In this full-length study of the early history of greed Richard Newhauser challenges the traditional view that avarice only became a dominant sin with the rise of a money economy. He shows that avaritia, the sin of greed for possessions, was dominant in a wide range of theological and literary texts from the first century CE, and that by the early Middle Ages avarice headed the list of vices for authors aiming to convert others from pagan materialism to Christian spirituality.