Captain Misson and Libertatia.
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Very interesting. I’d heard of this but never looked it up. More here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertatia
Where it says that the priest Caraccioli argued that
“every Man was born free, and had as much Right to what would support him, as to the Air he respired.”
This was in fact the original doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church (before it had to find reasons to justify private property of resources). James Connolly in his polemic against a Catholic priest, Labour, Nationality and Religion, quotes from various early Christian divines to show this. For instance, these two:
“Nature furnishes its wealth to all men in common. God beneficently has created all things that their enjoyment be common to all living beings, and that the earth become the common possession of all. It is Nature itself that has given birth to the right of the community, whilst it is only unjust usurpation that has created the right of private property.” – St. Ambrose.
“The earth of which they are born is common to all, and therefore the fruit that the earth brings forth belongs without distinction to all”. – St. Gregory the Great.”Might be worth an article on Libertatia if you’ve the time.
I keep discovering people and movements I knew nothing of. It’s so true that we continue to learn throughout life.
The scriptural books, and not just the “heretical” ones, but many regarded as orthodox too, which were excluded from the final canon which we call today the Bible, far outnumber the ones which were included.
The New Testament exclusions are of most interest to me. Several, which are still used in the Ethiopian and Coptic churches, have Jesus speaking with other animals and passing his time with them.
Even the fully orthodox St. Basil said that all living beings have a life of their own, which should not be transgressed upon.
As for the canonical New Testament, the Epistle of James was the favourite of the English Levellers and of the Anabaptists and Poor Franciscans too, for its emphasis on good works (poo-pooed by Luther and Calvin): “Faith without works is dead”* – the exact antithesis of Paul, whom Joachim Kahl aptly calls “a neurotic philistine.”
Likewise, following this dichotomy, there have always been socially-conscious clergy, mostly Catholic, who stand apart.
Of course, they are bound to remain utopian socialists at best, being believers in an authority figure of human creation.
*Actually the motto of the Institute for Occitan Studies:
“La fe sens obras morta es.”
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