Author: Zach Boston
“And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. …[A]nd there was not a man to till the ground. …[T]he Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed… and the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. ” (Genesis 2: 3, 5-8, 15)
Labor and leisure.
Our modern world has utterly confused the proper places and even meanings of these concepts. The German Roman Catholic and Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper in his “Leisure As The Basis of Culture” points out that – in the exact reverse of the both the classical pagan and pre-Reformation Christian worlds – our world today places labor above leisure and has reduced leisure to mere amusement and relaxation in order to refresh the laborer to better perform his future labors. In his view, we live in a world of “total work” whereby everything is oriented toward work, and any exercise of our capabilities is conceived of in terms of work.
I’m highly sympathetic to the arguments made in Pieper’s book. Yet, the other day I was reading an interesting analysis of the work of both Pieper and of the Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han – who presented views in his “Burnout Society” similar to those of Pieper – that offered a sympathetic but thoughtful criticism wherein their arguments, despite being roused in defense of a contemplative Christian life, may too greatly disparage labor in favor of leisure and so run against the brunt of the historic Christian tradition, which highly values labor.
This provoked the question as to in what the proper relationship between, and the place of, labor and leisure in the Christian life consist. Below is my own amateur attempt to answer that question.
First, let us clear up any ambiguity in definitions.
By “labor” I’m referring to any activity that addresses the satisfactions of necessities or is otherwise an active, effortful, or “strained” approach to some, situation, subject, or object. This will obviously include manual labor, but can include some forms of intellectual or spiritual activity. I will use “work” and “labor” synonymously.
By “leisure” I mean a contemplative approach to reality: a passive, effortless perception and reception of what presents itself to us. Josef Pieper points out that it is the ancient Greek and Latin words for “school” from which we get our word for leisure. Keeping in mind that education used to mean the formation of the whole person in the virtues whereby every human faculty is formed toward its perfection, we can see that what we mean by “school” today is not what was once meant. So, “leisure” in this sense also implies the practice and formation of the virtues. I further mean by “leisure” the restfulness found in the situation of a good king exercising his proper ruling role, cultivating the harmony of his realm in peace whilst sitting upon his throne. “Leisure” here, then, is not mere relaxation or entertainment, but is an entering into an effortless, virtuous, and proper harmony with the rest of reality. I will use “leisure,” “rest,” and “contemplation” synonymously.
With these meanings in mind, let us press forward.
Plato and Aristotle, and most of classical paganism after them, conceived of leisure as the highest human activity. It was the highest of the goods that separated man from beast. While labor was understood to be necessary, it was conceived as being lower than leisure, with leisure being the end toward which labor was directed. As such, labor, especially manual labor, was “servile”. Indeed, for Aristotle, labor was so low that it was considered as being utterly incompatible with virtue. Thus, given the necessity of labor but its incompatibility with virtue, it was necessary that there be specific classes of men whose sole purpose was to labor in order to provide the conditions needed for the higher classes of men to have leisure. For the latter, it was not good that they should engage in such servile activity. For Aristotle, then, men naturally were separated into two distinct classes, with the laborers being inherently inferior because labor is inherently inferior. He even went so far as to say that for some men being a laboring slave was their natural state. Thus, for classical pagan philosophy, the overall thrust is that labor is inherently slavish and is to be shunned as much as possible by the citizen.
This is obviously problematic for the Christian. First and foremost, our God – in the second Person of the Trinity – became incarnate as an impoverished laborer and no servant is greater than the master (John 13:16). Secondly, God created Man with a mandate to labor, to work and keep the Garden. In the Eastern Christian tradition, both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian, physical and ascetical labors are seen to be not only necessary, but for the monk or solitary, is to comprise the whole of their lives. Glance, for example, at any passage from the Desert Fathers or from the Philokalia, and it becomes obvious that labor is not only part and parcel of the proper Christian life, but is something that is highly lauded and praised. The same is true for the Western Christian tradition. Whether it’s the motto of the Benedictines, “Ora et Labora” (“Prayer and Work”), or the “Spiritual Exercises” of Ignatius of Loyola whereby God is seen as One Who Labors and the Christian is called to follow God in this, or in first millennium Celtic Christianity where St. Columba prays, “Let me do my daily work, gathering seaweed, catching fish, giving food to the poor…”, the Western Christian tradition also places labor very highly. Throughout Christianity, it is the case that labor for the sake of asceticism and/or for the poor, the suffering, or one in need is a most highly celebrated activity and is indeed seen to imitate God Himself.
Yet, it is also the case that the contemplative life is highly valued in Christianity. Read any text from Eastern Christian ascetics and you will see that even where they emphasized the need for physical labor, it was always put to spiritual purpose. On the one hand, such labor was seen as an effective means of overcoming the passions of gluttony, acedia, and unchastity. On the other, such labor was seen as the necessary precondition for their true purpose: prayer and the worship of the Holy Trinity. The same is true of Western monasticism. For the Benedictines, again though work is part and parcel of their way of life, in their motto, prayer is first. And Josef Pieper, writing from the Thomistic tradition, in his book made the case that labor was for the sake of leisure, the highest form of which is considered to be the Mass. Thus, any emphasis on labor that denigrates leisure or sees leisure as mere idleness, as was the case with the Puritans for example, is erroneous from the historical Christian experience.
Thus we see that, while the classical pagan understanding of labor and leisure cannot be fully embraced by Christianity, neither has it been utterly rejected. It is clear, then, that the Christian life is properly one of both labor and leisure. This isn’t all that surprising. What may surprising for some is what is their proper place and relationship in such a life; for, I have not found it to be one of a simple, rigid hierarchy whereby one dominates the other, but neither have I found the relationship to be simply egalitarian where there is a simple balance or parity. Rather, I found that the best understanding of their relationship stems from the rich cosmology of the Apostolic Faith, a cosmology that is sadly lost to most of us in the West.
In the second chapter of Genesis, we’re given an image of a humanity created to be in Paradise – a garden on top of a mountain (Gen. 2-3; Ezk 28) – enjoying the constant presence of God, and never was it intended that this humanity should suffer death nor drudgery. So, while this garden labor is different than our labor now – as any gardener, farmer, or landscaper knows – it was still active, still work. But, this labor was not meant as an end in itself but had a point: to expand the borders of Paradise to encompass the whole of Creation. This means it was not the case that the whole earth, much less the rest of the universe as presented to us by our modern science, was Paradise. This can be seen by the fact that the Hebrew word for paradise was borrowed from a Persian word that referred to a “walled” garden: there was a world outside of Paradise. Interestingly, the language in Genesis is suggestive of the idea that Adam was created outside of Paradise first and then placed within it. Indeed, the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, an apocalyptic re-writing and commentary on Genesis from the Second Temple Period, states this outright. The work of the Orthodox priest and biblical scholar, Fr. Stephen De Young, elucidates this, and on his podcast, Lord of Spirits, he makes a convincing case that though the Book of Jubilees is not canonical Scripture – except in the Ethiopian Church – in many cases it accurately describes many of the assumed views of much of the New Testament. Further, the image of Eden we get is not – contra later thinkers in the vein of St. Augustine – one of prelapsarian perfection but rather – per St. Irenaeus of Lyons – one of prelapsarian innocence. And the final goal of this humanity is to eventually rule a perfected cosmos under God once they reach maturity, i.e. theosis. That is this the view of both the Old and New Testaments, and the view of many extra-scriptural Jewish and Christian writings, is ably demonstrated by the work of both Fr. De Young and the late Evangelical semitic languages scholar Dr. Michael Heiser.
Of course, by the third chapter of Genesis, humanity is expelled from and barred re-entry to Eden and thrust into a world of both death and drudgery, due to the trespass of our first parents. Yet, despite this, we are still called to bring God’s rule to the rest of creation. Now, though, it must be done in the face of a hostile creation through toil and ultimately ends in our death. Additionally, humanity now has a need to purify ourselves of sin so that, as Fr. De Young puts it, we can be in the presence of God without suffering “death by holiness.” Thankfully, God does not leave us in such a sorry state. Through Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the nation of Israel (and Judah), Elijah and the Prophets, King David and his line on down to Jesus Christ, the God-Man, who provides for our ultimate purification, we are provided a way back into a right relationship with God. The Church is then given the Holy Spirit who, through us, will spread God’s kingdom into the cosmos, an activity that will culminate in the Day of Judgement when the cosmos will be fully and finally transfigured, everything is set aright, and those of us who have chosen to cooperate with God will be given our thrones.
This, then, is the situation in which we find ourselves: We’ve been given the Holy Spirit to spread God’s Kingdom as we go out into the world, specifically a world not-yet-transformed and is utterly passive in the face of death and drudgery, of decay and entropy. To do this will require labor, even toilsome, back-breaking labor. Working first and foremost on ourselves, and secondarily on the world around us, we are called to an intense spiritual, mental, and yes, physical labor to the utmost of our abilities, however much or however little that is. Yet, because of our world of entropy, we must constantly be refreshed. This is done via leisure, via contemplation, attending to and allowing reality in its fullness – which is God Who is Love coming to us in and through His good Creation – to refresh us. The ultimate expression of this is indeed Eucharistic worship in the Divine Liturgy or Mass, but it is also found in Scripture and private spiritual reading, in a meal with loved ones, a walk in the woods, in the studying of an edifying subject, or even in something as simple as enjoying a cold drink on your front porch on a hot day.
This leisure has a two-fold purpose and nature:
The first is to refresh us so that we may continue in the labor called for in the spreading of God’s Kingdom. This is expressed very well in a prayer attributed to St. Aidan of Lindesfarne:
“Leave me alone with God as much as may be. As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore, make me an island, set apart, alone with you God, holy to You. Then, with the turning of the tide, prepare me to carry Your Presence out to the busy world beyond, the world that rushes in on me till the waters come again and fold me back to You.”
This expresses the proper rhythm of the militant Christian life; it’s the turning toward God in leisure via prayer, worship, and contemplation, and then a turn toward the world into which we carry His transformative presence via labor until we tire and turn once again to God in contemplation until we are refreshed to once again engage in our labors. This movement is constant. And it must always be remembered that this labor is not ultimate but serves the purpose of being the means by which we cooperate with God as He renews and perfects the whole of His creation.
This brings us to the second purpose of Christian leisure, which is the temporal participation in our ultimate eschatological rest where we are enthroned by God, both fulfilling our original purpose and also replacing the fallen diabolical spirits in their original roles (c.f. De Young, Heiser). The reason this ruling is depicted as rest is because it is itself a participation in God’s rest on the Seventh Day of creation. This rest wasn’t relaxation, as if God had worked up a sweat and now that He was finished creating, He could finally have a breather. No, this rest is an expression of God settling into His throne to rule and hallow the whole of His creation, including time.
Therefore, in an eschatological sense, leisure – understood as resting on a throne in loving, virtuous, and Godly rule – is the point of our being created and so takes precedence over labor as labor serves the end of this leisure. But, before everything is fully perfected – understood as everything reaching the fullness of its Nature, being in a wholly right relationship with everything else and participating in the full Love and Life of the Holy Trinity according to its own mode of being – labor and leisure were and are to be in a dynamic synergy, mutually reinforcing one another. So, the exact relationship between labor and leisure depends on whether they are looked at eschatologically or as being in this world.
Therefore, as we who are in this world read this, may we work, and rest, for God and may He hallow our labor and leisure, for He is blessed always: now and ever and unto Ages of Ages. Amen.