The Jewish property system, which originally had some notable peculiarities of its own, had by the first century A.D. become of necessity so like the Roman that the differences may for our purposes be disregarded. The more so as Christianity very early came almost exclusively under the influence of the Roman institutions and concepts in this regard. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that Roman practice in regard to property was widely at variance with Roman theory, with the result that serious moral disintegration came over persons engaging in commercial enterprises. The moral lapses of the early Christians are largely to be set down to this cause, on the principle that a destruction of moral integrity in one respect makes other delinquencies easy. With respect to the attitude of Christ towards contemporary property institutions, it is unnecessary for our purpose to regard any conclusions of modern criticism. The synoptic gospels were uncritically accepted by the early Church and we are concerned merely with what was commonly accepted as the teaching of Christ. Perhaps as convenient a way as any of illustrating the breadth of view in Christ's attitude toward property institutions would be to take a single illustration and apply to it the whole range of property concepts found in the teachings of Christ. No single illustration is so applied in the Gospels as we have them, but the principles will be the clearer for the consistent use of the same illustration. We shall take as our type case one which Christ himself used; the case of a thief who steals a coat. The teachings of Christ about property can conveniently be put down under four heads, each illustrating, by a different way of treating the thief, a different property concept. First: The ordinary or conventional manner of treating the thief, based on the concept of the morality and sacredness of private property; i.e., catching the thief, recovering the stolen property and punishing the crime by fine or imprisonment or torture. This conventional standard of morality and attitude towards property is illustrated, e.g., in the story of the man with one talent in the parable. It is very concisely summed up in the expression: "To him that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."