Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/796

780 mæus. The advice to the twelve and the seventy was evidently due to some special cause, for afterwards, when giving them direction for their entire course of life after his death, he revoked it, advising a more normal manner of life. Throughout the gospels Jesus never appears in the garb of an ascetic, for the reason that he was able to maintain the balance and perspective of his life. Indeed his life expresses even more distinctly than his words the coordination of his teachings. Wealth he showed to be a good, but a good only when it is a social good and when its pursuit does not weaken those impulses within a man that go out towards his fellows and God, and so render him unfit for the kingdom of heaven.

All this it must be admitted brings Jesus close to the general position of socialism. If wealth is not for purely individual enjoyment but is to be used for the good of society, and if the ideal society is a brotherhood, it is not a long step to the belief that any form of private property is anti-fraternal and that society itself can best administer economic matters for the good of its members. Something like corroboration is given such an interpretation of Jesus' position by the fact that the company of his followers had a common purse, and that the members of the primitive Jerusalem church "had all things in common."

It is therefore by no means strange that there have always been those who have maintained that in some form of socialism