Voluntary Poverty (To the Deaconess Magna) 37–50

For if, according to the Apostle, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, why do we not pay it back a little, with whatever comes to hand, so that the debt does not trouble us, and live for the soul by the Spirit, working wholly at those things to which we necessarily owe our work, since it is lasting and does not perish with the refuse that perishes in the belly? Solomon speaks well when he rebukes the one who has abandoned the cultivation of the soul and takes great care of the land: “[He has forsaken] the ways of his own vineyard, and has wandered from the furrows of his own field; he goes through waterless places in the desert, and a land laid out in [thirst], and gathers fruitlessness with his hands.” For care for bodily things beyond need, with no profit, is truly a wandering and a trackless way: it makes one stray in impassable deserts and has as its end the fruitlessness of labors whose provision contributes nothing to the life to come. One of the prophets too cries out piercingly, calling this wretched: “Woe to him who gathers for himself what is not his own, and makes his yoke heavy.” He shows that everything not directed to virtue is a burden foreign to the one who does it, so that he may turn away zeal from vain things and transfer it to useful ones, so that the worker may have his toil as his own possession, stored up for him in the heavens for an enjoyment that has no end; and when those who labored in vain lack even a drop of cold water, then he will rejoice generously and very richly in the good things that he sent ahead and that he brought with him, having become a wise steward of his own labors. The divine laws want us to be patterns for other people and to give no offense to anyone by the blamelessness of our life. Of what, then, shall we be patterns to them, when in our zeal we strain after vain things more than they do? How shall we give no offense to them, when we cling more than they do to the things we were taught to despise and seem to have renounced, and so put stumbling blocks and countless scandals before them, since they reckon that the things we pursue are truly worth fighting for, and that ambition for them does no harm to godliness?

For the evils of persons who seem more venerable become objects of emulation, especially for the simpler sort, and are accepted without examination: “They would not have done it,” they say, “if it were truly evil, as people think.” For this reason the great Paul, who set the rule for the virtuous life, charging those who despise the harm done to the simpler, says well, “If someone sees you, who have knowledge, reclining at table in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, since he is weak, be built up to eat food offered to idols?” By one charge he checks indifference in anything whatever, and shows that what is done by those thought to know better what is profitable easily leads the more naive to imitation, since they think it edification and not the destruction of the good. For this is what “will be built up” hinted at: he will think it progress, he says, and improvement, to imitate what he saw. For when he says, “Build one another up, one the other,” he lays down as law the benefit of one to another, so that each, doing good, may urge the other on to practise it, becoming a pattern to him for perfection by additions made part by part. Of what donkey millstones and what depths of the sea … for punishment are such people, who become causes of such scandals to the simpler, and who, when these perhaps incline rather to walk by [the rule of having nothing], provoke them by rivalry with themselves toward many possessions, … so that they choose things plainly unprofitable? For “zeal,” he says, “comes to a man from his [neighbor],” and he wants to outdo his neighbor alike in good things and bad. Such is contentiousness: it forces one to defeat whoever strives against him in anything whatever, judging it not so much a danger to prevail unjustly as shameful and disgraceful to be justly defeated. Indeed, everyone knows this from experience: toward what is profitable rivalry is sluggish and contentiousness lazy; but if something unprofitable or [unseemly] is done by some, or done to their liking, emulation is ready and imitation does not delay, for it seems to have a defense in having followed others who led the way, and it ascribes the blame to those who began, not to those who took up the example. And perhaps one of the prophets shows this when he questions the people of old and confirms by their [answer] the truth of the fault, saying, “If [a man carries] holy meat [in the fold] of his garment, and [it touches bread] or stew, will it be made holy?” And they answered, “No.” And he said, “If one defiled in soul touches [any of these], will it be defiled?” And [they said], “It will be defiled.” They show that those who look on take the stamp of bad things rather than of good ones, and are more inclined to imitate the former than the latter, having learned by bad custom to welcome what harms before what helps. And how is it that those who despise this do not fear the fearful threats against those who give scandal? Foolishly they procure for themselves a double punishment in the [life to come]: both because they chose worse things instead of better, and because they have become an occasion to others, inflaming, by their great attachment to vain things, the greedy appetites of those who are excited by them toward the desire for more.

[Chapter 39] Some of the Jews, too, not compelled by the law, embraced this way of life of their own accord, wishing to worship God free of care: they lived in tents and abstained from everything that could distract the mind from better things, as they themselves say to those who question them and who are curious about their novel way of life: “Vineyard and field and house we have not had,” for they knew that the care of these things hinders the work of godliness. And not a few of the Greek philosophers showed such freedom from possessions that they lived like dogs without a roof and made their food whatever happened to be found at the moment, so that their contemplation of vain things might seem to have a pure apprehension, not troubled from any side by practical cares. One of them, at any rate, who possessed nothing except a cup, with which he took both food and drink, when he saw shepherd boys bringing water to their mouths with hollow hands, threw away the cup and said, “I have learned, boys, what escaped me until now; I have learned the perfection of having nothing”; and he gratefully confessed that the youths had helped him to what was lacking to the summit of his philosophy. So perhaps his aim was to lay aside even the body, if that were possible, and with it to strip off every care of life, and to live with the naked soul, without the dung of the flesh, in his insatiable longing for philosophy.

But we, who hear both the Lord and the apostles constantly sounding in our ears about this, since until now we have resisted their divine exhortations and have not of ourselves been moved toward the good, let us at least be put to shame by these men, who reproach our many possessions with their having nothing. For it is fitting that we should be humbled by those to whom we ought to be venerable for the dignity of our way of life, and, being first in doctrine, not to be second in life, so that, if we are in a worse state than the Greeks, the Lord's name that has been called upon us may not be blasphemed while we do things alien and foreign to what we ought to do. I know that what has been said will sting those who read it; but it stings those who are open to the blame, not those to whom this discourse of mine to you is addressed. For I am persuaded that the others will not even be [shamed] by these reproofs, since their sickness is incurable. Nor, if something sharper were said to shame them, would they correct their fault, since they have once washed off their shame and no longer blush at their sins; for not even, according to the wise Solomon, was the sluggard shamed by the example of the ant into [using] his hands and [shaking off] his inveterate idleness.

For it is hard to put away a passion that has long had its pasture, and to loosen a habit lengthened by long custom, if one has not used great zeal to correct the evil habit. Those held by it, as though bound by fetters that cannot be loosed, even if they manage to slip out of it, are somehow still dragged back by necessity through the memory of what they were lately in, turning back unwillingly and constantly returning to what they are hastening to run away from. For Solomon cries out piercingly to the sluggard, “Go to the ant, you sluggard, and emulate it when you see its ways.” And to those who profess the solitary life but are entangled in the materials of life, the Lord says … “Look at the birds of the sky: they do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them.” Yet neither did these give up their care of the land as they were commanded, nor did that sluggard take his hands out of his bosom, preferring slack want to plenty that costs a little toil. So the one in the grip of habit is hard to change toward [what is better]; he loves to remain where he is, even if it is admittedly unprofitable, rather than to cross over to what he is not used to, even if its benefit is plain and evident.

But you, friends of Christ and careful guardians of his laws, who bring to the Lord the coins of the commandments doubled, who of your own accord have gone beyond what you owe of the things commanded by what you add of free choice, and by the freedom of your will surpass what is laid on slaves as work that cannot be refused; you who went up with Christ and were initiated on the mountain into the doctrines of the high philosophy, and who show by your works that what was handed down is worthy of belief; you who have followed in the apostles' footsteps and work so as not to be a burden to anyone, yet are so occupied with this that the time for more necessary work is not spent on lesser things, but have divided your time well, giving a small part to the body's need and much to the care of the soul: for this is truly fitting justice, which distributes not equally to all but to each according to worth, offering a measured and sufficient due to the handmaid and allotting the whole to the mistress, who is truly the lady and is owed great honor; you who serve as soldiers of Christ nobly and with greatness of soul, and are not entangled in the affairs of life, so as to please him who enlisted you; you who contend lawfully, and slip through the holds of your opponents by the smoothness of having nothing, as though anointed with oil, since they have no material to grasp and so cause you loss or throw you, having gained the mastery through the passion of greed, as the Egyptian woman did when she seized Joseph's cloak. She could not have done this if the athlete had been naked, as a true contestant is; yet even so she accomplished nothing of what she wanted, though she got hold of it, since the athlete stripped off the things by which he was being dragged by force, and learned by experience that one who lives among the passions and fights them must be naked, coming to the wrestling from the start such as he was afterwards when he fled. [Put off] care and anxiety for every thing that can be sensed. For by these they are defeated, both those who desire to lay claim to them and those who, deprived of them, are defeated by grief, clinging to money and possessions and enjoying them in a way they ought not …

But you, free of such bonds, like the wild ass in Job, let loose in the desert, laughing at the crowds of the city and not hearing the tax-collector's reproach; you who are released from care for possessions and from the annoyance of tax-gatherers; who have nothing in possession and hold all things in use; who, according to the Lord's word, do not own a second tunic and have put on Christ, who drives off every outrage that assails from outside; who walk on earth because of the body's necessity and live in heaven by your purpose; who hasten eagerly toward the prize of the calling, completing the course of godliness as swiftly as birds; who have shaken off every burden of worldly care from the shoulders of the soul and nimbly leap over the stumbling blocks that hinder progress: the way of life you received from those before you, if you change it, change it toward greater earnestness, so that you too may have some boast as having labored together with those who went before; but never change it toward greater carelessness, so that you may be known as genuine children of the fathers by your virtue and not be judged bastards by the difference of your works. It is no small reproach to descendants to boast of kinship with their fathers and not to confirm the relationship by their manners. For just as the features of faces and the other marks of the body teach by likeness who is whose son or father, so ways of life show who are whose disciples and pupils, interpreting their teachers, the contemplative by word and the practical by works. But why do I use relations of clay as an example for those who have risen above bodily examples, wanting to illustrate what is exceedingly great by very small things, and by shadow-drawings that are not images, since they have not been made distinct with colors … comparing you with living forms? For you are [Christ's] … disciples and sons of the eternal Father; for so the Lord calls you brothers, saying, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and [mother],” and he names you sons of his own Father where he says, “Do not be anxious what you will eat or what you will drink; for your Father knows that you need all these things.” And he teaches how this kinship is established and this relationship comes about, giving occasions to those who long to rise to that nobility and choose to pass from slavery to adoption, when he says, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” And again, “Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is.” And, “Be [kind], as your Father is.” And, “Above all be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Since, then, the divine nature is set before us for imitation, what need is there to look at human pursuits and to inquire who attend to the good, how, and how far, and how others, given over to pleasures, wallow in vain distractions? Rather we should look only at this: how it is possible to be made like God in all things, how to come to that perfection, and by what labors to recover the ancient dignity of our nature, becoming from above an impression of the archetypal form, and having made our settled state in virtue like a nature from [the beginning], unchangeable toward turning to the opposite. What time, then, do we have for imitating the nature of God? What strength will suffice to stamp the marks of the divine likeness on ourselves? How and when shall we become all that belongs to God? For the imitation is surely possible, since he who knows each person's strength commanded it. Scarcely could someone who began in childhood and used zeal through every age to the end of old age [conform] himself to the archetypal virtue; but one who has neglected some of the time already past, how hard must he strain, and how great must his eagerness be, to achieve in a short time what is achieved with difficulty in a whole life? Yet difficulty does not make the thing altogether impossible, nor does a late start make perfection doubtful or hopeless for the one beginning. For purpose has a short cut to the end of its goal, a short road, quickly accomplishing by eagerness, and establishing in no [long] time, a work that needs much time. Trustworthy witnesses of this are the workers of the eleventh hour in the vineyard, who received the same as those who worked from dawn until evening, and were not prevented by the shortness [of time] from overtaking those who had gone before them. For such is laziness and such is diligence: the one … with much freedom accomplishes small things not worth mention; the other accomplishes great things even in a short time, outrunning by zeal what the others neglected.

This is why we were made according to the image of God: so that we might show those who see us the properties of those features and, by the distinction of our way of life, clear marks of our likeness to him. “I,” says God, “am compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and abundant in mercy, and keeping righteousness.” With these colors the image of the divine likeness is painted. These are the features of the bodiless form; by these the soul is recognized as kin to God. It emulates his freedom from need in its longing for pure freedom, but is [hindered] by its bond with the body; yet by needing little it still cries out that it longs for that complete freedom from need, offering this as a clear proof, and showing by what is attainable for now its desire for what cannot be attained, since it strives to put off natural necessities. It shows with how much desire and longing it has achieved what was permitted it, having earnestly acquired goodness and long-suffering, kindness and love of humanity, and all that signifies the nature of God. Where nothing hindered it, it used its authority eagerly and passed with great ease into the things its strength could reach. For this reason, though honored with the divine form, it was made, as David says, a little lower than the angels, when, mingled with the clay of the body, it is compelled by unavoidable need to attend to the body's necessities, if only for a little, while it longs wholly to care for better things and to live in contemplation, where it has pure gladness, not muddied by the memory of anything. For who will not call the one who flees the tumults of the crowd and declines the annoyance of burdensome affairs, who avoids the company of rash and indifferent people, and at home is mostly free, in quiet, for prayers and the study of God's oracles, who is seen as venerable because he rarely goes out, gentle, untroubled, sympathetic and friendly, who will not call him truly an emulator of God, his image and imitation, flashing with the divine rays of goodness and gleaming with that likeness through the virtues as with fine colors?

Repainting this image and urging his disciples toward this likeness, and teaching how one may become [like] God by imitation, the Lord said, as has already been said, “Be compassionate, as your heavenly Father is compassionate,” generously offering equal honor to those … who wish to rise to this honor. For [truly] … the divine is pure of envy and of every other passion. It rejoices in those who lay claim to its glory, since it is not by nature diminished by sharing with others, nor does it begrudge those who become by zeal what it itself is by nature; it remains always unchangeable and unalterable and wishes all to be within a settled steadfastness. Human beings, whose honor is accidental, naturally envy the successes of others, suspecting that they will be surpassed in what makes them proud; and fearing the progress of those who come near them from below toward equal honor, lest they appear inferior, they envy them, as seems reasonable to them, since they want to be above everyone in everything and, from love of glory, cannot bear to have anyone at all above them. But God, whose glory is his own, shares it with all without fear and suffers no wrong. For practice never outdoes nature, even if by much exercise it becomes a settled habit; nor does it push nature out of first place, even if it seems to excel in the second, since it knows its own rank and does not insult the higher, keeping to the honor granted it and not seizing the one that surpasses it. So Paul too, following behind the Lord's words, likewise makes the image in each person clear by the same words, so that the likeness may be exact. For he says, “Become imitators of God,” and he works out how this is achieved: “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, if anyone has a complaint against another, as Christ forgave you.” And again, “Put on, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, long-suffering,” wishing us to be adorned with the virtues in which the divine form, being loving to humanity, shines most.

This is what characterizes God, and the person who emulates God: gentleness, forbearance, freedom from anger, freedom from envy, beneficence, sympathy, freedom from resentment, love of the good, kindness, treating others as equals, helpfulness, care for others, generosity, and, in a word, the things by which God shows the abundance of his goodness, “making his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sending rain on the just and the unjust.” By these let the one who strives to be his imitator be known: remaining equal to all in doing good, both to friends and to those hostile to him; even if he suffers ill, repaying evil with good, and shaming those who wrong him, not only by bearing magnanimously what they dare to do, but also by doing them, as far as he can, good from the heart. For no one has become, through wickedness, so wholly alien and estranged from human nature as not to be put to shame by one who could do the same in return for what he suffered, yet uses his power for good. Such a person sinks with shame at having wronged the kindness of his benefactor; he rightly reproaches himself for his wickedness and rightly admires the philosophy of the other, by whose example he has been helped to turn from wickedness and change to the good he has come to know. Thereafter he himself becomes to those who plot against him what he had in the one who, by his kindnesses, subdued his wickedness to peace. With these words Paul was able to teach the sober life to those ready to obey; but knowing that some are hard to lead to it, he ingeniously tries to draw us away from vanity by further admonitions, leading us toward what is lawful by honorable names: sometimes, “You are God's temple”; sometimes, “Walk as children of light”; and again, “Live worthily of the gospel”; and again, “Your bodies are members of Christ”; and at other times he calls us holy and blameless, at other times blameless, innocent children of God, without blemish. He testifies to these as present, though for the time being they are not present and must be acquired, so that we may not be humbled by false praises but may rejoice to be called what we also are in our deeds, recognizing the testimony as true in our conscience and not as irony. And thereafter, taking great care for our progress and anxious how to bring us in every way to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, he sets every device in motion on every side, leaving out nothing that contributes to this.

So he wants us to be dead and crucified to the world, having no perception of its pleasant or its painful things, since he knows the form of this world: its pains are small and like a passing form, and what gladdens in passing is likewise small; they do not last, nor do they give the perception of either by remaining long, but run past with the swiftest motion and leave no trace of memory in the soul. At any rate he says, “You died to the world, and your life is hidden with Christ in God,” knowing another life after the death he spoke of, which those live who have risen with Christ, seeking and minding the things above, who have died to the elements of the world and no longer live in them, as some do whom he rebukes, saying, “If you died to the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you submit to decrees: Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch; for all these perish with use,” … the impulse of appetite toward them. But also, “Present yourselves,” he says, “to God as alive from the dead,” wishing us to be dead in the part in which the passions of the flesh that lusts against the Spirit are active, and bidding us live in the part in which the works of virtue are done to please God. For this reason he calls those a living sacrifice who have put to death their members on earth and walk in newness of life. They are neither moved toward bad things, since the power directed toward them has been put to death by the sacrifice, nor idle in good things, since, being a living sacrifice, they have not destroyed the strength for useful things together with the force for unfitting ones, but use it, at its height and fresh, against the mind of the flesh, their old enemy. They are no longer [ruled] by such irrational desires, because they have passed entirely from the bodily to the spiritual way of life and live no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit.

For to these he can also say, “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,” since, though they still wear the bulk of the flesh, they are no longer troubled by it in anything, so that sin does not reign in their mortal body, nor any longer forces them like a tyrant to obey its commands; the law in the members, which wars against the law of the mind, is too weak to take them captive to the law of sin, but is itself taken captive in turn to obedience to the commandments of Christ and yields like a slave to the laws in which Paul says he delights according to the inner man. He is “ready to punish” all that he once slipped into when deceived, promising to wrestle it back by his later zeal, doing to the body, through labors for virtue, what he suffered from it when enticed by pleasures. What this punishment is, and how it is carried out, he teaches in writing to the Romans, where he says, “Just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, leading to lawlessness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.” Those know what the labor is, and how great, who struggle to reshape an evil habit into a good one while they are tyrannized by custom. In what they seem to advance by tireless labors they easily slip back, as custom drags them backwards quickly as with a bond and often makes their labor useless, until, retreating often and often driven back, they are able little by little to depart from the evils in which they had lived and to bring their disposition over completely from the worst to the best, so that these members remain weapons of righteousness against the hostile passions, made out of weapons of unrighteousness, and are justly subdued by the very things they once lawlessly served, to the ruin of their owners.

For an eye that sees the good things of a neighbor, when it moves the mind to desire or envy, becomes a weapon of unrighteousness; but when it disposes one to give thanks to the giver, it becomes a weapon of righteousness. So too a tongue that serves slanders and mockeries, a hand that ministers to greedy robberies, and a heart pregnant with cunning thoughts that contrive to bring each of these to the end the purpose intended: each rightly receives an ill-sounding name; but when they fill a right and profitable place, they receive a name worthy of the work, acting lawfully and honored by praiseworthy deeds. Since, then, you are a living sacrifice, well-pleasing to God, for rational worship; since you died with Christ and were buried with him by being dead to the world, so as to mind the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God; since you have your citizenship in heaven before the resurrection and live the carefree life after the resurrection, like the angels (Paul supposed this possible when he said, “if somehow [I may attain] to the resurrection from the dead,” having anticipated that time by a way of life fitting for it, though he hinted that he had not yet attained it, hiding the dignity of his virtue by humble thinking); and since “you are the light and the salt of the world,” bracing with your austere character those who are dissolved in indifference and not far from corruption, and shining by the distinction of your way of life, and, according to the Lord's word, rousing those who see your good works to glorify your Father in heaven: persevere in the good, and make still more progress in it, becoming an incentive to the more careless in the things in which you excel, persuaded that from this you will have double praise from the Master. For whoever follows such a life as yours, training himself in it to the exactness of perfection, has one reward for the work itself, another for urging those of like zeal to imitate him, and a third for helping those who are strangers to godliness, preparing them, by the blamelessness of his way of life, to judge the religion to be pious and truly the only holy religion of God, adorned with the works with which those ought to be adorned who enroll God as their leader and live as he who presides over them is pleased. For he wishes those who profess kinship with him to be adorned with exceptional advantages, and says to them at the fitting moment, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and the scribes, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”