{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/211/2110504.htm","path":"chr/ecf/211/2110504.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/211/2110504.htm","text":"How we should understand these words: \u201cIt is more blessed to give than to receive.\u201d\nAnd he says that this is a command of the Lord: \u201cFor He Himself,\u201d namely the Lord p. 273 Jesus, said he, \u201csaid it is more blessed to give than to receive.\u201d That is, the bounty of the giver is more blessed than the need of the receiver, where the gift is not supplied from money that has been kept back through unbelief or faithlessness, nor from the stored-up treasures of avarice, but is produced from the fruits of our own labour and honest toil. And so \u201cit is more blessed to give than to receive,\u201d because while the giver shares the poverty of the receiver, yet still he is diligent in providing with pious care by his own toil, not merely enough for his own needs, but also what he can give to one in want; and so he is adorned with a double grace, since by giving away all his goods he secures the perfect abnegation of Christ, and yet by his labour and thought displays the generosity of the rich; thus honouring God by his honest labours, and plucking for him the fruits of his righteousness, while another, enervated by sloth and indolent laziness, proves himself by the saying of the Apostle unworthy of food, as in defiance of his command he takes it in idleness, not without the guilt of sin and of obstinacy.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XI: The Works of John Cassian.: Chapter XIX. How we should understand these words: \u201cIt is more blessed to give than to receive.\u201d","type":"page"}