|
AND so though we also might have the protection of our kinsfolk, yet we
have preferred his abstinence to all riches, and have chosen to procure our
daily bodily sustenance by our own exertions rather than rely on the sure
provision made by our relations, having less inclination for idle
meditation on holy Scripture of which you have spoken, and that fruitless
attendance to reading than to this laborious poverty. And certainly we
should most. gladly pursue the former, if the authority of the apostles had
taught us by their examples that it was better for us, or the rules of the
Elders had laid it down for our good. But you must know that you are
affected by this no less than by that harm of which I spoke above, because
though your body may be sound and lusty, yet you are supported by another's
contributions, a thing which properly belongs only to the feeble. For
certainly the whole human race, except only that class of monks, who live
in accordance with the Apostle's command by the daily labours of their own
hands, looks for the charity of another's compassion. Wherefore it is clear
that not only those who boast that they themselves are supported either by
the wealth of their relations or the labours of their servants or the
produce of their farms, but also the kings of this world are supported by
charity. This at any rate is embraced in the definition of our
predecessors, who have laid down that anything that is taken for the
requirements of daily food which has not been procured and prepared by the
labour of our own hands, ought to be referred to charity, as the Apostle
teaches, who altogether forbids the help of another's bounty to the idle
and says: "If a man does not work, neither let him eat." These words the
blessed Antony used against some one, and instructed us also by the example
of his teaching, to shun the pernicious allurements of our relations and of
all who provide the needful charity for our food as well as the delights of
a pleasant home, and to prefer to all the wealth of this world sandy wastes
horrid with the barrenness of nature, and districts overwhelmed by living
incrustations, and for that reason subject to no control or dominion of
man, so that we should not only avoid the society of men for the sake of a
pathless waste, but also that the character of a fruitful soil may never
entice us to the distractions of cultivating it, whereby the mind would be
recalled from the chief service of the heart, and rendered useless for
spiritual aims.
|
|