Early Christians and $

All week we’ve been thinking about James’s radical view of wealth and justice. Today we’re going to reflect on some of the earliest Christian writings about money. Sit with these and ask what God may be saying to you.

We who once took most pleasure in the means of increasing our wealth and property now bring what we have into a common fund and share with everyone in need; we who hated and killed one another and would not associate with men of different tribes because of [their different] customs, now after the manifestation of Christ live together and pray for our enemies.
- Justin Martyr, The First Apology, 14 (155 AD)

Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own. For if you have what is eternal in common, how much more should you have what is transient!
- The Didache, 4:8 (a discipleship handbook written about 150 AD)

I had some money, and I didn’t give it to the brother who wanted to borrow it. I knew that if I gave it to him, I should be harming his soul. I thought it better to transgress one commandment than ten.
- One of the 5th century desert fathers

When Macarius was living in Egypt (5th century AD), one day he came across a man who had brought a donkey to his cell and was stealing his possessions. As though he was a passer-by who did not live there, he went up to the thief and helped him to load the beast, and sent him peaceably on his way, saying to himself, ‘We brought nothing into this world (1 Tim. 6:7) but the Lord gave; as He willed, so it is done: blessed be the Lord in all things.’
- Benedicta Ward, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks