Letter 16

Nothing is happier than the Christian, to whom the kingdoms of heaven are promised; nothing more toilsome, who daily is in peril of his life. Nothing is stronger than he who conquers the devil; nothing weaker than he who is overcome by the flesh. Of both these things there are very many examples. The thief believed on the cross, and at once deserved to hear: Amen, amen I say to you: today you shall be with me in paradise. Judas slips from the height of the apostolate into the hell of betrayal, and is broken neither by the intimacy of the meal nor by the dipping of the morsel nor by the grace of the kiss, so as not to betray as a man one whom he had known to be the Son of God. What is cheaper than the Samaritan woman? Not only did she herself believe, and after six husbands find one Lord, and recognize the Messiah at the well whom the people of the Jews in their temple knew not, but she becomes the author of the salvation of many, and, while the apostles were buying food, she refreshes the hungry one and sustains the weary one. What is wiser than Solomon? And yet he is befooled by the loves of women. Salt is good, and no sacrifice is received without its sprinkling — whence the Apostle too commands: Let your speech be seasoned with salt — but if it lose its savour, it is cast out, and so loses the dignity of its name that it is not useful even on the dunghill, with which the fields of believers are wont to be enriched and the barren soil of souls to be fattened. We say these things, that at the very first we may teach you, my son Rusticus, that you have begun great things, are pursuing lofty ones, and, trampling on the incentives of youth — nay, of puberty — are climbing a step indeed of the perfect age; but the road by which you enter is slippery, and the glory after victory is not so great as the disgrace after a fall.

You are not now to be led by me through the meadows of the virtues, nor must I labour to show you the beauty of the various flowers, what the lilies have of purity in them, what the modesty of roses possesses, what the purple of the violet promises in the kingdom, what the painting of glowing gems pledges. For already, the Lord being favourable, you hold the plough-handle; already you have climbed to the roof and the upper room with the apostle Peter, who, hungering among the Jews, is filled with the faith of Cornelius, and quenches the hunger of their unbelief by the conversion of the Gentiles, and in the four-cornered vessel of the gospels, which came down from heaven to the earth, is taught and learns that all men can be saved. And again, what he had seen, in the likeness of a most white sheet, is carried up to the heights, and snatches the crowds of believers from the earth to heaven, that the promise of the Lord may be fulfilled: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The whole of what, having taken your hand, I desire to instil into you — what, like a skilled sailor after many shipwrecks, I try to teach an untrained passenger — is this: that you may know on what shore the pirate of chastity lies, where is Charybdis and the root of all evils, avarice, where are the Scyllan dogs of detractors, of whom the Apostle speaks: Lest, biting one another, you be consumed one of another; how, in the midst of calm, we may, secure, be sometimes overwhelmed by the Libyan Syrtes of the vices, and what venomous living creatures the desert of this world nourishes.

Those sailing the Red Sea — in which it is to be wished for us that the true Pharaoh be drowned with his army — come with many difficulties and dangers to the city of Auxuma. On either shore dwell wandering nations — nay, most ferocious beasts. Always anxious, always armed, they carry the provisions of a whole year. All things are full of hidden rocks and most dangerous shoals, so that a lookout and pilot sits at the very top of the mast and from there proclaims his orders for steering and turning the ship. The voyage is happy if after six months they reach the harbour of the aforesaid city, from which the ocean begins to open out, through which scarcely in a whole year one comes to India and to the river Ganges — which Holy Scripture calls Phison — which encircles all the land of Havilah and is said to carry forth many kinds of spices from the fountain of paradise. There is born the carbuncle and the emerald and the gleaming pearls and the unions, with which the ambition of noble women burns, and the golden mountains, which it is impossible for men to approach because of the dragons and griffins and the monsters of immense bodies, that it may be shown us what guardians avarice has.

To what end these things? It is clear. If the merchants of the world endure so much to come to uncertain and perishable riches, and keep at the risk of their life what they have sought with many dangers, what is not to be done by the merchant of Christ, who, having sold all things, seeks the most precious pearl, who with all the resources of his substance buys the field in which he may find the treasure that neither thief can dig up nor robber carry off?

I know that I shall offend very many, who refer a general discussion of the vices to their own reproach, and, while they are angry with me, reveal their own conscience, and judge much worse of themselves than of me. For I will name no one, nor, with the license of the old comedy, will I choose out and brand definite persons. It is the part of a prudent man and of prudent women to dissemble — nay, to amend — what they understand in themselves, and to be indignant with themselves rather than with me, and not to heap curses on the admonisher, who, even if he be held by the same crimes, is certainly better in this, that his own evils do not please him.

I hear that you have a religious mother, a widow of many years, who nourished you, who instructed you as an infant, and after the studies of the Gauls, which are of the most flourishing, sent you to Rome, not sparing expense, and bearing the absence of her son in the hope of the future, that Roman gravity might season the richness and brilliance of Gallic speech, and use upon you not spurs but reins — as we read also of the most eloquent men of Greece, who dried the Asian swelling with Attic salt, and pruned back the luxuriant vines with sickles, that the wine-presses of eloquence might overflow not with the foliage of words, but with the squeezings, as it were, of the grapes of meaning. Receive her as a parent, love her as a nurse, venerate her as holy. Nor imitate the example of others, who leave their own and seek the women of strangers, whose disgrace is in the open, seeking suspect companionships under the names of piety. I myself have known some, now of riper age and most of freedman stock, to delight in young men and seek spiritual sons, and, modesty being gradually overcome, to burst out under the feigned names of mothers into a marital license. Others forsake their virgin sisters and are coupled with strange widows. There are women who hate their own and are fondled by affection for those not their own, whose impatience, the index of the mind, admits no excuse and tears apart the empty veils of unchastity like spiders' webs. You may see not a few, with girded loins, in a dark tunic, with a long beard, unable to depart from women, dwelling under the same roof, going to banquets together, having young maids in their service, and, except for the name of marriage, all that belongs to marriage. Nor is it the fault of the Christian name if a feigner of religion be in vice; nay rather, it is the confusion of the heathen, when they see that those things displease the churches which do not please all good men.

But you, if you wish to be a monk and not to seem one, have care not of your household estate, which by renouncing you began to be this, but of your soul. Let the squalor of your garments be a sign of a white mind, let a cheap tunic prove your contempt of the world — provided only that the mind does not swell, that the dress and the speech do not disagree. Do not seek the warmth of the baths, you who desire to extinguish the heat of the body by the cold of fastings. Let these too be moderate, lest by their excess they weaken the stomach and, demanding a greater refreshment, break out into indigestion, which is the parent of lusts. Modest and temperate food is useful both to the flesh and to the soul. See your mother in such a way that you are not compelled through her to see others, whose faces may cling to your heart, And the silent wound lives beneath the breast. Know that the little maids who are in her service are a snare to you, because, the cheaper their condition, the easier the fall. John the Baptist too had a holy mother and was a pontiff's son, and yet he was not overcome either by his mother's affection or by his father's wealth, so as to live in his parents' house with peril to his chastity. He lived in the desert, and with eyes longing for Christ deigned to look upon nothing else. A rough garment, a leathern belt, food of locusts and wild honey, all things prepared for virtue and continence. The sons of the prophets — whom we read in the Old Testament as monks — built themselves little huts by the streams of the Jordan, and, the crowds of the cities left behind, lived on barley-meal and wild herbs. As long as you are in your own country, have your cell for a paradise; pluck the various fruits of the Scriptures, use these delights, enjoy their embrace. If your eye, your foot, your hand offend you, cast them off. Spare no one, that you may spare your soul alone. Whoever shall look upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Who shall glory that he has a chaste heart? The stars are not clean in the sight of the Lord: how much less men, whose life is a temptation! Woe to us, who, as often as we lust, so often we fornicate. My sword, he says, is drunk in heaven: how much more on the earth, which brings forth thorns and thistles. The vessel of election, in whose mouth Christ sounded, wears down his body and subjects it to servitude, and yet perceives the natural ardour of the flesh to fight against his own resolve, so that he is compelled to do what he does not wish, and, as if suffering violence, he cries out and says: Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And do you reckon that you can pass without a fall and a wound, unless with all custody you keep your heart and say with the Saviour: My mother and my brethren are these, who do the will of my Father? That cruelty is piety; nay, what is so pious as for a holy son to guard a holy mother? She too wishes that you should live, not that she should see you for a time, that she may see you always with Christ. Anna begot Samuel not for herself, but for the tabernacle. The sons of Jonadab, who drank no wine or strong drink, who dwelt in tents and had for their seats wherever night had compelled them, are written in the psalm to have first endured captivity, because, when the army of the Chaldeans was laying Judaea waste, they were compelled to enter the cities.

Let others see what they think — for each is led by his own opinion — to me a town is a prison and solitude a paradise. Why do we desire the throng of cities, we who are reckoned by our singleness? Moses, that he might be set over the people of the Jews, is trained forty years in the desert; a shepherd of sheep, he became a shepherd of men; the apostles passed from the fishing of the lake of Gennesaret to the fishing of men. Then they had a father, a net, a little boat: following the Lord, they at once left all things, daily carrying their cross and not even having a staff in their hand. This I say, that, even if the desire of the clergy tickles you, you may learn what you can teach, and offer a reasonable sacrifice to Christ, lest you be a soldier before a recruit, lest you be a master before a disciple. It is not the part of my humility nor of my measure to judge of others, and to say anything sinister of the ministers of the churches. Let them have their order and their grade; if you should hold it, how you must live in it, the book published to Nepotian can teach you. Now we are examining the cradle and manners of the monk — and of that monk who, instructed in the liberal studies, in his youth laid the yoke of Christ on his neck.

And first it must be treated whether you ought to live in a monastery alone or with others. To me it seems best that you should have the companionship of holy men, and not teach yourself and enter without a guide on a way you have never entered, and at once have to turn aside to the one side or the other and lie open to error, and walk either more or less than is needful — so that, running, you tire yourself, or, delaying, you fall asleep. In solitude pride quickly creeps up, and, if a man has fasted a little while and has not seen another, he thinks himself to be of some importance, and, forgetful of himself, of whence and whither he has come, within in body, in tongue he wanders abroad. He judges, against the Apostle's will, the servants of another; what gluttony demands, he stretches out his hands for; he sleeps as much as he wishes; he reveres no one, thinks all beneath himself, and is more often in the cities than in his cell, and among the brethren feigns modesty, who is jostled in the crowds of the streets. What then? Do we reprehend the solitary life? By no means, since we have often praised it. But we wish soldiers of this kind to go forth from the training-school of the monasteries: men whom the rudiments do not hold back, who have given a sample of their conduct over a long time, who have been the least of all, that they might become the first of all, whom neither hunger nor satiety ever overcame, who rejoice in poverty, whose dress, speech, countenance, gait is a teaching of the virtues, who do not know how, according to certain foolish men, to fashion portents of demons assailing them, that among the unskilled and the men of the crowd they may make a marvel of themselves and thereupon pursue gains.

We have lately seen, and lamented, the wealth of a Croesus caught out by one man's death, and the alms of a city, gathered as though for the uses of the poor, left behind to his stock and posterity. Then the iron, which lay hidden in the deep, floated upon the water, and amid the palm-trees of Marah the bitterness was shown. Nor is it any wonder: such a companion and master too he had, who made the hunger of the needy his own riches, and held to his own misery what was left to the wretched. Whose cry at last reached heaven and overcame the most patient ears of God, so that an angel sent said to that most wicked Nabal of Carmel: Fool, this night they shall take away your soul from you; but what you have prepared, whose shall it be?

I wish, therefore, both for the causes I set forth above, that you should not dwell with your mother, and especially lest, by refusing the dainty foods she offers, you sadden her, or, if you accept them, add oil to the fire, and, amid the throng of girls, see by day what you may think of by night. Let the book never depart from your hand and your eyes; let the psalter be learned word for word; let prayer be without intermission, the sense watchful and lying open to no vain thoughts. Let the body and the mind alike be stretched toward the Lord. Conquer anger by patience; love the knowledge of the Scriptures, and you will not love the vices of the flesh. Nor let your mind be at leisure for various perturbations, which, if they settle in the breast, will lord it over you and lead you down to the greatest offence. Do also some work, that the devil may always find you occupied. If the apostles, having the power to live by the gospel, laboured with their hands, lest they should burden anyone, and gave refreshment to others, of whom they ought to reap carnal things for spiritual, why do you not prepare what will go to your own uses? Either weave a basket of rushes or plait a hamper of pliant osiers; let the ground be dug, let the little beds be divided by an even boundary; in which, when the seeds of herbs have been cast or the plants set in order, let irrigating waters be led, that you may stand by as a spectator of most beautiful verses: Behold, from the brow of the sloping path he draws the water, and it, falling, stirs a hoarse murmur over the smooth stones, and tempers the parched fields with its bubblings. Let unfruitful trees be grafted, whether with buds or with shoots, and after a little while you may pluck the sweet fruits of your labour. Construct hives for bees, to which the Proverbs send you, and learn the order of the monasteries and the royal discipline in little bodies. Let nets too be woven for catching fish; let books be written, that the hand may both work for food and the soul be filled with reading. Every idle man is in desires. The monasteries of the Egyptians keep this custom, that they receive no one without work and labour, not so much for the necessities of sustenance as for the salvation of the soul, lest it should wander in pernicious thoughts and, after the manner of fornicating Jerusalem, spread its feet to everyone who passes by.

While I was a young man, and the deserts of solitude walled me in, I could not bear the incentives of the vices and the ardour of nature; which, though I broke with frequent fastings, yet my mind seethed with thoughts. To subdue it, I gave myself for training to a certain brother who had believed from among the Hebrews, so that, after the subtleties of Quintilian and the rivers of Cicero and the gravity of Fronto and the smoothness of Pliny, I should learn an alphabet and meditate on hissing and panting words. What labour I spent there, what difficulty I endured, how often I despaired and how often I ceased and again began in my contention to learn, my own conscience, who suffered it, is witness, as is that of those who led their life with me. And I give thanks to the Lord that from the bitter seed of letters I gather sweet fruits.

I will tell another thing too, which I saw in Egypt. There was a Greek young man in a monastery who by no greatness of continence, by no greatness of work, could extinguish the flame of the flesh. The father of the monastery saved him, when in this peril, by this device. He commands a certain grave man to pursue the man with quarrels and abuse, and, after the injury had been inflicted, to come first to the complaints. The witnesses, when called, spoke for him who had done the insult. He wept against the lie; no one else believed the truth; the father alone cunningly set up his defence, lest the brother should be swallowed up by an excessive sadness. Why say more? Thus a year was passed, at the end of which the young man, being asked about his former thoughts, whether he still endured any trouble, said: "Good heavens, one is not allowed to live, and one wishes to fornicate?" If he had been alone, by what helper would he have overcome?

The philosophers of the world are wont to drive out an old love with a new love, as a nail with a nail. This too the seven princes of the Persians did to Ahasuerus, that they might restrain his longing for Queen Vashti by the love of other girls. They remedy a vice with a vice and a sin with a sin; let us overcome vices with the love of the virtues. Decline, he says, from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Unless we hate evil, we cannot love good. Nay rather, good must be done, that we may decline from evil; peace must be sought, that we may flee wars. Nor is it enough to seek it, unless, when found and fleeing, we pursue it with all zeal — that peace which surpasses all understanding, in which is the dwelling of God, as the prophet says: And his place was made in peace; and the pursuit of peace is beautifully named, according to that saying of the Apostle: Pursuing hospitality — so that we may invite guests not with a light and hasty word and, so to speak, with the tips of the lips, but hold them with all the ardour of the mind, as though they carried away with them something of our gain and profit.

No art is learned without a master. Even dumb animals and the herds of wild beasts follow their leaders. Among bees there are chiefs; the cranes follow one in a lettered order. There is one emperor, one judge of a province. Rome, as it was founded, could not have two brothers at once as kings, and is dedicated by parricide. In the womb of Rebecca, Esau and Jacob waged wars. There are single bishops of the churches, single archpresbyters, single archdeacons, and the whole ecclesiastical order rests upon its own rulers. In a ship there is one helmsman, in a house one master; in however great an army the signal of one is awaited. And, that I may not make the reader loathe me by repeating more, through all these things my discourse tends to this: to teach you that you are not to be let go at your own discretion, but ought to live in a monastery under the discipline of one father and in the company of many, that from one you may learn humility, from another patience, that this one may teach you silence, that one gentleness; that you may not do what you wish, may eat what you are bidden, may have as much as you have received, may be clothed in what you have received, may pay the tasks of your work, may be subject to one to whom you do not wish, may come weary to your bed and sleep while walking, may be compelled to rise before sleep is finished, may say a psalm in your turn — in which not the sweetness of the voice but the affection of the mind is sought, as the Apostle writes: I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind; and: Singing in your hearts; for he had read that it was commanded: Sing psalms wisely — may serve the brethren, may wash the feet of guests, may keep silence when you have suffered an injury, may fear the superior of the monastery as a lord, love him as a parent, may believe that whatever he has commanded is salutary for you, and may not judge of the sentence of your elder, whose duty it is to obey and to fulfil what is commanded, as Moses says: Hear, O Israel, and be silent. Occupied with so great affairs, you will be at leisure for no thoughts; and, while you pass from one thing to another and work succeeds work, you will retain in mind that alone which you are compelled to do.

I myself have seen some who, after they renounced the world — in their garments only and in the profession of the voice, not in their possessions — changed nothing of their former conduct. Their household estate was rather increased than diminished; the same services of servants, the same apparatus of the banquet; in glass and an earthen dish gold is eaten, and amid the crowds and swarms of their ministers they claim for themselves the name of solitaries. But those who are poor and of slender little substance, and seem to themselves clever, proceed into public like the floats of processions, that they may exercise a canine eloquence. Others, with shoulders raised on high and croaking I know not what within themselves, with eyes fixed dully on the ground, weigh out swelling words, so that, if you added a herald, you would think the prefecture was advancing. There are those who, from the dampness of their cells and immoderate fastings, the weariness of solitude and excessive reading, while day and night they din in their own ears, are turned to madness and need the remedies of Hippocrates more than our admonitions. Very many cannot do without their former arts and trades, and, their names of traders changed, ply the same commerce, seeking not food and clothing, which the Apostle commands, but greater profits than men of the world. And formerly indeed the rage of sellers was restrained by the aediles, whom the Greeks call agoranomoi, nor was the sin unpunished; but now, under the title of religion, unjust gains are exercised, and the honour of the Christian name makes fraud rather than suffers it. And — which it is shameful to say, but necessary, that at least thus we may blush at our disgrace — publicly stretching out our hands in rags, we hide gold, and, against the opinion of all, we die rich, with full purses, we who lived as though poor. For you, when you are in a monastery, it will not be permitted to do these things; and, the custom gradually growing strong, you will begin to wish what at first you were compelled to do, and your labour will delight you, and, forgetful of the past, you will always pursue the things that are before, by no means considering what evil others do, but what good you ought to do.

Nor indeed be led by the multitude of those who sin, nor be made anxious by the throng of those who perish, so that you silently think: "What? Shall all then perish who dwell in the cities? Behold, they enjoy their own possessions, they minister to the churches, they go to the baths, they do not scorn ointments, and yet they live in the flower of all things." To which I have answered before, and now will answer briefly: that in the present little work I am not disputing about clerics, but instructing a monk. The clerics are holy, and the life of all of them is praiseworthy. So, then, act and live in a monastery that you may deserve to be a cleric, that you may stain your youth with no defilement, that you may proceed to the altar of Christ as a virgin from the bridal-chamber, and may have a good testimony from those outside, and that women may know your name and not know your face. When you come to the perfect age, if only life be your companion, and either the people or the bishop of the city should choose you into the clergy, do the things that are the clerics', and among them follow the better ones, because in every condition and grade the worst are mixed with the best.

Do not leap quickly to writing, and be led by a light madness. Learn for a long time what you may teach. Do not believe your praisers — nay, do not gladly lend your ear to mockers, who, when they have warmed you with flatteries and in a manner made you bereft of mind, if you suddenly look back, you may catch either the necks of storks bent behind you, or an ass's little ears agitated by the hand, or a dog's panting tongue stretched out. Disparage no one, nor think yourself holy if you tear others to pieces. We often accuse what we ourselves do, and, eloquent against ourselves, inveigh against our own vices, judging mute about the eloquent. Grunnius used to advance to speak with a tortoise's gait, and at certain intervals scarcely got out a few words, so that you would think him hiccuping, not speaking out. And yet, when, the table being set, he had laid out a heap of books, with eyebrow drawn up, nostrils contracted, and brow wrinkled, he snapped with two little fingers, by this sign provoking the disciples to listen. Then to pour out sheer trifles and to declaim against individuals; you would say Longinus the critic was there, and the censor of Roman eloquence noting whom he wished and excluding him from the senate of the learned. This man, well-moneyed, was the more pleasing at dinners. Nor is it any wonder, who was wont to bait many, and, a wedge formed of garrulous men clamouring around him, advanced into public, within a Nero, without a Cato, wholly ambiguous, so that out of contrary and diverse natures you would say one monster and a new beast had been compacted, according to that poetic verse: A lion in front, a dragon behind, the very middle a chimera.

Never, therefore, may you see such men, nor attach yourself to men of this kind, lest you incline your heart to words of malice and hear: Sitting, you disparaged your brother, and against your mother's son you laid a stumbling-block; and again: The sons of men, their teeth are arms and arrows; and elsewhere: His words are softer than oil, and yet they are darts; and more openly in Ecclesiastes: If a serpent bite in silence, so is he who secretly disparages his brother. But you say: "I myself do not disparage; what can I do when others speak?" These things we hold out to excuse our excuses in sins. Christ is not mocked by craft. By no means is it my sentence, but the Apostle's: Do not err; God is not mocked. He sees in the heart, we in the face. Solomon says in the Proverbs: The north wind scatters clouds, and a sad face the tongues of disparagers. For just as an arrow, if it be shot against a hard material, sometimes returns upon the shooter and wounds the wounder, and that is fulfilled: They were turned to me into a crooked bow; and elsewhere: He who casts a stone on high, it will fall back upon his head — so the disparager, when he sees the sad face of the hearer — nay, not even of the hearer, but of one stopping his ears, that he may not hear the judgment of blood — at once falls silent, his face grows pale, his lips cling together, his saliva dries up. Whence the same wise man says: Do not mingle with disparagers, for their destruction shall come suddenly; and the ruin of both, who knows it? — namely, both of him who speaks and of him who hears the speaker. Truth does not love corners nor seek whisperers. To Timothy it is said: Against a presbyter do not quickly receive an accusation. But him who sins reprove before all, that the rest also may have fear. It is not easy to believe of the perfect age, which both a past life defends and the title of dignity honours; but, since we are men and sometimes, against the maturity of our years, slip into the vices of boys, if you wish me to be corrected when I offend, rebuke me openly, only do not bite me secretly: The just man shall correct me in mercy and rebuke me, but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head. For whom the Lord loves, he corrects, and scourges every son whom he receives. And through Isaiah God cries: My people, they who call you blessed seduce you and overturn the paths of your feet. For what does it profit me if you report my evils to others, if, without my knowing, you wound another with my sins — nay, with your detractions — and, while you eagerly tell all, so speak to each one as though you had told no other? This is not to amend me, but to satisfy your own vice. The Lord commands that those who sin against us ought to be reproved in secret, or with a witness called in, and, if they refuse to hear, to be referred to the Church, and those obstinate in evil to be held as heathens and publicans.

These things I speak more expressly, that I may free my young man from the itch both of the tongue and of the ears, that, reborn in Christ, I may present him without wrinkle and spot, like a chaste virgin, and holy both in mind and body, lest he glory in the name alone and, the lamp quenched, without the oil of good works, be shut out from the Bridegroom. You have there the holy and most learned bishop Proculus, who with living and present voice may surpass my sheets and direct your way with daily discourses, and not suffer you, by turning aside to the one side or the other, to leave the royal road, by which Israel, hastening to the land of promise, promises that it will pass. And would that the voice of the Church, lamenting together, were heard: Lord, give us peace, for you have rendered all things to us. Would that what we renounce of the world were a matter of will, not of necessity, and that poverty had the glory of being sought, not the torment of being imposed. But, according to the miseries of this time and the swords raging everywhere, he is rich enough who does not lack bread, too powerful who is not compelled to serve. The holy Exuperius, bishop of Toulouse, an imitator of the widow of Sarepta, hungering feeds others, and with patient mouth is tortured by another's fasting and famine, and has spent all his substance on the bowels of Christ. Nothing is richer than he who carries the body of the Lord in a wicker basket, the blood in glass, who has cast avarice out of the temple, who, without a scourge and the rebuke of those selling doves — that is, the gifts of the Holy Spirit — overturned the tables of mammon and scattered the money of the money-changers, that the house of God might be called a house of prayer and not a den of robbers. Follow from nearby his footsteps, and those of the others who are like his virtues, whom the priesthood makes both humbler and poorer; or, if you desire perfect things, go out with Abraham from your country and from your kindred, and go where you know not. If you have substance, sell it and give to the poor; if you have it not, you are freed from a great burden; naked, follow the naked Christ. Hard, great, difficult — but the rewards are great.