03-08# The Rule of our Holy Father Benedict. Chapter 31: Concerning the Cellarer of the Monastery, What Sort of a Person He Should Be
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To be cellarer of the monastery let there be chosen from the community a wise man of mature character, sober, not greedy, not haughty, not turbulent, not unfair, not slothful, not wasteful, but God-fearing, one who may be as a father to the whole community. Let him take care of everything: let him do nothing without the abbot’s orders. Let him take heed to what is commanded him: let him not embitter the brethren. If by any chance any brother asks anything from him unreasonably, let him not embitter him by contemptuously refusing, but let him with reasoning and humility refuse him who is asking amiss. Of his own soul let him take heed, mindful always of that apostolic saying that: “He who shall have ministered well acquires for himself a good degree.” Let him take care of the sick, the children, the guests and the poor, with all solicitude, knowing without doubt that for all these he will have to render account in the day of judgment. Let him regard all the vessels of the monastery as if they were consecrated vessels of the altar; and so with the whole of its property. Let him appraise nothing as negligible, neither have regard to avarice, nor yet be wasteful and a squanderer of the property of the monastery: but let him do everything in moderation and according to his abbot’s orders.