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Virtues and Economics

Luigino Bruni

The Economy
of Salvation
Ethical and Anthropological
Foundations of Market Relations
in the First Two Books of the Bible
Edited by Peter Róna
Virtues and Economics

Volume 4

Series Editors
Peter Róna, University of Oxford
László Zsolnai, Corvinus University of Budapest

Editorial Advisory Board

Helen Alford, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (“Angelicum”), Rome,
Italy
Luk Bouckaert, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
Luigino Bruni, LUMSA University, Rome and Sophia University Institute, Loppiano
Georges Enderle, University of Notre Dame, USA
Carlos Hoevel, Catholic University of Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina
John Loughlin, Cardiff University, Emeritus Professor, Wales, UK
David W. Miller, Princeton University, USA
Sanjoy Mukherjee, Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management Shillong, India
Mike Thompson, GoodBrand, London, CEIBS Shanghai, and University of Victoria,
Vancouver, Canada
Johan Verstraeten, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
Stefano Zamagni, University of Bologna, and Johns Hopkins University – SAIS
Europe and Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Italy
The series is dedicated to virtue ethics and economics. Its purpose is to relocate
economic theory to a domain where the connection between the virtues and
economic decisions, as that connection is actually experienced in everyday life, is
an organic component of theory rather than some sort of an optionally added
ingredient. The goal is to help develop a virtue-based economic theory which
connects virtues with the contents of economic activities of individuals,
unincorporated and incorporated economic agents. The primary context is Catholic
Social Teaching but other faith traditions (especially Judaism, Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Confucianism) will also be explored for their construction of virtues
in economic action. Special attention will be made to regulatory and policy issues
in promoting economic justice.
The series connects virtue ethics with the core of economic theory and practice.
It examines the basic and irreducible intentionality of human activities concerned
with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. It considers
the incommensurability of values as the central problem of economic decision
making and examines whether that problem can be overcome by any means other
than practical reason.
This series will cover high quality edited volumes and monographs.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15627

Luigino Bruni

The Economy of Salvation

Ethical and Anthropological Foundations
of Market Relations in the First Two Books
of the Bible
Luigino Bruni
GEPLI Department – Economics
Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta
Roma, RM, Italy

ISSN 2520-1794     ISSN 2520-1808 (electronic)

Virtues and Economics
ISBN 978-3-030-04081-9    ISBN 978-3-030-04082-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04082-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964120

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
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Acknowledgments

I thank Marco Tarquinio, the Director of the Italian newspaper Avvenire where most
of the chapters of this book have been firstly published. Thanks also to Alessandra
Smerilli, Antonella Ferrucci, Anouk Grevin, Iolanda Martins Tovar, Luca Crivelli,
Muriel Fleury, Rosanna Virgili, Sergio Premoli, and Tommaso Reggiani. I espe-
cially thank Peter Róna, who has believed in this project and has helped me a lot
both for the content of the book and for the English language.
The book has been translated from the Italian by Eszter Katò.

v
Introduction: A Journey to the End of the Night

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the
market-place, and cried incessantly: “I am looking for God! I am looking for God!” As
many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited consider-
able laughter. (F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra).

Abstract Why then the Bible and Economics? To say Europe and the West is to say
Judeo-Christian humanism in its various forms, contaminations, cross-fertilizations,
diseases, and reactions but especially in its copious and extraordinary fruits of civi-
lization. This humanism has its own articulate foundational codes. One of these, the
deepest and most fruitful one, is the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, which pro-
vides us with the words with which to speak of politics and love, death and econom-
ics, and hope and doom for millennia. In an era in which our “words are tired” and
do not speak anymore because they are “worn out” and reduced to a “breath of
wind,” it is necessary to start the search of words bigger than our age. The words of
the Bible have nurtured and inspired our civilization. They were revived and reinter-
preted by many generations, they have filled up our most beautiful works of art and
the dreams of children and adults, and they made us hope during the many painful
times of exile and slavery that we have gone through and are going through still.

There are historical passages in which people realize that old things have passed
away, the previous world is about to end, and there is a yearning desire for some-
thing new. Our time is one of these times (that the old Greek would have called
kairoi). An essential resource in these ages of cultural crisis is the “narrative patri-
mony,” a necessary asset needed for imagining and then writing the requisite new
stories. Human beings like many things, but overall we like the amazing stories, to
tell and to listen to. Without amazing stories the economy and business also suffer,
because entrepreneurship and consumption are essentially storytelling, narratives
about firms, markets, and commodities. “I had something to tell, but I was not good
at writing, so I made a company,” said to me an entrepreneur friend. This book is
written in the belief that the Bible can offer some of the new generative words for

vii
viii Introduction: A Journey to the End of the Night

imagining, telling, writing, and incarnating new economic life and new collective
social and political actions and narratives.
In the last two decades, thanks mainly to the work of the philosopher Giorgio
Agamben (1998, 2005, 2011), there is a new interest in the theological roots of
modern economics.1 Economic theology is today something similar to Carl Schmitt’s
Political Theology (1922/2005), i.e., the attempt to find and show the theological
origin of some of the fundamental concepts of Economics, i.e., spontaneous order,
debt, and the original meaning of the Greek word for economy (oikonomia). This
book goes in the same direction, by searching in the Bible the roots of other key-
words related to the Economy and Economics, such as market, salary, contract,
pact, reciprocity, gratuitousness, and meritocracy. It is an essay of archeology of
Economics and, more generally, social sciences, in the sense specified by Agamben,
namely, the search for the archè (principle) of our categories. Agamben and the
other scholars of the Economic Theology research project find the economic arché
in the theology of the so-called fathers of the church (Tertullian, Cyrillus of
Alessandria, Origen, Irenaeus of Lyon, etc.), those who made the first theological-
philosophical mediation of the event of Christ. My goal is less ambitious, surely
different, since these roots of economic concepts are searched directly in the Bible,
neither in the Hebrew nor in the Christian theology. The book is an exercise of nar-
rative Biblical Economics, where the arguments are not justified nor proved on the
basis of academic footnotes and references. I have tried to keep the text plain and
easy, although in the bibliography the reader can find the books and papers for fur-
ther reading. I followed what the economist Alfred Marshall suggested to his fellow
economists in relation to mathematics, a suggestion that I have applied to biblical
studies: use the mathematics (i.e., Biblical studies) for the scientific rigor of the
reasoning, but don’t put them in the text, in order to make possible the reading even
for the “laypeople” (not familiar with mathematics, theology, or Biblical studies).
Why then the Bible and Economics? To say Europe and the West is to say Judeo-­
Christian humanism in its various forms, contaminations, cross-fertilizations, dis-
eases, and reactions but especially in its copious and extraordinary fruits of
civilization. This humanism has its own articulate foundational codes. One of these,
the deepest and most fruitful one, is the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, which
provides us with the words with which to speak of politics and love, death and eco-
nomics, and hope and doom for millennia. In an era in which our “words are tired”
(Ecclesiastes) and do not speak anymore because they are “worn out” and reduced
to a “breath of wind” (Ecclesiastes), it is necessary to start the search of words big-
ger than our age. The words of the Bible have nurtured and inspired our civilization.
They were revived and reinterpreted by many generations, they have filled up our
most beautiful works of art and the dreams of children and adults, and they made us
hope during the many painful times of exile and slavery that we have gone through

1
See also Foucault (1999), Leshem (2013, 2014, 2015), Nelson (2004, 2017), Dean (2012),
Toscano (2014), Bruni (2008, 2012a, b), Bruni et al. (2014), Bruni and Porta (2015), Bruni and
Smerilli (2015), Bruni and Zamagni (2007, 2014, 2016), Bruni and Milbank (2018), Bruni et al.
(2016).
Introduction: A Journey to the End of the Night ix

and are going through still. There are no stories of liberation that could be greater
than those of the Exodus, no wounds more fertile than those of Jacob, no blessing
more desperate than that of Isaac, no laugh more serious than that of Sarah, no
­contract more unjust than that of Esau, no obedience more blessed than that of
Noah, no sin more cowardly than that of David against Uriah the Hittite, no misfor-
tune more radical than that of Job, no crying more fraternal than that of Joseph, no
paradox larger than that of Abraham on Mount Moriah, no cry more piercing than
that of the cross, and no disobedience fonder of life than that of the midwives of
Egypt. There are many reasons that make these narratives “greater.” One is their
radical ambivalence, which, if accepted and understood, makes it possible to avoid
the dichotomies that are often the first root of every ideology. These stories tell us,
for example, that fraternity/sorority always borders on fratricide and that these are
the two paths that form a fork in the many crossroads of the stories of individuals
and peoples. All the great stories are above all a gift of words that without them, we
do not have words donated to us to think, feel, speak, pray, and love. When these
great stories and words are missing, we tend to borrow the words from gossip and
TV fiction, and with these bricks we can only build a small house.
The Bible has always inspired a lot of literature, a great deal of art, and some-
times law, sociology, or politics, too. Modern economics, however, has never let
itself be inspired by the Book of Books. One reason for this absence is the choice
Economics made at the end of the nineteenth century to abandon words for num-
bers. A science with no room left for words cannot understand and dialogue with the
Bible that is all about Word.
Along the history of both economics and its practitioners, there have been very
few attempts of dialogue with the Bible, and in general with religion. One of the
few, Henry Wicksteed (1910), a leading neoclassical English economists, tried to
combine the Biblical tradition with economic tradition.
Later, the American Jacob Viner wrote The Role of Providence in the Social Order
(1970), and in many other economists we find references to Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden, to the good Samaritan (Buchanan, Sen), to Abraham’s sacrifice, to
the book of Job, and to the many parables and episodes of the gospel. Most recently,
books such as Biblical Games (Brams 2003) or The Economy of Good and Evil
(Sedlacek 2011) have tried to deal directly with the Bible, and not just with religion
or theology. However, there is still a huge continent of possibilities to explore.
The Italian economist, Emanuele Sella, wrote a book in the 1930s trying to build
a “Trinitarian economics” (La dottrina dei tre principii). He wrote something that is
still valid, for both theology and biblical studies: “Economics, as a possible
Trinitarian system, is not there (neither among catholic economists!), because the
theological culture of economists is nothing, and the economic culture of theolo-
gians is poor” (1930, p. 113).
The Economy and Economics had been “under the guidance” of the sacred texts
(i.e., on credit, interest money) for many centuries, but as soon as the discipline
reached adulthood in the Modern Age, it sought and wanted its freedom. Today, a
few centuries later, it is possible, and I believe necessary, to start a new lay
dialogue.
x Introduction: A Journey to the End of the Night

The idea inspiring this book is that the Bible has many words to offer to our
economic life and ideas. It can tell us things it has not said yet, because for too long
no one has asked it to speak to us. But if it is true that reading the Bible can enrich
the economy, it is equally true that new “economic” questions can make those texts
say things that they have not yet said.
Finally, human history has always been a dialogue composed of new questions
and new answers; and if on the one hand the Word has pushed forward humanity, on
the other hand, and on a different level, the history of mankind has also allowed us
to understand ever-new meanings of the scriptures (this is where the enormous dig-
nity of history lies). If the Bible starts to speak again in the streets, in business, and
in the markets, all these human-inhabited places will have great benefit from it; but
the biblical text will also be enriched, and it will offer new answers that it has not
yet given because the questions have not been asked. Without the nourishing envi-
ronment of the squares and markets, without the humus of everyday life and the
fatigue of work, the Bible does not become the tree of life. The St. Matthew Passion
has become more splendid after Bach, Jacob is better after Rembrandt, and Joseph
is more beautiful after Thomas Mann. If it were not so, history would be an unnec-
essary background of a theater piece, of a script that is already completely written,
and those early Biblical books would no longer be alive.
With this background and perspective, this book contains my reflections on the
first two books of the Bible. The Part I of the book is the systematic comment (chap-
ter by chapter) of the book of the Genesis, and Part II is the comment of the Book
of Exodus. The Genesis is the “first” book of the Bible, for many reasons. It is the
foundation of the entire Bible, because it contains the great narratives of creation,
Cain and Abel, Noah, and later Abraham and the Covenant, and the sagas of patri-
archs of Israel, up to the marvelous cycle of Joseph in Egypt.
The book of Exodus is about empires and liberation. The Exodus starts in Egypt,
where the Genesis ends, and it can also be seen as a sort of continuation of that story,
around the fundamental figure of Moses and his journey toward the Promised Land.
There have always been empires, and they still exist. But today we are getting used
to them – which makes it increasingly difficult to recognize them. And since we do
not recognize them, we do not call them by that name either, we do not feel oppressed
by them, and we do not start any process of liberation. There remains only the “sov-
ereignty” of consumers, who in turn are more and more unhappy and lonely sitting
on their couches. The reading of the Book of Exodus is a great spiritual and ethical
exercise, perhaps the greatest of all, for those who want to become aware of the
“pharaohs” that oppress us, to feel the desire for freedom inside themselves again,
to hear the cry of the oppressed poor, and to try to liberate at least some of them.
I will try to make these old and still fertile Biblical narratives say some contem-
porary economic and civil words by asking questions to them; but the most interest-
ing questions will be those that these texts will pose to us. The greater part of the
challenge will be not to try to update those ancient pages but to make ourselves their
contemporaries. And we will read them along with thousands of years of history, in
the company of many, believers and non-believers, who have entered into dialogue
with the Bible and, by enriching it, have enriched the world.
Introduction: A Journey to the End of the Night xi

A final note.
In the following pages, there are some recurring keywords that have been intro-
duced, discussed, and developed in those years of my personal and collective
research on Civil Economy. The main frequent and relevant ones are reciprocity
(Bruni 2008; Bruni and Tufano 2017; Bruni and Zamagni 2007, 2016), gratuitous-
ness (Bruni and Smerilli 2015), pacts (vs. contracts: Bruni 2012a, b), and awards
(vs. incentives: Bruni et al. 2018). As discussed in the last 15 years of research, the
way I use these words is in general different from their commonsense meaning.
Reciprocity requires a certain degree of gratuitousness and is not fully instrumental
and extrinsic; gratuitousness is not the gratis (for free) but has to do with intrinsic
motivation; the presence of gratuitousness makes pacts (or covenants) different
from contracts; awards are the acknowledgment of intrinsic motivated actions,
whereas incentives are contracts. To keep light and enjoyable the reading, these
keywords will not be analytically discussed in this book, where instead these words
are taken as primitive; at the same time, at the end of the reading, the different bits
will converge toward a puzzle, where it would be possible to see a first grammar of
a biblical economy.

References

Agamben, G. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
———. 2005. State of exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 2011. The kingdom and the glory: For a theological genealogy of economy and govern-
ment (Homo Sacer II, 2). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Brams, S.J. 2003. Biblical games: Game theory and the Hebrew bible. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Bruni, L. 2008. Reciprocity altruism and civil society. In Praise of heterogeneity. London:
Routledge.
———. 2012a. The genesis and ethos of the market. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2012b. The wound and the blessing. New York: Newcity.
Bruni, L., and J. Milbank, eds. 2018. Martin Luther’s heritage in modern economic and social sci-
ences. Special issue of the International Review of Economics (forthcoming).
Bruni, L., and P.L. Porta, eds. 2015. Introduction: From happiness to trust and gratuitousness in
economics. Special issue: Trust and gratuitousness in economics. International Journal of
Happiness and Development 2/3: 193–203.
Bruni, L., and A. Smerilli. 2015. The economics of value bases organizations. An introduction.
London: Routledge.
Bruni, L., and F. Tufano. 2017. The value of vulnerability: The transformative capacity of risky
trust. Judgment and Decision making 12 (4): 408–414.
Bruni, L., and S. Zamagni. 2007. Civil Economy. Oxford: Peter Lang.
———. 2014. Economic and theology in Italy since the eighteenth century. In The Oxford hand-
book of Christianity and economics, ed. Paul Oslington, 57–72. New York: Oxford University
Press.
———. 2016. A civil economy. Another idea of market. London: AgendaPro.
Bruni, L., Oslington, P., and S. Zamagni. 2016. Economics and theology special issue: Introduction.
International Review of Economics 63: 1–5.
xii Introduction: A Journey to the End of the Night

Bruni, L., V. Pelligra, T. Reggiani, and M. Rizzolli. 2018. The pied piper. Journal of Business
Ethics (Forthcoming).
Dean, M. 2012. Governmentality meets theology: ‘The king reigns, but he does not govern’.
Theory, Culture & Society 29 (3): 145–158.
Foucault, M. 1999. Pastoral power and political reason. In Religion and culture, ed. J.R. Carrette.
New York: Routledge.
Leshem, D. 2013. Oikonomia redefined. Journal of the History of Economic Thought 35 (1):
43–61.
———. 2014. The ancient art of economics. European Journal of the History of Economic
Thought 21 (1): 201–229.
———. 2015. Embedding Agamben’s critique of Foucault: The theological and pastoral origins of
governmentality. Theory Culture and Society 32 (3): 93–113.
Nelson, Robert H. 2004. What is economic theology? Princeton Seminary Bulletin (New Series)
25 (1): 58–79.
———. 2017. Lutheranism and the Nordic Spirit of social democracy: A different Protestant ethic.
Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Schmitt, C. 2005. Political theology: Four chapters on the concept of sovereignty. Trans.
G. Schwab, foreword by T.B. Strong. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sedlacek, T. 2011. Economics of good and evil: The quest for economic meaning from Gilgamesh
to wall street. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sella, E. 1930. La dottrina dei tre principii. Padova: Cedam.
Toscano, A. 2011. Divine management: Critical remarks on Giorgio Agamben’s the kingdom and
the glory. Angelaki 16 (3): 127–129.
Viner, J. 1977. The role of providence in the social order an essay in intellectual history. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Wicksteed, P.H. 1910. The commonsense of political economy. London: Macmillan.
Contents

Part I Genesis
1 Saving Glances in Times of Exile............................................................  3
2 Counterparts – From the Very Beginning.............................................  7
3 The Way Home: Inhabiting the Realm of the Human.......................... 11
4 We Are All Abel’s Heirs........................................................................... 15
5 And Noah Rebuilt the Rainbow.............................................................. 19
6 Heaven Is Not Above Babel..................................................................... 23
7 Towards the Land of the Children......................................................... 27
8 Hagar and Her Many Sisters.................................................................. 31
9 Faithfulness Throughout the Unexpected.............................................. 35
10 The Promise Has No Owners.................................................................. 39
11 The Word that’s Irreplaceable................................................................ 43
12 The Gate of Heaven Is a Voice................................................................ 47
13 The Way: To State and Cultivate the Alliance....................................... 51
14 Forgiving Is a Blessing Struggle............................................................. 55
15 Why the World Doesn’t End................................................................... 59
16 Full of Days but not Fulfilled Any More................................................ 63
17 The Gift of the Dreamy Brother............................................................. 67
18 The Word that Upturns the World......................................................... 71
19 Without Price or Clamour...................................................................... 75
20 The Honest Eyes of the Prophet.............................................................. 79

xiii
xiv Contents

21 Brotherhood Cannot Be Bought............................................................. 83

22 Brothers, But Never Without Their Father........................................... 87
23 Beggars of Blessings................................................................................. 91
24 At the End of the Night – and After....................................................... 95

Part II Exodus
25 Love Does Not Give in to Power.............................................................103
26 Enriching Cries........................................................................................107
27 Thorn Bushes and Liberations...............................................................111
28 Where Real Freedom Begins...................................................................115
29 Loyalty Makes Even the Sky Open........................................................119
30 The Plagues of Our Invisible Empires...................................................123
31 The Greatest Liberation..........................................................................127
32 Gratuitousness Speaks.............................................................................131
33 Salvation Is Dance and Eyes...................................................................135
34 The Law of Daily Bread..........................................................................139
35 The Different Words of Equals...............................................................143
36 Words of Heaven and Earth....................................................................147
37 The Only True Image...............................................................................151
38 The Dowry of the Earth Is Pure Gift......................................................155
39 The Treasure of the Seventh Day............................................................159
40 The Desire to Entrap God.......................................................................163
41 The Weight of Common Words...............................................................167
42 The Back and the Face of God................................................................171
43 The Veil that Reveals the False Ones......................................................175
44 Work Is Already the Promised Land......................................................179
45 No Liberator Is Crowned King...............................................................183
 Part I
Genesis
Chapter 1
Saving Glances in Times of Exile

I took its ancient words and my old questions and compared

them with the vicissitudes of history, culture and customs. In
short, I used my Judeo-Christian faith as a key, and I was
confirmed in the belief that in our days it is the only possible
key to use.
(Sergio Quinzio, A comment to the Bible).

Abstract In the beginning, there is no Cain. There’s something ‘good and beauti-
ful’ instead, that, on the sixth day, with Adam became ‘very good and beautiful’. It
is the blessing that hovers over the created world. The beginning of the earth, the
living beings and humans is goodness and beauty, which tells us what is the deepest
and truest vocation of the earth, the living. It also tells us that the earth is alive
because it is located within a relationship of love and mutuality. For the mountains,
rocks and rivers are also living things, otherwise those other beings we call the liv-
ing would be surrounded by death, and the little life that would be left would be just
too sad. The first chapter of Genesis is a sublime hymn to life and creation, with
Adam, the human being as its climax. And all these creatures are good, very good,
beautiful and blessed because they were called to life by an overflow of love.

In the beginning, there is no Cain. There’s something ‘good and beautiful’ instead,
that, on the sixth day, with Adam became ‘very good and beautiful’ (cf.: Genesis
1:31). It is the blessing that hovers over the created world. The bereshit, the begin-
ning of the earth, the living beings and humans is goodness and beauty, which tells
us what is the deepest and truest vocation of the earth, the living.
It also tells us that the earth is alive because it is located within a relationship of
love and mutuality. For the mountains, rocks and rivers are also living things, other-
wise those other beings we call the living would be surrounded by death, and the
little life that would be left would be just too sad (as it probably appears to the one
who does not know how to see this life). The first chapter of Genesis is a sublime

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 3

L. Bruni, The Economy of Salvation, Virtues and Economics 4,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04082-6_1
4 1 Saving Glances in Times of Exile

hymn to life and creation, with Adam, the human being as its climax. And all these
creatures are good, very good, beautiful and blessed because they were called to life
by an overflow of love.
Yet, human history of that time (Fourth–fifth century BC), and of our own, was
and is still the scene of fights, murders and death. The first aspect of greatness in this
text that I find amazing is its ability not to dedicate the first words to the everyday
human relations that the authors of sacred texts saw happening before their own
eyes. Instead they had the strength and inspiration to dedicate the first words to
harmony, goodness and beauty, to the blessings of the creatures and to the most
beautiful and best of all creatures: Adam. We do not find this anthropological (and
ontological) positivism in the creation stories from the Near East or India that are
contemporaries or more ancient than Genesis. In these, in fact, the world is born out
of violence, from war between the gods, by decadence and degeneration. However,
the first word on man in biblical humanism is goodness- and-beauty (tov). Evil can
be tremendous and crazy, but the good is deeper and stronger than any large and
devastating evil.
Many of these early passages of Genesis were written during the Babylonian
exile, or when its memory was still very much alive and painful. Exiles do not end
unless there is faith and hope that the good is greater and deeper than the ills of the
present.
In that good and beautiful setting Cain and Lamech, Joseph’s brothers who sold
him, Sodoma’s inhabitants, the golden calf and the Benjamites of Gibea were all
already there. But we were there, too, with the concentration camps, the foibe kill-
ings, the gulag and the massacres of innocent people, merchants of the poor and
gambling, wars of religion, 9/11 and the young people killed in Kiev, and all the
evils and mass killings we are committing now, and, in all likelihood, will commit
tomorrow, too. But first there was this very beautiful and very good thing, made “a
little lower than the angels” (Psalm 8): there was a blessing that was given for all
times and that cannot be cancelled by all our sins. This very beautiful and very good
thing may get ill and it may degenerate, but no illness of soul and body is strong
enough to wipe out this beauty and cancel this primordial goodness. It takes a lot of
pain and a lot of agape to continue to believe in this bereshit, but this tenacious and
stubborn faith is the only way to save us from those diseases and from succumbing
to cynicism and nihilism that are always lurking in our civilization, especially in
times of crisis and exile.
Life does not die, we cannot be put out inside until – despite having to watch the
story from the perspective of Cain and his sons – we do not forget that before Cain
there is Adam. And if he is there first, he may the last man as well, because the dark-
ness of the eighth day fails to dim the auroral light of the sixth – this is the main
message and the greatest act of love that comes from Genesis and the Alliance. The
hope that is not in vain lies in never letting the first chapter of Genesis be just a self-­
consolatory myth, a paradise lost forever, theological smoke in the eyes of the peo-
ple, a bed-time story for children or the first fiction.
1 Saving Glances in Times of Exile 5

To believe in this first word about the world and man, however, means not to
believe the legions of cynics, the many friends of Job who want to convince us that
the first and last word about humans is that of Cain. It is on this radical anthropo-
logical pessimism that we have built social contracts and Leviathans, criminal law
and the courts, tax designs and tax collection, the banks, the investment fund and
euthanasia for children.
However, an economy that proceeded on the primacy of Adam over Cain and
Lamech would take the ethics of virtues as its foundation, one that has its real roots
in the supremacy of good over evil, and that would not let itself be colonized by the
subspecies of utilitarianism that are commanding it right now. And then it would see
workers like people capable of good and beautiful things first, and it would design
organizations where gifts and beauty could grow and not just cynicism and oppor-
tunism produced by visions and theories that do nothing but multiply the children of
Cain. Then we would use more awards (the motivational tools of Adam) and less
incentives (born from the Cain-like anthropology). The real man is a mix between
Cain and Adam, but the Bible’s humanism tells us that Adam is the first. If the first
and last word about us was that of Cain, no forgiveness and no restart would be real.
Those who take that first word on the human seriously, or receive it as a gift will
have their soul’s eyes changed. They will be able to see that the world is full of
beautiful and good things. They can marvel at sunsets, stars and snow-capped
mountains but they also see very good and very beautiful things when they look at
their colleagues, neighbours, old people dying, the terminally ill, the many people
warped by poverty or by too much wealth, the grandmother who has returned to be
a little girl playing with dolls again, John who is drunk and smelly in the metro,
Lucia who has not woken up from a coma, Cain who continues to shock us. No
Amazon rainforest, no Alpine mountain peak can ever reach the beauty and good-
ness of Mary, the homeless woman at Termini Station in Rome. Just a few of these
‘glances’ may be enough for us make us rise every morning, to lift us from every
crisis. We are still alive because these glances have been and continue to be taken.
They were taken by eyes that may have looked at us unnoticed, starting with the first
glimpse of the woman who greeted us when we came to this world. The charismas
are above all the gift of these different glances at the world, that by looking at us and
saying our name turn us into what we already are. By being there they saved Adam
from the murderous hand of Cain.
These Maieutic looks have been and are still there in firms and markets. I have
come across them many times: in a contractor who placed his confidence again in a
worker after a serious betrayal, in a worker who forgave a colleague after a decep-
tion, or in a hug between partners after years of deep and reciprocal hurt. And they
are there even in times of exile and crisis when these acts of imprudence cost much.
Glances that are agapically imprudent, never naive, always true and saving, capable
of miracles when crossing other glances of the same type of eyes. “And he saw that
it was very good and very beautiful”.
Chapter 2
Counterparts – From the Very Beginning

Death will come and will have your eyes.

(Cesare Pavese).

Abstract From the very beginning, Adam is placed in the garden of Eden, he takes
care of it and cultivates it. He works. Two of the trees have a name: the tree of life’
and ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam is allowed to eat the fruits of
the tree of life and the other trees but not those of the second tree. And at this point
Elohim says: It is not good for Adam to be alone. And Elohim made for Adam his
counterpart. For the first time, in a creation that is still all good and beautiful, we
find that there is something that is “not good”, namely, loneliness, a relational short-
coming. This is where one of the most striking and richest passages of Genesis
starts. There is an assembly of animals and birds of the sky in front of Adam. Adam
gives them their name, that is, he enters into a relationship with them, gets to know
them and discovers their nature and mystery; but at the end of this procession of the
non-human creation Adam is not satisfied because he has not yet found any creature
that could stand by his side as his counterpart.

“It is not good for Adam to be alone.” The creation is completed when that ‘some-
thing very beautiful and very good’ – Adam – is revealed as a plural reality, and
becomes a person. The rhythm of the second chapter of Genesis is fascinating and
amazingly rich as it leads from Adam (the human being) to man and woman.
From the very beginning, Adam is placed in the garden of Eden, he takes care of
it and cultivates it: that is, he works. Two of the trees have a name: ‘the tree of life’
and ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’.
Adam is allowed to eat the fruits of the tree of life and the other trees but not
those of the second tree. And at this point Elohim says: “It is not good for Adam to
be alone.” And so: “I will make for him a helper as his counterpart.” (2:18). For the
first time, in a creation that is still all good and beautiful, we find that there is some-
thing that is “not good”, namely, loneliness, a relational shortcoming. This is where

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L. Bruni, The Economy of Salvation, Virtues and Economics 4,
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8 2 Counterparts – From the Very Beginning

one of the most striking and richest passages of Genesis starts. There is an assembly
of animals and birds of the sky in front of Adam. Adam gives them their name, that
is, he enters into a relationship with them, gets to know them and discovers their
nature and mystery; but at the end of this procession of the non-human creation
Adam is not satisfied because he has not yet found any creature that could stand by
his side as his ‘counterpart’.
There is a turning point here in the narrative that pushes the reader to position
themselves on another level, to enter into a new dimension of humanity. The ezer
kenegdo enters the scene, a Hebrew expression that refers to taking a glance of
something and the eyes themselves. We could translate it as ‘someone with whom
you can exchange glances as equals’; someone who stands opposite you at the same
level, ‘eye to eye’. It is the first human encounter. The first eyes that saw other eyes
that are completely the same and completely different: “Now this is it, at last!” (Cf.:
2:23) It is also the debut of man (male) and woman: before this first meeting there
is only Adam, the earthling (adamah means earth).
History does not begin with sin, but with the exchange of looks by counterparts.
The ezer kenegdo is the woman, the ishàh standing face to face with the ish (man),
just as ish is facing ishàh: “man [ish] has a yod more than woman [ishàh], while
woman has a he more than man. If we combine these two letters that distinguish the
two names we get ‫ יה‬i.e. Yah, which is the short form of the sacred tetragrammaton
for the name of God” (Franco Galeone). True human nature is relational, the full
image of God in the humans is in their relationship, contained and explained in the
male-female alliance (1.27), which is the one founding and generating all other
relationships and human alliances.1
For Adam’s happiness Eden with its trees and its fruits is not enough. Animals
are not enough either, because they are not his ‘counterparts’ and they do not fill the
gap of human loneliness (even if there is a certain culture today, with an impressive
business, presenting them as perfect substitutes for the eyes of the other). They can
only accompany man, providing a company that is sometimes valuable and helps us
to live, and is all for the better if embedded within human relationships. For plea-
sure only, Adam may be enough, for happiness, however, both ish/ishàh are needed,
just as those special eyes that welcome us when we are born, and are the last ones
we’ll see on this earth, those that in the end will close ours, and those we would like
to see again first upon ‘reopening them’. But we must practice it all this life so that
the eyes that we seek are those of the other person, not our own reflection in their
eyes; and only when we meet and truly recognize each other in our true diversity

1
The structure of the 1,27 of Genesis contains in itself a clue about the relational nature of the
image of God in human beings. It is the semitic rule of parallelism: in the first two lines the text
puts in parallel ‘image of God’ and the ‘Adam’, and in the third final line the place of ‘Image of
God’ is taken by ‘Man and Woman”: ‘(1) So God created mankind in his own image, (2) In the
image of God he created them; (3) male and female he created them’ (Gen 1,27). – A redactional
technique utilized to suggest that in this relation male-female is the full image of God. The Biblical
anthropology is radically relational or personalist – the person, i.e. the individual in relation,
founds also the spiritual value of the individual. I thank Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi for this
suggestion.
2 Counterparts – From the Very Beginning 9

will their gaze return to us what is the best part in us. The lack of someone watching
us so, someone to recognize us and reveal us to ourselves is among the most severe
forms of poverty and deprivation of the person, which is very frequent where there
are great richness and great power – and where you are rarely looked at and loved
as an equal.
It is striking how even this description of man-and-woman flies higher than its
own time. The sacred author could only see a reality of submission and inferiority
of women around and behind him, but he was inspired to write a song about reci-
procity between men and women. A song of love but also a critical judgment on the
world of yesterday and today, as the result of a disorder, a deviation, a downfall. But
in the beginning, there was the ezer kenegdo. Human history out of Eden was not
only the denial of Adam with Cain, it was also the betrayal of the primordial reci-
procity of ezer kenegdo in the many ‘Adams’ who desecrated the moral equality,
equal respect, freedom and dignity of women.
Men and women have nevertheless cooperated. The woman has always been the
first helper of man, and vice versa. In the streets and in our homes our eyes did see
counterparts in each other. The differences were too great in work, educational,
civic and institutional opportunities and a still remain in too many places. Although,
we must not forget, even in the most sexist societies of the past and the present there
have always been times and places where a man and a woman could exchange
glances at par. Many daughters were saved because sometimes they have could see
that original look of Eden through the eyes of their parents. And they still see it, look
for it, fight for it to become politics, fully human rights.
The question about the ish-ishàh relation is at the core of every civilization, even
our own. Some good answers are beginning to arrive, but many forms of deception
are still remain just like those that are common in large companies where you think
you have reached equal dignity, ‘conceding’ the (few) women to take leadership
roles in organizations where the culture, language, admission tests, incentives and
the rules of the game have been entirely written by ‘ish’ without ‘ishàh’. When we
have to revise not only the language, but the criminal justice systems, schools, poli-
tics, finance and tax collection with the ish-ishàh reciprocity in mind, the work
awaiting us will be huge, but exciting and decisive. When we lack this fundamental
reciprocity, women suffer a lot, but men also suffer because the happiness of all is
inside this reciprocity between equals. When we lose the gaze of the other who is
our counterpart, we lose the sense of the limit, we get lost, we become masters or
subjects, we no longer understand who we are and generate a thousand moral and
spiritual disorders.
There are a great many of challenges and questions that the humanism of the ezer
kenegdo poses to our economy and society. Just think of work. Adam took care of
the garden and cultivated it even in times of loneliness. You can work on your own,
too. But work is a fully human experience and the venue for ethical excellence when
we are not alone, and when we, men and women, can work together as equals. If the
fruits of labour, even if salaries are measured in millions, are not shared at home in
an ‘eye to eye’ way, they do not become full happiness – at the most they can get us
10 2 Counterparts – From the Very Beginning

some comfort and pleasure. The eyes of those we love multiply our salaries, they
can make the yoke of unemployment bearable, and when they are missing even the
best pay slips become signs of poverty.
‘It is not good for Adam to be alone’ is then also a word addressed to our work.
We have worked and are working in the factories, in the fields, in the mines and
remained human because we did it together, side by side, because we have crossed
gazes at par, even when our eyes were filled with tears or anger. Work culture and
its new forms of organization in our days are likely to bring us back to the phase of
the lonely Adam. Not only because of the development of new technologies (often
without eyes to look and bodies to touch), but even more so for an anthropological
vision that proposes to increase the well-being and reduce injuries by simply delet-
ing (or ‘procedurising’ and sterilizing) the human encounters. And so, we end up
recreating artificial Edens around the individual-worker, populated only by trees
and snakes, but without the joy of living.
Every time that we do not want or are not able to look each other in the eyes as
equals, we end up contenting ourselves with ever lower looks, we ask too little of
ourselves and others, and the fruits of the Tree of Life remain unripe. The sad Ish is
back in Eden without human gazes, and hears it again, echoed in the garden: “It is
not good for Adam to be alone.”
Chapter 3
The Way Home: Inhabiting the Realm
of the Human

The jasmine bush of the house has been completely worn by

rain and storms in recent days, its white flowers are floating
here and there on the dark and muddy puddles and on the low
roof of the garage. However, inside of me somewhere, it
continues to flourish undisturbed, exuberant and tender as ever.
(Etty Hillesum, Diary).

Abstract The symphony of life, centred on the human being and the relationships
of reciprocity, breaks off abruptly with the arrival of pain and then death. This is
what happens in the third chapter of Genesis. The first turn of events on the scene is
the arrival of the snake that speaks to the woman. The words of the serpent speak of
the fruits of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, those that Elohim had
proscribed for Adam: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die”. In reality what we are facing
is not so much a ban but a warning, a promise: no human can eat those fruits because
eating them would cause him die. The snake is introduced as the “most cunning” of
all animals created. The serpent was also part of that creation which was beautiful
and good, and the possessor of an intelligence that Adam knew because he had given
a name to it. Intelligence is not always used for the benefit of life and the good.

The symphony of life, centred on the human being and the relationships of reciproc-
ity, breaks off abruptly with the arrival of pain and then death. This is what happens
in the third chapter of Genesis and in the chapters of our lives.
The symbolic codes of the narrative are already abundant, but here they become
rich and powerful, some of them borrowed and intertwined with the even more
ancient myths of the Middle East. We have lost many symbolic meanings forever
because they were too “far away”, and we have added others over the centuries, often
blotting out the clear features and colours of the original fresco with ideological

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12 3 The Way Home: Inhabiting the Realm of the Human

‘stuccos’. These great texts still speak to us “in the cool of the day” if, like their pro-
tagonists, we get ‘naked’ in front of their essentiality and let ourselves be asked the
question: “Adam, where are you?”
The first turn of events on the scene is the arrival of the snake that speaks to the
woman. The words of the serpent speak of the fruits of the “Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil”, those that Elohim had proscribed for Adam: “You must not eat
from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will
certainly die” (2:17). In reality what we are facing is not so much a ban but a warn-
ing, a promise: no human can eat those fruits because eating them would cause him
die. The snake refutes that first promise, and reformulates it into something very
different: “You will not surely die.” On the contrary! “…God knows that when you
eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil” (3:4–5). The snake ends his speech here. But his words had an effect: the
woman trusts the promise of the serpent, and regards the tree as something different.
Its fruit starts to look good, beautiful and desirable to her, and so she eats of them
and offers it to the man. The two do not die, but their eyes open and they start seeing
things differently, feeling ashamed of their nakedness. The first outcome in the text
seems to contradict the promise of God (“you will die”), and confirm that of the
serpent (“your eyes will be opened”).
The snake is introduced as the “most cunning” of all animals created (3,1). The
serpent was also part of that creation which was beautiful and good, and the pos-
sessor of an intelligence that Adam knew because he had given a name to it.
Intelligence is not always used for the benefit of life and the good. We are sur-
rounded by people who use the abundant gifts of intelligence to destroy, to evade
taxes, to seduce and exploit the weak, to cheat, to refine slot machines and to
improve the efficiency of anti-personnel mines. The earth is full of this wrong type
of intelligence. There exists the good type of intelligence, the one of and for life, but
next to it there is also the intelligence of the snake. This different type of intelli-
gence is manifested as a discourse, a logos. The serpent seduces and convinces by
way of talking, using the word that created the world, the man, the woman and the
snake in a different way. This is also the power of the word, which can create but
also knows how to destroy even though the Word that creates is stronger and deeper
than the word that destroys.
The story is full of words that create, but also with words that through their naked
force have destroyed lives, reputations, businesses, weddings and induced suicides.
Being able to distinguish the types of intelligence that belong to the serpent from the
good types that belong to life is a fundamental and difficult art of living, but the tree
of our life will only flourish if we are in the social, ethical and spiritual conditions
of learning and perfecting this art. The history of the people and institutions is
marked by decisive encounters with these different types of intelligence. We have
all known “very good and very nice people” who lost the golden thread of life, just
because they did not (or could not) recognize the intelligence of the snake. I have
seen entrepreneurs getting lost not due to the lack of orders or profits, but because
they trusted a logic that was different from that of life, because they had not discov-
3 The Way Home: Inhabiting the Realm of the Human 13

ered the snake behind the promises of big earnings and easy loans, or because they
followed the logic and suggestions that ended up destroying the good faith they had
reposed in their businesses and their lives.
From the day of the encounter with the snake, the good type of intelligence of life
and that of the serpent have been coexisting, they are intertwined with each other in
the heart of every person, even the best ones. One can learn the craft of living by
learning to recognize the presence of this other intelligence primarily in our reason-
ing, and only later in those of others. And then one must be very careful not to make
the common mistake of community or business leaders of considering some employ-
ees as permanent holders of the intelligence of the snake (and, therefore, not to be
listened to and to be excluded) and others as permanent carriers of the good and
wise type of intelligence. Instead, the intertwining of the two types of intelligence
is always present in everyone and everything, but – let us never forget – the intelli-
gence of life is stronger, more real and tougher, and in the end, it is the winner.
But there is a further turn of events that could even give reason to some words of
the serpent: “Behold, the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and
evil.” (3:22). The man and woman lost the innocence of Eden and the magic of the
first creation forever; but the text suggests that, paradoxically, they also gained
something important, because they entered the age of ethics (the knowledge of good
and evil) and responsibility: they must now begin to account for their choices
(“Adam, where are you?”, 3,9).
But then it is also possible to deduce something important, perhaps even surpris-
ing, from this story of Genesis. Once out of Eden, we can find the wholeness, har-
mony, unity of paradise lost, by inhabiting the fundamental places of the human
realm with love-and-pain: “the pain in childbearing”, “your desire will be for your
husband, and he will rule over you” (3:16), “by the sweat of your brow you will eat
your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken” (3:17–19).
From the first Eden we are “out” forever, but Adam is not dead; Elohim gave him a
second chance: history. And so, the vocation of humanity can no longer consist of a
return to that first Eden that no longer exists, by perhaps seeking some sort of purity
and innocence while fleeing from the places of human suffering – the begetting of
children, relations between equals, work and death. We can try and find again the
harmonies of the first garden by loving, and with the good types of intelligence of
life, we may find gorgeous and painful locations and the ones belonging to the realm
of the human. If it weren’t so, history would be but a deception and the world would
be but a condemnation. But history is the way home, where everyone brings along
their dowry: the heritage of all the pain-and-love built up along the way. This is the
first great dignity of human love, family, work, and even of the return of Adam to
adamah. It follows from this that it is a moral duty of every person – and humanity
as a whole – to try to reduce the pain in the world.
We can save ourselves by begetting children (and making them grow into great
people), by falling in love, by respecting each other reciprocally, by working and by
relearning to die in every generation. We have saved ourselves every day with the
struggle-and-love of many labours: those of having children, that of work, and the
last great labour. These are the ways that we have at our disposal to be able to glimpse
a new earth-garden: new Eves and new Adams, in the cool of every single day.
Another random document with
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women. After another twelve-month she was again compelled to
seek relief. Desiring to see once more her mother, then eighty years
of age, she sailed alone for America, arriving in the summer of 1871.

APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA

Return to the temperate climate promptly brought relief and
restored her health. Her demonstrated success in the industrial
school had enlarged her hopes and clarified her vision of the
possibilities of female education; while the rapid modernisation of
Siam under the young King Chulalongkorn quickened her sense of
necessity to place that education upon a broader and more
permanent foundation. Both success and the opportunity impelled
her to lay the burden of responsibility upon the women of the
Presbyterian Church in America. This year in America we find her
accepting invitations to speak in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia,
Albany, Troy and other places, telling her story and pleading for the
womanhood of Siam.
Just here it is both interesting and amusing to look back to the
attitude of mind towards women speaking in the Church. The doctor
writes to his brother counseling concerning his wife’s deportment in
this matter:
“Keep her if possible out of the pulpit—where I
understand the zeal of some returned missionary ladies
carries them in these days of women’s movement in
mission work.”
This would almost be interpreted as a bit of jocular admonition to a
brother’s responsibility, were it not that we find these cautions direct
to the wife:
“Don’t step out of your sphere into the pulpit. If you
unsex yourself, I am not sure you will be welcome back as
warmly.... O don’t let anything tempt you to go beyond
your proper sphere as a woman; you cannot count upon a
blessing there and you will certainly grieve many that you
love.”
 Nor is the doctor quite as sanguine as his wife over this project for
a general advance in work for women even in Siam where he knows
the situation intimately:
“I sympathise with you heartily in your wish to
accomplish much for Siam before our stay here ... is over.
And it may be that the privilege will be given you of
working more for the women of the land. But there are
great difficulties in the way of this and there will be great
trials and disappointments awaiting you. I fear your
distance from Siam lends ‘enchantment to the view,’ and
makes you forget what the people are—heathen in heart
and custom of life. You ought to know that not a few here
are opposed to the principle of female industrial schools....
It is a very serious question you propose with reference to
bringing a young lady out with you to reside in your family.”

THE “TROY BRANCH” INSTITUTES THE PROJECT

Mrs. House’s plea for the women of Siam found a response very
near home. It so happened that in the spring of 1872 Secretaries
Irving and Ellinwood, of the Foreign Board, addressed a meeting of
the Synod of Albany, held at Troy, New York. The Woman’s
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions of the Synod of Albany met
at the same place, and united with the Synod to hear the addresses.
The result was the organisation of a branch of the Women’s Board to
cover the Troy Presbytery, whence the name “Troy Branch.” The
organising group not only undertook to establish auxiliaries in their
respective churches but resolved as a Branch to assume as their
first and special object a boarding school for girls in Bangkok; and to
inaugurate this project they commissioned Mrs. House, who was
known personally to many of the women of the new organisation. To
begin the work the Branch agreed to provide three thousand dollars;
and for the next four years they raised some one thousand four
hundred and forty dollars. So it happened that Mrs. House became
the official head of the projected boarding school for girls.
 The enterprise which was now committed to her was much larger
in scope than the work she already had under way; and even with
small beginnings there was need of an assistant to share the burden,
lighten the responsibility and aid in council. While Mrs. House was in
correspondence with several young women whose interests had
been turned towards Siam by her addresses a young woman of her
own church at Waterford, Arabella Anderson, offered herself.

ARABELLA ANDERSON-NOYES
Arabella Anderson was the daughter of James McL. and Arabella
Moreland Anderson, who emigrated from Belfast about 1847. They
settled at Waterford, New York, and promptly identified themselves
with the Presbyterian Church. They brought an infant son with them;
another son and three daughters were born to them in their new
home. Arabella was the eldest daughter, having been born Nov. 26,
1848. After elementary instruction in the local school she spent a
year in a nearby academy. At the age of twelve she united with the
Church. Her desire to become a foreign missionary was largely the
fruit of home influence. Both parents were devoted to the cause of
missions. Her father never forgot to intercede for the work at family
prayers. Her mother had been quickened in zeal for the work in
youth by hearing a missionary to Russia; and it was her hope that
her first born son might become a missionary, though circumstances
prevented this.
In the summer of 1872 Mrs. S. R. House was at her old home in
Waterford planning to return to Siam for the new enterprise which
had been entrusted to her by the “Troy Branch.” The pastor of the
local church, Rev. R. P. H. Vail, preached a missionary sermon
making a strong appeal for a volunteer to accompany Mrs. House as
a missionary-teacher. This came to the heart of Miss Anderson as
the Master’s call for enlistment in the work she had long
contemplated. After counsel with her mother she offered her services
to Mrs. House and was accepted. Two months later, in September,
the two sailed for Siam, reaching Bangkok late in the autumn. It was
two years before the new boarding school for girls could be housed.
In the meantime Miss Anderson took charge of the younger children
in the day school of the mission.
After the girls’ school was under way, by a happy inspiration Miss
Anderson hit upon an idea that brought the new school to the
attention of the young King Chulalongkorn. The sewing class was
sewing patches to make a quilt cover. It occurred to her that a
specimen of their product brought to the attention of the king might
demonstrate to him the practical character of their school.
Accordingly she had the girls make a quilt from pieces of silk she
had brought from China, with the intention of presenting this to the
king on his birthday. Arrangements having been made through the
Foreign Office, Dr. and Mrs. House, Miss Anderson and Miss
Grimstead (another assistant) were received by the king. After an
address of congratulations they presented the silk quilt to him. His
Majesty expressed his pleasure at the compliment, and his
gratification at having such a specimen of the work being done by
the girls of the school. Droll as this incident may seem now—the
formal reception at royal court and the presentation, to such an
august personage, of a patch-work quilt made by girls of a sewing
class—yet the demonstration made a favourable impression upon
the progressive ruler and won his sympathetic interest in the
educational work for girls newly undertaken by the mission.
After learning the language Miss Anderson translated several of
Dr. Richard Newton’s addresses for the young, under the title Bible
Blessings. Mrs. House and Miss Anderson went to Canton in 1875
for recuperation. There Miss Anderson met Rev. Henry V. Noyes, a
missionary under the Presbyterian Board. The acquaintance led to
an engagement, and the two were married at Bangkok, Jan. 29,
1876. Two years were spent in America in work for the Chinese on
the Pacific Coast, and then the couple returned to China, where Mrs.
Noyes co-operated with her husband, especially conducting Bible
schools for women.
After the death of her husband, in 1914, she continued to labour in
China in a non-official capacity until 1922, when she returned to
America, having served in the foreign mission work fifty years. One
son, Richard V. Noyes, died as he was about to enter upon a
missionary career; the other son, Rev. Wm. D. Noyes, was for some
years a missionary in China under the Presbyterian Board. A sister
of Mrs. Noyes, Sarah Jean (1854-1902), graduated in 1875 from the
Women’s Medical College of New York and in 1877 sailed for China
as a medical missionary under the Presbyterian Board. Ill health
compelled her to resign two years later. Afterwards she married Mr.
Richard C. Brown and resided in England, where she rendered
valuable services for the cause of temperance.

BOARDING SCHOOL ESTABLISHED AT WANG

LANG
The first step necessary to establish the new boarding school was
to procure a suitable building. Space at the mission compound did
not permit of a new building with room for future expansion. It so
happened that the mission had already purchased a piece of land
with the intention of opening a second station. A residence had been
begun but remained unfinished for lack of funds. It was decided to
turn this property over to the school and complete the building with
funds provided by the Troy Branch. The locality was known as Wang
Lang, a name which attached itself to the school for several years.
Concerning this site Dr. House wrote:
“The location of the school is a fine one. It is central,
healthy and breezy; on the west bank of the noble river
Meinam, which rolls through the great city; opposite to, but
a quarter of a mile above, the Royal Palace, where its
buildings such as they are cannot but testify to prince,
noble and peasant as they pass by in their boats of state
or barges what Western Christian nations think of female
education. They also testify to the generosity and
friendship of the American church people.”
As soon as the building could be made ready Dr. and Mrs. House
and Miss Anderson moved to the new location. On May 13, 1874,
this first boarding school for girls in Siam was opened with six
boarders and one day pupil. The building, originally intended only for
a residence, was none too commodious. The basement contained
kitchen, dining room and servants’ quarters; the first floor had a suite
of three rooms for Dr. and Mrs. House and one common living room;
on the second floor was one small sleeping room for Miss Anderson
and two large rooms which served as school rooms by day and as
dormitories for the girls by night. Within a year a second helper was
added in the person of Miss Susie D. Grimstead. By the second year
twenty girls had enrolled, living in these two rooms, rather small
quarters by American standards but ample according to native
custom.
In one regard Mrs. House was disappointed in her expectation. It
had been her confident hope to attract to this school daughters of
some of the nobles and princes. A few of this class came at first but
soon the school was left to the girls of the common class. The value
of an education was not yet as highly valued among the higher
classes as among the lowly; for the women of the upper grades not
only had no need to read but no need to work; while on the other
hand the practical nature of the training given in the school did not
meet the requirements of their social position. In later years,
however, there was a decided change, and with the growing
popularity of education nearly half of the pupils in the school were
from the noble families.

LEAVING SIAM
It was the lot of Mrs. House to do little more than to inaugurate the
new school, for her health rendered a long period of service
impossible. But in even initiating the movement she did far more
than she realised at the time, for she was investing in the enterprise
an accumulation of experience and a wealth of influence among the
women of Bangkok such as no one else possessed, and which gave
the institution a capital from which it began to draw immediate
returns. Such a school could not have been organised by a new
leader, however skilled in educational matters, without long years of
cultivation of personal relations with the mothers and girls. One can
see now that Mrs. House’s return to Siam for another trial of health
had a higher wisdom than even she could perceive; for while it
seemed a daring of Providence, it was in fact the wisdom of the
great Teacher for her to expend the final momentum of her personal
prestige and thereby buy up a decade of time or more at the
expenditure of her last four years of effort.
The return to Siam in 1872 found the climate less kindly to her.
Then came a new development, an attack of asthma which lasted for
nearly eight months, so debilitating her as to render it necessary for
her to relinquish the cherished work into other hands. In March,
1876, after twenty years of faithful, zealous and labourious work for
the Kingdom of God among the women of Siam, she bade farewell
to her friends there and returned to America with her husband.
“Need I tell you that I left Siam with a sad, sad heart? At
the monthly concert this month my feelings overcame me
so that I felt as if I could not attend another till I became
more reconciled to the thought that I can never again
labour among the heathen. I think many of the Siamese
truly regretted our leaving. The dear school girls followed
us weeping to the landing, and we could hear their sobs
as long as we could see them waving goodbye.
“Had I not felt it a case of life and death, I could not
have torn myself away. It was plain duty but it seemed to
me a dark providence that I should so soon be obliged to
leave this dear school, the result of so much labour and
prayer and of so many trials.”

AN ESTIMATE OF HER WORK

Mrs. House was so modest in the estimate of her own work for
women that she failed to appraise fully what she had done. No doubt
the meagerness of results up to the time of her resignation and the
smallness of the achievement in comparison with her hopes caused
the whole to appear insignificant. None of her letters give expression
to the feeling of accomplishment but dwell largely upon the great
need and the unappropriated opportunity. However, a careful review
of the development of education for women in Siam gives to Mrs.
House a very high place among all the consecrated women who
contributed the labours of hand and head and heart to that object.
Without detracting one iota from the praise that belongs to others,
but rather reflecting light upon their measure of honour, it may be
said that to Mrs. House belongs the credit for certain important steps
which marked the development and contributed to the permanent
establishment of female education in Siam.
In the early attempts at educating girls in the homes of the
missionaries the aim in view was the conversion of the girls, to which
the education in reading was incidental. Without minimising the value
of education as an agency for religion Mrs. House viewed education
as an object greatly to be desired in itself with manifold advantages
issuing from it, but especially having an influence upon the whole
social status of womankind. A second factor utilised by her for the
development of her object was domestic and manual training as a
part of the broad policy of education. Previously the few girls in the
homes of the missionaries had been trained in ways of work to make
them more efficient servants for the earning of their keep, but there
was no attempt to give instruction of this character to others. Mrs.
House included domestic training in the scope of education.
Moreover, she showed herself ready to appropriate valuable ideas
wherever she found them, and when she saw that Mrs. McFarland
later utilised this economic factor to draw girls into her school at
Petchaburi, she readily adopted the same method.
But if the efforts of several missionary women to teach small
groups of girls may be likened to the foundations of female education
in Siam, then the boarding school which Mrs. House established
must be likened to the corner-stone of the structure which has since
grown into a beautiful and impressive temple of learning. Hitherto
classes had been the voluntary undertaking of individuals in their
eagerness to help their sisters out of darkness; but in each case the
undertaking was not a permanent project but subject to termination
with the removal of the particular teacher. Mrs. House’s achievement
at Wang Lang was the establishment of an institution with a support
and a directorate that insured permanency.
 In the voluntary classes the girls were in contact with the teachers
for a few hours at the most and then returned to native environment
to which they were subject for the greater part of the time. It was like
taking one step forward and then stepping back. The influence of the
home and of the city largely obstructed the good impulses received
by the girls while with their teachers. The advance feature of the
Wang Lang school was that the girls were to remain under constant
Christian influence, in frequent contact with the teachers and subject
to the daily discipline of an ideal Christian home. While the girls were
devoting their full mental energy to study, the Christian religion had
the fairest chance to bear its fruit in ennobled character, free from
the blighting influence of pagan customs and morals.
As indicative of what this school meant for the future educational
program in Siam it is worthy of note that twenty-five years after the
establishment of the Wang Lang school, the entire female teaching
force in the government public schools in Bangkok were graduates
of this school, thirteen in number, all but one of whom were
professing Christians. It is no wonder, then, that the Minister of
Education in Siam, at a commencement of the school, said:
“The Siamese formerly had a proverb which was in
every man’s mouth: ‘Woman is a buffalo; only man is
human.’ Through the influence of your school and the
teaching of the American Missionary women, we have
thrown that old proverb away, and our own government is
founding schools for the education of girls.”
As a mark of honour to the founder this school was named “The
Harriet House School for Girls,” a name which it retained until
successful growth made it necessary to divide the school and seek
new quarters; the higher grades of which are now known as
“Wattana Wittaya Academy,” while the older name still clings to the
old school in its old location.
 XII
HOME AGAIN, AND “HOME AT LAST”
The living pageant, “The Big Mountain and the Little Chisel,” had not
ended, but some of the actors had to retire. Dr. House, who had
been in the leading rôle for twenty-nine years, and Mrs. House, who
had been his loyal understudy for twenty, handed their lines to other
willing players and took their seats on the dais of time to watch the
Divine plot unfold. Repeated efforts on the part of Mrs. House to
recuperate her health only confirmed the physician’s surmise that the
immediate cause of her suffering was the tropical climate. There was
no alternative of wisdom but to return to her native clime. So it came
about that Dr. and Mrs. House resigned.
Their leave-taking was almost like laying down life itself, for their
hearts had become intimately entwined with the lives of the Siamese
people. In March, 1876, the two sailed for “home again.” But to
return to America was not to abandon their zeal for Siam; they made
themselves ambassadors at large to the Church in the United States
in behalf of the Kingdom of Christ in that land.

REARING TWO SIAMESE LADS

Most notable and doubtless most valuable of their services for
Siam after their retirement was the rearing and educating of two lads
whom they had brought from that country, Boon Itt and Nai Kawn.
These lads are still remembered by the people of Waterford who
were associated with them in their earlier years in America. The
story is told of the two boys having their first experience with snow.
One autumn morning, finding that a light snow had fallen during the
night, the two went out into the back yard, dropped down on their
knees and began to feel the snow; and then getting down on all fours
touched it with their tongues again and again. Among Mrs. House’s
letters was a copy of a letter which Kawn wrote to a boy friend in
Siam, in which he labours to explain how the water of the river had
become hard so that he could walk on it with skates.
Boon Itt was the son of Maa Tuan, the matron of the girls’ boarding
school under Mrs. House. Dr. and Mrs. House chose him to be the
subject of a Western education partly because he had shown himself
to be a bright pupil in the boys’ school, and partly because he was
one of the few children of second generation Christian Siamese.
After the completion of his elementary education at Waterford, Boon
was sent to Williston Academy, Williams College, and Auburn
Theological Seminary. This long course of education occupied
seventeen years. In 1893 he returned to Siam as a Christian
missionary to his own people. His life and work, worthy of an
extended account, will occupy a separate chapter.
The other lad, known familiarly as Nai Kawn in America, was Kawn
Amatyakul, born 1865, the son of a nobleman Pra Pre Chah; and the
grandson of Kuhn Mote, one of the progressive nobles who early
formed a lasting friendship with Dr. House because of their mutual
interest in science. Before the boys’ boarding school had been fairly
established, Kuhn Mote placed his son under the tutorship of Dr.
House to learn English and chemistry. It was this son who, as Pra
Pre Chah, learning that his former tutor was retiring to America,
solicited Dr. House to take his son Nai Kawn along and supervise his
education in Western science. To this Dr. House consented, with the
understanding that the son of the nobleman was to be reared in a
democratic fashion as a companion with the son of a plebeian, and
that he would be subject to intensive religious training according to
the Christian faith.
After his preparatory education, Kawn entered Lafayette College
for a four years’ course in mining engineering, though not as a
candidate for a degree. Finishing there in 1888, he returned to Siam
early the next year. His life work was devoted to the educational
program of the government, his professorial labours being chiefly in
chemistry and physics in various schools and colleges of the
government. At length he became chief of the examination division
of the department of education. He was given the title of Luang
Vinich Vidyakarn in 1902; and some years later was elevated to a
higher rank with the title Phya Vinich Vidyakarn.
Kawn united with the Presbyterian Church of Waterford upon
profession of faith in 1879. Although he gave evidence of sincerity in
making this profession and in other ways manifested an earnest
purpose to live according to the teaching of Jesus, yet it must be
acknowledged that upon return to his native land he did not identify
himself with the native church and eventually held himself altogether
aloof from fellowship with the Christians. No doubt one cause for this
course was the barrier of social rank. His education and culture led
him to prefer his own class. On the other hand, it must be recorded
that he never made open repudiation of his profession, at least in
any formal manner, neither did he manifest any antipathy to the
Christian faith. His death occurred April, 1922.

ABUNDANT IN LABOURS TO THE END

After her return to the United States, Mrs. House became the
center of a strong influence in behalf of Siam among the women of
the Church at home, especially as an advocate for female education.
In 1878 she was elected president of the Woman’s Presbyterian
Board of Foreign Missions of the Synod of Albany and served five
years in that capacity. When the several small synods within New
York were united into the present Synod of New York, in 1883, Mrs.
House was a member of the committee that planned for the
consolidation of the several women’s societies into the Woman’s
Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Society of New York Synod, and
became the first president of the consolidated organisation. As a
motto for the united society she proposed the ideal “Every Woman in
Every Church Working for Jesus”—a motto that reads quite fresh to
date. To Mrs. House is due the credit of originating the series of
“Questions and Answers in Mission Fields,” beginning with a
catechism on the work in Siam for children’s mission bands. This
method of disseminating missionary information may possibly be the
germ from which has developed the current system of mission study.
In the church at Waterford Mrs. House was accepted as the
natural leader in the foreign missionary society of the women. She
so developed interest in the work that the society maintained a very
high standard of giving and of activities for many years. She was
particularly interested in cultivating an interest in missions among the
children and it was for her own mission band that the series of
questions and answers were originally devised. Mrs. House had the
joyous satisfaction of seeing Boon Itt ready for work in Siam. But
before the time came for his departure she was called upon to take
leave of him for eternity. On July 12, 1893, she passed to her rich
reward in Heaven.
With return to America, Dr. House continued his activities in behalf
of the Gospel at home and of missions abroad. He embraced
frequent opportunities to preach, and especially responded with
pleasure to invitations for addresses on Siam. He had accumulated a
large collection of curios from Siam, China and Japan, which he
used with good effect to illustrate his talks and interest his hearers.
This collection he left to the people of Waterford, and it is in custody
of the Presbyterian Church. In the home church he took an active
part, serving for many years as trustee, and also as clerk and
treasurer of the board of trustees. He was honoured by the
community with election as President of the village, an office which
he held at the time of his death.

“ALL THINGS RICHLY TO ENJOY”

When the two missionaries returned from their long period of
heavy labours in Siam with impaired health it was with the
expectation that the estate which the doctor had received from his
father would provide sufficient income for a comfortable living. The
salary while on the field had been so small that instead of being able
to save from that income, the doctor had to supplement it from his
private purse. But with economy, he expected that his patrimony
would be ample for the needs of himself and wife. Not long after his
return, however, it developed that the investment of his funds was
unsound, and he suddenly found his reserves swept away. The two
were left largely dependent, though still having their home.
Without a word of complaint they accepted the situation as one of
the inexplicable dispensations of God. The many years of sublime
but real trust in the care of Providence which they had cultivated in
the mission field and which they had often proven to be an unfailing
means of blessing, now stood them in good stead. Those who knew
them intimately relate instances in which what seemed to be
spontaneous gifts of friends and neighbours reached them at the
moment when they knew not whence a supply for immediate needs
was to come. In a letter to a friend telling of the timely provision of
the Lord for his needs, Dr. House wrote that his old friend Kuhn
Mote, having learned of his straitened circumstances, had sent him a
gift of five hundred dollars. If the record of those later years could be
written it would be a continuous testimony to the simple reliance
upon the goodness and mercy of God, and to the marvellous
justification of the faith of this godly couple.

THE JUBILEE YEAR

When, in 1897, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions
celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of permanent
work in Siam, the doctor was the only survivor of the group who met
together in Bangkok half-a-century before. None of the workers in
the field doubtless had greater rejoicing at that jubilee than Dr.
House. The following letter of felicitation he wrote on that occasion to
the daughter of his fellow missionary, herself born in Siam and from
childhood knowing him as “Uncle Samuel”; it was a delicate tribute to
the memory of his companions in labours.
“Waterford, New York, March 18, 1897.
“To Miss Mary L. Mattoon:
“My dear Mary:
 “You will excuse the familiarity of my address when you
learn why my heart just now goes out to you with
affectionate interest. You are the child, the Siam-born child
of the honoured, now sainted missionary couple who with
my unworthy self just fifty years ago, March 22, 1847, after
eight months of weary voyage, landed in Bangkok and
founded the present prosperous mission of the
Presbyterian Board in the Kingdom of Siam. Yes, the
coming Monday, the 22nd, will be the fiftieth birthday of
that mission, and 1897 is its jubilee year.
“How vivid are the memories of that never-to-be-
forgotten day of our arrival, our welcome from the old
missionaries of the other Boards, our first impressions of
our strange yet interesting surroundings; and of the busy
week and month and years that followed; and of work for
the Master, with our full share of the peculiar joys and
sorrows, trials and disappointments of mission life! How all
the mercies come thronging into my mind.
“And what cause for gratitude that God has so honoured
the humble beginning with such glorious results in these
later days. ‘The little one has indeed become a thousand’;
yes, thousands now of baptised converts from heathenism
are rejoicing in Siam and Laos in the knowledge and the
love of Christ who, had that mission not been begun and
watched over and prayed over by those godly devoted
parents of yours and their associate (would he had been a
wiser and better man), would have lived and died without
God and without hope, in the darkness of Buddhistic
idolatry and atheism.
“To God be all glory given! Well may a jubilee be kept by
all who know of the contrast between that day in Siam and
the present. What wonders God hath wrought.
“Sincerely yours,
“S. R. House.”
 Perhaps it was the celebration of this jubilee in Siam that reminded
former pupils of the Bangkok boys’ school of how much they were
indebted to Dr. House for the immeasurable difference between their
Christian enlightenment and the paganism around them. At any rate
in the following summer Dr. House received from a group of his
former pupils a gift of one hundred and twenty-five dollars,
accompanied by this letter:
“Sumray, Bangkok, June 15, 1898.
“The Rev. S. R. House, M.D.:
“Sir: We have learned that your old age coming to
eighty-one on the 16th of October next. On the occasion
we are glad to subscribe among your oriental scholars of
Siam to offer you a small present, which we obtained for
your birthday.
“We herewith request you to accept this small sum for
your birthday present for the recognition of your Siamese
scholars, and we beg to thank you for the knowledgment
which we obtained from you when you were with us in our
lovely country. And we noted you were the foundation of
our knowledgment, and we will place your name on the
stone of our hearts as long as we live.
“We pray God to bless you, to comfort and to help you
in all circumstances; and we hope to meet you again in
the Kingdom of our Father.
“We have the honour to remain, Sir, your affectionate
scholars.”
(Signed by twenty-eight former pupils.)
But that birthday never arrived. Only a few days after the receipt of
this affectionate token and grateful testimonial, Dr. House took leave
forever from his friends of Siam and from his friends of all the world.
On the thirteenth day of October, 1898, he reached Home At Last.
His affection for Siam outlived his days; for he had provided a
small bequest for the Harriet House school in memory of his wife. Dr.
House and his wife lie buried in the Waterford Rural Cemetery.
 XIII
BOON TUAN BOON ITT
“One of the most remarkable men I have met in Asia.” Such was the
characterisation of Boon Itt given by Dr. Arthur J. Brown, Secretary
of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, after a visit to the Far
East. Only when one considers the high quality of the well-educated
native leaders in the Christian church in Japan or China will this
estimate suggest its full measure. Nor does this evaluation exceed
the common esteem in which Boon Itt was held by those who knew
him while in America. By all his fellow students and by his teachers
he was regarded as a man of exceptionally fine personality, of high
moral ideals, and of rare Christian attainments.
 Rev. BOON TUAN BOON ITT

In physique he was of medium stature, well proportioned, lithe of

limb and agile in action. He was fond of athletics, and showed a
preference for the more active sports. He loved games for the sake
of sport rather than for the winning chance. His features were
distinctly Asiatic. Yet there was a total absence of that
mysteriousness in countenance which we usually associate with the
Oriental. Americans quickly lost sight of the difference of race, and
received him as one of their own. His voice was low, mellow and
gently modulated, imparting a feeling of confidence by its quiet yet
positive strength.
The most casual acquaintance discovered in him a winsomeness
of manners. Simple, courteous, modest, responsive, he had all the
marks of a Christian gentleman. He was friendly but free from
effusiveness; hospitable yet without aggressiveness in urging
attentions. He had a warm sympathy but never bestowed the pity of
superiority nor the flattery of patronage. His love of companions
made him a leader among young men. In his nature the æsthetic
had its proper balance. He possessed a love of the beautiful both in
art and in nature, and in this love he found a constant inspiration to
purity and nobleness. The best in literature and in art and in music
found a response in his heart. Without doubt, however, to those who
knew Boon Itt best, it was the spiritual quality that gave richness to
his character. He was deeply religious; he had a religiousness of
soul rather than of mind, free from the sentimental, the spectacular
or the trivial. Faith with him was not a matter of creed but of simple,
profound trust in a God whose goodness he had proven.

“THE FAITH THAT DWELT IN THY GRANDFATHER”

Boon Itt was one of the earliest of the second generation
Christians of Siam. His maternal grandfather was Kee-Eng Sinsay
Quasien. This name appears in various abbreviations and spellings
in Dr. House’s journal, but here it is given in the form approved by
one of his grandsons, who explains that the first two syllables
constitute the name, while the remainder is the title. It will not lessen
the honour to correct several traditions that have attached
themselves to his story in America. Kee-Eng was not the first
Protestant Christian in Siam, nor the first convert of the Presbyterian
Mission; his wife did not make a profession of Christian faith; his
daughter Maa Tuan was not the first Siamese woman to unite with
the Christian church. His primacy was only that he was the first
“native” to be received into the Presbyterian Church of Bangkok after
its organisation.
Kee-Eng was baptised Jan. 7, 1844, by Rev. Stephen Johnston, of
the A. B. C. F. M., having been the Chinese tutor to Mr. Johnston for
several years; but there had been other converts previously. When
the A. B. C. F. M. abandoned Siam and turned their work over to the
Presbyterians, Kee-Eng was the only one of their converts still in