Flee, I pray, the private life; nor wish to imitate those virgins who linger in the cities in little cells: whom a manifold care constrains; first of pleasing the world, lest they go forth in a foul garment; and oppressed by domestic anxiety, while they busy themselves for the support of life, they seek less the things that pertain to God. For the Church drew the private life from the practice of the Gentiles, whom, since the apostles could not bring over to the standard of their own life, they permitted to the Church coming from the Gentiles to live privately, and to use their own goods. But those who believed under the apostles from among the Hebrews kept the same standard which the monasteries now hold. Seek what is read in the Acts of the Apostles, and you will prove that what I say is true:
'The multitude of those who believed,' it says, 'were of one heart and one soul. Neither did anyone say that anything of what he possessed was his own, but as many as were owners of fields sold them, and laid the prices of them before the feet of the apostles, and it was distributed to each as he had need' (Acts 4). See that those who live in a monastery according to rule hold the life of the apostles; nor let them doubt to attain the merits of those whose examples they imitate.