This article considers treatments of the Bible story of Naboth and Ahab in the work of two thinkers separated by more than a millennium: St Ambrose and John Ponet. Both men treat this as a story about (among other things) property and political authority. Their emphases are different but there are similarities that make them plausibly part of a common tradition of reading the Bible for political effect.
Ambrose (1927 [c.387]) De Nabuthae (trans. McGuireM. R. P.) (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America).
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Ambrose (2002 [387]) De Officiis (trans. and ed. DavidsonI. J.) (2 vols) (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
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Ambrose (2005 [385–6]) Ambrose of Milan: Letters (ed. LiebeschuetzJ. H. W. G.) (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press).
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Anon (2002 [c.415]) ‘De Divitiis (On Riches)‘ (ed. BradstockA. and RowlandC.) (Oxford: Blackwell), 15–33.
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Aquinas (1964-80 [1266–73]) Summa Theologiae (London: Blackfriars).
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Augustine (2001) Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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ChristopheP. (1963) L'usage chretien du droit de propriete dans l'ecriture et la tradition patristique (Paris: Lethielleux).
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Cicero (1991 [44 BCE]) On Duties (De Officiis) (ed. GriffinM. T. and AtkinsE. M.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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ColishM. L. (2005) Ambrose's Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press).
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CountrymanL. W. (1980) The Rich Christian in the Church of the Early Empire: Contradictions and Accommodations (New York: Edward Mellen).
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DysonR. W. (2001) The Pilgrim City (Woodbridge: Boydell).
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GarnseyP. (1998) Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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GarnseyP. (2007) Thinking about Property: From Antiquity to the Age of Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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GiardanaA. (2007) ‘The transition to late antiquity’ in ScheidelW.MorrisI. and SallerR. P. (eds). The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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HengelM. (1974) Property and Riches in the Early Church (London: SCM).
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Homes DuddenF. (1935) The Life and Times of St Ambrose (2 vols) (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
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HopkinsK. (1980) ‘Taxes and trade in the Roman Empire (200 BC-AD 400)’, The Journal of Roman Studies, 70, 101–125.
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HudsonW. S. (1942) John Ponet: Advocate of Limited Monarchy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).
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JonesA. H. M. (1974) The Roman Economy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
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JonesG. H. (1984) The New Century Bible Commentary: 1 and 2 Kings (2 vols) (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott).
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LovejoyA. O. (1942) ‘The Communism of St Ambrose’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 3:4, 48–68.
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McGuireM. R. P. (1927) ‘Commentary’, in Ambrose, De Nabuthae (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America), 1–46.
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McLynnN. B. (1994) Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
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OchinoB. (1899 [1549]) A Tragedy (ed. PlumptreC. E., trans. PonetJ.) (London: Grant Richards).
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Origen (1875) Origenis Hexaplorum (ed. FieldF.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
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PeardonB. (1982) ‘The politics of polemics: John Ponet's Short Treatise of Politic Power, and contemporary circumstance, 1553–1556’, Journal of British Studies, 22:1, 35–49.
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PonetJ. (1567) A Defence of Priestes Mariages (London: Richard Jugge).
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PonetJ. (1970 [1556]) A Short Treatise of Politic Power (Strasbourg).
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SchaffP. (1886) Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series 1. Volume 7: Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John. Volume 8: Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms. Volume 13: Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles to the Galatians (New York: Christian Literature Publishing Company).
30.
SchaffP. (1994) Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers down to AD 325. Volume 2: Fathers of the Second Century (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson).
