This dissertation examines the summaries in Acts 2:42–47 and 4:32–35, which depict the lifestyle of the early Jerusalem believers, most notably their practice of having "all things in common" (Acts 2:44). Many scholars have observed similarities between Luke's language in these passages and that found in various Greek and Latin descriptions of common property, particularly in discussions of friendship. This study argues that these summaries would also have led many readers to recall the Golden Age myth, a story that told of the ideal conditions that the first race of humans enjoyed. By the time that Luke was writing, the Golden Age myth had become strongly associated with the figure of the Roman emperor, giving Luke's use of the myth potentially an empire-critical significance.This study surveys accounts of the Golden Age myth from its earliest appearance in Hesiod to its appropriation by the Jewish and Christian Sibylline Oracles in the first few centuries CE. Special attention is given to the myth's treatment by Roman authors, who develop the Golden Age idea in three important ways. Beginning with Virgil,   Roman versions of the myth often proclaim a return of the Golden Age, attribute this return to the agency of the Roman emperor, and make common property a central feature of the Golden Age. The final chapter of this dissertation argues that the correspondences between Luke's descriptions of the Jerusalem community in Acts 2:42–47 and 4:32–35 and the Golden Age myth in the early Empire are sufficient to justify reading these passages as allusions to this myth. Two complementary interpretations are proposed for this allusion. First, it advances Luke's presentation of the Spirit's coming as an eschatological event that marks the beginning of a "universal restoration" (Acts 3:21). Second, by using a myth commonly employed to exalt the Roman emperor, Luke makes a supra-imperial claim for Christ and his followers. While Roman poets credit Augustus, Nero, and a host of other emperors with bringing about a new Golden Age, Luke implies that it is Christ, not Caesar, who has truly restored human harmony and reconciled humanity with God.