Acts 2:45

This was an angelic commonwealth, not to call anything of theirs their own. Forthwith the root of evils was cut out. By what they did, they showed what they had heard: this was that which he said, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation."

Observe the increase of piety: They cast away their riches, and rejoiced, and had great gladness, for greater were the riches they received without labor. None reproached, none envied, none grudged; no pride, no contempt was there. As children they did indeed account themselves to be under teaching: as new born babes, such was their disposition. Yet why use this faint image? If you remember how it was when God shook our city with an earthquake, how subdued all men were. Such was the case then with those converts. No knavery, no villany then: such is the effect of fear, of affliction! No talk of "mine" and "thine" then. Hence gladness waited at their table; no one seemed to eat of his own, or of another's;-I grant this may seem a riddle. Neither did they consider their brethren's property foreign to themselves; it was the property of a Master; nor again deemed they aught their own, all was the brethren's. The poor man knew no shame, the rich no haughtiness. This is gladness. The latter deemed himself the obliged and fortunate party; the others felt themselves as honored herein, and closely were they bound together.

For indeed, because when people make doles of money, there are apt to be insults, pride, grudging; therefore says the Apostle, "Not grudgingly, or of necessity."

They first dwelt together in unity; who sold all they had, and laid the price of their goods at the Apostles' feet, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles. And distribution was made to each one as he had need, and none called anything his own, but they had all things common. And what is "together in unity"? They had, he says, one mind and one heart God-wards. So they were the first who heard, Behold how good and how pleasant is it, that brethren dwell together.

As for selling and distributing their possessions according to whatever need one had, not merely, but in an economical manner. For they distributed according to value.

And the words "according to each one's need" he uses not simply, but in the sense of "stewardship," because this expression shows that the apostles did not act as the philosophers among the Greeks, of whom some abandoned their fields, and others threw much gold into the sea. But this was not contempt for wealth, but foolishness and madness: the devil took care to defame the creations of God. To use wealth wisely is no trivial matter.