Quaest. 2, Art. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/10/d/2/q/bon-qpe-q2-a2
----------------------------------------
### Article II. *On poverty as to mendicancy*.

Next the question is about mendicancy, and it is asked whether to beg for Christ belongs to Christian perfection; and I call *to beg* to seek alms, or to live on daily alms. And that it does not, it seems:

1. First, by the authority of the Psalm: *Fear the Lord, all ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him:* therefore to be in want and to fear God do not stand together.

2. Likewise, the Psalm: *I have not seen the just forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread:* therefore he who seeks bread is not just, nor the seed of the just.

3. Likewise, the Psalm: *Let his children be carried about vagabonds, and beg;* but nothing that the Psalmist, speaking in the spirit of God, imprecates as a punishment pertains to evangelical perfection or to perfect justice; to beg is of this kind: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, Ecclesiasticus, chapter 40: *My son, in thy life be not indigent; for it is better to die than to be indigent:* therefore it is better to be dead than a beggar.

5. Likewise, Acts, chapter 20: *It is a more blessed thing to give, rather than to receive;* but to give alms does not make a man attain to evangelical perfection: therefore much less does receiving.

6. Likewise, Luke, chapter 12: *Sell what you possess;* the Gloss: «that, having once spurned all things for God, you may afterwards work with the labour of your hands for what to live on, or to give alms»: therefore to live by one's own labour and to give alms pertains to evangelical perfection: therefore its opposite, namely to beg and to live by another's labour, is contrary to evangelical perfection.

7. Likewise, the first to the Thessalonians, chapter 4: *Desire nothing of any man's;* the Gloss: «*Desire*

*nothing of any man's,* much less ask for it, or take it». If therefore *to ask* or *to request* is more than *to crave,* and the first, namely *to desire* or to crave what is another's, is forbidden by the Apostle as unlawful: therefore much more strongly *to request.*

8. Likewise, the first to the Thessalonians, chapter 5: «*We beseech you, that you know them who labour among you, and are over you in the Lord;* the Gloss: «Just as riches beget neglect of salvation, so need, while it longs to be sated, turns aside from justice»; but what makes one turn aside from justice does not pertain to evangelical perfection: therefore etc.

9. Likewise, the second to the Thessalonians, chapter 3: *If any man will not work, neither let him eat;* the Gloss: «The Apostle wills that the servants of God work bodily, so that they may have whereon to live, and not be compelled by need to request necessities»; but this is what mendicants do: therefore it does not belong to the servants of God to beg, according to the Apostle.

10. Likewise, in the same chapter, on that text: *That we might give a pattern unto you;* the Gloss: «He who frequently comes to another's table, given to idleness, must needs flatter the one who feeds him»; but to flatter is contrary to truth and to perfection: therefore etc.

11. Likewise, in Causa 12, question 1, *Videntes*, Pope Urban says that «bishops ought to minister all necessities to all who wish to live the common life, as best they can, so that no one among them be found needy». And afterwards: «If anyone shall arise, in modern or in future times, who strives to tear this away, let him be struck with the condemnation already stated»: therefore it is against the canonical sanctions that some should live the common life in the Church, being in need and begging in it.

12. Likewise, in *De consecratione*, distinction 1, it is forbidden that a church be consecrated unless it is first endowed: therefore, if a church ought not to be consecrated unless those who minister in it have whereby to be sustained, much more strongly ought no religious order to be instituted without a sustaining possession.

13. Likewise, in civil law it is forbidden that the able-bodied beg, by the law on able-bodied mendicants; but the Church ought to be more ordered than the commonwealth: if therefore it is against the right governance of the commonwealth that the able-bodied beg, much more is it against the sublimity of evangelical perfection.

14. Likewise, this same thing is shown *by reason.* To beg is an indifferent work; but an indifferent [work] does not become a work of perfection through the addition of an end, as appears manifestly in other works, such as going to church and giving alms: therefore etc.

15. Likewise, it belongs to perfection to serve freely and liberally and to flee the obligations of sins; but he who receives alms obliges himself to intervene for the sins of others: if therefore an obligation of this kind is not consonant with perfection, therefore etc.

16. Likewise, those of this kind who beg by profession do this either because they are *poor,* or because they are *preachers.* If because *poor:* then all the poor who beg are perfect, which is against Augustine in the book *On the Work of Monks*, who rebukes monks who beg and are willing to do no work. If because *preachers:* then no one among them ought to beg who does not preach; the contrary of which we see all day long.

17. Likewise, to preach is something spiritual; but he who gives a spiritual thing and receives a temporal one is like Giezi, who received money from Naaman on the pretext of a spiritual benefit previously shown to him; but this is damnable: therefore it is damnable for a preacher to beg: therefore it does not belong to evangelical perfection.

18. Likewise, it belongs to the perfect to refrain *from every evil appearance*; but this is an evil appearance, that preachers request temporal things, because in this they are like the pseudo-preachers: therefore etc.

19. Likewise, those of this kind either have authority in preaching, or they do not. If they do not: then they do ill by preaching, therefore they merit nothing; if they have it — but those who have authority can request by right of their power: therefore such men, by begging, do injury to the authority of the preaching of the Gospel: therefore in this they are not perfect, but impious.

20. Likewise, it is safer and more perfect to follow men more approved and wiser; but the most approved and wisest men in the religious orders were Basil, Benedict, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, Hilary and Paulinus; but such men so left their own things that they possessed things in common, nor are they read to have begged: therefore this mode of begging newly introduced by Dominic and Francis seems to be superstitious and vain, since it seems foolish to set the mind and spirit of two poor men before such great wisdom and sublimity of the Saints and doctors who went before.

Sᴇᴅ ᴄᴏɴᴛʀᴀ: 1. Matthew, chapter 10: *Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes;* the Gloss: «Let them not carry with them even necessary things, nor a store-room; nothing besides clothing, with which one can be content». But in this the form of perfection is handed down to the Apostles themselves, and to imitate what belongs to perfection is perfect: therefore so to go through the world pertains to evangelical perfection. But this is to beg and to live on alms: therefore this pertains to evangelical perfection.

2. Likewise, Mark, chapter 6: *He commanded them that they should take nothing for the way, neither bread, nor money in their purse;* therefore he commanded this to them either as to *prelates,* or as to the *perfect.* If as to *prelates:* then prelates would still be bound to it; which is manifestly false. Therefore he commanded this to them as to perfect men; but perfection is set before all in common to be imitated, for it is said: *He that can take, let him take it:* therefore so to live pertains to evangelical perfection.

3. Likewise, Luke, chapter 9: *Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor scrip, nor bread, nor money;* the Gloss: «*Not to carry a staff* is not to be solicitous about the things that are necessary for human sustenance, because these are owed to preachers»; if *therefore* the Lord urged upon the Apostles, whom he sent to preach even among *unbelievers,* the exclusion of solicitude about necessary sustenance, much more strongly, when the Gospel is preached to *the faithful,* does it belong to perfection not to be solicitous about such things, but to be content with the food and clothing given one.

4. Likewise, Luke, chapter 9: *Whosoever shall receive a child in my name;* the Interlinear: «a poor man»; and another Gloss: «He who receives an imitator of Christ receives Christ»: therefore when a poor man imitating Christ is received, Christ is received. If therefore it belongs to evangelical perfection to be poor and an imitator of Christ, it belongs to evangelical perfection to wish to be received for Christ in such a poor man. If therefore such a one requests by begging, he does not withdraw from evangelical perfection.

5. Likewise, Luke, chapter 10: *Carry neither purse, nor scrip;* the Gloss: «So great ought to be the preacher's confidence in God that, even if he does not provide beforehand the expenses of the present life, he should yet know most certainly that they will not fail him, lest, while his mind is occupied with temporal things, he preach eternal things the less». Therefore it makes for a more unencumbered preaching of the truth that one should not provide temporal things for oneself beforehand, but expect them to be given one by others when one has need: therefore such a mode of living is consonant with truth and with evangelical perfection.

6. Likewise, Luke, chapter 16: *Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity; that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings;* the Gloss: «Not any poor whatever, but those who can receive into the everlasting dwellings»; but such are *the poor*

*in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven:* therefore it is according to the divine counsel that alms be given to such poor and that they be received by them. But what is consonant with the divine counsel is not repugnant to evangelical perfection: therefore etc.

7. Likewise, Jerome against Vigilantius, treating the aforesaid word, says: «Can these poor, amid whose filth and uncleanness of body burning lust holds sway, have the everlasting dwellings, who possess neither present things nor future ones? For not the poor simply, but the poor in spirit are called blessed, of whom it is written: *Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor: the Lord will deliver him in the evil day.* In sustaining the poor of the common people there is need not at all of understanding, but of alms; in the holy poor there is the blessedness of intelligence, that you should give to him who blushes to receive and, when he has received, grieves, reaping carnal things and sowing spiritual ones».

8. Likewise, the second to the Corinthians, chapter 8: *Let your abundance supply their want, that their abundance also may be a supplement to your want;* the Gloss: «*Let your abundance* of earthly things *supply their want, that,* conversely, the *abundance* of the spiritual merits *of those* who are free for divine things *may be a supplement to your want*». If therefore it pertains to the perfection of the Lord's body that the members communicate with one another *in the matter of giving and receiving,* it makes for the perfection of the Church and of the Gospel that the just poor request and receive sustenance from the worldly and imperfect rich. — *If you say* that they can *receive,* but not *request;* this is nothing, because the worldly rich can request the prayers of spiritual men to relieve the want of their own merits: therefore, conversely, the spiritual poor can request bodily alms for the sustenance of their bodies.

9. Likewise, this same thing is shown *by the example of Christ.* The Psalm: *But I am a beggar and poor;* the Gloss: «Christ says this of himself: I am a beggar in the form of a servant. A *beggar* is he who requests from another, a *poor man* is he who is not sufficient for himself». But it is certain that this is not understood of Christ as to spiritual gifts or goods, because he was a comprehensor and full of all grace: therefore it is understood as to temporal goods; therefore as to these he was a beggar and requested from another.

10. Likewise, the Psalm: *He persecuted the man in want and the beggar;* the Gloss: «namely Christ. To persecute the poor is cruelty alone; others indeed sometimes suffer such things for the sake of riches and honours».. Either therefore Christ is called a *beggar* because he begged from the *Father,* or because he begged from *man.* If because he begged from the *Father,* then all men are beggars, the rich as well as the poor: therefore so to persecute Christ would not have been the height of cruelty; if because he begged from *men,* we have the proposition: therefore etc.

11. Likewise, Mark, chapter 11: *Having viewed all things round about, he went out to Bethania;* the Gloss: «[to see] whether anyone would receive him with hospitality; for he was of such great poverty, and so little the flatterer of anyone, that in so great a city he found no lodging»; but it is certain that, if he had wished to hire a lodging, he would have found one to hire: therefore he looked round about like a poor little man and a beggar.

12. Likewise, Luke, chapter 19: *Zacheus, make haste and come down; for this day I must abide in thy house;* the Gloss: «Not invited, he invites»; but to invite another to this, that he receive one with hospitality, is nothing other than to beg and to request: therefore etc.

13. Likewise, John, chapter 4: *Give me to drink;* Augustine in the original, the fifteenth homily on John: «In everything that Christ did as man, he was holding out to men who would believe in him

an example»; and afterwards: «He *asks* for drink and *promises* drink; he is in need as one who will receive, and he promises as one who will satisfy». But it is certain that he was not in need of *spiritual* drink, because he was promising it: therefore he was in need of *bodily* drink and was asking for it. — But you will object the Gloss as if contrary, which says: «Although Jesus after his weariness could thirst, yet he does not demand this drink»; but this is understood to mean that he was not principally requesting this drink, lest the Gloss contradict the deed.

14. Likewise, Jerome to Rusticus: «What is viler than the Samaritan woman? Yet she not only believes in the Messiah, whom she comes to know at the well, but also, while the Apostles are buying food, she refreshes him when hungry and sustains him when weary»: therefore it seems that Christ was sustained bodily by her.

15. Likewise, as the Gospel history relates, Christ, invited by the Pharisees, ate with them: either therefore as *lord,* or as a *poor man.* If as *lord:* then he did not give an example of poverty; if as a poor man — but this is to beg: therefore etc.

16. Likewise, for this there is *the example of the Saints.* In Hebrews, chapter 11, it is said in praise of the Saints: *They wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in need* etc.; but so to wander about is to beg: therefore etc.

17. Likewise, there is the example of Elias, the third of Kings, chapter 17, of whom Augustine says in a certain sermon: «Had God failed to feed his servant Elias? Did not birds minister to him who lacked men? God therefore showed that he can feed his servants whence he will and when he will; and yet, so that a religious widow might feed him, he made him to be in need».

18. Likewise, for this there is the example of the disciples of John the Evangelist, of whom it is said in his legend that, selling all things that they could have, they gave to the needy; and afterwards it is added that they were tempted, because they had seen themselves in need in one cloak, but their own servants rich and resplendent».

19. Likewise, the example of the disciples of Paul; whence Chrysostom, on the praises of Paul: «Paul did not possess money; for he himself also testifies to this: *Even unto this hour,* he says, *we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode;* and why do I say money, when he indeed often had not even necessary food, nor clothing to put around him»? And there follows: «Of his disciples too, very many were poor, unskilled and strangers to all learning, living in hunger and need, obscure» etc.: therefore the disciples of Paul were beggars.

20. Likewise, for this there is the example of blessed Benedict, of whom it is read in the second book of the *Dialogues* that for three years he was in a cave, doing no work at all, but a certain Roman monk ministered bread to him; and it is certain that Benedict did not sin in this.

21. Likewise, the example of Saint Alexius, who was a man of wonderful holiness, in whose legend it is read that, being the son of a very wealthy Roman, he despised his patrimony and went begging through the world.

22. Likewise, the example of Saint Dominic, who at his death imprecated a curse on all who should try to bring possessions into his order: therefore he willed that they live on alms, according as he himself lived.

23. Likewise, for this there is the example of blessed Francis, who not only begged and counselled begging, but also confirmed his begging by miracles, as appeared in the sailors, whom he sated with the remnants of his food and, having sated them, delivered; and he had it confirmed through the rule approved by the supreme Pontiff, in which he says that «the brothers, in poverty and

humility serving the Lord, may go for alms with confidence» etc.

24. Likewise, Gregory, in the *Morals*, on that text of Job: *I have numbered to myself wearisome nights:* «The elect serve the Maker of things and are often straitened by want of things; through love they cleave to God, and yet they are in need of the supports of the present life». Therefore to be in need of the supports of the present life befits the perfection of the Saints.

25. Likewise, Jerome, in the forty-first epistle, to a certain hospitable man: «A great number of Saints is sustained by you throughout the islands of Dalmatia; but you would do better if you yourself too lived as a saint among the Saints». Therefore it is better to live on alms than to give alms.

Likewise, this same thing is shown *by reason.*

26. As the habit is, so also is the act; but the act of one who is wholly poor, insofar as he is poor, is to be in need and to beg: therefore, if to be poor is good, to beg for Christ is praiseworthy and perfect.

27. Likewise, to beg is not prohibited by the law of nature, nor by the law of Scripture, nor by the law of grace; but what is not prohibited, being imposed through obedience, becomes praiseworthy and meritorious, above all if it is difficult and burdensome: therefore, if some by profession have to beg, since they do this out of obedience, it will be praiseworthy and perfect for them.

28. Likewise, the Church imposes, as a penalty of satisfaction, begging for a time, or even perpetual begging; but it would not impose this unless it were satisfactory; but he who voluntarily binds himself to a satisfactory work acts perfectly: therefore he who has vowed always to beg for Christ acts perfectly and praiseworthily in this.

29. Likewise, contempt of self belongs to perfection, and greater contempt to greater perfection; but he who begs for Christ most of all despises himself and casts himself down: therefore such a one acts most perfectly.

30. Likewise, voluntary poverty pleases God more than involuntary: therefore also begging proceeding from that poverty is more pleasing to God; but the first can be praiseworthy and meritorious: therefore much more the second.

31. Likewise, he who serves some lord merits to be sustained by him; but he who renounces all things and fulfils the counsels serves the greatest Lord: therefore such a one most of all merits to be sustained by the Lord, therefore also by the servants of the Lord. If therefore one is voluntarily poor, by this very fact that he is such, if he requests alms, he requests justly.

32. Likewise, he who gives greater things can receive lesser; but the poor man, praying, bestows spiritual mercy: therefore much more strongly can he receive bodily alms.

33. Likewise, one preaching by authority can receive expenses by right of his power: therefore one preaching by sub-authority and commission or mandate can request them by supplication.

34. Likewise, he who serves another is justly sustained by him; therefore those who serve the universal Church are justly sustained by the whole world: therefore, if there are any who, running through the world, serve the Christian people by word and example, they can deservedly request sustenance from it.

35. Likewise, if it is lawful to receive the greater, much more strongly is it lawful to receive the lesser; but it is lawful for poor religious, who have renounced their own things, to receive very ample possessions; therefore much more strongly is it lawful to receive daily sustenance. Otherwise it seems monstrous to say that it is lawful to receive a hundred marks of gold, and not lawful to receive a hundred pieces of bread. — *If you say* that it is lawful to *receive,* but not lawful to *request;* this is utterly nothing, because *to request* is ordered to *receiving* and exists for its sake; and just as *to give* is more than *to promise,* so *to receive* is more than *to request.* But it is certain that whatever it is lawful to give it is lawful to promise: therefore whatever it is lawful to receive it is lawful to request.

36. Likewise, if a friend requests a gift from his friend, he acts against no law, neither the one by requesting, nor the other by giving, nor the first again by receiving; but the law of charity and of divine love is more communicative than the social law; therefore if anyone requests that something be given him for the love of God, he offends in nothing and in no respect withdraws from perfection.

37. Likewise, it is undoubtedly lawful to request something in the giving of which the condition of the giver is made better; but he who gives something for God *lendeth to the Lord* and exchanges a temporal thing for an eternal one and exercises himself in the work of the most noble virtue, namely piety. If therefore all these things befall him who gives by reason of the one who petitions, the poor man who requests alms acts most of all according to the law of charity; therefore he in no way withdraws from perfection.

> **Conclusio.** *Begging that is done for the imitating of Christ, or for the evangelizing of Christ, or in both ways, is not to be blamed; rather it belongs to evangelical perfection.*

Rᴇsᴘᴏɴᴅᴇᴏ: For the understanding of what has been said it must be noted that begging comes about in three ways. And the first way is from the *necessity of nature;* and this way is when someone begs not only because he is poor, but also because he has *infirmity,* or *weakness,* or *both.* Now this way is wretched and tolerable, but through good patience it becomes meritorious and praiseworthy; as one reads in Luke sixteen about Lazarus, that *there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at the gate of the rich man, full of sores;* and afterwards it is added that *the beggar died and was carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosom.* But of the rich man it is said that *he was buried in hell.* From which it is gathered that mendicancy, even when it comes from necessity, is an occasion that leads into the way of eternal salvation; according to what Gregory says, that the evils which press upon us here compel us to go to God.

The second way of begging is from the *viciousness of fault;* and this is when someone begs either for the *fostering of idleness,* or for the *heaping up of gain,* or *in both ways.* And this way, I say, is blameworthy in all who beg thus. Of whom Ambrose says in the book *On Duties*: «For the sake of petitioning the able-bodied come, they come having no cause but that of wandering, and they wish to empty out the supports of the poor and to drain the store; nor content with a little, they seek greater things, catching at the favour of their petitioning by the display of their clothes, and by feigning a noble birth bidding up the increase of their gains». But although in all of them it deserves to be rebuked, it is nevertheless to be rebuked above all in those who have the appearance of sanctity. Of whom Augustine says in the book *On the Work of Monks*: «It is in no way fitting that in that life, where senators become labourers, there workmen should become idlers; and that where they come, having left their own delights, they who were lords of estates, there peasants should become dainty». And afterwards, to rebuke their idleness and their gain-seeking, he adds: «Yet the most cunning enemy has scattered everywhere many hypocrites under the habit of monks, going about the provinces, nowhere sent, nowhere fixed, nowhere standing, nowhere sitting; some hawk the limbs of martyrs, if indeed they are martyrs'; others *enlarge their fringes and their phylacteries;* others lie that they have heard their parents or kinsfolk are living in this or that region and that they are journeying to them; and all of them beg, all of them exact either the costs of a lucrative neediness, or the price of a feigned sanctity». — Against such men blessed Augustine inveighs much in the book *On the Work of Monks,* for this reason, that they not only fostered sloth in themselves by begging, but also persuaded others of it by preaching, ill understanding the Gospel, where he seems to suggest that men, like the birds, ought not to labour; and worse still, expounding the Apostle, where he urges the brethren to work, by saying that this is to be understood of spiritual, not of bodily labour. And because in this they were deceiving both themselves and others, therefore Augustine rebukes them and in many ways shows the contrary throughout the whole book *On the Work of Monks,* which is wholly against those who approve this second way of begging. Whence of such men he says: «Men who were preaching sloth as though it were the preserver of the Gospel, accusing mercy as though it were the Gospel's betrayer. Would that these men, who wish to be at leisure with their hands, were wholly at leisure with their tongues too! For they would not invite so many to imitate them, if they set before them examples not only slothful but also dumb. But as it is, against the Apostle of Christ they recite the Gospel of Christ. For so marvellous are the works of the slothful, that they wish the Gospel to be hindered in the very thing which the Apostle therefore commanded and did, that the Gospel might not be hindered».

But the third way of begging is from the *supererogation of justice;* and this is when someone begs for the *imitating of Christ,* or for the *evangelizing of Christ,* or *in both ways.* — For *Christ,* I say, *to be imitated* as regards *contempt of self, affection for one's neighbour* and *the worship of God.* For in these three above all we ought to imitate Christ. And this indeed he does who voluntarily begs for the name of Christ, that he may make himself vile and humble himself, that he may build up his neighbour and stir him to piety, and that he may be free for God with a mind at liberty,

having laid aside all care of the world. And of such men Augustine, in a certain Lenten sermon, says: «In this time, in so far as God commends the works of mercy, he has made his own Saints to be in need, so that, when they have been made the friends of God, they may *receive of the mammon of iniquity* and may themselves receive their friends *into the everlasting dwellings;* that is, so that, since the godly servants of God, while they are continually free for God, are sometimes indigent, those who have the riches of the world may lavish alms upon them; and as they make them partakers in earthly substance, so with them they may deserve to have a part in life eternal». — From which it appears that such begging is praiseworthy which is done for the *imitating of Christ*.

And likewise that which is done for the *evangelizing of Christ,* because it opens a way for the Gospel, by reason of *what* is preached, *by whom* it is preached and *to whom* it is preached. — By reason of *what is preached,* because we preach contempt of the world; which is more effectively urged by word and example than by word alone. — It is also *preached by more,* if those who preach live by the Gospel, than if they were compelled to live by their own means or labour. — It is also *more effectively received from more,* while those who receive the teaching lavish sustaining benefits. This is what John Chrysostom says on Matthew, in the thirty-second homily: «It is manifest that the disciples had to be fed by those to whom they preached, so that neither should they themselves be high-minded against those who were being taught, as giving all things and receiving nothing from them; nor again should these be cut off, despised by them. Then, lest they should say, "You bid us live by begging", and be ashamed of it, he shows this to be a *debt,* and calls them *workmen,* and names what is given a *wage.* For do not, because the work consists in *words,* think the benefit that comes from you a *small* one. For it has many labours, and whatever those who are taught give, they do not bestow it *as men lavishing a gift,* but *as men rendering a recompense*».

When therefore anyone begs for the imitating and the evangelizing of Christ according to the form prescribed, not only does he not sin, but he even fulfils perfect justice: first, because sustenance is *much* owed to a just poor man *imitating Christ;* secondly, because it is *more* owed to him as to a Gospel poor man, *evangelizing Christ;* thirdly, because it is *most* owed to a grateful poor man, who humbly receives as a favour what is owed and humbly makes supplication, seeing that, being *free from all men, he makes himself the servant of all.* — And this is what Augustine says on that text of the Psalm: *Who bringeth forth grass for cattle* etc.: «*Bringing forth,* he says, *grass,* that is, temporal things; *for cattle,* that is, for preachers, that *they who announce the Gospel may live by the Gospel;* and *herb,* that is, temporal things; *for the service of men,* that is, for preachers, the servants of men for Christ's sake. Whence the Apostle: *Whereas I was free from all men, I made myself the servant of all.* Which servitude is from charity, which makes men humble, who for Christ become the servants of men, intent upon the benefit of the brethren. These are the *cattle,* to whom *herb* is owed as a wage, because they serve. Of whom it is said: *Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn;* and: *The labourer is worthy of his hire.* For temporal things are owed to preachers, because they lavish spiritual things. Whence the Apostle: *If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?* For whom it is said: *Blessed* is he who forestalls the voice of one about to request, that is, *he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor.* For you ought not to deal with the ox that treads out the corn as with a beggar passing by. For to him, that is, to the beggar, you give because it is read: *Give to every one that asketh;* but to this man you ought to give even *when he does not ask.* See therefore that, if the soldier of Christ is so indigent that he asks, he does not judge you, that is, show you to be damnable. For just as it is said of the man who seeks you out: *Give to every one that asketh;* so of that preacher, whom you ought to seek out, it is said: *Let thy alms sweat in thy hand, until thou find a just man to whom to give.* To every one that asketh, then, whoever he may be, give, discerning in him to whom you give; but much more give to the servant of God, the soldier of Christ, even when he does not ask». — From these things, therefore, it manifestly appears that in a preacher and evangelizer of Christ to beg is not a matter of vice or of fault, but rather of evangelical perfection. Whence the reasons and authorities and examples which are brought forward for this side are to be conceded.

For if anyone should wish to attack and disapprove every way of begging in the servants of Christ, he will seem to attack not only the order of the poor, but also the *supreme Pontiff* himself, who approved this way of living; and not only him, but also this *great company of Saints* who begged, namely Francis, Dominic, Ale-

xius, Benedict and the very band of the Apostles and Prophets; and not only these, but also *the Lord Jesus Christ* himself, whom Scripture does not fear to call *poor* and *a beggar;* since our faith says and holds greater things of him, namely that for us he was not only *poor* and *a beggar* for our example, but also *stripped* and *made vile* even to the uttermost kind of abjection, that he might give an example of perfectly despising the world. — Lastly, over and above all these evils the *state of the universal Church* seems to be overthrown. For if it is unlawful for the poor of Christ to receive by the acceptance of alms the sustenance of life, much more strongly is it unlawful to receive the breadth and multitude of possessions and great revenues. For who is so absurd as to say that it is lawful for someone to receive a talent of gold, and not a piece of bread? And if this is true, then — since the possessions of all the churches, both among religious who have property and among secular clerics, are held through the acceptance of alms voluntarily and freely given — it will seem from this that the state of all the churches is overthrown, if to receive alms or to live on alms, whether in a small quantity or in a great, is judged unlawful; unless perhaps someone should say that it is lawful to *receive,* but not lawful to *request.* But this seems strange, that a man should be able to do what is greater, and not what is less; and that some monastery should be able to receive a hundred thousand marks in revenues from some prince, and one poor little man not be able suppliantly to implore the relief of his indigence; and that someone should be able to request from a friend out of friendship, and a Christian not be able to request from a Christian out of charity; and that someone should be able to request certain things expedient for the security and abundance of some rich monastery, and a voluntary poor man not be able to request the sustenance of life; and that some scholar should be able lawfully to beg for the love of advancing in the knowledge of a learning that puffs up, so that he may at length come to temporal riches; and a poor religious not be able to request for the love of advancing in charity and humility, which builds up, so that he may at length come to eternal life — and other like things, which seem exceedingly absurd. If therefore all these are not small but great incongruities, it must be held that it is lawful for the poor to be sustained by the alms of others, at least according to the third way of begging explained above.

1. To that, therefore, which is objected in the contrary sense first, that *there is no want to them that fear God;* it must be said that want is twofold, namely *bodily* and *spiritual;* and that word is understood not of any sort of want, but of *spiritual* want. — And that this is true appears from what immediately follows: *The rich have wanted and have suffered hunger;* it is certain that this is not understood of the need of material riches; it remains, therefore, that it be understood of the want of spiritual things, which, though it be in the rich, is nevertheless not in those who fear God; because *fear is the beginning of wisdom,* of which it is said in Wisdom seven: *Now all good things came to me together with her* etc.

2. To that which is objected from the Psalm: *I have not seen the just forsaken* etc.; it must be said that bread is twofold, namely *bodily* and *spiritual;* and that word is not understood of *bodily* bread, but of *spiritual* bread. And that this is true appears from the Gloss in the same place: *Nor his seed seeking bread,* Gloss: «spiritual bread, that is, to be in need of the bread of the word of God, because the word of God is always with him». — The text can also be so construed that it is understood: *I have not seen the just forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread have I seen forsaken;* because, according to what is said on the last chapter to the Hebrews, on that text: *I will not leave thee, neither will I forsake thee;* Gloss: «He would be forsaken who should perish of hunger». The Prophet therefore means to say that he has seen neither the just man nor the just man's seed dead of hunger; and this does not call a man back from poverty, but rather invites him to it.

3. To that which is objected, that begging is an evil which the Psalmist, speaking in the Spirit of God, imprecates; it must be said that there is a *voluntary* begging and a *forced* begging, which is with murmuring and impatience. The first is meritorious, the second is demeritorious and afflicting; and the Psalm is understood of the second, not of the first. And that this is true appears from the text, because it is said: *Let them be carried about vagabonds and be cast out;* and all these things seem to sound of compulsion and violence.

4. To that which is objected from Ecclesiasticus: *My son, in thy lifetime be not indigent;* it must be said that, according to the distinction already laid down, that word is to be understood of *spiritual* indigence in respect of grace, not of *bodily* indigence in respect of the sustaining of nature. And that this is true appears from the Gloss: «*Be not indigent,* says the Gloss, of virtues or of good morals».

5. To that which is objected, that it is a more blessed thing to give than to receive; it must be said that this is true when the acceptance of alms comes from the *necessity of nature;* but not when it comes from the *supererogation of justice,* according to the distinction made in the principal solution. — And that this is true appears from what is said in the book *On Ecclesiastical Dogmas*: «It is good to distribute one's means to the poor with discretion, but it is better, with the intention of following the Lord, to give all at once and, released from care, to be in need with Christ». Augustine says this same thing in the book *On the Good of Marriage,* as was cited in the preceding question.

6. To that which is objected from the Gloss on Luke twelve, that when all things have been spurned for God's sake men ought to work with the labour of their hands; it must be said that this is a counsel as regards the *first* thing, which is said: *Sell what you possess;* but as regards the *second* it belongs only to the *well-being* of the counsel, which does not bind even perfect men, and least of all those who can be occupied about greater goods. — And that this is true appears from the same Gloss, when it is added: «whereby you may live, or may give alms». For it is certain that those who have once given all things for God are in no way bound to give further alms; and therefore that Gloss does not state what belongs to the *essence* and substance of the counsel, but rather what is according to its *well-being,* according to the state and condition of certain persons, who are more fit for working with their hands than for doing something more arduous. For if it were said otherwise, that this belonged to the *essence* of the perfection of the counsel, then no one would have fulfilled that counsel except those who worked with their hands; and by this we should judge that the Apostles other than Paul and Barnabas, and very many others of the most perfect Saints, whom we do not read to have worked with their hands, were not perfect. It is indeed true that manual work is in accord with evangelical perfection, provided that it does not hinder greater goods. Whence the Gloss on that text: *I go a fishing:* «It must be known that they were not forbidden to seek their living by their own lawful craft, the integrity of the apostolate being preserved, when they had not whereby to live; and so, as they laboured, God added to them the necessaries which he had promised». — But that this labour belongs to those not occupied about greater things is manifest, because at that time the Apostles were by no means free for preaching. Whence Chrysostom: «Simon came to fish, because Christ was not continually with them, nor had the Spirit been given, nor had anything been committed to them then, nor had they anything to do; and so they plied their craft». And therefore from this it does not follow that perfect men are bound to work with their hands, unless perhaps when they have no spiritual and better exercise. — Besides, grant that a perfect man were bound to work with his own hands; from this nevertheless it cannot be inferred that he may not, for his own humiliation and the building up of others, humbly request alms according to place and time.

7. To that which is objected from the Gloss on the first to the Thessalonians, chapter four, that nothing of another's is to be desired or requested; it must be said that a man can request something from another in two ways: either out of desire for *another's property,* or out of desire for *another's salvation.* The first the Apostle forbids as an evil and as forbidden in the Law, where it is said: *Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods;* but the second he does not forbid, because the law of charity grants it, which is nourished by mutual benefits and makes the burden of the one to be borne by the other. For what is so absurd as for us to believe that the Apostle denied that anyone should request from another either a benefit or help or the consolation of brotherly mercy and piety? — And that this is true appears from what the Apostle says in the last chapter to the Philippians about himself, giving them thanks for the benefit conferred: *I seek not the gift, but I require the fruit abounding to your account.* For according to what Augustine expounds in the thirteenth book of the *Confessions,* he seeks the *gift* who takes his delight chiefly in the thing received; he requires the *fruit* who takes his delight in another's salvation. This is the sense of Augustine's words, although the words are changed.

8. To that which is objected from the Gloss on the first to the Thessalonians, chapter five, that *neediness makes a man turn aside from justice;* it must be said that, just as riches are not at fault, but the greed of riches; so neediness is not at fault, but impatience of neediness; and he who has this turns aside from justice, while, in fleeing neediness,

he goes after money; and he who follows money easily turns aside from justice; *for they that will become rich fall into temptations and into the snare of the devil and into many desires hurtful and harmful*. And just as such neediness is evil, so too is the begging that proceeds from such neediness to be blamed. — But when scarcity pleases a man more than abundance, and a man out of love of poverty despises the abundance of earthly things, such a one has no occasion of turning aside from justice on account of such neediness; and such is the poverty and the begging which belongs to evangelical perfection. — And that this answer is right is plain from the Gloss itself, in which it is said that «neediness, while *it desires to be filled,* turns aside from justice». For the needy man who *desires to be filled* is the needy man who loves not poverty but satiety, not scarcity but abundance. And such a one is not the Gospel and heavenly poor man who begs from the supererogation of justice; but rather the greedy and earthly man who begs from the viciousness of fault, according to the answer given before.

9. To that which is objected from the Gloss on the second to the Thessalonians, chapter three, that the Apostle wills that the servants of God work bodily etc.; it must be said that this *willing* either is not the *willing of a precept,* but of an *admonition;* or, if it is the *willing of a precept,* it does not extend to all, but to those who wish to be in need; or, if it does extend to those who wish to be in need for Christ, it extends only to those who cannot do greater things. And from this it is not gathered that the life of the poor is evil who eat and do not work with their own hands, if they are occupied with better and more wholesome exercises. — And that this is true is manifest. For if that word: *He that will not work, let him not eat,* were a precept *without qualification,* then all would be in an evil state who do not seek their own food with their own hands, when they can; and this would be to condemn the whole world. — And that it does not extend to *voluntary and perfect poor men,* this appears from the Gloss itself, which says, «that they may not be compelled by neediness to request necessaries». For such men do not beg as those *compelled by necessity,* but as those *led on by the love of perfection.* — Lastly, that it does not extend save to those who are not occupied about greater things appears from the very text of the second to the Thessalonians, chapter three: *We have heard that some among you walk disorderly, working not at all, but curiously meddling; now we charge them that are such, that working with silence they would eat their own bread.*

And that this is true is plain from Ambrose, who on that text of Luke nine: *Let the dead bury their dead,* speaks thus: «The Lord teaches that lesser goods are to be passed over for the profit of greater. For it is greater to raise up by preaching the souls of the dead than to hide a dead body in the earth». Whence the Apostles too said, in Acts six: *It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.* — It appears also from Jerome in the prologue on Job, who speaks thus: «If I were weaving a basket of rushes, or folding palm leaves, so as to eat my bread in the sweat of my face and to handle the belly's business with an anxious mind, no one would carp, no one would blame. But as it is, because according to the Saviour's word I wish to *labour for the meat which perisheth not*, and to clear of briars and brushwood the ancient path of the divine volumes; a twofold error is fastened upon me: as a corrector of the copyists I am called a *forger,* and one who does not take errors away but sows them». — This appears also from blessed Augustine in the book *On the Work of Monks*, where he says that those who «had in this world something by which they might easily sustain this life without handicraft, and who, being converted to the Lord, distributed it to the needy — such men are not bound or compelled to manual works, nor to seeking their own food». And afterwards, further down, he gives the reason: because those who have sustained the poor ought to be and can be sustained by the alms of the poor. For he speaks thus: «There is one commonwealth of all Christians; and therefore whoever has distributed necessaries to Christians anywhere, from wheresoever he himself receives what is necessary for him, he receives it of the goods of Christ; because wherever he himself gave to such men, who received it but Christ»? — If therefore, according to Ambrose, greater goods are not to be passed over for the sake of lesser; and according to Jerome the goods of preaching and instruction are greater than those of manual work; and according to Augustine those who were rich and delicately bred are not bound to works of this kind — it manifestly appears that those intent on preaching and on the works of spiritual mercy are not bound to works of this kind, but ought to be and can be sustained by alms. And this is what Augustine in the same book, before these words, sets

down: that men of this kind have such a power, if they are *evangelists, if they are ministers of the altar, if they are dispensers of the Sacraments.* For if by doing bodily works a man merits his own sustenance, much more strongly by bestowing spiritual works, which are deservedly preferred to bodily works.

I confess therefore what is true, that if anyone were so strong both in spirit and in body that he could work bodily and nonetheless, according to place and time, be free for spiritual exercises and for the Church's benefit, he would in so doing act more perfectly. But who is fully fit for this, since one must sweat with much labour that the truth be known, that when known it be loved, and that when known and loved it be set before others? For this there is needed continuity of reading and of prayer and of meditation; and he who wishes to attend to these carefully can be little occupied about bodily labour. Bodily labour, therefore, is to be praised and urged, yet so that the fervour of prayer be not hindered, nor the fruit of preaching, nor regular observance.

10. To that which is objected from the Gloss, that one who comes to another's table must needs flatter; it must be said that the Gloss expounds itself in what it says: «given over to idleness»; in which it suggests that the man who frequents another's table and begs for the fostering of idleness is prone to cajolery and flattery. And what wonder, if he who loves idleness and pampers his belly breaks out into a flattering word? But from this the Gospel poor man is not condemned, who comes to another's table for the sake of evangelizing and imitating Christ. For if such men, by the very fact that they are poor and come to another's table, were *flatterers,* then, since Christ sent the Apostles to preach the Gospel and to live at the expense of another's table, he would rather have made his Apostles *flatterers* than true *preachers.* Christ himself too would have been the greatest of flatterers, who was frequently invited and ate in the houses of the Pharisees. — Whence, if we understand rightly, the vice of flattery is attached rather to the worldly rich than to the Gospel and voluntary poor. Whence Chrysostom, in the ninetieth homily on Matthew, speaking of the rich, says thus: «One must flatter many, both princes and subjects, and be indigent of many things and serve basely and dread and suspect and fear the eyes of those who suspect and fear the mouths of slanderers and of others and the desires of the covetous. But poverty is nothing of the kind, but wholly the contrary; it is a region not subject to thieves, but fortified, a quiet harbour and a wrestling-ground and a gymnasium of philosophy. Hear, whoever of these you are that are poor, and still more whoever of you desire to be enriched: it is not an evil *to be poor,* but *not to be willing to be poor;* and do not reckon poverty to be an evil, and it will not be an evil to you». And a little after: «Do not bring forward to me those who accuse poverty, but those who have shone through it. With this Elias, brought up in it, was caught away by that blessed rapture; with this Eliseus was illustrious, with this John, with this all the Apostles. But with avarice Achab, Jezabel, Giezi, Judas, Nero, Caiphas were condemned».

11. To that which is objected from the decree of Urban, it must be said that there is a threefold defect in the citing of that decree. The first, because that decree is addressed to bishops, who ought to feed those who beg, not to those who are in need. Whence just as that law of Deuteronomy fifteen: *There shall be no one indigent and a beggar among you,* was not given against the mendicancy of the poor, but against the tight-fistedness of the rich — which is plain from what is added in the same chapter: *The poor will not be wanting in the land of thy habitation; therefore I command thee to open thy hand to thy needy and poor brother* — so this law too is given to bishops who have abundance, for the sustenance of poor clerics, and above all of those who are not in need voluntarily, but under compulsion, lest through indigence they be made undevout about the divine service. — The second defect is that the decree is brought forward to prove that clerics ought not to have property of their own, as appears at the end of the chapter, where it is said: «From all these things it is clear that it is in no way lawful for clerics to have property of their own; and if they have had it, they will not be clerics». Whence by that decree the way is not closed to the poor who wish to have nothing of their own, but rather opened. — The third defect is this: that just as having property in common has been confirmed and approved by the authority of the supreme Pontiff, namely Urban, as appears here; so the manner of living in the highest poverty has been approved by the authority of the supreme Pontiff, as is plain from the title *On the Excesses of Prelates: Nimis prava* etc. Whence the decree of Pope Urban could not prejudice the authority of Innocent, Honorius and Gregory, who approved that manner both in the common law and in private privileges, because «an equal has no command over an equal»; and a consti-

tution is more firmly established the other way about. — Nor from this can instability or contradiction among the rulers of the Church be argued, because statutes can and ought to be changed according to place and time; as is plain in the statute on the degrees of kinship and in very many others, which were justly established at the beginning, and nonetheless others have been introduced no less justly.

12. To that which is objected about the consecration of a church, it must be said that in the citing of that decree too there is a threefold defect: first, because that statute about the consecration of an unendowed church was made for the relief of bishops; secondly, for the spreading of divine worship; and thirdly, for the comfort of ministering clerics, who do not wish voluntarily to bind themselves to the vow of poverty. But the contrary of these is found in the case proposed. For both the bishops and the Church are less burdened by religious living on alms than if provision were made for them in benefices and prebends; secondly, because the worship of God would not be increased but rather diminished if this manner of living were taken away; thirdly, because such voluntary poor men serve God more gladly by begging than they would even serve God for a great benefice, and are more content with tiny alms than they would be with great benefices and prebends.

13. To that which is objected about the law on able-bodied mendicants, it must be said that there is likewise a threefold defect in the citing of that law: the first, because that law was introduced against certain men who in a time of famine usurped the alms of the poor, feigning incapacity; the second, because such men were idle and brought no benefit to the commonwealth; the third, because such men, who were able to work and were then occupied about nothing and wished to have abundance, were prone to evil deeds and to robberies. And therefore by a just judgement the ruler of the commonwealth kept such men from begging and punished them with a very heavy penalty. But it is wholly otherwise with poor little religious, in whom is found neither the feigning of incapacity nor the love of idleness nor the danger of robbery, and by this neither loss to the Church, but rather the love of perfect virtue; and therefore they are not kept away by human law, but rather are proclaimed and commended by the divine law.

14. To that which is objected, that to beg is indifferent; it must be said that to beg, so far as it is of itself, does not belong to perfection, unless the universal renunciation of all things is presupposed; which indeed is according to the divine counsel, in which the Lord declared to the young man that if he fulfilled that counsel, by that very fact he would come to the summit of perfection. For he says: *If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all;* nor did he add: hand it over to me, that I may put it in my purses and all things be in common; but rather: *give to the poor;* nor did he subjoin: go and earn your living by the labour of your hands; but rather: *come, follow me.* In which, according as the Gloss expounds, is understood a calling to contemplation, or to imitating and evangelizing Christ.

15. To that which is objected, that it belongs to perfection to serve freely and to flee obligations; it must be said that there is an obligation that comes from the *guilt of fault* and one that comes from the *affection of perfect charity.* The first obligation is to be avoided, but the second is to be accepted, according to what is said in Romans thirteen: *Owe no man anything, but to love one another.* For the Lord praises the friendship of spiritual men which is made *of the mammon of iniquity;* and it belongs to the perfection of Christ's mystical body that the members should share with one another *in the matter of giving and receiving,* so that mutual indigence may be supplied in turn.

16. To that which is objected, that those who beg by profession do this either because they are poor or because they are preachers; it must be said that they do this because they are poor *imitators* and *evangelizers* of Christ. For they *imitate* Christ by the observance of regular discipline, in which they are free for the divine praises, for prayers, for vigils and for the other regular disciplines; and they worship God and attack the enemy and protect and defend what is weak and unfortified in the camp of the Church. — Again, because they *announce the word of truth;* and likewise they praise God and attack the enemy and build up and instruct their hearers. And therefore, since these works of theirs are very useful and highly necessary to the Church, no one doubts that they merit their own sustenance; and therefore they do not act unlawfully if they request it humbly and suppliantly. For just as the eye by seeing does work highly necessary to the hand, so that the hand cannot reproach the eye nor say: *I need not thy help*; nay rather its work is useful to the whole body, and so it merits to be sustained, just as the hand and the foot and the other members which are exposed to labour: so also of these members of the Church it ought to and can be understood without absurdity, if anyone will look with a devout eye upon the work and the watchfulness of these eyes.

17. To that which is objected, that such men are imitators of Giezi, who minister spiritual things for temporal; to this the Gloss answers sufficiently enough

on that text of the first to the Corinthians, chapter nine: *A dispensation is committed to me:* «We ought not to evangelize in order to eat, but to eat in order to evangelize, so that food may not be the good that is sought, but the necessity that is added; that this may be fulfilled: *Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you*». Whence if anyone were to set his end in a temporal thing in preaching the word of God, without doubt he would be perverse, because he would make an end of the way, and he would be like Giezi and Balaam, who loved the wages of iniquity, and like the other false prophets, who *taught for hire and divined for gifts*. But if they seek sustenance as a way ordered to the preaching of the Gospel, then they walk rightly and imitate the Apostles and in nothing depart from the path of truth. Whence on that text of Luke ten: *Eating and drinking such things as they have; for the labourer is worthy of his hire;* the Gloss: «Note that for the one work of preachers two wages are owed: one on the way, which sustains us in our labour; the other in our homeland, which rewards us at the resurrection».

18. To that which is objected, that it belongs to the perfect to abstain from an evil appearance; it must be said that an appearance is evil when a man can reasonably suspect evil, all the circumstances that occur being weighed; but if anyone rightly attends to these things, men preaching thus do not have the appearance of false preachers. For *false preachers* are so called by opposition to *true preachers.* And those are called *true preachers* whose preaching has *authority, truth* and *usefulness;* *false preachers,* therefore, are those who have the contraries of these, either without qualification or in part. — But if we are willing rightly to attend to the preachers of the modern orders, they have these three in themselves: *authority* indeed, because they are sent by the supreme Pontiff and by other prelates, who are the lords of the harvest; *truth,* as is plain, because they have preached faith and morals according to the law of the Gospel; *usefulness,* because they have called many from the state of fault to the state of grace or of penance: and therefore they have incomparably greater appearance and likeness, if anyone attends with a devout eye, to true preachers than to false ones; although in so great a number it can hardly be but that some, with Judas, love the purse and stray from the straight road. For if the Lord did not grant this to the twelve Apostles, whom he personally chose, that they should universally be good; what wonder if he does not grant it to other congregations? Nor yet on this account are the good to be condemned with the evil, just as the evil are not just, although they are mingled with the good.

19. To that which is objected, that either they have authority or they do not; it must be said that to have authority is twofold: either from *first institution,* or from *commission* or mandate; or, in other words: either from *an office enjoined,* or from *a privilege granted.* The first is *principal* authority and belongs to power, and it pertains to the Apostles and to the seventy and their successors, who are bishops and other curates, as the Gloss says on Luke ten. The second is a *less principal* authority and may without absurdity be called *sub-authority,* and it belongs to those who are sent by the Apostles as disciples, as Paul used to send his disciples to different places; and it belongs above all to him who is in the place of Peter, the chief of the Apostles, nay in the place of Christ, who is the universal Lord of the harvest, on account of which he is also said to have the fulness of power. As therefore it belongs to the first, who have *principal* authority, to receive expenses *by right of their power,* as the Gloss on the second to Timothy, chapter two, says: *The husbandman that laboureth must first partake of the fruits;* and there the Gloss: «To take necessaries for oneself from those among whom one serves God as a soldier, and whom one works as a vinedresser, or feeds as a flock, is not mendicancy, but power»: so to those to whom *sub-principal* authority belongs, it belongs to receive *by supplication.* Which the Holy Spirit ordained for the Church's benefit, that they might build up not only by the word of preaching, but also by the word and equally by the example of humility. He, therefore, who has learned from Christ *to be meek and humble of heart* — I marvel if he dares to condemn this humility and humiliation as reprobate.

20. To that which is objected, that it is safer and more perfect to follow men more approved and more wise; it must be said that, according to the disposition of divine wisdom, God disposes and orders all things in their own times. Whence, as in the first age of the Church he brought in men powerful both in miracles and in signs, such as

were the Apostles and their disciples; and in the middle age men of understanding in the Scriptures and in living reasons: so in the last age he has brought in men voluntarily begging and poor in worldly things. And this indeed was rightly fitting, that by the first idolatry and the portents of idols should be destroyed, by the second heresy, by the third avarice, which reigns most of all at the end of the world. — Nevertheless, because poverty is the foundation of evangelical perfection, and is itself as it were the completion of the same; therefore it flourished at the beginning of the Church, and it is fitting that it should flourish about the Church's final state. Whence, as Jerome resolves that question about the eating of flesh, distinction thirty-five, *Ab exordio*, saying that in the first age, before the flood, the eating of flesh was not in use, and afterwards, after the flood, it was commonly granted to all, and later, at the coming of Christ, abstinence from the eating of flesh was praiseworthy — whence he says in the same place that «the omega turns back to the alpha», that is, the final state agreed with the first — so it can fittingly enough be understood in the matter before us also. Yet as Jerome does not understand his words of abstinence from the eating of flesh as regards all, but only as regards monks; so neither do I think what is said of poverty is to be understood except as regards the *voluntary* poor, who have voluntarily renounced the world. — Yet I do not wish anyone to argue from this as though I were saying that *the day of the Lord is now at hand*, nor that I *make broad and enlarge* my own *fringes,* wishing to be justified before men; nor that I prefer the moderns to the ancient Saints, because in a great and lofty state many weak and imperfect men may be found; nor was this spirit of poverty lacking in times past. According to which Gregory says, in the third book of the Dialogues, of a certain most holy man, Isaac by name, who was a chief lover of poverty. Whence he says also of him: «When his disciples frequently suggested to him that he should accept, for the monastery's use, the possessions that were offered; he, a careful guardian of his own poverty, held firmly to this saying: a monk who seeks a possession on earth is not a monk. For he feared to lose the security of his poverty, as misers are wont to guard perishing riches. And so there his life shone out, by the spirit of prophecy and by great miracles, to all who dwelt far and wide». From which it appears that his teaching was not to be despised.

This also was shown above by manifold examples, and could be shown by many more still. And if there were no examples, the state of most excellent poverty is of itself praiseworthy enough, not only according to sacred Scripture, but also according to the teachings of the Saints, which commend the state of voluntary poverty as chief and perfect. As therefore it is very absurd to reprove the state of married rich men, and more absurd that of clerics and religious having possessions; so it also seems most absurd, if anyone be found who would reprove the state of the poor who serve Christ the Lord in the highest poverty and the most humble begging, according to the counsel set forth by the mouth of Jesus Christ and promulgated beyond reproach. Their cause Jerome defends in the letter which he wrote against Vigilantius: «It has been reported to me, he says, that against the authority of the Apostle Paul, nay of Peter, John and James, who *gave to Paul and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship,* and had charged them *to be mindful of the poor,* you forbid any relief of expenses to be sent to Jerusalem for the use of the Saints. Doubtless, if I answer this, you will at once bark that I am pleading my own cause, you who have bestowed on all so great a bounty that, unless you had come to Jerusalem and spent or poured out your own money or your patrons', we should all be in peril of famine. I say this which the blessed Paul says and enjoins in almost all his letters, that in the churches of the Gentiles *on the first day of the week,* that is, on the Lord's day, all ought to contribute what is to be sent to Jerusalem for the relief of the Saints. Could he not have distributed in some other part of the world, and in those churches which, newly born, he was instructing in his own faith, what he had received from others? But he desired to give to the holy poor, who, leaving their little means for Christ, were converted with their whole mind to the Lord's service. For it would be long now, if I wished to go over all the testimonies from the rest of his letters, in which he does this and hastens with his whole mind that money may be sent by believers to Jerusalem and to the holy places, not for avarice, but for refreshment, not

for the gathering of riches, but for the sustaining of the frail little body and the warding off of cold and hunger; this custom persisting in Judaea to this day, not only among us, but also among the Hebrews, that those who *meditate on the law of the Lord day and night* and have no portion in the land save God alone should be supported by the ministrations of the synagogues and of the whole world, but only out of equality, *not that others should have* refreshment *and others tribulation,* but that the *abundance* of some may *supply the want* of others». These things being seen, the answer to what has been said is plain enough.

### Rᴇᴘʟɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀɢᴀɪɴsᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏʙᴊᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴs ᴀꜰᴛᴇʀᴡᴀʀᴅs ᴍᴀᴅᴇ.

But to these things which have been said someone has attempted to be adverse in manifold ways, wishing to refute some of them as *impertinent,* some as *false,* some as *inconsequent,* some as *doubtful,* but very many of them as *hostile to apostolic teaching.* And this he does in replying to a certain question collected less than sufficiently afterwards in the schools, saving the collector's grace, as may better appear in the question already named.

I. First, then, he reckons *impertinent* whatever we bring forward about the disciples of Christ sent to preach, because to them was given the *authority* necessary for receiving, not from *mendicancy,* but from *power.* But those who preach without authority are false prophets, and therefore in neither way, neither from *authority* nor from *mendicancy,* ought they to request. — And *if it be said* that such men are sent by the Pope and by the bishops; he says that they are to be fed by the bishops, according to what is said in the Extra, on the Office of the ordinary judge, *Inter cetera*. A form, therefore, was given to those preaching by office and authority, but *for a time,* that impediments might be removed. And therefore the authorities both of the text and of the Glosses seem in this case impertinent to the matter proposed, according to him who seems to be adverse to the aforesaid question.

But it is easy to detect the sophistical appearance of this objection, if one understands the root of the power which is in the Apostles and in prelates and in the messengers sent by the Apostles. For it is certain that this was radically in Christ, according as the Apostle says to the Galatians, chapter one, that he was *an Apostle by Jesus Christ;* and John twenty: *As the Father hath sent me* etc. Now Christ, in sending the Apostles, gave them a twofold power, namely of *preaching* and of *exacting* their own *sustenance.* And it is evident that these powers are distinct; because, although a bishop can *once* in the year exact his procurations in one place, he can nevertheless preach whenever he will: therefore the supreme Pontiff, who holds the place of Christ on earth, can give both together, and can also separate the one from the other. Since therefore the supreme Pontiff and the prelates cannot exercise personally by themselves all the things that pertain to them, on account of the scattered peoples subject to them; the Holy Spirit ordained in the governance of the Church that he should sometimes send legates who should have both powers. And *again,* lest particular Churches should be burdened, he ordained that the bishops should send suitable persons to preach and to hear confessions, for whom they themselves should also provide, in the Extra, on the Office of the ordinary judge, *Inter cetera*. He ordained also that he, with the prelates, should send voluntary poor men and skilled, to whom neither should the bishops be bound to furnish supplies, lest they be burdened by the multitude of expenses, nor should they have power to exact procurations, so as to take away the burden of their subjects; and thus men who should walk humbly as poor, content with little and taking only necessary things, and humbly making their need known, when there was need, to those who both could and would freely and without burden and with cheerfulness support and relieve them. Whence, as the decretal on the Office of the ordinary judge went forth from the Apostolic See, so also the confirmation of the order and rule of such poor men preaching the truth, in the Extra, on the Excesses of prelates, *Nimis prava,* as has been said above. — Nor is this done to the prejudice, but rather to the help, of parish priests; nor is the Church prostituted by this, if God provides help for those who have the cure, so that they may guard the souls committed to them, of which they have the care, more perfectly uncorrupted from every corruption of sin, spiritual men assisting them, not as lords, or as having the cure, but rather as servants through the charity of Christ.

Such men, therefore, because being sent they preach in humility and poverty, are like apostolic men, not like false prophets. But because they do not have that fulness of authority which prelates have, and the Apostles had; therefore they are to be numbered among the *helps,* first to the Corinthians, chapter twelve: *God hath set in the Church, first Apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly doctors, after that miracles, then helps* etc.; the Gloss: «*Helps,* that is, those who

bring resources to their greater ones, as Titus to the Apostle, and archdeacons to bishops». Among these also can be numbered those whom the Shepherd of the Church of God has appointed to bring help to others. And therefore I said, according to the usage of theological speech — which says that *sub-authority* is in him who is sent — that they have sub-authority, not *to make excuses in sins*, as is laid to my charge, but rather for the understanding of the truth. The form, therefore, prescribed to the Apostles both ought to and can belong to these men.

For as to what is said, that it was *temporary;* since it has no authority from the Scriptures, it is despised with the same ease with which it is proved. — *Again,* if the form was fitting in the primitive Church, why not likewise in the final one, chiefly as regards those who wish to imitate the Apostles in this form? For I do not say that the universal Church is in all things to be reduced to poverty — as is laid to my charge by them — as appears from my words above; but those who wish can imitate the perfection of the Apostles and the height of poverty. — Whence by the example of the Apostles, from the words of the Gospel recited in the Church, blessed Francis was stirred up to take up this manner of life, as shines out more clearly from his legend. — Since therefore an order of this kind is founded upon those words, they are not *impertinent,* but in every way pertinent, as the most stable foundations of living in this way. Such men, therefore, are to be received, because they set out as poor for the name of Christ, as is said in the Canonical letter of John, that those who receive such are *fellow-helpers of the truth.* Therefore those who are adverse to such men and do not receive them, or say they are not to be received, are like Diotrephes, of whom the Gloss says that he was also a heresiarch of that time; whose teaching and sect be far from all Christians.

II. He attempts to refute some things as *false.* — For he asserts it to be false that Christ requested anything as a beggar. For even if he is called *a beggar* in the Psalms, this is said inasmuch as he made request of the Father, or inasmuch as he took upon himself our infirmities. — If it be said that he requested water from the Samaritan woman and lodging from Zacchaeus, this was not from *mendicancy,* but from *authority,* or from *courtesy.* — And *again,* even if he had begged, it would not be *to be drawn into a precedent.* — He says it to be false nonetheless that any begging is *voluntary;* nay, that every begging must be unwilling and forced.

But it is easy to convict this objection, which fastens falsity upon truth, of falsity, if anyone will devoutly hear the truth. — For that Christ *was a beggar,* both the prophetic text and the Glosses testify; and that he *requested as a beggar,* as was alleged in the objecting in two Glosses; and likewise in that Psalm: *O God, come to my assistance,* on that text: *But I am needy and poor;* the Gloss says: «He takes to himself the words of God, who in the preceding Psalm said these same things of himself, as if he said: They *who seek my soul* are rich; but I am *needy,* that is, one who requests, and *poor,* that is, insufficient for myself: because he neither has worldly abundance, and within, where he is rich, he always reaches out, desires and receives». According to this it is evident that Christ *was needy and poor* and *one who requests as one needy,* not from the Father only; for then all would in this way be beggars, and none rich, even those having abundance; which is against the Gloss. *Moreover,* Christ still makes request of the Father, the Angels make request, and the saints who see him face to face; and yet they are not called *beggars.*

Since therefore the text says this by so express a testimony, and the Gloss agrees, and no authority contradicts; why shall we not confess that Christ requested as a beggar? For we confess that he was a virgin and lacked a wife, although Scripture makes no mention of this. — The *Gospel* also expresses that he requested both drink and lodging; and it is evident that it was not from command and lordship and *authority,* because then he would not have given an example of poverty. — He would also have said what was false, that he had not where to lay his head, since he had subjects from whom he could exact procurations; and he would have acted less justly in this, that he preached in Jerusalem and was fed in Bethany, working fruit and preaching in one place, and receiving the emolument in another.

But you will say that he requested from *courtesy.* But did Christ take poverty upon himself to teach courtesy? Was it for the teaching of human civilities that he willed to become needy and poor? Does he call himself

a master of courtesy and not rather of humility? *Learn of me,* he says, Matthew eleven, *because I am meek and humble of heart.* He requested, therefore, from *humility* what was opportune for relieving his own indigence, and by this as a poor beggar.

And it is evident that he did not have this indigence except because he willed it; nor did he request, except because he willed: because he could turn stones into gold when he willed; as his disciple John the evangelist did for those men who were unwilling to beg and to be in need and were evangelizing, who had turned back, and who afterwards preferred mendicancy and poverty to precious gems. — And by this it is evident that it belongs to Christ and to those who follow him to beg *voluntarily;* otherwise they would in no way merit in this begging and poverty. For it is absurd to say that poverty and neediness are voluntary, and that the begging that proceeds from them is forced.

If, therefore, begging in Christ was from poverty and humility and voluntary; why is it not *to be drawn into a precedent?* since he himself says: *Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart;* since he also invites the rest who wish to come to the highest summit of perfection to follow him through poverty of this kind: *Go,* he says, *and sell* etc.; and the Apostle says, second to the Corinthians, chapter eight: *You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,* and afterwards: *I give counsel,* the Gloss: «that you may imitate his poverty»; since this also is that perfection which is set forth to all in common, and it is said: *He that can take, let him take;* since Augustine on John says, in the fifteenth homily: «In all things which Christ did as man, he was furnishing an example to men who would believe in him»; since Jerome says that even if he is not to be imitated by us in miracles, in those things which he did humbly he is to be imitated by us; since he was also the universal form of the virtues in his acts. Whence Augustine, On True Religion: «No sin can be committed except while those things are sought which he despised, or those things are fled which he endured. And so his whole life on earth, through the man whom he deigned to take, was a discipline of morals». — Who, therefore, would dare to say that it is not *to be drawn into a precedent,* except one who dares to say that imitation is not owed to Christ in those things which he did humbly? But if we say this, whatever there is of sanctity, virtue and perfection, and the Christian religion, is confounded and subverted, and is also enfeebled, because by the same reasoning by which this is said, by the same reasoning it will be possible to say it of the other examples of the virtues also. But far be this from all Christian hearts.

III. He strives nonetheless to refute some things as *inconsequent.* — For he says that it does not follow that, although *neediness* is suitable to the perfection of the Saints, on that account *mendicancy* is too, which sometimes accompanies neediness; which might likewise be argued of the eating of one's children and of thefts and robberies, which often follow upon neediness and poverty. — He says it also to be inconsequent that, although blessed Benedict was perfect, on that account, in receiving daily alms from that Roman, he did a work pertaining to perfection, because a perfect man does many things which do not pertain to perfection, such as eating, evacuating and other like things. — He says it also to be inconsequent that, although *to make oneself vile* and *to humble oneself* for Christ is good, on that account *to humble oneself by begging* is good, because *to beg* is not *to humble oneself,* but to take care of oneself. And *again,* a harlot makes herself vile by prostituting herself, and yet in this she is not pleasing to the Lord; in like manner neither is the making vile by which someone makes himself vile by begging.

But these foul instances, since he sets forth foul examples and strives to befoul mendicancy, it is easy for a spiritual man to spit out as foul, false and feigned. For we find that Christian and perfect men are not praised in their legends for cruelties in eating men, or for cupidities in taking plunder, or for evacuations, fornications and the like; but they are found to be praised and proclaimed for this, that they chose to live in so great a scarcity that they had neither food nor clothing, nor did they wish to have them as the rich do, but rather to beg humbly as poor and despised men, as appears in the examples introduced above. — For that the eating of one's children should follow upon neediness, this is against the *order of nature;* that theft and robbery should follow, this is against the *order of morals and of justice.* — But that there should follow the making known of one's necessity to a neighbour and the request

for help for the love of God, this is according to the *order of charity and piety,* both natural and also gratuitous and spiritual. For every law commands that neighbour be cherished and relieved by neighbour. How, therefore, is that which perverts the order and is according to a perverse order like that which is done according to a right, just and good order, charitable and pious? — The Roman monk, therefore, is praised, because according to the law of charity he provided for blessed Benedict, and Benedict, who most humbly received Nowhere, however, will you find him praised because he evacuated and voided; for it is exceedingly abominable to bring this forward when the praises of the Saints are being treated.

Now the beggar is praised, although *he takes care of himself,* not because he does this *in any way whatever,* but because he does it *most humbly;* whence, as *to eat soberly* is an act of virtue, although *to eat* is to take care of oneself; so it is to be understood in the matter before us. Whence Chrysostom, in the fourth homily on Matthew, speaking of the holy youths who were in the palace of the king of Babylon, says thus: «Being therefore holy and just, they would ten thousand times have chosen to beg at home rather than to enjoy the goods that were in the temple. For *I have chosen,* he says, *to be an abject in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners.* And so ten thousand times they would have chosen to be abjects at home rather than to reign in Babylonia». There is, therefore, in begging a humbling and a making of oneself vile that is acceptable to God, otherwise it would not have been chosen by the holy youths; and it is *chosen* because it is care of oneself together with one's humility. But those who take *care of their flesh in its desires and concupiscences*, they without doubt are not praised, even if they seem to humble themselves and make themselves vile, like the harlot who prostituted herself for the love of money or for the heat of lust. But far be this from the hearts of the faithful, that the humbling of spiritual men in begging should be like the making vile of a harlot in her prostitution. For *the members of Christ are not to be taken away, that they may be made the members of a harlot*. But Christ, of himself in the form of a servant and also for his members, says: *I am a beggar and poor, but the Lord is careful for me.* Which he would in no way say, unless *to be a beggar* for Christ so pleased God as to make God bear a most special care of us, as a father bears of his sons; and to think this of harlots and of those who play the harlot be far from Christian ears and minds.

IV. He attempts nonetheless to refute certain other things as *doubtful.* — For to that which is said of blessed Alexius, that he begged, and of blessed Francis, that he confirmed this by miracles; he answers: *Prove it,* as to things doubtful and uncertain; adding that even if miracles had been done, it would not yet be certain: because many evil men work miracles, and because miracles could be done even with loaves taken away by stealth; nor yet would it be established from this that it was good to steal. — He says it also to be doubtful that the Roman Church approved begging: because, if she did this, she would be convicted of erring; likewise also, if she imposed it as a penalty of satisfaction, she would err; and this he says is by no means to be believed.

But this objection, which shelters itself behind a doubt, must without doubt be resisted. For if that which is read in the legend of saint Alexius and in the legend of blessed Francis be called into doubt; by parity of reasoning whatever is read in the legends of the other Saints comes into doubt: therefore all the examples of the virtues and the deeds of the Saints are now called into doubt. But it is dangerous to imitate or believe doubtful things; and by this the faith, devotion and reverence which is had toward the Saints perishes, if the other things which are told of them be called into doubt. — *Again,* if the miracles which they did are not efficacious testimonies for establishing their sanctity, the Church plays the fool today, which on account of the testimonies of miracles canonizes Saints and ascribes them to the catalogue of the Saints. — *Finally,* who has ever heard that God multiplied for the salvation of others a loaf taken by a thief through stealth? Yet we have heard that through a poor beggar a loaf, which he had got by begging, was multiplied manifold. — *But if you say* that this was a special privilege, and was done by the familiar counsel of the Holy Spirit; how did he hand this down to others as a law and rule, in which he invites them to begging, if it was inspired to him alone for himself alone? — *If you say* that it was out of his own head, not by inspiration; how can he not be damned who rashly invited men to a reprehensible act as to an act of morals and of perfection? How, too, did the Roman See approve this with the consent of the cardinals?

*But if you say* that this is not to be believed, that she imposes mendicancy on anyone as a *penalty,* or that she approves it as a *rule* and a holy life; yet that she imposes the mendicancy of pilgrimage is had in the treatise on Penance, where it is said of a priest who reveals confes-

sions, «that he be deposed and go on pilgrimage in ignominy all the time of his life». But if he were to live by honest labour, or by his own expenses, he would not go as one vile, but rather as one honourable. It remains, therefore, that what she imposes is that he go *as a beggar.*

And that she approves it as a *rule* is plain from that writing alleged above, on the Excesses of prelates, *Nimis prava,* where it is said that «the Apostolic See is known to have approved the order and rule of the friars Preachers and Minors». It is plain also from the rule of blessed Francis, approved and confirmed by the lord Honorius, where it is said that the brothers «should go for alms confidently». But if she erred in approving this — and it is evident that she approved and confirmed it; it is evident also that the universal Church throughout the whole world accepts orders and states of this kind — the conclusion must then be, according to the saying of this one man, that the whole universal Church erred and was deceived; and that those who found out and approved this erroneous state are all damned; which is most horrible and most incredible, that God should permit his holy people thus to err universally, and so great a multitude of wise men who went before these times. But who is this man, so *wise* and so *just,* that he dares to judge all the rest besides himself to have been deceived and reprobate? Marvellous is this *wisdom,* which shows the folly of all; and marvellous the *justice,* which condemns the rest. But if this is not wisdom, but rather rashness, to wish to judge the Apostolic See, which is judged by God alone, and to reprove its judgement and sentence and to thrust so many holy men into hell and into the pit of damnation; let these things, therefore, be far from faithful and Christian hearts.

V. He attempts also to refute very many things, nay almost all, as *hostile to apostolic teaching,* on the ground that he says begging was forbidden by the Apostle as evil and was granted only in a particular case. — He says also that I have lied and have defended and do defend what is false against Scripture and the Apostle, in this that he says that I said that to labour with manual work is not a precept. He says therefore that *to beg* is not indifferent, but evil; and therefore that by the addition of a circumstance it can in no way become good; nay, what is more, in preachers he asserts it to be simoniacal.

But it is easy to observe that this foundation of his position, repeated rather frequently, is ruinous together with everything that is built upon it. For if *to beg* is forbidden, and *to beg* is to sin: therefore *to be a beggar* is *to be a sinner.* Since therefore Christ calls himself *a beggar,* nay the Prophet does so in the person of Christ; Christ therefore confesses that he is a sinner; which to say or to believe is no small outrage or sin. — *Again,* if *to beg* is to sin, mendicancy or begging is a sin. But second to the Corinthians, chapter eight, on that text: *That by his poverty you might be rich;* the Gloss says: «Let no one despise himself: the poor man in his cell, rich in conscience, sleeps more securely on the ground than the man rich in gold in his purple. Do not, therefore, be afraid to approach with your mendicancy him who is clothed with our poverty; where he made himself poor, he enriched us». Therefore mendicancy disposes, and does not draw back, from the divine approach; it is evident, therefore, that it is not a sin.

Further, Chrysostom on Matthew, in the sixty-ninth homily at the end, says that «to beg in no way offends God; but to steal or to seize offends God and man». This is plain also from the authority of Chrysostom alleged above from the fourth homily on Matthew. It is not, therefore, forbidden by the Apostle, nor is it found anywhere that the Apostle forbade this, but rather that he commended it together with his fellow-apostles. For in the first to the Corinthians, chapter sixteen, he both preached and procured that collections should be made for the poor of the Saints who were in Jerusalem, as alms freely bestowed on them. And to the Galatians, chapter two, he says that *Peter and James gave to me and to Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision, only that we should be mindful of the poor;* the Gloss: «*Of the poor,* who had laid the price of their sold goods at the feet of the Apostles, *we should be mindful,* by making collections for their work». If, therefore, the Apostle was not simoniacal in this, that he requested collections and sent disciples for this, that they should request alms from those among whom he had sown spiritual things, for the poor who were in Jerusalem; if the supreme Pontiff should establish poor Orders, who should sow spiritual things and live on the free alms, requested or freely offered, of those whom they build up by word and example: he in nothing at all disagrees with the Apostle, nay rather he agrees, since he has as

great power as he, and greater, in governing and disposing the members of the Church itself.

But *you will object* that the Apostle enjoined bodily labour in the text, and that the Glosses seem to say that this tells against mendicancy.

But to this there is a plain answer: granted that the Apostle enjoins manual labour of this kind — which I have never denied, as appears in my words, but that he does not enjoin it *universally* on the servants of Christ, except perhaps in a case of necessity, in which no lawful way of having food lies open save by the labour of the hands — yet he enjoins it on *determinate* persons, according as appears from the text: *We have heard there are some among you who walk disorderly, working not at all, but curiously meddling. Now we charge them that are such, and beseech them by the Lord Jesus Christ, that working with silence they would eat their own bread.* And a little before: *We charge you that you withdraw yourselves* etc.; the Gloss: «Here he begins about the curious and the idle, admonishing that they be corrected». It is plain, therefore, from the sequence of the text and from the Gloss, that that command extends to the curious and the idle. — Likewise, first to the Thessalonians, chapter four: *We entreat you, brethren, that you use your endeavour to be quiet, and that you work with your own hands, as we commanded you;* the Gloss: «*Work,* which helps you to be quiet. For that evil comes of idleness». From this also it is plain that he says this for the avoiding of idleness and the removing of sloth, which is the bilge of desires and the fomenting of sins. Whence to the Ephesians, chapter four: *He that stole, let him now steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands* etc. — From this, therefore, it is plain that labour is not enjoined on *all;* and by this begging is not prohibited, save that which comes from idleness and cupidity, according as the text and the Glosses suggest.

But *you will object* concerning Augustine, On the Work of Monks, who was speaking to monks who were occupied and intent upon spiritual exercises, not idle; and to them he says that they are bound to works of this kind.

To this a manifest answer appears, if one attends to the conclusion near the end, by which he confutes the position of those who repudiated bodily work; in which they thought ill, there: «Wherefore those who, having left behind either ample or any sort of wealth, have wished to live among the poor of Christ, if they are strong in body and are free from ecclesiastical occupations; yet if they too work with their hands, they act more mercifully than when they divided all their goods among the needy. But if they will not, who would dare to compel them? But those who, outside that holy fellowship, were passing their life by bodily labour, if they do not labour, let them not eat».

It appears, therefore, who they are that are bound, namely the able and strong, and those who are free from ecclesiastical occupations, and those who were passing their life in the world by bodily labour, and many such there were among those monks, and there were more at the beginning of the religious order of the friars Minor, and therefore they had to be constrained to labours; but now in comparison with the others very few are such: and therefore it is not against the Apostle if to such men it is granted simply to beg, especially since such an act is not much to be craved nor delightful nor honourable, but rather filled with many vilenesses and miseries, to which the heart of no able man could be inclined save in the hope of the eternal reward and the love of Christ and the desire of profiting, with the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit, without which I scarcely believe a rich man could be inclined to the discomfort of so great an abjection. Nor do such men burden the people of the Lord and the Church, especially if they request nothing beyond what is necessary, because they would spend and consume far more of the alms of the poor if they had remained in the world as clerics in prebendal benefices; nor then, when they would be little intent upon spiritual works, would the way of salvation be closed to them even in riches. Far be it, therefore, that it should now be closed in so great a straitness of poverty.

From what has now been said in this question on poverty, that we may gather up the rest in sum, it appears that, as *to beg* in the poor who are weak and infirm is a *necessity of nature,* and in the able who are idle and covetous is a *viciousness of fault;* so in the voluntary poor, who despise themselves and imitate Christ and preach the Gospel, it is an *act in harmony with,* not repugnant to, *evangelical perfection,* on the ground that to *renounce* all things universally, appropriating no thing to oneself, is *counselled* by the Lord as perfect; to *receive* alms is *granted* to the just poor as lawful and in nothing hostile to evangelical perfection; to *request* alms *humbly* is *not prohibited* to the voluntary poor as evil; to pass one's life *by the gain of one's own labour* is not enjoined on all the able poor as a precept binding of necessity.

If anyone, therefore, impugns the *universal renunciation* of temporal things, he impugns Christ poor and crucified; he impugns the evangelical counsel; he impugns the company of the Apostles saying: *Behold we have left all things;* he impugns also the Holy Spirit, who inspires and suggests this to the hearts of the perfect; he impugns God the Father of all things himself, who is the *refuge of the poor;* he impugns finally the kingdom of heaven, the whole universe, the lordship of which is granted to the poor man, the Lord saying: *Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;* and therefore against such a *senseless* man it is necessary that *the whole world fight.*

But he who impugns the *receiving of alms* impugns Christ also, who received a stipend from the women who served him and invited him, Luke seven; and the company of the Apostles, who also themselves received alms, which *were laid at their feet,* Acts four; and the state of monks, who are founded upon alms; and the whole clergy — for they too live on alms, which have been freely bestowed on the churches of Christ — and consequently the common state of the poor, which nevertheless the divine Scriptures declare to be most acceptable to God.

But he who impugns the humble *request for alms* in those who are in need and can lawfully receive, impugns *Christ,* who humbly requested lodging, who also confesses that he is a beggar; he impugns also *Paul,* who requested that collections be made for the holy poor, and this with Peter's consent; he impugns the *bond of charity,* which makes men communicate *in the account of giving and receiving;* he impugns the *office of humanity,* through which one in need sets forth his necessity, lest he be inhuman to himself, and stirs up another, who can and will, to be human and pious to his neighbour; and in this no one is offended, no one is prejudiced, nothing is inordinately coveted, nothing is unduly taken away, especially in those who seek not the *gift,* but the *fruit*.

But he who impugns *idleness, cupidity, carnality and superfluity* in other Christians and especially in religious, does well and rightly, provided that he proceed according to a right order.

But he who universally lays upon all the able the *burden of gainful labour,* by which they ought to be sustained, enlarges the Apostle's precept too far and weighs down too heavily the yoke of servitude upon the servants of Christ, and holds back spiritual men from spiritual occupations and labours, to the peril of the salvation of souls, while he makes them more solicitous about feeding their own dying bodies than about gaining their neighbours' souls for the Lord. And if this be done, *mint and cummin are tithed, and the weightier things of the Law are left, judgement and mercy*; bodily mercy is preferred to spiritual; and by this the body is preferred to the spirit, private advantage to the common good, which consists especially in the building up of the people of Christ, in alms, in teachings and counsels of souls, for which God has sent these last orders through the supreme Pontiff and the prelates. And if anyone should say that for these things they are *not sent,* he manifestly runs counter to *the truth,* since express testimonies to this are had both in the rule and in the privilege and institution and approbation of this twofold order. — But if he should say that they *ought not to be sent,* he detracts from *evangelical perfection.* For who is more fit for this than he who has vowed evangelical perfection? — If anyone should say that they *cannot be sent* by the Pope and the bishops, he derogates from *apostolic authority* and from the *power of the keys* in prelates and from the *fulness of power* in the supreme Pontiff, who on earth, as Scripture asserts, faith holds, the laws bear witness, and irrefragable reasons also convince, as the one and highest head and the only bridegroom and the chief hierarch, in whom is the state of the whole Church militant, holds the place of Christ. And therefore every knee ought to be bowed to him, of princes and of prelates and of clerics and of laymen and of religious on earth, after the likeness of Christ in heaven, to whom *every knee is bowed of those that are in heaven, on earth and under the earth*. Amen.

---