774 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
he gave them was to take no money and to accept hospitality from all whom they deemed worthy.' Within the immediate circle of his friends the same principle to some extent held good, for not only did Jesus apparently give to the poor," but he himself was supported, at least in part, by devoted women.3 For Jesus was a poor man without home of his own,* and dependent upon others not only for support but for that hospi- tality which his own kinsmen seem to have refused or so to have offered as to have made its acceptance a confession of insanity.'
From one of these cases it would seem as if the renunciation of wealth was one of the conditions of joining the new society. But there are still others. The fishers of the lake were called to leave a prosperous business to become fishers of men.' Matthew left his octroi station near Capernaum' to follow Jesus, and even the money changers of the temple saw their tables overturned and their fellow monopolists fleeing before the Gal- lilean who had found his Father's house made into a den of thieves.*
It would not be at all strange, therefore, if from these teach- ings and facts men should have concluded that the pursuit of wealth was unchristian and wealth itself an evil rather than a good. And so men have thought in all times since the days of Jesus. The preaching of the church against wealth has been equaled only by its zeal to obtain it. Those early ascetics who saw in the body only evil, and who sought with Simon of the Pillar to please God by the hideous mortification of the flesh, have been far outnumbered by the multitude of men who have by vows of poverty as well as celibacy endeavored to make themselves acceptable in the eyes of God. Few have so far imitated St. Francis as to strip off wealth and clothes alike and start at the new birth as naked as the new babe, but every religious revival of the Middle Ages blossomed into fresh devo-
■ Luke 10:5-7. 'John 13:29. 'Luke 8:3.
♦Matt. 8:19, 20; Luke 9:57, 58- 5 Mark 3:21.
'Mark I : 16, 17; Matt. 4:18, 19. 'Matt. 8:9. 8 Mark. II : 17; Matt. 21 :I7; Luke 19:46.
