Martyr
15th December 2005, 02:19
I'am sorry if there was already another topic on this subject or if you all know this but I was looking up communism in www.newadvent.org a Catholic Encyclopedia. I don't want to get into a debate about anyhting but here is what I found there that is interesting from early times up to the Apostles. There is more in the website if you look under c for communism. Whats your view or opinion?
The earliest operation of the communistic principle of which we have any record, took place in Crete about 1300 B. C. All the citizens were educated by the State in a uniform way, and all ate at the public tables. According to tradition, it was this experiment that moved Lycurgus to set up his celebrated regime in Sparta. Under his rule, Plutarch informs us, there was a common system of education, gymnastics, and military training for all the youth of both sexes. Public meals and public sleeping apartments were provided for all the citizens. The land was redistributed so that all had equal shares. Although marriage existed, it was modified by a certain degree of promiscuity in the interest of race-culture. The principles of equality and common life were also enforced in many other matters. As Plutarch says, "no man was at liberty to live as he pleased, the city being like one great camp where all had their stated allowance". In several other respects, however, the regime of Lycurgus fell short of normal communism: though the land was equally distributed it was privately owned; the political system was not a democracy but a limited monarchy, and later an oligarchy; and the privileges of citizenship and equality were not enjoyed by the entire population. The Helots, who performed all the disagreeable work, were slaves in the worst sense of that term. Indeed, the purpose of the whole organization was military and political rather than economic and social. As Lycurgus was inspired by the Cretan experiment, so Plato was impressed by the achievement of Lycurgus. His "Republic" describes an ideal commonwealth in which there was to be community of property, meals, and even of women. The State was to control education, marriage, births, the occupation of the citizens, and the distribution and enjoyment of goods. It would enforce perfect equality of conditions and careers for all citizens and for both sexes. Plato's motive in outlining this imaginary social order was individual welfare, not State aggrandizement. He wanted to call the attention of the world to a State which was unique in that it was not composed of two classes constantly at war with each other, the rich and the poor. But his model commonwealth was to have slaves.
The communistic principle governed for a time the lives of the first Christians of Jerusalem. In the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we learn that none of the brethren called anything that he possessed his own; that those who had houses and lands sold them and laid the price at the feet of the Apostles, who distributed "to everyone according as he had need". Inasmuch as they made no distinction between citizens and slaves, these primitive Christians were in advance of the communism of Plato. Their communism was, moreover, entirely voluntary and spontaneous. The words of St. Peter to Ananias prove that individual Christians were quite free to retain their private property. Finally, the arrangement did not long continue, nor was it adopted by any of the other Christian bodies outside of Jerusalem. Hence the assertion that Christianity was in the beginning communistic is a gross exaggeration. And the claim that certain Fathers of the Church, notably Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, Chrysostum, and Jerome, condemned all private property and advocated communism, is likewise unwarranted.
The earliest operation of the communistic principle of which we have any record, took place in Crete about 1300 B. C. All the citizens were educated by the State in a uniform way, and all ate at the public tables. According to tradition, it was this experiment that moved Lycurgus to set up his celebrated regime in Sparta. Under his rule, Plutarch informs us, there was a common system of education, gymnastics, and military training for all the youth of both sexes. Public meals and public sleeping apartments were provided for all the citizens. The land was redistributed so that all had equal shares. Although marriage existed, it was modified by a certain degree of promiscuity in the interest of race-culture. The principles of equality and common life were also enforced in many other matters. As Plutarch says, "no man was at liberty to live as he pleased, the city being like one great camp where all had their stated allowance". In several other respects, however, the regime of Lycurgus fell short of normal communism: though the land was equally distributed it was privately owned; the political system was not a democracy but a limited monarchy, and later an oligarchy; and the privileges of citizenship and equality were not enjoyed by the entire population. The Helots, who performed all the disagreeable work, were slaves in the worst sense of that term. Indeed, the purpose of the whole organization was military and political rather than economic and social. As Lycurgus was inspired by the Cretan experiment, so Plato was impressed by the achievement of Lycurgus. His "Republic" describes an ideal commonwealth in which there was to be community of property, meals, and even of women. The State was to control education, marriage, births, the occupation of the citizens, and the distribution and enjoyment of goods. It would enforce perfect equality of conditions and careers for all citizens and for both sexes. Plato's motive in outlining this imaginary social order was individual welfare, not State aggrandizement. He wanted to call the attention of the world to a State which was unique in that it was not composed of two classes constantly at war with each other, the rich and the poor. But his model commonwealth was to have slaves.
The communistic principle governed for a time the lives of the first Christians of Jerusalem. In the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we learn that none of the brethren called anything that he possessed his own; that those who had houses and lands sold them and laid the price at the feet of the Apostles, who distributed "to everyone according as he had need". Inasmuch as they made no distinction between citizens and slaves, these primitive Christians were in advance of the communism of Plato. Their communism was, moreover, entirely voluntary and spontaneous. The words of St. Peter to Ananias prove that individual Christians were quite free to retain their private property. Finally, the arrangement did not long continue, nor was it adopted by any of the other Christian bodies outside of Jerusalem. Hence the assertion that Christianity was in the beginning communistic is a gross exaggeration. And the claim that certain Fathers of the Church, notably Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, Chrysostum, and Jerome, condemned all private property and advocated communism, is likewise unwarranted.