An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching Part 4

Janet takes the same view of the patristic utterances on this subject:[4] 'What do the Fathers say? It is that in Jesus Christ there is no mine and thine. Nothing is more true, without doubt; in the divine order, in the order of absolute charity, where men are wholly wrapt up in G.o.d, distinction and inequality of goods would be impossible. But the Fathers saw clearly that such a state of things was not realisable here below. What did they do? They established property on human law, positive law, imperial law. Communism is either a Utopia or a barbarism; a Utopia if one imagine it founded on universal devotion; a barbarism if one imposes it by force.'[5]

[Footnote 1: _Property, Its Duties and Rights_ (London, 1913).]

[Footnote 2: _De Off._, i. 7.]

[Footnote 3: Seneca, _Ep._, xiv. 2.]

[Footnote 4: _Histoire de la Science politique_, vol. i. p. 330.]

[Footnote 5: See also Jarrett, _Mediaeval Socialism_.]

It must not be concluded that the evidence of the approbation by the Fathers of private property is purely negative or solely derived from the interpretation of possibly ambiguous texts. On the contrary, the lawfulness of property is emphatically a.s.serted on more than one occasion. 'To possess riches,' says Hilary of Poictiers,[1] 'is not wrongful, but rather the manner in which possession is used.... It is a crime to possess wrongfully rather than simply to possess.' 'Who does not understand,' asks St. Augustine,[2] 'that it is not sinful to possess riches, but to love and place hope in them, and to prefer them to truth or justice?' Again, 'Why do you reproach us by saying that men renewed in baptism ought no longer to beget children or to possess fields and houses and money? Paul allows it.'[3] According to Ambrose,[4] 'Riches themselves are not wrongful. Indeed, "redemptio animae* viri divitiae* ejus," because he who gives to the poor saves his soul. There is therefore a place for goodness in these material riches. You are as steersmen in a great sea. He who steers his ship well, quickly crosses the waves, and comes to port; but he who does not know how to control his ship is sunk by his own weight. Wherefore it is written, "Possessio divitum civitas firmissima."' A Council in A.D. 415 condemned the proposition held by Pelagius that 'the rich cannot be saved unless they renounced their goods.'[5]

[Footnote 1: _Comm. on Matt. xix._ 9.]

[Footnote 2: _Contra Ad._, xx. 2.]

[Footnote 3: _De Mor. Eccl. Cath._, i. 35.]

[Footnote 4: _Epist._, lxiii. 92.]

[Footnote 5: _Revue Archeologique_, 1880, p. 321.]

The more one studies the Fathers the more one becomes convinced that property was regarded by them as one of the normal and legitimate inst.i.tutions of human society. Benigni's conclusion, as the result of his exceptionally thorough researches, is that according to the early Fathers, 'property is lawful and ought scrupulously to be respected.

But property is subject to the high duties of human fellowship which sprang from the equality and brotherhood of man. Collectivism is absurd and immoral.'[1] Janet arrived at the same conclusion: 'In spite of the words of the Fathers, in spite of the advice given by Christ to the rich man to sell all his goods and give to the poor, in spite of the communism of the Apostles, can one say that Christianity condemned property? Certainly not. Christianity considered it a counsel of perfection for a man to deprive himself of his goods; it did not abrogate the right of anybody.'[2] The same conclusion is reached by the Abbe Calippe in an excellent article published in _La Semaine Sociale de France_, 1909. 'The right of property and of the property owner are a.s.sumed.'[3] 'It is only prejudiced or superficial minds which could make the writers of the fourth century the precursors of modern communists or collectivists.'[4]

[Footnote 1: _L'Economia Sociale Christiana avanti Costantino_ (Genoa, 1897).]

[Footnote 2: _Histoire de la Science politique_, vol. i. p. 319.]

[Footnote 3: P. 114.]

[Footnote 4: P. 121.]

When we turn to St. Thomas Aquinas, we find that his teaching on the subject of property is not at all out of harmony with that of the earlier Fathers of the Church, but, on the contrary, summarises and consolidates it. 'It remained to elaborate, to const.i.tute a definite theory of the right of property. It sufficed to harmonise, to collaborate, and to relate one to the other these elements furnished by the Christian doctors of the first four or five centuries; and this was precisely the work of the great theologians of the Middle Ages, especially of St. Thomas Aquinas.... In establishing his thesis St.

Thomas did not borrow from the Roman jurisconsults through the medium of St. Isidore more than their vocabulary, their formulas, their juridical distinctions; he also borrowed from Aristotle the arguments upon which the philosopher based his right of property. But the ground of his doctrine is undoubtedly of Christian origin. There is, between the Fathers and him, a perfect continuity.'[1] 'Community of goods,'

he writes, 'is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural law dictates that all things should be possessed in common, and that nothing should be possessed as one's own; but because the division of possession is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement, which belongs to positive law. Hence the ownership of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition thereto devised by human reason.' This is simply another way of stating St. Augustine's distinction between natural and positive law.

If it speaks with more respect of positive law than St. Augustine had done, it is because Aquinas was influenced by the Aristotelian conception of the State being itself a natural inst.i.tution, owing to man being a social animal.[2]

[Footnote 1: Abbe Calippe, _op. cit._, 1909, p. 124.]

[Footnote 2: See Carlyle, _Property in Mediaeval Theology_. Community of goods is said to be according to natural law in the canon law, but certain t.i.tles of acquiring private property are also said to be natural, so that the pa.s.sage does not help the discussion very much (_Corp, Jur. Can._, Dec. 1. Dist. i. c. 7.)]

The explanation which St. Thomas gives of the necessity for property also shows how clearly he agreed with the Fathers' teaching on natural communism: 'Two things are competent to man in respect of external things. One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this regard it is lawful for a man to possess property. Moreover, this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First, because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labour, and would leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens when there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there would be confusion if everybody had to look after any one thing indeterminately. Thirdly, because a more peaceful state is ensured to man if each one is contented with his own. Hence it is to be observed that quarrels more frequently occur when there is no division of the things possessed.[1] It is quite clear from this pa.s.sage that Aquinas regarded property as something essential to the existence of society in the natural condition of human nature--that is to say, the condition that it had acquired at the fall. It is precisely the greed and avarice of fallen man that renders property an indispensable inst.i.tution.

[Footnote 1: II. ii. 66, 2.]

There was another sense in which property was said to be according to human law, in distinction to the natural law, namely, in the sense that, whereas the general principle that men should own things might be said to be natural, the particular proprietary rights of each individual were determined by positive law. In other words, the _fundamentum_ of property rights was natural, whereas the _t.i.tulus_ of particular property rights was according to positive law. This distinction is stated clearly by Aquinas:[1] 'The natural right or just is that which by its very nature is adjusted to or commensurate with another person. Now this may happen in two ways; first, according as it is considered absolutely; thus the male by its very nature is commensurate with the female to beget offspring by her, and a parent is commensurate with the offspring to nourish it. Secondly, a thing is naturally commensurate with another person, not according as it is considered absolutely, but according to something resultant from it--for instance, the possession of property. For if a particular piece of land be considered absolutely, it contains no reason why it should belong to one man more than to another, but if it be considered in respect of its adaptability to cultivation, and the unmolested use of the land, it has a certain commensuration to be the property of one and not of another man, as the Philosopher shows.' Cajetan's commentary on this article clearly emphasises the distinction between _fundamentum_ and _t.i.tulus_: 'In the ownership of goods two things are to be discussed. The first is why one thing should belong to one man and another thing to another. The second is why this particular field should belong to this man, that field to that man. With regard to the former inquiry, it may be said that the ownership of things is according to the law of nations, but with regard to the second, it may be said to result from the positive law, because in former times one thing was appropriated by one man and another thing by another.' It must not be supposed, however, from what we have just said, that there are no natural t.i.tles to property. Labour, for instance, is a t.i.tle flowing from the natural law, as also is occupancy, and in certain circ.u.mstances, prescription. All that is meant by the distinction between _fundamentum_ and _t.i.tulus_ is that, whereas it can be clearly demonstrated by natural law that the goods of the earth, which are given by G.o.d for the benefit of the whole of mankind, cannot be made use of to their full advantage unless they are made the subject of private ownership, particular goods cannot be demonstrated to be the lawful property of this or that person unless some human act has intervened. This human act need not necessarily be an act of agreement; it may equally be an act of some other kind--for instance, a decree of the law-giver, or the exercise of labour upon one's own goods. In the latter case, the additional value of the goods becomes the lawful property of the person who has exerted the labour. Aquinas therefore p.r.o.nounced unmistakably in favour of the legitimacy of private property, and in doing so was in full agreement with the Fathers of the Church. He was followed without hesitation by all the later theologians, and it is abundantly evident from their writings that the right of private property was the keystone of their whole economic system.[2]

[Footnote 1: II. ii. 57, 3.]

[Footnote 2: A community of goods, more or less complete, and a denial of the rights of private property was part of the teaching of many sects which were condemned as heretical--for instance, the Albigenses, the Vaudois, the Begards, the Apostoli, and the Fratricelli. (See Brants, _Op. cit._, Appendix II.)]

Communism therefore was no part of the scholastic teaching, but it must not be concluded from this that the mediaevals approved of the unregulated individualism which modern opinion allows to the owners of property. The very strength of the right to own property entailed as a consequence the duty of making good use of it; and a clear distinction was drawn between the power 'of procuring and dispensing' property and the power of using it. We have dealt with the former power in the present section, and we shall pa.s.s to the consideration of the latter in the next. In a later chapter we shall proceed to discuss the duties which attached to the owners of property in regard to its exchange.

SECTION 2.--DUTIES REGARDING THE ACQUISITION AND USE OF PROPERTY

We referred at the end of the last section to the very important distinction which Aquinas draws between the power of procuring and dispensing[1] exterior things and the power of using them. 'The second thing that is competent to man with regard to external things is their use. In this respect man ought to possess external things, not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them to others in their need.'[2] These words wherein St. Thomas lays down the doctrine of community of user of property were considered as authoritative by all later writers on the subject, and were universally quoted with approval by them,[3] and may therefore be taken as expressing the generally held view of the Middle Ages. They require careful explanation in order that their meaning be accurately understood.[4] Cajetan's gloss on this section of the _Summa_ enables us to understand its significance in a broad sense, but fuller information must be derived from a study of other parts of the _Summa_ itself. 'Note,' says Cajetan, 'that the words that community of goods in respect of use arises from the law of nature may be understood in two ways, one positively, the other negatively. And if they are understood in their positive sense they mean that the law of nature dictates that all things are common to all men; if in their negative sense, that the law of nature did not establish private ownership of possessions. And in either sense the proposition is true if correctly understood. In the first place, if they are taken in their positive sense, a man who is in a position of extreme necessity may take whatever he can find to succour himself or another in the same condition, nor is he bound in such a case to rest.i.tution, because by natural law he has but made use of his own. And in the negative sense they are equally true, because the law of nature did not inst.i.tute one thing the property of one person, and another thing of another person.' The principle of community of user flows logically from the very nature of property itself as defined by Aquinas, who taught that the supreme justification of private property was that it was the most advantageous method of securing for the community the benefits of material riches. While the owner of property has therefore an absolute right to the goods he possesses, he must at the same time remember that this right is established primarily on his power to benefit his neighbour by his proper use of it. The best evidence of the correctness of this statement is the fact that the scholastics admitted that, if the owner of property was withholding it from the community, or from any member of the community who had a real need of it, he could be forced to apply it to its proper end. If the community could pay for it, it was bound to do so; but if the necessitous person could not pay for it, he was none the less ent.i.tled to take it.

The former of these cases was ill.u.s.trated by the principle of the _dominium eminens_ of the State; and the latter by the principle that the giving of alms to a person in real need was a duty not of charity, but of justice.[5] We shall see in a moment that the most usual application of the principle enunciated by Aquinas was in the case of one person's extreme necessity which required almsgiving from another's superfluity, but, even short of such cases, there were rules of conduct in respect of the user of property on all occasions which were of extreme importance in the economic life of the time.

[Footnote 1: Goyau insists on the importance of the words 'procure'

and 'dispense.' 'Dont le premier eveille l'idee d'une constante sollicitude, et dont le second evoque l'image d'une generosite sympathetique' (_Autaur du Catholicisme Sociale_, vol. ii. p. 93).]

[Footnote 2: II. ii. 66, 2. In another part of the _Summa_ the same distinction is clearly laid down. 'Bona temporalia quae* homini divinitus conferuntur, ejus quidem sunt quantum ad proprietatem; sed quantum ad usum non solum desent esse ejus, sed aliorum qui en eis sustentari possunt en eo quod ei superfluit,' II. ii. 32, 6, ad 2.]

[Footnote 3: Janssen, _op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 91.]

[Footnote 4: The Abbe Calippe summarises St. Thomas's doctrine as follows: 'Le droit de propriete est un droit reel; mais ce n'est pas un droit illimite, les proprietaires ont des devoirs; ils ont des devoirs parce que Dieu qui a cree la terre ne l'a pas creee pour eux seuls, mais pour tous' (_Semaine Sociale de France_, 1909, p. 123).

According to Antoninus of Florence, goods could be evilly acquired, evilly distributed, or evilly consumed (_Irish Theological Quarterly_, vol. vii. p. 146).]

[Footnote 5: On the application of this principle by the popes in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries in the case of their own estates, see Ardant, _Papes et Paysans_, a work which must be read with a certain degree of caution (Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_, p. 290).]

These principles for the guidance of the owner of property are not collected under any single heading in the _Summa_, but must be gathered from the various sections dealing with man's duty to his fellow-men and to himself. One leading virtue which was inculcated with great emphasis by Aquinas was that of temperance. 'All pleasurable things which come within the use of man,' we read in the section dealing with this subject, 'are ordered to some necessity of this life as an end. And therefore temperance accepts the necessity of this life as a rule or measure of the things one uses, so that, to wit, they should be used according as the necessity of this life requires.'[1] St. Thomas explains, moreover, that 'necessary' must be taken in the broad sense of suitable to one's condition of life, and not merely necessary to maintain existence.[2] The principles of temperance did not apply in any special way to the user of property more than to the enjoyment of any other good;[3] but they are relevant as laying down the broad test of right and wrong in the user of one's goods.

[Footnote 1: II. ii. 141, 5.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 2. As Buridan puts it (_Eth._, iv. 4), 'If any man has more than is necessary for his own requirements, and does not give away anything to the poor, and to his relations and neighbours, he is acting against right reason.']

[Footnote 1: 'Rationalis creaturae* vera perfectio est unamquamque rem tanti habere quanti habenda est, sicut pluris est anima quam esca; fides et aequitas* quam pecunia' (Gerson, _De. Cont._).]

More particularly relevant to the subject before us is the teaching of Aquinas on liberality, which is a virtue directly connected with the user of property. Aquinas defines liberality as 'a virtue by which men use well all those exterior things which are given to us for sustenance.'[1] The limitations within which liberality should be practised are stated in the same article: 'As St. Basil and St.

Ambrose say, G.o.d has given to many a superabundance of riches, in order that they might gain merit by their dispensing them well. Few things, however, suffice for one man; and therefore the liberal man will advantageously expend more on others than on himself. In the spiritual sphere a man must always care for himself before his neighbours; and also in temporal things liberality does not demand that a man should think of others to the exclusion of himself and those dependent on him.'[2]

[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, 1.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 1.]

'It is not necessary for liberality that one should give away so much of one's riches that not enough remains to sustain himself and to enable him to perform works of virtue. This complete giving away without reserve belongs to the state of the perfection of spiritual life, of which we shall treat lower down; but it must be known that to give one's goods liberally is an act of virtue which itself produces happiness.'[1] The author proceeds to discuss whether making use of money might be an act of liberality, and replies that 'as money is by its very nature to be cla.s.sed among useful goods, because all exterior things are destined for the use of man, therefore the proper act of liberality is the good use of money and other riches.'[2] Moreover, 'it belongs to a virtuous man not simply to use well the goods which form the matter of his actions, but also to prepare the means and the occasions to use them well; thus the brave soldier sharpens his blade and keeps it in the scabbard, as well as exercising it on the enemy; in like manner, the liberal man should prepare and reserve his riches for a suitable use.'[3] It appears from this that to save part of one's annual income to provide against emergencies in the future, either by means of insurance or by investing in productive enterprises, is an act of liberality.

[Footnote 1: II. ii. 117, ad. 2.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ad. 3.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ad. 2. 'Potest concludi quod accipere et custodire modificata sunt acta liberalitatis.... Major per hoc probatur quod dantem multotiens et consumentem, nihil autem accipientem et custodientem cito derelinqueret substantia temporalis; et ita perirent omnis ejus actus quia non habent amplius quid dare et consumere.... Hic autem acceptio et custodia sic modificari debet.

Primo quidem oportet ut non sit injusta; secundo quod non sit de cupiditate vel avaritia suspecta propter excessum; tertio quod non permittat labi substantiam propter defectum ... Dare quando oportet et custodire quando oportet dare contrariantur; sed dare quando oportet et custodire quando oportet non contrariantur' (Buridan, _Eth._, iv.