The Book of Spiritual Poverty
Translated by J. R. Morell
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The opening
In the first place, this book teacheth how poverty is a (state of) being withdrawn (detached) from all creatures.
This Book teacheth how we should follow the poor, despised, painful life of our Lord Jesu Christ, and, first, how Poverty is a state of Being detached from all creatures.
POVERTY is a likeness with God. What is God? God is a Being, withdrawn from all creatures, a free power, a pure working. So also poverty is an existence withdrawn from all creatures. What is the meaning of withdrawn? What doth not adhere to anything. Poverty adheres to nothing, and nothing adheres to it.
It might be said in answer: All things adhere to something, for all things are contained by something;—to what then doth a poor man adhere or hold on? A poor man adhereth to nothing that is under him, and only to Him who is raised above all things. St. Augustine saith: “The best of all things, that is, God.” And this is what poverty seeketh, to which it adhereth, and to nothing else. And this is also the supreme nobleness of poverty, that it adheres only to the very highest, and entirely leaves the lowest as far as it is possible.
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About this edition
- The words
- J. R. Morell's English translation, copied word for word.
- Copied from
- Left out
- Notes and pages added by translators, editors or publishers, in 4 places
- The title page and opening pages before chapter 1, in 2 places
- A preface, foreword or afterword
- The printed table of contents (the app makes its own)
- The index