The measure of alms; the third objection, from security; the primitive church and the schisms

As to the quantity of the gift, as to the freedom of the giving, and as to the long duration of the time, it is clear that those who live without propertyexproprietarii / exproprietarie: the propertyless / without property in a perpetual religion give the most generous and best-ordered almselemosina: alms; for, first, they "have pity on their own soul, pleasing God", and, second, doing spiritual works of mercy to the whole world by force of the communion of saints, they profit the churchecclesia: church more, to the honour of God, than a secularecclesia laycalis / secularis: the lay church / the secular church who heaps up any amount of temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods for a private house devised according to a religion other than the gospel’s.¹ Hence God forbid that a believer should believe that the quantity of the giver’s alms is reckoned in proportion to the quantity of the bulk or the value of what is given in the world’s market, since it can be that an infinitely greater alms is worth however much less in the world’s market.² 288For then the apostles would have made too sparing alms, and worldly men would be exalted above the leading religiousreligiosi: the religious in merit, and occasion would be given to seculars to seek and to keep the goods of fortune inordinately, so that at the end, by making a great testament, they might give a great alms to an abbey or to the clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric; for it is certain that a wayfarerviator: wayfarer is to be beatified in the homelandvia / patria: the way / the homeland in proportion to his alms or work of mercy.³

Hence logicians know how, any alms being given, there is another greater; and that other is an alms greater than the former by any amount whatever. Hence it can be that a drink of cold water is a greater alms, for one who gives it with a simpler eye and with greater fervour of charitycaritas: charity, than was the endowmentdotacio: endowment with which Constantine endowed the church, or the alms with which an earthly king founded a very great abbey.⁴ For unless the spiritual work of mercy outweighed the bodily, as this course of the church stands, secular lords would be too much exalted in heaven and apostolic men too moderately rewarded. And [the answer] is clear to the question that asks to whom seculars should give alms, if not to the clergy: for they are bound to give to them prudently as much as would sustain their privilegesprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging given by Christ and continue their disposition to repay spiritual alms. And other alms they should give in bodily form to those more needy.⁵ Hence if, out of blind pietypietas / pie: piety / piously and false mercy, they overload the clergy with civil possession, it happens that they thereby fall into excommunication and heresy, by reason of the taking away of the primeval privilege granted by Christ to his disciples, as the canon Omnes in distinction 22 recalls.⁶ And so I grant that the endowment of the church was meritorious on either side, but the endowment and state in which Christ 289instituted it was more perfect. Hence it is likely that many, from lack of the serpent’s prudence, have been damned on either side in that alms of the church; and a longer-lasting alms is more excellent than a briefer one, but no one says that the long duration of an alms is to be reckoned, as a rule, by the form of duration expressed in charters, since it can be that an hour’s alms of fraternal correction remains perpetually in its fruit, where a charter alms expressed under the name of perpetuity is extinguished within a year, both in the substance of the alms and in its fruit.⁷ So, then, one who gives alms prudently, fervently and little by little grows continually more, and adds on alms more, than, other things being equal, he would by giving all at once under the sign of perpetual alms; because the fervour of charity and the watchful keeping of the alms that is to be set right would be meritoriously preserved.⁸

Third, principally, it is argued by appeal toarguitur per: it is argued by appeal to this, that alms ought to be given in such a way that a greater utility would accrue to the line of seculars giving the alms, and a security more stirring to the vigilant performance of the clerical office would accrue to the line of clergy receiving the alms; now who doubts that this would come about under the form of perpetual endowment? Therefore that is more excellent than temporary endowment.⁹

To this the answer is that what is assumed [in the major] is true; hence, as to the minor, every Christian ought to believe that in temporal goods a temporary endowment, with the sign of the perpetuity of human alms excluded, would be in every respect more perfect: and the defect of the inferenceconsequencia: inference is clear.¹⁰ Hence, for the declaration of the first part of the major [premiss] assumed, its truth is clear from what has been said, since such almsgiving would be more conformed to the deeds of Christ and of the apostles, and consequently more useful to the almsgiverelemosinans: almsgiver. Hence in Acts 4:34–35 we read how the owners of lands sold and laid [the price] before the feet of the apostles, not that they should possess hereditarily or perpetually, but that distribution should be made to every one according as he had 290need.¹¹ Nor was that form of giving alms kept only in Judaea, where God knew that the apostles would not remain forever, but in Asia, in India, in Ethiopia, and wherever in the world Christians were converted and presbyterssacerdos / presbiter: priest / presbyter appointed; but without doubt those [gave theirs] with greater fervour of charity, with greater prudence and simplicity, than our successors, who gave theirs under the form of perpetual endowment; and that primitive converted church was quieter and more firmly established in the peace of Christ than was our caesarean church so endowed.¹²

Hence that great schism made by Sergius the monk, as also that schism which is sprouting today through two false monks, together with other particular divisions in the church, were caused by the clergy’s insatiable affection for temporal goods, which very likely they would not have except on the occasion of the caesarean endowment. For if that endowment did not exist, they would not so contend for the primacy, since there is no contention about pre-eminence in servile humility.¹³