Almsgiving, aiding the poor with money or gifts in kind for theological reasons, is a practice with resonance for every era of ecclesiastical history. But the discourse and practice of almsgiving developed in the late antique Church, which drew on, distanced itself from, and came to replace classical notions of doing good works, is particularly influential for later Christian practice in both east and west. In this impressively comprehensive survey, Richard Finn looks at the promotion of almsgiving in a wide range of sermons, biblical commentaries, saints' Lives, apocryphal acta, treatises and letters, including the works of Lactantius, Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Augustine, Palladius, Theodoret, Cyril of Alexandria, Leo and, above all, Basil the Great, the two Gregories, Ambrose and Jerome. He isolates and examines the roles of the different actors in the late antique Christian almsgiving drama: bishops and their clerical assistants, monks, virgins and widows, lay Christians (particularly upper-class lay Christians), and the imperial household. He shows how Christian discourse characteristically attempts to turn the beneficiaries, too, into actors rather than merely passive recipients, by presenting them as brethren or children to the benefactors, fellow-servants of God, or as being in the guise of Christ himself. Underlying the whole study is the contrast (a contrast Christians themselves made explicit) between Christian almsgiving and classical euergetism. Finn does glance at the latter tradition as expressed in Plato and Cicero, as well as the reactions of contemporary writers such as Themistius, Ammianus Marcellinus, Libanius and particularly the emperor Julian to the Christian almsgiving tradition, though classicists may feel that their voice has been insufficiently heard. But this is partly a consequence of the book's necessarily sketchy treatment of so broad a sweep of material. Every section, indeed, almost every paragraph, of the book could spawn a further study, a testament both to Finn's achievement and to the relative dearth of previous systematic scholarship on the subject. As Finn himself notes in his conclusion, where almsgiving has been studied, it has generally suffered from the theology/ecclesiastical history divide: almsgiving rhetoric has been the preserve of theologians, while historians have tried (and failed) to address its economic impact. It could be argued that Finn gives up too easily on the latter task, remaining to some extent imprisoned by the elite voices who speak through most of his sources. Twenty years ago, in keeping with the then concerns of classical studies and theology alike, this book might have examined the politics rather than the rhetoric of almsgiving, and benefited a little more from the insights of feminism and Marxism, whose questions seem resolutely excluded at certain moments. A look at the roots of the episcopacy in the model of the slave/overseer of the household, giving his fellow-servants their food in due time during the absence of the Master, might have helped to make sense of the double role of bishops and widows alike as both givers and receivers of alms. But these are quibbles: this is a book every scholar interested in the history of almsgiving should have on her bookshelves, and it is to be hoped it will be granted an appearance in paperback so that students and practitioners of apostolic poverty can afford it too.