“They (the Christians) love one another, and from the widows they do not turn away their countenance, and they rescue the orphan ... and he who has, gives to him who has not without grudging ... and if they hear that any of their number is imprisoned or oppressed for the name of their Messiah, all of them provide for his needs.... And if there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and they have not an abundance of necessaries, they fast two or three days, that they may supply the needy with their necessary food.”[68]--_Apol._ xv. _Hermas_--_Shepherd_--_circa_ A.D. 135-40: “You know that you, servants of God, dwell in a foreign land, for your city is far from this city. If, then, you know the city where you are to dwell, why provide yourselves here with fields and costly luxuries? He who makes such provision for this city has no mind to return to his own city.... Instead of fields, then, buy souls in trouble as each of you is able. Visit widows and orphans, and neglect them not; expend on such fields and houses, God has given you your wealth and all your gains. The Master endowed you with riches that you might perform such ministries for Him. “Far better is it to buy fields, possessions, houses of this kind. Thou wilt find them in thine own city when thou dost visit it. Such expenditure is noble and joyous: it brings gladness, not fear and sorrow.”--Simil. i. Harnack, _Mission, etc., of Christianity_ (book ii. chap. i.), commenting on this passage of the _Shepherd_, has an interesting and suggestive Note, in which he says: “For all the vigour of his counsel, however, it never occurs to Hermas that the distinction between the rich and the poor should cease within the Church. This is plain from the next Similitude or Parable (ii.). The saying of Jesus, too, S. John xii. 8, ‘The poor ye have always with you,’ shows that the abolition of the distinction between rich and poor was never contemplated in the Church.” _Hermas_--_Shepherd_.--“Not hesitating as to whom you are to give or not to give, for God wishes His gifts to be shared by all.”--Comm. 2. “Rescuing the servants of God from necessities--being hospitable, for in hospitality good-doing finds a field.”--Comm. 8. _Polycarp_--_Epistle_ (written early in the second century): “In love of the brotherhood, kindly affectioned one to another ... when ye are able to do good, defer it not, for pitifulness delivereth from death.”--_Epistle_, 10.