if you will be perfect, go out with Abraham from your country and from your kindred, and go whither you know not. If you have substance, sell it and give to the poor. If you have none, then are you free from a great burden. Being yourself naked, follow a naked Christ [nudum Christum, nudus sequere]. The task is a hard one, it is great and difficult; but the reward is also great.[Letter 125]
For the present I will content myself by suggesting to your discretion that you should bear in mind the apostle's words: Are you bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife that is, seek not that binding which is contrary to loosing. He who has contracted the obligations of marriage, is bound, and he who is bound is a slave; on the other hand he who is loosed is free. Since therefore you rejoice in the freedom of Christ, since your life is better than your profession, since you are all but on the housetop of which the Saviour speaks; you ought not to come down to take your clothes, you ought not to look behind you, you ought not having put your hand to the plough, then to let it go. Rather, if you can, imitate Joseph and leave your garment in the hand of your Egyptian mistress, that naked you may follow your Lord and Saviour [ut nudus sequaris Dominum Salvatorem]. For in the gospel He says: Whosoever does not leave all that he has and bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Cast from you the burden of the things of this world, and seek not those riches which in the gospel are compared to the humps of camels. Naked and unencumbered fly up to heaven; masses of gold will but impede the wings of your virtue. I do not speak thus because I know you to be covetous, but because I have a notion that your object in remaining so long in the army is to fill that purse which the Lord has commanded you to empty. For they who have possessions and riches are bidden to sell all that they have and to give to the poor and then to follow the Saviour. Thus if your worship is rich already you ought to fulfil the command and sell your riches; or if you are still poor you ought not to amass what you will have to pay away.[Letter 145]
As for you, when you hear the Saviour's counsel: if you will be perfect, go and sell that you have, and give to the poor, and come follow me, you translate his words into action; and making yourself naked to follow the naked cross [nudam crucem nudus sequems] you mount Jacob's ladder the easier for carrying nothing [Letter 58]
Once upon a time a rich young man boasted that he had fulfilled all the requirements of the law, but the Lord said to him (as we read in the gospel): One thing you lack, if you will be perfect, go your way, sell whatsoever you have, and give to the poor; and come and follow me. [Mark 10:21] He who declared that he had done all things gave way at the first onset to the power of riches. Wherefore they who are rich find it hard to enter the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom which desires for its citizens souls that soar aloft free from all ties and hindrances. Go your way, the Lord says, and sell not a part of your substance but all that you have, and give to the poor; not to your friends or kinsfolk or relatives, not to your wife or to your children. I will even go farther and say: keep back nothing for yourself because you fear to be some day poor, lest by so doing you share the condemnation of Ananias and Sapphira; but give everything to the poor and make to yourself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that they may receive you into everlasting habitations. Obey the Master's injunction follow me, and take the Lord of the world for your possession; that you may be able to sing with the prophet, The Lord is my portion, and like a true Levite may possess no earthly inheritance. I cannot but advise you thus if you wish to be perfect, if you desire to attain the pinnacle of the apostles' glory, if you wish to take up your cross and to follow Christ. When once you have put your hand to the plough you must not look back; when once you stand on the housetop you must think no more of your clothes within; to escape your Egyptian mistress you must abandon the cloak that belongs to this world. Even Elijah, in his quick translation to heaven could not take his mantle with him, but left in the world the garments of the world. Such conduct, you will object, is for him who would emulate the apostles, for the man who aspires to be perfect. But why should not you aspire to be perfect? Why should not you who hold a foremost place in the world hold a foremost place also in Christ's household? Is it because you have been married? [Letter 118]
But you will hear the Lord reply: “The one who is able to perform such a thing, let him do so,” “If you want to be perfect, go, sell all that you possess,” etc. In saying, “If you want to be perfect,” He does not make this burden a requirement, but allows freedom to pursue either course regarding children. Do you want to be perfect and raise yourself to the highest level of virtue? Imitate the apostles, sell everything you have, give to the poor, and follow the Lord. Separated from all creatures and stripped of everything that you own in the world, follow Him bare, with only a cross. Or, are you content not to be perfect, and to remain in the second-highest level of virtue? Then abandon everything you have, and give it to your children and parents. No one will rebuke you, if you follow this lesser way, provided that you also agree that it is fair that you defer to one whose way tends toward perfection.
You will want to tell me that such sublime virtue is for the men and apostles, but it is impossible for a refined woman, who needs a thousand things to maintain her way of life. Hear therefore what the apostle Paul says: “I do not mean that others are helped and that you are overburdened, but that, to relieve inequality, your abundance compensates for their poverty, so that your poverty is also relieved by their abundance.” That is why the Lord says in the Gospel, “Whoever has two coats, let him give to him who has none.”
Now, if we lived among the ice of Scythia and the snow of the Alps, where not only two and three coats, but even the animal-skins are scarcely sufficient protection from the harsh cold climate, would we be obliged to strip ourselves to clothe others? We must understand “coat” to mean all that is necessary to clothe us and provide what is naturally required, since we are born naked. And by “the provisions of a single day” is meant, whatever is necessary to feed ourselves. In this sense we fathom the commandment in the Gospel, “Do not worry about tomorrow,” that is, about the future, and the apostle’s statement, “While we have food and covering, we must be content.” [Letter 120]
When Nepotian laid aside his baldrick and changed his dress, he bestowed upon the poor all the pay that he had received. For he had read the words: if you will be perfect, sell that you have, and give to the poor and follow me, and again: ye cannot serve two masters, God and Mammon. He kept nothing for himself but a common tunic and cloak to cover him and to keep out the cold. [Letter 60]
I think it unnecessary to warn you against covetousness since it is the way of your family both to have riches and to despise them. The apostle too tells us that covetousness is idolatry, and to one who asked the Lord the question: Good Master what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? He thus replied: If you will be perfect, go and sell that you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me. Such is the climax of complete and apostolic virtue— to sell all that one has and to distribute to the poor, and thus freed from all earthly encumbrance to fly up to the heavenly realms with Christ. [Letter 130]
It is important to note that this association between Mark 10:17 - 31 and 'naked with naked' continues into the Middle Ages. I am certain if we dig deeply enough in the monastic literature of the time we will continue to find interesting things. Giles Constable, writing in his Nudus Nudum Christum Sequi and Parallel Formulas in the Twelfth Century notes of only one such example "in the commentary on 1 John by Hugh of St Cher, who, after citing the injunction to "go sell what thou hast and give to the poor and come follow Me ... added, as if it were part of the Gospel text, 'nudus scilicet nudum.' This conflation exemplifies the association of the formula nudus nudum with the Biblical commands to follow Christ and helps to explain its popularity and prominence in the new evangelical piety of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries."
Who knew there was a St. Cher?
