On poverty, and on trampling down covetousness. By monks, to whom the world is crucified, and they to the world, for Christ's sake (Gal. 6:14), covetousness is to be trampled down: for indeed it is damnable for them not only to possess superfluous things, but even to wish to; for it is not their wealth, but their will, that is sought. They who, leaving all things and following Christ the Lord with the cross of daily fear, have treasures in heaven (Matt. 19:21). Therefore, since they are to possess much in heaven, they ought to be content on earth with a small and meager provision of necessity; knowing that covetousness is a leprosy to monks, the imitators of the sons of the prophets; and the betrayal and ruin of the disciples of Christ; and death to the wavering followers of the apostles as well.
Therefore nakedness and contempt of possessions is the first perfection of monks; but the second is the purgation of vices; the third the most perfect, continual love of God, and unceasing love of divine things, which succeeds to the forgetting of earthly things. Since this is so, few things are needful for us, according to the word of the Lord (Luke 10:42), or even one. For few are the things that are truly necessary, without which there is no getting on, or even one—as it were, food according to the letter; but we have need of purity of perception through the grace of God, that we may understand spiritually what those few things of charity are which were suggested to Martha by the Lord.