The early Church, of course, shared their goods in
common and did so for many decades. There are some
who said that this model of living and Church failed
quickly. The Jerusalem Church did indeed flee to Pella in
AD68, however the basing of society on sharing for the
common good in other parts of the Roman Empire,
including the capital itself continued despite the
difficulties and early Christian writers were clear that this
was how Church should live. Irenaeus in the 2nd century
said ‘instead of the law enjoining the giving of tithes, He
told us to share all our possessions with the poor’.
Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechical Lectures (AD 362)
looked back on the early church and said:
‘So great also was the grace of the Holy Spirit which
wrought by means of the twelve apostles in them
who believed, that they were of one heart and
one so [[