Re: The Early Christians: In Their Own Words

During this first period, these fighters, hated by all the world, were 
recruited from the lower middle class, the working class of freed slaves, 
and domestic and industrial slaves. It was unusual for people from the 
upper cl***** to join the Christian communities, until the end of the
first 
century when their number gradually increased. They came in considerable 
numbers only after the second century. In the time period covered by this 
book, the actual spreading of the movement was almost exclusively limited 
to the working class people. The value the church put on work was
reflected 
in the make-up of the member****p. Everyone was expected to earn his living

and to produce enough to help others in want. All had to work, for all had

to make offerings so that all might live. Therefore, the church had to 
provide jobs. This obligation to provide work shows how fully the
Christian 
communities shared their work and goods. Whoever was not willing to do the

work he was capable of – whoever “made his Christianity a business 
proposition” – was not tolerated in the communities. “An idler can never
be 
a believer.”