Note 844 — Chapter IV

Clericus quantumlibet verbo Dei eruditus, artificio victum quærat.—Conc. Carth., 4, can. 51. The example of Paul, the tentmaker, who, though asserting the right of the ministry to a support, yet “wrought with labour and travail night and day,” that he might not be chargeable to the church, will occur to the reader. Chrysostom, speaking of the rural bishops of Antioch, says: “These men you may see sometimes yoking the oxen and driving the plough, and again ascending the pulpit and cultivating the souls under their care; now uprooting the thorns from the earth with a hook, and now purging out the sins of the soul by the word.”—Hom. ad Pop. Antioch., xix. “How glorious to see the gray-haired pastor approach, like Abraham, his loins girt, digging the ground and working with his own hands.”—Hom. in Act., xviii.