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COVETOUSNESS and anger, although they are not of the same character
(for the former is something outside our nature, while the latter seems to
have as it were its seed plot within us) yet they spring up in the same
way, as in most instances they find the reasons for their being stirred in
something outside of us. For often men who are still rather weak complain
that they have fallen into these sins through irritation and the
instigation of others, and are plunged headlong into the passions of anger
and covetousness by the provocation of other people. But that covetousness
is something outside our nature, we can clearly see from this; viz., that
it is proved not to have its first starting point inside us, nor does it
originate in what contributes to keeping body and soul together, and to the
existence of life. For it is plain that nothing belongs to the actual needs
and necessities of our common life except our daily meat and drink: but
everything else, with whatever zeal and care we preserve it, is shown to be
something distinct from the wants of man by the needs of life itself. And
so this temptation, as being something outside our nature, only attacks
those monks who are but lukewarm and built on a bad foundation, whereas
those which are natural to us do not cease from troubling even the best of
monks and those who dwell in solitude. And so far is this shown to be true,
that we find that there are some nations who are altogether free from this
passion of covetousness, because they have never by use and custom received
into themselves this fault and infirmity. And we believe that the old world
before the flood was for long ages ignorant of the madness of this desire.
And in the case of each one of us who makes his renunciation of the world
a thorough one, we know that it is extirpated without any difficulty, if,
that is, a man gives up all his property, and seeks the monastic
discipline in such a way as not to allow himself to keep a single farthing.
And we can find thousands of men to bear witness to this, who in a single
moment have given up all their property, and have so thoroughly eradicated
this passion as not to be in the slightest degree troubled by it
afterwards, though all their life long they have to fight against gluttony,
and cannot be safe from it without striving with the utmost watchfulness of
heart and bodily abstinence.
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