Was Jesus a Communist?

People have been claiming that Jesus of Nazareth was actually a communist or socialist for a very long time. Notably, Francis Bellamy (lived 1855 – 1931), who is best known today as the author of the United States Pledge of Allegiance, was a Baptist minister and self-proclaimed “Christian Socialist” who attracted a great deal of negative attention during his lifetime for frequently claiming that Jesus was a socialist. In more recent years, various pro-communist memes about Jesus being a communist have gone viral on the internet.

I’ve seen so many different expressions of the idea that Jesus was a communist over the years that I’ve decided to write an in-depth article examining whether this is an accurate characterization of Jesus’s teachings. There are indeed some genuine similarities between the views that are attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels and communism. There are, however, a number of enormous differences between Jesus and contemporary revolutionary communists that make the claim that Jesus was a communist a profound mischaracterization of his teachings.

Communist Jesus memes

The idea that Jesus was a communist is quite widespread on the internet. It appears especially often in viral memes criticizing far-right religious leaders and celebrating communism.

For instance, on 23 July 2017, the Facebook group “Spirit Inspired Memes for Christian Communist Teens” shared an image showing Jesus as a Black man wearing a red beret with a gold five-pointed star on it, holding an AK-47 assault rifle. Next to him is the emblem of the cross combined with a sickle from the hammer and sickle, with a five-pointed star in the middle of the cross. The caption is a quote from the Common English Bible (CEB)’s translation of the Gospel of Mark 10:21–22: “…go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor…”

On 30 November 2016, someone shared on meme on the website Meme showing a tweet by the conservative radio talk host and former representative for Illinois’s eighth congressional district Joe Walsh claiming that, if Jesus were alive today, “he’d support the police.” This is promptly followed by an image showing Jesus being crucified, with Roman soldiers gathered at the foot of the cross and labels pointing to the soldiers with the word “police.” At the bottom of the image is the caption: “If Jesus was back among us He [sic] would probably admin a communist meme page.”

On 1 April 2018, the Facebook group “Crappy Communist Memes” shared an image showing Jesus as a Black man wearing a red robe with a gold hammer and sickle on it brandishing a whip to drive a bunch of old white men in suits, who had previously been sitting at desks labeled with the names of prominent American banks, out of the Temple in Jerusalem. The image is captioned: “Make sure to remind your families at Easter dinner about how Jesus treated bankers.”

You can find tons of other memes like these claiming that Jesus was a communist if you just search for “communist Jesus memes” on Google.

Clearly, an awful lot of people believe that Jesus was indeed a communist. Now let us examine the Biblical sources carefully to see if they actually support this interpretation.

A brief introduction to the Synoptic Gospels

Before I talk about Jesus’s teachings, I would like to briefly discuss the sources for his teachings, since they are, to put it mildly, not ideal. The earliest sources that mention Jesus are the seven authentic letters of the apostle Paul, all of which were written between 49 and 62 CE. Unfortunately, Paul’s epistles mention Jesus, but they tell very few details about his life on earth.

The earliest surviving sources that provide detailed information about Jesus’s life and teachings are the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, which are the oldest gospels that have survived to the present day as independent texts. Together, these three gospels are known as the Synoptic Gospels. They share a common view of who Jesus was and, of all the surviving gospels, modern scholars generally regard them as the ones that are most likely to contain accurate information about Jesus’s life and career.

The Gospel of John, which is considered canonical alongside the three gospels I have already mentioned, was probably written significantly later, perhaps as late as the 110s or even the 120s CE, and gives a drastically different portrait of Jesus’s life that modern scholars generally regard as less historically accurate. It is much more focused on Jesus’s identity and was most likely written at least partly in response to early Christological controversies.

All of the canonical gospels were originally anonymous. We know this because the texts themselves never mention their authors by name, except in the headings that were attached to them later, and every Christian writer who references them before around the second half of the second century CE refers to them as anonymous.

It was only in the late second century CE that these texts became attributed to the specific authors Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. These (mis)attributions were most likely made at least partly in order to enhance the gospels’ credibility in comparison to various other gospels that were in circulation at the time.

The earliest of the three Synoptic Gospels—the earliest gospel that has survived to the present day as an independent text—is the Gospel of Mark, which was most likely originally written sometime around 70 CE or thereabouts, roughly forty years after Jesus’s death. Nonetheless, Mark certainly draws on much older oral traditions and most likely relies on older written sources that have not survived as well.

The authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke relied heavily on Mark as a source and most of the passages found in Mark are repeated word-for-word in Matthew and/or Luke. We know that Matthew and Luke rely on Mark rather than vice versa for several reasons, one of which is because Mark is written in very crude Greek that is not stylistically pleasing. Matthew and Luke occasionally correct Mark’s Greek to make it more stylistically pleasing and they often do so in different ways. If Mark were relying on Matthew or Luke, we would have to explain why the author would change perfectly acceptable passages to make them less readable.

ABOVE: Photograph of Papyrus Oxyrhynchus LXXXIII 5345, or Papyrus 137, the oldest surviving fragment of a manuscript copy of the Gospel of Mark, dating to the late second or early third century CE

An introduction to Jesus’s message, as portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels

The core of Jesus’s message in the Synoptic Gospels is that the end of the world as we know it will come very, very soon, within his followers’ lifetimes. The very first statement Jesus makes in the entire Gospel of Mark is found in Mark 1:15 and reads as follows, as translated in the NRSV:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Jesus repeatedly emphasizes that the end is imminent throughout the gospel. For instance, in the Gospel of Mark 9:1, he tells the disciples who are standing with him:

“Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

In Mark 13:30, he again emphasizes that the end will come within his followers own lifetimes, saying:

“Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”

Jesus teaches that the first sign of the approaching end will be a terrible period of tribulation, in which there will be wars, natural disasters, death, destruction, and persecution of the righteous on an unimaginable scale. He says in Mark 13:7–8:

“When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

Later, in Mark 13:17–19, he declares:

“Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not be in winter. For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, no, and never will be.”

Then, just when the suffering, carnage, and death has reached its apogee, darkness will fall upon the whole world and a figure known as the Son of Man, who may be Jesus himself or a different figure entirely, will descend from the sky and deliver judgement upon the living and the dead. Jesus says in Mark 13:24–27:

“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”

After this judgement, since all the kingdoms and empires of the earth have been utterly destroyed, God will establish his own kingdom on earth, over which he will assume direct, personal rule. In the Gospels of Mark and Luke, Jesus normally refers to this kingdom that God will establish on earth as the “βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ,” which means “kingdom of God,” but, in the Gospel of Matthew, he normally calls it the “βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν,” which means “kingdom of the Heavens.” The terms are most likely synonymous.

ABOVE: The Last Judgement, painted c. 1435 by the German International Gothic painter Stefan Lochner

Jesus’s interaction with the rich young man in the Gospel of Mark

Nothing that I have quoted so far sounds especially communist. This is because, quite simply, Jesus was not communist; he was a Jewish religious teacher and apocalyptic prophet from Galilee who lived in the early first century CE. Nonetheless, those who say that Jesus was a communist or a socialist are not entirely misguided, because there are some genuine similarities between Jesus and modern communists.

Perhaps the most obvious similarity between Jesus and modern communists is that they share a common opinion that rich people are generally bad. All the earliest gospel traditions very explicitly and consistently portray Jesus as opposed to all forms of earthly wealth other than perhaps the bare minimum needed for survival and all desires to seek earthly profit.

Mark 10:17–27 tells a story about a rich man who came to Jesus and Jesus’s response. The passage reveals so much about Jesus’s attitude towards wealth as it is portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels that it is worth quoting the whole thing at length, as it is translated in the NRSV:

“As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.”’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”

“Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’”

The simile that Jesus uses in this passage about a camel passing through the eye of a needle has struck many readers as bizarre and many people have tried to come up with different explanations for what this line actually refers to.

I personally think that, when Jesus says a “camel” passing through “the eye of a needle,” he is literally talking about a camel—as in the beast of burden—passing through the eye of a sewing needle. I think that this statement is supposed to be humorous, because a camel cannot literally pass through the eye of a needle and the mental image of one trying to do so is hilarious.

This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Greek word for “camel” is κάμηλος (kámēlos) and this is the word that is found in all the best surviving ancient manuscripts of this passage from the Gospel of Mark and the corresponding passages in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. It is further supported by the fact that the idiom referencing a large animal passing through the eye of a needle is attested in other passages of ancient Jewish literature. For instance, in the Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 55b, there is a line about an elephant passing through the eye of a needle.

ABOVE: Christ and the Rich Young Ruler, painted in 1889 by Heinrich Hofmann

Nevertheless, the church father Kyrillos—or “Cyril”—of Alexandria (lived c. 376 – 444 CE), who is notably best known today for his role in the events leading up to the murder of the famous philosopher Hypatia, which I discuss in this article I wrote in August 2018, and not for his appreciation of humor, points out in his Fragment 219 that κάμηλος is only one letter away from the Greek word κάμιλος (kámilos), which refers to a hawser or mooring line—a very strong, thick rope that is used to tie ships to a dock.

The letters ⟨η⟩ and ⟨ι⟩ were most likely still normally pronounced distinctly from each other during the early centuries of Christianity, but we know that, by around the seventh century CE, most people were pronouncing them identically. It is possible that, in some regional dialects of Greek or the idiolects of individual speakers, the two letters may have already been pronounced identically in the first century CE.

Since Koine Greek had no standardized spelling, it is very easy to see how a passage that was originally supposed to say “a mooring rope” could accidentally get misinterpreted and changed to say “a camel.” If the passage originally referred to a mooring rope going through the eye of a needle, this would be less funny, but it would make a lot more sense.

While it is still impossible to pass a mooring rope through the eye of a needle, it makes more sense why someone might try to to put it through, since, unlike a camel, a mooring rope is at least similar in appearance to a thread, which is what a person would normally put through the eye of a needle.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of three men handling a sixteen-inch-thick hawser at the Naval Stores Department, Nore, Harwich. The rope is so thick that it takes three men and a trolley just to move it.

Various western interpreters who are seemingly unaware of the mooring rope explanation have tried to claim that the “eye of a needle” mentioned in this passage actually refers to a small gate in Jerusalem supposedly known as the “needle’s eye” that was opened at night after the main gate was closed that a camel could only pass through if its baggage was removed and it stooped down. Some proponents of this interpretation claim that Jesus wasn’t saying that it is impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, but rather that a rich person can only enter the kingdom of God if they are humble enough.

This explanation is widely taught in American Sunday schools, but it is completely rooted in fantasy. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that a small gate known as the “needle’s eye” existed in Jerusalem or any other city that Jesus may have heard of in the first century CE or earlier. There are examples in some cities of smaller gates that could be left open after the main gates were closed, but absolutely none of these gates are known to have existed in the time of Jesus and to have been known at the time as the “needle’s eye.”

The most famous gate claimed to be the “needle’s eye” is a smaller gate inside the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem. The problem is that these gates were only first constructed in 1538 CE as part of a building program by the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I, who is commonly known as “Suleiman the Magnificent.” This means that the current Jaffa Gate did not exist in the time of Jesus and there is no way Jesus could possibly be referencing it in this passage.

Furthermore, the whole notion that Jesus was talking about a gate known as the “needle’s eye” is not securely attested anywhere until the fifteenth century CE. Every single Christian author writing before this time, including those who supported the mooring rope explanation mentioned by Kyrillos, believed that Jesus was talking about a literal sewing needle.

Some modern Evangelical Protestants who are educated enough to know that the explanation about the supposed “needle’s eye” gate is bogus have tried to point to the fact that Jesus says all things are possible through God to argue that rich people can be saved through the grace of God just like anyone else.

This, however, ignores the fact that Jesus says that it would take an extraordinarily unlikely miracle for a rich person to be saved. The line about everything being possible through God comes as a grudging afterthought. He’s not saying “Rich people can be saved!” He’s saying that technically God can do anything and he might hypothetically decide to let a rich person into his kingdom, but he is so extraordinarily unlikely to do so that no one should expect it to happen.

ABOVE: Photograph of the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, which was built during the Ottoman Period, showing the smaller gate inside the main gate that could be left open after the main gate was closed

Jesus’s statements about wealth from the Q source

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke were both most likely written sometime within the next two or three decades after the Gospel of Mark. Exact dates are uncertain, but Matthew may have been written sometime in the 80s CE and Luke may have been written sometime in the 90s CE. Both gospels rely heavily on Mark, but they were most likely written independent of each other, since they almost never agree on the narrative of events unless they also agree with Mark.

Nonetheless, the two gospels incorporate sayings attributed to Jesus that are found in both gospels with nearly identical wording, but not in Mark. Most modern Biblical scholars believe that these sayings originate from a written collection or maybe a few different collections of sayings attributed to Jesus that has or have not survived to the present day independent of Matthew and Luke. Scholars usually refer to the hypothetical source or group of sources used by the authors of Matthew and Luke, but not Mark, as “Q” or the “Q source.” (The letter Q stands for the German word Quelle, meaning “source.”)

The Q source is usually thought to have been written in the 40s or 50s CE, making it even older than the Gospel of Mark and therefore closer to the time of Jesus. Many of the sayings that are believed to come from the Q source explicitly condemn wealth as immoral. For instance, in the Gospel of Matthew 6:24, Jesus proclaims, as translated in the NRSV:

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

The Gospel of Luke 16:13 describes Jesus as making a statement that is exactly identical except for one word. It reads as follows, as translated in the NRSV:

“No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

In the Gospel of Matthew 6:19–20, Jesus warns his followers that they should not store up treasures for themselves on earth, declaring:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

A similar admonition is found in the Gospel of Luke 12:21.

“So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Because these two passages have quite different wording, it is unclear whether the gospels are relying on a passage from the same source or the authors merely found different versions of the same saying in different sources.

ABOVE: The Worship of Mammon, painted in 1909 by Evelyn De Morgan

The “revolutionary” nature of the kingdom of God

There is no question that Jesus’s teachings about wealth are totally incompatible with twenty-first-century capitalism. A person obviously cannot honestly believe that merely owning substantial wealth automatically disqualifies a person from entering the kingdom of God and that wealthy people should sell all their possessions and give the money to the poor, while also believing that the essential elements of a capitalist economic system, in which the means of production are privately owned and the desire for personal profit is the primary driver of economic activity, are good.

Furthermore, Jesus goes far beyond simply denouncing wealth in principle. The gospels portray Jesus as teaching that, in the kingdom of God, there will be a radical—some might say “revolutionary”—reversal of roles. Those who are rich and powerful in this world will not be allowed into the kingdom of God. Meanwhile, those who have been oppressed, abused, downtrodden, exploited, and discriminated against in this world will be rewarded in the kingdom of God.

The Gospel of Matthew 5:3–12 contains a series of nine statements of blessing known as the Beatitudes. Four of these statements are also found in the Gospel of Luke 6:20–23, meaning they must come from the Q source. In this particular case, Luke’s versions are probably closer to the original versions found in Q, since Matthew’s versions have some weird insertions that break the symmetry, such as the insertion of the word “in spirit” after the word “poor” in the first Beatitude. Luke’s Beatitudes read as follows, as translated in the NRSV:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.”

“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.”

In Luke’s version, Jesus follows the Beatitudes with a series of parallel curses against those who are wealthy, well-fed, laughing, and well spoken of in this world, declaring that they will suffer for their sins. He proclaims:

“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.”

“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

These curses are not found in Matthew’s version and may or may not have been present in the original Q source.

ABOVE: The Sermon on the Mount, painted by the Danish artist Carl Bloch in 1877, showing the sermon in which Jesus delivers the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew

Sayings about role reversal in the Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew incorporates a number of sayings attributed to Jesus about the drastic role reversal that will come with the arrival of the kingdom of Heaven. For instance, in the Gospel of Matthew 19:30, Jesus declares:

“πολλοὶ δὲ ἔσονται πρῶτοι ἔσχατοι καὶ ἔσχατοι πρῶτοι.”

This means:

“And many people who are first will be last and the last people will be first.”

In the next chapter, he affirms this statement again with nearly identical wording, declaring in Matthew 20:16:

“οὕτως ἔσονται οἱ ἔσχατοι πρῶτοι καὶ οἱ πρῶτοι ἔσχατοι.”

This means:

“Thus, the first people will be last and the last people will be first.”

In the Gospel of Matthew 21:31–32, Jesus tells the elders and the chief priests of the Temple in Jerusalem, perhaps the most highly respected religious authorities in Jerusalem at the time, as translated in the NRSV:

“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”

Jesus’s message here could not be clearer. He is not just turning the conventional social hierarchies of his time upside-down, but the moral hierarchies as well. Tax collectors and prostitutes were widely seen as some of the most morally heinous people in the Jewish world at the time, but here Jesus says that those of them who have listened to John the Baptist’s message will enter the kingdom of God ahead of the most revered religious leaders.

ABOVE: Illustration made by James Tissot in around 1900 showing the unnamed “sinful woman,” who is commonly assumed to have been a prostitute without much justification, anointing Jesus’s feet, as described in Luke 7

The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats

Jesus’s most detailed description of what will happen when the Son of Man arrives to judge all the peoples of the earth is found exclusively in the Gospel of Matthew 25:31–46 and is perhaps the most explicit declaration of the radical reversal of roles that will come with the arrival of the kingdom of God. The passage reads as follows, as translated in the NRSV:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.”

“Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’”

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”

“Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’”

“Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

In this passage, Jesus explicitly identifies himself with the poor, the beaten, and the downtrodden and declares that those who do not show kindness to the poor and outcast will be condemned to eternal torture in the eternal fire.

Another aspect of this passage that is worth pointing out is that it clearly contradicts the core idea of mainstream Protestantism: the doctrine of iustificatio sola fide, which holds that salvation is based on faith alone, not on a person’s actions. In this passage, the Son of Man decides who he lets into the kingdom of Heaven and who he condemns to eternal punishment based solely on the people’s actions, without apparently caring in slightest about who believed in him and who didn’t.

ABOVE: The Day of Judgement, illustration made by the English poet and artist William Blake in 1808

The ideal early Christian communist society described in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles

In the earliest surviving gospels, Jesus never clearly articulates the specific details of how society in the coming kingdom God will work. Nonetheless, there are some hints to suggest that some early Christians believed that, in the kingdom of God, all property would be communal.

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles was written by the same author as the Gospel of Luke. It begins exactly where the Gospel of Luke left off and goes on to relate a semi-fictional history of the early church in the first few decades after Jesus’s death, with lots of legends and fictional anecdotes mixed in. As it happens, Acts 4:32–37 gives a detailed description of a supposed early Christian community founded by the apostles shortly after Jesus’s death. The initial description reads almost like the dictionary definition of a communist society. It reads as follows, as translated in the NRSV:

“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power, the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”

“There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means ‘son of encouragement’). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.”

Notice how this passage even nearly prefigures the exact wording of the slogan “Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen” (“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”), which Karl Marx himself used in his letter Critique of the Gotha Programme, which he wrote in May 1875.

A lot of conservative Christians who don’t really have a clear grasp on the definition of communism have tried to insist that the apostolic society is not communist because the sharing of possessions is voluntary and based on mutual love and kindness, rather than compulsion by the state. They don’t realize that a communist society is actually supposed to be a stateless, classless society in which people work together for mutual benefit without coercion.

As a matter of fact, if the apostolic society falls short of being truly communist, then it is precisely because it is too much like what conservative Christians think communism is. Quite simply, the sharing of property in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles is based on violent coercion. This is revealed by Acts 5:1–11, which describes what happens when a couple named Ananias and Sapphira attempt to opt out of sharing all their property with everyone else by only sharing some of their property. Here is the passage, as translated in the NRSV:

“But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. ‘Ananias,’ Peter asked, ‘why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!’ Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him.”

“After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, ‘Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.’ And she said, ‘Yes, that was the price.’ Then Peter said to her, ‘How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.’ Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things.”

If your definition of a communist society is a society in which the state violently forces everyone to surrender all their property so that it can be redistributed to everyone, that’s not an entirely accurate definition of communism—but it is very much an accurate description of the society that the apostles are running in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 4–5.

It’s hard to convey how radical the society described in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles really is. This is a society in which God literally, instantly kills anyone who refuses to give up absolutely everything they own to be redistributed by the apostles, who are effectively functioning as the state.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the Brescia Casket, dating to the late fourth century CE, depicting the story of Ananias and Sapphira

Why it is not accurate to describe Jesus as a Marxist or revolutionary communist

There are, however, some very significant differences between Jesus and contemporary Marxist or revolutionary communists. The first difference is one of historical context. Quite simply, Jesus did not live in a capitalist society. In Galilee and Judaea during the early first century CE, corporations and factories as we know them today were totally nonexistent, a large portion of the population was enslaved, most free people lived off subsistence agriculture, technological advancement took place at an extremely slow rate, hereditary social status tended to be seen as extremely important (perhaps even more important than monetary wealth), and important economic decisions were generally based more on common sense than advanced economic reasoning.

Most historians agree that full-on capitalist societies only emerged in some parts of western Europe starting in maybe around the seventeenth century CE. Communist political thought, in turn, developed in response to capitalism. We can speculate about what Jesus might think of capitalism and communist political thought based on the statements he is described as making in the surviving sources, but we can’t actually know what he would think of them because he never had the opportunity to hear about them in the first place.

ABOVE: Painting by the French painter Claud Lorrain from 1637 showing an imaginary sea port during the early years when capitalism was just starting to emerge

The second major difference is that, while Jesus and a contemporary Marxist communist both generally deplore people who are wealthy, they do so for very different reasons. As the passages I have already quoted here demonstrate, throughout the gospels, whenever Jesus condemns wealth, he does so firstly because he regards seeking wealth as a distraction from fulfilling one’s duties to God and secondly because he sees wealthy people as hoarding wealth for themselves to the detriment of people who are poor and starving. He is almost completely unconcerned with the process of how a person acquires their wealth, because, for him, any desire to acquire material possessions beyond the bare minimum is inherently wrong.

Contemporary Marxist communists, on the other hand, generally hold that there is nothing inherently wrong with someone having a desire for material possessions. When contemporary Marxist communists condemn wealthy people, they generally do so not because they think that seeking wealth is inherently bad, but rather because the wealthy people whom they are condemning live in a capitalist society and they acquired their wealth specifically by controlling the means of production and exploiting working class people.

The difference between Jesus and a contemporary Marxist communist in this regard is perhaps best illustrated by the example of factory workers who are already making enough money to survive declaring a strike in order to demand higher wages so that they can improve their quality of living. A contemporary Marxist communist would wholeheartedly support the workers and endorse the strike.

Jesus, on the other hand, judging from how he is portrayed in the gospels, would most likely condemn both the workers and the factory owners for caring about the wrong things. He would declare that both the workers and the owners should stop caring about material wealth and instead devote themselves to God.

ABOVE: Photograph showing workers during the Great Steel Strike of 1919

Jesus’s anti-revolutionary teachings

Another reason why it is not accurate to describe Jesus as a Marxist or revolutionary communist is because contemporary Marxist and revolutionary communists, almost by definition, believe that the proletariat masses must lead a violent revolution to overthrow their bourgeois oppressors, seize the means of production, and establish a socialist society. None of the surviving sources from the ancient world portray Jesus as preaching anything even remotely resembling this idea.

Instead, the gospels portray Jesus as teaching a doctrine of nonresistance that is so strict that he maintains that, even if someone physically assaults someone, the person being assaulted should not try to resist their assailant, but rather pacifistically submit to whatever the person want to do to them. In the Gospel of Matthew 5:28–32, Jesus declares, as translated in the NRSV:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”

A very similar passage is found in the Gospel of Luke 6:27–31, indicating that this passage comes from the Q source, meaning it goes back to the very oldest written source specifically about Jesus’s life and ministry that we know of. In Luke’s version, Jesus says:

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

I am personally a pacifist. Nonetheless, Jesus’s teachings on pacifism are more extreme than what even I would support. I—and, I think, most other contemporary pacifists—would at least grant that, if a person is being physically attacked, they should try to escape or get out of the situation through peaceful means. If they are unable to escape, then they have the right to defend themself using the least amount of force that is necessary in order to prevent themself from being further harmed. Jesus, however, denies that a person has even the right to flee.

Now, of course, some people have tried to spin alternative interpretations of Jesus’s line about turning the other cheek. For instance, a blog post on the website Reenacting the Way that was posted on 18 April 2013, declares:

“Roman soldiers tended to be right-handed. When they struck an equal with a fist, it came from the right and made contact with the left side of the face. When they struck an inferior person, they swung with the back of their right hand making contact with the right cheek. In a Mediterranean culture that made clear distinctions between classes, Roman soldiers backhanded their subjects to make a point. Jews were second-class. No one thought twice about the rectitude of treating lesser people with less respect.”

[…]

“When Jesus tells fellow Jews to expose the left cheek, he is calling for ‘peaceful subversion.’ He does not want them to retaliate in anger nor to shrink in some false sense of meekness. He wants to force the Roman soldiers to treat them like equals. He wants the Jews to stand up and demand respect. He wants to make each attacker stop and think about how they are mistreating another human being.”

This explanation sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t work well in context, because, in Matthew’s version, immediately after Jesus tells his followers to turn the other cheek, he goes on to tell them that, if anyone sues them for their coat, they should give them their shirt as well, and, if anyone forces them to go with them one mile, they should go with them a second mile. It’s much harder to spin either of these injunctions as being about demanding treatment as an equal.

The gospels also portray Jesus as teaching that people should not worry about earthly problems other than the ones that they have the obvious power to solve at a given moment, because God will eventually take care of everything. The Gospel of Matthew 6:25–34 portrays Jesus as giving a whole discourse on not worrying about earthly problems, which reads as follows, as translated in the NRSV:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

“And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Jesus’s teachings are inherently incompatible with any political philosophy that advocates any kind of human-driven revolution on earth, especially if it is a violent one. A person cannot practice absolute nonresistance and avoid caring about earthly problems and affairs while also plotting a revolution.

Ultimately, Jesus’s message is that the people who are wealthy and powerful on earth right now are bad, but his followers should not resist these people because they should not concern themselves with earthly problems, which are merely distractions, because, very soon, God will intervene on his own to destroy the existing social order and create a new one that is more fair.

To the extent that Jesus believes in a revolution, it is a revolution that is instigated by God alone, in which humans have at best merely a cooperative role. In practice, this means that Jesus does not really believe in any kind of earthly revolution at all.

In other words, Jesus was a millenarian, not a Marxist.

ABOVE: Liberty Leading the People, painted in 1830 by the French painter Eugène Delacroix, celebrating the July Revolution that toppled King Charles X of France and installed his cousin as King Louis Philippe I