The answer
St. John Chrysostom says, “This wealth is not a possession, it is not property, it is a loan for use. For when you die, willingly or unwillingly, all that you have goes to others, and they again give it up to others, and they again to others. For we are all sojourners … Property, in fact, is but a word: we are all owners in fact but of other men’s possessions … Our goods here are not our own; we have only a life interest in them … Only the virtues of the soul are properly our own … For we cannot take our wealth with us, when we depart hence, but we can take our charities.”1109 He also says, “Is not ‘the earth God’s, and the fullness thereof?’ If then our possessions belong to one common Lord, they belong also to our fellow-servants. The possessions of one Lord are all common.”1110
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
1109 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to Timothy Homily 11 (NPNF I/13:443).
1110 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to Timothy Homily 12 (NPNF I/13:448).