Editing Fra Girolamo Savonarola (section)

== Marxist analysis ==

Engels argued (most clearly in the first and second paragraphs of his work On the History of Early Christianity [a]) that Catholicism was an expression of the class-consciousness of Rome's urban and rural poor: the proletarii, colonni, and plebes. It would only make sense that the same faith would, as the centuries drag on, do much the same with the urban and rural poor in the medieval/early modern periods and this was shown quite clearly with the overthrow of the Medicis in Florence during the late 15th century. This Florentine Revolution led to the establishment of a hardline Catholic and Savonarolan popular republic in Florence, with policies which could be described as truly revolutionary.

Engels adduces the example of Roman Christians donating to one another so as to pay fees, taxes, and the like, while bearing witness to one another at a trial. Sometimes, bishops like St. Augustine would coordinate Christians to do this across cities. In his case, he did it to get the Roman governor of Africa (Carthage, basically) to enforce rights which had been granted to slaves post-Constantine and Nicea.

From a Christian perspective, God’s will can and does manifest itself in such ways. The emergence of Catholicism in Rome as an expression of the class consciousness of the urban and rural poor—the proletarii, colonni, and plebes—was nothing other than the manifestation of God’s will from the Catholic perspective. As Fr. Rocafull (Spanish Republican priest) stated in “Crusade or Class War? The Spanish Military Revolt,” as follows:

“If the working-class has reached its majority, why should it not be given the role which belongs to it in the social direction of society? Through the events of history is clearly visible the hand of God leading His people to their destiny, and if on every side we notice the signs of a growing ascension of the working-class, we may be allowed to think that God wishes to make use of this class for His purposes of redemption” (Rocafull, p.12).