Pseudo-Basil : [Of old,] it was wicked and unlawful to gather the sheaves left after the harvest, or to glean the vines after the vintage or to gather up the olives that remain after the trees were picked, because these things were to be left for the poor. Now if this was commanded those who were under the law, what shall we say of those who are in Christ? To them the Lord says, "Unless your justice abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — ON MERCY AND JUSTICE Augustine of Hippo : In relation to what the Scripture says that in the collection nobody picks up the forgotten bundle and that nobody picks up the abandoned olive or grape again, doing the gleaning of the abandoned things, because that has to be left for the poor, it is presented Maybe the interrogation, and what should be done if what the owners of the fields leave is not picked up by the poor, but by the bad ones? In the first place, it is necessary to consider that the work moved by an act of mercy abandons those things with the intention that it is for the poor what it abandons. Secondly, when these things are sent to the people, at the same time those who do not need it are recommended not to look for those abandoned things. And if they seek them, what should we think they do but take control of things from others, and, what is even more serious, of the things of the poor? With these precepts alludes to two categories of people: to the owners of the fields, so that they leave those things mercifully; to those who are not poor, so that they refrain from collecting them. Both things are said in the text: that is, who should leave them, and for whom they should be left. — QUESTIONS ON DEUTERONOMY, Q. 44 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)