br.) "is a most effective remedy
in repentance." Now poverty excludes almsgiving. Therefore it would
seem that poverty does not pertain to religious perfection.

_On the contrary,_ Gregory says (Moral. viii, 26): "There are some of
the righteous who bracing themselves up to lay hold of the very
height of perfection, while they aim at higher objects within,
abandon all things without." Now, as stated above, (AA. 1, 2), it
belongs properly to religious to brace themselves up in order to lay
hold of the very height of perfection. Therefore it belongs to them
to abandon all outward things by voluntary poverty.

_I answer that,_ As stated above (A. 2), the religious state is an
exercise and a school for attaining to the perfection of charity. For
this it is necessary that a man wholly withdraw his affections from
worldly things; since Augustine says (Confess. x, 29), speaking to
God: "Too little doth he love Thee, who loves anything with Thee,
which he loveth not for Thee." Wherefore he says (QQ. lxxxiii, qu.
36) that "greater charity means less cupidity, perfect charity means
no cupidity." Now the possession of worldly things draws a man's mind
to the love of them: hence Augustine says (Ep. xxxi ad Paulin. et
Theras.) that "we are more firmly attached to earthly things when we
have them than when we desire them: since why did that young man go
away sad, save because he had great wealth? For it is one thing not
to wish to lay hold of what one has not, and another to renounce what
one already has; the former are rejected as foreign to us, the latter
are cut off as a limb." And Chrysostom says (Hom. lxiii in Matth.)
that "the possession of wealth kindles a greater flame and the desire
for it becomes stronger."

Hence it is that in the attainment of the perfection of charity the
first foundation is voluntary poverty, whereby a man lives without
property of his own, according to the saying of our Lord (Matt.
19:21), "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all [Vulg.: 'what'] thou
hast, and give to the poor . . . and come, follow Me."

Reply Obj. 1: As the gloss adds, "when the Apostle said this (namely
'not that you should be burthened,' i.e. with poverty)," he did not
mean that "it were better not to give: but he feared for the weak,
whom he admonished so to give as not to suffer privation." Hence in
like manner the other gloss means not that it is unlawful to renounce
all one's temporal goods, but that this is not required of n