S.), etc., etc.--THE TRANSLATOR.]

[194] Even the Fathers of the Church, Bishops and Popes could not
refrain from preaching in a communistic vein during those early
centuries when community of property still prevailed, but its theft was
assuming larger proportions. The Syllabus and the encyclicals of the
nineteenth century have lost all recollection of this tone, and even the
Roman Popes have been compelled to become subjects of capitalist
society, and now pose as its zealous defenders against the Socialists.

In contrast therewith Bishop Clemens I. (deceased 102 of our reckoning)
said: "The use of all things in this world is to be common to all. It is
an injustice to say: 'This is my property, this belongs to me, that
belongs to another.' Hence the origin of contentions among men."

Bishop Ambrose of Milan, who lived about 347, exclaimed: "Nature bestows
all things on all men in common, for God has created all things that
their enjoyment might be common to all, and that the earth might become
the common possession of all. Common possession is, therefore, a right
established by Nature, and only unjust usurpation (usurpatio) has
created the right of private property."

St. John Chrysostomus (deceased 407) declared in his homilies directed
against the immorality and corruption of the population of
Constantinople: "Let none call aught his own; we have received
everything from God for enjoyment in common, and 'mine' and 'thine' are
words of falsehood."

St. Augustine (deceased 430) expressed himself thus: "Because private
property exists there exists also law suits, enmities, dissensions,
wars, rebellions, sins, injustice, murder. Whence proceed all these
scourges? From property only. Let us then, my brothers, refrain from
possessing anything as our property; at least let us refrain from loving
it."

Pope Gregory the Great declares about 600: "Let them know that the earth
from which they spring and of which they are formed belongs to all men
in common, and that therefore the fruits which the earth brings forth
must belong to all without distinction."

And one of the moderns, Zacharia, says in his "Forty Books on the
State": "All the evils with which civilized nations have to contend, can
be traced back to private property in land."

All these authorities have recognized more or less accurately the nature
of private property, which, since its existence, as St. Augustine
correctly puts it, brought law suits, enmities