In the Christian tradition helping the poor is a requirement for salvation. Jesus told the rich man: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor." To make sure his message wasn't missed, he went on to say that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. He praised the good Samaritan who went out of his way to help a stranger. He urged those who give feasts to invite the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind. When he spoke of the last judgment, he said that God will save those who have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, and clothed the naked. It is how we act towards "the least of these brothers of mine" that will determine, Jesus says, whether you inherit the kingdom of God or go into the eternal fire. He places far more emphasis on charity for the poor than anything else.
Not surprisingly, early and medieval Christians took these teachings very seriously. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, proposed that those with a surplus should share with the needy, so that "your surplus at the present time should supply their needs, so that their surplus may also supply your needs, that there may be equality." The early Christian community in Jerusalem, according to the account given in The Acts of the Apostles, sold all their possessions and divided them according to need. The Franciscans, the order of monks founded by Francis of Assisi, took a vow of poverty and renounced all private property. Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval scholar whose ideas became the semi-official philosophy of the Roman Catholic church, wrote that whatever we have in "superabundance" - that is, above and beyond what will reasonably satisfy our own needs and those of our family, for the present and the foreseeable future - "is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance." In support of this view he quoted Ambrose, one of the four original "Great Doctors" or teachers of the church. He also cited the Decretum Gratiani, a twelfth century compilation of canon law, that contains the powerful statement: "The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry: the clothing you shut away, to the naked: and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless."
