26. That, namely, befalleth
them which in undisciplined younger widows, the same Apostle saith
must be avoided: “And withal they learn to be idle; and not only
idle, but also busy bodies and full of words, speaking what they
ought not.”2562
This very
thing said he concerning
evil women, which we also in
evil men do
mourn and
bewail, who against him, the very man in whose
Epistles
we read these things, do, being idle and full of words, speak what
they ought not. And if there be any among them who did with that
purpose come to the holy
warfare,
2563
that they may please Him to whom
they have
proved themselves, these, when they be so vigorous in
strength of body, and soundness of
health, that they are able not
only to be taught, but also, agreeably unto the
Apostle, to
work,
do, by receiving of these men’s idle and
corrupt discourses,
which they are unable, by reason of their
unskilled rawness, to
judge of, become changed by pestiferous contagion into the same
noisomeness: not only not imitating the obedience of
saints which
quietly
work, and of other monasteries
2564
| 2564 Cassian. de Inst. x.
22. |
which in most wholesome
discipline
do
live after the apostolic rule; but also insulting better men
than themselves,
preaching up
laziness as the
keeper of the
Gospel,
accusing
mercy as the prevaricator therefrom. For a much more
merciful
work is it to the
souls of the
weak, to
consult for the
fair
fame of the
servants of
God, than it is to the bodies of men,
to
break bread to the hungry. Wherefore I would to
God that these,
which want to let their
hands lie idle, would altogether let their
tongues lie idle too. For they would not make so many willing to
imitate them, if the examples they set were not merely lazy ones,
but mute withal.
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