Annotation CCCXVII

”He who will not work, let him not eat.” — 2 Thessalonians 3:10

Whether monks are to be compelled to provide for themselves a living by the labor of [their] hands.

Augustine, in the book On the Work of Monks, which he almost wholly consumed [spent] on the exposition of this period [passage], thus interprets this sentence of the Apostle, that he seems to teach that all monks are to be driven [compelled] to acquire for themselves, by the labor of [their] hands, the [things] necessary for their sustenance, and at the same time [that they are] to be forbidden to seek their living from the alms of the faithful. For in many places of his book, but especially in chapter 17, he refutes the monks who, being unwilling to work with [their] hands, were saying that the aforesaid precept of Paul neither pertained to them, nor could be observed by them. But he confutes them with these words: “I DESIRE to know what those do who are unwilling to work bodily — to what thing they are at leisure. ‘We are at leisure,’ they say, ‘for prayers, and psalms, and reading, and the word of God.’” Then, rejecting these four excuses as invalid — first, against that [excuse] concerning prayer, he says: “WHY do they not set aside some parts of the times for working, according to the apostolic precepts, since the prayer of one obeying is sooner heard than [that] of a thousand contemners?” Secondly, against that [excuse] concerning the occupation of psalm-singing, he says: “BUT they can easily sing the divine songs even while working with [their] hands, and console the very labor as with a divine rowing-chant [celeuma]. Or are you ignorant of the craftsmen — upon what vanities of theatrical fables they bestow their hearts and tongues, while [their] hands recede not from work? What, then, hinders the servant of God, working with [his] hands, from meditating in the law of the Lord and singing psalms — so indeed, that for the learning of those [things] which he would recall from memory, he have set-apart times?” Thirdly, to those alleging the assiduity of reading, he says: “BUT those who say they are at leisure for reading — do they not find there [in Scripture] that which the Apostle enjoins? What, then, is that perversity — to be unwilling to obey the reading, while one wishes to be at leisure for it; and, that what is good may be the longer read, for that reason to be unwilling to do what is read?” Fourthly, those who defend themselves by the exercise of divine preaching he thus convicts: “IF a discourse [sermon] is to be dispensed to someone, and he is so occupied that he cannot work with [his] hands: can all in the monastery do this? Why do all wish to be at leisure under this pretext? Although even if all could [preach], they ought to make [take] turns by vicissitude — not only that the rest might labor at the necessary [tasks] in the manner [aforesaid], but also because it suffices that one speak while many hear.”

John Calvin, [in] chapter four of the Heretical Institution,

—[chapter] four, gathers from these sayings of Augustine that it is not lawful for monks to procure their living from anywhere but from mechanical crafts, even if they be assiduous in prayers, psalmodies, and sacred studies. Which error, even before Calvin, William of Saint-Amour, John Wycliffe, and Luther professed: for these also asserted that monks who, work of the hands being omitted, procure a living for themselves by begging, are to be coerced, as enemies of the divine law, which says:¹ “There shall by no means be a needy man and a beggar among you.” This error of theirs the Council of Constance, in the eighth session, in the condemnation of Wycliffe, condemned in these words:

“The 24th article of Wycliffe thus says: ‘Let the brothers [friars] be bound to acquire a living by the labors of [their] hands, and not by begging.’ The first part of this article is scandalous, and presumptuously asserted, inasmuch as it speaks so generally and indistinctly; and the second [is] erroneous, inasmuch as it asserts that begging is not lawful for the brothers.” Thus the Council.

But the divine Augustine is so far from the opinion which the heretics preposterously gather from his sayings, that in the same volume he demonstrates — both by many reasons and by testimonies of divine scripture — that there are four kinds of monks to whom, by evangelical right, it is lawful to lead life without the labors of [their] hands, and to be sustained by the aids and oblations of others. Of these,² in the first place he sets those who devote themselves to the preaching of evangelical doctrine, and teach the word of God; because to these Christ gave the power to take the [things] necessary for sustenance from the means of [their] hearers, when, sending the apostles to preach, he says:³ “Remain in their house, eating and drinking the [things] which are among them. For the laborer is worthy of his hire.” And Paul, approving the same, in the former epistle to the Corinthians says:⁴ “The Lord ordained for those who announce the gospel, to live by the gospel.” And again: “Who ever serves as a soldier at his own charges? Who plants a vineyard, and does not eat of its fruit? Who feeds a flock, and does not eat of the milk of the flock? If we have sown spiritual [things] for you, is it a great [thing] if we reap your carnal [things]?” And in the epistle to the Galatians, imposing the same law on hearers, he says:⁵ “Let him who is catechized in the word communicate to him who catechizes him, in all good [things].” In the second place he sets those who serve the altar, or distribute the sacraments, or are detained by other ecclesiastical ministries and occupations; because concerning these Paul wrote in the same epistle to the Corinthians:⁶ “Know you not that those who work in the sacred [precinct] eat the [things] which are of the sacred [precinct]? and those who serve the altar partake with the altar? For so the Lord ordained.” The third place he assigns to sick monks, laboring either with continual or with frequent sickness; concerning whom, in the 16th chapter of that book: “On account of bodily infirmities (he says), which by no means can be lacking, the Apostle not only permits the needs of the saints to be supplied by the good faithful, but even most wholesomely exhorts [it].” In the fourth place, finally, he subjoins certain monks, delicately and splendidly reared by [their] parents, who, the world being forsaken — and [their] riches either expended upon the poor, or conferred for the support of the monastery — have chosen the monastic life. These, because, being more softly nourished, they cannot bear labor, he exempts from the exercises of craftsmen; thus writing in chapter 25 of the same work: “THOSE who, having relinquished — or distributed among the poor of Christ, with pious and wholesome humility — an ample or any kind of opulent means, have willed to be numbered [among the poor]: if they are strong in body, and are free from ecclesiastical occupations, although — [they] bringing so great a proof of their mind, and the needs of that same society [receiving] from those things which they had either very much or not a little — the common thing itself and fraternal charity owes them, in turn, the sustaining of their life; nevertheless, if they too work somewhat with [their] hands, that they may take away the excuse from the lazy who come from a humbler life [and] on this account [claim exemption from] the exercise, they act far more mercifully than when they divided all their [goods] among the needy. Which indeed, if they be unwilling [to do], who would dare to compel [them]? etc.” Again, in the 21st chapter of the same book, more briefly touching upon these four conditions of monks in few words, he speaks after this manner: “OUR brothers, if they are evangelists, if ministers of the altar, if dispensers of the sacraments, do not arrogate this to themselves, but plainly vindicate [claim] the power of not laboring. If at least they had something in this world, whereby they might easily, without craft [-labor], sustain that life — which, being converted to God, they distributed to the needy — then their infirmity is to be believed, and to be borne. For such [men] are wont, not (as many think) better, but — which is true — being more feebly reared, to be unable to sustain the labor of bodily works.” THUS Augustine: from which it appears clearer than light that he opposes the heretics, who, without any distinction, compel all the orders of monks to the labor of the hands, and forbid those who refuse to be aided by the alms of the pious.

BUT, lest the sayings of Augustine, brought forth by Calvin and other heretics, disturb anyone, it is to be known that he does not by these words impose upon all monks indiscriminately the necessity of laboring, but refutes a certain idle throng of monks, who — although with unimpaired strength they were rightly strong, and were free from the preaching of the word of God, and from the dispensation of the sacraments, and from all ecclesiastical service — nevertheless so shrank from labor that they even said it was not lawful for the servants of God, especially monks, to apply [themselves] to the works of the hands, and to be exercised in bodily crafts; but that they ought, without any cause of acquiring a living, to rest in prayers, readings, and songs alone, and to expect the necessaries of life from God, and to receive [them] from the friends of God, after the manner of the birds of heaven, and the flowers of the earth, which Christ set before his disciples to be imitated when he said:⁷ “Be not solicitous what you shall eat, or wherewith your body shall be clothed. Regard the birds of heaven, for they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labor not, neither do they spin. Be not, therefore, solicitous, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? For all these things the nations seek.” Therefore, against idle monks of this kind — who at that time in Africa were fostering this error, sprung from the Psallian, Euchite, and Massalian heretics — Augustine composed the book On the Work of Monks, in which he demonstrated three [things] especially. FIRST, that it is by no reason to be borne, that monks who, by no

—[by no] evangelical business, and [being] occupied by no ecclesiastical care, should pass an idle and inert life without any labor of the hands; since Paul, in the latter epistle to the Thessalonians, takes away from men of this kind the power of eating,⁸ saying: “When we were with you, this we declared to you: that if anyone will not work, neither let him eat. For we have heard that certain [people] among you walk disorderly, working nothing, but acting curiously [as busybodies]; but to those who are of this sort we declare, and beseech [them] in the Lord Jesus Christ, that, working with silence, they eat their own bread.” SECONDLY, he shows that to monks — even [those] occupied with the ministry of the church and the office of preaching — the crafts of artificers are not forbidden by Christ; but that they can, if they will, and if it so be expedient for the salvation of souls, sometimes procure for themselves by some craft the [things] necessary for a living, after the imitation of Paul — who, although (as he himself writes in the former [epistle] to the Corinthians)⁹ he had the power of living by the gospel without the labor of the hands, nevertheless testifies in the second [epistle] to the Thessalonians that he was unwilling to use that power, but lived by mechanical work, that he might present himself as an example of laboring voluntarily. For thus in that epistle he addresses them: “You yourselves know how it behooves [you] to imitate us: since we were not in idleness among you, neither did we eat bread of anyone for nothing, but in labor and fatigue, working night and day, lest we should burden any of you: not as if we had not the power, but that we might give ourselves as a pattern to you for imitation.”¹⁰ THIRDLY, he rejects the excuses of idle monks, painted over [disguised] with a perverse interpretation of the scriptures. For [as] to that which they say — that our Savior commanded the apostles to live after the manner of the birds, without any solicitude — Augustine shows that it was not said by Christ for this reason: to lead away his disciples from honest labor of the hands to idleness and sloth, the seed-bed of all evils; but that he might instruct them, lest by the solicitude of acquiring a living they should forsake the evangelical vocation — [they] fearing lest, being detained in the apostolic ministry, the providence of the most high Father should be lacking to them; who, since he feeds the birds — [which] work nothing at all — for nothing, why should he not nourish his sons, laboring in the work of God? The aim, therefore, of Augustine in the book On the Work of Monks is not that which the heretics boast — namely, that monks be relegated to the workshops of craftsmen — but that idle monks, and those who think the labors of artificers forbidden to them, be recalled from base idleness to honest business. Thus far concerning the labor of the hands.

THERE REMAINS now that passage cited from Deuteronomy — namely,¹¹ “There shall not be a needy man and a beggar among you” — which the heretics, with wrenched neck [violently], drag against religious mendicancy. To this two Thomases brought two pious explanations: [Thomas] Aquinas, and [Thomas] Waldensis. Of these, the latter [Waldensis], in the work which he inscribed On the Doctrine of the Ancient Faith, in the fourth book of the second tome, says that those words are not prohibitory, but promissory — that is, that by these God does not forbid begging, but promises to the Jews (if, however, they keep the law) so great an affluence of riches, that no one among them will be needy and a beggar. Which exposition those promises prove to be true, which Moses immediately sub- joins to the aforesaid words, saying: “The Lord will bless thee, as he has promised. Thou shalt lend to many nations, and thyself shalt take a loan from none. Thou shalt rule over very many nations, and no one shall rule over thee, etc.” But the divine Thomas [Aquinas], in the Secunda Secundae, question 187, article 5, more aptly and (as I judge) more genuinely elucidating the same passage, holds that by that sentence a pious and just begging is not forbidden, but that the rich are restrained, lest they be so tenacious of their riches that, for that cause, the poor be reduced to extreme want, and driven to compelled beggary. See above, Annotations 18, 147, and 192.