IV. He nevertheless attempts to refute certain other things as doubtful. — For to that which is said of blessed Alexius, that he begged, and of blessed Francis, how many miracles confirmed this, he responds: Prove it, as though to things doubtful and uncertain; adding that even if miracles had been performed, it would not yet be certain, because many wicked people perform miracles, and that miracles could be performed even with loaves of bread stolen secretly; nor yet would it be established from this that it was good to steal. — He also says it is doubtful that the Roman Church has approved mendicancy, because if it did this, it would be convicted of error; likewise also, if it imposed it as a penance of satisfaction, it would err — and he says this is in no way to be believed.
But this objection, which protects itself through doubt, must without doubt be resisted. For if what is read in the legend of Saint Alexis and the legend of Blessed Francis is called into doubt, by equal reasoning whatever is read in the legends of other Saints comes into doubt: therefore all examples of virtues and deeds of the Saints are now called into doubt. But to imitate or believe doubtful things is dangerous; and through this, faith, devotion, and reverence, which is held toward the Saints, perishes, if the other things that are narrated about them are called into doubt. - Again, if the miracles which they performed are not efficacious testimonies for establishing their sanctity, the Church today is acting foolishly, which canonizes Saints and inscribes them in the catalogue of Saints on account of the testimony of miracles. - Finally, who has ever heard that God would multiply through a thief bread taken by stealth for the salvation of others? Yet we have heard that through a poor beggar He multiplied in manifold ways the bread which he had acquired by begging. - But if you say that this was a special privilege and was done by the intimate counsel of the Holy Spirit: how did he hand this down to others as a law and rule, in which he invites them to mendicancy, if it was inspired to him alone for himself alone? - If you say that it was from his own mind, not through inspiration: how can he not be condemned who rashly invited others to a reprehensible act as though to an act of moral life and perfection? How also did the Roman See with the consent of the cardinals approve this?
But if you say that it is not to be believed that it imposes mendicancy upon anyone as a penalty, or that it approves it as a rule and holy life; but that it imposes the mendicancy of pilgrimage, this is found in the section on Penance, where it is said concerning a priest who reveals confessions, that he should be deposed and should go as a pilgrim in disgrace for the whole time of his life. But if he were to live by honest labor or from his own similar resources, he would not go as a lowly person, but rather as an honorable one. It remains therefore that it imposes that he should go as a beggar.
That he approves it as a rule is clear from that writing cited above, concerning the Excesses of Prelates, Nimis prava, where it is said that "the Apostolic See is known to have approved the order and rule of the Friars Preachers and Minors." It is also clear from the rule of blessed Francis, approved and confirmed by Lord Honorius, where it is said that the brothers "should go for alms confidently." But if he erred in approving this — and it is established that he approved and confirmed this; it is also established that the universal Church throughout the whole world accepts orders and states of life of this kind — then it must be concluded, according to the statement of that one man, that the entire universal Church erred and was deceived: and that those who established and approved such an erroneous state are all damned; which is most terrible and most incredible — that God would permit his holy people to err so universally, and so great a multitude of wise men who preceded these times. But who here is so wise and so just that he would dare to judge all others besides himself to have been deceived and reprobate? Wondrous is this wisdom, which demonstrates the foolishness of all; and wondrous this justice, which condemns all others. But if this is not wisdom, but rather temerity — to wish to judge the Apostolic See, which is judged by God alone, and to reject its judgment and sentence, and to thrust so many holy men into hell and into the abyss of damnation — far, therefore, be these things from faithful and Christian hearts.
V. He also attempts to refute very many things, indeed nearly all, as hostile to apostolic doctrine, on the grounds that he says mendicancy was prohibited by the Apostle as evil and was permitted only in a particular case. — He also says that I lied and defended and continue to defend what is false against Scripture and the Apostle, in that he says I said that to labor with manual work is not a precept. He says, therefore, that to beg is not indifferent but evil; and therefore by the addition of circumstances it can in no way become good: indeed, what is more, he asserts that in those who preach it is simoniacal.
Now this foundation of his position, most frequently repeated, is easy to see as ruinous together with everything that is built upon it. For if to beg is prohibited, and to beg is to sin: therefore to be a beggar is to be a sinner. Since therefore Christ calls Himself a beggar, or rather the Prophet in the person of Christ: Christ therefore confesses Himself to be a sinner: which to say or believe is no small disgrace or sin. - Again, if to beg is to sin, beggary or begging is a sin. But on 2 Corinthians 8, on the verse: That by His poverty you might be made rich: the Gloss says: "Let no one despise himself: the poor man in his cell, rich in conscience, sleeps more securely on the ground than the man rich in gold upon purple. Therefore do not be afraid to approach with your beggary Him who was clothed with our poverty: where He made Himself poor, He enriched us." Therefore beggary disposes one toward, and does not withdraw one from, divine approach: it is established therefore that it is not a sin.
Furthermore, Chrysostom on Matthew in Homily 69 at the end says that "to beg offends God in nothing: but to steal or to seize offends God and man." This is also evident from the authority of Chrysostom cited above from Homily 4 on Matthew. Therefore it is not prohibited by the Apostle, nor is it found anywhere that the Apostle prohibited this, but rather that he commended it together with his fellow Apostles. For in 1 Corinthians 16 he both preached and arranged that collections be made for the poor among the Saints who were in Jerusalem, as alms freely bestowed upon them. And in Galatians 2 he says that Peter and James gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision, only that we should be mindful of the poor: the Gloss: " Of the poor, who had laid the price of their goods sold at the feet of the Apostles, we should be mindful, by making collections for their support." If therefore the Apostle was not simoniacal in this, that he sought collections and sent disciples for this purpose, that they might seek alms from those among whom he had sown spiritual things, for the poor who were in Jerusalem: if the Supreme Pontiff establishes Orders of poor men who sow spiritual things and live from the freely given alms, whether sought or spontaneously offered, of those whom they edify by word and example: he in no way whatsoever disagrees with the Apostle, but rather agrees, since he has as great, and indeed greater, power as the Apostle himself in governing and disposing the members of the Church.
But he insists that the Apostle commanded bodily labor in the text, and the Glosses seem to say that he does this against mendicancy.
But to this there is a plain response: granted that the Apostle commands manual labor of this kind — which I have never denied, as is apparent from my words — yet he does not command this universally to the servants of Christ, except perhaps in a moment of necessity in which no lawful way of obtaining sustenance is available except through the labor of the hands — but he commands it to determinate persons, as is apparent from the text: We have heard that certain ones among you are walking disorderly, doing no work, but acting as busybodies. Now to those who are of this sort, we command and beseech in the Lord Jesus Christ that they work in silence and eat their own bread. And a little before: We command that you withdraw yourselves etc.; the Gloss: "He begins here concerning the busybodies and the idle, admonishing that they be corrected." It is therefore evident from the sequence of the text and from the Gloss that that command extends to the busybodies and the idle. — Similarly, First Thessalonians chapter four: We beseech you, brethren, that you endeavor to be quiet and that you work with your hands, as we have commanded you: the Gloss: "Work, which helps you to be quiet. For that evil comes from idleness." From this also it is evident that he says this in order to avoid idleness and to remove sloth, which is the bilge of desires and the fuel of sins. Whence, Ephesians chapter four: He who was stealing, let him steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands etc. — From this, therefore, it is evident that labor is not commanded to all; and thereby mendicancy is not prohibited, except that which comes from idleness and cupidity, as the texts and Glosses indicate.
But one will object concerning Augustine, in On the Work of Monks, who was speaking to monks who were occupied with and intent upon spiritual exercises, not idle; and to them he says that they are bound to works of this kind.
To this a manifest response appears, if one attends to the conclusion near the end, by which he refutes the position of those who repudiated bodily work — in which they held wrongly — there: "Wherefore those who, having left behind either ample or whatever wealth, wished to live among the poor of Christ, if they are sound in body and free from ecclesiastical occupations: nevertheless, if they also work with their hands, they act more mercifully than when they distributed all their goods to the needy. But if they are unwilling, who would dare to compel them? Those, however, who apart from this holy society were passing their life in bodily labor, if they do not work, let them not eat."
It is therefore apparent who are bound to labor, namely the strong and robust, and those who are free from ecclesiastical occupations, and those who were passing their life in the world by bodily labor—and many such were among those monks, and more were at the beginning of the Order of Friars Minor—and therefore they were to be constrained to labors; but now in comparison with others, very few are of this kind: and therefore it is not against the Apostle if such persons are simply permitted to beg, especially since such an act is not very desirable nor delightful nor honorable, but rather filled with many indignities and miseries, to which the heart of no capable man could be inclined except in hope of eternal reward and love of Christ and desire of advancing with the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit, without which I scarcely believe a rich man could be inclined to the hardship of such great abjection. Nor do such persons burden the people of the Lord and the Church, especially if they seek nothing beyond necessities, because they would spend and consume far more from the alms of the poor if they had remained as clerics in the world in prebendal benefices: nor then, when they would attend but little to spiritual works, would the way of salvation be closed off even in their riches. Far be it therefore that it should now be closed off in such great strictness of poverty.
From what has already been said in this question concerning poverty, to gather the rest together in summary, it is apparent that just as to beg among the weak and infirm poor is a necessity of nature, among the strong who are idle and covetous it is the viciousness of fault; so among the voluntarily poor, despisers of self and imitators of Christ and preachers of the Gospel, it is an act consonant with, not repugnant to, evangelical perfection, inasmuch as to renounce all things universally, appropriating nothing to oneself, has been counseled by the Lord as perfect: to receive alms has been granted to the righteous poor as licit and in no way inimical to evangelical perfection; also humbly to seek alms for the voluntarily poor has not been prohibited as evil; to pass one's life from the earnings of one's own labor has not been enjoined upon all able-bodied poor as a precept necessarily binding.
If anyone therefore attacks the universal renunciation of temporal things, he attacks Christ who is poor and crucified: he attacks the evangelical counsel; he attacks the company of the Apostles who say: Behold, we have left all things: he attacks also the Holy Spirit, who inspires and suggests this to the hearts of the perfect: he attacks also God the Father of all things, who is the refuge of the poor; he attacks finally the kingdom of heaven, the whole universe, dominion over which has been granted to the poor, as the Lord says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven: and therefore against such a fool it is necessary that the whole world should fight.
But he who attacks the acceptance of alms, attacks both Christ, who received support from women serving him and providing for him, Luke 7; and the company of the Apostles, who themselves also received alms, which were laid at their feet, Acts, from the fourth chapter; and the state of monks, who are founded upon alms; and the entire clergy — for they too live from alms which have been freely bestowed upon the churches of Christ — and consequently the common state of the poor, which nevertheless the divine Scriptures indicate is most acceptable to God.
But he who attacks the humble petition for alms among those who are in need and may lawfully receive, attacks Christ, who humbly sought hospitality, who also professes himself to be a beggar: attacks also Paul, who asked that collections be made for the poor Saints, and this by the will of Peter; attacks the bond of charity, which brings about sharing in the manner of giving and receiving: attacks the office of kindness, by which one in need sets forth his necessity, lest he be inhuman to himself, and stirs up another, who is able and willing, to be humane and compassionate to his neighbor; and in this no one is offended, no one is prejudiced, nothing is inordinately desired, nothing is unlawfully taken away, especially in those who do not seek the gift, but the fruit .
But he who attacks idleness, cupidity, carnality, and superfluity in other Christians and especially in religious, does well and rightly, provided however that he proceeds according to right order.
But he who universally imposes upon all the able-bodied the burden of gainful labor, from which they must sustain themselves, extends the precept of the Apostle too far, and excessively aggravates the yoke of servitude upon the servants of Christ, and delays spiritual men from spiritual occupations and labors to the peril of the salvation of souls, while he makes them more solicitous about feeding their own mortal bodies than about winning the souls of their neighbors for the Lord. If this be done, mint and cumin are tithed, and the weightier matters of the Law are neglected, judgment and mercy , corporal mercy is preferred to spiritual; and through this the body is preferred to the spirit, private advantage to common utility, which consists especially in the edification of the people of Christ, in almsgiving, in instruction and counsel for souls, to which God has sent these latter orders through the Supreme Pontiff and prelates. If anyone should say that they were not sent for these purposes, he manifestly opposes the truth, since express testimonies to this effect are found both in the rule and in the privilege and institution and approbation of this twofold order. — But if he should say they ought not to be sent: he detracts from evangelical perfection. For who is more suitable for this than he who has vowed evangelical perfection? — If anyone should say that they cannot be sent by the Pope and bishops: he derogates from apostolic authority and the power of the keys in prelates and the fullness of power in the Supreme Pontiff, who on earth, as Scripture asserts, faith perceives, laws testify, and irrefragable reasons prove, as the one and supreme head and sole bridegroom and chief hierarch, in whom resides the state of the entire Church militant, holds the place of Christ. And therefore every knee must be bent to him, of princes and prelates and clerics and laypeople and religious on earth, after the likeness of Christ in heaven, to whom every knee bends of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth . Amen.
ARTICLE III.
Whether the able-bodied poor, and especially religious, are universally bound to manual labor.
Third, for greater clarity concerning what has been said about mendicancy, it is asked whether the able-bodied poor, and especially religious, are universally bound to manual labor? And that they are is shown in a threefold way, both by reason of the obligation of nature and of the Christian religion and also of monastic profession . First it is shown from the bond of the law of nature .
1. Genesis 2: God placed man in paradise, that he might work: likewise, in chapter 3 of the same it was said to man sinning: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, etc. Therefore the precept concerning labor regards man according to nature as instituted and according to nature as fallen, therefore according to all times; but it especially regards the man who is able by himself and cannot supply through another; but such is the able-bodied poor man: therefore such a one is bound to labor manually.
2. Again, in Zechariah thirteen it is said: I am a husbandman, for Adam has been my example from my youth; Gloss: "That I may eat my bread in the sweat of my face, while he showed himself born for this, that in the sweat of his face he might eat bread"; but this most befits one who needs bread and can bear labor and sweat; and such is the able-bodied poor person: therefore he is bound to labor bodily.
3. Again, we are naturally obligated to those things without which nature cannot be sustained or preserved; but without bodily or manual labor the human race cannot be preserved in being: therefore some are necessarily obligated to this. But none except those who are fit: and such are the able-bodied poor, because they are in need and are able: therefore such persons are especially obligated.
4. Again, just as the mouth was given to man for eating, so also the hands for working; but whoever neglects to eat, when he is in need, if he is able, acts against the dictate of natural law: therefore by equal reasoning, whoever neglects to work manually, if he is in need and is able. But such is the able-bodied poor person: therefore, etc.