Description
Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity.
Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and the challenges it posed to an institution that espoused the virtue of poverty and called avarice the root of all evil. Drawing on the writings of major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Brown examines the controversies and changing attitudes toward money caused by the influx of new wealth into church coffers, and describes the spectacular acts of divestment by rich donors and their growing influence in an empire beset with crisis. He shows how the use of wealth for the care of the poor competed with older forms of philanthropy deeply rooted in the Roman world, and sheds light on the ordinary people who gave away their money in hopes of treasure in heaven.
Through the Eye of a Needle challenges the widely held notion that Christianity's growing wealth sapped Rome of its ability to resist the barbarian invasions, and offers a fresh perspective on the social history of the church in late antiquity.
Chapter
Part II: An Age of Affluence
Part II: An Age of Affluence
Chapter 5: Symmachus Being Noble in Fourth-Century Rome
Chapter 5: Symmachus Being Noble in Fourth-Century Rome
Chapter 6: Avidus civicae gratiae Greedy for the good favor of the city Symmachus and the People of Rome
Chapter 6: Avidus civicae gratiae Greedy for the good favor of the city Symmachus and the People of Rome
Chapter 7: Ambrose and His People
Chapter 7: Ambrose and His People
Chapter 8: “Avarice, the Root of All Evil” Ambrose and Northern Italy
Chapter 8: “Avarice, the Root of All Evil” Ambrose and Northern Italy
Chapter 9: Augustine Spes saeculi Careerism, Patronage and Religious Bonding, 354–384
Chapter 9: Augustine Spes saeculi Careerism, Patronage and Religious Bonding, 354–384
Chapter 10: From Milan to Hippo Augustine and the Making of a Religious Community, 384–396
Chapter 10: From Milan to Hippo Augustine and the Making of a Religious Community, 384–396
Chapter 11: “The Life in Common of a kind of Divine and Heavenly Republic” Augustine on Public and Private in a Monastic Community
Chapter 11: “The Life in Common of a kind of Divine and Heavenly Republic” Augustine on Public and Private in a Monastic Community
Chapter 12: Ista vero saecularia Those things, indeed, of the world Ausonius, Villas, and the Language of Wealth
Chapter 12: Ista vero saecularia Those things, indeed, of the world Ausonius, Villas, and the Language of Wealth
Chapter 13: Ex opulentissimo divite From being rich as rich can be Paulinus of Nola and the Renunciation of Wealth, 389–395
Chapter 13: Ex opulentissimo divite From being rich as rich can be Paulinus of Nola and the Renunciation of Wealth, 389–395
Chapter 14: Commercium spiritale The spiritual Exchange Paulinus of Nola and the Poetry of Wealth, 395–408
Chapter 14: Commercium spiritale The spiritual Exchange Paulinus of Nola and the Poetry of Wealth, 395–408
Chapter 15: Propter magnificentiam urbis Romae By reason of the magnificence of the city of Rome The Roman Rich and their Clergy, from Constantine to Damasus, 312–384
Chapter 15: Propter magnificentiam urbis Romae By reason of the magnificence of the city of Rome The Roman Rich and their Clergy, from Constantine to Damasus, 312–384
Chapter 16: “To Sing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land” Jerome in Rome, 382–385
Chapter 16: “To Sing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land” Jerome in Rome, 382–385
Chapter 17: Between Rome and Jerusalem Women, Patronage, and Learning, 385–412
Chapter 17: Between Rome and Jerusalem Women, Patronage, and Learning, 385–412
Part III: An Age of Crisis
Part III: An Age of Crisis
Chapter 18: “The Eye of a Needle” and “The Treasure of the Soul” Renunciation, Nobility, and the Sack of Rome, 405–413
Chapter 18: “The Eye of a Needle” and “The Treasure of the Soul” Renunciation, Nobility, and the Sack of Rome, 405–413
Chapter 19: Tolle divitem Take away the rich The Pelagian Criticism of Wealth
Chapter 19: Tolle divitem Take away the rich The Pelagian Criticism of Wealth
Chapter 20: Augustine’s Africa People and Church
Chapter 20: Augustine’s Africa People and Church
Chapter 21: “Dialogues with the Crowd” The Rich, the People, and the City in the Sermons of Augustine
Chapter 21: “Dialogues with the Crowd” The Rich, the People, and the City in the Sermons of Augustine
Chapter 22: Dimitte nobis debita nostra Forgive us our sins Augustine, Wealth, and Pelagianism, 411–417
Chapter 22: Dimitte nobis debita nostra Forgive us our sins Augustine, Wealth, and Pelagianism, 411–417
Chapter 23: “Out of Africa” Wealth, Power and the Churches, 415–430
Chapter 23: “Out of Africa” Wealth, Power and the Churches, 415–430
Chapter 24: “Still at that Time a More Affluent Empire” The Crisis of the West in the Fifth Century
Chapter 24: “Still at that Time a More Affluent Empire” The Crisis of the West in the Fifth Century
Chapter 25: Among the Saints Marseilles, Arles and Lérins, 400–440
Chapter 25: Among the Saints Marseilles, Arles and Lérins, 400–440
Chapter 26: Romana respublica vel iam mortua With the empire now dead and gone Salvian and His Gaul, 420–450
Chapter 26: Romana respublica vel iam mortua With the empire now dead and gone Salvian and His Gaul, 420–450
Chapter 27: Ob Italiae securitatem For the security of Italy Rome and Italy, ca. 430–ca. 530
Chapter 27: Ob Italiae securitatem For the security of Italy Rome and Italy, ca. 430–ca. 530
Part V: Toward Another World
Part V: Toward Another World
Chapter 28: Patrimonia pauperum Patrimonies of the poor Wealth and Conflict in the Churches of the Sixth Century
Chapter 28: Patrimonia pauperum Patrimonies of the poor Wealth and Conflict in the Churches of the Sixth Century
Chapter 29: Servator fidei, patriaeque semper amator Guardian of the Faith, and always lover of [his] homeland Wealth and Piety in the Sixth Century
Chapter 29: Servator fidei, patriaeque semper amator Guardian of the Faith, and always lover of [his] homeland Wealth and Piety in the Sixth Century
Through the Eye of a Needle
：Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD
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