Page "Christian communism" Paragraph 93

Christian communists interpret this passage as not having a figurative meaning alluding to imagined weakness of piety of the Sadducees.

According to the left-inclined reading, what Jesus is referring to is the overturning of the economic provisioning of the tribes of Israel in the Law of Moses.

According to Exodus, The Levites are apportioned no land in Canaan from which to subsist, but are instead granted the sacrificed animals and grain from all the other tribes for consumption or sale after ritual slaughter and burning.

Thus every tribe was assured economic security of living.

In the Temple system by Jesus ' day, senior priests had accumulated large land-holdings from the profits on sale of animals for sacrifice, which they farmed at profit using hired labour and slaves to produce animals for sale, and from profit on sale of Temple money with which to make those purchases.

Thereby in effect the Levites had dispossessed the non-priestly of Judah of swathes of their alloted patrimony by making a threefold profit out of the sacrificial system, and were daily accumulating more of the patrimony given by God to others, in addition to their proper income.