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Letter
LXXIX. To Salvina.
A letter of consolation addressed by Jerome to Salvina
(a lady of the imperial court) on the death of her husband Nebridius.
After excusing his temerity in addressing a complete stranger Jerome
eulogizes the virtues of Nebridius, particularly his chastity and his
bounty to the poor. He next warns Salvina (in no courtier-like terms)
of the dangers that will beset her as a widow and recommends her to
devote all her energies to the careful training of the son and daughter
who are now her principal charge. The tone of the letter is somewhat
arrogant and it can hardly be regarded as one of Jerome’s
happiest efforts. Salvina, however, consecrated her life to deeds of
piety, and became one of Chrysostom’s deaconesses. Its date is
400 a.d.
1. My desire to do my duty may, I fear, expose me to a
charge of self-seeking; and although I do but follow the example of Him
who said: “learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart,”2389
the course that I am taking may be
attributed to a desire for notoriety. Men may say that I am not so much
trying to console a widow in affliction as endeavouring to creep into
the imperial court; and that, while I make a pretext of offering
comfort, I am really seeking the friendship of the great. Clearly this
will not be the opinion of any one who knows the commandment:
“thou shalt not respect the person of the poor,”2390
a precept given lest under pretext of
shewing pity we should judge unjust judgment. For each individual is to
be judged not by his personal importance but by the merits of his case.
His wealth need not stand in the way of the rich man, if he makes a
good use of it; and poverty can be no recommendation to the poor if in
the midst of squalor and want he fails to keep clear of wrong doing.
Proofs of these things are not wanting either in scriptural times or
our own; for Abraham, in spite of his immense wealth, was “the
friend of God”2391
and poor men
are daily arrested and punished for their crimes by law. She whom I now
address is both rich and poor so that she cannot say what she actually
has. For it is not of her purse that I am speaking but of the purity of
her soul. I do not know her face but I am well acquainted with her
virtues; for report speaks well of her and her youth makes her chastity
all the more commendable. By her grief for her young husband she has
set an example to all wives; and by her resignation she has proved that
she believes him not lost but gone before. The greatness of her
bereavement has brought out the reality of her religion. For while she
forgets her lost Nebridius, she knows that in Christ he is with her
still.
But why do I write to one who is a stranger to me? For
three reasons. First, because (as a priest is bound to do) I love all
Christians as my children and find my glory in promoting their welfare.
Secondly because the father of Nebridius was bound to me by the closest
ties.2392
| 2392 Also named
Nebridius, Prefect of Gaul, then of the East. | Lastly—and this is a stronger
reason than the others—because I have failed to say no to my son
Avitus.2393
With an importunacy surpassing
that of the widow towards the unjust judge2394
he wrote to me so frequently and put
before me so many instances in which I had previously dealt with a
similar theme, that he overcame my modest reluctance and made the
resolve to do not what would best become me but what would most nearly
meet his wishes.
2. As the mother of Nebridius was sister to the
empress2395
| 2395 Ælia
Flaccilla, the wife of Theodosius who is here called “the
unvanquished emperor.” | and as he was brought up in the
bosom of his aunt, another might perhaps praise him for having so much
endeared himself to the unvanquished emperor. Theodosius, indeed,
procured him from Africa a wife of the highest rank,2396
| 2396 Salvina was the
daughter of Gildo who at the time was tributary king of Mauritania. | who, as her native land at this time
was distracted by civil wars, became a kind of hostage for its loyalty.
I ought to say at the very outset that Nebridius seems to have had a
presentiment that he would die early. For amid the splendour of the
palace and in the high positions to which his rank and not his years
entitled him he lived always as one who believed that he must soon go
to meet Christ. Of Cornelius, the centurion of the Italian band, the
sacred narrative tells us that God so fully accepted him as to send to
him an angel; and that this angel told him that to his merit was due
the mystery whereby Peter from the narrow limits of the circumcision
was conveyed to the wide field of the uncircumcision. He was the first
Gentile baptized by the apostle, and in him the Gentiles were set apart
to salvation. Now of this man it is written: “there was a certain man in Cæsarea called
Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout
man and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to
the people, and prayed to God alway.”2397
All this that is said of him I
claim—with a change of name only—for my dear Nebridius. So
“devout” was this latter and so enamoured of chastity that
at his marriage he was still pure. So truly did he “fear God with
all his house” that forgetting his high position he spent all his
time with monks and clergymen. So profuse were the alms which he gave
to the people that his doors were continually beset with swarms of sick
and poor. And assuredly he “prayed to God alway” that what
was for the best might happen to him. Therefore “speedily was he
taken away lest that wickedness should alter his
understanding…for his soul pleased the Lord.”2398
Thus I may truthfully apply to him
the apostle’s words: “Of a truth I perceive that God is no
respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth Him and
worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him.”2399
As a soldier Nebridius took no harm
from his cloak and sword-belt and troops of orderlies; for while he
wore the uniform of the emperor he was enlisted in the service of God.
On the other hand nothing is gained by men who while they affect coarse
mantles, sombre tunics, dirt, and poverty, belie by their deeds their
lofty pretensions. Of another centurion we find in the gospel this
testimony from our Lord:—“I have not found so great faith,
no not in Israel.”2400
And, to go back to
earlier times, we read of Joseph who gave proof of his integrity both
when he was in want and when he was rich, and who inculcated freedom of
soul both as slave and as lord. He was made next to Pharaoh and
invested with the emblems of royalty;2401
yet so dear was he to God that, alone of all the patriarchs, he became
the father of two tribes.2402
Daniel and the
three children were set over the affairs of Babylon and were numbered
among the princes of the state; yet although they wore the dress of
Nebuchadnezzar, in their hearts they served God. Mordecai also and
Esther amid purple and silk and jewels overcame pride with humility;
and although captives were so highly esteemed as to be able to impose
commands upon their conquerors.
3. These remarks are intended to shew that the youth of
whom I speak used his kinship to the royal family, his abundant wealth,
and the outward tokens of power, as helps to virtue. For, as the
preacher says, “wisdom is a defence and money is a
defence”2403
also. We must
not hastily conclude that this statement conflicts with that of the
Lord: “verily I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly enter
into the kingdom of heaven; and again I say unto you, It is easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of heaven.”2404
Were it so,
the salvation of Zacchæus the publican, described in scripture as
a man of great wealth, would contradict the Lord’s declaration.
But that what is impossible with men is possible with God2405
we are taught by the counsel of the apostle
who thus writes to Timothy:—“charge them that are rich in
this world that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches,
but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy, that
they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute.
willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good
foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on the true
life.”2406
We have learned how a camel can pass
through a needle’s eye, how an animal with a hump on its back,2407
| 2407 Animal tortuosum.
The epithet recurs in Letter CVII. § 3. | when it has laid down its packs, can take
to itself the wings of a dove2408
and rest in the
branches of the tree which has grown from a grain of mustard seed.2409
In Isaiah we read of camels, the
dromedaries of Midian and Ephah and Sheba, which carry gold and incense
to the city of the Lord.2410
On like typical
camels the Ishmaelitish merchantmen2411
bring down
to the Egyptians perfume and incense and balm (of the kind that grows
in Gilead good for the healing of wounds2412
); and so fortunate are they that in the
purchase and sale of Joseph they have for their merchandise the Saviour
of the world.2413
And
Æsop’s fable tells us of a mouse which after eating its fill
can no longer creep out as before it crept in.2414
| 2414 Horace, Epist. I.
vii. 30, 31. |
4. Daily did my dear Nebridius revolve the words:
“they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare”
of the devil “and into many lusts.”2415
All the money that the Emperor’s bounty gave him or that his
badges of office procured him he laid out for the benefit of the poor.
For he knew the commandment of the Lord: “If thou wilt be perfect
go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come and follow
me.”2416
And because he could not literally
fulfil these directions, having a wife and little children and a large
household, he made to himself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness
that they might receive him into everlasting habitations.2417
He did not once for all cast away his brethren, as
did the apostles who forsook father and nets and ship,2418
but by an equality he ministered to the
want of others out of his own abundance that afterwards their wealth
might be a supply for his own want.2419
The lady to
whom this letter is addressed knows that what I narrate is only known
to me by hearsay, but she is aware also that I am no Greek writer
repaying with flattery some benefit conferred upon me. Far be such an
imputation from all Christians. Having food and raiment we are
therewith content.2420
Where there is
cheap cabbage and household bread, a sufficiency to eat and a
sufficiency to drink, these riches are superfluous and no place is left
for flattery with its sordid calculations. You may conclude therefore
that, where there is no motive to tell a falsehood, the testimony given
is true.
5. It must not, however, be supposed that I praise
Nebridius only for his liberality in alms-giving, although we are
taught the great importance of this in the words: “water will
quench a flaming fire; and alms maketh an atonement for sins.”2421
I will pass on now to his other virtues
each one of which is to be found but in few men. Who ever entered the
furnace of the King of Babylon without being burned?2422
Was there ever a young man whose garment
his Egyptian mistress did not seize?2423
Was there
ever a eunuch’s2424
| 2424 The allusion is to
the word “officer” in Gen. xxxvii. 36. See A.V. margin. | wife contented
with a childless marriage bed? Is there any man who is not appalled by
the struggle of which the apostle says: “I see another law in my
members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into
captivity to the law of sin which is in my members?”2425
But wonderful to say Nebridius, though
bred up in a palace as a companion and fellow pupil of the Augusti2426
| 2426 Arcadius and
Honorius. | (whose table is supplied by the whole
world and ministered to by land and sea); Nebridius, I say, though in
the midst of abundance and in the flower of his age, shewed himself
more modest than a girl and never gave occasion, even the slightest,
for scandalous rumours. Again though he was the friend, companion, and
cousin of princes and had been educated along with them—a thing
which makes even strangers intimate—he did not allow pride to
inflate him or frown with contempt upon others who were less fortunate
than he: no, he was kind to all, and while he loved the princes as
brothers he revered them as sovereigns. He used to avow that his own
health and safety were dependent upon theirs. Their attendants and all
those officers of the palace who by their numbers add to the grandeur
of the imperial court he had so well conciliated by shewing his regard
for them, that men who were in reality inferior to him were led by his
attention to believe themselves his peers. It is no easy task to throw
one’s rank into the shade by one’s virtue, or to gain the
affection of men who are forced to yield you precedence. What widow was
not supported by his help? What ward did not find in him a father? To
him the bishops of the entire East used to bring the prayers of the
unfortunate and the petitions of the distressed. Whenever he asked the
Emperor for a boon, he sought either alms for the poor or ransom for
captives or clemency for the afflicted. Accordingly the princes also
used gladly to accede to his requests, for they knew well that their
bounty would benefit not one man but many.
6. Why do I farther postpone the end? “All flesh
is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the
field.”2427
The dust has
returned to the dust.2428
He has fallen
asleep in the Lord and has been laid with his fathers, full of days and
of light and fostered in a good old age. For “wisdom is the grey
hair unto men.”2429
“In a
short time he” has “fulfilled a long time.”2430
In his place we now have his charming
children. His wife is the heir of his chastity. To those who miss his
father the tiny Nebridius shews him once more, for
Such were the eyes and hands and looks he bore.2431
A spark of the parent’s excellence shines in the
son: the child’s face betrays like a mirror a resemblance in
character.
That narrow frame contains a hero’s heart.2432
And with him there is his sister, a basket of roses and lilies, a
mixture of ivory and purple. Her face though it takes after that of her
father inclines to be still more attractive; and, while her complexion
is that of her mother, she is so like both her parents that the
lineaments of each are reflected in her features. So sweet and honied
is she that she is the pride of all her kinsfolk. The Emperor2433
does not disdain to hold her in his
arms, and the Empress2434
likes nothing
better than to nurse her on her lap. Everyone runs to be the first to
catch her up. Now she clings to the neck of one, and now she is fondled
in the arms of another. She prattles and stammers, and is all the
sweeter for her faltering tongue.
7. You have, therefore, Salvina, those to nurse who may well represent to you your absent
husband: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord; and the fruit
of the womb is his reward.”2435
In the
place of one husband you have received two children, and thus your
affection has more objects than before. All that was due to him you can
give to them. Temper grief with love, for if he is gone they are still
with you. It is no small merit in God’s eyes to bring up children
well. Hear the apostle’s counsel: “Let not a widow be taken
into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one
man, well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children,
if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’
feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently
followed every good work.”2436
Here you
learn the roll of the virtues which God requires of you, what is due to
the name of widow which you bear, and by what good deeds you can attain
to that second degree of chastity2437
| 2437 The three
degrees of chastity are those of a virgin, a widow, and a wife. | which is
still open to you. Do not be disturbed because the apostle allows none
to be chosen as a widow under threescore years old, neither suppose
that he intends to reject those who are still young. Believe that you
are indeed chosen by him who said to his disciple, “Let no man
despise thy youth,”2438
your want of
age that is, not your want of continence. If this be not his meaning,
all who become widows under threescore years will have to take
husbands. He is training a church still untaught in Christ, and making
provision for people of all stations but especially for the poor, the
charge of whom had been committed to himself and Barnabas.2439
Thus he wishes only those to be
supported by the exertions of the church who cannot labour with their
own hands, and who are widows indeed,2440
approved by their years and by their lives. The faults of his children
made Eli the priest an offence to God. On the other hand He is appeased
by the virtues of such as “continue in faith and charity and
holiness with chastity.”2441
“O
Timothy,” cries the apostle, “keep thyself pure.”2442
Far be it from me to suspect you capable
of doing anything wrong; still it is only a kindness to admonish one
whose youth and opulence lead her into temptation. You must take what I
am going to say as addressed not to you but to your girlish years. A
widow “that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.”2443
So speaks the “chosen
vessel”2444
and the words
are brought out from his treasure who could boldly say: “Do ye
seek a proof of Christ speaking in me?”2445
Yet they are the words of one who in his own person admitted the
weakness of the human body, saying: “The good that I would I do
not: but the evil which I would not that I do.”2446
And again: Therefore “I keep under
my body and bring it into subjection lest that by any means when I have
preached to others I myself should be a castaway.”2447
If Paul is afraid, which of us can
venture to be confident? If David the friend of God and Solomon who
loved God2448
were overcome like other men, if
their fall is meant to warn us and their penitence to lead us to
salvation, who in this slippery life can be sure of not falling? Never
let pheasants be seen upon your table, or plump turtledoves or black
cock from Ionia, or any of those birds so expensive that they fly away
with the largest properties. And do not fancy that you eschew meat diet
when you reject pork, hare, and venison and the savoury flesh of other
quadrupeds.2449
| 2449 Many drew a
distinction between the flesh of quadrupeds and that of birds,
abstaining from the former but using the latter. | It is not the number of feet that
makes the difference but delicacy of flavour. I know that the apostle
has said: “every creature of God is good and nothing to be
refused if it be received with thanksgiving.”2450
But the same apostle says: “it is
good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine,”2451
and in another place: “be not drunk
with wine wherein is excess.”2452
“Every creature of God is good”—the precept is
intended for those who are careful how they may please their
husbands.2453
Let those feed on flesh who serve
the flesh, whose bodies boil with desire, who are tied to husbands, and
who set their hearts on having offspring. Let those whose wombs are
burthened cram their stomachs with flesh. But you have buried every
indulgence in your husband’s tomb: over his bier you have
cleansed with tears a face stained with rouge and whitelead; you have
exchanged a white robe and gilded buskins for a sombre tunic and black
shoes; and only one thing more is needed, perseverance in fasting. Let
paleness and squalor be henceforth your jewels. Do not pamper your
youthful limbs with a bed of down or kindle your young blood with hot
baths. Hear what words a heathen poet2454
| 2454 Virgil, Æn.
iv. 28, 29. |
puts into the mouth of a chaste widow:2455
| 2455 Dido, queen of
Carthage. |
He, my first spouse, has robbed me of my loves.
So be it: let him keep them in the tomb.
If common glass is worth so much, what must be the value of a pearl
of price?2456
| 2456 Quoted from
Tertullian (ad Mart. IV.). The same words recur in Letters CVII. §
8 and CXXX. § 9. | If in deference to a law of nature a Gentile widow can
condemn all sensual indulgence, what must we expect from a Christian
widow who owes her chastity not to one who is dead but to one with whom
she shall reign in heaven?
8. Do not, I pray you, regard these general
remarks—applying as they do to all young women—as intended
to insult you or to take you to task. I write in a spirit of
apprehension, yet pray that you may never know the nature of my fears.
A woman’s reputation is a tender plant; it is like a fair flower
which withers at the slightest blast and fades away at the first breath
of wind. Especially is this so when she is of an age to fall into
temptation and the authority of a husband is wanting to her. For the
very shadow of a husband is a wife’s safeguard. What has a widow
to do with a large household or with troops of retainers? As servants,
it is true, she must not despise them, but as men she ought to blush
before them. If a grand establishment requires such domestics, let her
at least set over them an old man of spotless morals whose dignity may
guard the honour of his mistress. I know of many widows who, although
they live with closed doors, have not escaped the imputation of too
great intimacy with their servants. These latter become objects of
suspicion when they dress above their degree, or when they are stout
and sleek, or when they are of an age inclined to passion, or when
knowledge of the favour in which they are secretly held betrays itself
in a too confident demeanour. For such pride, however carefully
concealed, is sure to break out in a contempt for fellow-servants as
servants. I make these seemingly superfluous remarks that you may keep
your heart with all diligence2457
and guard
against every scandal that may be broached concerning you.
9. Take no well-curled steward to walk with you, no
effeminate actor, no devilish singer of poisoned sweetness, no spruce
and smooth-shorn youth. Let no theatrical compliments, no obsequious
adulation be associated with you. Keep with you bands of widows and
virgins; and let your consolers be of your own sex. The character of
the mistress is judged by that of the maid. So long as you have with
you a holy mother, so long as an aunt vowed to virginity is at your
side, you ought not to neglect them and at your own risk to seek the
company of strangers. Let the divine scripture be always in your hands,
and give yourself so frequently to prayer that such shafts of evil
thoughts as ever assail the young may thereby find a shield to repel
them. It is difficult, nay more it is impossible, to escape the
beginnings of those internal motions which the Greeks with much
significance call προπάθειαι
that is ‘predispositions to passion.’ The fact is that
suggestions of sin tickle all our minds, and the decision rests with
our own hearts either to admit or to reject the thoughts which come.
The Lord of nature Himself says in the gospel:—“out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts,
false witness, blasphemies.”2458
It is
clear from the testimony of another book that “the imagination of
man’s heart is evil from his youth,”2459
and that the soul wavers between the
works of the flesh and of the spirit enumerated by the apostle,2460
desiring now the former and now the
latter. For
From faults no mortal man is wholly free;
The best is he who has but few of them.2461
| 2461 Horace, Sat. I.
iii. 68, 69. |
And, to quote the same poet,
At moles men cavil when they mark fair skins.2462
| 2462 Horace, Sat. I.
vi. 66. |
To the same effect in different words the prophet
says:—“I am so troubled that I cannot speak,”2463
and in the same book, “Be ye
angry and sin not.”2464
| 2464 Ps. iv. 4, LXX. Quoted Eph. iv. 26. | So Archytas of
Tarentum2465
| 2465 A pythagorean
philosopher, mathematician, general, and statesman. He was a
contemporary of Plato. | once said to a careless steward:
“I should have flogged you to death had I not been in a
passion.” For “the wrath of man worketh not the
righteousness of God.”2466
Now what is
here said of one form of perturbation may be applied to all. Just as
anger is human and the repression of it Christian, so it is with other
passions. The flesh always lusts after the things of the flesh, and by
its allurements draws the soul to partake of deadly pleasures; but it
is for us Christians to restrain the desire for sensual indulgence by
an intenser love for Christ. It is for us to break in the mettlesome
brute within us by fasting, in order that it may desire not lust but
food and amble easily and steadily forward having for its rider the
Holy Spirit.
10. Why do I write thus? To shew you that you are but
human and subject, unless you guard against them, to human passions. We
are all of us made of the same clay and formed of the same elements.
Whether we wear silk or rags we are all at the mercy of the same
desire. It does not fear the royal purple; it does not disdain the
squalor of the mendicant. It is better then to suffer in stomach than
in soul, to rule the body than to serve it, to lose one’s balance
than to lose one’s chastity. Let us not lull ourselves with the
delusion that we can always fall back on penitence. For this is at best
but a remedy for misery. Let us
shrink from incurring a wound which must be painful to cure. For it is
one thing to enter the haven of salvation with ship safe and
merchandise uninjured, and another to cling naked to a plank and, as
the waves toss you this way and that, to be dashed again and again on
the sharp rocks. A widow should be ignorant that second marriage is
permitted; she should know nothing of the apostle’s
words:—“It is better to marry than to burn.”2467
Remove what is said to be worse, the
risk of burning, and marriage will cease to be regarded as good. Of
course I repudiate the slanders of the heretics; I know that
“marriage is honourable…and the bed undefiled.”2468
Yet Adam even after he was expelled
from paradise had but one wife. The accursed and blood-stained Lamech,
descended from the stock of Cain, was the first to make out of one rib
two wives; and the seedling of digamy then planted was altogether
destroyed by the doom of the deluge. It is true that in writing to
Timothy the apostle from fear of fornication is forced to countenance
second marriage. His words are these:—“I will therefore
that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none
occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.” But he
immediately adds as a reason for this concession; “for some are
already turned aside after Satan.”2469
Thus we see that he is offering not a
crown to those who stand but a helping hand to those who are down. What
must a second marriage be if it is looked on merely as an alternative
to the brothel! “For some,” he writes, “are already
turned aside after Satan.” The upshot of the whole matter is
that, if a young widow cannot or will not contain herself, she had
better take a husband to her bed than the devil.
A noble alternative truly which is only to be embraced
in preference to Satan! In old days even Jerusalem went a-whoring and
opened her feet to every one that passed by.2470
It was in Egypt that she was first deflowered and there that her teats
were bruised.2471
And afterwards
when she had come to the wilderness and, impatient of the delays of her
leader Moses, had said when maddened by the stings of lust:
“these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the
land of Egypt,”2472
she received
statutes that were not good and commandments that were altogether evil
whereby she should not live2473
but should be
punished through them. Is it surprising then that when the apostle had
said in another place of young widows: “when they have begun to
wax wanton against Christ they will marry, having damnation because
they have cast off their first faith,”2474
he granted to such as should wax wanton
statutes of digamy that were not good and commandments that were
altogether evil? For the reason which he gives for allowing a second
husband would justify a woman in marrying a third or even, if she
liked, a twentieth. He evidently wished to shew them that he was not so
much anxious that they should take husbands as that they should avoid
paramours. These things, dearest daughter in Christ, I impress upon you
and frequently repeat, that you may forget those things which are
behind and reach forth unto those things which are before.2475
You have widows like yourself worthy to
be your models, Judith renowned in Hebrew story and Anna the daughter
of Phanuel famous in the gospel. Both these lived day and night in the
temple and preserved the treasure of their chastity by prayer and by
fasting. One was a type of the Church which cuts off the head of the
devil2476
and the other first received in her
arms the saviour of the world and had revealed to her the holy
mysteries which were to come.2477
In conclusion
I beg you to attribute the shortness of my letter not to want of
language or scarcity of matter but to a deep sense of modesty which
makes me fear to force myself too long upon the ears of a stranger, and
causes me to dread the secret verdict of those who read my words.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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