d
taken place in man's own nature. To this extent it is true to say
that the Fathers regarded property with disapproval; it was one of the
institutions rendered necessary by the fall of man. Of course it would
have been preferable that man should not have fallen from his natural
innocence, in which case he could have lived a life of communism;
but, as he had fallen, and communism had from that moment become
impossible, property must be respected as the one institution which
could put a curb on his avarice, and preserve a society of fallen men
from chaos and general rapine.

That this is the correct interpretation of the patristic utterances
regarding property and natural law appears from the following
passage of _The Divine Institution_ of Lactantius--'the most explicit
statement bearing on the Christian idea of property in the first four
centuries':[1] '"They preferred to live content with a simple mode
of life," as Cicero relates in his poems; and this is peculiar to our
religion. "It was not even allowed to mark out or to divide the plain
with a boundary: men sought all things in common,"[2] since God had
given the earth in common to all, that they might pass their life in
common, not that mad and raging avarice might claim all things for
itself, and that riches produced for all might not be wanting to any.
And this saying of the poet ought so to be taken, not as suggesting
the idea that individuals at that time had no private property, but it
must be regarded as a poetical figure, that we may understand that
men were so liberal, that they did not shut up the fruits of the earth
produced for them, nor did they in solitude brood over the things
stored up, but admitted the poor to share the fruits of their labour:

"Now streams of milk, now streams of nectar flowed."[3]

And no wonder, since the storehouses of the good literally lay open
to all. Nor did avarice intercept the divine bounty, and thus cause
hunger and thirst in common; but all alike had abundance, since they
who had possessions gave liberally and bountifully to those who had
not. But after Saturnus had been banished from heaven, and had arrived
in Latium ... not only did the people who had a superfluity fail
to bestow a share upon others, but they even seized the property of
others, drawing everything to their private gain; and the things which
formerly even individuals laboured to obtain for the common use of all
were now conveyed to the powers of a