The Transformation of Early Christianity from an Eschatological to a Socialized Movement

CHAPTER II
THE EARLY CHURCH AND PROPERTY CONCEPTS

The Chiliasm of the early Christians had a direct bearing upon their attitude toward the property institutions and property concepts of the time. Neither the declension of Chiliasm nor the progressive socialization of the Church can be understood without some consideration of the attitude of the Christians toward property, and conversely the effect of the existing economic system upon the Christians.

The early Church made its appearance in a world where the institution of private property was supreme in fact and very largely unquestioned in theory. It is recognized with perfect clearness by all the ancient thinkers who refer to the subject that their civilization was based upon the property rights of man in man. It is not true that slavery was invariably considered part of the unalterable law of nature. Aristotle expressly states that a sufficient development of mechanistic technology would abrogate slavery. But such a technological development was not expected nor indeed wished for. Contempt for mechanical processes of industry was universal, with the dubious exception of the application of science to military engines. There is a similar unanimity in regard to commercial enterprise. Money obtained by ordinary mercantile methods was considered as dishonestly acquired. It was assumed as self-evident that the merchant had to be a thief. Interest on money was of course reprobated as contrary to nature.³⁶ Return from landed property was almost the only socially reputable form of income – with the exception of spoils of war. Free wage labor was so unimportant that the Roman law did not even develop a set of legal principles regarding it.

The Jewish property system, which originally had some notable peculiarities of its own, had by the first century A.D. become of necessity so like the Roman that the differences may for our purposes be disregarded. The more so as Christianity very early came almost exclusively under the influence of the Roman institutions and concepts in this regard. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that Roman practice in regard to property was widely at variance with Roman theory, with the result that serious moral disintegration came over persons engaging in commercial enterprises. The moral lapses of the early Christians are largely to be set down to this cause, on the principle that a destruction of moral integrity in one respect makes other delinquencies easy.

With respect to the attitude of Christ towards contemporary property institutions, it is unnecessary for our purpose to regard any conclusions of modern criticism. The synoptic gospels were uncritically accepted by the early Church and we are concerned merely with what was commonly accepted as the teaching of Christ.

Perhaps as convenient a way as any of illustrating the breadth of view in Christ's attitude toward property institutions would be to take a single illustration and apply to it the whole range of property concepts found in the teachings of Christ. No single illustration is so applied in the Gospels as we have them, but the principles will be the clearer for the consistent use of the same illustration. We shall take as our type case one which Christ himself used; the case of a thief who steals a coat. The teachings of Christ about property can conveniently be put down under four heads, each illustrating, by a different way of treating the thief, a different property concept.

First: The ordinary or conventional manner of treating the thief, based on the concept of the morality and sacredness of private property; i.e., catching the thief, recovering the stolen property and punishing the crime by fine or imprisonment or torture. This conventional standard of morality and attitude towards property is illustrated, e.g., in the story of the man with one talent in the parable. It is very concisely summed up in the expression: "To him that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."

Second: What may be called for convenience the socialistic manner of treating the thief – no implications either good or bad being intended by the use of the term socialistic. This treatment would consist of catching the thief, recovering the stolen property but letting the thief go free with merely an admonition to future good behavior. This treatment is based on the concept that the institution of private property has only a partial validity and that violations of private property rights are to be blamed not alone upon the violator but upon society at large in equal degree. This attitude is illustrated in the case of the woman taken in adultery: "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more." The illustration is perhaps more apt than appears at first glance for female chastity is and was legally possessed of tangible economic value i.e., adultery was viewed as a violation of a property right belonging to the husband of the adultress.

Third: What may be termed the anarchistic manner of treating the thief – here again no implications either good or bad are intended by the employment of the term anarchistic. This treatment consists essentially in pacificism, in Tolstoi's non-resistance. It is purely negative and allows the thief to get away with the stolen coat without anyone making any move to recover the property. This treatment is based on the concept that private property institutions have no validity at all, but that the only valid property arrangement is that of pure communism. This attitude toward property is illustrated by such sayings of Christ as "Of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again;" "Resist not him that is evil," etc.

Fourth: What may be distinguished as the specifically Christian manner of treating the thief – using the word Christian as appertaining strictly to the founder of the Church. This treatment consists of running after the thief not for the purpose of capturing and punishing him; not even for the purpose of recovering the stolen coat but for the purpose of giving him a vest and an overcoat in addition to what he has stolen. It amounts to the direct encouragement and reward of the thief for doing what is presumably a meritorious action by stealing. This way of treating a thief is not socialistic, or communistic; it is not even anarchistic. It is something as far beyond anarchy, as anarchy is beyond socialism, or socialism beyond ordinary conventional individualism. It is specifically and peculiarly and uniquely Christian, using that word as above defined. This treatment is not based on any concept of any kind of property institution. Its logical, intellectual position is the denial of the validity or worth of any property institutions, private or communistic. It involves indeed the destruction of the very concept property as implying possession by right of social agreement. This attitude of Christ toward property finds expression in such sayings as: "From him that taketh away thy cloke withhold not thy coat also." "Blessed are ye poor." "Woe unto you that are rich." It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, etc. etc. The great bulk of Christ's statements about property are to be classified under this fourth head. The views are probably connected, with just what degree of closeness it is impossible to say, to the belief in the immediately imminent catastrophe of the world. With somewhat less certainty, it may be ventured that certain of Christ's sayings which we have listed as anarchistic are perhaps influenced by the same idea.

It is of course obvious that the above four fold division is not exact in the strict scientific sense, or that any teaching of Christ concerning property can be unhesitatingly classified under one head or another. Still less is anything intended to be implied as to the existence or non-existence of any underlying, universal, theological principle which would reconcile apparent divergencies. Theological metaphysics as such, lie outside the scope of this chapter which is intended as an objective study of concepts of property. From an objective point of view it is evident that the four divisions imperceptibly shade into one another and form a continuous series, nevertheless for the sake of convenience it may be considered as approximating a rational organization of the material under distinct heads.

Immediately after the time of Christ the Christians in Jerusalem developed a communistic organization. "All that believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need." "Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. Neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."³⁷

It is doubtless true that the participants in this communistic society believed themselves to be living according to the principles and precepts of Christ. Yet there is some evidence which would lead to the conclusion that perhaps this experiment was less a deliberate and reasoned out endeavor to organize a permanent society on a new economic basis, than an instinctive movement, entered upon under the influence of a belief in the immediately imminent second advent of Christ and therefore expected to be of only very limited duration. The collections subsequently taken up in other Christian communities 'for the relief of the poor saints in Jerusalem' would seem to lend color to this view of the matter.

In St. Paul's teaching about property there is a fundamental inconsistency. He makes statements which taken separately are applicable to particular situations but which are not in harmony with one another. He loyally supported the established right of private property, even in slaves. But at another time he pronounced that property right depended upon service rendered. In one place we have: "Slaves obey your masters" in another: "If any will not work neither let him eat." But if a man's slaves obey him he can eat without working. There is no suggestion of communism in St. Paul's writings. If all the 'property passages' in the epistles are collected and read in connection with their contexts two facts come into prominence, First: Property institutions as such have only a relative validity. They are not viewed as ends valuable in themselves but are subordinated to religious ends, and the concept of an immediately imminent second advent lies at the base of this relative valuation.³⁸ Second: Economic arrangements of the existing social order, like similar political arrangements, are to be strictly conformed to, in spite of their merely relative validity, for fear of jeopardizing the more important religious movement.³⁹ St. Paul whether consciously or not, is, in regard to social institutions, an evolutionary revolutionist. He would doubtless have been the first to admit that his doctrine of human brotherhood, for example, would eventually overthrow his doctrine of slavery, supposing – as there is no ground for thinking he did suppose – that time enough elapsed for his doctrine of brotherhood to permeate the general social consciousness. In so far as property concepts are concerned it would probably be difficult to maintain that there is any essential divergence between the teachings of St. Paul and some at least of the teachings of Christ. St. Paul was by nature an ecclesiastical statesman. He seems to have taken such of Christ's property concepts as served his purposes and ignored the others.

In the epistle of St. James are to be found very bitter complaints as to the working of property institutions. These complaints are so serious as to suggest the inevitable attempt to make over the institutions and the fact that no such attempt is indicated is due to the manifestly lively expectation of the second advent. Yet even so it was necessary for the writer to council patience to his brethren.⁴⁰

In the Revelation there is a passage, xviii, 12 seq., quite in the manner of the most violent of the ancient prophets or the modern anarchists. In this passage property is conceived as evil and the destruction of civilization as it then was, is conceived as a cause of rejoicing to saints, apostles, and prophets. On the other hand the New Jerusalem in the same book⁴¹ is a 'wholesale jewelers paradise' and involves the property concepts of those cities of Asia Minor who did most of the jewelry manufacturing of the Roman Empire. It is very doubtful how far anything in such a description can be said to embody property concepts but the ideal put forth is the communistic enjoyment of incredible luxury.

The epistle of Clement of Rome has only incidental references to property. They can be well summed up in the quotation:⁴² "Let the rich man provide for the wants of the poor; and let the poor man bless God, because He hath given him one by whom his need may be supplied." There is manifestly no question of tampering with received property institutions and concepts on the part of the writer of such a sentence. It is equally evident that such an attitude in regard to property is eminently well calculated to enable the holder to propagate specifically theological opinions with a minimum of interested opposition.

The Didache holds a naïve and touching communistic creed.⁴³ "Thou shalt not turn away from him that hath need but shalt share all things with thy brother and shalt not say that they are thine own." This passage, the only one on the subject in the Didache, would seem to indicate that the institution of private property existed as a matter of fact in the writer's community, but that the validity of it was not acknowledged. The position may perhaps be called one of conceptual and constructive communism.

The Epistle of Barnabas holds exactly the same view in almost exactly the same words:⁴⁴ "Thou shalt communicate to thy neighbor all that thou hast, thou shalt not call anything thine own."

Early in the second century we come upon the Ebionites who in the matter of property held very strong views.⁴⁵ The stricter of them made poverty a condition of salvation. They refused to acknowledge the validity of the concept property – that is in theory. In practice some of them seem to have been influenced by the doctrine and practice of the Essenes in regard to communism.

All through the second century we find a continuous succession of heretical sects, Gnostics and others, who held either the doctrine of the wickedness of property-ownership as such, 'holy poverty,' or else objected to individual ownership of property and preached or practiced communism in such degree as might be possible under the circumstances. Of these sects it is sufficient to name the Marcionites 110 A.D. The Carpocratians 135 A.D. The Procidians 160 A.D.(?) The Basilidians 138 A.D. It is evident that there was in progress in the second century an ascetic movement which later took on the forms of Manichaeism and Christian asceticism. The Church consistently opposed all these sects and maintained the validity of private property without condemning communism as such, except in extreme cases, such as that of Epiphanes of Alexandria, a Carpocriation, who in a book on Justice, 125 A.D., defined virtue as consisting in absolute communism of goods and women.

To return to orthodox Christianity, Hermas shows very clearly the inconsistencies which beset Christian theory and practice in the first half of the second century. All who are rich must be deprived of their wealth in order to be good Christians.⁴⁶ Yet this deprivation of wealth must be only relative; there must be wealth enough left for the giving of alms.⁴⁷ There is no trace of communism in Hermas and no praise of poverty as such. The chief justification for the existence of property institutions would seem to be that they are social structures which can be utilized for the giving and receiving of alms. Perhaps one paragraph is worth quoting as giving possibly the earliest formulation extant of the property concepts that finally became dominant. "The rich man has much wealth but is poor in matters relating to the Lord because he is distracted about his riches and he offers very few confessions and intercessions to the Lord and those which he does offer are small and weak, and have no power above. But when the rich man refreshes the poor and assists him in his necessities, believing that which he does to the poor man will be able to find its reward with God – because the poor man is rich in intercessions and confession and his intercession has great power with God – then the rich man helps the poor in all things without hesitation; and the poor man, being helped by the rich, intercedes for him, giving thanks to God for him who bestows gifts upon him. And he still continues earnestly to interest himself for the poor man, that his want may be constantly supplied. For he knows that the intercession of the poor man is acceptable and influential with God. Both accordingly accomplish their work. The poor man makes intercession; a work in which he is rich, which he received from the Lord, and with which he recompenses the master who helps him. And the rich man in like manner, unhesitatingly bestows upon the poor man the riches which he received from the Lord. And this is a great work and acceptable before God, because he understands the object of his wealth and has given to the poor of the gifts of the Lord and rightly discharged his service to Him."⁴⁸

The inconsistent and irreconcilable nature of the evidence about early Christian property institutions is well illustrated in Justin Martyr. Two short extracts are sufficient for the purpose. "We who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock and communicate to every one in need."⁴⁹ "We carry on us all we possess and share everything with the poor."⁵⁰

The second of these passages would indicate that the first is not to be taken in a too literal and comprehensive sense. It may perhaps be ventured as an opinion that the truth of the matter, as regards the Christians of whom Justin wrote, is that the concept of private property was largely invalidated and that personal possessions were thought of as owned in common while the 'common stock' consisted in reality of contributions – it may be large contributions – given for the relief of necessity among the members.

The account preserved to us in Lucian of the Christian communities of Judea in the later half of the second Century would seem to bear out this opinion. Lucian says: "The activity of these people in dealing with any matter that affects their community is something extraordinary. They spare no trouble, no expense. Peregrine all this time was making quite an income on the strength of his bondage. Money came pouring in. You see these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self devotion which are so common among them and then it was impressed upon them by their original law giver that they are all brothers from the moment that they are converted and deny the gods of Greece and worship the crucified sage and live after his laws. All this they take quite on trust with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property."⁵¹

In Tertullian we find the same contradiction as regards private ownership and communism which has already been noted in Justin. The contradiction is more glaring, but possibly the explanation of the real situation is similar. The following two extracts from the same chapter bring this contradiction out in high relief: "Family possessions which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us but our wives." "On the monthly collection day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure and only if he be able, for there is no compulsion, all is voluntary."⁵²

Tertullian was a Montanist and one of the most serious charges made against the Montanists was that some of their prophets received interest on money loaned by them.⁵³ Tertullian is above suspicion in this respect. He demonstrates by quotations from both the Old and New Testaments that it is absolutely contradictory to Christianity. Interest on money is the only property institution in regard to which the teaching of the early Church is consistent. Every reference we have in regard to this practice condemns it – not mildly as a venial offense – but fiercely and savagely as a heinous crime like incest or murder. "Fenerare est hominem occidere" is a favorite formula. In this respect the most pronounced apologists of private wealth like Clement of Alexandria are in perfect accord with the most pronounced communists like Tertullian. The only difference to be noted is one of emphasis. In the earlier writers there are relatively few references to interest, which may perhaps be due to the fact that in the earlier time there were relatively few Christians possessed of surplus means requiring investment. As might naturally be expected, the writers of the period after the establishment of Christianity as a legal religion make more frequent and more bitter reference to the matter. The vehemence of denunciation indulged in by these later writers almost exceeds credibility. The most improbable and strained exegesis is resorted to in an effort to explain away the words of Christ in the parables of the pounds and talents. But this vehemence is by no means confined to the Nicene and post-Nicene fathers. So statesmanlike a bishop as Cyprian, in a long railing accusation against certain opposition bishops brings forth as their final sin that they had "multiplied gain by usury."⁵⁴ Usury is not to be taken, of course, in its present sense of excessive or burdensome interest and it is evident that Cyprian did not use it in such a sense. He is simply condemning interest as such. In the minds of the early Christians the difference between taking five percent interest or fifty percent was exactly the same as the difference between stealing one dollar or ten. The sin was essentially the same irrespective of the particular amount involved. Indeed this comparison is scarcely a valid one; for taking interest was conceived as a much worse sin than plain robbery. It is perhaps worth noting that the moral distinction between interest and usury is of very late development. The credit, if it be such, of making it, is to be ascribed to Calvin and is not unconnected with the predilection of certain types of pecuniary interest for that reformer's system of ecclesiastical polity. The Roman law did indeed fix a maximum legal rate of interest, varying at different times and even at the same time for different forms of commercial risk. During the first three centuries A.D. it was, for example, consistently twelve percent on ships and varied from six to twelve percent on other forms of investment. But this has little moral connotation.

Early Christian condemnation of interest on loans was by no means confined to the expression of opinion by church writers. Council after council legislated against it with ever increasing severity. The forty-fourth Apostolic Canon prohibited the practice to clerics. The Council of Elvira 310 A.D. forbade it to both clerics and laity. The Council of Arles 314 A.D. provided that clerics guilty of the practice should be deposed from the ministry. The seventeenth canon of the Council of Nicea 325 A.D. provided that they should be excommunicated. The penalty is reiterated in the twelfth canon of the First Council of Carthage 345 A.D. There is no need to continue the list. It is sufficient to say that nearly every council whose canons have come down to us has legislation against interest. Again and again it is absolutely forbidden to clergy and laity alike under the severest ecclesiastical penalties – and it is necessary to remember that after 325 A.D. these penalties could, if need be, be enforced by governmental authority.

This attitude of the early Church toward interest on loans is a matter of very considerable historical importance. Although, as we shall endeavor to show later, the ecclesiastical laws were frequently and largely evaded, they still had such influence that their contribution to the sum of economic forces which accomplished the overthrow of ancient civilization is by no means an insignificant one. Nor did the influence of this attitude cease at the fall of Rome. It rather increased thereafter and for several centuries, the so-called "Dark Ages," civilization was strangled by the power of this idea of the sin of usury. To this day the Roman Church regards interest on money as a reprehensible thing which, however, is not, for practical reasons, to be spoken of as sinful by the clergy.⁵⁵ This attitude has been no inconsiderable factor in the relatively late industrial development in Catholic countries.

The early Christian concept of interest was not an idea original with Christianity. It was not derived from Christ at all. It was taken over bodily from Old Testament Judaism and contemporary pagan philosophy. It is a well known fact that the views of Plato and Aristotle, of Cicero and Seneca on interest, correspond in a very astonishing way to the views of Deuteronomy and Isaiah, of the Psalms and Ezekiel. The strength of the concept in the early Church was due to this fact. In regard to no other concept was there such a unanimity of opinion. The Christian convert found that the sacred scriptures of his new faith confirmed in the strongest language the condemnation of interest which he had become familiar with from the writings of the noblest pagan philosophers. When reason and religion were in accord it is not wonderful that their judgment was accepted – as a theory.

In spite of this union of pagan philosophers and Hebrew prophets, of Christian Fathers and Ecclesiastical Canons, the condemnation and prohibition of interest on money was a theory only. A very ordinary knowledge of classical civilization is sufficient to explain the reason of this. More nearly than any other institution, the financial machinery of antiquity corresponds to that of modern life. Trusts and millionaires were phenomena of their economic life as of ours. Banks were numerous and ubiquitous. They were of all sizes and degrees; from the great metropolitan corporation with correspondents all over the civilized world, to the hated money lender in a shabby office on a side street. The great bankers were men of the first importance in society. From their number were regularly recruited the officials of the imperial treasury. They were almost without exception men of the strictest financial integrity. The Roman banking laws protected the depositor more securely than the laws of any modern nation, and these Roman laws were rigidly enforced. Every banking institution had to obtain government authorization in order to do business and this authorization was withdrawn on the discovery of the smallest discrepancy in the accounts. The regular rate of interest on ordinary deposits was four percent; under certain peculiar conditions the rate went as low as two and a half and as high as six percent. The rate published by a bank had to be paid even though payment swept away the banker's entire private property. The banker lost everything before the depositor lost anything. The banks were used by the government in carrying out such fiscal measures as could not be conveniently handled by the treasury department directly. They played a still more important part in the ordinary commercial life of the times. A relatively small volume of business was, or could be, carried on by transfers of specie. The great bulk of commercial transactions were of necessity carried on by checks, drafts, discounts, bills of exchange and similar instruments of credit. It was a matter of simple impossibility for any man in ordinary commercial or industrial life to carry on his business for even a single day without participating directly or indirectly in transactions involving loans and interest.

Our excuse for reciting these commonplace details of Roman commercial life is that their very commonplaceness explains the discrepancy between early Christian theory and practice in the matter of interest. It would be an easy task to convict the early Christians of hypocritical pretense in this regard. Nothing more would be necessary than to print their theory in one column and their practice in a parallel one. Yet the early Christians were not hypocrites. As regards sincerity of profession they compare very favorably with any religionists of any age. As a matter of fact the historians have long ago shown that it is altogether impossible and unjust to argue from a sect's opinions to their feelings and actions. To quote Macauley⁵⁶ "Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they profess or act up to all that they believe. Imagine a man acting on the supposition that he may safely offer the deadliest injuries and insults to everybody who says that revenge is sinful; or that he may safely intrust all his property without security to any person who says it is wrong to steal. Such a character would be too absurd for the wildest farce." "The law which is inscribed on the walls of the synagogues prohibits covetousness. But if we were to say that a Jew mortgagee would not foreclose because God had commanded him not to covet his neighbor's house, everybody would think us out of our wits."⁵⁷ Yet that Jew is no hypocrite in his religion. He is sincerely and honestly devoted to his faith and will sacrifice time and money; will undergo social obloquy and contempt in support of it. So it was with the early Christians. By the process of abstracting their theory and practice of interest from the social matrix which alone makes the theory or practice intelligible, it is easy to show a logical inconsistency. It would be equally foolish and false to deduce from this inconsistency any conclusions one way or the other as to early Christian morality. It is if course no aim of this thesis to attack or defend any religious or moral opinions. It is a matter entirely apart from our present concern to evaluate interest or non-interest in ethical terms. Our purpose is not to explain away the inconsistency of the early Christians. Admitting the inconsistency in the fullest degree, our aim is to explain it as natural, and, under the social conditions then prevailing, practically inevitable. The early Christians left funds to care in perpetuity for the family burial lot.⁵⁸ Under any religious creed; Pagan, Jewish, or Christian, decent provision for the care of graves of relatives was not only admissible, it was a positive demand of social reputability; to say nothing of the demand of natural affection.