Following
is a brief attempt at an explanation of the “all things common” account in Acts
8:
Acts 8:1
tells us that because of persecution, all the saints except the apostles left
Jerusalem. First they fled to other Judean and Samarian cities, and then on to
Cyprus, Antioch, Damascus, and Alexandria . . . This had essentially been
accomplished before the conversion of Saul. The Bible chronology tells us that
Saul’s conversion occurred in 35 A.D. If we use the date of 33 A.D. as the year
of the death and resurrection of Christ, then the large growth spurt of the
Church and the exodus from Jerusalem all took place within two years. The
Annanias and Sophira episode occurred somewhere during that time, probably near
the beginning of the two-year period.
The
persecutions would mean that people would have to flee their homes and lands to
avoid imprisonment or death. Selling those possessions where possible would be
the most sensible thing to do. The money received could be used to help finance
a trip to a new location and the establishment of a new home and occupation.
Part of those funds could go to assist those who had no means, perhaps because
their belongings had been confiscated or destroyed.
In these
circumstances it would probably be important to establish some kind of welfare
system. If a person were to turn over all his property to the church, he would
then have no property and could logically be classified as “poor.” By being a
poor person, he could qualify for sharing in the proceeds from other similar
donations. Someone such as Joses (Acts 4:36-37) may have set the pattern by
donating all his property and then becoming eligible for sharing in the
proceeds of other donations.
Apparently
Annanias and Sophira decided to take advantage of the system by pretending to give
all their property and thus becoming eligible to be maintained by the church.
By secretly keeping back a part of the original sales price, they could have
two sources of wealth. They thus become some of the first “welfare cheaters” on
record. Their behavior would justify a strong action by the Lord so that no one
would be tempted to take advantage of the system made possible by the unselfish
acts of others.
Although
possibly under a higher level of persecution, these Jerusalem saints were
somewhat like those latter-day saints who were asked to leave their homes in the
east and migrate to the west as part of the gathering process. They were
counseled to do the best they could under the circumstances, that is, to sell
their land if they could, or to rent it or simply leave it behind if no other arrangement
could be made. D&C 38:37.
Attitudes
toward property and its use are likely to be quite different during a time of
forced or required migration. There are many parallels between the Jerusalem
saints and the saints of Joseph Smith’s day. A “use it or lose it” or “give it
or lose it” philosophy would become reasonable. It might as well be used to
help your friends as be left to your enemies. When people are migrating, they
give up and share property easily—if they don’t use it, they lose it anyway.
Nomadic peoples or others in subsistence economies typify some of these
practices for very sensible reasons. See George Dalton, ed. Tribal and
Peasant Economies: Readings in Economic Anthropology (Garden City, N.Y.:
The Natural History Press, 1967), p. 17.
Two other
scriptural references to communal situations can be explained in a similar way.
The references in the Book of Mormon to a people with “all things common among them,”
4 Nephi 1:3, occurred just after the wholesale destruction of cities in the New
World. With supplies and facilities gone, people might well have to band
together in a tribal subsistence kind of organization in order to survive. At
economic conditions improved through hard work and accumulation of supplies and
tools, organization ties could become more casual.
About two
hundred years after the gospel-based society originated, the majority of the
people rejected the gospel (4 Ne 1:24, 38, 40), and as a consequence, most of
the cooperation they had enjoyed was replaced with contention (4 Ne 1:25-49).
With only a catch-phrase, “all things common”, and a few remarks about the
setting to go on, there is little that can be determined about the nature of
the society, and we are left almost wholly to speculation. However, it seems
clear enough that the peoples’ acceptance of the gospel (4 Ne 1:15, “no contention
. . . because of the love of God”) was the factor that made possible whatever
cooperation there was, rather than being the reverse, an economic mechanism
does not the gospel bring. In other words, it seems unlikely that the apostasy
was a consequence of a change in social structure. It is more likely that the
apostasy damaged the social fabric.
The
phrase “no poor among them,” Moses 7:18, is often assumed to indicate some kind
of communal organization. It comes from a time when the armies of the world
were attacking the people of Enoch. The Lord protected the people of Enoch
through power given to their leader, but they probably found it necessary to
help themselves as well by organizing along military lines for defense. This process
would include centralized control of many aspects of life, including the army quartermaster
functions of acquisition and sharing of supplies, facilities, and equipment.
The
common thread running through the New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Pearl of
Great Price references to communalism is the hostile, primitive, migratory
conditions in which the organizations develop and the survival purpose they
served. Brigham Young’s united order in Utah and Joseph Smith’s in Illinois and
Missouri continued the pattern. (Kent W. Huff, Joseph Smith’s United Order:
A Non-Communalistic Interpretation [Orem, Utah: Cedar Fort, Inc., 1988], 43-45
n. 15)