SAVING. —
I. Concept
It is the positive difference between income and expenditure (in the case of a business it is identified with profit). It arises and increases in two ways: a) by increasing income; b) by reducing expenditure. The first method requires ingenuity, initiative, prudence, diligence, but also a growing use of fixed and circulating capital; the second method, in addition to prudent management that eliminates any waste, requires renunciation and limitations in consumption: which, however, beyond a certain limit, affect productivity itself and nullify saving. The two forms must coexist, the first being more suited to classes with variable income, and the second to classes with fixed income: and they necessarily complement each other, since neither has the character of a universal norm. Indeed, the first form (of productive saving) could not be realized without the capital provided by the second, nor could the latter (saving by abstinence) be generalized without provoking very serious crises as a consequence of the reduction in consumption.The connection, therefore, which is ordinarily established between the concepts of saving and sacrifice, is relative: it is a matter of a preference given to productive consumption (also called saving consumption) over household consumption, based on calculations of convenience in which moral, welfare-related and speculative elements come into play.
The saver, by “setting aside” the things saved either to hoard them or to transform them into instruments of new production (capital), whether directly if he is at the same time an entrepreneur, or by lending them to others in exchange for interest or income, demonstrates that the things themselves constitute for him, at present, the “superfluous”; that which, according to the Gospel, must return to the poor through the normal channel of productive employment of capital, a source of new work and new saving, or through the extraordinary channels of charity (almsgiving, donations and various forms of assistance). The act of the saver thus practically clarifies the concepts of necessary and superfluous, which are subjective and indefinite in theory.
II. TRANSFORMATION OF SAVING
The transformation of saving into instruments of new production and hence of income (houses, factories, ports, railways, machines, raw materials, patents, etc.) constitutes an important capital function of the economy, precisely called the “capital function”: hence the designation of “capital” given to saving thus transformed, of “capitalist” to the saver who has completed the transformation, and of “capitalism” to the economic system that recognizes as its foundation the capital function (though today this word is used in a pejorative sense, to denote excessive and pathological forms of the system, which weigh upon social life with their economic and moral effects).Saving, being firmly linked to the free choice between immediate consumption for enjoyment and productive consumption, is an act of will, hence a moral act: indeed, it depends on diligence, enterprise and generosity (prevailing in the first of the forms considered above), on the virtues of prudence, temperance and renunciation (prevailing in the second form). Where such qualities and virtues are held in low esteem, saving does not form in the quantity annually necessary, and economic life languishes. Strong peoples, who have firmly founded their fortunes, have always been thrifty peoples; and so have individuals, families and businesses.
III. SAVING IN ITS FORMATION AND EMPLOYMENT
Saving, in its formation and employment, is also the fruit of a specific culture and of the degree of the saver’s bargaining capacity, manifested especially in the choice of investments. It is particularly the concern for risks and devaluation that clips the wings of initiative, and leads to a preference for consumption for enjoyment or hoarding, or for indirect, short-term investments that are less socially useful. This is harmful to economic life, which can bestow well-being due to progress, and maintain high levels of demand for labour and its remuneration, only if it is annually fed by the masses of new saving required at least to employ the new workers (on average 2 million lire per labour unit), well distributed between fixed and circulating capital and among the various branches of industry. Otherwise, the well-known phenomena of overproduction occur, with a consequent decrease in real wages and hence in consumption, so that producers gradually cease to produce and to save.As always, even this scientific and practical requirement of the economy is foreshadowed in an evangelical precept, the parable of the talents, which makes good use of saving a moral obligation, linked to the other obligation of returning the superfluous to the poor who made it possible through their labour, even though they are not in a position to save.
IV. HONESTY OF SAVING
Contrary to collectivist theories, honest saving represents an indisputable property of the saver: and there is no reason why this criterion should change depending on how the things saved are used. Leo XIII wrote in Rerum novarum: “If, therefore, (the artisan) through his savings came to make some savings and, to secure them better, invested them in a piece of land, this land is ultimately nothing other than wages in another form, and consequently his property no less than the wages themselves.” Expropriation or, worse, the confiscation of capital must therefore be rejected as contrary not only to morality and law, but to reason itself and to the general and particular advantage. There are other legitimate and effective means of enabling workers to share in the ownership of the means of production: productive individual saving, various types of association contracts with entrepreneurs, workers’ shares, cooperative societies, etc. Every encroachment on property (“the vital nest-egg of the family,” as Pius XII called it) deprives individuals of the possibility of resisting attacks on their freedom: and it means restoring a hundredfold the exploitation from which it is claimed, in words, to free them. It also means, in addition to the offence against the person, a depression of enterprise, resulting in a serious decrease in the productivity of labour, and hence in production and consumption. It is well known how in countries under collectivist regimes, or where state capitalism prevails, the productivity of labour falls to extremely low levels, as revealed both by the very high prices of products on the international market and by the compensation sought in various forms of activism and emulation, and finally by the unusual extent of forced labour.V. PROGRESS IN THE ORIGINS OF SAVING
Progress in the formation, collection and investment of saving is directed towards technical insurance forms that achieve an ever greater diversification of risk, and towards the invention of contracts and institutions that raise the degree of marketability of symbols and, to a lesser degree, protect them from devaluation (v. Svalutazione monetaria). Both the so-called capitalist countries, with land credit and consumer credit, financial, fiduciary and securities companies, holdings, trustees and even government bonds, and the countries in which the state functions as a centralized economic organism, absorbing all saving and distributing the conditions for the beneficiaries (v. SANTIFICAZIONE), tend towards a total insurance form. What characterizes, on the economic plane, the two so-called political blocs is above all the method chosen for the collection, insurance and investment of saving. A middle conception might be the extension of the insurance method to all symbols of saving in all countries of the world by an autonomous economic organism, on a basis of freedom; so that saving would lose its monetary and national characteristics.Risurrezione dei morti - The Resurrection of the Dead, sculpture by Lorenzo Maitani. Façade of the Duomo (early 14th century) - Orvieto.
from the solidarity of the members with the head (ibid. 15, 20-22), from Baptism for the dead (ibid. 15, 20), from the heroism of apostleship (ibid. 15, 30-32), from Christ’s perfect victory over death (ibid. 15, 53-57), from the desire placed by God in the human heart for a perfect reintegration of the human composite (Rom. 8, 22-23), from the character and gift of the Holy Spirit as a divine pledge (Eph. 1, 13-14; 4, 30; II Cor. 5, 4-5), from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8, 11); he illustrated its possibility from the analogy of the seed (I Cor. 15, 36). In the Letter to the Hebrews (6, 1-2) he placed among the fundamental doctrines (συμπάθειον) of Christianity that of the resurrection of the dead (cf. L. Simeoni, Dottrina resurrexit in ep. s. Pauli, Roma 1938, pp. 86-123; L. Cerfaux, La résurre des morts dans la vie et la pensée de St Paul, in Lumière et vie, 1 [1952], pp. 61-82).
2. Tradition
From the very beginning of the Church, the resurrection of the dead was strongly attacked by pagans (cf. St. Augustine, Enar. in Ps., 88, 2; PL 37, 1134), so the first apologists were particularly diligent in defending II. After the testimonies of the Didache (16, 6), the Pseudo-Barnabas (5, 6; 21, 1), 1 Clement 24, 1-5 (Pauline idea of the seed) and 25-26 (the legend of the Arabian phoenix), St. Justin (I Apol., 18-19; PG 6, 356-57; comparison of the seed), Tatian (Adv. Graecos, 6; PG 6, 817-20; God can recompose the body despite the most disparate transformations), there appeared the first treatise De resurrectione carnis by Athenagoras (PG 6, 973-1024) in which he demonstrates the possibility (for whoever believes, God can raise the body, even in the hypothesis of cannibalism) and the necessity of this eschatological event (destiny, nature, end of man, justice of God). After St. Irenaeus’ counterattack against the denial of the Gnostics (Adv. Haeres., IV. 18, 5; V, 2, 2; V, 3, 2; PG 7, 1027-29; 1123-30), Tertullian assembled all the elements of Scripture and Tradition in De resurrectione carnis (PL 2, 791-886), of which the arguments of suitability are celebrated, drawn from the transformations of creation (ch. 12; ibid., 810; cf. Minucius Felix, Octavius, 34; PL 3, 347), from the dignity of human flesh (ch. 9, ibid. 2, 807), from divine justice (ch. 8; ibid. 806), from the perfection of salvation (ch. 34; ibid. 42; cf. H. I. Marrou, La résurre des morts et les Apologistes des prem. siècles, in Lumière et vie, 1 [1952], pp. 83-91). Origen in De principiis, II, 3, 7 and III, 54 seems to doubt whether the elect will have a body in the next life, but this is not his exact or definitive thought, since elsewhere he openly condemns the Gnostics, who admitted salvation only of the soul; cf. F. Prat, Origène, Paris 1907, pp. 88-89; he denied only the material identity of the risen body (cf. St. Jerome, Ep. ad Pammachium; PG 11, 95-96), attempting however to preserve essential identity through the use of Aristotelian concepts (cf. A. Michel, art. cit. in bibl., cols. 2530-31).Justinian (Ep. ad patriarcham Menam; Mansi, IX, 516 and 533) attributed to Origen the idea that bodies will rise in spherical form, but no trace of this is found in his surviving works. Origen, thus misrepresented, occasioned a controversy in which the manner of the resurrection of the dead was variously discussed and the truth ever more asserted (St. Methodius of Olympus, De resurrectione, 12; PG 18, 317 ff.; St. Epiphanius, Haeres., 64; PG 51, 1188). In the 4th and 5th centuries tradition followed its normal course through the writings of the great Syriac (Aphraates, Demostr., 7; St. Ephrem, Sermo in II dom. Adv., ed. Assemani, II, Rome 1743, p. 213), Greek (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., 18; PG 33, 1040; St. John Chrysostom, Hom. in resurrectionem mortuorum, 7; PG 50, 420; St. Basil, In Ps., 44, 1; PG 29, 388; St. Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, 27; PG 44, 225-28) and Latin Fathers (St. Hilary, In Ps., 2, 9; PL 9, 285; St. Ambrose, De excessu fratris Satyri, II, 60-64; PL 16, 1332-33; St. Jerome, Ep., 108, 31; PL 22, 902; St. Augustine, Serm., 361; Serm. 362; PL 39, 1599, 1611; Enchiridion, chaps. 84-92; PL 40, 272-75; De Civitate Dei, XXII, 4-92; PL 41, 782-83). Scholasticism concerned itself especially with the speculative problems raised by this truth (cf. St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles, IV. 80-89).
3. Doctrine of the Church
The Magisterium from the beginning expressed the revealed doctrine in an article later inserted into various professions of faith: “Credo... carnis resurrectionem” (Apostles’ Creed, Denz.-U., 2, 6, 8); “Exspectamus resurrectionem mortuorum” (Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, ibid., 86); cf. Symbol of St. Epiphanius (ibid., 14); Fides Damasi (ibid., 16), Athanasian Creed (ibid., 40), Council of Braga (of 561; ibid., 242), Symbol of Leo IX of 1053 (ibid., 347), Profession of Michael Palaeologus of 1247 (ibid., 464), the bull Benedictus Deus of
Benedict XII, in which, even on this point, preference is to be given to the doctrine of St. Thomas, namely that “ex coniunctione eiusdem animae numero ad eamdem materiam numero homo unus numero reparabitur” (Contra Gent., IV, 81; cf. Compendium theologiae, chap. 153; Sum. Theol., suppl., q. 79, a. 1, ad 3); a principle applied with great moderation, so that it is not required that all the matter informed successively by the soul during the course of human life be resumed, but “praecipue illud resumendum videtur, quod perfectius fuit sub forma et specie humanitatis consistens” (Contra Gent., IV, 81). Thus he rejects the difficulty of cannibalism (ibid.), which had arisen from the earliest times of Christianity.
III. PROPERTIES AND GIFTS OF THE RISEN BODIES
The bodies of those who rise will possess natural and preternatural prerogatives, called properties: a) immortality (a preternatural prerogative), explicitly asserted in I Cor. 15, 53; Lk. 20, 35; Rev. 21, 4; even for the bodies of the damned; b) integrity (a natural prerogative), which implies the restoration of the limbs (cf. Denz.-U. 207), the distinction of sexes (cf. St. Jerome, Epitaphium Paulae, 22; PL 22, 900; St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XXII, 17; PL 41, 778) and the perfection of the senses (cf. L. Lessius, De summo bono, I. III, chap. 8); c) beauty and physical strength (natural properties), on which St. Augustine treats at length: “Nihil tunc vitii in corporibus existet” (De Civitate Dei, XXII, 19; PL 41, 781).Glorified bodies will also possess four entirely supernatural gifts, called *dotes*, which St. Paul speaks of in 1 Cor 15:42-44:
a) Impassibility or incorruptibility (ἀφθασία), derived from the perfect subjection of the body to the soul (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, *Summa Theologica*, suppl., q. 82, a. 1), by which they will be preserved from all pain (cf. Isa 25:8; 49:10; Rev 7:16-17; 21:4);
b) Clarity (δόξα), which will reflect upon the bodies of the saints the inner splendor of the soul (*Summa Theologica*, suppl., q. 85, a. 1), rendering them conformed, even in the body, to the Incarnate Word (Phil 3:21), so that “then the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of my Father” (Matt 13:43; cf. Wis 3:7; Dan 12:3);
c) Agility (δύναμις), by which the bodies, freed from natural heaviness, will be able to move swiftly from place to place (cf. Isa 40:31; St. Augustine, *Sermon* 242, 3; PL 38, 1140); this will occur through the complete subjection of the body to the soul, not as its form but as its mover (*Summa Theologica*, suppl., q. 84, a. 3);
d) Subtlety (σῶμα πνευματικῶν), which, understood differently, St. Thomas Aquinas (ibid., q. 83, a. 1, 6; *Contra Gentiles*, IV, 86) considers to be that gift by which the body perfectly serves as an instrument for any action; commonly today it is interpreted as the power of glorified bodies to pass through other bodies of the universe without difficulty or mutual injury. St. Thomas, moreover, grants to the bodies of the elect this prerogative as well (*In IV Sent.*, d. 49, q. 4, a. 2, qc. 6, sol. 2; *Summa Theologica*, suppl., q. 83, a. 2); cf. A. Lépicier, *De novissimis*, Rome 1921, pp. 463-65.