Q594
Is there not a still higher virtue, contrary to the sins against the Eighth Commandment?
Such a virtue is voluntary poverty, the renunciation of all property, which the Gospel proposes not as a duty for all, but as a counsel for those who would be perfect: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, give it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me” (Mat 19:21; see Q442). It was upon hearing this very Gospel read in church that St Anthony the Great, the father of monks, went out and gave away his inheritance, and embraced the life of prayer in the desert, showing that the counsel is not a dead letter, but a living call (St Athanasius the Great, Life of Anthony, 2–3; see Q033, Q095).
