PRIVATE PROPERTY, ABSOLUTE OR RELATIVE RIGHT?:

STUDY ON THE POSSIBILITY OF RELATIVIZING THE RIGHT TO PROPERTY IN AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

Abstract

The right to property was not theorized by Augustine in an academic or systematic way, but as a result of several controversies that he faced during his intellectual and life journey. He did not position himself against the aforementioned right, however, he did not understand it as a natural right, since the Creator is the natural owner of everything, so that private property is a usufructuary concession arising from human rights. Since individual private property is in practice a stewardship, it is not absolute and can be relativized in exceptional circumstances. In Epistle 153, the Hippoman considers that the protection of the right to property present in legal regulations paid more attention to the stolen property than to the morality of the act itself, in addition, public authorities did not spend any effort to punish theft committed by the rich and authorities, such as the legal usury carried out by banks against the poor. Therefore, only crimes against property committed by the poor against the rich were punished, so that this legal system constituted in practice a sophisticated version of the right of the strongest. Another flexibilization of the analyzed law is exposed in the Tractatus in Johannis evangelium, which has as its context the Donatist schism and its violent radicalization through the circumcellions. In this context, Augustine admits the expropriation of the Donatist properties carried out by the imperial authorities in the name of the Catholic Church, with the argument that the churches, basilicas and properties would be returned to their true owners. Therefore, in this specific case, the expropriation would not be religious persecution, but merely a just state punishment of heretics.