no such contradiction between the teaching of the Apostles and that of
the mediæval Church on the subject of private property, but that,
on the contrary, the necessity of private property was at all times
recognised and insisted on by the Catholic Church. As it is put in an
anonymous article in the _Dublin Review_: 'Among Christian nations we
discover at a very early period a strong tendency towards a general
and equitable distribution of wealth and property among the whole body
politic. Grounded on an ever-increasing historical evidence, we might
possibly affirm that the mediæval Church brought her whole weight to
bear incessantly upon this one singular and single point.'[2]

[Footnote 1: See, _e.g._, Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_, p. 71. 'Thus,
then, according to Nitti, the Christian Church has been guilty of the
meanest, most selfish, and most corrupt utilitarianism in her attitude
towards the question of wealth and property. She was communistic when
she had nothing. She blessed poverty in order to fill her own coffers.
And when the coffers were full she took rank among the owners of
land and houses, she became zealous in the interests of property, and
proclaimed that its origin was divine' ('The Fathers of the Church and
Socialism,' by Dr. Hogan, _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, vol. xxv. p.
226).]

[Footnote 2: 'Christian Political Economy,' _Dublin Review_, N.S.,
vol. vi. p. 356]

The alleged communism of the first Christians is based on a few verses
of the Acts of the Apostles describing the condition of the Church of
Jerusalem. 'And they that believed were together and had all things
common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to
all men, as every man had need.'[1] 'And the multitude of them that