Why is it that some things are owned by all while others are owned privately?

St. John Chrysostom says, “What is the sense of this: ‘Who gives to us all things richly to enjoy’ (1 Tim. 6:17)? God gives all those things with liberality, which are more necessary than riches; such, for example, as the air, the water, the fire, the sun; all things of this kind. The rich man is not able to say that he enjoys more of the sunbeams than the poor man; he is not able to say that he breathes more plenteous air: but all these are offered alike to all. And wherefore, one may say, is it the greater and more necessary blessings, and those which maintain our life, that God has made common; but the smaller and less valuable (I speak of money) are not thus common. Why is this? In order that our life might be disciplined, and that we might have [a] training ground for virtue. For if these necessaries were not common, perhaps they who are rich, practising their usual covetousness, would strangle those who were poor. For if they do this for the sake of money, much rather would they do so for the things referred to. Again, if money was also an universal possession, and were offered in the same manner to all, the occasion for almsgiving, and the opportunity for benevolence, would be taken away.”¹¹⁰³

He also says, “Tell me, then, whence are you rich? From whom did you receive it, and from whom he who transmitted it to you? From his father and his grandfather. But can you, ascending through many generations, show the acquisition just? It cannot be. The root and

1100 St. Augustine of Hippo, Letters 130.3 (NPNF I/1:460).

1101 St. Augustine of Hippo, Letters, Vol. III (131–164) 157 (FOTC 20:348–349).

1102 St. Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine 1.4 (NPNF I/2:523).

1103 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Statues 2.19 (NPNF I/9:351) amended.

origin of it must have been injustice. Why? Because God in the beginning made not one man rich, and another poor. Nor did He afterwards take and show to one treasures of gold, and deny to the other the right of searching for it: but He left the earth free to all alike. Why then, if it is common, have you so many acres of land, while your neighbor has not a portion of it? It was transmitted to me by my father. And by whom to him? By his forefathers. But you must go back and find the original owner.”¹¹⁰⁴