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268 Peter then continues with excellent advice for the young noblewoman, exhorting her to deeds of mercy and kindness, and warning her against the enjoyment of revenues wrung from the poor. Indeed Damiani's writings contain much that still is wise. His advice to the great and noble of the world was admirable, and though couched in austere phrase, it demanded what many men feel bound to fulfil in the twentieth century. His little work on Almsgiving contains sentences which might be spoken to-day. He has been pointing out that no one can be exercising the ascetic virtues all the time: no one can be always praying and fasting, washing feet and subjecting the body to pain. Some people, moreover, shun such self-castigation. But one can always be benevolent; and, though fearing to afflict the body, can stretch forth his hand in charity: "Those then who are rich should seek to be dispensers rather than possessors. They ought not to regard what they have as their own: for they did not receive this transitory wealth in order to revel in luxury, but that they should administer it so long as they continue in their stewardship. Whoever gives to the poor does not distribute his own but restores another's."

This sounds modern—it also sounds like Seneca. Yet Damiani was no modern man, nor was he antique, but very fearful of the classics. Having been a rhetorician and grammarian, when he became a hermit-monk he made Christ his grammar (mea grammatica Christus est).