hings were revealed, we know that
the poor shall be always with us. Yet we must honour those who, like
their Master, strive to smooth away the anxious wrinkles of the world.

CHAPTER III

THE COMMUNISTS

There have always been religious teachers for whom all material creation
was a thing of evil. Through the whole of the Middle Ages, under the
various names of Manicheans, Albigensians, Vaudois, &c., they became
exceedingly vigorous, though their importance was only fitful. For them
property was essentially unclean, something to be avoided as carrying
with it the in-dwelling of the spirit of evil. Etienne de Bourbon, a
Dominican preacher of the thirteenth century, who got into communication
with one of these strange religionists, has left us a record,
exceedingly unprejudiced, of their beliefs. And amongst their other
tenets, he mentions this, that they condemned all who held landed
property. It will be here noticed that as regards these Vaudois (or Poor
Men of Lyons, as he informs us they were called), there could have been
no question of communism at all, for a common holding of property would
have been as objectionable as private property. To hold material things
either in community or severalty was in either case to bind oneself to
the evil principle. Yet Etienne tells us that there was a sect among
them which did sanction communism; they were called, in fact, the
_Communati_ (_Tractatus de Diversis Materiis Predicabilibus_, Paris,
1877, p. 281). How they were able to reconcile this social state with
their beliefs it is quite impossible to say; but the presumption is that
the example of the early Christians was cited as of sufficient authority
by some of these teachers. Certain it is that a sect still lingered on
into the thirteenth century, called the _Apostolici_, who clung to the
system which had been in vogue among the Apostles. St. Thomas Aquinas
(_Summa Theologica_, 2_a_, 2_ae_, 66, 2) mentions them, and quotes St.
Augustine as one who had already refuted them. But these were seemingly
a Christian body, whereas the Albigensians could hardly make any such
claim, since they repudiated any belief in Christ's humanity, for it
conflicted with their most central dogma.

Still it is clear that there were in existence certain obscure bodies
which clung to communism. The published records of the Inquisition refer
incessantly to preachers of this kind who denied private property,
asserted that no rich man cou