What are the characteristics of the social principles of the Holy Bible?

The Old Testament is concerned with nothing so much as with justice and righteousness. Justice in the Law concerns human dealings with God and other people, with animals and birds, and even with inanimate objects. There are detailed commandments given to humanity at the beginning of their spiritual life to be a law for them, from which they ought not turn to the left nor to the right. Without these commandments, their sacrifices, prayers, fasts, gifts, and all their worship was not acceptable. When the prophets speak of the corruption that has befallen humanity and how to fight it and repent from it, they speak of liberation from oppression and violence, and of care for the needy, the weak, and those who have no one to remember them. For the prophets, this liberation through repentance was a prerequisite for pure worship.

In the New Testament, we do not find detailed laws expressing social principles, but God deals with the believer as a mature person. He grants him a vibrant mind and a pure inner life, out of which he can offer service to society according to the needs of the time in a spirit of practical and realistic faith. Hence, in the writings of the early Fathers from the Apostolic era onwards, we observe the development of social services, but on the basis of a clear and unchanging faith. This mindset is both vivid and stable and, therefore, capable of adapting to changing needs over time.

It is difficult to define the social principles of the early Church in isolation from spiritual, cultural, or other principles. Indeed, these were harmonized in a single holistic approach and lived experience. The writings of the early Church reveal this unity in life — there is no separation of the hidden personal spiritual life from the communal life of the Church, fueled by the Spirit. There is no separation of the Christian’s relationship with God from the relationship with fellow human beings in general, and the faithful in particular. There is no separation of spiritual growth from the pursuit of academic growth; nor separation of the sanctification of the soul from that of the mind, nor indeed, of the body, senses, and emotions. Therefore, when we attempt to define the social principles held by the Fathers of the early Church we cannot isolate them from all the other aspects of life as a whole.