Commmiism, a theory of* community of proper- ty," often attempted to be realized in practice.
I. Communistic Ideas in the rtHgiom and pkHosopUcai Systems o/anoient Paganism. — The most ancient form of communism known to us is found in the monaster* ies of Buddhism, in attempts to reach an ideal of sanc- tity by renouncing marriage and property. In the history of Greece, a form of society based upon com- munity of goods is ascribed to the order of Pythagore- ans. But by fkr the most important representative of communistic ideas in pagan antiquity is Plato, wboK work on the ideal state still ranks among the best that has ever Iben written in favor of communism. Plato regards the possession of private property as the source of every evil for the state — of avarice, of ego- tism, of a low character. He therefore aUows cnij the lowest of the three classes, into which, acoordiag to him, the state is divided, and which he excludes from a participation in the government of the state, to possess private property. The two ruling classies, the archontes and the warriors, are subjected by Plato to compulsory communism in the widest sense of the word. As both classes were to live exclnsivelj for the state, and any private possession appeared to Fit- to as productive of egotism, he not only demanded for these two classes community of property, but, under certain restrictions, to be regulated by law, communi- ty of women. After the establishment of Christian- ity, the Neo-Platonic philosopher Plotinns was a prom- inent representative of communistic ideas, and applied to the Roman Emperor Gallienus for permission to es- tablish a state according to the Platonic ideal, npoo the ruins of a destroyed city of Calabria.
II. Communism among the Jews. — ^Among the Jews, the sects of the TherapeutsB and the Essenes, whow fundamental principle was the dualism of the Eastern
COMMUNISM
446
COMMUNISM
relii^ona, fbrmed, Hke the Buddhists, communistic so- cieties, the former on Lalce Moens in Egypt, the lat- ter in tlie deserts near the Dead Sea. See Essenes, Thebapkuta.
III. Monastie Ccmmumsm and Socialism in^ the cm- eimt Christian Ckurch.-^Th» Infant Christian Church at Jerosalem lias been held up as at once an example of commonism and an argument for it (Acts ii, 42, 44, 46). Bat the passage in Acts does not imply either an absdate, total, or compulsory community of goods. There is no trace in the New Testament of Jewish Es- genism or of modem communism. Cliristianity care- fully goards the individuality of each member, and considers love as the only law by which Christians are bound. It is true, however, on the other hand, that a communistic tendency existed in the Church, which developed itself in the 4th century in the establish- ment of the communities of anachorets and monks. See MoNACHiSM. The refbrmation of tlie monastic orders, l)egan principally through the efforts of Bernard de Clairvaax in the 12th century, gave a new social- istic and communistic impulse to the laity, and led to the formation of religious bodi^ united by vows of life-long poverty and asceticism. Such were the Hur mUkMUM (q. v.), who made vows of volnntiry poverty, chastity, and £uting, but were not distinguished fhnn the people in dress, though living together as a relig- ions community ; the Begkardt (q. v.), a society of un- married men, who lived in community under a master, and devoted themselves to manual labor and devo- tions ; and a similar female association, formed as ear- ly as the 11th century, under the name of Begume$ (q. v). These lay associations differed firom the clerical communities by considering poverty and continence as essential rules, and bore more of a socialistic than a communistic character. In the 18th century, the Mendicant orders (q. v.) united the socialistic organ- ization to the clerical character, and cast the lay brotherhoods in the shade. Another sort of commn- nistic union was that of the Fratres et sororea Sberi spiT' itue (see Brbthrbn of thb Free Spirit) (18th cen- . tury), who held that the original state anterior to the Fall should be restored, and that the distinctions cre- ated by the law, of Church, state, society, should be abolished. In their secret assemblies {paraduee) the principles of the community of goods and of women was advocated by naked preachers before naked audi- ences of both sexes. This sect extended under differ- ent names through France, Italy, and Germany. A similar sect, under the name of Adamites (q. v.), ad- vocating the community of women, arose during the Hussite wars, but was put down by the Hussite gen- eral Ziska.
lY. Commvnktie and SodaUttic Asfodatiom of the Times of the Reformation. — A socialistic impulse, tend- ing to a universal division of property, lay at the foundation of the peasant war of Qermany in the early days of the Reformation. The twelve articles of the peasants, however, demanded only the abo- lition of feudal privileges, not a total subversion of society. The Heaoenfy Prophets, instituted by Nicho- las Storch in 1521, went further ; they advocated the
families under one head, by whom work is divided ac- cording to different individual capacities.
y . Modem Qmmumsm and SociaHsm, — By the side of the above religious communistic doctrines arose the modem communism, taking its source in the new an- tagonism to the institutions of the Middle Ages, which recognised two classes of people — the rulers, nobles and clerks, and the ruled, civilians and peasants. All the privileges belonged to the former, all the burdens to the latter. For the old divisions of society — nobles and peasants — were substituted gradually two new classes, a moneyed aristocracy and a proletariat. The recognition of the principle of equality tended to over- throw all conventional authority and privileges.