Per la cruna di un ago

by Peter Brown, Luigi Giacone (Translator)

Gesù insegnò ai suoi seguaci che è più facile per un cammello passare per la cruna di un ago, che per un ricco entrare nel regno di Dio. Eppure, con la caduta di Roma, la chiesa divenne sempre più ricca e potente. Con questo libro Peter Brown affronta senza ambiguità uno dei grandi paradossi della storia dell’Occidente. Utilizzando magistralmente fonti alte e archivi «bassi» – elaborazioni dottrinali di matrice teologica, disposizioni del diritto canonico e materiali spuri tratti dalla vita quotidiana di comunità e personaggi minori – il grande storico scrive la prima vera e propria storia economica del cristianesimo e della chiesa delle origini. Al centro del libro la condizione paradossale per cui, se anche la rinuncia, il dono e la povertà si trovano al cuore dei Vangeli, la chiesa, che su quei testi si è edificata, è diventata, nel corso dei secoli, una delle più formidabili potenze economico-finanziarie della storia. Lungi dal gridare allo scandalo, Brown cerca di spiegare come mai un’istituzione nata sul presupposto secondo cui la vera vita si colloca nel mondo altro della promessa, e che questo mondo, con i suoi beni, lusinghe e tentazioni, è da rigettare, proprio a questo mondo si è adattata con tutte le sue forze.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Christianity, Church History, Economics

912 pages, Paperback

First published August 13, 2012

About the author

Peter Robert Lamont Brown FBA is an Irish historian. He is the Rollins Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. Brown is credited with having brought coherence to the field of Late Antiquity, and is often regarded as the inventor of said field. His work has concerned, in particular, the religious culture of the later Roman Empire and early medieval Europe, and the relation between religion and society.

Reviews

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a virtual time-machine fly through of the Western Roman Empire from 350 to 550 AD with special attention being given to the ways in which the Christian Church dealt with wealth. This is a problem for the Christian religion because it is based upon the teachings of Jesus who is quoted in the New Testament as saying that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter heaven. For the first three hundred years of Christian church history there was no significant problem in interpreting the meaning of this statement because Christian membership generally consisted of urban artisans and trades people of the lower classes. They certainly didn’t consider themselves to be rich, and they had no difficulty in saying that rich people in this world wouldn't go to heaven in the next world.

Things began to change in 312 when Constantine gave favored status to the Christian Church. Today we generally imagine that things suddenly changed when Constantine came to power. However these changes were more complicated than perceived today and they were stretched out over many years. Constantine set in motion changes that allowed ambitious Christians with their favored status to start becoming the “new rich” while the older established aristocratic rich remained Pagan. It wasn’t until long after Constantine’s death that wealth began coming into the Church in a significant way.

“It was the gathering pace of the entry of the rich into the Christian Churches in the period after 370, and not the conversion of Constantine in 312, that marks the true beginning of the triumphant Catholicism of the Middle Ages.”

This book makes use of recent archaeological findings to modify conclusions reached by much of previous 20th Century scholarship on the subject of church history in this era. At almost every point regarding history of this era, the new understanding is more complex and varied than previously understood.

This book traces the long process of changes that took place between the years 350 to 550. It begins with a hesitant age following the conversion of Constantine in 312 AD, when the Christian churches of the West became privileged. But they had not become wealthy. Only in the last quarter of the fourth century did wealthy people enter the church in growing numbers, often stepping into leadership roles as bishops and as Christian writers. It was the entry of new wealth and talent into the churches from around 370 onward which marks the turning point in the Christianization of Europe. From then onward, as members of a religion that had been joined by the rich and powerful, Christians could begin to think of the possibility of a totally Christian society.

But this new wealth brought problems. There was conflict between the old believers, new believers, old wealth, and new wealth. Between around 370 and 430 there was an explosion of writing on the subject of wealth, associated with writers and preachers such as Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Paulinus of Nola, and the supporters of Pelagius. There was good reason for this explosion. In the Christian church of the time, distinctive traditions of giving and attitudes toward wealth reached back to before the age of Constantine. They were often associated with low-profile styles of leadership that drew their support from distinctly average congregations. These low-profile styles of giving and leadership frequently clashed with the expectations of those brought into the churches by the wealthy.

Ironically, once the churches became used to being affluent by the end of fourth and early fifth century they needed to learn how to live in an impoverished world once the Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century. Radical critiques of wealth were then abandoned and instead emphasis was placed on how wealth could be used to consolidate the Christian community.

“...The greatest surprise of all occurred in the late fifth century. The leaders of the churches realized that they--and not the great lay landowners whose fortunes had previously dwarfed the wealth of the church--were, at last, truly wealthy. The collapse of the traditional aristocracies left the church in a unique position.”

Through it all the church managed to maintain a sense of the collective nature of the wealth of the faithful for the purpose of care for the poor.

The main point of this book was not to discuss the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire. However, I was interested to see how this author addressed the subject. He says it was caused by civil war among Roman generals fighting each other in an effort to make themselves Caesar. These wars raged for a generation throughout Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Africa. The various competing Roman generals actually invited barbarian armies to fight for their side. The barbarians were paid by allowing them to plunder the invaded areas. In the end the barbarians found themselves in control of large areas that were then independent of any loyalty (or taxes) to Rome. With depleted revenue from taxes the central Roman government was no longer able to maintain an army to retake control of the lost provinces. From this description I have concluded that the fall of the Roman Empire was not caused by the rise of the Christianity at the cost of the traditional ways of the Pagans as was suggested in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

[Michael Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-researched, academic book on the church’s increase in wealth from the time of Constantine to the fall of Rome. Often though, the author is too critical of Christianity by assuming one bad apple represents the whole batch, or he speculates on the church leader’s reasons for making a certain decision. Only recommended for those with a high interest in this time period of history or a church history nerd (like myself.)

[Fathin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am giving this book 4.5 stars.

Peter Brown is, as always, a skillful narrator apt at making complex simple. In this case, you are going to hear about the transformative attitude of the Western Church to wealth that gradually made it emerge as a significant economic and later political force in the Latin West in the course of the sixth century (but not earlier). Through the Eye of a Needle is, however, much more than that as it is effectively a very good synthesizing narrative of the change that affected the Latin-writing world between the 4th and the 6th centuries (the change that we today usually refer to as to the Transformation of the Roman World, or if you are of the old school the Fall of the Western Roman Empire). I particularly enjoyed the chapters that reflected the most recent research into the societal, political and economic conditions of Late Antiquity as so many new, perspective-altering insights were produced in the last decades (too often overlooked by both specialists and non-specialists). Not so Peter Brown, for which he should be commended. It is great to see that his perspective as a historian is still developing in the light of the newest evidence.

I also particularly enjoyed how Brown manages to breath life into various religious controversies (e.g., Augustine's anti-Pelagian campaign, the fall of Priscillian, and Jerome's tussle with Rufinus) into their socio-political and historical context (as opposed to their treatment as timeless and contextless ideological struggles with winners treated as more noble than they were and the losers as more vicious). To me, this is a very refreshing and much needed perspective, albeit I regret it means obsessing with 'little white egotists' such as Augustine and Jerome (not Brown's fault, as egotistic as they were, A. and J. inadvertently produced a lot of written material that can be exploited to develop his main thesis). Good to see that Brown does not succumb to their charm and narcissism and is able to see them realistically in both their intellectual vigour and pettiness.

[Jo Walton]

Readable, insightful, thoroughly at home with his subject and truly interesting. I loved reading this and was sorry to finish it.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 4 out of 5]

With this book you will learn something you did not already know and more importantly discover things you believed to be true but probably weren’t true. Whether the nature of the Roman town structure, the elite, the distribution of wealth within the republic, the rise of the Christians after Constantine, or why ‘most Idealist thinkers [Enlightenment and Romantic] were Pelagians’ (that’s a quote from ‘Culture and the Death of God’, by Terry Eagleton) most readers will learn things they didn’t know and even better will unlearn things they thought to be true but weren’t.

This is a smart book with a narrative tying a complex story together coherently. How we understand history and interpret it is always changing. As history is being written it is using the beliefs at the time which were depended on the prior beliefs and filtered by the expectations of what’s currently happening. A great historian such as Peter Brown knows this and has a way of telling the story such that he will almost certainly destroy the false beliefs you had about this incredibly interesting period of time, the Roman Empire from 350 -550 AD and provide a new narrative to understand that world (after all, who among us doesn't love Roman History from this time period? I know I do, and I know this book stripped away many of my false beliefs about the period that I used to have but no longer do because of this book).

The author realizes how we thought about our world determines how we presently think about our world and also will frame how we see the world in the future as well as our now. The particular can determine the general and the specific or in the terms the author is speaking about, the Roman citizen will love his city and the citizen will be part of the Empire. Similarly, the Church will redefine itself through its members and grow beyond the local Bishop and become a universal ('catholic') church even though universal at first meant anyone was allowed to join it not that it was everywhere as the word ‘Catholic’ now connotes.

Augustine of Hippo is at the center of this story. Before him the thought even among Christians and some Pagans would have been ‘If there were no rich there would be no poor’ (because the rich only exist off the sweat of the poor) after Augustine and because of him it becomes ‘eliminate pride then the rich would be justified’. Augustine, according to the author, takes Cicero’s civic duty and combines that with Plotinius’ metaphysics and the teachings of St. Paul and makes a religion. Pelagius will say, prayers make a difference, we aren’t born in sin, we have free will, and that the rich need to share their wealth with the poor. Augustine and his later allies will say differently. This book will delve into those kinds of things and more. It will take St. Aquinas 850 years later to reverse the Augustinian trajectory and then Martin Luther (and Calvin) to reverse course again by valuing faith over works and letting us all know that we are born in sin because of Adam's pride and defiance.

The writer is not always a fluent writer, but he has a narrative that really works and it would be a rare person who could read this book and not learn something new and worth knowing about and more importantly unlearn something they thought they knew but were wrong about.

[Melora · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating. I didn't know much about the topic, but the author provided very adequate background regarding attitudes towards wealth in the late Roman Empire. The changes in Christian thought on wealth were well explained. The various people profiled were described in a very engaging way which illustrated the changing views on wealth over hundreds of years. My only complaint was that, as a non-expert, I was unfamiliar with the scholars the author frequently quoted, and also that the level of detail was a little excessive. Overall, though, this was very interesting, and I learned a lot!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Way back when I was in college, and first learning about the history of the Christian church, there was a common refrain I heard: Constantine converted to Christianity, gave the Church privileges and the Church took over. I've read and heard the same thing over the years since. Constantine and his conversion is a sort of bogeyman for all sorts of people, especially those who desire a simplistic understanding of history that confirms their own suspicions (or moral superiority?).

For example, because Constantine endorsed the Trinity, it became doctrine. Except it didn't. In the years after Nicea, the Arians were winning. Constantine's successors (some of them) even favored Arians. The barbarians who conquered the western empire were Arians (and for the record, lest anyone accuse me of hypocrisy, I recognize the barbarians were not as barbaric as we might think and that story too is more complex).

In this book, Peter Brown tells a complex story. The common story of wealth is that once Constantine converted, the churches became rich and privileged. Brown shows that for whatever privilege they got, riches did not immediately follow. It was a much slower process. Further, it was fraught with conflict. Many Christians would have argued that the only thing to do with wealth was to renounce it! How did the church handle its growing wealth? In telling this story, we also read the story of a transition from Late Antiquity into the Early Medieval era.

This is a thorough book. There is so much here. Its not the sort of book for people new to history; you probably want an elementary grasp of the era. The benefit here is that Brown shows that the "western empire" was not monolithic. Things were different, and how wealth was handled by Christians, was different from Rome to Gaul to Carthage. We take for granted that Augustine's theology, and view of wealth, triumphed. But in the background (or even foreground) of his battle with Pelagius was a battle over how to handle wealth.

Augustine's view won out. Brown shows that there was little concern with where the wealth came from. The question for the Christian was how to use the wealth. This echoes down to today as Christians are called to give generously. Until recently, there was not much concern in the Church with where your wealth came from (except for extreme cases). It'd be interesting to read a book, a sort of sequel, for when Christians began to show more concern for how one gets wealth. You don't have to be a Marxist to wonder about human trafficking in the global supply trade. The growing concern for fair trade and fair pay for workers might reveal a shift away from what took route after Augustine.

The other thing sticking in my mind was how the Roman mindset influenced the church. In Roman times not all poor were equal. There were the deserving poor, the people who were citizens of the city. We might call them something similar to middle class today. These were the people who received handouts from the government in Rome. Then there were the lower poor, the ones who might be kicked out of the city of Rome when things got tough. I did not realize there was such a division before, but it does strike me how this plays into how we read ancient sources. Find a text from 200-300 AD that speaks of helping the poor. Who were these poor? We can't take for granted we know exactly who they were speaking of.

Overall, this is a pretty great book for people into history and a Christian worldview.

[Alain Acevedo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leí la mitad hace seis meses y la otra mitad ahora porque se me hacía bastante cuesta arriba. Estoy seguro de que es un libro increíble, pero no lo he logrado apreciar del todo por mi falta de conocimiento tanto sobre el tema concreto que trata como sobre el contexto histórico de la época. Volveré a él en unos años a ver.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, magisterial investigation into the history of Latin Western Christianity from 350-550 through a focus on material wealth, its handling, and its influence.

The author demonstrates well how this time period is crucial to explain the shifts that take place between "ancient" and "medieval" Christianity. He uses modern research, recently discovered texts, and archaeological evidence to question the prevailing narratives about the rise of prominence of Christianity in the Latin West and presents a more complex, nuanced, and ultimately more contextual and feasible explanation of that rise.

The author analyzes both pagan and Christian views of wealth in late Roman antiquity, describes the major historical events immediately before the mid-fourth century, and then begins his analysis of the role of wealth as it impacted many of the disputations and personalities of Western Christendom from 350-550, including Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Pelagius, Paulinus of Nola, Salvian, and Gregory of Tours.

The author convincingly demonstrates the process by which wealth eventually moved toward the church as the Roman empire disintegrated and how changes in the place of wealth and conceptions of giving in terms of penance and to the poor were major forces in the shift from "ancient" to "medieval" Christianity.

The character studies of Ambrose and Augustine (as well as the rest of the major characters) are of excellent quality and quite instructive, firmly contextualizing the men not only as theologians but as full-fledged members of the late Roman world. This work is useful since it shows the social, political, and cultural dimensions of the major theological disputes regarding Augustinianism vs. Pelagianism, Catholics vs. Donatists, and even the late phase of the Arians vs. Trinitarians.

This is an excellent work of history and very worthwhile for anyone with an interest in the history of late antiquity and/or the development of Christianity and Christian doctrine.

**--galley received as early review edition

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short Review: Long, but interesting look at the variety of ways that the church of the Late Roman Empire looked at wealth and how it should be used. Interesting to reflect in the different ways we currently think about wealth. My knowledge of the history of this period is pretty weak. But Brown does take some alternative views from others that I have read. His understanding of Augustine (especially around celibacy and Agustine's desire to turn all clerics into monks) is different from what I read in Augustine: A Very Short Introduction and some of his history on the rise of the church countered Rodney Stark's The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion. This did not make a huge difference to the main point of the book, but it always does make me pause to realize that I just have to that the author's word on so many things that I can't independently verify. That being said, I think his take on Augustine makes more sense than in the Very Short Introduction and Stark was really taking a pretty broad view and Brown is more of a narrow look.

Click Through for the full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/through-the-eye-of-a...

[John Pawlik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! It was so long I stopped and would periodically come back to it, but Peter Brown does a great job at laying out the complexities of Roman life and how the church evolved around money and power dynamics. Still my favorite historian of late antiquity. I think the best take away was his convincing argument that Constantine’s conversion was far less impactful for the church than people have been saying. This can be seen in that not as much changed for the majority of the churches in the immediate decades afterward. Larger change came instead when rich upper class families flooded the church and began to use finances to coerce dynamics on the ground level in the late 4th century.

This was a timely book! The influence of wealth and comfort always threatens to deaden the church’s witness, it’s hard to overestimate how much our desires for comfort and status can prevent us from total faithfulness. Its worth thinking more about how we and our churches are always at risk of serving another lord rather than Christ!

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes it is best to contemplate current difficulties from the perspective of the past. Better than any I've read, this book unravels the tangled threads of spirituality and money, showing us, from the vantage of late Rome, that in times of cultural collapse, people put their faith in wealth and the illusions of control it affords.

For those of you who have not read Brown, he is perhaps the finest historian of late Rome and the rise of Christianity. He recreates for us the lives and perplexities of real people living their daily lives in the ancient world. It's thick and scholarly, but I cannot recommend him highly enough.

[Joaquim Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

No me he cansado de recomendar este libro mientras lo leía y no le voy a cansar de hacerlo ahora, así que esto más que una reseña es una recomendación. Brown es un gran narrador y un prosista más que competente, consigue hacer 1300 paginas sobre historia de las mentalidades, social y económica amena, lúcida y adictiva. Saca su experiencia como biógrafo para presentar personajes/hilos conductores que van tejiendo el relato histórico poco a poco. El libro tiene una estructura de capítulos/subcapítulos/apartados que ayuda mucho. Como cada pocas páginas (de 2 a 15) hay un apartado consigue 1) dar sensación de progreso constante y 2) que siempre sea fácil retomar la lectura, lo que facilita infinita la lectura a los que tenemos problemas de atención.

Brown plantea metáforas e imágenes constantes que amenizan y embellecen el texto, y como los mejores historiadores junta historiografía con arqueología, geografía, antropología y filosofía de forma coherente. Leyéndolo he entendido no pocas nociones de filosofía política y antropología de las que había leído pero no conseguía integrar. Además de entender infinitamente mejor la formación del cristianismo y la transición desde la época romana a la edad media.

En fin no quiero alargarme porque la idea es con esto animar a quien sea a leer el libro, o si no algún otro texto del mismo autor.

[Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transporting. There are few historians who can claim to be on par with Peter Brown.

[Michael Philliber · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Jesus remarked, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19.23-24, ESV), how did earlier Christians perceive his statement and engage it? And in what ways would this have coincided or conflicted with their cultural environment? These, and other questions, are addressed in sizable detail by Peter Brown, the Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History (Emeritus) and Senior Historian at Princeton University, in his voluminous 792 page paperback, “Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD”. It is a work written for the experts, the informed, the interested and the investigative.

“Through the Eye of a Needle” is delineated in its subtitle. The primary focus is on how wealth was perceived in earlier Christianity and in its contemporary Roman culture. Wrapped around this investigative evaluation will be the story of Rome from its golden age to its demise, and how and why Christianity remained standing amidst the ruins. To guide along this path Brown introduces the reader to Roman and Christian leaders in delightful detail, allowing us to see them in fresh light: Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, Ambrose, Ausonius of Bordeaux, Paulinus of Nola, Augustine, Pelagius, Jerome, Melania the elder, Melania the younger, Salvian, and Gregory the Great, to name only a few of the cast. The thread that holds this troupe together like a beaded bracelet is wealth. As Brown recounts their biographies through the lens of wealth, it adds hues and shades to the familiar backdrop. For example, the tale of Augustine and Pelagius becomes livelier when the role of affluence is drawn in and given its place. For Pelagius “touched on two central issues: on Augustine’s particular notion of sin and penance, and on more general notions, current in the African churches as elsewhere, on the expiatory nature of religious gifts…Augustine placed behind the largely unreflecting practice of expiatory giving the heavy weight of a view of human nature that made daily expiation a necessity” (362-3).

Woven into this history of wealth are innumerable aspects of society and social structure, church and monasticism, imperial rule and episcopal power. Brown’s “concern throughout has been to do justice to the pace and to the diversity of developments that do not fit easily into conventional narratives of political and ecclesiastical history…by concentrating on a series of distinctive figures, each of whom was placed in a distinctive landscape” (xxii).

Instead of being a droll dictation of facts, figures and philosophical foci, “Through the Eye of a Needle” chronicles a credible account that draws from many causes and draws in multiple characters. Upon completing the volume, the reader will have gained a broad and buxom picture of late Roman antiquity and earlier Church history. Yet the memoir moves purposefully toward its destination. It remains clear throughout that the “majority of the upper-class inhabitants of the Roman West were encouraged by long tradition to show generosity to their cities and to their fellow citizens—not to the churches and still less to the poor. Only in the last quarter of the fourth century did the wealthy enter the church in growing numbers…It was the entry of new wealth and talent into the churches from around the year 370 onward…which marks the turning point in the Christianization of Europe. From then onward, as members of a religion that had been joined by the rich and powerful, Christians could begin to think the unthinkable—to envision the possibility of a totally Christian society” (527-8).

“Through the Eye of a Needle” fills in many gaps, and highlights a number of important themes. I have employed it as supporting material in the Church History class I have been teaching at my congregation. The volume could well be used as the primary textbook for college and seminary classes that are covering the Roman millennia. Academic libraries, religious and secular, should likewise obtain copies. But anyone interested in Roman history will find Brown’s book valuable and engrossing. I happily and heartily recommend the book.

[James R · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why read this book? Why did the author write it? He never says & it's nowhere implied why this book was written. This is an encyclopedic work of facts without any underlying purpose. Does Brown want the church (Anglican? Orthodox? Catholic? Evangelical?) to abandon wealth? Does he want reform? Does he want to destroy the church? Does he want veneration of saints to change? No, he gives no purpose, and Brown doesn't want anything beyond book sales & for an audience to listen to him rattle off facts & his take on history. Peter Brown is a professional elite, who has to justify his own position by writing books packed full of facts by professional historians. If a book doesn't have an underlying purpose today, there's no point. Don't waste your time on dense books of pointless facts that have no influence on your life today.

A much better book would be something like "lies of the so-called Christians: elites and control of the masses today" and exposing how so much of our history was shaped by power struggles of kings & wealthy elites, including genocide & industrial scale forgery, and that humanity should abandon the whole thing including all derivative institutions & ways of thinking. This goes well beyond things like dogmas, and hits at the core of the concept of elites, divine right of kings, laws, lawyers, institutions, written works, and concern for history itself. In a sane world, nobody like Peter Brown would be allowed to write anything, as he isn't helping anyone but himself & inner circle elites.

[Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exquisitely dense study of the shift in the Mediterranean world of the Roman empire to the early hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church.

Before reading it I had some vague knowledge that Romans partied themselves to death and then Constantine decided he was a Christian and everyone lived happily ever after ( or at least saved).

The story of this book is much more rich. Not only does Brown show a wide range of personalities and philosophies at their steady work, he quietly reminds us that a little revolution here and there can make for a whole lot of change everywhere.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy recomendable. Un libro que te hace caer en la cuenta cómo cambia la relación con el dinero y la riqueza para aquellos que en Roma abandonan los ídolos para hacerse cristianos. Un camino que viene narrado maravillosamente por el autor a lo largo de varios siglos.

[Frank Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really terrific book that filled in a lot of gaps in my personal knowledge. I have read almost nothing about the Greek or Roman empires, so my mind was wide open on the subject. But Brown is a hell of a writer and he covers a lot of terrain and more than two centuries of time in these pages. The subject of the book is how Romans changed their views about wealth and charitable giving in the last stage of the empire. But he conveys a lot more of the social and religious history of the time in order to provide the context for his thesis. He explains the gradual nature of the move from paganism to Christianity and how both faiths co-existed for longer than one might have expected. He also writes about the "fall" of Rome as a subtle conversion into something else, especially in the west. His treatment of late Pagan senators and the gradual incursion of the Barbarians along the frontier with real sens of story and pacing. Highly recommended.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the last centuries of the Roman empire through the perspective of wealth. While the power and influence of the Roman empire waned, the relative influence of the Church grew. Associated with it was also wealth. Both power and money changed the way the church operated.

The book examines these topics through a fascinating cast of characters-- names familiar to me, but ones that I have never ecountered up close. You get to know Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, using his critique of the poor as a power play with the imperial government. You get to learn how a young Augustine, supported by a local patron, tried to climb the imperial ranks, associated with an extreme sect the Manichees, and eventually settled down to form a monastary in Roman Africa. You hear of his clash with Pelagius about free will, but also how the role of wealth factored in. The Pelagians denounced wealth, and thought that it should be renounced. Augustine was more moderate, and thought you could be rich and put your money to good use. You learn how Paulinus of Nola used his wealth primarily to build up a shrine to his favorite saint, Felix, creating a distinct sink of wealth separate from caring from the poor. You learn how Christian bishops were concerned of the competition associated from the Roman games for money from wealthy donors.

I feel much more comfortable with figures in early Christianity after reading this book, as well as some of the historical complexities associated with them. It also gave insights into modern-day problems associated with churches, the secular, and wealth. These problems aren't new.





When they entered a Christian basilica, the rich were exposed to the gaze of a crowd of hundreds drawn from all classes, many of whom might have good reason to resent them. It was a venue more claustrophobic than was the amphitheater in which the notables of the city had long faced their “people.” In this situation, a bishop not only spoke out to defend the poor. He also had it in his power either to shame or to shield the rich. (143) The environment the rich faced when entering the Christian church.

Ambrose’s sermons on the wealthy should not be read as a reportage on the actual state of Milanese society. Nor were they intended in themselves to bring about a program of social reform. What they did do was open up for Ambrose and for similar Christian bishops a space for intervention in society. The sermons were no more than the preliminary bombardment that preceded the action of the bishop as an intercessor with the great. (144) Sermons condemning the wealthy were in essence a power play.

“Advocacy revolution” and “a culture of criticism”: It had not come about because of a heightened sense of concern for the oppressed but had been fostered by the imperial government for brutally practical reasons. Perched at the top of an immense and slow-moving bureaucracy, the emperor and his court went out of their way to encourage appeals and denunciations from below. As in the Soviet Union, the emperors realized that “the real power of a totalitarian state results from its being at the disposal of every inhabitant.” Lethal denunciations could come from anywhere.” (144) Do these tactics not sound familiar in our our political culture?

For [Augustine], human society was not held together by some massive, original bond. It depended for its cohesion on the perilous free play of human affections. Each friendship was a gamble. Each human group was the fragile creation of an interplay of wills. Society was a risky business. Whatever solidarity it managed to create depended on the subtle flow of shared affections and loyalties. [155] I have been feeling similar sentiments in my own experience in academia. It all seems like a gamble based on who you know.

Like many Christian intellectuals, Augustine tried hard not to look down on clergymen. But it was difficult not to do so. As we have seen, the clergy were generally persons of middling or lower status. They did their job in shepherding the masses. But, in Augustine’s opinion in 388, this left them with little time to pursue the philosophical wisdom that truly healed the soul. [171] Intellectual hubris, something I’m not immune to myself.

On the distinctly Roman aristocratic Christ: The Christ of Ambrose and of Paulinus was by no means the humanized Christ of later medieval and modern piety. He was very much a late Roman Christ. His humility was all the more stunning because it was based upon a conscious act of self-effacement on the part of the majestic God whom He continued to be. The splendor of God had dimmed itself in an awesome gesture of condescension. If, in the late Roman social imagination, power and wealth were things that had to be asserted in order to exist, then no abjection, no “stepping down,” could be more stunning that the “stepping down” by which God himself had abandoned, for a time, His assertion of power. Christ, as God, had been the aristocrat of aristocrats, the wealthiest of the wealthy. Yet out of His immense goodness and of His own free will, He had renounced this wealth. [222]

Why was this remorseless logic of crime and punishment so important to Salvian? It was because, at the back of Salvian’s mind, there lay a lingering conviction that, in some way or other, the Roman empire was the Israel of modern times. Like the ancient Israel, it was a rare state subject to the peculiar care of God. This fact conferred a state of privilege on the inhabitants of the surviving territories of the empire. But it also laid a heavy responsibility upon them. [442]

“The Romana republica is now dead… strangled as if by thugs, with the bonds of taxes.” [448]

[On rich Romans taking advantage of poorer Romans by taking title to their lands] “Salvian had no objection to patronage in itself… But to turn a free client into a slave in this way went against the whole grain of his view of society. As we have seen, the Gallic consensus on theology had assumed a view of society that accepted sharp assymetries as long as the partners remained free agents. The relation of patron and client provided the root metaphor for the relations between God and human beings… Dependence on God was not the same thing as slavery.” [449]

In the Gaul of the early sixth century, to reassure monks that they could be bishops meant persuading them that the wealth of the church had come to stay. It was there. The only issue was how to deal with it. Pomerius went out of his way to prove that involvement with the wealth of the church need not pollute them or detract from their spiritual life. It was possible to be both a contemplative and an administrator. [485]

Regarding the rise of “managerial bishops”: Yet none of these advantages could be taken for granted. They had to be fought for. What the situation demanded was a bishop who was prepared to take the offensive. First, he had to have skilled lawyers at his disposal in order to hold onto what he received… Hence, the importance of the emergence of a new figure in the landscape of wealth—the rise of what may best be called “the managerial bishop.”[497]

As givers, the laity came to insist that the clergy should be clearly other to themselves. If they were not, gifts to the churches would not work for the relief of the sins of the givers. [517]

[Jeremy Garber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Brown provides a beautifully written and sprawling survey of the changing sociological landscape of third through sixth century Western Christianity and its attitudes toward the relationship between theology and wealth. He traces this journey from the original Roman model of the wealthy contributing to the good of the city through patronage. Then the rising model of charismatic leaders from without the community, which brought the problem of donated wealth. Brown also outlines the Augustinian establishment (which regarded wealth as a neutral asset) and its clash with Pelagian theology of free will (which rejected wealth as sinful). Then, in the 4th century, as the churches gained wealth, bishops enter as power players in society through “pastoral power.” After the fall of central Rome in the fifth century, the waning pagan empire warred with the growing power of bishops in local contexts. As the power and wealth of the church grew, there was a movement from care of the literal poor to care of the community more generally, and then to care of the church property and the clergy itself. In a final parallel theological move, there was a shift from lay donations for the good of the community to donations solely for the donor’s individual good in the afterlife.

Brown is, simply put, a lovely writer. His writing is eminently readable despite its broad spread (and its 107 pages of notes, 76 pages of Works Cited, and a 40-page index!). Brown is especially good at the pithy summary of a writer or historical period, supported by a humorous and/or relevant quote. His command of the language and its thought world is also obvious and helpful. Finally, his organization provides a fine model for the future writer. Although the book is quite large, it would be an excellent survey for the casual reader or a religious community discussion group. Chapters would also be very apropos for an upper-level undergraduate or graduate course in the relationship between theology and wealth. Highly recommended.

[Caracalla · Rating 4 out of 5]

High four. A simply Herculean effort of scholarship that perhaps likes the coherence or ambition I thought it would have: I kinda wanted it to make good on its promise of explaining the formation of Modern views on wealth/materialism in at least a more obvious and precise way. Brown was on the other hand dealing with an absolutely massive corpus of material: the archaeology, the treatises, sermons and letters of Augustine, the sermons of Ambrose, Jerome's oeuvre, even the 900 letters of Symmachus (he's not too interested in the Confessio/City of God of Augustine but that's because they're not too evocative of praxis). The heart of the book is kinda microscopically focussed on things like the Pelagian controversy and Ambrose's episcopate and this focus makes things rather narrative. Brown is very shrewd in his account though, avoiding reading anything as 'inevitable,' and that definitely counts for something. Nothing I've read has given such insight into the Late Antique world also. I think other accounts suffer from focussing on broader periods. The issue of wealth brings us to a nexus of political and spiritual concerns that Brown makes very tractable. I think the scholarship on balance is very good and very engaging, unusually so. Not much I've read gets that balance between readability, technicality and precision as right as this, in fact almost nothing. I guess Late Antiquity is something i'll just have to pay more attention to, primarily through Brown's other works (and maybe Augustine himself).

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a massive, subtle examination of the changing position of the Church and Christians in area of the Latin-speaking Roman Empire as regards the appropriation of wealth from the reign of Constantine to the end of the sixth century. Simply put, Brown propounds the idea that up until the fourth century the Church saw wealth as opposed to holiness, a position which changed by the mid-sixth century when a much richer Church saw its wealth as something to be managed in its own interests as Christ's representative on earth.

Brown accomplishes this task by citing sources and telling stories representative of the process he discerns. Here he appears thorough, familiar with the literatures of the period covered and with current scholarship. In other words, his is an expository study--a study as good as the available data which, sadly, is not anywhere near thorough.

Personally, given that the subject is intrinsically economic, I would have preferred a Marxist analysis, if only as a straw man to hold up against the available evidence. Unfortunately, Brown does not address such materialist theories, his text going slowly, back and forth between economic, political, sociological and ideological perspectives.

[Adrian Buck · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the the king in the north the charge is made the adoption of Christianity in Norhumbria weakened the state and ultimately made it vulnerable to Viking invasion. This was a side effect of the tax exemption enjoyed by monasteries. As more land was gifted to monasteries, the tax base was reduced and the state was unable to support the military that defended it. I wondered if this process was also true of Rome, that the adoption of Christianity led to the fall of the Empire in the west through Barbarian invasion.
So far Brown's narrative runs against this in two ways. Firstly, he doesn't see Rome on the fifth century as a fully Christian society, Christianity way a important force in Rome, but the Empire was still secular. Secondly, civil war was a more important cause of the fall of Rome in the West than Barbarian Invasion. Indeed as in post Roman Britain, the barbarians were invited in to assist in the civil war. The tax base diminished not because through endowment of the Church, but through loyalty to Rome being broken and replaced with loyalties to local leaders.

[Saúl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha dejado muy buen sabor de boca este ensayo de Peter Brown, uno de los mayores especialistas en la Antigüedad tardía. Estamos ante una obra monumental,no solo por su extensión, sino también por su ambición al relatar hechos acaecidos en un largo periodo histórico del que disponemos de pocas fuentes y en ocasiones muy mediatizadas por su procedencia.
Tomando como pretexto la riqueza y sus distintas formas de conseguirla y gastarla, Brown nos narra cómo se fue produciendo el cambio de una sociedad pagana a una sociedad cristiana, mientras el Imperio romano occidental se derrumbaba. Y para ello toma como referencia la vida de varios destacados actores de esa época (clérigos, pensadores, nobles, ricos): Símaco, Paulino de Nola, San Agustín, Jerónimo, Pelagio, Ambrosio...
Estamos ante una obra muy densa que se lee con relativa facilidad, porque en pocos momentos se hace farragosa o pesada, ya que Brown es eficaz a la hora de presentarnos pequeñas anécdotas y fijar el contexto histórico en breves pinceladas para hacernos mantener la atención en lo que nos quiere contar.
En definitiva, en mi caso particular, el autor se puede sentir satisfecho ya que ha conseguido el objetivo que pretendía: trasladarme a una época histórica muy compleja pero apasionante.

[Anderson Sulewski · Rating 3 out of 5]

My god what a tome!

I feel bad giving this rating to the book, it's well-written and meticulously researched by one of the foremost scholars of the late Roman empire... it just wasn't for me. Anyone looking for an in-depth analysis of the social history of the church during the late classical era will love this book. Alternatively, if you'd like a character and works study on the likes of Augustine, Jerome, Salvian, Symmachus etc then this can also be of value to you too. However, if you're a casual reader of academic works or just a popular history fan then this might not be the best for you.

Despite this not being the goal, the parts that were most interesting were on the fall of the Roman empire. Brown presents a case that the Roman empire was destroyed by civil war rather than barbarian invasion as is typically depicted. The 410 Gothic sack of Rome was just another Roman army storming a city to capture its wealth for campaign.

The book is full of these myth-busting chapters and can be really insightful for some of the debates around this period. Well worth a read if you're an academic studying the time period. I'm glad this one is behind me

[Edoardo Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book for which the word 'magisterial' was coined. Except... Except magisterial, to my ear at least, now carries some undertones of something worthy and a little dull, and Peter Brown is never, ever dull. Never, not through 700 odd pages. And this is a view, with all the clarity of a pin-hole camera, of a an odd age indeed: when Roman antiquity was struggling into the middle ages, the Empire kicking and struggling and, above all, money gathering against the dawning of the light. The subtitle gives the subject: wealth, the fall of Rome and the making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD, but gives no hint of the wealth and wit of the insights within. You want strange new worlds: read this book. What's particularly interesting - and an unspoken rejoinder to Gibbon's thesis - is how even an officially Christian Empire remained, at its tax gathering, money raising heart, determinedly, stubbornly pagan. This is history at its best. Even if the subject doesn't grab you, read it, for Peter Brown's ability to bring the past and its people and cultures to life is without peer.

[Gerry Connolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Brown’s Through the Eye of The Needle is a dense tome of the evolution of Christian thought about wealth and poverty from 350 AD through 550 AD. Church figures Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Paulinus and Pelagius debate the idea propounded by Mathew that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to pass into heaven. Some argued that total renunciation of wealth and riches was required others that donations to the poor and the church were sufficient. All this as the Roman system is disintegrating. The Sack of Rome in 410 is followed by Rome’s last emperor in 436 and the Roman Senate’s last consultum in 532. The church emerges ironically from the mayhem as the wealthiest and most powerful institution in the West. Renunciation of wealth recedes as a precept of faith. A slog but worth it.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magisterial, well-written, but perhaps a little too detailed for the common reader. Brown seems to be making up a field of study as much as actually studying a field, which is of course very impressive, but I also found myself wondering what exactly he was looking at--there are lots of texts and ideas, and a few biographies and lives, and perhaps not quite enough broader social history for my taste (I mean not quite enough proportionally: there's plenty in there, and it's very good).

But holy hell is this book too long.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historians of the period seem to be awe struck by Brown's newest book. I guess because they are aware of the extent of scholarship demonstrated as well as the newness of his arguments in a way I'm not. I think it was a bit overwhelmingly detailed for me. Do note that while the book is long, it is not as long as it appears since 200 pages of the page count are back matter.