And that is what Lucan refers to in his fifth book, when he commends the security of poverty, saying: O safe condition of poverty! O narrow habitations and hovels! O riches of the Gods not yet understood! At what times and at what walls could it happen, the not being afraid of any noise, when the hand of Caesar was knocking? And this says Lucan, when he describes how Caesar came by night to the hut of the fisherman Amyclas, to pass the Adrian Sea.” ↩

  • St. Francis, according to Butler, Lives of the Saints , X 78, used to say that “he possessed nothing of earthly goods, being a disciple of Him who, for our sakes, was born a stranger in an open stable, lived without a place of his own wherein to lay his head, subsisting by the charity of good people, and died naked on a cross in the close embraces of holy poverty.” ↩

1626