And this itself is the best governance, that all things distributed in their own times be carried on in order, lest, wrapped in turbulent entanglements, they perturb the human mind. There too it is said what the Apostle worked. 'After these things,' it says, 'departing from Athens he came to Corinth. And when he had found a certain Jew named Aquila, a Pontic by race, lately come from Italy, and Priscilla his wife, because Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome, he came to them, and because of the similarity of craft he stayed with them, working; for they were tentmakers.' If they should attempt to interpret this allegorically, they show how they profit in the ecclesiastical letters for which they boast to be at leisure.
And surely those things which have been said above: 'Have I alone and Barnabas not the power of not working?' and: 'We have not used this power,' and: 'when we might have been burdensome to you as Christ's apostles,' and: 'working night and day, that we might not burden any of you,' and: 'the Lord has ordained that those who announce the gospel should live by the gospel; but I have used none of these things'—and other things of this sort—let them either expound otherwise, or, if they are pressed by the most brilliant light of truth, let them understand and obey: or, if they either will not or cannot obey, let them at least confess those who are willing to be the better, but those who are also able, the more blessed.
For it is one thing to allege bodily infirmity, whether true or feigned; but another thing so to be deceived and so to deceive, that moreover it should therefore seem that there is a greater righteousness in the servants of God, because sloth was able to reign among the unlearned. For he who shows a true infirmity of body is to be treated humanely; but he who feigns a false one and cannot be convicted, is to be left to God. Yet neither of them fixes a pernicious rule, because the good servant of God both serves his manifestly weak brother, and, when he believes one who deceives, because he does not think him evil, does not imitate him so as to be evil; and if he believes him, does not think him a deceiver. And nonetheless he does not imitate him. But from that one who says: 'This is the true righteousness, that we should in nothing'—
by working bodily should imitate the birds of the air, since he who has wrought any such thing acts against the gospel—whosoever, being weak in mind, hears these things and believes them, is to be lamented, not because he is thus at leisure, but because he thus errs. Here arises another question. For perhaps someone may say: What then? Did the other apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas sin, because they did not work? Or did they bring a hindrance to the gospel, because the blessed Paul said that he for this reason did not use this power, lest he should give any hindrance to the gospel of Christ? For if they sinned because they did not work, then they had not received the power of not working, but of living by the gospel.
But if they had received this power by the Lord's ordaining, that those who announced the gospel should live by the gospel, and by his saying: 'The laborer is worthy of his food'—the power which Paul, giving out something more, was unwilling to use—they certainly did not sin. If they did not sin, they gave no hindrance. For it is no small sin to hinder the gospel. But if this is so, then to us also, they say, it is free both to use and not to use this power. This question I would resolve briefly, if I should say—and I would justly say—that the Apostle is to be believed.
For he himself knew why in the churches of the Gentiles the gospel ought not to be carried about for sale, not blaming his fellow apostles, but distinguishing his own ministry, because they had thus distributed among themselves—without doubt with the Holy Spirit admonishing—the provinces for evangelizing, so that Paul and Barnabas should go to the Gentiles, but they to the circumcision. Yet that he enjoined this on those who had not such a power, the things which have now been said in great number make manifest. But these our brethren rashly arrogate to themselves, as I judge, that they have such a power. For if they are evangelists, I confess, they have it; if ministers of the altar, dispensers of the sacraments, they rightly do not arrogate this to themselves, but plainly claim the power.
If at least they had something in this world by which they might easily sustain this life without craftwork, which, being converted to God, they distributed to the needy, their infirmity is both to be believed and to be borne. For such men are wont, not better, as many think, but—what is true—being more delicately reared, to be unable to sustain the labor of bodily works. Such perhaps were many at Jerusalem. For it is also written that they sold their possessions and laid the prices of them before the feet of the apostles, that distribution might be made to every one, according as there was need. Because they were found near at hand and useful to the Gentiles, who were called from the worship of idols afar off, according to that which was said:
'For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,' the Apostle called the Gentile Christians their debtors. 'They are their debtors,' he says, and he added why; 'for if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things,' he says, 'they ought also to minister to them in carnal things.' But now for the most part men come to this profession of the service of God even from a servile condition, or as freedmen, or freed by their masters for this very purpose, and from a rustic life, and from the exercise of craftsmen and plebeian labor—all the more happily as they were more hardily reared: whom if they should not be admitted, it is a grave fault; for many of that number have proved themselves truly great and worthy of imitation. For on this account also God chose the weak things of the world, that he might confound the strong;
'and God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might confound the wise; and the base things of the world, and the things which are not, as though they were, that the things which are might be brought to nought, that no flesh should glory before God.' This pious and holy consideration, therefore, brings it about that even such are admitted who bring no proof of a life changed for the better. For it does not appear whether they have come from a purpose of serving God, or whether, fleeing a needy and laborious life, they have wished to be fed and clothed in idleness, and moreover to be honored by those by whom they had been accustomed to be despised and worn down.
Such men, then, since they cannot excuse themselves from working on the ground of bodily weakness — for they are convicted by the habit of their past life — take cover under the shade of an evil training, so that, out of a misunderstood Gospel, they contrive to pervert the apostolic precepts: truly they are 'the birds of the sky,' but by lifting themselves on high through pride, and 'the grass of the field,' but by having a carnal mind. For there has befallen them that which the same Apostle says must be guarded against in undisciplined younger widows: 'for at the same time they also learn to be idle; and not only idle, but also busybodies and gossips, speaking things which they ought not.'
This he was saying of evil women, a thing which we also grieve and lament over in evil men, who against the very one in whose epistles we read these words idly and verbosely speak the things that ought not to be spoken.
And those among them who have come to the holy warfare with the intention of pleasing him to whom they have offered themselves for approval, being so vigorous in bodily strength and sound in health that, according to the Apostle, they are able not only to be instructed but also to work — these, being caught up by the idle and corrupt conversations of the former sort, which through their inexperienced novitiate they are unable to judge, are transformed by a pestilent contagion into the same ruin. They not only fail to imitate the obedience of the holy men who work in quietness, and of other monasteries living in a most wholesome discipline according to the apostolic rule, but they even insult their betters, preaching sloth as though it were the preserver of the Gospel, and accusing mercy as though it were a transgressor.
For he works far more mercifully toward the souls of the weak who takes thought for the good name of God's servants, than does he toward the bodies of the needy who breaks bread for the hungry. Wherefore, would that these men, who wish to keep their hands idle, might keep their tongues wholly idle too! For they would not invite so many to imitation, if they set before them examples that were not only slothful but also mute. 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 would fain hinder the Gospel with that very thing which the Apostle enjoined and did precisely that the Gospel itself might not be hindered.
And yet, if we should compel them to live, according to their own understanding, out of the very words of the Gospel, they will first attempt to persuade us that these words are not to be understood as they understand them. For certainly they say that they ought not to work because the birds of the sky neither sow nor reap — the likeness which the Lord gave us that we might not be anxious about such necessities. Why then do they not attend to what follows? For it was not said only that they do not sow nor reap, but it was added: 'neither do they gather into barns.' Now 'barns' or 'granaries' may be called, word for word, 'storehouses.' Why then do these men wish to have idle hands and full storehouses?
Why do they store up and keep the things they take from the labours of others, so that daily something may be brought forth from them? Why, in short, do they grind and cook? For the birds do not do this. Or if they find people whom they can persuade even to this task, that these should bring them each day meals ready prepared, at least they draw water for themselves either from springs or from cisterns or wells, and store it up: this the birds do not do. But if this pleases them, let the good faithful also and the provincials most devoted to the eternal King strive to serve his most valiant soldiers even to this extent, so that they may not be compelled even to fetch water for themselves — if indeed by a new degree of righteousness they have surpassed even those who were then at Jerusalem.
For those men, when famine was at hand and had been foretold beforehand through the prophets who then were, the good faithful sent grain from Greece, out of which I believe they made bread for themselves, or at least saw to its being made: which the birds do not do. But if now these men, as I had begun to say, have surpassed even those by some degree of righteousness, and in all that pertains to the passing of this life act just as the birds do, let them show us men serving birds, as they themselves wish to be served — unless it be birds that are caught and shut up, in which no trust is placed, lest, once flying, they should not return: and yet even these prefer to enjoy their liberty and to take from the fields as much as is enough, rather than to accept what men set before them ready prepared.
Accordingly, again those will surpass these men by another and loftier degree of righteousness, who so order themselves that daily they go out into the fields as though to pasture, and at whatever time they find it, pluck their food, and, their hunger quieted, return. But plainly, on account of the keepers of the fields, how good it would be if the Lord also deigned to bestow wings, so that the servants of God, found in others' fields, might not be seized like thieves, but chased off like starlings. As it is, however, that man will imitate the bird as far as he can, whom the hunter has not been able to catch. But behold, let all the servants of God grant that, when they wish, they may go out into their fields and thence depart safe and refreshed:
just as it was commanded to the people of Israel through the Law, that in their fields no one should hold a thief as a thief, unless one who wished to carry off something with him; for one who had touched nothing other than what he had eaten, they were to let go free and unpunished. Whence also, when the Lord's disciples were plucking ears of grain, the Jews raised a false charge about the Sabbath rather than about theft. But what will have to be done in those seasons of the year in which food that can be eaten at once is not found in the fields? Whoever shall have attempted to carry off to his home anything to prepare for himself by cooking, will, according to these men's understanding, hear from the Gospel: 'Put it down; for the birds do not do this.'
But let us grant even this — that throughout the whole turning of the year there can be found in the fields, whether from tree or from herbs or from any roots, something that can be taken as food uncooked; or at least that so great a hardiness of body is applied that even those things which ought to be cooked, taken raw, do no harm, and that one can go forth for fodder even in any winter's severities, and thus it comes about that nothing is carried off to be prepared, nothing is laid by for the morrow: those men will not be able to keep such rules who, separated for many days from the sight of men and granting no one access to themselves, shut themselves up, living in great intentness of prayers.
For these are accustomed to shut up with themselves food that is indeed most easily obtained and most cheap, yet enough for those days on which they have resolved to be seen by no one: which the birds do not do. And their exercise in so wonderful a self-restraint — seeing that they have the leisure in which to do these things, and set themselves forth to be imitated not with proud arrogance but with merciful holiness — I not only do not blame, but, as much as it deserves, I am unable to praise. Yet what do we say of these men according to the said interpreters' understanding, out of the words of the Gospel? Or is it perhaps that the holier they are, the more unlike the birds they are, because unless they lay up food for themselves for very many days, they will not be able so to shut themselves up as they do? And assuredly they too, together with us, hear:
'Do not, therefore, be anxious for the morrow.' Wherefore, to embrace it briefly, let these men, who by a perverse interpretation of the Gospel labour to pervert such manifest apostolic precepts, either not be anxious for the morrow, like the birds of the sky, or obey the Apostle, like beloved sons; nay rather, let them do both, since both agree. For Paul, the servant of Christ Jesus, would not advise things contrary to his Lord. For to these men we say openly: if you so understand the birds of the sky in the Gospel that you refuse to procure food and covering by working with your hands, then lay by nothing at all for the morrow, just as the birds of the sky lay by nothing. But if to lay by something for the morrow can be not against the Gospel, where it was said:
'Behold the birds of the sky, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns' — then also it can be not against the Gospel nor against the likeness of the birds of the sky, to pass this life of the flesh amid the toil of bodily labour. For if they be pressed out of the Gospel to lay by nothing for the morrow, they most rightly answer: why then did the Lord himself have money-bags, in which to store up the money that had been collected? Why, so long before, when famine was at hand, was grain sent to the holy fathers? Why did the apostles thus provide the necessities for the want of the saints, that there might be no lack in time to come, so that the most blessed Paul wrote to the Corinthians in his epistle: 'Now concerning the collections for the saints, as I have directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also.'
'On the first day of the week, let each one of you put aside by himself, treasuring up whatever pleases him, so that the collections may not be made only when I come. And when I have arrived, whomever you shall approve, these I will send with letters to carry your gift to Jerusalem. And if it be worthy that I too should go, they shall go with me.' These and many other things they bring forth most copiously and most truly. To whom we reply: you see, then, that although the Lord said, 'Do not be anxious for the morrow,' you are nevertheless not compelled by these words to reserve nothing for the morrow. Why then do you say that by these same words you are compelled to be at leisure? Why are the birds of the sky not an example to you for reserving nothing, and yet you wish them to be an example for doing nothing? Someone will say:
What profit, then, is there to a servant of God, that, having left behind the former actions which he had in the world, he turns to this spiritual life and warfare, if he must still busy himself with occupations like a craftsman? As though, indeed, it could easily be set forth in words how great is the profit of that which the Lord said to the rich man asking counsel about attaining eternal life — that, if he wished to be perfect, he should do this: that, having sold what he had and distributed it to the want of the poor, he should follow him. Or did anyone follow the Lord with so unencumbered a course as he who said: 'I have not run in vain, nor laboured in vain'? — who nevertheless both enjoined and did these works.
This authority, so great, ought to have sufficed for us who are learned and instructed, both as an example of relinquishing our former resources and of working with our hands. But we too, aided by the Lord himself, can perhaps in some fashion understand what profit it is that God's servants, even while thus working, have nonetheless left behind their former occupations. For if anyone is converted to this life from wealth and is hindered by no bodily weakness, are we so bereft of the savour of Christ that we do not understand how great a swelling of former pride is healed, when, the superfluities being cut away by which the soul was before ruinously puffed up, for the few things that remain naturally necessary to this life, even the humility of a workman is by no means refused?
But if anyone is converted to this life from poverty, let him not think that he is doing what he used to do, if, from love of increasing his private property, however small, now no longer seeking the things that are his own but the things that are of Jesus Christ, he has passed over to the charity of the common life, about to live in the fellowship of those for whom there is one soul and one heart in God — so that no one calls anything his own, but all things are common to them.
For if the ancient chieftains of this earthly commonwealth are wont to be praised in the most illustrious eloquence of their men of letters, because they so preferred the common concern of the whole people of their city to their own private affairs, that a certain one of them, a triumphant conqueror after Africa was subdued, had nothing to give his daughter at her wedding except that she was dowered from the public treasury by decree of the senate — with what spirit ought a citizen of that eternal city, the heavenly Jerusalem, to be in his own commonwealth, except that the very thing which he works out with his own hands he should put in common with his brother, and, if anything be lacking to that brother, supply it from the common store, saying with him whose precept and example he has followed: 'as having nothing, and possessing all things'?
Wherefore even those who, having left or distributed among the poor either ample or whatever wealth, wished to be numbered among Christ's poor with pious and salutary humility, if they are so strong in body and are free from ecclesiastical occupations — although, since they bring so great a proof of their spirit, and contribute either very much or not a little to the want of the same fellowship out of those goods which they had, the common estate itself and brotherly charity ought to owe them in turn the sustaining of their life — nevertheless, if they too work with their hands, so as to take away all excuse from the slothful who come from a humbler and therefore more inured life, they act far more mercifully than when they divided all their goods among the needy.
But if they be unwilling to do this, who would dare to compel them? Yet for them work must be found in the monastery, even though freer from bodily exertion, but to be attended to with vigilant administration, so that not even they may eat their bread — since it has now become common — for nothing. Nor is it to be regarded in what monasteries or in what place each one spent what he had upon the needy brethren. For of all Christians there is one commonwealth. And therefore whoever has bestowed necessaries upon Christians anywhere, wherever he himself also receives what is necessary for himself, receives it from Christ; because wherever he too gave to such, who received it but Christ?
But those who, even outside this holy fellowship, used to pass their life by bodily labour — and from their number the greater part come to the monasteries, since in the human race itself the greater part are such — if they are unwilling to work, let them not eat either. For it is not for this that in the Christian warfare the rich are humbled unto piety, that the poor should be exalted unto pride. For it in no way befits that in that life where senators become labourers, there craftsmen should become idlers, and that where those who had been lords of estates come, having left their luxuries, there rustics should become dainty. 'But,' someone objects, 'the Lord says: Be not anxious for your soul what you shall eat, nor for your body what you shall put on.' Rightly, since he had said above: 'You cannot serve God and mammon.'
For he who preaches the Gospel for this reason, that he may have wherewith to eat and wherewith to be clothed, thinks that he serves both God, because he preaches the Gospel, and mammon, because he preaches for the sake of these necessaries: which the Lord says cannot be done. And by this, that man who preaches the Gospel for the sake of these things is convicted of serving not God but mammon, even if God uses him for the advancement of others in a way he himself knows not. For to this saying he subjoins, saying: 'Therefore I say to you:'
'Do not be anxious for your soul what you shall eat, nor for your body what you shall put on' — not that they should not procure these things, as much as need requires, from whence they honestly can, but that they should not look upon these things and for the sake of these things do whatever they are commanded to do in the preaching of the Gospel. For that intention, on account of which anything is done, he calls the 'eye': whence a little above he was speaking, that he might come down to this, and was saying: 'The lamp of your body is your eye. If your eye be single, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye be evil, your whole body will be dark' — that is: your deeds will be such as your intention has been, on account of which you do them. And that he might come to this too, above he had given precept about almsgiving, saying:
'Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where rust and moth destroy, and where thieves dig through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not dig through and steal. For where your treasure will be, there will your heart also be.' Then he subjoined: 'The lamp of your body is your eye' — namely, that those who give alms should not do it with the intention either of wishing to please men or of seeking to have repaid to them on earth what they do. Whence also the Apostle, when he was charging that the rich should be admonished through Timothy, says: 'Let them readily bestow, share, treasure up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold of the true life.'
Since, therefore, the Lord has directed the eye of those who give alms toward the life to come and toward the heavenly reward, so that their very deeds also may be full of light when the eye is single — for it avails toward that final recompense, which also he says elsewhere: 'He who receives you, receives me; and he who receives me, receives him who sent me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward; and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward.'
'And whoever shall give to one of these little ones only a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, his reward shall not perish' — lest perchance, the eye of those who bestow necessaries upon the needy and upon prophets and upon righteous men and upon the Lord's disciples being corrupted, their own eye should be depraved into those upon whom these things were done, so that for the sake of receiving these things they should wish to be soldiers of Christ, he says: 'No one can serve two masters.' And a little after: 'You cannot,' he says, 'serve God and mammon,' and immediately he wove in:
'Therefore I say to you, do not be anxious for your soul what you shall eat, nor for your body what you shall put on.' And what follows about the birds of the sky and about the lilies of the field, he says to this end, that no one should think that God does not care for the necessaries of his servants, since his most wise providence reaches even to the creating and governing of these things. For it is he himself who feeds and clothes even those who work with their hands. But lest they should twist the Christian warfare to this, that they may seek after these things, the Lord forewarns his servants of this, that in that ministry which is owed to his sacrament we should think not of these things, but of his kingdom and his righteousness:
'and all these things shall be added unto us' — whether we work with our hands, or are hindered by bodily weakness, or are held fast by such an occupation of the very warfare that we are able to do nothing else. For it is not the case that, because God said, 'Call upon me in the day of tribulation, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me,' the Apostle ought therefore not to have fled and to have been let down through the wall in a basket, that he might escape the hand of his persecutor, but rather to have waited to be seized, so that God might free him as he freed the three youths from the midst of the fires. Or on this account ought not the Lord to have said, 'If they persecute you in one city, flee to another,' because he himself said, 'If you ask anything in my name, it shall be given you.'
As, therefore, if anyone should throw at Christ's disciples fleeing persecution a question of this sort — why they had not rather stood their ground, and, God being invoked, been rescued through his marvels, as Daniel from the lions, as Peter from his chains — they would answer that it behoved them not to tempt God, but that he would then do such things, if he willed, when they themselves had no means of what to do; but when he had granted flight into their power, even if through it they are freed, they are freed by none but himself:
so also to God's servants who are at leisure and strong, called by apostolic example and precept to earn their living by their own hands, if anyone should raise from the Gospel a question about the birds of the sky, which neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and about the lilies of the field, because they neither toil nor spin, they will easily answer: if we too, through some weakness or occupation, cannot work, he will so feed and clothe us as he does the birds and the lilies, which perform no work of this kind; but when we can, we ought not to tempt our God, because even this that we can, we can by his gift, and, while we live thereby, we live by the bounty of him who has granted that we can.
And therefore we are not anxious about these necessaries, because, when we can do these things, he feeds and clothes us, by whom men are fed and clothed; but when we cannot do these things, the same one himself feeds and clothes us, by whom the birds are fed and the lilies clothed, since we are of more value than they. Wherefore in this our warfare we are not anxious even for the morrow, because it was not for the sake of these temporal things, to which the morrow pertains, but for the sake of those eternal things, where it is always today, that we have offered ourselves to him, that we may please him, being entangled in no secular affairs.