Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350–550 A.D.

Drawing on Jesus’ exhortation to a rich young man that owning possessions and true discipleship are incompatible, many Christian traditions have stressed renunciation of worldly goods as the only authentic Christian response to wealth. Other Christians, using different passages from the Bible, teach that wealth can result from living a true Christian life, a result guaranteed by prayer for the blessings that God has for each of us. As Brown (Augustine of Hippo), the great dean of early church history, compellingly reminds us in his magisterial, lucid, and gracefully written study, the understanding of the role of wealth in the developing Christian communities of the late Roman Empire was much more complex. Combining brilliant close readings of the writings of Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Paulinus of Nola with detailed examinations of the lives of average wealthy Christians and their responses to questions regarding wealth, he demonstrates that many bishops offered such Christians the compromises of almsgiving, church building, and testamentary bequests as alternatives to the renunciation of wealth. As wealthy Romans and believers of all classes joined Christian churches in the fifth century, the gifts that they had once bestowed on the empire in order to gain fame in this world could now be bestowed upon the church to enable the givers to join an eternal world. Brown’s immense, thorough, and powerful study offers rich rewards for readers. (Oct.)