3. The main purpose for you having come together is to live harmoniously in your house, intent upon God in oneness of mind and heart.
4. Call nothing your own, but let everything be yours in common. Food and clothing shall be distributed to each of you by your superior, not equally to all, for all do not enjoy equal health, but rather according to each one’s need. For so you read in the Acts of the Apostles that they had all things in common and distribution was made to each one according to each one’s need (4:32,35).
5. Those who owned something in the world should be careful in wanting to share it in common once they have entered the monastery.
6. But they who owned nothing should not look for those things in the monastery that they were unable to have in the world. Nevertheless, they are to be given all that their health requires even if, during their time in the world, poverty made it impossible for them to find the very necessities of life. And those should not consider themselves fortunate because them have found the kind of food and clothing which they were unable to find in the world.
9. Let all of you then live together in oneness of mind and heart, mutually honoring God in yourselves, whose temples you have become.
Chapter 1 – Purpose and Basis of Common Life
