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| Chapter XVI. Of the authority under which those shelter themselves who object to stripping themselves of their goods.
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Chapter XVI.
Of the authority under which those shelter themselves
who object to stripping themselves of their goods.
These then try to make
out a case for their original avarice, by some authority from Holy
Scripture, which they interpret with base ingenuity, in their desire to
wrest and pervert to their own purposes a saying of the Apostle or
rather of the Lord Himself: and, not adapting their own life or
understanding to the meaning of the Scripture, but making the meaning
of Scripture bend to the desires of their own lust, they try to make it
to correspond to their own views, and say that it is written, “It
is more blessed to give than to receive.”891
And by an entirely wrong interpretation of this they think that they
can weaken the force of that saying of the Lord in which he says:
“If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all that thou hast and give to
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow
me.”892
And they think
that under colour of this they need not deprive themselves of their
riches: declaring indeed that they are more blessed if, supported by
that which originally belonged to them, they give to others also out of
their superabundance. And while they are shy of embracing with the
Apostle that glorious state of abnegation for Christ’s sake, they
will not be content either with manual labour or the sparing diet of
the monastery. And the only thing is that these must either know that
they are deceiving themselves, and have not really renounced the world
while they are clinging to their former riches; or, if they really and
truly want to make trial of the monastic life, they must give up and
forsake all these things and keep back nothing of that which they have
renounced, and, with the Apostle, glory “in hunger and thirst, in
cold and nakedness.”893
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