“Tell me then, how did you come by your wealth? Did you receive from someone? Where did you get it from? From his grandfather, you say, or from his father. Are you able to show, as you go back through the generations, that it was justly acquired? It cannot have been. No, the beginning and root of wealth must lie in injustice of some sort. And why? Because in the beginning, God did not create one person wealthy and another to go wanting; nor did he at some point later in time, reveal great heaps of gold to one person and cheat another searcher. He gave one and the same earth to all alike. And inasmuch as the earth is a common possession, how is it that you have acres and acres of land, while your neighbor has not the tiniest fraction of the earth? It is an inheritance from my father, you say. And from whom did it come to him? From his ancestors, you say. Yet you must go back and search out the origin of your claim. Jacob grew wealthy, but it came as what he earned from his own toil. Still, I will not quibble too much over details. I grant you that your wealth may have been gathered honestly and without any taint of larceny–that the gold he had somehow just gushed up out of the earth. What of it? Is wealth something good? Not at all. Still, he argues, it is not something evil. No, it is not something evil–so long as it is not hoarded and shared out with those in need. Unshared, wealth becomes something evil, a trap. But not doing a good work, he goes on, is not tantamount to doing an evil one or being an evil person. True enough, but isn’t the fact that you claim sole ownership of what belongs to the Lord, of what is common property, something evil? Or do you deny that the Lord’s is the earth and its fullness? And so, if whatever we have belongs to our one common Lord, it belongs also to those who are his servants along with us. Whatever belongs to the Lord belongs equally to all. Isn’t this the arrangement established in great households, where all get an equal share of food since it comes from the store of their master? The master’s house is available to all. Whatever kings own–cities, marketplaces, public walks–is common property, shared equally by all. Now look at God’s loving plan. In order that they might put humankind to shame, he created certain things as common property–the sun, the air, the earth and water, the sky, the sea, light and the stars–and shares them out equally as with members of a single family. He has fashioned us all with the same eyes and body and soul, the same equipment in all respects, all things that come from the earth, all human beings from a single parent and all of us in one dwelling place. But none of these shames us. Other things as well he made common property–baths, cities, marketplaces, walkways. And notice that no one argues over what belongs to all in common; all is peaceful. Strife comes on the scene only when someone tries to gain possession of something and make it his own. It is as if human nature itself grows wroth when, in spite of God’s uniting us in every way, we are bent on dividing and standing apart by owning things and using phrases like “This belongs to me” or “That is yours”–chilling words indeed. This is the occasion of quarreling and turmoil; without this sort of conduct there can be no quarrel and no contention. It is rather the state of common property that is our inheritance which is more in keeping with our nature. Why do we never argue over who owns the market-place? Is it not because it belongs to all alike? It is rather over houses and possessions that we see each other always at each other’s throats. Whatever is necessary for life is given to all alike; yet even in the smallest matters we cannot seem to keep things in common to all. God has made these great gifts available to all in common so that we might learn to share lesser things. Nevertheless, we have not learned this lesson. To return to my earlier questions: how can a rich person be a good person? He is a good person when he shares his wealth; by no longer being wealthy he becomes good–by giving his wealth to others. As long as he hoards it for himself he is not good.”
John Chrysostom (c. 349-407) Archbishop of Constantinople in Sermon 12.4 in Ep I ad Tim.