Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity

Helen Rhee

Fortress Press

Minneapolis

WEALTH AND POVERTY IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

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Cover image: The Offering of the Poor Widow (Luke 21:1–4). Early Christian mosaic, 6th CE./Alfredo Dagli Orti / Art Resource, NY

Cover design: Laurie Ingram

Print ISBN: 978-1-4514-9641-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-2559-7

This book was produced using Pressbooks.com, and PDF rendering was done by PrinceXML.

Contents

Series Foreword

Introduction

1. The Shepherd of Hermas

2. Clement of Alexandria

3. The Acts of Thomas

4. Tertullian

5. Cyprian of Carthage

6. Lactantius

7. Basil the Great

8. Gregory of Nyssa

9. Gregory of Nazianzus

10. John Chrysostom

11. Ambrose of Milan

12. Augustine of Hippo

13. Leo the Great

14. Rabbula of Edessa

Select Bibliography

Index

Series Foreword

In his book The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, Robert Louis Wilken reminds us that “Christianity is more than a set of devotional practices and a moral code: it is also a way of thinking about God, about human beings, about the world and history” (xiii). From its earliest times, Wilken notes, Christianity has been inescapably ritualistic, uncompromisingly moral, and unapologetically intellectual.

Christianity is deeply rooted in history and continues to be nourished by the past. The ground of its being and the basis of its existence are the life of a historic person, Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians identify as God’s unique, historical act of self-communication. Jesus presented himself within the context of the history of the people of Israel, and the earliest disciples understood him to be the culmination of that history, ushering in a new chapter in God’s ongoing engagement with the world.

The crucial period of the first few centuries of Christianity is known as the patristic era or the time of the church fathers. Beginning after the books of the New Testament were written and continuing until the dawn of the Middle Ages (ca. 100–700 CE), this period encompasses a large and diverse company of thinkers and personalities. Some came from Greece and Asia Minor, others from Palestine and Egypt, and still others from Spain, Italy, North Africa, Syria, and present-day Iraq. Some wrote in Greek, others in Latin, and others in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and other languages.

This is the period during which options of belief and practice were accepted or rejected. Christian teachers and thinkers forged the language to express Christian belief clearly and precisely; they oversaw the life of the Christian people in worship and communal structure, and clarified and applied the worshiping community’s moral norms.

Every generation of Christians ...