30 How the Church Has Changed the World can translate the proverb in this way: “People who cringe and who don’t belong here might be sent by that master of justice—and cunning. We’d better watch out.” But Jesus the journeying preacher from dusty Palestine had changed all that forever, at least for those who profess to follow him. “Blessed are the poor,” he said, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And if you’re too rich to beg, your well-laden camel might find entry into its gates a bit tight. The pagans understood, deep down, that there was something at least uneasy about riches. Menelaus, in the Odyssey, is a very rich man—but not much of a man. Socrates didn’t own much, but he did cadge dinners at the homes of his rich young patrons. Yes, the pagans understood it, somewhere, somehow, just as pagans nowadays understand it. Such understanding is cheap. Basil had long been doing thework of Christian charity. Here’s how his dear friend, Saint Gregory of Nazianzen, described it: "He gathered together the victims of the famine with some who were but slightly recovering from it, men and women, infants, old men, every age which was in distress, and obtaining contributions of all sorts of food which can relieve famine, set before them basins of soup and such meat as was found preserved among
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