is equally impossible for the needs of the world —or, for that matter, of the community itself— to be supplied by these primitive ways of production. Communism, while it rejects the economic order surrounding it, still rests on that order. The factories, railways, great cities, and exchanges of commerce provide the very conditions which make it possible for the privileged few to retreat to a life of calm. It was the same with the monastic system. It could not be for the many, still less for all. The world's work had to go on, and the unproductive saints had to be, in large part, supported by the toiling and unsanctified world which lay about the monastery's walls. Christian communism then, even at its best, is not an advance, but a retreat. Its disciples deceive themselves with the impression that they have subdued the world, when in reality they have fled from the world. The only way out of economic disorders and imperfections is through them; and the Christian life in the present age must be sought, not in reversion to an impossible past, but in the creation of a better future. To these considerations must be added the fact that these supposed reproductions of primitive Christian economics have no adequate justification even in the Scriptural passages on which they appear to rest. The social life of the first disciples, when more closely scrutinized, is seen to have been something quite different from the rule of a monastic order with its vow of poverty, or of a modern society with its communal control of productive industry and family life. Indeed, it is quite contrary to the spirit of those first days of Christian discipleship to think of them as devoted to the establishing of any economic system or the prescribing of any fixed rule of social life. There is, in the first place, no evidence that what is reported of the little company at Jerusalem became in any degree a general practice, as though enjoined by the teaching of Jesus. No other instance of communal ownership is cited in the book of Acts; but, on the other hand, the mother of Mark continues to own her home in Jerusalem,1 and voluntary relief is sent from Antioch by "every man according to his ability."2 The apostle Paul knows nothing of such communistic regulations. "Let each man," he says, "do according as he hath purposed in his heart; not grudgingly, or of necessity." "Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper."4 "We command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread." 5 In short, the communism of the day of Pentecost, like the gift of tongues described in the same chapter, was a spontaneous, unique, and unrepeated manifestation of that elevation and unity of spirit which possessed the little company in the first glow of their new faith. Still further, this sharing of each other's possessions, which was thus 2 Acts xi. 29. 8 2 Cor. ix. 7. 5 2 Thess. iii. 12. 1 Acts xii. 12. tem. for the moment a sign of their perfect brotherhood, was even then no formal or compulsory sysThe narrative immediately goes on to say that one disciple, Barnabas, "having a field, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet," - singling this man out, it would appear, as unusually munificent. In the case of Ananias and Sapphira,2 it is not the keeping back part of the price of the land, but the lie to the Holy Ghost which is condemned. "Whiles it remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power?" This man and woman wanted to appear to have made the same exceptional sacrifice which had been praised in the case of Barnabas, and it was their fraudulent virtue, not the reserving of their private property, which made their sin so base. Thus the so-called communism of primitive Christianity was simply a glad, free, domestic relationship of generous aid and service, such as any modern Christian congregation might legitimately strive to imitate. It did not abolish distinctions of rich and poor, still less did it enter the sphere of productive industry. Its economics were those of a loving family. Each man might keep his own possessions, but "not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own." The hearts of the first believers were stirred to self-forgetful and self-sacrificing service, and the church. at Jerusalem soon became in such a degree a 1 Acts iv. 37. 2 Acts v. 1-10. 3 Acts v. 4. refuge for the poor that it was in need of missionary help from Gentile congregations. In all this, however, there is no warrant for identifying Christian faith with a single system of economic distribution. Gladly as Jesus would have welcomed that new glow of loyalty which had "all things common," and certainly as he would recognize the same self-effacing love in many an uncompetitive and unambitious community to-day, it is both impracticable and unhistorical to regard communism as that solution of the social question to which the New Testament is committed. Fortunately for the Christian life, Jesus does not shut it within the limits of any single social scheme, still less of a programme which can have no important place in the organization of the modern world.1 ... 1 It is as a rule assumed by interpreters of the New Testament with socialist sympathies that the communism of the book of Acts is a genuine anticipation of the modern protest against capitalism. Nitti, "Catholic Socialism," London, 1895, p. 62, "It is certain that the early Christians practised communism or community of goods. The first Christians did not seek to acquire wealth; like Christ, they sought to annihilate it. Christianity was a vast economic revolution more than anything else." Herron, "Between Cæsar and Jesus," p. 109, "Apostolic Christianity took seriously the economic facts of the spiritual life. Men understood that in becoming Jesus's disciples it was incumbent upon them to surrender private interests." Renan, "The Apostles" (tr. J. H. Allen, 1898), "The account in Acts is in perfect accord with what we know of the other ascetic religions, — Buddhism, for example, — which always begin with cenobitic (or communistic) life, the first adepts being a host of mendicant monks." Todt, "Der radikale deutsche Sozialismus und die christliche Gesellschaft," 2. Aufl., s. 70, "The first Christian community was penetrated by the thought of A second and more familiar way of applying the Christian spirit to the social question is the way of Christian philanthropy. The work of the unity of interests. Each strove for all and all for each. In this striving they were communists as our socialists are to-day." Yet Todt later, s. 188 ff., admits that this was no fixed or invariable rule. "The New Testament represents human liberty and accepts any form of property-holding which fulfils this condition, whether it be private property in real estate or communal ownership in the socialist sense." For the prevailing teaching of scientific socialists, see the abundant literature cited and the criticism offered in Köhler, "Sozialistische Irrlehren von der Entstehung des Christentums," 1899, s. 85 ff. 66 On the other hand, New Testament critics of the first rank are practically agreed in recognizing that no real analogy exists between the modern situation and the early Christian practice: Pfleiderer, "Urchristentum," 1887, s. 24; Weizsäcker, Apost. Zeitalter," 2. Aufl., 1892, s. 47; and the conclusive discussion of Wendt (Meyer's "Kommentar, Apostelgesch.," s. 102 and 120). See also, Rogge, "Der irdische Besitz im Neuen Testament," 1899, s. 73, "The Koivwvía of the first Christians is not an institution like the communism of the Essenes or Therapeutes, rather a condition marked, as Uhlhorn fittingly says, 'by absence of institutions.'" Uhlhorn, "Charity in the Early Church," p. 74, "We might as well speak of the institution of a community of goods in a family. the thought with which we are dealing is not an institution of a community of goods, but noble almsgiving." M. von Nathusius, "Die Mitarbeit der Kirche an der Lösung der sozialen Frage," 2. Aufl., 1897, s. 403, “The communism of the first congregation in Jerusalem consisted essentially in a point of view. No one said of those things which were his own that they were his own; but it must be recognized that the basis of this moral duty lay in the right to private property. The Christian must spend his private property for the general good." H. Holtzmann, in his elaborate study of this subject, "Die ersten Christen und die soziale Frage," 1882, goes still farther, concluding not only that (s. 30), "No compulsory abandonment of property relations or legally introduced commu◄ |