"Through the Eye of a Needle" by Peter Brown. A Review
Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD Peter Brown Princeton University Press 41 William Street Princeton, New Jersey 08540 USA https://press.princeton.edu ISBN: 9780691161778; $24.95; 2012 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 Chr...