poses it by force.'[5]

[Footnote 1: _Property, Its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1913).]

[Footnote 2: _De Off._, i. 7.]

[Footnote 3: Seneca, _Ep._, xiv. 2.]

[Footnote 4: _Histoire de la Science politique_, vol. i. p. 330.]

[Footnote 5: See also Jarrett, _Mediaeval Socialism_.]

It must not be concluded that the evidence of the approbation by the
Fathers of private property is purely negative or solely derived from
the interpretation of possibly ambiguous texts. On the contrary,
the lawfulness of property is emphatically asserted on more than one
occasion. 'To possess riches,' says Hilary of Poictiers,[1] 'is not
wrongful, but rather the manner in which possession is used.... It
is a crime to possess wrongfully rather than simply to possess.' 'Who
does not understand,' asks St. Augustine,[2] 'that it is not sinful to
possess riches, but to love and place hope in them, and to prefer them
to truth or justice?' Again, 'Why do you reproach us by saying that
men renewed in baptism ought no longer to beget children or to
possess fields and houses and money? Paul allows it.'[3] According to
Ambrose,[4] 'Riches themselves are not wrongful. Indeed, "redemptio
animae* viri divitiae* ejus," because he who gives to the poor saves
his soul. There is therefore a place for goodness in these material
riches. You are as steersmen in a great sea. He who steers his ship
well, quickly crosses the waves, and comes to port; but he who does
not know how to control his ship is sunk by his own weight. Wherefore
it is written, "Possessio divitum civitas firmissima."' A Council in
A.D. 415 condemned the proposition held by Pelagius that 'the rich
cannot be saved unless they renounced their goods.'[5]

[Footnote 1: _Comm. on Matt. xix._ 9.]

[Footnote 2: _Contra Ad._, xx. 2.]

[Footnote 3: _De Mor. Eccl. Cath._, i. 35.]

[Footnote 4: _Epist._, lxiii. 92.]

[Footnote 5: _Revue Archeologique_, 1880, p. 321.]

The more one studies the Fathers the more one becomes convinced that
property was regarded by them as one of the normal and legitimate
institutions of human society. Benigni's conclusion, as the result of
his exceptionally thorough researches, is that according to the early
Fathers, 'property is lawful and ought scrupulously to be respected.
But property is subject to the high duties of human fellowship which
sprang from the equality and brotherhood of man. Collectivism is
absurd and immoral.'[1] Janet arrived at the same conclu