the later without an understanding of the earlier doctrine from which
it developed, and secondly, because of the widespread prevalence, even
among Catholics, of the erroneous idea that the scholastic teaching
was opposed to the ethical principle laid down by the Founder of
Christianity.

[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 73.]

Amongst the arguments which are advanced by socialists none is more
often met than the alleged socialist teaching and practice of the
early Christians. For instance, Cabet's _Voyage en Icarie_ contains
the following passage: 'Mais quand on s'enfonce sérieusement et
ardemment dans la question de savoir comment la société pourrait être
organisée en Démocratie, c'est-à-dire sur les bases de l'Égalité et de
la Fraternité, on arrive à reconnaître que cette organisation exige
et entraîne nécessairement la communauté de biens. Et nous hâtons
d'ajouter que cette communauté était également proclamée par
Jésus-Christ, par tous ses apôtres et ses disciples, par tous les
pères de l'Église et tous les Chrétiens des premiers siècles.' The
fact that St. Thomas Aquinas, the great exponent of Catholic teaching
in the Middle Ages, defends in unambiguous language the institution of
private property offers no difficulties to the socialist historian of
Christianity. He replies simply that St. Thomas wrote in an age when
the Church was the Church of the rich as well as of the poor; that
it had to modify its doctrines to ease the consciences of its rich
members; and that, ever since the conversion of Constantine, the
primitive Christian teaching on property had been progressively
corrupted by motives of expediency, until the time of the _Summa_,
when it had ceased to resemble in any way the teaching of the
Apostles.[1] We must therefore first of all demonstrate that there is