In the Pauline epistles we find the summons: “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give” (II Cor. 9:7) — a remark which points to the survival of private property in other Christian communities. But the utter devotion of the Jerusalem community — the brotherhood of “beggars” as St. Paul called them — remains forever in the mind of Christendom as an ineffaceable example and legacy, the ideal of an authentic regeneration of all human relationships through love. …
Here, then, is the image of the Church bequeathed to us by the records of her earliest days. Does this mean that she had no failings or weaknesses then? Of course not. The author of Acts mentions many of them, and in the Pauline epistles whole chapters will be devoted to exposing and scoring these sins. But as we begin the history of the Church, in which such sins and weaknesses will too often be painfully obvious, we also need to keep in mind that “icon of the Church” — that image and realization of the first experience of true life in the Church — to which Christians will always have recourse when they seek to cure their spiritual ailments and overcome their sins.
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