632 HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 



theory which tells us that it is economic conditions I mean food, 

 the supply of food, and the place where it can be obtained which 

 ultimately determine all intellectual life and all higher development, 

 including that of religion? I must not try within the limits of this 

 lecture to explain my reasons for declining to accept such a theory. 

 I may say, however, that it seems to me to be refuted by the mere 

 fact that the most material element acting upon man always produces 

 feelings and ideas which themselves act as forces in their turn, and 

 stand in no simple proportionate relation to their material causes. 

 Moreover, as long as men continue to sacrifice their possessions, their 

 blood, and their life, for ideal aims, it will be impossible for any one 

 to maintain the materialistic view of history except with the help of 

 sophisms. 



But although we decline to explain everything that happens by 

 the play of economic conditions, we may still gratefully acknowledge 

 that this latest, the economic, view of history has shed and will con- 

 tinue to shed a great deal of light on the history of the church. Let 

 me show what I mean by a few examples. The great extension of 

 Christianity in the early centuries cannot be explained without 

 keeping the social and economic views and practices of the Christian 

 communities in view. Every one of these communities not only tried 

 to relieve the poor, to provide for widows and orphans, the sick, the 

 weak, those who were out of work or persecuted, etc., but it was also 

 a regular association for mutual help. By the union of all these com- 

 munities in the Empire into a firm alliance with one another a social 

 organism arose which could not fail to attract, in the highest degree, 

 the economically unfortunate. That this is really what happened is 

 shown by pagan writers themselves. It was shown, for instance, by 

 Lucian in his Peregrinus Proteus. 



But not only did the church step in where social relations were 

 concerned ; its thoughts and ideas were also determined by its attitude 

 in questions of economics. iThe distrust which the church shows 

 toward wealth and capital is in part to be explained by the poverty 

 of the early communities; and here, too, its theories about earthly 

 possessions have one of their roots. When it afterwards came to 

 number both rich and poor in its ranks, it retained that distrust. 

 This had a very paradoxical result: The dangers of wealth, it was 

 said, exist only for the individual Christian; they do not exist for 

 the church, which is preserved from them by its sacred character. 

 There is no harm, then, in the church becoming rich. Rich, accord- 

 ingly, it became. Part of its wealth was due to the fact that in the 

 dark days of inner and outer convulsion a man's possessions and his 

 capital were still safest under its protection. Hence men often 

 handed over their property to the church, not only in order to save 

 their souls, but also to secure themselves from high-handed acts or 



