DCHindley

Andrew,

I also noticed the following section of the book, which appears to have been added at the last minute (the forward to Foundations of Christianity is dated Sept 1908):

Kautsky expends numerous pages in refuting the "critic A.K., a doctor of theology, [who] published his objections in an article in Neue Zeit on So-called Primitive Christian Communism [Der soggenante urchristliche Kommunismus] (Vol.XXVI, No.2, p.482)." [Vol 2 included weekly articles between Apr-Sep 1908]

A.K. who on the news that a 2nd edition of Kautsky's book "Forerunners of Socialism" [Vorläufer Des Neueren Sozialismus (2 vols, 1895-7)] was in the works (the 2nd ed. was actually published in 1909), summarized the criticisms of the Introduction to Kautsky's first edition of the book, which, Kautsky says, "gave a brief account of the communism of primitive Christianity."

Presumably this A.K. was A. Kalthoff.

Below is Kautsky's refutation of A.K.'s criticism (his charges are bolded for effect):

First of all, it is objected that “the preaching of the Nazarene did not aim at economic revolution.”

How does A.K. know that? The Acts of the Apostles seem to him an unreliable source for descriptions of organizations whose origin is set in the period after the supposed death of Christ; but the Gospels, he thinks, which are in part later than Acts, are to give us a sure idea of the character of Christ’s words!

The same can be said for the Gospels as for Acts: what we can learn from them is the character of those who wrote them. In addition they may give reminiscences; and memories of organizations last longer than memories of words, and can not be distorted as easily.

Moreover we have seen that it is possible to find in the words attributed to Christ a character corresponding to the communism of the primitive community.

The particular doctrines of Jesus, of which we know virtually nothing definite, can not serve therefore to prove anything against the reality of communism.

Next A.K. tries very hard to have us believe that the practical communism of the Essenes, which the proletarians of Jerusalem had before their eyes, had no effect on them, but that the communistic theories of the Greek philosophers and thinkers had the deepest of influences on the uneducated proletarians of the Christian communities outside of Jerusalem and inculcated these communistic ideals, whose actuality they transposed into the past (as was the custom in that period), namely into the primitive community in Jerusalem.

Thus we are to believe that the educated imbued the proletarians with communism at a later time, when the practical image of communism had previously left them unmoved. It would require the very strongest of proofs to make this conception plausible; but what proofs there are, tend to the contrary. The more influence the educated have on Christianity, the further it gets from communism, as Matthew tells us and as we will later see in discussing the development of the community.

A.K. has entirely false notions of the Essenes. He says of the communistic Christian community of Jerusalem:

“It arouses our suspicions that this solitary communistic experiment was made precisely in a society consisting of Jews. Jews never made social experiments of this nature down to the beginning of our era; up to that time there was never a Jewish communism. Among the Greeks, however, theoretical and practical communism was nothing new.”

Our critic does not let it be known where he finds the practical communism of the Hellenes at the time of Christ. But it is downright incredible that he should find less communism among the Jews than among the Hellenes, when actually the Jews’ communism with its practical realization rises far above the communistic dreams of the Greeks. And it is obvious that A.K. has no suspicion of the fact that the Essenes were already mentioned a century and a half before Christ; he seems to believe that they first arose in Christ’s time!

Now these same Essenes, who are supposed to have had no influence on the practices of the Jerusalem community, are to have produced the communistic legend that found its way into the Acts of the Apostles in the second century after Christ. The Essenes, who disappear from view after the destruction of Jerusalem, probably because they were carried off in the fall of the Jewish commonwealth, are to have transmitted legends about the origin of the Christian community to the Hellenic proletarians and to have suggested a communist past to them, at a time when the opposition between Judaism and Christianity was already inflamed; and yet at the time when the Jewish proletarians in Jerusalem were founding an organization that must have had many personal and operational points of contact with Essenianism, they are not to have been influenced by it in the slightest!

It is quite possible that Essenian legends and conceptions too are woven into the beginnings of Christian literature; but it is much more probable that in the early stages of the Christian community, when it was not producing any literature, their organization was influenced by Essenian models. This can only have been an influence in the direction of putting a genuine communism into effect, not in the sense of the representation of a supposed communistic past that did not correspond to anything actually existing.

All this artificial construction, introduced by modern theologians and accepted by A.K., which denies the influence of the Essenes for a period when it existed, in order to claim for it a decisive role at a time when it had ceased to exist, shows only how inventive many a theological brain can be when it is a question of taking the “evil odor” of communism from the primitive church.

All this is not however what is decisive for A.K. He knows of a “main point,” that has hitherto “never been noticed: The opponents of the Christians threw everything possible into their teeth, but not their communism. And yet they would not have overlooked this point of their indictment, if it had had a foundation.”

I am afraid that the world will not take this “main point” either into consideration. A.K. can not deny that the communistic character of Christianity is sharply stressed in many statements, both of the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospels. He merely asserts that these statements are purely legendary. But they were there, at any rate, and corresponded to actual Christian tendencies. Now if despite this the enemies of Christianity did not raise the objection of its communism, the reason can not be that they found no basis for such an accusation: for, they reproached the Christians for things like child murder and incest for which there was not the slightest justification in Christian literature. And they would refrain from accusations which they could confirm from the Christian writings from the earliest Christian literature!

That cause lies in the fact that ideas about communism were quite different at that time from what they are now.

Today communism in the primitive Christian sense, that is sharing, is irreconcilable with the progress of production, with the existence of society. Today, economic conditions definitely require the opposite of sharing, the concentration of wealth in a small number of places, whether in private hands, as today, or in the hands of society, the state, the communities, perhaps in cooperatives, as in the socialist system.

At the time of Christ matters were different. Apart from mining, what industry there was was on a petty scale. There was extensive production on a large scale in agriculture, but being worked by slaves it was not technically superior to the small farms and could sustain itself only in those cases where merciless predatory exploitation was possible, based on the labor power of hordes of cheap slaves. The large enterprise was not the basis of the whole mode of production as it is today.

Hence the concentration of wealth in a few hands did not by any means signify increased productivity of labor, let alone a basis for the productive process and so for social existence. Instead of constituting a development of the productive forces, it meant nothing more than accumulation of the means of pleasure in such quantity that the individual was simply unable to consume them all himself, and had no alternative to sharing them with others.

The wealthy did this on a large scale, in part willingly. Generosity was considered to be one of the principal virtues in the Roman Empire. It was a means of winning supporters and friends, and thus of increasing one’s power.

“The emancipation [of slaves] was probably often accompanied by a more or less liberal gift. Martial mentions one of ten million sesterces, apparently on this sort of occasion. The Roman magnates extended their generosity and their protection to the families of their supporters and clients as well. Thus, a freedman of Cotta Messalinus, a friend of the Emperor Tiberius, says proudly in his epitaph, found on the Appian Way, that his patron had several times given him sums equal to the census of a knight [400,000 sesterces, or $20,000], had taken care of the education of his children, provided for his sons as a father would, helped his son Cottanus, who was serving in the army, to the position of military tribune, and had set up this gravestone for him himself.” [Friedländer, Sittengeschichte Roms, I, p.111.]

Many such cases occur. But in addition to voluntary generosity there was involuntary generosity, where democracy ruled. Anyone who sought public office had to purchase it by rich gifts to the people; in addition the people laid high taxes on the rich, and lived on the proceeds by using the public revenues for paying citizens for attending popular assemblies, and even public spectacles, or providing common meals or distributions of foodstuffs.

The idea that it was the function of the rich to share was not one which alarmed the mass of people or went against common notions. On the contrary, it attracted the masses rather than alienated them. The enemies of Christianity would have been fools to stress this side of it. We need only look at the respect with which writers as conservative as Josephus and Philo speak of the Essenes’ communism. It does not seem to them to be either unnatural or preposterous, but very noble.

The “main objection” of A.K. against primitive Christian communism, namely that it was not assailed by its enemies, proves merely that he looks at the past with the eyes of modern capitalist society, not with the eyes of the past.

Along with these objections, which are not supported by any evidence, but are mere “constructions”, A.K. makes a number of other reservations which are based on facts related in the Acts of the Apostles.

It is remarkable that our critic, who is so skeptical with respect to descriptions of persistent conditions in primitive Christian literature, takes every account of an isolated event at face value. It is almost as though he wanted to explain the descriptions of social conditions of the Heroic Age in the Odyssey as fabrications, but accept Polyphemus and Circe as historical personages, who really did what is related of them.

But in any case these single facts prove nothing against the communism of the primitive community.

The first point A.K. makes is that the community in Jerusalem is supposed to have been 5000 strong. How could such a throng, including women and children, make up a single family?

But who says that they made a single family, eating at a single table? And who would take his oath that the primitive community really was five thousand strong, as the Acts of the Apostles says (IV, 4). Statistics were not the strong point of ancient literature, least of all in the Orient; exaggeration for the sake of an effect was a favorite procedure.

The exact figure of five thousand is often given when it is desired to indicate a great throng. Thus the gospels know with precision that there were five thousand men, “beside women and children” (Matthew 14, verse 21), that Jesus fed with five leaves. Is my critic willing to swear in this case too that the figures are exact?

Actually, we have every reason to consider the number of five thousand members of the primitive community as exaggerated. Soon after Jesus’ death Peter, according to Acts, makes a fiery agitational speech, and three thousand have themselves baptised on the spot (2, 41). Further exhortation makes many more believe, and now the number is five thousand (4, 41). How large then was the community when Jesus died. Immediately after his death there was a gathering and “the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty.” (1, verse 15).

This indicates that the community was very small at the beginning, despite the most intense propaganda by Jesus and his apostles. And now after his death are we to say that the community suddenly grew from something over a hundred to five thousand, because of a couple of speeches? If we have to take any definite number, the first would be much more likely than the second.

Five thousand organized members would have been something very striking in Jerusalem, and Josephus would certainly have taken notice of something so powerful. The community must have been quite insignificant as a matter of fact for all its contemporaries to have let it pass unnoticed.

A.K. makes a further objection: After describing the communism of the community, Acts continues: “And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, the son of consolation), a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles feet. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and laid it at the apostles’ feet” (chapters 4 to 5).

This is supposed to be testimony against communism, for, A.K. holds, Barnabas would not have been picked out for mention if all the members had sold their goods and brought the money to the apostles.

A.K. forgets that Barnabas is contrasted with Ananias here, an example of how to act. This brings out the communistic requirement even more clearly. Should the Acts of the Apostles name every one who sold his property? We do not know why Barnabas is singled out, but that emphasizing him means to say that he was the only one that practiced communism – that is really having too low an opinion of the authors of Acts. The example of Barnabas comes directly after the account of how all that owned anything sold it. If Barnabas is named particularly, that may be because he was a favorite figure of the authors, who often mention him later, perhaps also because only his name was handed down along with that of Ananias. After all, these two may have been the only members of the primitive community who had something to sell, the others being all proletarians.

The third objection rests on the fact that in Acts 6, verses 1f., it is said: “And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministrations.”

“Is this possible in a thorough-going communism?” asks A.K. indignantly.

But who says that in putting communism into operation there were no difficulties, or even that there could be no difficulties? The account goes on, not to say that communism was abandoned, but that the organization was improved by introducing the division of labor. From then on the Apostles were concerned only with propaganda, and a committee of seven was chosen for the economic functions of the community.

The whole account is in excellent accord with the assumption of communism, but is meaningless if we accept the view of our critic, which he borrows from Holtzmann, that the primitive Christians did not differ from their Jewish fellow citizens in their social organization, but only in their faith in the “recently executed Nazarene.”

What was the point of the complaints about the division, if there was no sharing?

Again: “In chapter 12 [of Acts] it is said, in strict contradiction to the report of communism, that a certain Mary, a member of the group, lived in a house of her own.”

That is correct, but how does A.K. know that she had the right to sell the house? May not her husband have been alive, and not a member of the community? And anyway, even if she was allowed to sell the house, the community might not have been helped thereby. This house was the place where the comrades assembled. Mary had put it at the disposition of the community, and they used it, even though it may have belonged to Mary in the legal sense. It is not evidence against the existence of communism that the community used places of assembly, that it was not a juristic person that could acquire such premises, that hence individual members formally owned them. We can not ascribe such a senseless spirit of routine to primitive Christian communism as to require that the community should have put those houses of its members up for sale, and divided up the proceeds, when they were needed for use.

Finally, and as the last objection, there is the point that communism is reported as applied only with respect to the Jerusalem community, and that nothing is said about the other Christian communities.

We shall have more to say on this when we come to the further development of the Christian communities. We shall see whether, and how far, and for how long, communism was practiced. That is a separate question. It has already been suggested that the large city created difficulties which did not exist in agricultural communities such as the Essenes, for instance.

Here we are dealing only with the original, communistic tendencies of Christianity; and there is not the slightest reason for doubting them. They are attested to by the testimony of the New Testament, by the proletarian nature of the community, by the strong communistic element in the proletarian part of Judaism in the last two centries before the destruction of Jerusalem, so strongly expressed in Essianism.

What is alleged against it are misunderstandings, subterfuges and empty constructions without any support in reality.

This sure does not sound like Kautsky ever simply rearranged Kalthoff's views. In fact he was diametrically opposed to them.

DCH

andrewcriddle

Albert_Kalthoff appears to have died in 1906. Hence I doubt if he was A.K.

(The debate is interesting whoever A.K. was.)

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Page 445 of the complete English translation. Andrew Criddle

DCHindley

Hi Andrew,

The article was submitted under the acronym "A.K.", which was unusual for those who submitted articles to Neue Zeit, although I wonder whether it could have been submitted by students as a resume of Kalthoff's position on the matter of the communism of Acts.

While he was alive, he published Das Christusproblem, Grundlinien zu einer Sozialtheologie (The Christ-problem. The Ground-plan of a Social Theology), 1902, pp.80f., 15, 17, and Die Entstehung des Christentums. Neue Bzitriige zum Christusproblem. (How Christianity arose) 1904, either of which could have supplied grist for the Neue Zeit article. There is a searchable version of Rise of Christianity, although without the publication data but definitely his work, in Internet Archive here. This English translation of "How Christianity Arose" was published postumously (1907), but I'm not finding much if anything in it about the communism of Acts. Unfortunately a scanned version of the earlier (1902) work is not available at Internet Archive.

I wonder whether someone should consult Gerd Thiessen's books on the sociology of the Jesus movement to see if this sheds any light on the subject of Kalthoff's position.

DCH

DCHindley

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for posting that, as I have been unable to get Amazon's "look inside" feature to display the page in question. Kalthoff concentrated on coloni (semi-serfs attached to Roman latifundia who often "ran the farm" without any direct input from the master away in the city heart), and assumed that this plus Plato's speculation about the ideal state with spouses and children in common, made communal style organizations a natural survival strategy for members of the Roman proletarian classes.

Schwietzer may have been implying that in practical terms there is no essential material difference between the two positions other than location. I can say, though, after editing the readability of the OCR text from Kalthoff's Rise of Christianity, that his concept of eary Christian communism is night and day different from Kautsky's approach. Schweitzer is similarly dismissive of the "History of Religion" schools, giving them short schrift. I like Schweitzer alot, but he has his own prejudices with regard to what constitutes productive scholarship.

Kalthoff got all misty eyed over the communism that was "in the air" while Kautsky got misty eyed over the demonstration that early Christian development fit the model of the economic times. For Kautsky, the communism of the early christian community in Jerusalem was unsustainable as the proper progression of economic systems had yet to take place for true communism to win the day (see Marx & Engles, Communist Manifesto).

DCH

DCHindley

I was able to locate scanned text of the controversial chapter of Kautsky's Forerunners of Socialism (1895) here, but it is too late to review it.

DCH

Huon

The Crusades ? 1089-1210.
Never forget the destruction of the Cathars in Southern France, 1208-1229.
The Inquisition was created in 1231.

DCHindley

Here is the Google translation of the subject chapter of the book:

Karl Kautsky
The Forerunners of Modern Socialism
First volume, first part

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section One

Platonic and early Christian communism

Chapter Two: The early Christian communism


I. The roots of the early Christian communism

We have already said that the development which we have described in the entrance of the previous chapter, and confirmed by the example of Athens, the fate of every nation and state has been in antiquity.

Even the world-dominating Rome was not spared. It was already far advanced in his mind's decline, when it arrived at the height of its external power. His empire, which included all the countries around the Mediterranean, formed a mixture of states, all walked the same path, the one located in the east and south of the Mediterranean, were ahead in Rome, the others were in the west and north, behind him retarded, but they were eager to reach the same height as the capital and go with her to where Greece and the countries of the Orient were already: the complete social disintegration.

We have seen how the people of Athens freedom deteriorated and the republic was ripe for the transition to autocracy. The same thing happened in other democracies, as well as in Rome. At the same time, in which one is the birth of Christ, are the death throes of the Roman Republic and the beginnings of Caesarism.

The aristocracy and democracy were at that time bankrupt in the same way. The core of the people, the free peasantry was stunted in the Roman empire, in many places completely disappeared, size and fame of the state arose from the ruin of the farmers. The eternal war, led by peasant militia armies took it as meaning that the husbandry of the farmers degenerated, however, the husbandry of the larger landowners, wirth the sheep ended with slavery, did not suffer. On the contrary, the war provided him with just incredibly cheap slave material. No wonder that the slave economy quickly took the upper hand and drove the husbandry of the free peasants. Like snow before the sun, the free, bold peasantry was melting away, they partly crippled, for the most part but they sank into the proletariat, ie the lumpen proletariat, as a wage labor, they would have to turn to was not at that time significantly. In industry as in agriculture there was slave labor. The landless peasants crowded into the Gro9städte, where they formed together with freed slaves, the lowest stratum of the population.

But as long as there was still a democratic republic, which meant Massenarmuth not the mass misery. The masses had, if nothing else then at least the political power, and they knew that to live well, they take advantage of the varied forms of creation of the rich and the tributary subject areas.

Not just bread and circuses gave them their political power, but sometimes also the granting of means of production, of landed property. By the last centuries of the Roman Republic to move continuously through the attempts by distribution of farm goods to a new proletarian peasantry to establish. Yet all these attempts to turn back the wheel of economic development were in vain. They failed at the political and economic supremacy of the landowner, which prevented the completion of these experiments, where they were and what, where it still managed to establish free farmers, they quickly crushed and auskauften. They failed but also on the depravity of the lumpen proletariat, which would work frequently and no longer preferred to amuse themselves in the city, instead of leading the country to the poor, labor and sorrowful existence of a small farmer. The proletarians prevented many social reforms that were intended for their benefit, in that they allocate its assets without further formalities once squandered, they prevented but also often by the fact that they sold their political power of the wealthy landowners, and they turned against the social reformer .

The grandest of these attempts at social reform were led and guided by the two Gracchi, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (born 163, killed by his aristocratic opponents 133 BCE) and the resolute and Gaius Gracchus further (b. 153), of the work his older brother continued, but as these succumbed to the fury of the latifundia (121). Has been called the two Gracchi Communists that they were not in any way. What they aspired to, was not an abolition of private property, but the creation of new owners, the restoration of a strong peasantry, the most solid foundation of private property.

They traded it in line with the economic conditions of their time. Well then repressed not only the large landowners to small landowners, but also many of the major operating the small business. But this was not the result of the technical and economic superiority of the former, but the consequence of the enormous cheapness of its labor force, the slaves.

The eternal war brought many war prisoners as slaves to the market. Many a war of the Romans was caused merely by the need of the landlord to approve of slavery, the slave-hunting pure.

Enormous masses of slaves came together, no wonder that their prices were down tremendously. Even in Athens, slavery had resulted in a similar situation improved dramatically. It was one of those countries by the year 300 BC In addition to 21 000 400 000 citizens of slaves. Aeschines of it is told as a sign of special poverty, that he only seven have owned slaves. In the Roman empire, the slave was still worse mischief. The Roman general Lucullus sold (in the second half of the first century before our era) POWs, the piece to three marks (calculated in our money), as slaves.

Now it was profitable to buy large Sklavenheerden together - rich Romans had thousands of slaves - to put together and to work. In place of small farms were erected large plantations and how to put it, factories. this term for the large industrial enterprises of the Greeks and Romans, however, is inaccurate. Because she wore a very different character than the modern factories and factories, they were not as superior to these small businesses. The major industrial operation with slave labor can not be compared with factories, but most, if you will use to compare a modern phenomenon, with the Gefängnißarbeit. No one will argue that this is the free trade to a higher mode of production. The slave labor was, especially in the agriculture, so crude and uneconomical as possible [1] , the individual slave in these large firms contributed much less than a free laborer in a small business. If the slave is still operating in the United cheaper produzirte so only because he himself almost cost nothing, and to be due to the cheapness and massiveness of the slaves material not protected and fed and clothed adequately needed. Let them perish, they found plenty of others in their place.

We see that the displacement of small business by the big business in the Roman Empire was based on very different terms than today's similar appearance. The preconditions for a higher mode of production, as the small business (in agriculture and also in the works) means a cooperative production, were not given. If so, the Gracchi, representing the interests of the proletariat was nothing less than communist, it fully corresponded to the economic conditions, they found.

What is true of the Gracchi, can also Catiline be said (b. 108 BC), the leader of a conspiracy against the Roman landowners regiment, who, after all other attempts by his party to seize political power had failed, with its enjoyed was driven to violent collection and superiority of his opponents died in battle heldenmüthigem (62 BC). He, too, have been branded as communists - Mommsen to the "Anarchist" - but without any permission. Just as with the Gracchi it was in Catiline to the abolition of private property, and the introduction of a communist society. He aspired to the conquest of political power by the have-nots to the haves to make them.

Another direction was thinking of the workers and their friends, as the political life died out, as the have-nots had degenerated morally and politically as well as the haves, the democracy was equally unfounded as the aristocracy and the land cleared was there for occurrence of an autocrat, an emperor, a mercenary army of the Lord and the beginnings of a bureaucracy.

With the political power ebbed, the most important and almost the only source of income of the ancient proletariat. Being poor was now also be miserable. The dispossession of the masses developed in Roman society atrocious conditions that had been formerly unknown. Pauperism, the Massenarmuth and mass misery was now the most important social question, a question that more and more urgent heischte their solution, because the social development went its course, the middle classes fell more and more, the rich were getting richer, the number of have-nots grew .

This was not the only social issue that moved the society of the Roman Empire. The decay of the free peasantry that led to zäsaristischen absolutism, was the forerunner of the economic decay of the whole society.

Even before the Roman society had abdicated politically, militarily, they had resigned. With the farmers of the militia army soldiers were gone. Instead of that came a mercenary army, the strongest support of despotism. But this army, had an irresistible inward, sometimes hard to resist the external enemy, especially the Germans, who always andrängten powerful, however, the Roman military system fell into disrepair.

This zeitigte very important economic consequences. The wars of conquest were rare, and the eternal war that raged on the borders, turned out into a pure defensive war, which brought more losses of warriors, as he delivered to prisoners of war. The supply of slaves was gradually getting scarcer. With the cessation of the plentiful supply of slaves, but broke the basis of the then major operation, especially in the agriculture together. Slavery itself did not stop completely, but they became more and more luxury mere slavery.

This did not mean a return to a free peasantry, and a free craft. The industry remained the largest part in the hands of slaves. The reduction in supply of slaves led to the emergence of a rare free, powerful craft, but mostly to the decline and fall of the industry. Not much better it was in agriculture. The free peasants had been crippled by the slave economy and slain, and where once they were gone the Roman Empire, since farm husbandry could not take root again. For although the large company was less profitable, the large estates was, yes, he also extended even more, because the extortions of the Imperial officers and the devastation that brought particularly unfortunate wars over many landscapes, he was able to resist better than the smaller landowners.

But the major operation he could finally no longer keep up. The same was in decline, and beside him was developed the system, the large estates throughout parzelliren or in part, and the tiny little property to certain goods and services to lease, to so-called tenant farmers, which is especially in the later centuries of the empire so closely to bind to the soil as possible was looking for - the predecessor of the medieval serfs.

The cause of this bondage was the rapid reduction of manpower in the Empire. Apart from a few rich and a comparatively small number of free and independent workers in the vestigial remnants of peasant agriculture and handicrafts, the bulk of the population were slaves, and lumpen. Without parent family relationships usually living in the most miserable conditions, neither the one nor the other able to even partially achieve a sufficient offspring. The many unhappy wars have increased the deficit in humans. The population declined rapidly. To get coloni and soldiers, had the ruling classes of Rome more and more foreigners, barbarians, pull into the Reich Food Estate's military status and eventually immigrated mainly from these strangers and their descendants formed.

But that was not enough to replace the departure of people, and it was always rougher, deeper standing elements, had to draw on it.

The Roman culture had been able to reach their height only by the abundance of labor, who had confessed to her and she had to bid recklessly be wasted. With the abundance of labor also heard on the abundance of products, agriculture and industry declined, were always raw and barbaric. And with them degenerated art and science.

This social decline took a long period of time. It took several centuries before the Roman empire's proud height that it took under Augustus and his first successors, had sunk deep into the wretched state it has reached the beginning of the Great Migration. But the direction of this decline in the first century of our era, and may in some points clear. With him and through him, that new social power has grown up that saved in the general decline, which could still be saved, and finally the remains of Roman culture, the Germans sent, where they offing a new and higher culture. This power was the Christianity.

DCH

DCHindley

Continued (oh, its not that bad ...)

II The nature of the early Christian communism

As at the time of the decline of Greece, had now also in the Roman Empire and all thinking with their suffering brethren feeling men feel the urge to find a way out of the terrible conditions.

When asked about this way a variety of answers were given. Even the Platonic ideal was revived, but it could now exert even less influence than at the time of its origin. The Neoplatonist Plotinus (third century AD) but won the favor of the higher classes, even the Emperor Gallienus and the Empress Salonina so highly, that he could think of to start with the help of a city modeled on the Platonic community . But these philosophers of fashion salon Communism was only one of many gadgets with which the Supreme vertändelten idlers of the time. It was not even made an attempt to execute the plan, if not the invention of a name for the colony - Platonopolis, will be regarded as such - Plato city.

The general state of violence encountered distrust and general indifference, and corruption of the social body was so severe that one could by any mortal, and we expect he would have been the most powerful of the Caesars, he may be able to breathe new life into the same. Only a superhuman power that only a miracle could bring this about.

Who was it not possible that geschähen still wonder, sank into gloomy pessimism or drugged into unthinking pleasure. Among the sanguine enthusiast, to them, such things are the same was not possible, some began to believe the miracle au. In particular, this was the case for the enthusiasts of the lowest strata of the people who felt the general decline in the most oppressive, and had neither the means to intoxicate themselves in pleasures, nor felt the hangover of on such a noise like this and so easily the pessimism generated. From their ranks mainly ersproß the idea that a savior will of heaven to come in the near future to establish a glorious kingdom on earth, where there is no war and rule no poverty, the joy, peace and abundance, and infinite bliss. This was the Lord's anointed savior - Christ. [2]

Once one had as much to keep the miracle possible, then all limits of the imagination were torn down, and each of the Glänbigen could imagine the coming kingdom so exuberant as possible. Not only the company, all of nature was about to change, all injuries were to disappear from it all the pleasures it offers, grossly enlarged, enjoy the people. [3]

The first Christian Scripture, were pronounced in such expectations is the so-called " Revelation ", the apocalypse, probably soon after Nero's was death written and proclaimed that it would very soon a terrible fight weave to be among the returning Nero, the Antichrist, and the returning Christ, a struggle that mitkämpft all nature. Christ will emerge victorious from this struggle and establish a millennial kingdom in which the righteous will reign with Christ without death is a power over them. But not only that, after this will create a new kingdom heaven and a new earth, and on this earth, a new Jerusalem, the seat of bliss.

The millennial kingdom - that is the future state of primitive Christianity, and after him all the exuberant expectations of the coming of a new society, appear in the Christian sects, as a millenarian [4] called.

Following the Apocalypse have many Christian teachers in the first centuries of Christianity expressed millenarian expectations and sometimes, as Irenaeus (second century) and even Lactantius (about 320 BC), the coming paradise on earth in great detail and in the most glowing sensual colors described. [5] had only changed completely when the conditions for Christianity, as it stopped, only to have the faith of the unfortunate and the oppressed, the proletarians and slaves and their friends, as it was also the belief of the rich and powerful since gradually fell into disfavour of millenarianism in the official church, because he always had a revolutionary flavor, was always a prophecy of the coming upheaval of the existing society.

St. Augustine, who lived in the second half of the fourth century and the first of the fifth (he died 430) fought, first decided the uncomfortable lesson through a series of sophistic interpretations of the Apocalypse. From then all of millenarianism is regarded as "heretical." The official church offset the coming kingdom of bliss in the clouds.

You chiliastic expectations are one of the most outstanding features of the early Christian spiritual life. But as one who is on the wrong track, believes that today's social democrats draw their strength from the promise of some "future state" would also be wrong, of supposing that the Urchristenthllm have pulled out of the millenarianism of the most important part of his force.

Like the Social Democrats is also the primitive Christianity of the rulers of his time thus become invincible, that for the bulk of the population is indispensable was. His practical work, not his religious enthusiasms have helped him to victory.

The practical work will look at us now.

Pauperism, as we have seen, the great social question of the imperial period. All attempts by the state to oppose him, proved in vain. Some emperors, and also Prwate sought to control him by charitable foundations. But that was woefully insufficient, there were drops in the bucket, and the rapacious Roman bureaucracy did not make the best managers of such facilities.

The pessimists and the enjoyment of people did against the pauperism, which they also give the other evils in the state and society towards did, namely nothing. They explained that it was very sad that such a circumstance stocks, but these are inevitable and philosophers are likely against the inevitable is not . fight

Unlike the sanguine enthusiasts and proletarians that used to bear the misery. You could view it impossible to quiet, they had to seek after it, to cause him to an end. With the exuberant dreams of bliss that will bring the Messiah down from the clouds, the destitute ligand was not helped. The same circles, which came from the millenarianism arose, and energetic attempts to move the existing body of misery.

These experiments had to be completely different way than had been the Gracchi. They had appealed to the state, they wanted the proletariat conquer political power and make themselves subservient. Now every political movement had ceased and the state authority had fallen into general disrepute. Not by the state, but behind his back, through special, totally independent of his organization wanted the new Sozia1reformer transform society.

More importantly, there was another difference. The movement was a semi-rural Gracchan, it relied not only on the urban proletariat, but also to the decadent farmers. And they wanted to make those farmers. The urban proletariat was rooted with just one foot still in the peasantry.

In the Empire city and country were already completely separated. The urban and rural populations formed two nations that no longer understood each other. The Christian movement was in its infancy a purely metropolitan - so much so that compatriot and non-Christian were synonymous terms. [6]

So closely together is the key difference between the Gracchi and of Christian social reform. Those who wanted to oust the plantation by the farmers grazing husbandry husbandry, if they antastete the existing distribution of property, it occurred to pave the way to reform the mode of production. But precisely because they had necessarily, as we have seen that recognize private property (means of production).

For Christianity in its early days was the decisive class an urban lumpenproletariat, which had been weaned off of work. Produziren these elements appeared to be a rather indifferent thing; their model were the lilies of the field, sow nor spin, yet thrive. If they are a different distribution of property aspired, they did not have the means of production in the eye, but the means of enjoyment. a communism of consumption for the Lumpeuproletarier Irens was not unheard of that time. At times, public feedings of large masses of needy or Vertheilungen of food to them had been in the last days of the Republic usually found initially in the Empire held still, what could be better than these meals and Vertheilungen to bring in a system, a regular communism of the existing tobacco - partly due to uniform distribution, partly by sharing the same - to pursue.

It emerged communist ideas like this, sometimes even communist communities in implementation. The first formed in the Orient, which had advanced economically most, especially among the Jews, who had developed even before the Christians already apocalyptic expectations, and we already around the year 100 before our era, a Communist secret society, which the Essenes found .

"The wealth they hold for nothing," reported that Josephus, "however, they are very proud community of goods, and we find none among them who would be richer than the other. You have the law that all who wish to enter into their order, must proffer their goods to be shared, so when you realize they neither want nor excess, but they all have in common as brothers ... You do not live together in a city, but in all cities have their special houses, and when people who have their order, they come from elsewhere to share it with them their property, and they can use it as their own property. They turn out from a close, even if they have never seen each other, and behave as if they were her whole life long been in familiar intercourse. If they travel over land, they take nothing with them as a weapon against predators. In each city they have a guest master, who dispenses the stranger food and clothes ... You do not trade with each other, but if someone one who has the defect, something gives, however, he receives back from him what he needs. And if he can not even offer it, he may nevertheless without reserve, from whom he wants to desire, what he does. "Need [7]

Quite similarly, the first Christian communities were organized. Whether and to what extent there is here guarded imitation is not lightened. The resemblance of a can with the others by the similarity of the circumstances arising, which they have sprung. In any case, towered over the Christian communities soon the Essene in one essential point: in its international character, which corresponded to the international character of the great Roman Empire. The Essenes held tenaciously on Judaism. They have remained a small sect, which hardly ever counted more than 4,000 members. Christianity conquered the Roman Empire.

Initially targeted Christians often after the introduction of a complete communism. Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Matthew (19, 21) to the rich young man: ". You Want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor" [8] In Acts (4, 32, 34) the first church in Jerusalem described as follows: "No one said of his goods, that they were his, but they had everything in common ... There was not one of them, the lack was, for how many were their that there were fields and houses, they sold them and brought the of the good sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and they gave to every man what he noth was. Ananias and Sapphira, who withheld some of their money to the community, were well known, punished by God with death. " [9]

Practically, however, went beyond this kind of communism that all means of production into tobacco and the same should be distributed to the poor: the mean, if implemented widely, the end of all production. Just as the early Christians might take care of the philosopher as a real beggar Produziren, a permanent larger society could not be established on this basis.

The then state of production demanded the private property of means of production, and the Christians could not get beyond. [10] So they had to seek after it, to unite private property and communism together. They could not do in the way Plato's, which was the privilege of an aristocracy and communism are the private property of the masses did. It is this needed now of communism.

The association of private property and communism happened in such a way that every one his own, especially on the means of production , and left only the communism of the enjoyment and Gebrauchens - especially the food - calling.

Of course, this distinction was not, in theory, so sharp a distinction was not then in economic matters. But the practice went beyond it, and only with the help of this distinction it is possible to understand the apparent contradiction in the teachings of the Church, in the first centuries of the common property and simultaneously glorified frowned upon any actual facts assault on private property.

The property owners should keep their means of production and exploitation, and above all their land, but they possessed of means of consumption and acquired - food, clothing, housing and money to buy like yours - that's the Christian community provided.

"So it was the common ownership of property only a community of use. Every Christian was calling for the brotherly connection right to the goods of all members of the whole community and could in case of necessity, that the wealthy members of his so much of their wealth imparted, as required for its Nothdurft was. Every Christian was able to make use of the goods of his brothers, and the Christians who had something, could not deny their poor brethren to use and the use thereof. A Christian, for example, who had no house could, by another Christian, who had two or three houses desire, that he give him a home, but why did this master of the house. Because of the use of the Community but had a flat the other hand, are left to use. " [11]

The portable food and money, were brought together and elected their own municipal officers, who had to direct the dispensation of these gifts.

The full communism, Christianity was the first of which, even if only partial, broken recognition of private property. He should still experience a further slowdown.

The communism of consumption Irens depends, as we have seen already in the consideration of the Platonic state, let's closely together with the abolition of the family and monogamy. This can be achieved in two ways: by community of women and children or by the omission of the sexual intercourse, by celibacy. Plato chose the former route, the Essenes, the latter. They paid homage to the celibacy. In his radical communist beginnings, Christianity was also looking for the family and marriage go, it is mostly in the form of asceticism, which corresponded to the mood of the time katzenjämmerlichen best, but it has also given Christian sects, such as the Adamites, a Gnostic sect of the second century, which taught the funnier live form of the repeal of family and marriage and praktizirten.

The Gospel of Matthew can say Christ (19, 29): "Those who left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake, shall reap a hundredfold reward and gain eternal life." And in the Gospel of Luke calls Christ: "If any man come to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, which can not be my disciple. " [12]

Sämtliche early Christian communities is the peculiar quest to lift the family life at least to a certain extent. Thus we find in them the means indicates that the daily meals were common. (See Acts 2, 46) This love feast, Agape, correspond to the common meals, Suffitien, the Spartans and the Platonic state. [13] They were the natural consequence of communism, the means of enjoyment.

However, as already said, Christianity could not overcome the small business and private property of means of production. This is necessarily the single family connected, not merely as a form of coexistence between man and woman, between parents and children, but also as an economic unit. As Christianity could not bring a new mode of production, it had to be made also the traditional family form, however much they disagreed with the communism of consumption Irens. Not the kind in which people enjoy, but how they produziren decide at the last line of the character of society. How full of communism was also sought annulment of the marriage and family are incompatible with the spread of Christianity in society. She's always been limited to individual cults and corporations. It failed to gain universal validity.

Footnotes:

1st Marx noted in his capital in a note on the slave labor:

"The laborer is here (in slavery), the felicitous expression of the old just as instrumentum vocal (voice or voice gifted tool) from the animal as instrumentum semi-vocal (almost spoke gifted tool) and the dead work stuff as instrumentum mutum (dumb tool ) differ. He can work and stuff animals to feel that he is unequaled, but a human. It gives the sense of self of its difference from them by making them mistreated and con amore devastated. It is therefore considered the economic principle of this mode of production, only the crudest, most ponderous, but precisely because of their clumsiness unwieldy to ruinous work hard to use tools. "K. Marx, Capital, I, 2 Ed, p 185)

Compare this with the following version, which we in Sismondi's Etudes sur l'économie politique have found (Paris 1837). He gives as an extended excerpt from a work by Ch Comte on slavery, and says among other things:

"The slaves to our days are incapable requires for each labor, the intelligence, taste, carefulness. It is probably, that the beautiful works household methods of the Roman antiquity from people that had already reached their industrial Dexterity as Free and the had only made of the war into slaves. For as soon as the Romans had once subjugated about every industrial Nations, so that they only still were able make among the barbarians slaves, the arts and all kinds of the industry degenerated uncommonly rapidly and they themselves fell into disrepair in barbarism.

"But the slavery corrupts not merely the oppressed go, but also the the open, because she breeds those contempt of the industrial labor, which back is urging the employment of the poorer outdoors with industry always more. of the condition of the proletarians of the Roman Republic, which were back kept of any work likely to partly through the contempt of the labor, and partly through the competition of the slaves, is a remarkable and shocking example of the Degradation and of misery, into the overthrows the slavery that portion of the people that neither the masters nor the servants of one. "(I, pp. 382-393)

2nd christos, Greco anointed =.

3rd Corrodi has in his Kritische history of the chili Asmus (Frankfurt 1781) the strange bubbles, which these fantasies threw, described in depth, yes even - criticizes!

4th CHILIAS, Greco = the number one thousand.

5th play A large role in which coming Christian empire of the wine and the Vine. Irenaeus taught: "There will come the time, since grow the wine sticks, at any with ten thousand vines, each Vine with ten thousand large twigs, at any large branch with ten thousand other little twigs, every little branch with ten thousand grapes, each grape with ten thousand berries and each Berries Berry with juice for twenty measure of wine. "Hopefully thirst grows in whom a thousand year's kingdom into same relation. Irenaeus represents but still more tender joys in prospect: "The young girls be revel themselves since in society der Jünglinge; the old men be enjoy the same Privileges and her Kummer will themselves trigger in pleasure." Namely latter prospect must for the younger and older old men of the Roman fin de siècle- society be been very tempting.

6th The word Paganus (latin "village inhabitants") second-hand the later Christians, to designate of the "pagans."

7th Josephus, history of the Jewish War, II Book, 8, 3, 4th

8th Cf Matthäus 10, 21; Lucas 12, 33; 18, 21st

9th Important is also the place apostles history 5, 44, 45th

10th The monasteries formed a exception apparition, the monastic organization was able never become an general form of the society. But also in the monasteries was the commonality of consumerism Irens the main thing, the Produziren minor matter. We come tailor returned to another context.

11th J. Q. Bird, the first and oldest Christian antiquities, Hamburg, 1780, p.47

12th Cf also Matth. 10, 37, 12, 46 ff Marc. 3, 31 ff, 10, 29 Luc. 8, 20, 18, 29

13th However, if my kind should believe Daumer (The secrets of of the Christian antiquity, Hamburg 1847) would be, so not these meals been love meals, but rather - humans eaters estates.

DCH

DCHindley

Continued ... (OK, it is getting a little long, it was 19 pages of Word document)

III. The decline of the early Christian communism

About the contradiction between the individual family and the communism of the enjoyment away and Gebrauchens could only help an extraordinary enthusiasm. This was the first Christian communities also exist. However, the more numerous the Christians were, the less in proportion to the total number would naturally be in their midst, the number of exceptionally gifted natures. And the average person created the social conditions of Rome sinking everything else rather than energetic devotion. No class was exempt.

Therefore, even in Christian communities, the individual family soon defeated the communism of the stimulant. The home meals were the norm, more and more limited the Agape on festive occasions. In this limit, they were given during the first centuries of Christianity, then they fell completely, have become mere poor meals, which hosted the rich at times, without them even participated in part of the meal.

The concern for the family came to the fore again, not just what they needed was one of the community, the Church. The common use of the possession of all comrades reduzirte in the surrender of the superabundance of individuals to the community fund. The excess of income over what is necessary that each individual reached, he should give to the church. This was the form which took the Christian communism in practice soon.

But because the same social conditions of the Empire, which made the implementation of communism impossible the formation favored communist ideas, received the Communist tradition of primitive Christianity long life, always bought new communist sects, and also the victorious church among the organizations, the Catholic , was in theory a long time Communist.

As before, the Fathers of the Church thundered against the wealth and inequality. "You wretch, 'calls to St. Basil in the fourth century, the rich," as you want your answer to the eternal judge? ... Your replies to me: How I'm wrong because I keep only for myself, what's mine? But I ask you, what you call your property? From whom did you obtain it? You act like a man in the theater, which hastened to occupy all the seats, and now wants to prevent others to enter, by its use of reserves, what is there for all. How the rich get rich than by taking possession of things that belong to all? If every man for himself would take no more than he needs for its preservation, and the rest could be others, there would be neither rich nor poor. "

Even in the sixth century Gregory the Great wrote:

"There is not enough that others can not take their property, it is not innocent, as long as goods reserves, which God created for all. Who the others not exist, what he has, is a murderer and a murderer, because he keeps for himself, which would have served to maintain the poor, we can say that it day in day out kills so many, could be life from his abundance. If we share with those who are in need, then we give them is not something that belongs to us, but what belongs to them. It is not a work of mercy, but the payment of a debt. " [14]

One of the most remarkable testimonies to the Communist character of primitive Christianity is to be found but in the writings of St. John, surnamed Chrysostom, ie Goldmund, because of his fiery eloquence so named. Born 347 in Antioch, he rose to the dignity of a Patriarch of Constantinople. But the fearlessness with which he denounced the immorality of the residence, including the court, persuaded, that the Emperor Arcadius exiled him. He died in exile (in Armenia) 407

In the eleventh of his homilies (sermons) on the Acts of this bold man came to the communism of the early Christians to speak. He quoted by the following sentence from the Acts of the Apostles: "Great grace was upon them all and there was none among them who had the defect." This, however, he continues, was the fact that "Neither of his parents said that they were his, but they all had in common."

"Grace was among them because no one suffered from a lack, that is, because they gave so eagerly that none remained poor. Because they did not retain a portion of another and for themselves, yet they gave all their property, as it were. They picked up the inequality and lived in great abundance, and they did so in the prizewinning way. They did not dare to give the donations into the hands of the needy, yet they gave with haughty condescension, but they laid at the feet of the apostles, and made them masters of the gifts and Vertheilern. What was needed, then removed from the store of the community, not the private property of individuals. This has been achieved, that the donor is not relieved of vanity.

"If we were to do the same today, we live much happier, the rich and the poor, and the poor would not win by luck than the rich ... because the givers were not only not poor, they also made the poor rich.

"Let the thing before: Everyone give what they have in common property. No one should be alarmed about it, neither the rich nor the poor. How much do you think that money will come together? I conclude - because certainly one can not say it - if each individual übergäbe all his money, his lands, his possessions, his houses (of the slaves, I will not speak, because the early Christians were probably not, since they probably were free), then probably a million pounds gold come together, so probably two or three times as much. For me tell you how many people including our city (Constantinople)? How many Christians? Will it be a hundred thousand? And how many heathens and Jews! How many thousands of pounds of gold must come together here! And how many poor people we have? I do not think there are more than fifty thousand. How much would be necessary to feed them every day? If you dine at a common table, the cost will not be very large. So what will we do with our vast wealth? Do you think he could ever be exhausted? And the blessing of God will not pour forth a thousand times more abundant on us? If we do not make the earth a heaven? If this has been for three or five thousand (the first Christians) have proven so brilliantly, and none of them suffered from shortage, how much more must it prove with such a large crowd? Not any of Neuhinzukommenden add something?

"The fragmentation of the goods caused by the greater effort and poverty. Take a house with a husband and wife and ten children. It operates weaving, he is looking at the market of his maintenance, they will need more if they share a home or if they live apart? Obviously, if they live apart. If separate, the ten sons, they need ten Hänser, ten tables, ten servants, and all other multiplied to a similar extent. and what about the number of slaves? Can not they be together at a table meal in order to save on costs? The fragmentation leads to waste on a regular basis, the summary in order to save the existing. So you now living in monasteries, and so lived the faithful. Who died because of hunger? Who was not saturated plentiful? And yet the people afraid of this state more than a leap into the infinite sea. Would we make it a try and attack the thing boldly! What a blessing it would be! For if at that time, where the number of believers was so small, only three to five thousand, if the time when the whole world are hostile to where nowhere waving a consolation, our predecessors were so determined by how much more confidence, we should now have, by God's grace which believers are everywhere! Who would want to remain pagan? No, I think. All we would put on us and make us weigh. " [15]

Chrysostom concluded his remarks with a request to implement its proposal.

These so-sober, purely economic, free from any re1igiösen exuberance sermon is most remarkable in every respect. It shows us clearly to communism of primitive Christianity, whose traditions were still alive, but they can also see clearly that he was a communism of consumption Iren, not the Produzirens. Chrysostom tries to win over his audience for communism by them, calculates that the amount of economic common household compared to the fragmentation in many households is. But those who want everything produziren what does this communist household, not a word. In this area should remain just as it all was.

The proposal of Chrysostom remained unfulfilled. Like the church had strayed from the communist nature of their origin, he tells us so himself: "People are afraid of communism, even more than the leap into the wide sea." And just as clearly as the other spoke Chrysostom Church. Their very passionate declamations against the rich, the Christian kingdoms to prove that in the Church since the second century, not only the practice, but even the spirit of communism waned, the feeling of equality and fraternity, "

It was shown once again that the physical conditions are stronger than the ideas and these are dominated by them. The church was irresistibly driven to adapt their teaching by their extension changed circumstances. Since you do not destroy the communist tradition could explain away they looked. And to reconcile with a number of subtleties, as were the former, more than caviling researching philosophy close to reality.

From then dispensed Christianity aim to solve the problem of poverty, abolish the distinction between rich and poor. Hattten the first Christians have claimed that no rich man could the kingdom of heaven are partakers, be taken that in their community, not all worldly possessions to the poor were to donate and even poor will, only the poor could be saved, so now this purely material conditions reinterpreted as spiritual relationships.

"The Church," Ratzinger said in his history of the Church's care for the poor (as in Freiburg 1860), in his Charakterisirung train of thought of the first teachers of the church on the property was "intended only for the poor, the rich were excluded. This alienation of the property does not need a complete renunciation of life itself to be, it is sufficient if he (the rich) is the overindulgence in the property, the lust of the same, in short, the greed, entschlägt ... The rich man also had to separate his heart from all earthly possessions, he was allowed to be a steward of God looking at having just as if he does not possess, he should use only the most necessary for his support, all the rest but as a faithful steward of God for the poor . use "but no more than the rich, the poor man must strive for earthly possessions, he must be content with his lot and grateful to accept the crumbs that accuses him of the kingdoms. (Pp. 9, 10)

What a cute egg dance! Not anymore, only his heart, the rich need to separate from earthly possessions, he should have, as he did not possess! Thus did Christianity come to terms with its communist origins.

But even in its weakened form of Christianity for centuries has long Significant done in the fight against pauperism. If it is not removed, it was the organization that proved by far the most effective to alleviate the poverty in their area, which grew out of Massenarmuth. And therein lies perhaps the most important lever of his success.

However, the more powerful it became, the more helpless against the social problem of his time, from which it considered its strength. Not only that Christianity is incapable proved the class distinctions to make an end, it found it, it self-generated with the increase of his power and his wealth a new class conflict: it was in the church of a ruling class, the clergy, which the class, the laity [16] , was obedient.

Originally prevailed in the Christian communities full self-government. The trustees at their head, the bishops and priests were elected by the parishioners in their own circles, they were accountable. They pulled no advantage from their office.

However, once the individual communities became larger and richer, and the tasks which fell the chiefs grew so much that they do not incidentally, could be operated next to a civilian job. There was a division of labor, the offices in the Christian communities were specific professions, all the people required. The church property was no longer exclusively for the support of the poor are facing, it was necessary to deny the cost of his administration of it, the cost of the Assembly building and the conservation of church officials.

Who comprised the bulk of the community? Lumpen proletariat, and these have never been able to power that gave them a democratic constitution to preserve. They were there in the church any more than in the Republic. They sold it and lost in that of the bishop, as they do this at the Zäsar had lost.

The bishop had to manage the assets of his church, that his congregation, and to determine what type to use the revenues of the church were. Thus the lumpen proletariat against an immense power was placed in his hands, which grew more and more, the greater the wealth accumulated the church. The bishops were more independent of their constituents, they were more dependent on them.

Hand in hand with this development came closer and closer together closing the individual communities that had originally been completely independent, to a great club that Gesammtkirche. Same ideas, same goals, same persecutions led early on some communities, passing through sending letters and deputies to the market together, towards the end of the second century, the combination of many churches in Greece and Asia was so narrow that the churches of individual provinces stronger associations formed, were the highest instances of trustees meetings, synods of bishops. Towards them contracted the autonomy of the individual communities together very, bringing the bishops about their parishioners, but was encouraged by it.

Finally, there was a summary of all the Christian communities of the empire into a single organization, and in the fourth century of our era we find already imperial synods (the first 325 to Nicaea).

Within the councils themselves but dominirten those bishops who were of the richest and most powerful communities. So finally the Bishop of Rome came to the forefront of Western Christendom.

This whole development was not without great battles in front of him, fighting against the state, the new state within a state was not seeking to survive, fighting between the various organizations and within organizations, struggles between the people and clergy, in which the former is usually the moved faster. Already in the third century the people had almost everywhere, only the right of confirmation of the church officials, they had organized themselves into a cohesive entity that added himself and the church had the power at their discretion.

From now on, the church was the one organization in the Roman Empire, which gave the best head, then an aspiring career. The political career had ceased since the political life was extinct, and the war service had been left almost entirely to hired barbarians, art and science-ended her life only tedious, and the state administration and decayed more and more ossified. Only in the church there was life and movement, where one could most likely rise to a social power. Almost everything that the pagan world was all energy, and intelligence had to exhibit, turned now to Christianity, and in that of the ecclesiastical career, and the church, which proved to be invincible, began the struggle with the authorities, they even make themselves subservient.

At the beginning of the fourth century, was already a cunning pretender to the throne, Constantine out, that the victory beckoned to those who accept the Christian God is favorable, that is, which by the Christian clergy are on good terms. Through him Christianity was the dominant, soon to be the only religion in the Roman Empire.

From then on, was the proliferation of church even more rapidly. Kaiser and private vied with one another to buy the favor of the new power through gifts. On the other hand, saw the Emperor, more and more causes of the church bureaucracy to allocate the purchase of a number of governmental and municipal functions, where it was not enough, the rotten state bureaucracy. Also, they had to open the church certain revenue sources.

Heretofore, the gifts of the parishioners of the church had been purely voluntary. Since this is the protection of state power enjoyed, she began to meditate on regular duties. Tithing was introduced, initially driven only by moral means, but also eventually by force. [17]

The church was now enormously rich while their clergy was entirely independent of the laity. No wonder they left off in proportion as their wealth grew, more and more to manage their assets in the interests of the poor! The clergy used it for themselves, greed and waste pulled into the church, especially in the rich churches in Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, etc. From a communist prison, she was the most gigantic exploitation machine, which saw the world. Already in the fifth century we find the division of church income in four parts as such a body of the Roman Church. One part belonged to the bishop, a part of his clergy, was a part of the worship needs (construction and maintenance of churches and the like), and only a portion of the poor. These were only together as much as the Bishop alone!

And this quartering was not even introduced most likely to benachtheiligen the poor, but in order to protect them so that the lords do not pastors throughout the church property for their own squandering.

However, the communist ideological content of Christianity did not smother itself, as long proven the social circumstances that gave birth to him. As long did the Roman Empire, and until the time of the migration into it was to the church property as the property of the poor (pauperum patrimony), and none of the Church, no council would be remembered that to deny. Of course, the administrative costs of such property had become quite high, they were eating at times on the entire income, but this is a peculiarity of most Wohlthätigkeitsinstitute. Therefore, it would have no one but dared to assert that the administrators are the owner of the property.

This last step was to blur the communist origins of the church completely, could happen only after the invading Germanic tribes, the Roman world and the church in a whole new social foundations were made.

Footnotes:

14th quoted by under F. Villegardelle, Histoire des idées socialistes avant la revolution française, Paris 1846, p. 71 ff Villegardelle has numerous passages similar contents from the scriptures of other Church teacher compiled of the first centuries. Unfortunately he gives at not know which works he has taken from to such agencies. It was us verifiziren to therefore impossible, the quotations.

15th p. P. N. Joanni Chrysostomi opera omnia quae exstant, Paris 1859 (edition JP Migne, Patrologia cursus completus), IX., p 96-98.

16th From the Greek Laos, the people.

17th The 2nd Conciliar of Tours (567) requires by the faithful should, under other things also of the serfs give tithing.

DCH