In the "Ancient Patericon"4 there is an incident showing that the saints strictly remembered this position (that non-acquisitiveness is higher than almsgiving).

"Someone asked the elder to accept money for his needs. He did not want to accept it, being content with his needlework. When he did not cease to beg the elder to accept the money, even for the needs of the poor, he answered:

"There will be a twofold shame here: I accept needlessly and I am vain with someone else's giving."

Knowing the height of the virtue of non-acquisitiveness and its superiority over almsgiving, the devil builds temptations for ascetics on this.

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"The demon of the love of money fights with the non-acquisitive, and when he cannot overcome them," says St. John Climacus,5 "then, presenting them with the poor, under the guise of mercy, he exhorts them to become material again from immaterial."

And often he succeeds in this and leads into ruin even persons6 of a high spiritual life.

But all of the above, I will add, refers to true ascetics who completely devoted themselves to Christ and solitary prayer for themselves and for the whole world. "But whoever is busy with the affairs of life, who works with his own hands and takes from others himself, is all the more obliged to give alms. And if he does not care for almsgiving, then this lack of mercy is opposition to the Lord's commandment. For if someone does not draw near to God in secret [i.e., by pure prayerful contemplation and work of the mind and heart] and does not know how to serve Him in spirit, but does not care about the manifest deeds that are possible for him, then what hope will he have to gain life for himself? Such a person is meaningless."7

From this it can be seen that Christianity is against professional begging,8 although Christ constantly taught to care for the poor (Matt. 19:21; 26:9; Mk. 10:21; 14:5; Lk. 14:13; 16:20; 19:8; Jn. 13:29; Acts 4:34).* (*But the pagan world tolerated this abnormal social phenomenon, believing that the gods themselves protected the poor and took revenge on their offenders. Cf. Homer, Odyssey, Ode 17, 475, Ode 18.)

II. How can we accustom ourselves to voluntary poverty for Christ's sake?

"No one can acquire real non-acquisitiveness unless he convinces and prepares himself to endure temptations with joy. And no one can endure temptations, except the one who is convinced that for the sorrows for which he has prepared himself to participate, he can accept something that surpasses bodily peace. For this reason, in everyone who has prepared himself for non-acquisitiveness, love for sorrows is first aroused, and then the thought comes to him not to be acquisitive in relation to the things of this world. And everyone who draws near to tribulation is first strengthened by faith, and then draws near to tribulations. Who renounces

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material, but does not renounce the efficacy of the senses, meaning sight and hearing, he will prepare for himself a great sorrow and will be in great distress and sorrow. It would be better to say: What is the use of depriving oneself of sensible things, and delighting the senses with them? For from the passions produced by these things a man suffers the same thing that he formerly endured when he actually possessed them, because the remembrance of the habit of them does not go out of his thoughts. And if mental representations of things without the things themselves reproduce in man a morbid feeling, what shall we say of a real approach to them? Thus, the hermitage is beautiful, because it contributes much [to the attainment of non-acquisitiveness], strongly tames thoughts, by the very existence of solitude it imbues us with strength and teaches us great patience in the necessary sorrows that befall a person."9

Thus, we see continuity in the virtues. Everything is arranged by God in such a way that the path of salvation for man is not difficult and arduous, and so that he can gradually ascend from one virtue to another, a higher one, "and find relief for himself in this, and in this way the very sorrows endured for the sake of good will be made pleasant, as something good".10