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Communicative Life

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Ecclesiastical writers, in describing the habits of monks, distinguish between vita communicativa and vita renunciativa. The usual plan was for candidates to take a solemn vow of poverty, and consequently to renounce the world by disposing of their estates to charitable uses, before they entered into a community, where they were to have all things in common. Others kept their estates in their own hands, and yet enjoyed no more of them than if they had passed over to others; for they distributed their whole yearly revenue to the poor, and to such uses as the daily necessities of men required. The latter was called the communicative life. — Farrar, Eccl. Dictionary, s.v.; Bingham, Orig. Ecclesiastes 7:3; Ecclesiastes 7:9.