The super-rich give billions of pounds every year to the poor. But the bond of mutual respect between giver and receiver has been lost. The author of a new book argues that philanthropy without partnership demeans and diminishes both donor and recipient

Christian charity is more than simple philanthropy, Pope Francis said in an Angelus address last month by way of a prelude to saying that Christian charity involves “looking at others through the eyes of Jesus himself” – and, at the same time, “seeing Jesus in the face of the poor”. But what exactly did the Pope mean by “simple philanthropy”?

In truth, there is nothing simple about it. Today, philanthropy is commonly taken to mean a rich person giving a large amount of money to a good cause. But over the past two thousand years and more it has been, variously, a matter of honour, a religious injunction, a mechanism of political control, a vehicle for moral activism, an expression of enlightened self-interest, a manifestation of public good, of personal fulfilment and of plutocratic manipulation.
Among the ancient Greeks, who coined the word as a compound of two roots – phílos, which meant something cherished, and ánthropos, a human being – philanthropy was seen primarily as a device to strengthen social relationships. The Romans saw it in part as a political investment to buy the favour of the people. Those who gave money – for temples, public baths, roads or aqueducts – often erected a stone with the inscription DSPF or de sua pecunia fecit, meaning Done With His Own Money. More elevated thinkers, such as Aristotle, insisted that its purpose was to improve the moral character of the giver, though he suggested that it must also consider the needs of the recipient.