Chapter VI.
The reason why the clothes of the renunciants with which
they joined the monastery are preserved by the steward.
But
those clothes, which
he laid aside, are consigned to the care of the steward and kept until
by different sorts of temptations and trials they can recognize the
excellence of his progress and life and endurance. And if they see that
he can continue therein as time goes on, and remain in that fervour
with which he began, they give them away to the poor. But if they find
that he has been guilty of any fault of murmuring, or of even the
smallest piece of disobedience, then they strip off from him the dress
of the monastery in which he had been clad, and reclothe him in his old
garments which had been confiscated, and send him away.
760
For it is not right for him to go away with
those which he had received, nor do they allow any one to be any longer
dressed in them if they have seen him once grow cold in regard to the
rule of their institution. Wherefore, also, the opportunity of going
out openly is not given to any one, unless he escapes like a runaway
slave by taking advantage of the thickest shades of night, or is judged
unworthy of this order and profession and lays aside the dress of the
monastery and is expelled with shame and disgrace before all the
brethren.
760
See the quotation from
the Rule of S. Benedict in the note on the last chapter.