n duly consecrated to God by
His ministers, such as churches and votive offerings which have been
properly dedicated to His service; and these we have by our constitution
forbidden to be alienated or pledged, except to redeem captives from
bondage. If any one attempts to consecrate a thing for himself and by
his own authority, its character is unaltered, and it does not become
sacred. The ground on which a sacred building is erected remains sacred
even after the destruction of the building, as was declared also by
Papinian.

9 Any one can devote a place to superstitious uses of his own free
will, that is to say, by burying a dead body in his own land. It is not
lawful, however, to bury in land which one owns jointly with some one
else, and which has not hitherto been used for this purpose, without the
other's consent, though one may lawfully bury in a common sepulchre
even without such consent. Again, the owner may not devote a place to
superstitious uses in which another has a usufruct, without the consent
of the latter. It is lawful to bury in another man's ground, if he gives
permission, and the ground thereby becomes religious even though he
should not give his consent to the interment till after it has taken
place.

10 Sanctioned things, too, such as city walls and gates, are, in
a sense, subject to divine law, and therefore are not owned by any
individual. Such walls are said to be 'sanctioned,' because any offence
against them is visited with capital punishment; for which reason
those parts of the laws in which we establish a penalty for their
transgressors are called sanctions.

11 Things become the private property of individuals in many ways; for
the titles by which we acquire ownership in them are some of them titles
of natural law, which, as we said, is called the law of nations, while
some of them are titles of civil law. It will thus be most convenient to
take the older law first: and natural law is clearly the older, having
been instituted by nature at the first origin of mankind, whereas
civil laws first came into existence when states began to be founded,
magistrates to be created, and laws to be written.

12 Wild animals, birds, and fish, that is to say all the creatures which
the land, the sea, and the sky produce, as soon as they are caught
by any one become at once the property of their captor by the law of
nations; for natural reason admits the title of the first occupant to
that which previou