Voluntary Poverty (To the Deaconess Magna) 1–16

Earlier, writing a discourse to those who pursue the monastic life rather carelessly, we reproached them enough, showing how far they had fallen short of exactness by their zeal for vain things, clinging to possessions and entangled not least in the distractions of the life of the lovers of wealth. But now, since we must also praise the zeal of those among you, and of those like you, who have kept the rule of having nothing unbroken as it was from the beginning, it is necessary to say what things plainly urge those who love the lawful way of life to choose it, and guide them to the choice of what is fitting. For as the condemnation of what is bad shames those caught in it and turns them, repenting, toward the better, so the praise of what is good rouses even the sluggish to make it their own, enticing them with the longing for good repute and drawing them eagerly to itself, until, having weighed with sober reasoning the uselessness of human things, they see the truly profitable glory with which God glorifies those who live godly lives: now making them manifest by the rewards of their labors, and crowning them at the time of judgment before the whole rational creation, when, judging justly, he renders to each, not according to the mistaken opinion held here, but as holiness stands according to the very truth of the deeds done. For if to those who out of sympathy pitied their kinsman worn down by want he says, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you,” how will he not speak the same words to those who gave little to the flesh, and only so much as the need of living compelled, but spent most of their time persevering in the occupation of the soul, and made it their care that the soul be presented pure and unstained by filthy thoughts to him who is to judge the secrets of the heart and to examine the thoughts, how each stands, whether it has made the troubling passions its own or become estranged from them? For as those are worthy of acceptance by the Judge for their compassion toward their kin, so these are alike worthy for their philosophy toward the things that entice. For as the merciful are not grieved when their wealth is lessened by sharing it each day, but rather rejoice as it is spent on the needy, so desire for present things does not [grieve] those who have nothing, but makes them leap and be glad, both because they look down on what others think precious, and because, freed from occupation with vain things, they attend with free reasoning to the … of all better things, enjoying freedom from the things in which most people have chosen an unprofitable and useless slavery.

Let no one think that the achievement of having nothing is free of toil and gained with ease. For by having nothing we do not now mean involuntary poverty, which, arising from necessity, afflicts the mind as it considers its condition unwanted, but the self-chosen contentment with little that belongs to the will: it is gained by the authority of reason, yet it too brings toil for a while, until the practice becomes a habit and shows to be bearable what for a long time seemed hard and difficult to accomplish. For alike a comely appearance of body and splendid material of wealth [stir] desire to longing, and each [calls for] a noble soul, and …

Worthy of great admiration, and above all praise that words can give, are those who outstripped even these in exactness and came to stand within the bounds of perfect having-nothing. For they draw those now living to zeal, as these choose to imitate them, and they guard them against arrogance over the good deeds they do, since they are eager to walk in their footsteps and yet fall short of their renunciation. For just as surpassing others in virtue is a source of boasting and conceit, so not having outstripped them keeps the mind humbled, … either grieving over where it fell short, or not lifted up over where it seemed to make progress. None of those now living reaches, or has reached, the virtue of the saints of old, whose way of life is recorded as without house, without hearth, without clothing: always wandering from place to place, eating gladly whatever food came their way, lying down wherever and however it happened, and having many who plotted against them and persecuted them, not, as at present, many who honor and attend them. For Paul presents them in a description when he said, “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they died by the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, of whom the world was not worthy.” For even if one of those now living imagines himself their equal in honor by his purpose, and seems perhaps to have emulated them in his deeds, he falls short, since he is courted for the virtue for which they were in danger, and he has the glory that follows it as a consolation for his labors; but those blessed men were wholly deprived of it, and found the provisions of good repute to be occasions of persecutions and of cruel deaths. They had no roof and no storehouse, no bed, no table; sheepskins and hair were their clothing; the food of the present day was improvised, and the next day was free of care. For by the philosophy of their purpose they anticipated the Lord's exhortation, in which he says, “Look at the birds of the sky: they do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them.” And again, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they do not toil or spin.” They knew that what is needed follows upon the body's need, when there is the will to please God who supplies these things, and when the possession of the kingdom of heaven is sought first …

But for us food is prepared long in advance, and clothing suited to the seasons, and a house that keeps off every annoyance of cold and heat alike; and the acquisition of money and property and of the rest of superfluous matter is not neglected. How can our ways be equal to theirs? They had no thought of bodily imaginings, but a pure longing for divine things, always lifting them on high, persuaded them to forget what is thought splendid on earth. They had nothing on earth except the body, which nature held down below, heavy by nature and hard to carry along on the journey upward, since they longed to have even it with them where they lived with the mind, reckoning up the good things in heaven, and never torn away from the delight and benefit there, unless nature turned them back again to the body's need, compelled out of reverence for him who joined them to it to take care of the body, though they knew from experience that estrangement from it was profitable and fitting. For every earnest person truly judges even a brief occupation with the service of the flesh to be a loss, reckoning that the time has been well spent which he spent on the work of better things, knowing that he will find abiding there the labor that has been spent on the soul's progress, not the labor spent on caring for the body's service, which gave way when the occasion of need passed, having relieved the necessity, and which, once the need is over, no longer exists: useful yesterday, and today not present.

For such is the body's need: it flows and runs past, from the past into the present and from the present into the future, providing no forethought; it heals what is present and is useless for the want that follows. But the labor of virtue is a seed whose fruit never fails: in the very work it gladdens the conscience with the expectation of enjoyment, and after the departure from here it is found seemly and useful for the age to come; and it does not make even the past unprofitable, unless an irrational passion empties what has been gathered. And what has not yet come into act, but exists in purpose, is counted equal to what has been done, since what has been firmly decided is trusted to be truly accomplished, on the strength of the promises already made. For if what the mind earnestly intended did not have time suited to action and did not get as far as the deed, then by the just judgment of the divine justice what was done to please God is judged a deed fully accomplished, accomplished as the eagerness intended, had not some necessity prevented the eagerness from coming to completion. And it was truly just, and worthy of the divine verdict that judges hidden things, to give that person the reward for whose sake he undertook the work, and toward which his aim looked from beginning to end, not passing from one aim to another. For opposites are often cut short by opposites, and what was set forth is moved over into the opposite rank: when what is done for human glory is corrected by sober reasoning as having lost its [proper] tension, and what was set forth for the sake of the good itself no longer follows its former aim when a vainglorious thought comes in, but … to the opposite, and wholly changes over to it. For in this way people shift in turn from worse to better and from this to worse, sometimes to their salvation, sometimes to their ruin, exchanging one for the other: toward what is profitable out of zeal, toward what is not fitting out of laziness …

Therefore to those who set out to do good the Lord says by way of exhortation, “When you pray, go into your room, shut the door, and pray to your [Father] in secret.” And again, “When you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you,” bidding us refuse display as harmful. And the prophet, saying that “he who gathers wages has gathered them into a purse with holes,” shows how by the corrupt aim of a mania for glory the labor vanishes, slipping through as through a purse, when the mind is not secured by modest thinking. For modest thinking is a treasure, a stronghold that stands firm on every side, “where moth and rust do not destroy, nor thieves break in and steal”: the moth means the conceit born within, which destroys the good things from which it arose, and the thieves the praises that come in from outside and plunder all at once, by arrogance and pride, the treasures gathered by virtue's great toil. For as the moth consumes the material from which it received its existence, and as robbers digging through walls [carry off] what was carefully gathered, so a thought moved to elation over good works destroys what has been acquired; and the praises of people who crowd and jostle together [puff up] light minds and leave none of the good things within, but drive out through the opening of the ears what was rightly [stored]. But may no one be so mastered by this passion, nor so stupefied by the longing for vainglory, that he suffers the total loss of his own labors. Let him be sober even while the wall is being dug through, and … the plotters before the loss, and destroy them, striking them in the very breach made by the thought, before … makes the thought into action.

For this is what the law clearly declares when it says, “If the thief is found in the breach, and is struck and dies, it shall not be murder; but if the sun has risen on him, it shall be reckoned murder.” It shows that the mind's attachment to bad thoughts, like a vision in the night, has pardon. For every sudden seizure by the enemies through a sudden assault is truly a deception and needs pardon; but after the plunderer has long been practising, and after clear … recognition of the one who does harm, punishment fittingly follows. For the fault then belongs to the will: it is a self-chosen assent, not the involuntary habit of ignorance; and whoever has consented to an evil that is plain becomes justly liable, because of his attachment to the enemy, as though in the light of the sun, and because he did not fight down with all his strength the enemy who had appeared. For since the breach has its beginning in the very assault of the harmful thoughts, they ought to have been struck there and to have fallen dead in the battle. In this way his life would thereafter have been free of war, and his life an ordinance of gladness, rejoicing in the enjoyment of the things whose loss he came close to lamenting bitterly. Such too was the one who said, “… from the mouth of the beasts I tore out two legs, and the lobe of an ear,” taking these before they were swallowed and recovering them for himself. For whether it was a thought of desire for earthly things, entangling the feet and hindering for a time the progress toward better things, or a word able to corrupt good character through [bad company], he does not let these, like beasts holding the snatched limbs in their gaping jaws, do harm, but forestalls their outrage with an earnest hand and with sobriety prevents the harm that is close at hand.

For the one who has begun to be caught by a passion, being close to it, is in no less danger than the one who is in the beast's mouth. He too was near to being swallowed, had he not kept awake and sharply [escaped] the destruction that held him. Hence those skilled in the shepherd's art, David and [Jacob], who prided themselves on their steadfastness in it: the one says, “I seized the bear by the throat, and [snatched] from the lion,” clearly restoring what was unharmed to life; the other, “What was taken by beasts I did not bring [to you; I repaid] from my own what was stolen by day and what was stolen by night,” for he let none of the irrational and brutish desires come to deadly action; and if ever something of the more indifferent kind, which carries no great danger, was stolen through the wandering of the mind, such as saying something unfitting or hearing another say it, he at once repaid what was stolen out of his own store, filling up the fault of his neglect with intense zeal, and by correction quickly making it count again in the list of the other good things, so that the whole body of virtue might be sound and faultless together, lacking nothing, and not maimed in any of the members that make up its natural comeliness. And Peter, preferred above the choir of the apostles and always their leader, who both netted fish with the casting-net and caught men alive by grace, speaking of the beast and its madness for food, says, “Your adversary the devil, as a lion, [prowls around,] seeking whom he may devour.”

Let us learn exactly that a person first comes into the lion's mouth through desire, and is then fitted both for being swallowed and for getting out. Thereafter, by neglecting himself [or not], he becomes the cause of one or the other, choosing by the authority of his will whatever he wishes, and becoming of his own accord one of the portion of those who are saved or of those who perish. For this reason the great Paul too, who saw clearly the designs of the enemy and was not ignorant of his arts, devised for the ruin of the simpler sort, commands that the one who is in the lion's mouth through great despondency be drawn out by exhortation and much encouragement, saying, “lest such a one be swallowed up by excessive sorrow”; for such a person is near both to getting out of there, if he is consoled by the comfort of those who console his despondency, and to being swallowed, if he is overlooked and despairs of himself. Since, then, the road that leads to the kingdom has so much difficulty, being narrow and bordered on both sides by cliffs, what need is there for people weighed down with burdens of money, or gaping after those who praise or blame them, to try to travel it, since it is impossible? For the cares of material things distract and quickly drag one down; and a readiness to look toward glory or dishonor causes a fall on this side or that, since wandering of the mind toward anything at all makes the slip easy, because the eye is not kept busy where safety demands much care and wants it present and sober. For even so the journey on the narrow way is scarcely made without stumbling and presents great difficulty. For if, according to the Lord's word, narrow and hard pressed is the way that leads to life, then surely the one who goes along it must be lightly equipped and wakeful, neither weighed down by a burden and shifting it as he walks, nor looking about carelessly this way and that. For to both the danger is great and very grievous, since any turning aside carries one down into the gaping pit, to destruction.

For this reason both the Lord and Paul sometimes speak of having nothing: “Do not acquire gold, nor silver, nor [copper] in your belts”; and, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow”; and, “Having food and covering, with these we shall be content”; and, “No one serving as a soldier entangles himself in the affairs of life.” And sometimes they counsel us not to be excited about glory, saying, “When you fast, do not be gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so that they may appear to people to be fasting”; and, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray at the street corners, so that they may be seen by people”; and, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” For one so disposed is not so much lifted up by what he has achieved as humbled by his anxiety to complete what lies before him; he does not turn back to [what is behind], since things done often puff up the lighter-minded to arrogance, while what still demands work restrains the mind by the uncertainty whether it will reach its end, grieving it before it happens. Hence the Lord too, [making] those who had reached the summit of virtue … secure against [a slip] into conceit … says, “When you have done all that was commanded you, then say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we ought to have done.” He allows them to rejoice as over [an achievement], but does not let them think highly of themselves. For what was rendered, he says, was a debt, not a voluntary gift; and it is not right for one who has paid what he owed to be elated before his creditor as though he were a benefactor, thinking that he has graciously paid what, had he been unwilling, he would have been made to repay under torture.

And the Apostle not only commands us to consign what lies behind to [forgetting], knowing that remembering it makes those easily moved look toward boasting, but also commands us to guard carefully against the attacks from both sides, when he says, “… through the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left, through glory and dishonor, through ill report and good report, as deceivers and yet true.” For blame wrongs the one hastening to perfection no less than the praises that slacken him, since it makes the mind low and loosens eagerness through despondency and grief. Therefore one must run toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call, both worthily and without distraction. The first, according to him who says, “So run that you may obtain,” makes one reach the end of what one strives for, even if late; for the distance is long and needs wings rather than feet to reach it. So the one convinced of this said, “Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly away and be at rest?” The second, sobriety, warns of the snares that trouble us on this side and that, since the enemies stretch cords before the feet on the right and on the left, contriving with nooses the capture of those who run well: on one side glory and good report, on the other dishonor and [blame], fixing [the reproach] of a condemned life, so that one snare of the plot, however it is prepared, if it prevails, either makes him fall completely or at least holds him back from the race for a little, so that his progress toward the good is hindered for a while and he fails of the perfection he strives for. Why, then, do the things that falsely slander one's reputation grieve so much? Or why do the things that raise it to admiration [elate one] and slacken one into dissipation?

For if one were to be shown [approved] before the impartial Judge on the strength of the verdict given here, having pleased people well, who would not be eager to receive the testimony of this world, bringing it as a pledge for the future, and to be shown blameless on the grounds for which he was commended by the judges here? But if outward appearance, acceptance and the glory of those who now vote on our affairs count for nothing there, and the images of our deeds and thoughts stand naked, clear proofs of bad and good thoughts and works, judged not by what seemed right to the many but by what the truth itself establishes, then it is truly a vain pursuit to want to persuade these people how our affairs stand. Their full conviction profits us nothing for the judgment above, which sees things as they are; it is not [misled] by what is supposed, but knows what has happened; it does not side with the advocacy of those who try to show falsehood plausibly as truth, and who by the cleverness of sophistical speeches dispose the minds of their hearers as they wish, giving, while the facts are otherwise, a different, deceived impression of how things appear. But where the facts take shape as they are now brought before sight, [the truth] is clearly revealed as it now is, hidden, and not as it is made up and whispered for praise or blame by the many, for whom it is surely a pleasure and delight to busy themselves with other people's affairs and to discuss them with one another when they have the chance. This is their constant and unprofitable work, because of a leisure that does not profit all as it should.

But there are three ways of life in the world: extreme having-nothing, the middle way, and the material way with many possessions. For there was one way from the beginning, ordained by the Creator and lived by all alike, free of care and wholly [without possessions], which the minds of human beings later cut up into these different ways, as they were divided in various directions toward the things to which they inclined. It is necessary, then, to go through the character of each, and what benefit or harm comes from them to those who follow them, and which ought to hold the first rank and has been given it by him who from the beginning legislated our way of life. For this one will surely be judged more honorable than the others even by the very unfeeling, since truth shames them into admitting its worth, even if in their deeds they are disposed the opposite way, enticed by the allure of what gives pleasure and not choosing what is profitable by reason. What life, then, was commanded to the first-formed man? “You shall eat,” he says, “the grass of the field.” And let no one now stir up reasonings against this, looking for plausible arguments whether, as he supposes, a diet fit for cattle befitted the rational creature; for the dignity of the one who gave the command forbids such meddlesome inquiry. And perhaps this diet was even more profitable to human beings, and better suited to the quickness of mind sought by those made in the image of God, than one that, by its great richness, weighs down the intellect and darkens the subtle and sober part of the reason. For that things were so before, and that what seems reasonable is so (let us consider it), the work of the Maker also guarantees the proof, who always acts for the benefit of what he has made, and turns even our inclinations toward the worse to what is useful. For not to abandon the one who had transgressed and disobeyed as hopeless and uncared for, but by a second method [to correct] the first … fault, and … later to turn those who came after to sacrifice to him, and at other times to make other arrangements with each according to the times, and to use their untimely impulses for what is needful, turning the deadly desires of unruly sick people cleverly to their salvation: this belongs to the greatest providence, which comes to meet the weakness of [those being saved] and permits for a time those things that their present strength is able to do for their good.

So when Adam could not bear the satiety of his flourishing honor and grew wanton against that gladness (for God himself willingly came to him for daily converse, since he needed recreation in his solitude, having no one to console his weariness; and God permitted him free enjoyment of every fruit of the plants in paradise, commanding him to abstain from one only, not because he grudged him the taste, but to train him meanwhile in obedience, since there was no other matter suitable for giving a law, so that, ruling over all the other living creatures, he might know that he himself was also subject to law and might have the commandment as a clear sign of his submission to the one who gave it), God cast him out of that first and pure luxury, yet he did not leave him, disobedient as he was, bereft of care, nor, though he had transgressed the commandment, did he deprive him completely of his own providence. Instead he legislates for him again a second life, suited to his condition and fitting for one who had not used his ease as he should: he commands him to provide his food by work and toil, since, when he had leisure, he did not know how to attend to the service of God and give himself to converse with him while resting from bodily labors. And he makes garments of skin for him, at once covering the nakedness that had then become shameful, which had not been so before, while he kept the commandment; and, saying nothing in words but teaching by the deed what clothing one ought to use, he restrained from then on, by that garment, the softness later introduced by innovators, and by the plainness of the covering he condemned in advance the vanity in dress now in fashion.

Which way of life, then, was fitting or profitable for him? The one he was commanded when the law was given him, or the one to which he was condemned after disregarding the commandment? When he had all the enjoyment and delight of the contemplation in paradise and the use of the various plants, or when, wretched in the toils of farming, he ate his bread in the sweat of his face? When he took without care whatever fruits he wished, and plucked every delight with his hand, troubling it only to eat, and satisfied his appetite at an effortless table, fulfilling his desire for food and comforting it with food seasoned by nature? Or when he handled spade, mattock and sickle, furrowing with the plough the earth that shortly before had borne useful things of itself: sowing, watering, reaping, carrying sheaves, threshing, treading, cleaning the produce with the winnowing fan, and after that preparing the grain with the machinery of mills, grinding the wheat, kneading the flour with water, baking it with fire, and so eating bread that cost much toil? When he heard the friendly words of God, and his soul was gladdened through his hearing by unspeakable words, or when his ears were battered by the troublesome noise of lowing, bleating and braying? The first are the marks of having nothing, the second of the life of much matter; the first were proclaimed by divine laws, the second were devised by human desires. The first depends on hope in God and has its sufficiency supplied from there at all times; the second totters very insecurely on vanity and has a close kinship with misfortune.

Experience is witness to these things, and the events of every day that convince the senses: how what seemed likely has often deceived hope, but the care of the Stronger has never belied its help. For who does not know the losses that go with farming? Who is ignorant of the injuries that befall crops? Often the very rains that nourish them have harmed them as well; breezes of unsuitable winds have either chilled them beyond measure or scorched them, and have destroyed the crop as it stood and flourished; a [flood] brought on by untimely rain has swept away what was heaped up, or has carried off the produce while it was still being threshed and spoiled it; locust, blight, caterpillar and many other creatures like beetles are known to do great damage. I leave aside the [worms] bred in the very storehouses, which feed on the grain and make all the labor spent on it useless. Who, again, has not been taught by time the security that comes from divine providence: how, when it is needed, it provides suitable food without toil or hardship to [those who trust it], while the rich, who contrive everything to have plenty of food, are worn down by want; and how, when it wishes, it sets a table ready for those who trust it, beyond all expectation, sometimes giving unsown bread from unploughed clouds in the desert, the manna, sometimes bringing up quail from the sea, and at other times pouring out abundant streams from a dry rock for the thirsty, so that it might generously fill the need of both kinds of nourishment, the moist and the dry, and might comfort with variety the appetite, which is by nature restless at a diet of one kind?