5. Holy men either share the burden of temporal goods by giving, or by despising lay the whole down. For holy men, in the hardship of this pilgrimage—since they are not yet permitted to contemplate that form of their Creator which they long for—count all the abundance of the present life as poverty; because indeed nothing apart from God suffices for a mind that truly seeks God. And very often that same abundance of theirs becomes vehemently burdensome to them, because they bear it grievously that, hastening to their fatherland, they carry much on the road. Whence it comes to pass that they devoutly share these things with their needy neighbors, so that while this man takes what he has not, that man lays down what he had too much of;
so that neither may the fellow-traveler walk empty, nor may too great a load weigh down him whom it could delay on the way. The elect therefore by no means rejoice over much abundance, which indeed, for the love of the heavenly patrimony, they either scatter by giving, or forsake by despising. There follows: