Catholics are often thought to be balancing uneasily between God and Mammon. In this book, specially written for the series, Christopher Hollis describes the Church's teaching on economics and the effect the Church has had and ought to have had on the development of the world’s economy. He begins his survey with the Gospels and the early Christians' exieriment in communal sharing of goods against the background of the teaching of the Jewish law on property. Subsequent chapters discuss the practice of the early Church, the teaching of the Fathers, the problem of slavery, and the economic structure of mediaeval Christendom and its condemnation of usury and the amassing of superfluous wealth. Post-Reformation developments such as the emergence of Catholic minorities and the pressure of Protestant bankers are described together with the Church's rejection of Calvinist theories in which grace and prosperity were closely linked. Leo XIII's great encyclical Rerum Novarum and the further clarification of social teaching under Pius XI and Pius XII are discussed together with the Church's response to contemporary challenges such as Communism, the nationalism of former colonial territories, aid to underdeveloped countries and the growth of population.