The second class of patristic texts which are relied on by socialists are, as we have said, those ’where the practice of almsgiving is recommended in the rhetorical and persuasive language of the missioner—­where the faithful are exhorted to exercise their charity to such a degree that it may be said that the rich and poor have all things in common.’  Such passages are very frequent throughout the writings of the Fathers, but we may give as examples two, which are most frequently relied on by socialists.  One of these is from St. Ambrose:[1] ’Mercy is a part of justice; and if you wish to give to the poor, this mercy is justice.  “He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever."[2] It is therefore unjust that one should not be helped by his neighbour; when God hath wished the possession of the earth to be common to all men, and its fruits to minister to all; but avarice established possessory rights.  It is therefore just that if you lay claim to anything as your private property, which is really conferred in common to the whole human race, that you should dispense something to the poor, so that you may not deny nourishment to those who have the right to share with you.’  The following passage from Gregory the Great[3] is another example of this kind of passage:  ’Those who rather desire what is another’s, nor bestow that is their own, are to be admonished to consider carefully that the earth out of which they are taken is common to all men, and therefore brings forth nourishment for all in common.  Vainly, then, do they suppose themselves innocent who claim to their own private use the common gift of God; those who in not imparting what they have received walk in the midst of the slaughter of their neighbours; since they almost daily slay so many persons as there are dying poor whose subsidies they keep close in their own possession.’

[Footnote 1:  Comm. on Ps. cxviii., viii. 22.]

[Footnote 2:  Ps. cxii. 9.]

[Footnote 3:  Lib.  Reg.  Past., iii. 21.]

The third class of passages to which reference must be made is composed of the numerous attacks which the Fathers levelled against the abuse or wrongful acquisition of riches.  These passages do not indicate that the Fathers favoured a system of communism, but point in precisely the contrary direction.  If property were an evil thing in itself, they would not have wasted so much time in emphasising the evil uses to which it was sometimes put.  The insistence on the abuses of an institution is an implicit admission that it has its uses.  Thus Clement of Alexandria devotes a whole treatise to answering the question ‘Who is the rich man who can be saved?’ in which it appears quite plainly that it is the possible abuse of wealth, and the possible too great attachment to worldly goods, that are the principal dangers in the way of a rich man’s salvation.  The suggestion that in order to be saved a man must abandon all his