Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing?
All Commentaries on Matthew 6:25 Go To Matthew 6
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Or we may understand the soul in this place to be put for the animal life.
De Haeres., 57: There are certain heretics called Euchitae , who hold that a monk may not do any work even for his support; who embrace this profession that they may be freed from necessity of daily labour.
De Op. Monach. 1 et seq.: For they say the Apostle did not speak of personal labour, such as that of husbandmen or craftsmen, when he said, “Who will notwork, neither let him eat.” , where it is said, that he abode with Aquila and his wife Priscilla, “labouring with them, for they were tent-makers. "And yet to the Apostle, as a preacher of the Gospel, a soldier of Christ, a planter of the vineyard, a shepherd of his flock, the Lord had appointed that he should live of the Gospel, but he refused that payment which was justly his due, that he might present himself an example to those who exacted what was not due to them. Let those hear this who have not that power which he had; namely, of eating bread for nought, and only labouring with spiritual labour. If indeed they be Evangelists, if ministers of the Altar, if dispensers of the Sacraments, they have this power. Or if they had in this world possessions, whereby they might without labour have supported themselves, and had on their turning to God distributed this to the needy, then were their infirmity to be believed and to be borne with. And it would not import whatever place it was in which he made the distribution, seeing there is but one commonwealth of allChristians.But they who enter the profession of God's service from the country life, from the workman’s craft, or the common labour, if they work not, are not to be excused. For it is by no means fitting that in that life in which senators become labourers, there should labouring men become idle; or that where lords of farms come having given up their luxuries, there should rustic slaves come to find luxury.
