was “the primary moral virtue,”
according to Aquinas, because it “directs a person’s acts toward the good of fellow human
beings.”1 Common good is thus inseparable from and dependent upon justice. The “common
good,” in our theological fitting room, is a kind of formal moral clothing that one tries to
outline that conceptual system for assessing Christian social justice. Patristic world used the
word κοινωφελής referring to common good. It meant in the obvious sense of that which is
good for all persons in a society or public benefit. The word was used across the spectrum of
ancient Greek texts to describe political, theological, and social ideals. Early Christian texts
that use it include monastic typica, patriarchal registers, catena, a few legal novels, histories,
and sermons.

Basil used the word common good (κοινωφελής) only twice. In Homily 6,
condemning stockpiling, he says, “Riches become useless if they are left idle and underused
in any spot; nevertheless, if they are moved around and passed from one person to another,
they serve the common good and bear fruit.” 2 Material things are viewed as a living
substance that can only flourish when rotated in a dynamic manner. This image is at the heart
of most patristic texts on redemptive almsgiving, and it is one that Basil regularly contrasts
with unnatural processes, such as stagnation and destructive growth of usury, which he
condemns in his second sermon on Ps. 14/15. His use of κοινωφελής in Homily 6 is
especially relevant to modern Catholic social teaching because Aquinas quoted from this
sermon in his own discussion of justice as it relates to ownership and redistribution to those
in need. Basil’s second use of the word is in Ep. 265, to three Egyptian bishops exiled in
Palestine. He appreciates the faith of the bishops but criticises their carelessness in providing
the means which are of common benefit (κοινωφελής) and indispensable to salvation.” 3
Basil’s two examples parallel the prevalent usage in other Christian authors: first, social
harmony in terms of doctrinal “orthodoxy,” and second, to emphasize acts that address
1
David Hollenbach, S.J., “Commentary on Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World),” in Modern Catholic Social Teaching: Commentaries and Interpretations, ed. Kenneth R.Himes, Lisa
Sowle Cahill, Charles E.Curran, David Hollenbach, S.J., and Thomas Shannon (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown
University Press, 2005), 279.
2
Basil, Hom. 6.5, trans. Toal, 3:329, as quoted in SUSAN R., “Out of the Fitting Room: Rethinking Patristic
Social Texts on “The Common Good,” Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics Issues and Challenges for
Twenty-First-Century Christian Social Thought, eds., Johan Leemans Brian J. Matz Johan Verstraeten,
Washington, D.C, The Catholic University of America Press, 2011, 109.
3
In Summa Theol. IIaIIae.32.5 ad 2, Aquinas quotes from Basil’s Hom. 6.7, as quoted in HOLMAN “Out of the
Fitting Room: Rethinking Patristic Social Texts on “The Common Good,” 109.
material inequities. John Chrysostom most often assumes the second meaning, as we might
expect. Chrysostom praises the apostles in his 78th homily on Matthew, noting that they
attained to paradise because they did all things for the common good. For nothing pleases
God more than living for the common good. God gave us words, hands, and feet, as well as
physical strength, mental strength, and understanding, for the purpose of using all of these
things for our own salvation and the benefit of our neighbours.4

Hollenbach reminds us that, whatever terms are employed, the common good is
primarily about the individual’s relationship to his or her civic or political community. 5 In
chapter 6 of his first homily on Psalm 14, Basil he says that in natural kinship, the Word
commands us to share and love one another. Humans are, after all, a civic and
sociable species. Liberality for the aim of restoration is an important aspect of the common
life, since it allows people to help one another. In short Basil believed that common good is
the spiritual journey of “helping one another upwards.6

We know from various texts that “the common good” for Basil, as for Aquinas, is by
definition relevant to one’s definition of justice, but that this justice functioned on both an
individual and a community level. Individual ideals such as detachment, self-control, and
ascetic self-reflection are cultivated in Basil’s sermons on virtues, which appeal to individual,
personal gain in heaven as the primary motivation for imitating God’s inherent beneficence
and the shared sharing witnessed among the animals. Basil believes that the justice of the
common good is ultimately anchored in God’s goodness. Common goodness is thus founded
not just on community values, but also on all that goodness entails for the individual inside
God’s very essence and person.7

Gregory of Nyssa draws to the legal notion of equal inheritance between brothers in
arguing for a reasonable distribution of commodities to the penniless sick. He stood for
sharing with the destitute who are the most-loved by God. He considered the homeless
strangers as “kin” and “of own race.” He believed that all belongs to God, our common

4
In Matthaeum, Hom. 78.3 (7.775A) (PG 58.714); trans. George Prevost, NPNF 1, 10: 472; as quoted in
HOLMAN “Out of the Fitting Room: Rethinking Patristic Social Texts on “The Common Good,” 110.
5
DAVID HOLLENBACH, S.J., “Commentary on Gaudium et Spes; as quoted in HOLMAN “Out of the Fitting
Room: Rethinking Patristic Social Texts on “The Common Good,” 110.
6
BASIL, Hom Ps. 14/15a, PG 29.261CD, my translation. For a translation of all of chapter 6 and
discussion of context, SUSAN R. HOLMAN, “Out of the Fitting Room: Rethinking Patristic Social Texts on
“The Common Good,”111.
7
SUSAN R. HOLMAN, “Out of the Fitting Room: Rethinking Patristic Social Texts on “The Common Good,”111.
parent, and we are brothers of the same race. 8 Gregory emphasises in his second sermon on
the love of the poor that lepers are “human beings ashamed to answer this common name and
fear dishonouring the common nature”; because “all humanity is governed by a single
nature,” Gregory says, “You belong to the common nature of all”; “let all therefore be
accorded common use.”9

In a similar manner, Nazianzen exhorts his audience to imitate God’s justice. He often
uses the Greek political phrase ἰσoνομία, which means “equality of rights.”10 He reminds the
audience about our original ‘equality of rights’ status of paradise. He exhorts the people to
cover the shame of the race by sharing with them. He also makes the “same” or “equal” race
argument. Similar examples can be seen in Asterius of Amasea, who is furious “that we who
were created with equal honour dwell so unequally among members of the same race.” 11 This
theme is also found in an unidentified fourth-century homily titled “On Mercy and Justice,”
which has been attributed to Basil and three other fourth-century bishops. This lecture makes
a strong connection between social justice and donating alms from one’s own efforts. The
anonymous author offers a long argument that true social beneficence is only attainable when
both justice and mercy are practised. He, too, employs the word “equality,” though in this
case it refers to the equality (or “fairness”) that he believes should characterise the justice
applied to slaves. The speech uses an example of trade, agricultural production, and manual
work to demonstrate justice, maybe implying a village audience.12

These texts appeal to the common good in a large nonmonastic community,

8
BRIAN DALEY., trans., Gregory of Nazianzus, The Early Church Fathers, New York: Routledge, 2006, 90.
9
Oὐκοῦν ὡς ὑπὲρ κοινοῦ τοῦ πράγματος ὁ λόγος ἔστω (GNys Paup. 2; PG 46.476), as quoted in HOLMAN “Out
of the Fitting Room: Rethinking Patristic Social Texts on “The Common Good,” 115.
10
In 14.28 he writes, Πόση γὰρ ὀφείλεται τοῖς ὁμοφύλοις καὶ ὁμοτίμοις ἡ καὶ μέχρι τῶν ἀλόγων ἀπαιτου
μένη? (Or. 14.28, PG 35.896, l. 35–36, transliterated from the TLG, as quoted in HOLMAN “Out of the Fitting
Room: Rethinking Patristic Social Texts on “The Common Good,” 115.
11
(Πλεονεξία μήτηρ τῆς ἀνισότητος, ἀνηλεής, μισάνθρωπος, ὠμοτάτη. Δὶα ταύτην ὁ τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίος
ἀνωμαλίας γέμει) (Hom. 3, “Against Covetousness,” ch. 12.1 in Ancient Sermons for Modern Times by
Asterius, Bishop of Amasia, circa 375–405 A.D., trans. Galusha Anderson and Edgar Johnson Goodspeed [New
York: The Pilgrim Press, 1904], 100), as quoted in HOLMAN, 116.
12
Wagner 507; PG 31.1708, l. 19. as quoted in HOLMAN, 117.
with Chrysostom’s notion that true justice works best within inherent and severe societal
structures.13

Conclusion

Early Christian texts, for example, define social good in terms that use such words as
sacred, holy, image of God, patronage, mercy, charity, brother-and-kin, redemptive alms, and
kingdom of heaven. Our modern approach, on the other hand, uses language that speaks of
adequate housing, jobs, education, childcare, and healthcare. Such different word choices
suggest different cultural images of how to measure the good of the human body as it affects
the common good of society.

For patristic the “common good” is the ideal of that which is best for all within the
divinely-created order. It results from the divine absolute of eschatological justice. By it, all
human persons benefit according to their place within the community network and social
relationships that reflect God’s created order for the world as patristic authors understand it.
The common good” is a natural characterization of divinely ordered social harmony and
interdependence. It is inseparable from mercy, philanthropic divestment, and almsgiving,
which are distinct activities subordinate to rightly ordered justice in present and future life.

Common-good justice is actualized in the present life by—but not limited to—mercy
with regard to such tangible substances or relational experiences as the acquisition, use,
distribution, or divestment of material property; and social and liturgical harmony. These
manifestations best emerge rightly from the individual, voluntary expression of personal
virtues, such as “orthodox” Christian beliefs and “proper” piety; philosophical sophrosune;
detachment, dispassion, and self-control as it relates to fleshly desires and material objects;
and interdependence on God and others in the ordered community. For patristic authors,
perfect attainment of the “common good” is founded on, presupposes, and ultimately realized
in an eschatological reality that subordinates material survival in this world to the rightly
ordered, relational substance of the next.

Despite the various challenges of these similarities and differences, it is clear that
Greek patristic texts do offer a wealth of sources on the common good that overlap with our
modern concerns sufficiently to be discussed respectfully and usefully in future research and

13
Nonna Verna Harrison, “Greek Patristic Perspectives on the Origins of Social Injustice,” in Evil and Suffering in
the Patristic Period, Papers from the Third Annual Conference of the Stephen and Catherine Pappas Patristic
Institute, October 12–14, 2006, Brookline, Mass. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, forthcoming), Holman,
118.
practical religious ministry, humanitarian efforts, and international acts of social solidarity.
The examples outlined here are only the beginning. We should not lose sight, for example, of
the sermons on charity, beneficence, and social issues that lie neglected among the dubia and
spuria. While date and authorship of such sources may raise complex problems, at least for
Eastern Orthodox Christians these too are patristic texts. They too represent that body of
living tradition and difference that walks together with us in this opportunity to offer new
shape to the ongoing formation of social thought in Christian tradition

SUSAN R. HOLMAN, “Out of the Fitting Room: Rethinking Patristic Social Texts on “The Common
Good,” Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics Issues and Challenges for Twenty-First-
Century Christian Social Thought, eds., Johan Leemans Brian J. Matz Johan Verstraeten,
Washington, D.C, The Catholic University of America Press, 2011, 103-123.

Todays teaching

Gaudium et Spes paragraph 26 speaks about common good which sounds similar to the patristic
teaching where common good is interpreted with justice. The material resources for living must be
circulated within the community. If it is vested in one place, it is useless. When is circulated among
the needy, it becomes a useful resource for human welfare for all human beings are created in the
same dignity as image of God.

CCC-1905 The sum total of social conditions that allow people, either as groups or as
individuals, to achieve their fulfilment more fully and more easily" is what the term
"common good" refers to. The common good affects everyone's lives. It requires caution
from everyone, but especially from those in positions of leadership. It is made up of three key
components such as respect for the person, the social well-being and development of the
group itself, and peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order. The unity of human
being is obtained through acknowledging the equal natural dignity. It implies the common
good. There should also be a clear differentiation between order of things and order of
persons. This order is founded on truth, built up in justice and activated in love.

Mater et magistra-65-67 portrays the role of public authority in promoting common good.
They should create a social situation which ensures the fuller development of human
personality. Various intermediatory bodies and corporate enterprises should contribute
loyally in pursuit of achieving common good. These functioning bodies should present the
form and substance of a true community by considering each individual members of the
community as persons.

 Pacem in terries- in realising the common good, the political communities should be
founded on strong and sound moral law. This moral law has to be like a providential
 sign for the members of the political society. For this common goal of common good
each and every persons are vested with responsibilities. “The common good therefore
involves all members of society, no one is exempt from cooperating, according to each one’s
possibilities, in attaining it and developing it.” “Everyone also has the right to enjoy the
conditions of social life that are brought about by the quest for the common good.”

Task of the political community-

The responsibility for attaining the common good, besides falling to individual persons,
belongs also to the State, since the common good is the reason that the political authority
exists.

 “To ensure the common good, the government of each country has the specific duty to
harmonize the different sectoral interests with the requirements of justice.”

 “The common good of society is not an end in itself; it has value only in
reference to attaining the ultimate ends of the person and the universal
common good of the whole of creation.”