Annotation LXXXVI

”Go, and sell all that thou hast,” etc. — Matthew 19:21

On monastic vows.

Thomas Cajetan, in the explanation of this passage, Ambrose [Catharinus], bishop of Compsa, confutes — [on the ground] that he thought ill concerning the vows of religious. For thus he writes, in the second book of [his] Annotations: “I judged that [statement] to be altogether disapproved and exploded, which Cajetan says on Matthew chapter 19: ‘Attend, prudent reader, that no vow is enjoined by Jesus upon one wishing to attain the perfection of life; because the attainment of perfection consists not in the bonds of vows, but in works.’ On Luke also, chapter 14, he writes thus: ‘To renounce all that we possess is commanded by Christ, as [to those] professing the perfection of the apostolic life; and I understand “to renounce” [to mean] by deed — whatever be [the case] concerning a vow. For that is the true renunciation which we read of in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the holy ancient fathers — Ambrose, Antony, Paul, Benedict.’” These same [things] he confirms there and elsewhere — [things] which manifestly assist the Lutheran and Erasmian doctrine; wherefore they are to be utterly overthrown. First, then, against these [stands] the opinion of Augustine, who writes thus of the Apostles: “For those powerful [men] had said, ‘Behold, we have left all and followed thee.’ This vow they had vowed most powerfully; but whence [came] this to them, except from Him of whom it is said just here, ‘[He who] gives the vow to the one vowing’?” Gregory, on Ezekiel, teaches thus: “When anyone vows to almighty God all that he lives [by], all that he tastes [of], it is a holocaust”; and [he says] that this pertains to those who forsake the present world. Whoever, therefore, denies that the Apostles did this, denies also that they forsook the world.