[Footnote 2: I. ii. 96,4.]
There can be no doubt that the practice of the scholastic teaching of community of user, in its proper sense, made for social stability. The following passage from Trithemius, written at the end of the fifteenth century, is interesting as showing how consistently the doctrine of St. Thomas was adhered to two hundred years after his death, and also that the failure of the rich to put into practice the moderate communism of St. Thomas was the cause of the rise of the heretical communists, who attacked the very foundations of property itself: 'Let the rich remember that their possessions have not been entrusted to them in order that they may have the sole enjoyment of them, but that they may use and manage them as property belonging to mankind at large. Let them remember that when they give to the needy they only give them what belongs to them. If the duty of right use and management of property, whether worldly or spiritual, is neglected, if the rich think that they are the sole lords and masters of that which they possess, and do not treat the needy as their brethren, there must of necessity arise an inner shattering of the commonwealth. False teachers and deceivers of the people will then gain influence, as has happened in Bohemia, by preaching to the people that earthly property should be equally distributed among all, and that the rich must be forcibly condemned to the division of their wealth. Then follow lamentable conditions and civil wars; no property is spared; no right of ownership is any longer recognised; and the wealthy may then with justice complain of the loss of possessions which have been unrighteously taken from them; but they should also seriously ask themselves the question whether in the days of peace and order they recognised in the administration of these goods the right of their superior lord and owner, namely, the God of all the earth.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Quoted in Janssen, op. cit., vol. ii. p. 91.]
It must not, however, be imagined for a moment that the community of user advocated by the scholastics had anything in common with the communism recommended by modern Socialists. As we have seen above, the scholastic communism did not at all apply to the procuring and dispensing of material things, but only to the mode of using them. It is not even correct to say that the property of an individual was limited by the duty of using it for the common good. As Rambaud puts it: 'Les devoirs de charité, d'équité naturelle, et de simple convenance sociale peuvent affecter, ou mieux encore, commander un certain usage de la richesse; mais ce n'est pas le même chose que limiter la propriété.'[1] The community of user of the scholastics was distinguished from that of modern Socialists not less strongly by the motives which inspired it than by the effect it produced. The former was dictated by high spiritual aims, and the contempt of material goods; the latter is the fruit of over-attachment to material goods, and the envy of their possessors.[2]
[Footnote 1: Op. cit., p. 43. The same writer shows that there is no authority in Christian teaching for the proposition, advanced by many Christian Socialists, that property is a 'social function' (ibid., p. 774). The right of property even carried with it the jus abutendi, which, however, did not mean the right to abuse, but the right to destroy by consumption (see Antoine, Cours d'Economie sociale, p. 526).]
[Footnote 2: Roscher, op. cit., p. 5: 'Vom neuern Socialismus freilich unterscheidet sich diese Auffassung nicht blosz durch ihre religiöse Grundlage, sondern auch durch ihre, jedem Mammonsdienst entgegengesetze, Verachtung der materiellen Güter.']
The large estates which the Church itself owned have frequently been pointed to as evidence of hypocrisy in its attitude towards the common user of property. This is not the place to inquire into the condition of ecclesiastical estates in the Middle Ages, but it is sufficient to say that they were usually the centres of charity, and that in the opinion of so impartial a writer as Roscher, they rather tended to make the rules of using goods for the common use practicable than the contrary.[1]
[Footnote 1: Roscher, op. cit., p. 6.]
SECTION 3.—PROPERTY IN HUMAN BEINGS
Before we pass from the subject of property, we must deal with a particular kind of property right, namely, that of one human being over another. At the present day the idea of one man being owned by another is repugnant to all enlightened public opinion, but this general repugnance is of very recent growth, and did not exist in mediæval Europe. In dealing with the scholastic attitude towards slavery, we shall indicate, as we did with regard to its attitude towards property in general, the fundamental harmony between the teaching of the primitive and the mediæval Church on the subject. No apology is needed for this apparent digression, as a comparison of the teaching of the Church at the two periods of its development helps us to understand precisely what the later doctrine was; and, moreover, the close analogy which, as we shall see, existed between the Church's view of property and slavery, throws much light on the true nature of both institutions.