What of the poor? How are we to witness to our poor neighbors? What is the message of the gospel for them? And what is the message of the gospel for us, in terms of how we live, how we spend our money, and whom we identify as our neighbor? What is our responsibility to the poor, the sick, the dying, and the grieving? How are we to communicate the gospel to them in both word and deed? What of the gap between the rich and poor? What of the issue of private ownership of property and other forms of wealth? None of these questions would have been foreign to early Christian leaders, for in many ways their world was similar to ours.

For instance, both the contemporary North American world and the Greco-Roman world of early Christianity are marked by a self-centered and self-indulgent materialism. Both are sexually fevered and confused. Extravagance and self-indulgence characterize both ages, without the church and within. One thinks of the Roman emperor Vitellius, formerly the male prostitute of Tiberius, avid gambler, master of ceremonies for Nero's debut on the Roman stage, and notorious glutton. Suetonius describes a particularly costly night out:

The most notorious feast of the series was given him by his brother on his entry into Rome: 2,000 magnificent fish and 7,000 game birds are said to have been served. Yet even this hardly compares in luxuriousness with a single tremendously large dish which Vitellius dedicated to the goddess Minerva and named 'Shield of Minerva the Protectress.' The recipe called for pike livers, pheasant brains, peacock brains, flamingo tongues, and lamprey milt; and the ingredients, collected in every corner of the empire from the Parthian frontier to the Spanish Strait (Straits of Gibraltar), were brought to Rome by warships.

Vitellius survived his binges through the use of emetics, but one feels for his friends. We sympathize with Quintus Vibius Crispus, a frequent host for Vitellius' prolonged suppers, who "was once compelled by illness to absent himself for some days from the convivial board. But this, he commented privately to an associate, had saved his life. 'If I had not fallen ill,' he declared, 'I should have died.'"

The question of wealth and poverty remained a burning issue for the early Christian community. Should Christians retain their possessions? Was the possession of property lawful or not? How much was too much? Was a rich Christian a contradiction in terms? Could one follow Christ wholeheartedly without giving up one's possessions to the poor? What was the Christian's responsibility to the poor?

These questions were particularly difficult to resolve because the Scriptures themselves seemed to be ambiguous. On the one hand, Jesus warned against the danger of riches and occasionally called individuals to give up all they possessed to follow him (Mk. 10:17-22). Riches could clearly blur one's ability to perceive the kingdom of God: "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Mk. 10:24-25 NIV).

On the other hand, Jesus freely ate and drank with the wealthy. He was not averse to accepting the financial support of close, well-to-do friends (Lk. 8:1-3). If there were no Christians with money, one might ask, how could the church have aided the poor? But how did the church fathers interpret Scripture as they attempted to deal with the difficult issue of wealth and poverty?

Clement of Alexandria (died c.215), the first great Alexandrian exegete, addressed the issue of wealth and poverty in his exegesis of Matthew 19:24, the difficult saying of Jesus concerning the plight of the rich: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (NIV). If this is so, Clement asks, what hope is there for the rich? Will not Jesus' teaching discourage them from even investigating the gospel?

Some who hear this saying will give up all hope of attaining eternal life, surrender themselves totally to the world, cling to the present life as if it were the only thing left to them, and so move farther away from the path to the life to come, no longer inquiring either whom the Lord and Master calls rich, or how that which is impossible to man becomes possible to God...[The exegete] must first with good reasons relieve them of their groundless despair, providing them with satisfactory explanations of the Lord's sayings, and showing them that they are not quite cut off from inheriting the kingdom of heaven.

Clement solves the seemingly impossible commandment of Christ, at least for many in his rich audience, by moving beyond the literal meaning of the text. Some people "hastily interpret it," limiting their interpretation to the literal command "that [the man of wealth] should throw away what he possesses and renounce his wealth." By keeping to the literal sense they bypass the more important meaning. "What he is told to banish from his soul are his notions about wealth, his attachment to it, his excessive desire for it, his morbid excitement over it, and his anxieties-those thorns of existence which choke the seed of true life."

Poverty in and of itself, Clement writes, is no guarantee of sound character or of an open disposition to God's kingdom and priorities. If poverty itself were praiseworthy or "enviable," poor beggars by the roadside "would be the most blessed of men, the dearest to God, the sole possessors of eternal life, merely in virtue of their complete lack of any ways or means of livelihood and of their want of the smallest necessities." And is the elevation of poverty itself as a sign of virtue a distinctly Christian characteristic? "Many did this before the Savior's coming, some to have leisure for the pursuit of dead wisdom, others to gain empty fame and vainglory- men like Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Crates."

Why would Christ give such a command to the rich? Would the mere giving up of one's possessions open the door to perceiving the essence of Christ's kingdom? Clement thinks not. Other people of old had done this very thing without increasing their spiritual discernment and comprehension one whit. Getting rid of wealth does not mean that one will cease to "lust and hanker for it." Hence, if the literal meaning of the text fails to make adequate sense, Clement believes, we must look beneath its surface. What do we find?

If there is something extraordinary that the new creation, the Son of God, reveals and teaches, then it cannot be the outward action that he is commanding; others have done that. It must be something else that is being indicated through it -something greater, more divine and more perfect. It is the stripping off of the passions from the soul itself and from its disposition; all that is alien must be uprooted and expelled from the mind.

What good is it, Clement asks, to rid oneself of riches if one's internal life is a disaster? Might not the poor person be trapped by envy and greed while the rich person experiences genuine poverty of heart? That is, poverty continually tempts the poor person to meet his needs through whatever means presents itself. "For when someone lacks the necessities of life he cannot but be broken in spirit; he will have not time for better things since he will make every effort to procure what he needs however and whenever he can." Clement's allegorical exegesis, he would contend, has uncovered the genuine meaning of Jesus' teaching.

Origen (185-254), another great exegete from Alexandria, first looks at Matthew's text on a literal level and then proceeds to an allegorical reading. Note, Origen instructs his readers, that Jesus does not say that a rich man will not enter the kingdom of God. If he had done so, the rich would have been excluded. Rather, Jesus makes it plain that salvation for the rich is "difficult." Why? It is only with great difficulty that the rich can "resist their passions and sinful inclinations and not allow themselves to be dominated by them."

Origen then explores what he terms "the figurative sense" of the passage. If the rich man is interpreted figuratively, why is his salvation so difficult? Why is its difficulty compared to that of a camel passing through a needle's eye?

The kingdom of heaven is likened to the eye of a needle to indicate how extremely narrow and tight the entrance into the kingdom of heaven is for the rich man. The Lord, then, declares that it is impossible for the camel to enter the eye of a needle; but since all things are possible with God, he makes such an entry possible either by trimming the fat of evil with his ineffable power or by widening the narrow entry.

As the passions of the rich and their inordinate desire for more and more are trimmed by the power of the gospel, their entrance into the kingdom becomes a possibility, difficult though it may be.

How do other early Christian exegetes handle the same question? Jerome (347-420) writes that Christ's command for the rich man to give away all that he possesses to obtain treasure in heaven is a call to "careful stewardship." The choice to give away one's possessions is up to the individual; "full freedom of choice is left to every individual, whether old or young." Jerome views Christ's command as addressed to those who would pursue perfection:

What he means is: I do not compel you. I do not command you, but I set the palm of victory before you, I show you the prize. It is for you to decide whether you will enter the arena and win the crown...And when you have sold them, what then? "Give to the poor." Not to the rich, not to your relatives, not to minister to self-indulgence, but to relieve the needs of others... Let your praises come from the stomachs of the hungry and not from the rich banquets of the overfed...It is yours to clothe Christ in the poor, to visit him in the sick, to feed him in the hungry, to shelter him in the homeless.

Jerome appears less concerned about the practical problems of Christ's command, solving its difficulties by assigning its intent to those who would pursue perfection through the exercise of their own free choice. By relegating the command to the counsels of perfection Jerome averts the need to allegorize the passage.

Augustine (354-430), too, sees a higher call to perfection issued to the rich young man by Christ. The rich who do not respond to this higher call can still enter the kingdom if they remain faithful in their adherence to the commandments. "Why, then, do we refuse to admit that the rich, although far from that perfection, nevertheless enter into life if they keep the commandments, and give that it may be given to them, forgive that they may be forgiven?" It is not so much riches as one's inner disposition toward them that points a person toward heaven or hell. The rich man, for example, who ignores the needs of the beggar at his gate, is blinded by his pride. "It was pride, not his riches, that brought the rich man to the torments of hell, because he despised the good poor man who lay at his gate." For Augustine, the seeming impossibility of Christ's command only accentuates the need for God's grace:

[W]hether they retain their riches and do their good works by means of them, or enter into the kingdom of heaven by selling them and distributing them to provide for the needs of the poor, let them attribute their good works to the grace of God, not to their own strength. What is impossible for men is easy, not for men, but for God.

Augustine and other church fathers differ in their reliance upon allegory in making sense of Christ's command, but are one in the applications they draw from the text. All would be shocked, for example, by the idea that God promises to bless us materially if we are faithful to him in our giving. As Augustine comments disapprovingly, "There are many such who even think that the Christian religion ought to help them to increase their riches and multiply earthly delights."

Ambrose (340-397) takes a different tack in approaching Christ's command. Why should the rich be sorrowful over Christ's command to give their riches to the poor? Instead, Ambrose beckons the rich to remember that "your wealth may be snatched from you by death, wrested from you by the power of some greater one; consider too how you are asked to give little for much, the transitory for the eternal, treasure of money which is corruptible for the treasure of grace which lasts."

Have not the rich lost all sense of proportion in their self-indulgence? Ambrose asks. Their riches have blinded them to the needs of the poor, daily paraded before their very noses.

You give coverings to walls and bring men to nakedness. The naked cries out before your house unheeded; your fellow man is there, naked and crying, while you are perplexed by the choice of marble to clothe your floor. A poor man begs for money in vain; your fellow man is there, begging bread, and your horse champs gold between his teeth. Other men have no corn; your fancy is held by precious ornaments. What a judgment you draw upon yourself! The people are starving, and you shut your barns; the people are groaning, and you toy with the jewel upon your finger. Unhappy man, with the power but not the will to rescue so many souls from death, when the price of a jeweled ring might save the lives of a whole populace.

What might John Chrysostom (347-407), archbishop of Constantinople, add to the discussion? Why does the rich young man finally walk away from Christ? Chrysostom asks. Why is he unable to give away his possessions? The problem, Chrysostom believes, is that the young man is trapped by what he possesses. His love for his many possessions tyrannizes him, blinding him to the treasure he would receive from Christ if only he would follow.

Jesus tells the young man that he will receive heavenly treasure if only he will release his hold on his earthly wealth. "He called it a treasure, showing the plenteousness of the recompense, its permanency, its security, so far as it was possible by human similitudes to intimate it to the hearer."

The young man's many possessions, however, harden his spiritual eardrums and render him deaf to Christ's invitation. His riches are actually his poverty. "Which thing I cease not always saying, that the increase of acquisitions kindles the flame more, and renders the getters poorer, as it puts them in greater desire, and makes them have more feeling of their want." The problem, Chrysostom insists, is not riches themselves, "but them that are held in subjection by them."

Can the rich enter the kingdom of God? Only through the grace of God: "Whence it is shown, that there is no ordinary reward for them that are rich, and are able to practice self command. Wherefore also He affirmed it to be a work of God, that He might show that great grace is needed for him who is to achieve this."

It is interesting to note that Chrysostom's interpretation differs only slightly from Alexandrian fathers such as Clement and Origen. Both they and he believe Jesus is warning his audience that riches are spiritual dynamite. Money and possessions too easily become the dominant focus of the wealthy as objects of devotion and allegiance; if one is to exercise an inordinate, unmeasured desire, let it be for God and nothing else.

Chrysostom, of all the fathers, is perhaps most practical and specific in the applications he draws from these texts. How can Jesus' impossible command become possible for the Christian? How can a person whose life has revolved around the acquisition of riches follow Jesus' advice to the rich young man? Chrysostom's counsel is to take things in stages. Perhaps begin, Chrysostom advises, by getting rid of what is "superfluous." In this way one will "advance further" and "run on his course more easily afterwards...Do not then seek all at once, but gently, and by little and little, ascend this ladder, that leads you up to heaven."

Those who are rich are plagued by an insatiable thirst for more money and possessions. Chrysostom suggests that we slowly choke off the desire for more by purposefully refraining from adding to what we already possess and genuinely do not need. Over time the desire for wealth will gradually diminish, just as a flame will flicker and finally die if its source of oxygen is cut off. Desire, Chrysostom insists, can be changed as we shift the focus of our love from one form of treasure to another:

Therefore that we may not have superfluous sorrows, let us forsake the love of money that is ever paining, and never endures to hold its peace, and let us remove ourselves to another love, which both makes us happy, and has great facility, and let us long after the treasures above.

Chrysostom also reminds his audience that God will judge those who pursue riches at the expense of more important priorities. Hell awaits. And yet is not the pursuit of wealth a kind of hell on earth? How many households have been "overthrown" through the unbridled pursuit of riches? How many wars have been "stirred up" by greed? How many souls have been deformed by envy and avarice? Yes, "silver is bright." The rich "possess many servants and live in grand houses. The eyes of all are upon them in the marketplace." They are the celebrities of the age. But what price do they pay for this homage?

If you consider how these things affect your soul, how dark, and desolate, and foul they render it, and how ugly; if you consider how many evils were committed to obtain these things, and how much work it takes to keep them, with how many dangers; indeed, can they be kept at all? Death will come to you and remove all these things. They will end up in the hands of your enemies...When you see any one resplendent outwardly with fine clothes and people in attendance, lay open his conscience. You will find many cobwebs within, and much dust.

Can any possession or treasure be worth exclusion from Christ's kingdom? Lands? Gold? Mountains? Slaves? Baths? Chariots covered with silver or gold? The entire world? In comparison to Christ's kingdom all these things are no more than a "dung heap."

In fact, Chrysostom jokes, one can at least use dung for fertilizing a field or heating a bath. What purpose does buried gold serve? It is not only worthless, but actually can harm its possessor. Best to treat wealth with caution and store up lasting treasure in the kingdom of God.

Christopher A. Hall is associate professor of biblical and theological studies at Eastern College in St. David's, Pa. Hall adapted this article from his book Reading Scripture With the Church Fathers (1998, InterVarsity Press). Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-www.ivpress.com).