All these circumstances gave property a less fixed and sacred character.

The early Christians are believed to have held their property in common, and the principle is sanctioned by the words of Christ himself, and has been maintained as a counsel of perfection in almost all ages of the Church.

Nor have there been wanting instances of modern enthusiasts who have made a religion of communism; in every age of religious excitement notions like Wycliffe's 'inheritance of grace' have tended to prevail.

A like spirit, but fiercer and more violent, has appeared in politics.

'The preparation of the Gospel of peace' soon becomes the red flag of Republicanism.
We can hardly judge what effect Plato's views would have upon his own contemporaries; they would perhaps have seemed to them only an exaggeration of the Spartan commonwealth.