“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.” Acts, 2: 44-45
In the early days after the Crucifixion, the apostles were on an understandable high. They had seen a man who they had witnessed dead alive again, with wounds and all to prove it was he; and they had been filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, acquiring supernatural powers to heal, prophesy, and speak in all manner of foreign tongues. Jesus had told them that he would one day come again “although only the Father knew the hour and the day,” to bring the world’s faithful into paradise. Naturally, they had assumed it would be done shortly. They were living in a state of ecstasy, where everything was possible. The end was nigh, and they were about to ascend into heaven. So what good were their goods? What good was money, or even their lives? With that attitude they were able to do astounding things, including starring down the lions at the games in Rome.
When I was first studying Karl Marx, I had little Biblical knowledge, but I did know that the early Christians shared everything, and I did know that his phrase, “each according to one’s needs” had come from somewhere in the Bible. Although Marxists vehemently hate the Bible, this fact was often used to shut up the more traditional realists who would say, “You can’t do that! The lazy ones will just live off the others!” “Ah-hah!” the Marxists would say, “check your own Bible!” Somehow, in the pretzel logic of academia, that meant “case closed.”
In retrospect, even though Marx hated the Bible, he must have read the New Testament, to capture the millennial fever that the Apostles had had. He must have studied it and found that, to get people to overcome their sense of greed and ownership, they must have a paradise awaiting them, to make their past lives look small in comparison. He must have learned from this that it is fervor, not socialistic science, which is necessary to keep people together. This was later captured organically by the hippies who received their fervor from LSD. With eternal paradise before one, all sacrifice is worth it.
We know what happened to the Christian communities. The fervor was not shared equally by all, and Peter had to declare that all those who did not work, would not eat. It must have become much more difficult in those communities when the Millennium did not come, so much so that to revive the communistic communities, it was necessary for St Benedict to develop his strict monastic code five centuries later in Monte Casino, including same-sex membership and celibacy. As for the hippy communes, what happened to them was nothing short of farce. When the immediate rush of ecstasy is gone, people have found, a commune can continue only when strict laws of conduct are enforced.
And only when all are in the community voluntarily.
It was that last bit that was taken for granted until Marx came up with his version of materialistic Christianity in the 1840’s. It was then that he imagined that people lived in un-individuated blocks with labels like “proletariat” and “bourgeois” so that people could be treated as members of groups rather than as individuals. This was essential to his science, and to his dream of a materialistic heaven on earth. It could not be done through the individual consciousness, not on a national scale. So, mathematician-like, the rules of human nature had to be changed to make the formula work; now, it was assumed that people in certain economic conditions not only thought alike, but thought almost exactly alike, and so could be treated as one. One person is much easier to change than a slew of individuals, especially if “regrettable” but necessary force must be applied. As Lenin once said, you have to break a few eggs – individuals – to make the collective omelet.
No wonder that Marxists hate religion, and really hate Christianity. It is not only because of competition of power, but also the different views they have on individuality. For Christians, the individual is the one who goes to heaven or hell, and so it is the individual who is paramount; for Marxists, it is only the group that can have paradise, as the very notion of the individual invites selfish, capitalist behavior. For them, the moral individual must be crushed and then merged with the supra-moral masses.
Understanding this, late-19th century Rome was extremely concerned when Marxist communism began to take hold (if I remember correctly, first in Spain, known then as “syndicalism”). As The Church always does, they spelled out the differences between Peter’s and St Benedict’s communes and the modern Marxist communes. One of the first concerns addressed was the sharing of wealth.
In Acts, a wealthy man named Ananias is noted (chapter 5). He and his wife sell all their goods and put part of the proceeds into the community, keeping the rest for themselves. Dishonestly, however, they tell all that they have given everything to the community. When Peter finds out, he curses Ananias, but not for not giving all to the group. Says Peter (paraphrase) “Your goods are yours to give or keep as you please. What your grave sin is, is that you have lied before God.” With that Ananias, and later his wife, drop dead. The lesson is not that one has to give all to the community, but rather to be honest before God.
The Church likens the same. It admonishes the wealthy to share their wealth, but only at their will. It is through will that the soul of both the giver and receiver are strengthened through the voluntary humanity of the act. In Marxist and socialist states, however, the giving is forced. While the statist might see this as an ultimate social good, the Church understands that the soul is not strengthened by such laws. As we know, in general under socialistic societies, the wealthy become angry (hear the Beatles’ song “Tax Man”) and the poor become entitled – and angry that they do not get more. Under communism, the rich (except the rulers) disappear. Without incentive, all (but the rulers, again) become poor, and no one becomes greater in soul – something that is not supposed to exist in materialistic philosophy anyway.
Even from a social science perspective, we are so much poorer for the lack of a concept of soul. The soul unites us with the cosmos. Without, we can only expand ourselves through group identity. Our soul then becomes the soul of the proletariat, or the soul of the Russians, or of brown people or of women, or of whatever group identity that is forced upon us. This is thin gruel for people who might instead believe that they are one with the stars.
Marx was right – we will not have paradise on earth until all fundamental natures are changed. However, he thought that this could be done ‘en masse’ by giving the means of production to the masses. All for him was external; there was, ultimately, no inner man, but only things and concepts of things. Again, in his way, he was right: as the early Christians believed they had nothing to lose in the face of eternity and so shared everything, so the realized Marxist society would also have nothing to lose – not from hope, but because there would be no one left to lose anything. All would belong to the Group Mind, with no soul wanting because there would be no soul left.
In the early days after the Crucifixion, the apostles were on an understandable high. They had seen a man who they had witnessed dead alive again, with wounds and all to prove it was he; and they had been filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, acquiring supernatural powers to heal, prophesy, and speak in all manner of foreign tongues. Jesus had told them that he would one day come again “although only the Father knew the hour and the day,” to bring the world’s faithful into paradise. Naturally, they had assumed it would be done shortly. They were living in a state of ecstasy, where everything was possible. The end was nigh, and they were about to ascend into heaven. So what good were their goods? What good was money, or even their lives? With that attitude they were able to do astounding things, including starring down the lions at the games in Rome.
When I was first studying Karl Marx, I had little Biblical knowledge, but I did know that the early Christians shared everything, and I did know that his phrase, “each according to one’s needs” had come from somewhere in the Bible. Although Marxists vehemently hate the Bible, this fact was often used to shut up the more traditional realists who would say, “You can’t do that! The lazy ones will just live off the others!” “Ah-hah!” the Marxists would say, “check your own Bible!” Somehow, in the pretzel logic of academia, that meant “case closed.”
In retrospect, even though Marx hated the Bible, he must have read the New Testament, to capture the millennial fever that the Apostles had had. He must have studied it and found that, to get people to overcome their sense of greed and ownership, they must have a paradise awaiting them, to make their past lives look small in comparison. He must have learned from this that it is fervor, not socialistic science, which is necessary to keep people together. This was later captured organically by the hippies who received their fervor from LSD. With eternal paradise before one, all sacrifice is worth it.
We know what happened to the Christian communities. The fervor was not shared equally by all, and Peter had to declare that all those who did not work, would not eat. It must have become much more difficult in those communities when the Millennium did not come, so much so that to revive the communistic communities, it was necessary for St Benedict to develop his strict monastic code five centuries later in Monte Casino, including same-sex membership and celibacy. As for the hippy communes, what happened to them was nothing short of farce. When the immediate rush of ecstasy is gone, people have found, a commune can continue only when strict laws of conduct are enforced.
And only when all are in the community voluntarily.
It was that last bit that was taken for granted until Marx came up with his version of materialistic Christianity in the 1840’s. It was then that he imagined that people lived in un-individuated blocks with labels like “proletariat” and “bourgeois” so that people could be treated as members of groups rather than as individuals. This was essential to his science, and to his dream of a materialistic heaven on earth. It could not be done through the individual consciousness, not on a national scale. So, mathematician-like, the rules of human nature had to be changed to make the formula work; now, it was assumed that people in certain economic conditions not only thought alike, but thought almost exactly alike, and so could be treated as one. One person is much easier to change than a slew of individuals, especially if “regrettable” but necessary force must be applied. As Lenin once said, you have to break a few eggs – individuals – to make the collective omelet.
No wonder that Marxists hate religion, and really hate Christianity. It is not only because of competition of power, but also the different views they have on individuality. For Christians, the individual is the one who goes to heaven or hell, and so it is the individual who is paramount; for Marxists, it is only the group that can have paradise, as the very notion of the individual invites selfish, capitalist behavior. For them, the moral individual must be crushed and then merged with the supra-moral masses.
Understanding this, late-19th century Rome was extremely concerned when Marxist communism began to take hold (if I remember correctly, first in Spain, known then as “syndicalism”). As The Church always does, they spelled out the differences between Peter’s and St Benedict’s communes and the modern Marxist communes. One of the first concerns addressed was the sharing of wealth.
In Acts, a wealthy man named Ananias is noted (chapter 5). He and his wife sell all their goods and put part of the proceeds into the community, keeping the rest for themselves. Dishonestly, however, they tell all that they have given everything to the community. When Peter finds out, he curses Ananias, but not for not giving all to the group. Says Peter (paraphrase) “Your goods are yours to give or keep as you please. What your grave sin is, is that you have lied before God.” With that Ananias, and later his wife, drop dead. The lesson is not that one has to give all to the community, but rather to be honest before God.
The Church likens the same. It admonishes the wealthy to share their wealth, but only at their will. It is through will that the soul of both the giver and receiver are strengthened through the voluntary humanity of the act. In Marxist and socialist states, however, the giving is forced. While the statist might see this as an ultimate social good, the Church understands that the soul is not strengthened by such laws. As we know, in general under socialistic societies, the wealthy become angry (hear the Beatles’ song “Tax Man”) and the poor become entitled – and angry that they do not get more. Under communism, the rich (except the rulers) disappear. Without incentive, all (but the rulers, again) become poor, and no one becomes greater in soul – something that is not supposed to exist in materialistic philosophy anyway.
Even from a social science perspective, we are so much poorer for the lack of a concept of soul. The soul unites us with the cosmos. Without, we can only expand ourselves through group identity. Our soul then becomes the soul of the proletariat, or the soul of the Russians, or of brown people or of women, or of whatever group identity that is forced upon us. This is thin gruel for people who might instead believe that they are one with the stars.
Marx was right – we will not have paradise on earth until all fundamental natures are changed. However, he thought that this could be done ‘en masse’ by giving the means of production to the masses. All for him was external; there was, ultimately, no inner man, but only things and concepts of things. Again, in his way, he was right: as the early Christians believed they had nothing to lose in the face of eternity and so shared everything, so the realized Marxist society would also have nothing to lose – not from hope, but because there would be no one left to lose anything. All would belong to the Group Mind, with no soul wanting because there would be no soul left.
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