Augustine (392 AD), expounding Psalm 119, argues the believer is a "lodger" or "sojourner" on earth — not derived from the soil, but promised an everlasting country above, where "when we have arrived we shall never depart." Chrysostom reinforces this by urging Christians not to build houses that become prisons or bury treasure that invites enemies; he points to desert ascetics who live in temporary huts as models of the proper Christian posture toward earthly place. Physical relocation is theologically minor when every location is equally foreign to the soul's true home.
"Why preparest thou a house, O man, that thou mayest bind thyself more?... Why dost thou compass thyself with walls, and prepare a prison for thyself?" — urging detachment from earthly places as incompatible with heavenly citizenship, and pointing to desert ascetics as models of the Christian posture toward earthly location.
"We say we are tenants or strangers upon earth, because we have found our country above, whence we have received a pledge, and where when we have arrived we shall never depart" — the foundational patristic statement on Christians as earthly sojourners awaiting the heavenly home.
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