**Peter Brown *is the Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University. He is the author of Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton); The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity...

**Peter Brown *is the Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University. He is the author of Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton); The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200 *-1000; The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity; Treasure in Heaven: The Holy Poor in Early Christianity; and many other books.