Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| To Ageruchia.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Letter CXXIII. To Ageruchia.
An appeal to the widow Ageruchia, highborn lady of Gaul,
not to marry again. It should be compared with the letters to Furia
(LIV.) and to Salvina (LXXIX.) The allusion to Stilicho’s treaty
with Alaric fixes the date to 409 a.d.
1. I must look for a new track on the old road and
devise a natural treatment, the same yet not the same, for a hackneyed
and well-worn theme.3218
It is true
that there is but one road; yet one can often reach one’s goal by
striking across country. I have several times written letters to
widows3219
| 3219 Letters LIV.,
LXXV., LXXIX., and others. | in which for their instruction I
have sought out examples from scripture, weaving its varied flowers
into a single garland of chastity. On the present occasion I address
myself to Ageruchia; whose very name3220
| 3220 Ageruchia =
Greatheart. | (allotted
to her by the divine guidance) has proved a prophecy of her after-life.
Around her stand her grandmother, her mother, and her aunt; a noble
band of tried Christian women. Her grandmother, Metronia, now a widow
for forty years, reminds us of Anna the daughter of Phanuel in the
gospel.3221
Her mother, Benigna, now in the
fourteenth year of her widowhood, is surrounded by virgins whose
chastity bears fruit a hundredfold.3222
| 3222 See Letter
XLVIII., § 2; also § 9 infra. | The
sister of Celerinus, Ageruchia’s father, has nursed her niece
from infancy and indeed took her into her lap the moment that she was
born. Deprived of the solace of her husband she has for twenty years
trained her brother’s child, teaching her the lessons which she
has learned from her own mother.
2. I make these brief remarks to shew my young friend
that in resolving not to marry again she does but perform a duty to her
family; and that, while she will deserve no praise for fulfilling it,
she will be justly blamed if she fails to do so. The more so that she
has a posthumous son named after his father Simplicius and thus cannot
plead loneliness or the want of an heir. For the lust of many shelters
itself under such excuses as though the promptings of incontinence were
only a desire for offspring. But why do I speak as to one who wavers
when I hear that Ageruchia seeks the church’s protection against
the many suitors whom she meets in the palace? For the devil inflames
men to vie with one another in proving the chastity of our beloved
widow; and rank and beauty, youth and riches cause her to be sought
after by all. But the greater the assaults that are made upon her
continence, the greater will be the rewards that will follow her
victory.
3. But no sooner do I clear the harbour than I find my
way to the sea barred by a rock.3223
| 3223 Cf. Letter
LXXVII. § 3. | I am
confronted with the authority of the apostle Paul who in writing to
Timothy thus speaks concerning widows: “I will therefore that the
younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion
to the adversary to speak reproachfully. For some are already turned
aside after Satan.”3224
I must
accordingly begin by considering the meaning of this pronouncement and
examining the context of the whole passage. I must then plant my feet
in the steps of the apostle and, as the saying goes, not deviate a
hair’s breadth from them either to this side or to that. He had
previously described his ideal widow as one who had been the wife of
one man, who had brought up children, who was well reported of for good
works, who had relieved the afflicted with her substance,3225
whose trust had been in God, and who had
continued in prayer day and night.3226
With her
he contrasted her opposite, saying: “She that liveth in pleasure
is dead while she liveth.” And that he might warn his disciple
Timothy with all needful admonition, he immediately added these words:
“the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax
wanton against Christ they will marry; having damnation because they
have cast off their first faith.”3227
It is then for these who have outraged
Christ their Spouse by committing fornication against Him (for this is
the sense of the Greek word καταστρηνιάσωσι
)—it is for these that the apostle wishes a second marriage,
thinking digamy preferable to fornication; but this second marriage is
a concession and not a command.
4. We must also take the passage clause by clause.
“I will,” he says, “that the younger women
marry.” Why, pray? because I would not have young women commit
fornication. “That they bear children;”3228
for what reason? That they may not be
induced by fear of the consequences to kill children whom they have
conceived in adultery. “That they be the heads of
households.”3229
Wherefore,
pray? Because it is much more tolerable that a woman should marry again
than that she should be a prostitute, and better that she should have a
second husband than several paramours. The first alternative brings
relief in a miserable plight, but the second involves a sin and its
punishment. He continues: “that they give none occasion to the
adversary to speak reproachfully,” a brief and comprehensive precept in which many admonitions
are summed up. As for instance these: that a woman must not bring
discredit upon her profession of widowhood by too great attention to
her dress, that she must not draw troops of young men after her by gay
smiles or expressive glances, that she must not profess one thing by
her words and another by her behaviour, that she must give no ground
for the application to herself of the well known line:
She gave a meaning look and slyly smiled.3230
Lastly, that Paul may compress into a few words all the reasons for
such marriages, he shews the motive of his command by saying:
“for some are already turned aside after Satan.” Thus he
allows to the incontinent a second marriage, or in case of need a
third, simply that he may rescue them from Satan, preferring that a
woman should be joined to the worst of husbands rather than to the
devil. To the Corinthians he uses somewhat similar language: “I
say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they
abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is
better to marry than to burn.”3231
Why, O
apostle, is it better to marry? He answers immediately: because it is
worse to burn.3232
| 3232 Cf. Letters
XLVIII. § 19, and LXXIX. § 10. |
5. Apart from these considerations, that which is
absolutely good and not merely relatively so is to be as the apostle,
that is loose, not bound; free, not enslaved; caring for the things of
God, not for the things of a wife. Immediately afterwards he adds:
“The wife is bound by the law to her husband as long as her
husband liveth, but if her husband be fallen asleep,3233
she is at liberty to be married to
whom she will; only in the Lord. But she is happier if she so abide,
after my judgment: and I think also that I have the spirit of
God.”3234
This passage corresponds with
the former in meaning, because the spirit of the two is the same. For
though the epistles are different, they are the work of one author.
While her husband lives the woman is bound, and when he is dead, she is
loosed. Marriage then is a bond, and widowhood is the loosing of it.
The wife is bound to the husband and the husband to the wife; and so
close is the tie that they have no power over their own bodies, but
each stands indebted to the other. They who are under the yoke of
wedlock have not the option of choosing continence. When the apostle
adds the words “only in the Lord,” he excludes heathen
marriages of which he had spoken in another place thus: “be ye
not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath
righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with
darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath
he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple
of God with idols?”3235
We must not
plough with an ox and an ass together;3236
nor weave our wedding garment of
different colours. He at once takes back the concession he made, and,
as if repenting of his opinion, withdraws it by saying: “She is
happier if she so abide,” that is, unmarried; and declares that
in his judgment this course is preferable. And that this may not be
made light of as a merely human utterance, he claims for it the
authority of the Holy Spirit, so that we are listening not to a
fellowman making concessions to the weakness of the flesh but to the
Holy Spirit using the apostle for his mouthpiece.
6. Again, no widow of youthful age must quiet her qualms
of conscience by the plea that he gives commandment that no widow is to
be taken into the number under three-score years old.3237
He does not by this arrangement urge
unmarried girls or youthful widows to marry, seeing that even of the
married he says: “the time is short: it remaineth that they that
have wives be as though they had none.”3238
No, he is speaking of widows who
have relations able to support them, who have sons and grandsons to be
responsible for their maintenance. The apostle commands these latter to
shew piety at home, and to requite their parents and to relieve them
adequately; that the church may not be charged, but may be free to
relieve those that are widows indeed. “Honour widows,” he
writes, “that are widows indeed,” that is, such as are
desolate and have no relations to help them, who cannot labour with
their hands, who are weakened by poverty and overcome by years, whose
trust is in God and their only work prayer.3239
From which it is easy to infer that
the younger widows, unless they are excused by ill health, are either
left to their own exertions or else are consigned to the care of their
children or relations. The word ‘honour’ in this passage
implies either alms or a gift, as also in the verse immediately
following: “Let the elders…be counted worthy of double
honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.”3240
So also in the gospel when the Lord
discusses that commandment of the Law which says: “Honour thy
father and thy mother,”3241
He declares
that it is to be interpreted not of mere words which while offering an
empty shew of regard may still leave a parent’s wants unrelieved,
but of the actual provision of the necessaries of life. The Lord commanded that poor parents
should be supported by their children and that these should pay them
back when old those benefits which they had themselves received in
their childhood. The scribes and pharisees on the other hand taught the
children to answer their parents by saying: “It is Corban, that
is to say, a gift3242
which I have
promised to the altar and engaged to present to the temple: it will
relieve you as much there, as if I were to give it you directly to buy
food.”3243
| 3243 Text corrupt:
probably ‘quasi’ should be substituted for
‘si.’ | So it frequently happened that
while father and mother were destitute their children were offering
sacrifices for the priests and scribes to consume. If then the apostle
compels poor widows—yet only those who are young and not broken
down by sickness—to labour with their hands that the church, not
charged with their maintenance, may be able to support such widows as
are old, what plea can be urged by one who has abundance of this
world’s goods, both for her own wants and those of others, and
who can make to herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness able
to receive her into everlasting habitations?3244
Consider too that no one is to be elected a widow,
except she has been the wife of one husband. We sometimes fancy it to
be the distinctive mark of the priesthood that none but monogamists
shall be admitted to the altar. But not only are the twice-married
excluded from the priestly office, they are debarred from receiving the
alms of the church. A woman who has resorted to a second marriage is
held unworthy to be supported by the faithful. And even the layman is
bound by the law of the priest, for his conduct must be such as to
admit of his election to the priesthood. If he has been twice married,
he cannot be so elected. Therefore, as priests are chosen from the
ranks of laymen, the layman also is bound by the commandment,
fulfilment of which is indispensable for the attainment of the
priesthood.3245
| 3245 A reminiscence of
Tert. de Exh. Cast. vii. |
7. We must distinguish between what the apostle himself
desires and what he is compelled to acquiesce in. If he allows me to
marry again, this is due to my own incontinence and not to his wish.
For he wishes all men to be as he is, and to think the things of God,
and when once they are loosed no more to seek to be bound. But when he
sees unstable men in danger through their incontinence of falling into
the abyss of lust, he extends to them the offer of a second marriage;
that, if they must wallow in the mire, it may be with one and not with
many. The husband of a second wife must not consider this a harsh
saying or one that conflicts with the rule laid down by the apostle.
The apostle is of two minds: first, he proclaims a command, “I
say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they
abide even as I.” Next. he makes a concession, “But if they
cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to
burn.”3246
He first shews what he himself
desires, then that in which he is forced to acquiesce. He wishes
us—after one marriage—to abide even as he, that is,
unmarried, and sets before us in his own apostolic example an instance
of the blessedness of which he speaks. If however he finds that we are
unwilling to do as he wishes, he makes a concession to our
incontinence. Which then of the two alternatives do we choose for
ourselves? The one which he prefers and which is in itself good? Or the
one which in comparison with evil is tolerable, yet as it is only a
substitute for evil is not altogether good? Suppose that we choose that
course which the apostle does not wish but to which he only consents
against his will, allowing those who seek lower ends to have their own
way; in this case we carry out not the apostle’s wish but our
own. We read in the old testament that the daughters of the priests who
have been married once and have become widows are to eat of the
priests’ food and that when they die they are to be buried with
the same ceremonies as their father and mother.3247
| 3247 Jerome seems to
be here relying on tradition. | If on the other hand they take other
husbands they are to be kept apart both from their father and from the
sacrifices and are to be counted as strangers.3248
8. These restraints on marriage are observed even among
the heathen; and it is our condemnation if the true faith cannot do for
Christ what false ones do for the devil, who has substituted for the
saving chastity of the gospel a damning chastity of his own.3249
| 3249 From Tert. de
Exh. Cast. xiii. | The Athenian hierophant disowns his
manhood and weakens his passions by a perpetual restraint.3250
The holy office of the flamen is limited
to those who have been once married, and the attendants of the
flamens’ wives must also have had but one husband.3251
| 3251 See Dict. Antiq.
s.v. flamen. | Only monogamists are allowed to share in
the sacred rites connected with the Egyptian bull.3252
| 3252 The sacred bull of
Memphis, generally called Apis. | I need say nothing of the vestal virgins
and those of Apollo, the Achivan Juno, Diana, and Minerva, all of whom
waste away in the perpetual virginity required by their vocation. I
will just glance at the queen of Carthage3253
who was willing to burn herself rather than marry king Iarbas; at the
wife of Hasdrubal3254
| 3254 Who refused to
survive the fall of Carthage. The story is told by Polybius. | who taking her
two children one in each hand cast, herself into the flames beneath her
rather than surrender her honour; and at Lucretia3255
| 3255 See Livy, I. cc.
57, 58. | who having lost the prize of her chastity
refused to survive the defilement of her soul. I will not lengthen my
letter by quoting the many instances of the like virtue which you can
read to your profit in my first book against Jovinian.3256
I will merely relate one which took
place in your own country and which will shew you that chastity is held
in high honour even among wild and barbarous and cruel peoples. Once
the Teutons who came from the remote shores of the German Ocean overran
all parts of Gaul, and it was only when they had cut to pieces several
Roman armies that Marius at last defeated them in an encounter at
Aquæ Sextiæ.3257
By the
conditions of the surrender three hundred of their married women were
to be handed over to the Romans. When the Teuton matrons heard of this
stipulation they first begged the consul that they might be set apart
to minister in the temples of Ceres and Venus;3258
| 3258 The priestesses
in these temples seem to have been vowed to chastity. | and then when they failed to obtain
their request and were removed by the lictors, they slew their little
children and next morning were all found dead in each other’s
arms having strangled themselves in the night.3259
9. Shall then a highborn lady do what these barbarian
women refused to do even as prisoners of war? After losing a first
husband, good or bad as the case may be, shall she make trial of a
second, and thus run counter to the judgment of God? And in case that
she immediately loses this second, shall she take a third? And if he
too is called to his rest, shall she go on to a fourth and a fifth, and
by so doing identify herself with the harlots? No, a widow must take
every precaution not to overstep by an inch the bounds of chastity. For
if she once oversteps them and breaks through the modesty which becomes
a matron, she will soon riot in every kind of excess; so much so that
the prophet’s words shall be true of her “Thou hast a
whore’s forehead, thou refusest to be ashamed.”3260
What then? do I condemn second marriages? not at all;
but I commend first ones. Do I expel twice-married persons from the
church? Far from it; but I urge those who have been once married to
lives of continence. The Ark of Noah contained unclean animals as well
as clean. It contained both creeping things and human beings. In a
great house there are vessels of different kinds, some to honour and
some to dishonour.3261
In the gospel
parable the seed sown in the good ground brings forth fruit, some an
hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.3262
The hundredfold which comes first
betokens the crown of virginity; the sixtyfold which comes next refers
to the work of widows; while the thirtyfold—indicated by joining
together the points of the thumb and forefinger3263
| 3263 See Letter
XLVIII. § 2 and note there. | —denotes the marriage-tie. What
room is left for double marriages? None. They are not counted. Such
weeds do not grow in good ground but among briers and thorns, the
favourite haunts of those foxes to whom the Lord compares the impious
Herod.3264
A woman who marries more than
once fancies herself worthy of praise because she is not so bad as the
prostitutes, because she compares favourably with these victims of
indiscriminate lust by surrendering herself to one alone and not to a
number.
10. The story which I am about to relate is an
incredible one; yet it is vouched for by many witnesses. A great many
years ago when I was helping Damasus bishop of Rome with his
ecclesiastical correspondence, and writing his answers to the questions
referred to him by the councils of the east and west, I saw a married
couple, both of whom were sprung from the very dregs of the people. The
man had already buried twenty wives, and the woman had had twenty-two
husbands. Now they were united to each other as each believed for the
last time. The greatest curiosity prevailed both among men and women to
see which of these two veterans would live to bury the other. The
husband triumphed and walked before the bier of his often-married wife,
amid a great concourse of people from all quarters, with garland and
palm-branch, scattering spelt as he went along among an approving
crowd. What shall we say to such a woman as that? Surely just what the
Lord said to the woman of Samaria: “Thou hast had twenty-two
husbands, and he by whom you are now buried is not your
husband.”3265
11. I beseech you therefore, my devout daughter in
Christ, not to dwell on those passages which offer succour to the
incontinent and the unhappy but rather to read those in which chastity
is crowned. It is enough for you that you have lost the first and
highest kind, that of virginity, and that you have passed through the
third to the second; that is to say, having formerly fulfilled the
obligations of a wife, that you now live in continence as a widow.
Think not of the lowest grade, nay
of that which does not count at all, I mean, second marriage; and do
not seek for far fetched precedents to justify you in marrying again.
You cannot too closely imitate your grandmother, your mother, and your
aunt; whose teaching and advice as to life will form for you a rule of
virtue. For if many wives in the lifetime of their husbands come to
realize the truth of the apostle’s words: “all things are
lawful unto me but all things are not expedient,”3266
and make eunuchs of themselves for the
kingdom of heaven’s sake3267
either by
consent after their regeneration through the baptismal laver, or else
in the ardour of their faith immediately after their marriage; why
should not a widow, who by God’s decree has ceased to have a
husband, joyfully cry again and again with Job: “the Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away,”3268
and
seize the opportunity offered to her of having power over her own body
instead of again becoming the servant of a man. Assuredly it is much
harder to abstain from enjoying what you have than it is to regret what
you have lost. Virginity is the easier because virgins know nothing of
the promptings of the flesh, and widowhood is the harder because widows
cannot help thinking of the license they have enjoyed in the past. And
it is harder still if they suppose their husbands to be lost and not
gone before; for while the former alternative brings pain, the latter
causes joy.
12. The creation of the first man should teach us to
reject more marriages than one. There was but one Adam and but one Eve;
in fact the woman was fashioned from a rib of Adam.3269
Thus divided they were subsequently
joined together in marriage; in the words of scripture “the twain
shall be one flesh,” not two or three. “Therefore shall a
man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his
wife.”3270
Certainly it is not said “to
his wives.” Paul in explaining the passage refers it to Christ
and the church;3271
making the
first Adam a monogamist in the flesh and the second a monogamist in the
spirit. As there is one Eve who is “the mother of all
living,”3272
so is there
one church which is the parent of all Christians. And as the accursed
Lamech made of the first Eve two separate wives,3273
so also the heretics sever the second
into several churches which, according to the apocalypse of John, ought
rather to be called synagogues of the devil than congregations of
Christ.3274
In the Book of Songs we read as
follows:—“there are threescore queens, and fourscore
concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but
one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her
that bare her.”3275
It is to this
choice one that the same John addresses an epistle in these words,
“the elder unto the elect lady and her children.”3276
So too in the case of the ark which
the apostle Peter interprets as a type of the church,3277
Noah brings in for his three sons one
wife apiece and not two.3278
Likewise of
the unclean animals pairs only are taken, male and female, to shew that
digamy has no place even among brutes, creeping things, crocodiles and
lizards. And if of the clean animals there are seven taken of each
kind,3279
that is, an uneven number; this points
to the palm which awaits virginal chastity. For on leaving the ark Noah
sacrificed victims to God3280
not of course
of the animals taken by twos for these were kept to multiply their
species, but of those taken by sevens some of which had been set apart
for sacrifice.
13. It is true that the patriarchs had each of them more
wives than one and that they had numerous concubines besides. And as if
their example was not enough, David had many wives and Solomon a
countless number. Judah went in to Tamar thinking her to be a harlot;3281
and according to the letter that
killeth the prophet Hosea married not only a whore but an adulteress.3282
If these instances are to justify us
let us neigh after every woman that we meet;3283
like the people of Sodom and
Gomorrah let us be found by the last day buying and selling, marrying
and giving in marriage;3284
and let us
only end our marrying with the close of our lives. And if both before
and after the deluge the maxim held good: “be fruitful and
multiply and replenish the earth:”3285
what has that to do with us upon whom
the ends of the ages are come,3286
unto whom it
is said, “the time is short,”3287
and “now the axe is laid unto
the root of the trees;”3288
that is to
say, the forests of marriage and of the law must be cut down by the
chastity of the gospel. There is “a time to embrace, and a time
to refrain from embracing.”3289
Owing
to the near approach of the captivity Jeremiah is forbidden to take a
wife.3290
In Babylon Ezekiel says: “my wife
is dead and my mouth is opened.”3291
Neither he who wished to marry nor he
who had married could in wedlock prophesy freely. In days gone by men
rejoiced to hear it said of them: “thy children shall be like
olive plants round about thy
table,” and “thou shalt see thy children’s
children.”3292
But now it is
said of those who live in continence: “he that is joined unto the
Lord is one spirit;”3293
and “my
soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.”3294
Then it was said “an eye for an
eye;” now the commandment is “whosoever shall smite thee on
thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”3295
In those days men said to the warrior:
“gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty;”3296
now it is said to Peter: “put up
again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall
perish with the sword.”3297
In speaking thus I do not mean to sever the law from the
gospel, as Marcion3298
| 3298 A gnostic of
the second century who rejected the whole of the old testament as
incompatible with the new. | falsely
does. No, I receive one and the same God in both who, as the time and
the object vary, is both the Beginning and the End, who sows that He
may reap, who plants that He may have somewhat to cut down, and who
lays the foundation that in the fulness of time He may crown the
edifice. Besides, if we are to deal with symbols and types of things to
come, we must judge of them not by our own opinions but in the light of
the apostle’s explanations. Hagar and Sarah, or Sinai and Zion,
are typical of the two testaments.3299
Leah who
was tender-eyed and Rachel whom Jacob loved3300
signify the synagogue and the church. So likewise do Hannah and
Peninnah of whom the former, at first barren, afterwards exceeded the
latter in fruitfulness. In Isaac and Rebekah we see an early example of
monogamy: it was only to Rebekah that the Lord revealed Himself in the
hour of childbirth and she alone went of herself to enquire of the
Lord.3301
What shall I say of Tamar who bore twin
sons, Pharez and Zarah?3302
At their birth
was broken down that middle wall of partition which typified the
division existing between the two peoples;3303
while the binding of Zarah’s hand
with the scarlet thread even then marked the conscience of the Jews
with the stain of Christ’s blood. And how shall I speak of the
whore married by the prophet3304
who is a figure
either of the church as gathered in from the Gentiles or—an
interpretation which better suits the passage—of the synagogue?
First adopted from among the idolaters by Abraham and Moses, this has
now denied the Saviour and proved unfaithful to Him. Therefore it has
long been deprived of its altar, priests, and prophets and has to abide
many days for its first husband.3305
For when
the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in, all Israel shall be
saved.3306
14. I have tried to compress a great deal into a limited
space as a draughtsman does when he delineates a large country in a
small map. For I wish to deal with other questions, the first of which
I shall give in Anna’s words to her sister Dido:
Why waste your youth alone in ceaseless grief
Unblest with offspring, sweetest gift of love?
Think you the buried dead require this?
To whom the sufferer thus briefly replies:
’Twas you, my sister, you, who were the first
To plunge my frenzied soul into this woe.
Why could I not have lived a virgin life
Like some wild creature innocent of care?
Alas! I pledged my soul unto the dead:
I vowed a vow and I have broken it.3307
| 3307 Virg. A. iv.
32–34: 548, 552. |
You set before me the joys of wedlock. I for my part
will remind you of Dido’s sword and pyre and funeral flames. In
marriage there is not so much good to be hoped for as there is evil
which may happen and must be feared. Passion when indulged always
brings repentance with it; it is never satisfied, and once quenched it
is soon kindled anew. Its growth or decay is a matter of habit; led
like a captive by impulse it refuses to obey reason. But you will
argue, ‘the management of wealth and property requires the
superintendence of a husband.’ Do you mean to say that the
affairs of those who live single are ruined; and that, unless you make
yourself as much a slave as your own servants, you will not be able to
govern your household? Do not your grandmother, your mother and your
aunt enjoy even more than their old influence and respect, looked up to
as they are by the whole province and by the leaders of the churches?
Do not soldiers and travellers manage their domestic affairs and give
entertainments to one another with no wives to help them?3308
| 3308 From Tert. de
Exh. Cast. xii. | Why can you not have grave and elderly
servants or freed-men, such as those who have nursed you in your
childhood, to preside over your house, to answer public calls, to pay
taxes; men who will look up to you as a patroness, who will love you as
a nursling, who will revere you as a saint? “Seek first the
kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.”3309
If you are careful for raiment the
gospel bids you “consider the lilies;” and, if for food, to
go back to the fowls which “sow not neither do they reap; yet
your heavenly father feedeth them.”3310
How many virgins and widows there are who have looked after their
property for themselves without
thereby incurring any stain of scandal!
15. Do not associate with young women or cleave to them,
for it is on account of such that the apostle makes his concession of
second marriage, and so you may be shipwrecked in what appears to be
calm water. If Paul can say to Timothy, “the younger widows
refuse,”3311
and again
“love the elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with
all purity,”3312
what plea can
you urge for refusing to hear my admonitions? Avoid all persons to whom
a suspicion of evil living may attach itself, and do not content
yourself with the trite answer, ‘my own conscience is enough for
me; I do not care what people say of me.’ That was not the
principle on which the apostle acted. He provided things honest not
only in the sight of God but in the sight of all men;3313
that the name of God might not be
blasphemed among the Gentiles.3314
Though he had
power to lead about a sister, a wife,3315
he would not do so, for he did not wish
to be judged by an unbeliever’s conscience.3316
And, though he might have lived by the
gospel,3317
he laboured day and night with
his own hands, that he might not be burdensome to the believers.3318
| 3318 1 Cor. iv. 12; 1 Thess. ii. 9; 2 Cor. xii.
14. | “If meat,” he says,
“make my brother to offend. I will eat no flesh while the world
standeth.”3319
Let us then
say, if a sister or a brother causes not one or two but the whole
church to offend, ‘I will not see that sister or that
brother.’ It is better to lose a portion of one’s substance
than to imperil the salvation of one’s soul. It is better to lose
that which some day, whether we like it or not, must be lost to us and
to give it up freely, than to lose that for which we should sacrifice
all that we have. Which of us can add—I will not say a cubit for
that would be an immense addition—but the tenth part of a single
inch to his stature? Why are we careful what we shall eat or what we
shall drink? Let us “take no thought for the morrow: sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof.”3320
| 3320 Matt. vi. 25, 27, 34. |
Jacob in his flight from his brother left behind in his
father’s house great riches and made his way with nothing into
Mesopotamia. Moreover, to prove to us his powers of endurance, he took
a stone for his pillow. Yet as he lay there he beheld a ladder set up
on the earth reaching to heaven and behold the Lord stood above it, and
the angels ascended and descended on it;3321
the lesson being thus taught that the
sinner must not despair of salvation nor the righteous man rest secure
in his virtue.3322
| 3322 Cf. Letters
cviii. § 13 and cxviii. § 7. | To pass over
much of the story (for there is no time to explain all the points in
the narrative) after twenty years he who before had passed over Jordan
with his staff returned into his native land with three droves of
cattle, rich in flocks and herds and richer still in children.3323
The apostles likewise travelled
throughout the world without either money in their purses, or staves in
their hands, or shoes on their feet;3324
and yet
they could speak of themselves as “having nothing and yet
possessing all things.”3325
“Silver
and gold,” say they, “have we none, but such as we have
give we thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and
walk.”3326
For they were not weighed down
with the burthen of riches. Therefore they could stand, as Elijah, in
the crevice of the rock, they could pass through the needle’s
eye, and behold the back parts of the Lord.3327
But as for us we burn with covetousness and, even while
we declaim against the love of money, we hold out our skirts to catch
gold and never have enough.3328
There is a
common saying about the Megarians which may rightly be applied to all
who suffer from this passion: “They build as if they are to live
forever; they live as if they are to die to-morrow.” We do the
same, for we do not believe the Lord’s words. When we attain the
age which all desire we forget the nearness of that death which as
human beings we owe to nature and with futile hope promise to ourselves
a long length of years. No old man is so weak and decrepit as to
suppose that he will not live for one year more. A forgetfulness of his
true condition gradually creeps upon him; so that—earthly
creature that he is and close to dissolution as he stands—he is
lifted up into pride, and in imagination seats himself in heaven.
16. But what am I doing? Whilst I talk about the cargo,
the vessel itself founders. He that letteth3329
| 3329 Jerome follows
Tertullian, Irenæus, and the majority of the fathers in supposing
the apostle to allude to the Roman Empire. See Letter CXXI. § 11,
Comm. in Hierem. xxv. 26, Comm. in Dan. vii. 7, 8. | is taken out of the way, and yet we do
not realize that Antichrist is near. Yes, Antichrist is near whom the
Lord Jesus Christ “shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth.”3330
“Woe
unto them,” he cries, “that are with child, and to them
that give suck in those days.”3331
Now
these things are both the fruits of marriage.
I shall now say a few words of our present miseries. A
few of us have hitherto survived them, but this is due not to anything
we have done ourselves but to the mercy of the Lord. Savage tribes in
countless numbers have overrun all
parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees,
between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of
Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons,
Burgundians, Allemanni and—alas! for the commonweal!—even
Pannonians. For “Assur also is joined with them.”3332
The once noble city of Moguntiacum3333
has been captured and destroyed. In
its church many thousands have been massacred. The people of Vangium3334
after standing a long siege have been
extirpated. The powerful city of Rheims, the Ambiani, the
Altrebatæ,3335
| 3335 Tribes whose
memories linger in the names Amiens and Arras. | the Belgians
on the skirts of the world, Tournay, Spires, and Strasburg have fallen
to Germany: while the provinces of Aquitaine and of the Nine Nations,
of Lyons and of Narbonne are with the exception of a few cities one
universal scene of desolation. And those which the sword spares
without, famine ravages within. I cannot speak without tears of
Toulouse which has been kept from falling hitherto by the merits of its
reverend bishop Exuperius.3336
| 3336 See note on
Letter LIV. § 11. | Even the
Spains are on the brink of ruin and tremble daily as they recall the
invasion of the Cymry; and, while others suffer misfortunes once in
actual fact, they suffer them continually in anticipation.
17. I say nothing of other places that I may not seem to
despair of God’s mercy. All that is ours now from the Pontic Sea
to the Julian Alps in days gone by once ceased to be ours. For thirty
years the barbarians burst the barrier of the Danube and fought in the
heart of the Roman Empire. Long use dried our tears. For all but a few
old people had been born either in captivity or during a blockade, and
consequently they did not miss a liberty which they had never known.
Yet who will hereafter credit the fact or what histories will seriously
discuss it, that Rome has to fight within her own borders not for glory
but for bare life; and that she does not even fight but buys the right
to exist by giving gold and sacrificing all her substance? This
humiliation has been brought upon her not by the fault of her
Emperors3337
| 3337 Arcadius and
Honorius. | who are both most religious
men, but by the crime of a half-barbarian traitor3338
| 3338 Stilicho who
induced the senate to grant a subsidy to the Gothic King Alaric. See
Gibbon, C. xxx. | who with our money has armed our
foes against us.3339
| 3339 This, one of
Jerome’s few criticisms on the public policy of his day, shows
him to have taken a narrow and inadequate view of the issues
involved. | Of old the
Roman Empire was branded with eternal shame because after ravaging the
country and routing the Romans at the Allia, Brennus with his Gauls
entered Rome itself.3340
| 3340 In the year 390
b.c. | Nor could this
ancient stain be wiped out until Gaul, the birth-place of the Gauls,
and Gaulish Greece,3341
wherein they
had settled after triumphing over East and West, were subjugated to her
sway. Even Hannibal3342
| 3342 The great
Carthaginian general in the second Punic war. | who swept
like a devastating storm from Spain into Italy, although he came within
sight of the city, did not dare to lay siege to it. Even Pyrrhus3343
| 3343 King of Epirus
who invaded Italy in the years 280, 279, 276, 275 b.c. | was so completely bound by the spell
of the Roman name that destroying everything that came in his way, he
yet withdrew from its vicinity and, victor though he was, did not
presume to gaze upon what he had learned to be a city of kings. Yet in
return for such insults—not to say such haughty pride—as
theirs which ended thus happily for Rome, one3344
banished from all the world found
death at last by poison in Bithynia; while the other3345
returning to his native land was slain
in his own dominions. The countries of both became tributary to the
Roman people. But now, even if complete success attends our arms, we
can wrest nothing from our vanquished foes but what we have already
lost to them. The poet Lucan describing the power of the city in a
glowing passage says:3346
| 3346 Lucan, Phars. v.
274. |
If Rome be weak, where shall we look for strength?
we may vary his words and say:
If Rome be lost, where shall we look for help?
or quote the language of Virgil:
Had I a hundred tongues and throat of bronze
The woes of captives I could not relate
Or ev’n recount the names of all the slain.3347
| 3347 Virg. A. vi.
625–627. |
Even what I have said is fraught with danger both to me who say it
and to all who hear it; for we are no longer free even to lament our
fate, and are unwilling, nay, I may even say, afraid to weep for our
sufferings.
Dearest daughter in Christ, answer me this question:
will you marry amid such scenes as these? Tell me, what kind of husband
will you take? One that will run or one that will fight? In either case
you know what the result will be. Instead of the Fescennine song,3348
| 3348 See note on
Letter CXXX. § 5. | the hoarse blare of the terrible
trumpet will deafen your ears and your very brideswomen may be turned
into mourners. In what pleasures can you hope to revel now that you
have lost the proceeds of all your possessions, now that you see your
small retinue under close blockade and a prey to the inroads of
pestilence and famine? But far be it from me to think so meanly of you
or to harbour any suspicions of one who has dedicated her soul to the
Lord. Though nominally addressed to
you my words are really meant for others such as are idle, inquisitive
and given to gossip. These wander from house to house and from one
married lady to another,3349
their god is
their belly and their glory is in their shame,3350
of the scriptures they know nothing except the texts which favour
second marriages, but they love to quote the example of others to
justify their own self-indulgence, and flatter themselves that they are
no worse than their fellow-sinners. When you have confounded the
shameless proposals of such women by explaining the true drift of the
apostle’s meaning; then to show you by what mode of life you can
best preserve your widowhood, you may read with advantage what I have
written. I mean my treatise on the preservation of virginity addressed
to Eustochium3351
and my two
letters to Furia3352
and Salvina.3353
Of these two latter you may like to
know that the first is daughter-in-law to Probus some time consul, and
the second daughter to Gildo formerly governour of Africa. This tract
on monogamy I shall call by your name.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
