Libanius, a 4th century (non-Christian) Greek, saw God’s hand in trade:
God did not bestow all products upon all parts of the earth, but distributed His gifts over different regions, to the end that men might cultivate a social relationship because one would have need of the help of another, and so He called commerce into being, that all men might be able to have common enjoyment of the fruits of the earth, no matter where produced.
Quoted in Pietro Rivoli’s The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy.
Libanius was a teacher of John Chrysostom (later, St. Chrysostom). Grotius cites the following passage from Chrysostom:
… that the Length of the Way might not deter us from a mutual Converse, God has given us a shorter Road, the Sea, which lies near every Country; that the whole World being considered as one House, we may frequently visit one another, and mutually and easily communicate [i.e., exchange] what each Country affords peculiar to itself; so that each Man who inhabits a small Portion of the Earth, enjoys whatever is produced elsewhere, as freely as if he were Master of the Whole.
Thanks for that very nice quotation Eric. I can only imagine what these folks would have said about a divine plan and comparative advantage had Ricardo lived before them!
Sounds like Bastiat.