Quoting the parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30) he says Jesus uses this to introduce a new idea (eternal life) but that is a fuller realisation or revelation of the truth about the primary narrative, “Thus there is an implicit approval of entrepreneurial activity in the scriptures.” (p. 192). Also the Church Fathers such as Basil the Great praise the work of merchants as being similar to the Creator’s garden, a place supplying the needs of the world. St John Cassian, the 5th century theologian, finds some Christians whose only activity appears to be business in the Egyptian town of Thennesus, although no further detail is given by Percy. And St Thomas Aquinas, writing at a time when a market economy was starting to appear, regarded the relationship between outlay and return as instructive: to carry out a ‘magnificent work’ involves a largesse of soul (form) and a largesse of capital outlay (matter) at work. People would not place risk in an entrepreneurial venture if they had not moderated their love of money, and been prepared to risk it. Percy seems to quote Aquinas uncritically, but this latter claim is highly questionable given the extremes of unbridled speculation that have been seen in modern-day capitalism. Nonetheless, the point still stands that Aquinas reveals an appreciation for the entrepreneur.
Industrialisation changed the church’s attitude towards business. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII responded with the Catholic church’s first social encyclical Rerum Novarum, which sought to respond to the end of an agrarian economy and the rise of industrialisation. The Pope promoted the idea of the right to private property, counteracting socialist thinking, and also the need to pay an honest wage.