Better is the life of a poor man in a mean cottage, than delicate fare in another man's house.
All Commentaries on Wisdom of Sirach 29:22 Go To Wisdom of Sirach 29
Rabanus Maurus
AD 856
According to the literal sense it is more agreeable to take a frugal but secure meal under the roof of a shack than to seek splendid banquets but in uncertain circumstances and at the price of enormous effort and excessive worry. Allegorically, the food of the spiritual sense that the poor people of the church obtain under the humble roof of the letters of catholic unity is better than the ambitious delicacies of philosophical dogmas, enclosed as they are by philosophers or heretics in the various books of the rhetoricians in the form of errors or hypotheses, instead of in respect for the truth. These latter involve huge labors and excessive worries and are of little use. Paul says on this theme, "They are always learning, without ever arriving at a knowledge of the truth." In fact, "God has shown the wisdom of this world to be foolish," and "the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in virtue."
