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Letter CXXII. To Rusticus.
Rusticus and Artemia his wife having made a vow of
continence broke it. Artemia proceeded to Palestine to do penance for
her sin and Rusticus promised to follow her. However he failed to do
so, and Jerome was asked to write this letter in the hope that it might
induce him to fulfil his promise. The date is about 408 a.d.
1. I am induced to write to you, a stranger to a
stranger, by the entreaties of that holy servant of Christ Hedibia3114
| 3114 This lady lived in
Gaul and was a diligent student of scripture. Letter CXX. is address to
her. | and of my daughter in the faith Artemia,
once your wife but now no longer your wife but your sister and
fellow-servant. Not content with assuring her own salvation she has
sought yours also, in former days at home and now in the holy places.
She is anxious to emulate the thoughtfulness of the apostles Andrew and
Philip; who after Christ had found them, desired in their turn to find,
the one his brother Simon and the other his friend Nathanael.3115
To the former of these it was said
“Thou art Simon, the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas
which is by interpretation a stone;”3116
while the latter, whose name Nathanael means the gift of God, was
comforted by Christ’s witness to him: “behold an Israelite
indeed in whom is no guile.”3117
So of old
Lot3118
desired to rescue his wife as well as
his two daughters, and refusing to leave blazing Sodom and Gomorrah
until he was himself half-on-fire, tried to lead forth one who was tied
and bound by her past sins. But in her despair she lost her composure,
and looking back became a monument of an unbelieving soul.3119
Yet, as if to make up for the loss of a
single woman, Lot’s glowing faith set free the whole city of
Zoar. In fact when he left the dark valleys in which Sodom lay and came
to the mountains, the sun rose upon him as he entered Zoar or the
little City; so-called because the little faith that Lot possessed,
though unable to save greater places, was at least able to preserve
smaller ones. For one who had gone so far astray as to live in Gomorrah
could not all at once reach the noonland where Abraham, the friend of
God,3120
entertained God and His angels.3121
(For it was in Egypt that Joseph fed his
brothers, and when the bride speaks to the Bridegroom her cry is:
“tell me where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest
at noon.”3122
) Good men have
always sorrowed for the sins of others. Samuel of old lamented for
Saul3123
because he neglected to treat the
ulcers of pride with the balm of penitence. And Paul wept for the
Corinthians3124
who refused to wash out with their
tears the stains of fornication. For the same reason Ezekiel swallowed
the book where were written within and without song, and lamentation
and woe;3125
the song in praise of the
righteous, the lamentation over the penitent, and the woe for those of
whom it is written, “When the wicked man falleth into the depths
of evil, then is he filled with scorn.”3126
It is to these that Isaiah alludes when
he says: “in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping
and to mourning and to baldness and to girding with sackcloth: and
behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen; and killing sheep, eating
flesh” and saying, “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we
die.”3127
Yet of such persons Ezekiel is
bidden to speak thus: “O thou son of man, speak unto the house of
Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be
upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live? Say unto
them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of
the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live,” and
again, “turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye
die, O house of Israel?”3128
Nothing makes
God so angry as when men from despair of better things cleave to those
which are worse; and indeed this despair in itself is a sign of
unbelief. One who despairs of salvation can have no expectation of a
judgment to come. For if he dreaded such, he would by doing good works
prepare to meet his Judge. Let us hear what God says through Jeremiah,
“withhold thy foot from a rough way and thy throat from
thirst”3129
and again
“shall they fall, and not arise? Shall he turn away, and not
return?”3130
Let us hear also
what God says by Isaiah: “When thou shalt turn and bewail
thyself, then shalt thou be saved, and then shalt thou know where thou
hast hitherto been.”3131
We do not
realize the miseries of sickness till returning health reveals them to
us. So sins serve as a foil to the blessedness of virtue; and light
shines more brightly when it is relieved against darkness. Ezekiel uses
language like that of the other prophets because he is animated by a
similar spirit. “Repent,” he cries, “and turn
yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your
ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have
transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will
ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him
that dieth, saith the Lord.”3132
Wherefore
in a subsequent passage he says:
“As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death
of the wicked: but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”3133
These words shew us that the mind must
not through disbelief in the promised blessings give way to despair;
and that the soul once marked out for perdition must not refuse to
apply remedies on the ground that its wounds are past curing. Ezekiel
describes God as swearing, that if we refuse to believe His promise in
regard to our salvation we may at least believe His oath. It is with
full confidence that the righteous man prays and says, “Turn us,
O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to
cease,”3134
and again,
“Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong:
thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled.”3135
He means to say, “when I forsook
the foulness of my faults for the beauty of virtue, God strengthened my
weakness with His grace.” Lo, I hear His promise: “I will
pursue mine enemies and overtake them: neither will I turn again till
they are consumed,”3136
so that I who
was once thine enemy and a fugitive from thee, shall be laid hold of by
thine hand. Cease not from pursuing me till my wickedness is consumed,
and I return to my old husband who will give me my wool and my flax, my
oil and my fine flour and will feed me with the richest foods.3137
He it was who hedged up and enclosed
my evil ways3138
that I might find Him the true
way who says in the gospel, “I am the way, the truth, and the
life.”3139
Hear the words of the prophet:
“they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth
and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”3140
Say also with him: “All the night
make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears”3141
: and again, “As the hart panteth
after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul
thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear
before God? My tears have been my meat day and night,”3142
and in another place, “O God, thou
art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my
flesh longeth for thee in a dry and weary land where no water is. So
have I looked upon thee in the sanctuary.”3143
For although my soul has thirsted after
thee, yet much more have I sought thee by the labour of my flesh and
have not been able to look upon thee in thy sanctuary; not at any rate
till I have first dwelt in a land barren of sin, where the weary
wayfarer is no more assailed by the adversary, and where there are no
pools or rivers of lust.
The Saviour also wept over the city of Jerusalem because
its inhabitants had not repented;3144
and Peter
washed out his triple denial with bitter tears,3145
thus fulfilling the words of the prophet: “rivers of waters run
down mine eyes.”3146
Jeremiah too
laments over his impenitent people, saying: “Oh that my head were
waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and
night for…my people!”3147
And
farther on he gives a reason for his lamentation: “weep ye not
for the dead,” he writes, “neither bemoan him: but weep
sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more.”3148
The Jew and the Gentile therefore are
not to be bemoaned, for they have never been in the Church and have
died once for all (it is of these that the Saviour says: “let the
dead bury their dead”3149
); weep rather
for those who by reason of their crimes and sins go away from the
Church, and who suffering condemnation for their faults shall no more
return to it. It is in this sense that the prophet speaks to ministers
of the Church, calling them its walls and towers, and saying to each in
turn, “O wall, let tears run down.”3150
In this way, it is prophetically implied, you will fulfil the apostolic
precept: “rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them
that weep,”3151
and by your tears
you will melt the hard hearts of sinners till they too weep; whereas,
if they persist in evil doing they will find these words applied to
them, “I…planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed:
how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine
unto me?”3152
and again
“saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast
brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not
their face.”3153
He means, they
would not turn towards God in penitence; but in the hardness of their
hearts turned their backs upon Him to insult Him. Wherefore also the
Lord says to Jeremiah: “hast thou seen that which backsliding
Israel hath done? She is gone up upon every high mountain and under
every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. And I said after
she” had played the harlot and “had done all these things,
Turn thou unto me. But she returned not.”3154
2. How hard hearted we are and how merciful God is! who
even after our many sins urges us to seek salvation. Yet not even so
are we willing to turn to better things. Hear the words of the Lord:
“If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become
another man’s and shall afterwards desire to return to him, will he at all receive her? Will
he not loathe her rather? But thou hast played the harlot with many
lovers: yet return again to me, saith the Lord.” In place of the
last clause the true Hebrew text (which is not preserved in the Greek
and Latin versions) gives the following: “thou hast forsaken me,
yet return, and I will receive thee, saith the Lord.”3155
| 3155 Jer. iii. 1, Vulg. The Hebrew contains nothing
corresponding to the words “and I will receive thee.” The
Latin Version mentioned in the text is of course the old Latin. | Isaiah also speaking in the same sense
uses almost the same words: “Return,” he cries, “O
children of Israel, ye who think deep counsel and wicked.3156
Return thou unto me and I will redeem
thee. I am God, and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a
Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth.3157
Remember this
and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors.
Return in heart and remember the former things of old: for I am God and
there is none else.”3158
Joel also
writes: “turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting
and with weeping and with mourning: and rend your heart and not your
garments and turn unto the Lord your God; for he is gracious and
merciful…and repenteth him of the evil.”3159
How great His mercy is and how
excessive—if I may so say—and unspeakable is His
pitifulness, the prophet Hosea tells us when he speaks in the
Lord’s name: “how shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall
I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set
thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are
kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine
anger.”3160
David also says
in a psalm: “in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the
grave who shall give thee thanks?”3161
and in another place: “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine
iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto
the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall
every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be
found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh
unto him.”3162
3. Think how great that weeping must be which deserves
to be compared to a flood of waters. Whosoever so weeps and says with
the prophet Jeremiah “let not the apple of mine eye
cease”3163
shall straightway find the words
fulfilled of him: “mercy and truth are met together:
righteousness and peace have kissed each other;”3164
so that, if righteousness and truth
terrify him, mercy and peace may encourage him to seek salvation.
The whole repentance of a sinner is exhibited to us in
the fifty-first3165
| 3165 In the Vulg. the
fiftieth. | psalm written by
David after he had gone in unto Bathsheba the wife of Uriah the
Hittite,3166
| 3166 Cf. the heading of
the psalm in A.V. | and when, to the rebuke of the
prophet Nathan he had replied, “I have sinned.” Immediately
that he confessed his fault he was comforted by the words: “the
Lord also hath put away thy sin.”3167
He had added murder to adultery; yet
bursting into tears he says: “Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy
tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”3168
A sin so great needed to find great
mercy. Accordingly he goes on to say: “Wash me thoroughly from
mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my
transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only
have I sinned”—as a king he had no one to fear but
God—“and done this evil in thy sight; that thou mightest be
justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest.”3169
For “God hath concluded all in
unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.”3170
And such was the progress that David made
that he who had once been a sinner and a penitent afterwards became a
master able to say: “I will teach transgressors thy ways; and
sinners shall be converted unto thee.”3171
For as “confession and beauty are
before God,”3172
so a sinner
who confesses his sins and says: “my wounds stink and are corrupt
because of my foolishness”3173
loses
his foul wounds and is made whole and clean. But “he that
covereth his sins shall not prosper.”3174
The ungodly king Ahab, who shed the blood of Naboth to
gain his vineyard, was with Jezebel, the partner less of his bed than
of his cruelty, severely rebuked by Elijah. “Thus saith the Lord,
hast thou killed and also taken possession?” and again, “in
the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy
blood, even thine;” and “the dogs shall eat Jezebel by the
wall of Jezreel.”3175
“And it
came to pass”—the passage goes on—“when Ahab
heard those words that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his
flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth…and the word of the Lord
came to Elijah saying, Because Ahab humbleth himself before me, I will
not bring the evil in his days.”3176
Ahab’s sin and Jezebel’s
were the same; yet because Ahab repented, his punishment was postponed
so as to fall upon his sons, while Jezebel persisting in her wickedness
met her doom then and there.
Moreover the Lord
tells us in the gospel, “the men of Nineveh shall rise in
judgment with this generation and shall condemn it: because they
repented at the preaching of Jonas;”3177
and again He says “I am not come
to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”3178
The lost piece of silver is sought
for until it is found in the mire.3179
So also
the ninety and nine sheep are left in the wilderness, while the
shepherd carries home on his shoulders the one sheep which has gone
astray.3180
Wherefore also “there is joy
in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth.”3181
What a blessed thought it is that
heavenly beings rejoice in our salvation! For it is of us that the
words are said: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.”3182
Death and life are contrary the
one to the other; there is no middle term. Yet penitence can knit death
to life. The prodigal son, we are told, wasted all his substance, and
in the far country away from his father “would fain have filled
his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.” Yet, when he
comes back to his father, the fatted calf is killed, a robe and a ring
are given to him.3183
That is to
say, he receives again Christ’s robe which he had before defiled,
and hears to his comfort the injunction: “let thy garments be
always white.”3184
He receives
the signet of God and cries to the Lord: “Father, I have sinned
against heaven and before thee;” and receiving the kiss of
reconciliation, he says to Him: “Now is the light of thy
countenance sealed upon us, O Lord.”3185
| 3185 Ps. iv. 6, acc. to the Gallican and Roman
psalters. The allusions throughout are to the ritual practised in
Jerome’s day in connection with the reception of penitents. |
Hear the words of Ezekiel: “as for the wickedness
of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth
from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for
his righteousness in the day that he sinneth.”3186
The Lord judges every man according as
he finds him. It is not the past that He looks upon but the present.
Bygone sins there may be, but renewal and conversion remove them.
“A just man,” we read “falleth seven times and riseth
up again.”3187
If he falls,
how is he just? and if he is just, how does he fall? The answer is that
a sinner does not lose the name of just if he always repents of his
sins and rises again. If a sinner repents, his sins are forgiven him
not only till seven times but till seventy times seven.3188
To whom much is forgiven, the same
loveth much.3189
The harlot washed with her tears
the Saviour’s feet and wiped them with her hair; and to her, as a
type of the Church gathered from the nations, was the declaration made:
“Thy sins are forgiven.”3190
The
self-righteous Pharisee perished in his pride, while the humble
publican was saved by his confession.3191
God makes asseveration by the mouth of the prophet
Jeremiah: “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and
concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down and to destroy it: if
that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I
will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what
instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom to
build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my
voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit
them.” And immediately he adds: “Behold, I frame evil
against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one
from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. And they
said, there is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we
will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.”3192
The righteous Simeon says in the gospel:
“Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of
many,”3193
for the fall, that is, of sinners
and for the rising again of the penitent. So the apostle writes to the
Corinthians: “it is reported commonly that there is fornication
among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the
Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. And ye are
puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed
might be taken away from among you.”3194
And in his second epistle to the same,
“lest such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch
sorrow,”3195
he calls him
back, and begs them to confirm their love towards him, so that he who
had been destroyed by incest might be saved by penitence.
“There is no man clean from sin; even though he
has lived but for one day.”3196
And the
years of man’s life are many in number. “The stars are not
pure in his sight,3197
and his angels
he charged with folly.”3198
If there is
sin in heaven, how much more must there be sin on earth? If they are
stained with guilt who have no bodily temptations, how much more must
we be, enveloped as we are in frail flesh and forced to cry each one of
us with the apostle: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver
me from the body of this death?3199
For in my
flesh there dwelleth no good thing.”3200
For we do not what we would but what we would not; the soul desires to
do one thing, the flesh is
compelled to do another. If any persons are called righteous in
scripture, and not only righteous but righteous in the sight of God,
they are called righteous according to that righteousness mentioned in
the passage I have quoted: “A just man falleth seven times and
riseth up again,”3201
and on the
principle laid down that the wickedness of the wicked shall not hurt
him in the day that he turns to repentance.3202
In fact Zachariah the father of John who is described as a righteous
man sinned in disbelieving the message sent to him and was at once
punished with dumbness.3203
Even Job, who
at the outset of his history is spoken of as perfect and upright and
uncomplaining, is afterwards proved to be a sinner both by God’s
words and by his own confession. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the
prophets also and the apostles were by no means free from sin and if
the finest wheat had chaff mixed with it, what can be said of us of
whom it is written: “What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the
Lord?”3204
Yet the chaff is reserved for
future burning; as also are the tares which at present are mingled with
the growing corn. For one shall come whose fan is in His hand, and
shall purge His floor, and shall gather His wheat into the garner, and
shall burn the chaff in the fire of hell.3205
4. Roaming thus through the fairest fields of scripture
I have culled its loveliest flowers to weave for your brows a garland
of penitence; for my aim is that, flying on the wings of a dove, you
may find rest3206
and make your
peace with the Father of mercy. Your former wife, who is now your
sister and fellow-servant, has told me that, acting on the apostolic
precept,3207
you and she lived apart by consent
that you might give yourselves to prayer; but that after a time your
feet sank beneath you as if resting on water and indeed—to speak
plainly—gave way altogether. For her part she heard the Lord
saying to her as to Moses: “as for thee stand thou here by
me;”3208
and with the psalmist she said of
Him: “He hath set my feet upon a rock.”3209
But your house—she went
on—having no sure foundation of faith fell before a whirlwind of
the devil.3210
Hers however still stands in the
Lord, and does not refuse its shelter to you; you can still be joined
in spirit to her to whom you were once joined in body. For, as the
apostle says, “he that is joined unto the Lord is one
spirit” with him.3211
Moreover, when
the fury of the barbarians and the risk of captivity separated you
again, you promised with a solemn oath that, if she made her way to the
holy places, you would follow her either immediately or later, and that
you would try to save your soul now that by your carelessness you had
seemed to lose it. Perform, now, the vow which you then made in the
presence of God. Human life is uncertain. Therefore, lest you may be
snatched away before you have fulfilled your promise, imitate her whose
teacher you ought to have been. For shame! the weaker vessel overcomes
the world, and yet the stronger is overcome by it!
A woman leadeth in the high emprise;3212
| 3212 Virgil,
Æneid, i. 364. |
and yet you will not follow her when her salvation leads you to the
threshold of the faith! Perhaps, however, you desire to save the
remnants of your property and to see the last of your friends and
fellow-citizens and of their cities and villas. If so, amid the horrors
of captivity, in the presence of exulting foes, and in the shipwreck of
the province, at least hold fast to the plank of penitence;3213
| 3213 A favourite
phrase with Jerome. See Letter CXVII. § 3. | and remember your fellow-servant3214
who daily sighs for your salvation and
never despairs of it. While you are wandering about your own country
(though, indeed, you no longer have a country; that which you once had,
you have lost) she is interceding for you in the venerable spots which
witnessed the nativity, crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and
Saviour, and in the first of which He uttered His infant-cry. She draws
you to her by her prayers that you may be saved, if not by your own
exertions, at any rate by her faith. Of old one lay upon his bed sick
of the palsy, so powerless in all his joints that he could neither move
his feet to walk nor his hands to pray; yet when he was carried to our
Lord by others, he was by Him so completely restored to health as to
carry the bed which a little before had carried him.3215
You too—absent in the body but
present to her faith—your fellow-servant offers to her Lord and
Saviour; and with the Canaanite woman she says of you: “my
daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.”3216
Souls are of no sex; therefore I may
fairly call your soul the daughter of hers. For as a mother coaxes her
unweaned child which is as yet unable to take solid food; so does she
call you to the milk suitable for babes and offer to you the sustenance
that a nursing mother gives. Thus shall you be able to say with the
prophet: “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant;
for I do not forget thy commandments.”3217
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