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Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christiantiy in the West, 350-550 AD
Peter Brown
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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.
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Cover
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Title Page
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Copyright
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Dedication
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Contents
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List of Maps
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List of Illustrations
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Preface
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Part I: Wealth, Christianity, and Giving at the End of an Ancient World
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Chapter 1 Aurea aetas: Wealth in an Age of Gold
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Chapter 2 Mediocritas
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Chapter 3 Amor civicus: Love of the city
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Chapter 4 “Treasure in Heaven”
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Part II: An Age of Affluence
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Chapter 5 Symmachus
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Chapter 6 Avidus civicae gratiae: Greedy for the good favor of the City
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Chapter 7 Ambrose and His People
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Chapter 8 “Avarice, the Root of All Evil”
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Chapter 9 Augustine
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Chapter 10 From Milan to Hippo
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Chapter 11 “The Life in Common of a Kind of Divine and Heavenly Republic”
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Chapter 12 Ista vero saecularia: Those things, indeed, of the world
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Chapter 13 Ex opulentissimo divite: From being rich as rich can be
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Chapter 14 Commercium spiritale: The spiritual exchange
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Chapter 15 Propter magnificentiam urbis Romae: By reason of the magnificence of the city of Rome
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Chapter 16 “To Sing The Lord’s Song in a Strange Land”
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Chapter 17 Between Rome and Jerusalem
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Part III: An Age of Crisis
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Chapter 18 “The Eye of a Needle” and “The Treasure of the Soul”
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Chapter 19 Tolle divitem: Take away the rich
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Chapter 20 Augustine’s Africa
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Chapter 21 “Dialogues with the Crowd”
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Chapter 22 Dimitte nobis debita nostra: Forgive us our sins
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Chapter 23 “Out of Africa”
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Chapter 24 “Still at That Time a More Affluent Empire”
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Part IV: Aftermaths
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Chapter 25 Among the Saints
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Chapter 26 Romana respublica vel iam mortua: With the empire now dead and gone
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Chapter 27 Ob Italiae securitatem: For the security of Italy
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Part V: Toward Another World
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Chapter 28 Patrimonia pauperum: Patrimonies of the poor
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Chapter 29 Servator fidei, patriaeque semper amator: Guardian of the faith, and always lover of [his] homeland
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Conclusion
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Abbreviations
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Notes
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Works Cited
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Primary Sources
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Secondary Sources
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Index
Citable Link
Published: 2012
Publisher: Princeton University Press
- 978-1-4008-4453-1 (ebook)
- 978-0-691-16177-8 (paper)
- 978-0-691-15290-5 (hardcover)