bags, and hadst that in which Thou couldest suffer from the thief. If Thou hadst not carried them, neither could he have found anything to take away.” What remains, but that he here saith to me, “Understand what that thou hearest, ‘Carry no purse,’ means? What is a purse? Money shut up, that is, concealed wisdom. What is, ‘Carry no purse? Be not wise within your own selves only.3285 Receive ye the Holy Ghost.’ It should be a fountain in thee, not a purse; from whence distribution is made to others, not where it is itself shut in.” And the scrip is the same as the purse. 7. What are “the shoes”? The shoes which we use, are the skins of dead beasts, the cov- erings of our feet. By this then are we bidden to renounce dead works. This Moses was ad- monished of in a figure, when the Lord speaking to him said, “Loose thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place wherein thou standest is holy ground.”3286 What ground is so holy as the Church of God? In it therefore let us stand, let us loose our shoes, let us, that is, renounce dead works. For as touching these shoes, wherewith we walk, the same my Lord again assures me. For if He had not been shod Himself, John would not have said of Him, “I am not worthy to unloose the latchet of His shoes.”3287 Be there obedience then, let not a haughty severity steal over us. “I,” says one, “fulfil the Gospel, because I walk with naked feet.” Well, thou canst do it, I cannot. But let us both keep that which we both receive together. How? Let us glow with charity, let us love one another; and so it shall be, that I will love your strength, and thou shall bear my weakness. 8. But what thinkest thou, who dost not choose to understand in what sense these words are used, and who art forced by thy3288 perverse interpretation to slander even the Lord Himself as to the “bags” and “shoes;” what thinkest thou? Does it please thee then, that as we meet our friends in the way, we should neither pay them our salutations if they are our betters, nor return the salutations of our inferiors? What, dost thou fulfil the Gospel, because thou art saluted, and art silent? But thus thou wilt not be like to the traveller going on the way, but to the milestone pointing out the way. Let us then lay aside this coarse3289 inter- pretation, and understand aright the words of the Lord, “and salute no man by the way.” For it is not without a cause that we are enjoined this, nor would He mislike us to do what He enjoined. What then is, “Salute no man by the way”? It might indeed be even simply taken thus, that He has commanded us to do what He enjoins with all speed; and that His words “Salute no man by the way,” are as though He had said, “Put all other things by, till ye accomplish what has been enjoined you;” according to that style of speaking by which 3285 Rom. xii. 16. 3286 Exod. iii. 5. 3287 Luke iii. 16. 3288 Praviter. 3289 Stoliditatem. 884 On the words of the Gospel, Luke x. 2, ‘The harvest truly is plenteous,’…