The fact that the basis of the communist teaching is the Christian principles of humanism and the ascent of man is obvious to many today. Only representatives of the "right-wing" forces undertake to deny this point of view. At the same time, however, supporters of the rapprochement between Christians and Communists often appeal to the fact that early Christians, in the so-called. "Patristic period", they say, a certain form of communism has already been formed, which they often call "apostolic communism." However, did the early Christians have communism?
If we turn to John Chrysostom, one of the greatest church fathers, we will find in him the following assessment of the early Christian community in Jerusalem: “It was an angelic society, because they did not call anything their own … Have you seen the success of piety? They gave up their possessions and rejoiced, and there was great joy, because the benefits acquired were greater. No one reviled, no one envied, no one was enmity, there was no pride, there was no contempt, everyone accepted instructions like children, everyone was tuned in like newborns … There was no cold word: mine and yours; therefore joy was at the meal. Nobody thought they were eating their own; no one (thought) that eating someone else's, although it seems like a riddle. What belonged to the brothers was not considered a stranger, since it was the Lord's; they did not consider it as their own, but as belonging to their brothers”/ 8: 73 /.
Thus, Chrysostom emphasizes that the common property was established among the early Christians.
The same point of view is also shared by modern researchers, for example, the famous publicist, bachelor of theology - Nikolai Vladmirovich Somin, the author of many articles devoted to the study of the patristic period of the Christian faith, as well as the collection "Orthodox Socialism as a Russian Idea". While positively characterizing this Christian experience, Somin nevertheless emphasizes that the early Christians nevertheless formed "consumer" communism, since their entire economy was reduced to the pooling of property and their subsequent equal use (see the article "Dispute over the Jerusalem Community", 2004) …
But if we turn to the theoreticians of communism proper, we will find there a somewhat different assessment of this phenomenon. Karl Kautsky in his book The History of Socialism. Forerunners of Modern Socialism does not ignore this period of history. Kautsky, however, notes that private property among the early Christians was not abolished, but was replaced by the common use of private property. What is meant?
Each member of the community was obliged, at the request of other members, to provide them with any of their property for use, for example, a house for living. But at the same time, he remained the owner of this house, and as soon as a member of the community left his home, the owner, in modern terms, "restored" his rights. Movable property was transferred to communal ownership. Although there are certain doubts here.
For example, a contemporary of the era, historian Josephus Flavius (37-100) writes in the “Jewish War”: “They [Christians - approx. Robespierre] do not trade with each other, but if someone gives the needy what he needs, then he gets everything he needs from him. It is noteworthy that in this quote we are talking about the help of a private person, not a community, to a private person. Thus, it can be assumed that the community of movable property was not widespread among the early Christians.
In the end, it can be concluded that early Christian "communism" was still violated by the partial recognition of private property.
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According to Kautsky, the reason for this lies in the mode of production characteristic of that time - the main economic unit was the family, the clan that collectively worked the main means of production of that period, the land. Therefore, a Christian adhering to the community had to either break with his family (“And everyone who leaves their homes, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land, for the sake of My name, will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life”Mt 19:29), or the community had to put up with the fact that in part, at least for the means of production, private property was still preserved. “In exchange” for such a deviation from the principle of communality, the owner was obliged to provide his property for use to any member of the community at his first request.
However, to a certain extent in early Christianity, there was a struggle to unite private families into a kind of common moments. Kautsky writes that already in the first centuries of the Christian faith, "Home meals became the rule, public meals were increasingly confined to holidays."
By allowing private property, the early Christians thus opened the doors to the church, originally intended for the poor, for the rich. The rich now no longer had to give up property, he just had to not enjoy it, not gravitate towards it with his soul. He became, as it were, the "major dom" of God. It is not surprising that Protestants, who at a later time strive to "cleanse" the church of "papist filth", did not go beyond this crafty substitution, proclaiming the wealthy bourgeois - also "steward" of the property of God!
But the prohibition on the love of money (that is, the craving for wealth) extended to the poor. Thus, property stratification penetrated into Christianity: the poor remained poor, and the rich - rich, because it was enough for him to “not love” his wealth and periodically allow the poor members of the community to use it free of charge.
Decline arose almost immediately in terms of the content of community "movable". The communities grew more and more, and soon it was required that special people supervised the distribution of food, clothing and funds, the institution of the church began to form, managing the "common" property of the entire flock. The transfer of all movable property was soon replaced by the transfer of surplus.
Thus, even at an early stage, even from that quasi-communism, and in essence, the equalizing distribution of food, clothing and money, not a trace remained.
The reason for such a rapid decline of early Christian "communism" lies in the very ideology of the early Christians. Their ideal was the birds of the air, which "neither sow nor reap," but are fed. Production issues did not bother the early Christians who lived on donations at all. The indifference to production was also dictated by the belief in the imminent coming of the risen Messiah, which, as we know, did not happen. In addition, the most fertile environment for Christians was initially the urban lumpen proletariat, which did not own any property at all and for whom life "for free" - due to periodic feedings arranged by the authorities of the Roman Empire, was a common thing. With them labor nihilism penetrated the Christian milieu.
Perhaps there is no more characteristic quote characterizing the shortsightedness of such an approach than, in fact, the words of Zlatoust himself: “Tell me, in fact, how many residents are there in our city now? How many Christians do you think there are? Do you think that a hundred thousand, and the rest of the Gentiles and Jews? How many thousands of gold would have been collected? How many poor people are there? I don’t think more than fifty thousand. And to feed them every day, how much would be needed? With a common content and at a common table, of course, it would not have required large expenses. What, they say, will we do when we spend our funds? Do you really think you can ever get to this state? Would not the grace of God be a thousand times greater? Would not the grace of God be poured out abundantly?"
In this conversation of the father of the church, the main idea of the approach of the early Christians to the property issue is evidently traced: to collect all the goods in a single "heap" and divide as needed. However, even Chrysostom cannot answer who will produce these benefits in the future. Notice how he gets off with a completely demagogic remark on this issue: “What, they say, will we do when we spend our funds? Do you really think you can ever get to this state? Would not the grace of God be a thousand times greater? Would not the grace of God be poured out abundantly?"
So, we see that, firstly, if Christians in the early period had a community of property, then it was not ubiquitous, and not absolute, representing a community of use of private property. Not dealing with the issues of joint labor, joint production on private plots of land, but at the same time expanding and absorbing more and more new members, the early Christian communities inevitably found themselves doomed to penetrate into themselves private land property and emerge within the stratification on the basis of property.
Does all of the above mean that the creation of communal property by the early Christians was wrong? Not at all. Those who reason in this way, as well as those gloating over the unsuccessful experience of the USSR, are simply a historical nihilist! A person who arrogantly concludes that a bad experience is a sign of a false path might just as well deny a fallen child the right to learn to walk!
The experience of the early Christians is indicative and useful, because it teaches that the simple "redistribution" of income, which some parties will deign to demand, for some reason called "communist" have nothing to do with communism. And as long as private property is preserved, the private interests of people will also live on.