o
his contemplation." Accordingly it is clear that a religious order
directed to the bodily actions of the active life, such as soldiering
or the lodging of guests, would be imperfect if it lacked common
riches; whereas those religious orders which are directed to the
contemplative life are the more perfect, according as the poverty
they profess burdens them with less care for temporal things. And the
care of temporal things is so much a greater obstacle to religious
life as the religious life requires a greater care of spiritual
things.

Now it is manifest that a religious order established for the purpose
of contemplating and of giving to others the fruits of one's
contemplation by teaching and preaching, requires greater care of
spiritual things than one that is established for contemplation only.
Wherefore it becomes a religious order of this kind to embrace a
poverty that burdens one with the least amount of care. Again it is
clear that to keep what one has acquired at a fitting time for one's
necessary use involves the least burden of care. Wherefore a
threefold degree of poverty corresponds to the three aforesaid
degrees of religious life. For it is fitting that a religious order
which is directed to the bodily actions of the active life should
have an abundance of riches in common; that the common possession of
a religious order directed to contemplation should be more moderate,
unless the said religious be bound, either themselves or through
others, to give hospitality or to assist the poor; and that those who
aim at giving the fruits of their contemplation to others should have
their life most exempt from external cares; this being accomplished
by their laying up the necessaries of life procured at a fitting
time. This, our Lord, the Founder of poverty, taught by His example.
For He had a purse which He entrusted to Judas, and in which were
kept the things that were offered to Him, as related in John 12:6.

Nor should it be argued that Jerome (Super Matth. xvii, 26) says: "If
anyone object that Judas carried money in the purse, we answer that
He deemed it unlawful to spend the property of the poor on His own
uses," namely by paying the tax--because among those poor His
disciples held a foremost place, and the money in Christ's purse was
spent chiefly on their needs. For it is stated (John 4:8) that "His
disciples were gone into the city to buy meats," and (John 13:29)
that the disciples "thought, because