Question VII

GRATIAN. But now it is asked whether heretics are to be despoiled of their own property and that of the church, and whether those who possess things taken from heretics are said to possess another’s property. Concerning these things Augustine writes thus to Vincentius, [epistle 48]:

Whoever persecutes you on the occasion of this imperial law, not from the love of correcting but from the hatred of acting as an enemy, displeases us. And although no earthly thing whatever can rightly be possessed by anyone except either by divine right, by which all things belong to the just, or by human right, which is in the power of the kings of the earth—and therefore you falsely call those things yours that you neither possess justly nor, according to the laws of earthly kings, are permitted to retain, and in vain you say, “We labor to gather them,” when you read it written, “The just eat the labors of the impious”—nevertheless, whoever, on the occasion of this law that the kings of the earth serving Christ promulgated for amending your impiety, greedily seeks property belonging to you, displeases us. Finally, whoever holds not through justice but through avarice those very goods of the poor or basilicas of the congregations that you held under the name of the church—which assuredly are owed only to that church which is the true church of Christ—displeases us. Whoever receives in such a way a person cast down by you for some flagitious deed or crime as those are received who, apart from the error by which you are separated from us, lived among you without crime, displeases us. But you do not easily show these things either. We tolerate certain persons whom we cannot correct or punish; nor on account of the chaff do we abandon the Lord’s threshing floor; nor on account of the bad fish do we break the Lord’s nets; nor on account of the kids to be separated at the end do we desert the Lord’s flock; nor on account of the vessels made unto dishonor do we migrate from the Lord’s house.

The same, Against Petilian, [Book II, c. 43]. If you complain concerning ecclesiastical property or places that you do not hold, the Jews too can call themselves just and charge us with iniquity because Christians now possess the place in which the impious reigned. What, therefore, is unworthy if Catholics hold according to the equal will of the Lord those things that heretics held? That voice of the Lord has force against all the iniquitous and impious: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation that practices justice.” Or was it written in vain, “The pious will eat the labors of the impious”? Therefore, you ought rather to marvel that you still hold something than that you have lost something. Likewise, [c. 59]: § 1. If you who have now been cut off began to possess any things, because the Lord gave to us the things taken from you, we do not therefore covet another’s property, because by the command of him to whom all things belong they were made ours, and they are justly ours. For you used them for severance; we, for unity. Otherwise, those who were expelled by divine power from the face of those who used that land evilly could charge the first people of God too with coveting another’s property; and the Jews themselves, from whom the kingdom was taken according to the words of the Lord and given to a nation that practices justice, can charge the coveting of another’s property because the church of Christ possesses the place where the persecutors of Christ reigned.

The same, [epistle 50 to Boniface]. But as to what they charge against us—that we covet and take away their property—would that they become Catholics and possess in peace and charity with us not only the things that they call theirs but also ours. But to such an extent are they blinded by the desire to make false accusations that they do not attend to how contrary to one another are the things they say. Surely they themselves say, and appear to complain most odiously concerning themselves, that we confine them in our communion by the violent command of the laws. We would in no way do this, therefore, if we wished to possess their property. What avaricious man seeks a co-possessor? What person inflamed by the desire to dominate or raised up by the haughtiness of domination desires to have a partner? Surely let them attend to those formerly their own but now also our companions and joined to us by fraternal love: how they hold as their own not only the things they had but also ours, which they did not have—things that, nevertheless, if we are co-sharers with the poor, are both ours and theirs. But if we privately possess things that suffice for us, those things are not ours but the poor’s; we in some way conduct their administration, not claim ownership for ourselves by a damnable usurpation. Therefore, whatever they possessed in the name of the churches of Donatus’s party, Christian emperors by religious laws ordered to be transferred, together with the churches themselves, to the Catholic Church. Therefore, since the peoples of those same churches are with us, and with us are the poor who were fed from those same little possessions, let those who are placed outside rather cease to covet another’s property, but let them enter the fellowship of unity, so that together we may govern not only the things that they call theirs but also the things that they call ours. For it is written: “All things are yours, but you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”

The same in the epistle to Vincentius. Just as a limb, if it is cut off from the body of a living man, cannot retain the spirit of life, so a man who is cut off from the body of the just Christ can in no way retain the spirit of justice, even if he retains the form of the limb that he received in the body. But let them come into the joining together of this body and possess their labors not from the desire to dominate but from the piety of using them well. But we, as has already been said, purge our will from the filth of this desire, with any enemy as judge, when, so far as we are able, we seek those very persons whose labors they are said to be, so that with us in Catholic fellowship they may use both theirs and ours. § 1. “But this,” they say, “is what moves us: if we are unjust, why do you seek us?” To them we respond: we seek you, the unjust, lest you remain unjust; we seek the lost so that we may be able to rejoice over those found, saying: “The brother was dead and has revived; he had perished and has been found.” “Why, then,” he says, “do you not baptize me, so that you may wash me from sins?” I answer: because I do not inflict injury upon the emperor’s character when I correct the deserter’s error. “Why,” he says, “do I not at least perform penance among you?” Rather, unless you perform it, you will not be able to be saved. For how will you rejoice that you have been corrected unless you grieve that you were perverse? “What, then,” they say, “do we receive among you when we pass over to you?” I answer: indeed, you do not receive baptism, which could be present in you outside the joining together of the body of Christ but could not profit you; but you receive the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace—without which no one will be able to see God—and charity, which, as it is written, covers a multitude of sins. § 2. But if we consider what is written in the Book of Wisdom, “Therefore the just carried away the spoils of the impious,” and likewise what is read in Proverbs, “But the riches of the impious are stored up for the just,” then we shall see that it is not to be asked who possesses the property of heretics, but who are in the fellowship of the just. Likewise after some things: § 3. If the body of Christ carries away the spoils of the impious, and the riches of the impious are stored up for the body of Christ, the impious ought not to remain outside so that they may make false accusations, but to enter so that they may rather be justified. Likewise after some things: § 4. Therefore, let them come into the joining together of Christ’s body and possess their labors not from the desire to dominate but from the piety of using them well. But we, as has already been said, have purged our will from the filth of this desire, with any enemy as judge, when, so far as we are able, we seek those very persons whose labors they are said to be, so that with us in Catholic fellowship they may use both theirs and ours. GRATIAN. Therefore, by these authorities it is clearly shown that the things that are possessed evilly by heretics are justly taken from them by Catholics, and that Catholics are not therefore said to possess another’s property.