If I am told there were no such men among the early Jesuists or Christian propagandists, I answer that if there had not been the cult would not have gone very far. Of course the records minimize the economic side. In the gospels we are told that Judas carried “the bag,” but never anything of what he got to put in it. But in the Acts, the economic factor obtrudes itself even in myth. A picture is there drawn ([ii, 44]), for the edification of later Christians, of the first community as having “all things common”—a statement which we have no reason to believe true of any ancient Christian community whatever—unless in the “pre-apostolic” period.[3] The picture never recurs, in the apostolic history or elsewhere. And the purpose of edification is unconsciously turned to the account of revelation. Of the faithful it is represented that they “sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all, according as any man had need.” The assertion is reiterated (iv, 34) to the extent of alleging that all who had houses or lands sold all, bringing the proceeds to the apostles for distribution “according as any one had need.” Among these having need would certainly be the “apostles.”
Soon one of the faithful, Joseph surnamed Barnabas, “a Levite, a man of Cyprus by race,” is held up to honour for that “having a field,” he “sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” Then comes the story of Ananias and Sapphira, who, or at least the former, have ever since supplied Christendom with its standing name for the fraudulent liar. The sin of Ananias consisted in his not having given the apostles the whole price of a possession he had voluntarily sold for behoof of the community. There could be no more striking instance of the power of ecclesiastical ethic to paralyse the general moral sense. Ananias in the legend was giving liberally, but not liberally enough to satisfy the apostle, who accordingly denounces him as sinning against the Holy Ghost,[4] and miraculously slays him for his crime. One might have supposed that no Christian reader, remembering that the ultra-righteous apostle, in the previous sacrosanct record, had just before been represented as basely denying his Lord, could fail to be struck with shame and horror by the savage recital. But of such shame and horror I cannot recall one Christian avowal. And we are to remember that the devout recipients of that recital are assumed to have been the ideal Christian converts.
Soon the twelve are made to explain (vi, 2–4) to the growing “multitude of the disciples” that “it is not fit that we should forsake the word of God, and serve tables. Look ye out ... seven men of good report, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will continue stedfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the word.” From the date of that writing the apostle and his successors could claim to be worthy of their hire, though they had long to squabble for it. In the early Jesuist additions to the Teaching we see how the issue was raised. At first (xi) there is a succession of wandering apostles or “prophets.” Every apostle is to be received “as the Lord; but he shall not remain [except for?] one day; if however there be need, then the next [day]; but if he remain three days, he is a false prophet. But when the apostle departeth, let him take nothing except bread enough till he lodge [again]; but if he ask money, he is a false prophet.” That is the first stage, probably quite Judaic.
The next section (xii) still adheres broadly to the same view. Every entrant must work for his living. “If he will not act according to this, he is a Christmonger (χριστέμπορός).” Evidently there were already Christmongers. But in chapter xiii the primitive stage has been passed, and there is systematic enactment of economic provision for the installed prophet or teacher as such:—
But every true prophet who will settle among you is worthy of his food. Likewise a true teacher, he also is worthy, like the workman, of his food. Every first-fruit, then, of the produce of wine-press and threshing-floor, of oxen and of sheep, thou shalt take and give to the prophets; for they are your high-priests. But if ye have no prophet, give [it] to the poor. If thou makest a baking of bread, take the first [of it] and give according to the commandment. In like manner when thou openest a jar of wine or oil, take the first [of it] and give to the prophets; and of money and clothing and every possession, take the first, as may seem right to thee, and give according to the commandment.
This economic development, too, may have been Jewish, as it was heathen.[5] It is certainly also Christian. The “prophets” are represented in the Acts ([xi, 27]) as at work already in the days of Claudius; and they were an established class at the time of the writing of First Corinthians ([xii, 28]), standing next to “apostles” and above “teachers.” That passage is obviously post-Pauline, if we are to think of Paul as spending only a few years in his eastern propaganda. But the prophets are ostensibly numerous in the earliest days of the church,[6] and seem to have subsisted alongside of “apostles” at the outset. All along they must have found some subsistence: in time they are “established.” The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth sections of the Teaching, which are our best evidence of the progression, show a gradual triumph of the economic factor, registering itself in the additions. The fifteenth section divides in two parts, an economic and an ethical, the economic coming first:—
Now elect for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek and not avaricious, and upright and proved; for they too render you the service of the prophets and the teachers. Therefore neglect them not; for they are the ones who are honoured of you, together with the prophets and teachers.
It was for a community thus supporting various classes of teachers and preachers, first poorly and primitively, later in an organized fashion, that the gospels were built up and the epistles composed.