as complete abandonment of one’s property is recommended, it is simply indicated as a work of quite unusual devotion.  It is noteworthy that this passage occurs in a treatise on almsgiving, a practice which presupposes a system of individual ownership:[1] ’Let us consider what the congregation of believers did in the time of the Apostles, when at the first beginnings the mind flourished with greater virtues, when the faith of believers burned with a warmth of faith yet new.  Thus they sold houses and farms, and gladly and liberally presented to the Apostles the proceeds to be dispersed to the poor; selling and alienating their earthly estate, they transferred their lands thither where they might receive the fruits of an eternal possession, and there prepared houses where they might begin an eternal habitation.  Such, then, was the abundance in labours as was the agreement in love, as we read in the Acts—­“Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.”  This is truly to become son of God by spiritual birth; this is to imitate by the heavenly law the equity of God the Father.  For whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from His benefits and His gifts so as to prevent the whole human race from enjoying equally the divine goodness and liberality.  Thus the day equally enlightens, the sun gives radiance, the rain moistens, the wind blows, and the sleep is one to those who sleep, and the splendour of Stars and of the Moon is common.  In which examples of equality he who as a possessor in the earth shares his returns and his fruits with the fraternity, while he is common and just in his gratuitous bounties, is an imitator of God the Father.’

[Footnote 1:  De Opere et Eleemosynis, 25.]

There is a much-quoted passage of St. John Chrysostom which is capable of the same interpretation.  In his commentary on the alleged communistic existence of the Apostles at Jerusalem the Saint emphasises the fact that their communism was voluntary:  ’That this was in consequence not merely of the miraculous signs, but of their own purpose, is manifest from the case of Ananias and Sapphira.’  He further insists on the fact that the members of this community were animated by unusual fervour:  ’From the exceeding ardour of the givers none was in want.’  Further down, in the same homily, St. John Chrysostom urges the adoption of a communistic system of housekeeping, but purely on the grounds of domestic economy and saving of labour.  There is not a word to suggest that a communistic system was morally preferable to a proprietary one.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Hom, on Acts xi.  That voluntary poverty was regarded as a counsel of perfection by Aquinas is abundantly clear from many passages in his works, e.g.  Summa, I. ii. 108, 4; II. ii. 185, 6; II. ii. 186, 3; Summa cont.  Gent., iii. 133.  On this, as on every other point, the teaching of Aquinas is in line with that of the Fathers.]