Into the general economic changes which began to operate toward the end of our period it is not our purpose to enter, but it is worth notice that the efforts made by the Church to save itself in the general ruin which overtook the ancient world, chiefly the institution of monasticism, were such as to secure more firmly than ever the hold of the Church upon society. The Church rapidly became an economic factor of the first importance. The only secure basis of lasting social influence is economic. Christianity by teaching the virtues of honesty, frugality, simplicity, and charity laid the foundations of her subsequent triumph, and when she had great societies of men and women working hard and living plainly and adding all their accumulations to institutions belonging to the Church and directly under the supervision and control of the ecclesiastical authority, the Church paved the way for her subsequent domination of the civil government. Monastic communism, being economically superior to Chiliastic Communism, inevitably superseded it. FOOTNOTES: [1] Cf. Plato, Laws, V, 742. Aristotle, Politics, 1:X, XI. Cicero, De Officus, II, XXV. Seneca, De Beneficus, VII, X. [2] Acts IV. [3] I. Cor. vii 30. [4] Rom. xiii 3. [5] Jas. Chap. V. [6] Chaps. 21-22. [7] Chap. xxxviii. [8] Did. IV. 8. [9] Barn. XIV. 16. [10] Schaff, Vol. 1. [11] Past. V. vi. 6. [12] Past. S. IX. XXX. 5. [13] Past III. 2. [14] Apol. I. IV. [15] Apol. I. xiv. [16] De Mort. Per. XIV. [17] Apol. XXXIX. [18] Eus., E. H., V. 18. [19] De Lapsis, VI. [20] See Pronouncement of the Sacred Penitentiary, 11 Feb., 1832. [21] Sir James Macintosh. [22] Civil Disabilities of the Jews. [23] Lourie, Monuments of the Early Church, Chap. II. [24] Lourie, _ibid._ [25] Cf. Hypolytus. [26] A. Loria. Cf. Economic Basis of Society. (Int.) [27] Cf. A. Loria, Economic Foundations of Society. (Int.) [28] Circa 200(?). [29] Cf. K. Marx, Das Kapital, Vol. 1. [30] F. Nitti in Catholic Socialism. [31] Phaedus, The Laws, in Strom. II, 6. [32] Chap. XIV. [33] Chap. XXXI. [34] Chrysostom, Sermons Rich Man and Lazarus, etc. [35] Jerome, Commentaries. [36] Gregory, Pastoralis Cura. [37] Laborare est orare. [38] Chap. I. [39] E.g., Clement and Hermas. CHAPTER III THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE POPULACE The transformation of early Christianity from an eschatological to a socialized movement was the result of the interaction of three social groups--three 'publics'--the Jewish, the Pagan, and the Christian. It was a single movement, working itself out through these three 'crowds'. Christianity, like all other great religions, was in its first beginnings essentially a mob phenomenon--that is to say it was a very slow movement which had a long history back of it.