Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/265

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 2$ I

Naturally primitive Christianity, antagonistic to the social and political frontiers, was equally antagonistic to the exclusive and private property which is one of the forms of sovereignty and of inequality in and among societies. Paul, Justin, Tertul- lian, Ambrose, and Chrysostom are communists as well as cos- mopolitans.

Said Paul :

All those who are converted to the faith put their property, their labor, and their life in common. All have only one heart, only one soul. They form altogether only a single body. No one possesses anything of his own, but all things are in common. This is why there are no poor among them. All those who have property sell it and place the price at the disposition of the apostles, who then distribute it to each according to his needs. 1

In a single body there are several members, but all of the members have not the same office ; similarly all believers, though several, have nevertheless only a single body in Christ Jesus, being all reciprocally members one of another. 3

However, in spreading itself throughout the world, Chris- tianity insensibly accommodates itself to circumstances. For Clement of Alexandria it was not necessary to renounce private property, but only to despise it: "When it is commanded of us to renounce all of our wealth and sell all of our goods, it is necessary to understand these words as meaning to discard the passions and bad sentiments of our minds." So the economic revolution equally implied in the evangelistic doctrine is no longer relegated to second place, but abandoned. Hence natu- rally, with the private demesnial conception exclusive and limited, the idea of social and political sovereignty and inequal- ity makes its reappearance in theory. Augustine founded the right of property upon the right of sovereignty; the latter is the creature of human right, to dispute the first is to place the second in doubt. Logical to the end, he justifies slavery. In this path the idea travels across the Middle Ages up to the end of the seventeenth century Thomas Aquinas and Bossuet. During all this period a hiearchy of princes has its base in a hierarchy of proprietors, and both evolve in a manner parallel to the spiritual hierarchy, which is also represented among its leaders by sovereign proprietors.

J Acts 2 : 44 ; 4 : 32. 2 I Cor. 12:4!.