| Sumario: | In criticism, the motif of theft in The Merchant of Venice has simply been regarded as an ironic counterpoint to the characters' invocation of Christian values. In contrast, this article argues that Shylock's account of Jacob's ewes – a narrative of primordial appropriation and displacement – introduces a sense of unease at the imputation of theft that at first seems to characterise the Jewish moneylender but then gradually afflicts characters across the religious divide, creating complex networks of remorseful thieves in Venice and Belmont. The play's obsessive concern with shiny outer surfaces – rich fleece and gilded caskets – inscribes both allegorical interpretation and the acquisition of wealth within a sacred economy of theft, the theological resonance of which has not been fully recognised. Like St Augustine and John Donne, Shakespeare reads biblical thievery as a generalised sign of man and woman's abject sinfulness. In the process, the play's dialectical understanding of thrift and theft, transfer and supplanting, deceptive covering and hidden truth acquires a profound, deeply conflicted, soteriological meaning. Written at a time of growing hermeneutical instability, the comedy problematises attempts to demarcate in-groups of the elect by showing that to possess the blessing is to develop a peculiar consciousness of misappropriation.
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