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Letter
XXII. To Eustochium.
Perhaps the most famous of all the letters. In it Jerome
lays down at great length (1) the motives which ought to actuate those
who devote themselves to a life of virginity, and (2) the rules by
which they ought to regulate their daily conduct. The letter contains a
vivid picture of Roman society as it then was—the luxury,
profligacy, and hypocrisy prevalent among both men and women, besides
some graphic autobiographical details (§§7, 30), and
concludes with a full account of the three kinds of monasticism then
practised in Egypt (§§34–36). Thirty years later Jerome
wrote a similar letter to Demetrias (CXXX.), with which this ought to
be compared. Written at Rome 384 a.d.
1. “Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline
thine ear; forget also thine own people and thy father’s house,
and the king shall desire thy beauty.”331
In this forty-fourth332
| 332 According to the
Vulgate. | psalm God speaks
to the human soul that, following the example of Abraham,333
it should go out from its own land and
from its kindred, and should leave the Chaldeans, that is the demons,
and should dwell in the country of the living, for which elsewhere the
prophet sighs: “I think to see the good things of the Lord in the
land of the living.”334
But it is not
enough for you to go out from your own land unless you forget your
people and your father’s house; unless you scorn the flesh and
cling to the bridegroom in a close embrace. “Look not behind
thee,” he says, “neither stay thou in all the plain; escape
to the mountain lest thou be consumed.”335
He who has grasped the plough must not look behind him336
or return home from the field, or having
Christ’s garment, descend from the roof to fetch other raiment.337
Truly a marvellous thing, a father
charges his daughter not to remember her father. “Ye are of your
father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to
do.”338
So it was said to the Jews. And
in another place, “He that committeth sin is of the
devil.”339
Born, in the first instance, of
such parentage we are naturally black, and even when we have repented,
so long as we have not scaled the heights of virtue, we may still say:
“I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.”340
But you will say to me, “I have left
the home of my childhood; I have forgotten my father, I am born anew in
Christ. What reward do I receive for this?” The context
shows—“The king shall desire thy beauty.” This, then,
is the great mystery. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall
be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be” not as is there
said, “of one flesh,”341
but “of
one spirit.” Your bridegroom is not haughty or disdainful; He has
“married an Ethiopian woman.”342
When once you desire the wisdom of the true Solomon and come to Him, He
will avow all His knowledge to you; He will lead you into His chamber
with His royal hand;343
He will
miraculously change your complexion so that it shall be said of you,
“Who is this that goeth up and hath been made white?”344
2. I write to you thus, Lady Eustochium (I am bound to
call my Lord’s bride “lady”), to show you by my
opening words that my object is not to praise the virginity which you
follow, and of which you have proved the value, or yet to recount the
drawbacks of marriage, such as pregnancy, the crying of infants, the
torture caused by a rival, the cares of household management, and all
those fancied blessings which death at last cuts short. Not that
married women are as such outside the pale; they have their own place,
the marriage that is honorable and the bed undefiled.345
My purpose is to show you that you are
fleeing from Sodom and should take warning by Lot’s wife.346
There is no flattery, I can tell you, in
these pages. A flatterer’s words are fair, but for all that he is
an enemy. You need expect no rhetorical flourishes setting you among
the angels, and while they extol virginity as blessed, putting the
world at your feet.
3. I would have you draw from your monastic vow not
pride but fear.347
You walk laden
with gold; you must keep out of the robber’s way. To us men this
life is a race-course: we contend here, we are crowned elsewhere. No
man can lay aside fear while serpents and scorpions beset his path. The
Lord says: “My sword hath drunk its fill in heaven,”348
and do you expect to find peace on the
earth? No, the earth yields only thorns and thistles, and its dust is
food for the serpent.349
“For our
wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the
principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this
darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly
places.”350
We are hemmed in by hosts of foes, our
enemies are upon every side. The weak flesh will soon be ashes: one
against many, it fights against tremendous odds. Not till it has been
dissolved, not till the Prince of this world has come and found no sin
therein,351
| 351 Joh. xiv. 30. The variant is difficult to explain and
may be only a slip. | not till then may you safely listen
to the prophet’s words: “Thou shalt not be afraid for the
terror by night nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the
trouble which haunteth thee in darkness; nor for the demon and his
attacks at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand
at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.”352
When the hosts of the enemy distress you,
when your frame is fevered and your passions roused, when you say in
your heart, “What shall I do?” Elisha’s words shall
give you your answer, “Fear not, for they that be with us are
more than they that be with them.”353
He shall pray, “Lord, open the eyes of thine handmaid that she
may see.” And then when your eyes have been opened you shall see
a fiery chariot like Elijah’s waiting to carry you to heaven,354
and shall joyfully sing: “Our soul
is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is
broken and we are escaped.”355
4. So long as we are held down by this frail body, so
long as we have our treasure in earthen vessels;356
so long as the flesh lusteth against the
spirit and the spirit against the flesh,357
there can be no sure victory. “Our adversary the devil goeth
about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.”358
“Thou makest darkness,”
David says, “and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the
forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey and seek
their meat from God.”359
The devil looks
not for unbelievers, for those who are without, whose flesh the
Assyrian king roasted in the furnace.360
It is the
church of Christ that he “makes haste to spoil.”361
According to Habakkuk, “His food is
of the choicest.”362
A Job is the
victim of his machinations, and after devouring Judas he seeks power to
sift the [other] apostles.363
The Saviour came
not to send peace upon the earth but a sword.364
Lucifer fell, Lucifer who used to rise at dawn;365
and he who was bred up in a paradise of delight had the well-earned
sentence passed upon him, “Though thou exalt thyself as the
eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I
bring thee down, saith the Lord.”366
For he had said in his heart, “I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God,” and “I will be like the Most High.”367
Wherefore God says every day to the angels, as they descend the
ladder that Jacob saw in his dream,368
“I
have said ye are Gods and all of you are children of the Most High. But
ye shall die like men and fall like one of the princes.”369
The devil fell first, and since
“God standeth in the congregation of the Gods and judgeth among
the Gods,”370
the apostle writes
to those who are ceasing to be Gods—“Whereas there is among
you envying and strife, are ye not carnal and walk as men?”371
5. If, then, the apostle, who was a chosen vessel372
separated unto the gospel of Christ,373
by reason of the pricks of the flesh
and the allurements of vice keeps under his body and brings it into
subjection, lest when he has preached to others he may himself be a
castaway;374
and yet, for all that, sees
another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and
bringing him into captivity to the law of sin;375
if after nakedness, fasting, hunger, imprisonment, scourging and other
torments, he turns back to himself and cries “Oh, wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”376
do you fancy that you ought to lay aside
apprehension? See to it that God say not some day of you: “The
virgin of Israel is fallen and there is none to raise her up.”377
I will say it boldly, though God can do
all things He cannot raise up a virgin when once she has fallen. He may
indeed relieve one who is defiled from the penalty of her sin, but He
will not give her a crown. Let us fear lest in us also the prophecy be
fulfilled, “Good virgins shall faint.”378
Notice that it is good virgins who are
spoken of, for there are bad ones as well. “Whosoever looketh on
a woman,” the Lord says, “to lust after her hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart.”379
So that virginity may be lost even by a thought. Such are evil virgins,
virgins in the flesh, not in the spirit; foolish virgins, who, having
no oil, are shut out by the Bridegroom.380
6. But if even real virgins, when they have other
failings, are not saved by their physical virginity, what shall become
of those who have prostituted the members of Christ, and have changed
the temple of the Holy Ghost into a brothel? Straightway shall they
hear the words: “Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter
of Babylon, sit on the ground; there is no throne, O daughter of the
Chaldæans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
Take the millstone and grind meal; uncover thy locks, make bare the
legs, pass over the rivers; thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy
shame shall be seen.”381
And shall she
come to this after the bridal-chamber of God the Son, after the kisses
of Him who is to her both kinsman and spouse?382
Yes, she of whom the prophetic utterance once sang, “Upon thy
right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of gold wrought about with
divers colours,”383
shall be made
naked, and her skirts shall be discovered upon her face.384
She shall sit by the waters of
loneliness, her pitcher laid aside; and shall open her feet to every
one that passeth by, and shall be polluted to the crown of her head.385
Better had it been for her to have
submitted to the yoke of marriage, to have walked in level places, than
thus, aspiring to loftier heights, to fall into the deep of hell. I
pray you, let not Zion the faithful city become a harlot:386
let it not be that where the Trinity
has been entertained, there demons shall dance and owls make their
nests, and jackals build.387
Let us not
loose the belt that binds the breast. When lust tickles the sense and
the soft fire of sensual pleasure sheds over us its pleasing glow, let
us immediately break forth and cry: “The Lord is on my side: I
will not fear what the flesh can do unto me.”388
When the inner man shows signs for a
time of wavering between vice and virtue, say: “Why art thou cast
down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in
God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance and
my God.”389
You must never let suggestions of
evil grow on you, or a babel of disorder win strength in your breast.
Slay the enemy while he is small; and, that you may not have a crop of
tares, nip the evil in the bud. Bear in mind the warning words of the
Psalmist: “Hapless daughter of Babylon, happy shall he be that
rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be that taketh
and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.”390
Because natural heat inevitably kindles in
a man sensual passion, he is praised and accounted happy who, when foul
suggestions arise in his mind, gives them no quarter, but dashes them
instantly against the rock. “Now the Rock is Christ.”391
7. How often, when I was living in the desert, in the
vast solitude which gives to hermits a savage dwelling-place, parched
by a burning sun, how often did I fancy myself among the pleasures of Rome! I used to sit
alone because I was filled with bitterness. Sackcloth disfigured my
unshapely limbs and my skin from long neglect had become as black as an
Ethiopian’s. Tears and groans were every day my portion; and if
drowsiness chanced to overcome my struggles against it, my bare bones,
which hardly held together, clashed against the ground. Of my food and
drink I say nothing: for, even in sickness, the solitaries have nothing
but cold water, and to eat one’s food cooked is looked upon as
self-indulgence. Now, although in my fear of hell I had consigned
myself to this prison, where I had no companions but scorpions and wild
beasts, I often found myself amid bevies of girls. My face was pale and
my frame chilled with fasting; yet my mind was burning with desire, and
the fires of lust kept bubbling up before me when my flesh was as good
as dead. Helpless, I cast myself at the feet of Jesus, I watered them
with my tears, I wiped them with my hair: and then I subdued my
rebellious body with weeks of abstinence. I do not blush to avow my
abject misery; rather I lament that I am not now what once I was. I
remember how I often cried aloud all night till the break of day and
ceased not from beating my breast till tranquillity returned at the
chiding of the Lord. I used to dread my very cell as though it knew my
thoughts; and, stern and angry with myself, I used to make my way alone
into the desert. Wherever I saw hollow valleys, craggy mountains, steep
cliffs, there I made my oratory, there the house of correction for my
unhappy flesh. There, also—the Lord Himself is my
witness—when I had shed copious tears and had strained my eyes
towards heaven, I sometimes felt myself among angelic hosts, and for
joy and gladness sang: “because of the savour of thy good
ointments we will run after thee.”392
8. Now, if such are the temptations of men who, since
their bodies are emaciated with fasting, have only evil thoughts to
fear, how must it fare with a girl whose surroundings are those of
luxury and ease? Surely, to use the apostle’s words, “She
is dead while she liveth.”393
Therefore,
if experience gives me a right to advise, or clothes my words with
credit, I would begin by urging you and warning you as Christ’s
spouse to avoid wine as you would avoid poison. For wine is the first
weapon used by demons against the young. Greed does not shake, nor
pride puff up, nor ambition infatuate so much as this. Other vices we
easily escape, but this enemy is shut up within us, and wherever we go
we carry him with us. Wine and youth between them kindle the fire of
sensual pleasure. Why do we throw oil on the flame—why do we add
fresh fuel to a miserable body which is already ablaze. Paul, it is
true, says to Timothy “drink no longer water, but use a little
wine for thy stomach’s sake, and for thine often
infirmities.”394
But notice the
reasons for which the permission is given, to cure an aching stomach
and a frequent infirmity. And lest we should indulge ourselves too much
on the score of our ailments, he commands that but little shall be
taken; advising rather as a physician than as an apostle (though,
indeed, an apostle is a spiritual physician). He evidently feared that
Timothy might succumb to weakness, and might prove unequal to the
constant moving to and fro involved in preaching the Gospel. Besides,
he remembered that he had spoken of “wine wherein is
excess,”395
and had said, “it is good
neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine.”396
Noah drank wine and became intoxicated; but living as he did in the
rude age after the flood, when the vine was first planted, perhaps he
did not know its power of inebriation. And to let you see the hidden
meaning of Scripture in all its fulness (for the word of God is a pearl
and may be pierced on every side) after his drunkenness came the
uncovering of his body; self-indulgence culminated in lust.397
First the belly is crammed; then the
other members are roused. Similarly, at a later period, “The
people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.”398
Lot also, God’s friend, whom He
saved upon the mountain, who was the only one found righteous out of so
many thousands, was intoxicated by his daughters. And, although they
may have acted as they did more from a desire of offspring than from
love of sinful pleasure—for the human race seemed in danger of
extinction—yet they were well aware that the righteous man would
not abet their design unless intoxicated. In fact he did not know what
he was doing, and his sin was not wilful. Still his error was a grave
one, for it made him the father of Moab and Ammon,399
Israel’s enemies, of whom it is
said: “Even to the fourteenth generation they shall not enter
into the congregation of the Lord forever.”400
9. When Elijah, in his flight from Jezebel, lay weary and desolate beneath the oak, there
came an angel who raised him up and said, “Arise and eat.”
And he looked, and behold there was a cake and a cruse of water at his
head.401
Had God willed it, might He not have sent His
prophet spiced wines and dainty dishes and flesh basted into
tenderness? When Elisha invited the sons of the prophets to dinner, he
only gave them field-herbs to eat; and when all cried out with one
voice: “There is death in the pot,” the man of God did not
storm at the cooks (for he was not used to very sumptuous fare), but
caused meal to be brought, and casting it in, sweetened the bitter
mess402
with spiritual strength as Moses had once
sweetened the waters of Mara.403
Again, when men
were sent to arrest the prophet, and were smitten with physical and
mental blindness, that he might bring them without their own knowledge
to Samaria, notice the food with which Elisha ordered them to be
refreshed. “Set bread and water,” he said, “before
them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.”404
And Daniel, who might have had rich food
from the king’s table,405
preferred the
mower’s breakfast, brought to him by Habakkuk,406
which must have been but country fare. He was called “a man of
desires,”407
because he would
not eat the bread of desire or drink the wine of concupiscence.
10. There are, in the Scriptures, countless divine
answers condemning gluttony and approving simple food. But as fasting
is not my present theme and an adequate discussion of it would require
a treatise to itself, these few observations must suffice of the many
which the subject suggests. By them you will understand why the first
man, obeying his belly and not God, was cast down from paradise into
this vale of tears;408
and why Satan used
hunger to tempt the Lord Himself in the wilderness;409
and why the apostle cries: “Meats for the belly and the belly for
meats, but God shall destroy both it and them;”410
and why he speaks of the self-indulgent as men “whose God is
their belly.”411
For men invariably
worship what they like best. Care must be taken, therefore, that
abstinence may bring back to Paradise those whom satiety once drove
out.
11. You will tell me, perhaps, that, high-born as you
are, reared in luxury and used to lie softly, you cannot do without
wine and dainties, and would find a stricter rule of life unendurable.
If so, I can only say: “Live, then, by your own rule, since
God’s rule is too hard for you.” Not that the Creator and
Lord of all takes pleasure in a rumbling and empty stomach, or in
fevered lungs; but that these are indispensable as means to the
preservation of chastity. Job was dear to God, perfect and upright
before Him;412
yet hear what he says of the devil:
“His strength is in the loins, and his force is in the
navel.”413
The terms are chosen for decency’s sake, but the
reproductive organs of the two sexes are meant. Thus, the descendant of
David, who, according to the promise is to sit upon his throne, is said
to come from his loins.414
And the
seventy-five souls descended from Jacob who entered Egypt are said to
come out of his thigh.415
So, also, when his
thigh shrank after the Lord had wrestled with him,416
he ceased to beget children. The
Israelites, again, are told to celebrate the passover with loins girded
and mortified.417
God says to Job: “Gird up thy
loins as a man.”418
John wears a
leathern girdle.419
The apostles must
gird their loins to carry the lamps of the Gospel.420
When Ezekiel tells us how Jerusalem is found in the plain of wandering,
covered with blood, he uses the words: “Thy navel has not been
cut.”421
In his assaults on men, therefore,
the devil’s strength is in the loins; in his attacks on women his
force is in the navel.
12. Do you wish for proof of my assertions? Take
examples. Sampson was braver than a lion and tougher than a rock; alone
and unprotected he pursued a thousand armed men; and yet, in
Delilah’s embrace, his resolution melted away. David was a man
after God’s own heart, and his lips had often sung of the Holy
One, the future Christ; and yet as he walked upon his housetop he was
fascinated by Bathsheba’s nudity, and added murder to adultery.422
Notice here how, even in his own house, a
man cannot use his eyes without danger. Then repenting, he says to the
Lord: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil
in Thy sight.”423
Being a king he
feared no one else. So, too, with Solomon. Wisdom used him to sing her
praise,424
and he treated of all plants “from
the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth
out of the wall;”425
and yet he went
back from God because he was a lover of women.426
And, as if to show that near relationship is no safeguard, Amnon burned with illicit passion for
his sister Tamar.427
13. I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins
who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the church, their mother:
stars over which the proud foe sets up his throne,428
and rocks hollowed by the serpent that
he may dwell in their fissures. You may see many women widows before
wedded, who try to conceal their miserable fall by a lying garb. Unless
they are betrayed by swelling wombs or by the crying of their infants,
they walk abroad with tripping feet and heads in the air. Some go so
far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus
murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they
find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure
abortion, and when (as often happens) they die with their offspring,
they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery
against Christ but also of suicide and child murder. Yet it is these
who say: “‘Unto the pure all things are pure;’429
my conscience is sufficient guide for me.
A pure heart is what God looks for. Why should I abstain from meats
which God has created to be received with thanksgiving?”430
And when they wish to appear agreeable and
entertaining they first drench themselves with wine, and then joining
the grossest profanity to intoxication, they say “Far be it from
me to abstain from the blood of Christ.” And when they see
another pale or sad they call her “wretch” or
“manichæan;”431
| 431 The Manichæans
believed evil to be inseparable from matter. Hence they inculcated a
rigid asceticism. | quite logically,
indeed, for on their principles fasting involves heresy. When they go
out they do their best to attract notice, and with nods and winks
encourage troops of young fellows to follow them. Of each and all of
these the prophet’s words are true: “Thou hast a
whore’s forehead; thou refusest to be ashamed.”432
Their robes have but a narrow purple
stripe,433
| 433 Plebeians wore a
narrow stripe, patricians a broad one. | it is true; and their head-dress is
somewhat loose, so as to leave the hair free. From their shoulders
flutters the lilac mantle which they call “ma-forte;” they
have their feet in cheap slippers and their arms tucked up
tight-fitting sleeves. Add to these marks of their profession an easy
gait, and you have all the virginity that they possess. Such may have
eulogizers of their own, and may fetch a higher price in the market of
perdition, merely because they are called virgins. But to such virgins
as these I prefer to be displeasing.
14. I blush to speak of it, it is so shocking; yet
though sad, it is true. How comes this plague of the agapetæ434
| 434 Beloved ones, viz.,
women who lived with the unmarried clergy professedly as spiritual
sisters, but really (in too many cases) as mistresses. The evil custom
was widely prevalent and called forth many protests. The councils of
Elvira, Ancyra, and Nicæa passed canons against it. | to be in the church? Whence come these
unwedded wives, these novel concubines, these harlots, so I will call
them, though they cling to a single partner? One house holds them and
one chamber. They often occupy the same bed, and yet they call us
suspicious if we fancy anything amiss. A brother leaves his virgin
sister; a virgin, slighting her unmarried brother, seeks a brother in a
stranger. Both alike profess to have but one object, to find spiritual
consolation from those not of their kin; but their real aim is to
indulge in sexual intercourse. It is on such that Solomon in the book
of proverbs heaps his scorn. “Can a man take fire in his
bosom,” he says, “and his clothes not be burned? Can one go
upon hot coals and his feet not be burned?”435
15. We cast out, then, and banish from our sight those
who only wish to seem and not to be virgins. Henceforward I may bring
all my speech to bear upon you who, as it is your lot to be the first
virgin of noble birth in Rome, have to labor the more diligently not to
lose good things to come, as well as those that are present. You have
at least learned from a case in your own family the troubles of wedded
life and the uncertainties of marriage. Your sister, Blæsilla,
before you in age but behind you in declining the vow of virginity, has
become a widow but seven months after she has taken a husband. Hapless
plight of us mortals who know not what is before us! She has lost, at
once, the crown of virginity and the pleasures of wedlock. And,
although, as a widow, the second degree of chastity is hers, still can
you not imagine the continual crosses which she has to bear, daily
seeing in her sister what she has lost herself; and, while she finds it
hard to go without the pleasures of wedlock, having a less reward for
her present continence? Still she, too, may take heart and rejoice. The
fruit which is an hundredfold and that which is sixtyfold both spring
from one seed, and that seed is chastity.436
16. Do not court the company of married ladies or visit
the houses of the high-born. Do not look too often on the life which
you despised to become a virgin. Women of the world, you know, plume
themselves because their husbands are on the bench or in other high positions. And the wife of the
emperor always has an eager throng of visitors at her door. Why do you,
then, wrong your husband? Why do you, God’s bride, hasten to
visit the wife of a mere man? Learn in this respect a holy pride; know
that you are better than they. And not only must you avoid intercourse
with those who are puffed up by their husbands’ honors, who are
hedged in with troops of eunuchs, and who wear robes inwrought with
threads of gold. You must also shun those who are widows from necessity
and not from choice. Not that they ought to have desired the death of
their husbands; but that they have not welcomed the opportunity of
continence when it has come. As it is, they only change their garb;
their old self-seeking remains unchanged. To see them in their
capacious litters, with red cloaks and plump bodies, a row of eunuchs
walking in front of them, you would fancy them not to have lost
husbands but to be seeking them. Their houses are filled with
flatterers and with guests. The very clergy, who ought to inspire them
with respect by their teaching and authority, kiss these ladies on the
forehead, and putting forth their hands (so that, if you knew no
better, you might suppose them in the act of blessing), take wages for
their visits. They, meanwhile, seeing that priests cannot do without
them, are lifted up into pride; and as, having had experience of both,
they prefer the license of widowhood to the restraints of marriage,
they call themselves chaste livers and nuns. After an immoderate supper
they retire to rest to dream of the apostles.437
| 437 Cena dubia. The
allusion is to Terence, Phormio, 342. |
17. Let your companions be women pale and thin with
fasting, and approved by their years and conduct; such as daily sing in
their hearts: “Tell me where thou feedest thy flock, where thou
makest it to rest at noon,”438
and say,
with true earnestness, “I have a desire to depart and to be with
Christ.”439
Be subject to your parents,
imitating the example of your spouse.440
Rarely go
abroad, and if you wish to seek the aid of the martyrs seek it in your
own chamber. For you will never need a pretext for going out if you
always go out when there is need. Take food in moderation, and never
overload your stomach. For many women, while temperate as regards wine,
are intemperate in the use of food. When you rise at night to pray, let
your breath be that of an empty and not that of an overfull stomach.
Read often, learn all that you can. Let sleep overcome you, the roll
still in your hands; when your head falls, let it be on the sacred
page. Let your fasts be of daily occurrence and your refreshment such
as avoids satiety. It is idle to carry an empty stomach if, in two or
three days’ time, the fast is to be made up for by repletion.
When cloyed the mind immediately grows sluggish, and when the ground is
watered it puts forth the thorns of lust. If ever you feel the outward
man sighing for the flower of youth, and if, as you lie on your couch
after a meal, you are excited by the alluring train of sensual desires;
then seize the shield of faith, for it alone can quench the fiery darts
of the devil.441
“They are all
adulterers,” says the prophet; “they have made ready their
heart like an oven.”442
But do you keep
close to the footsteps of Christ, and, intent upon His words, say:
“Did not our heart burn within us by the way while Jesus opened
to us the Scriptures?”443
and again:
“Thy word is tried to the uttermost, and thy servant loveth
it.”444
It is hard for the human soul to
avoid loving something, and our mind must of necessity give way to
affection of one kind or another. The love of the flesh is overcome by
the love of the spirit. Desire is quenched by desire. What is taken
from the one increases the other. Therefore, as you lie on your couch,
say again and again: “By night have I sought Him whom my soul
loveth.”445
“Mortify, therefore,”
says the apostle, “your members which are upon the
earth.”446
Because he himself did so, he could
afterwards say with confidence: “I live, yet not I, but Christ,
liveth in me.”447
He who mortifies
his members, and feels that he is walking in a vain show,448
is not afraid to say: “I am become
like a bottle in the frost.449
Whatever there was
in me of the moisture of lust has been dried out of me.” And
again: “My knees are weak through fasting; I forget to eat my
bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my
skin.”450
18. Be like the grasshopper and make night musical.
Nightly wash your bed and water your couch with your tears.451
Watch and be like the sparrow alone upon the
housetop.452
Sing with the spirit, but sing with
the understanding also.453
And let your song
be that of the psalmist: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all his
benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy
diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction.”454
Can we, any of us, honestly make his words
our own: “I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with
weeping?”455
Yet, should we not
weep and groan when the serpent invites us, as he invited our first
parents, to eat forbidden fruit, and when after expelling us from the
paradise of virginity he desires to clothe us with mantles of skins
such as that which Elijah, on his return to paradise, left behind him
on earth?456
Say to yourself: “What have I
to do with the pleasures of sense that so soon come to an end? What
have I to do with the song of the sirens so sweet and so fatal to those
who hear it?” I would not have you subject to that sentence
whereby condemnation has been passed upon mankind. When God says to
Eve, “In pain and in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children,” say to yourself, “That is a law for a married
woman, not for me.” And when He continues, “Thy desire
shall be to thy husband,”457
say again:
“Let her desire be to her husband who has not Christ for her
spouse.” And when, last of all, He says, “Thou shalt surely
die,”458
once more, say, “Marriage
indeed must end in death; but the life on which I have resolved is
independent of sex. Let those who are wives keep the place and the time
that properly belong to them. For me, virginity is consecrated in the
persons of Mary and of Christ.”
19. Some one may say, “Do you dare detract from
wedlock, which is a state blessed by God?” I do not detract from
wedlock when I set virginity before it. No one compares a bad thing
with a good. Wedded women may congratulate themselves that they come
next to virgins. “Be fruitful,” God says, “and
multiply, and replenish the earth.”459
He
who desires to replenish the earth may increase and multiply if he
will. But the train to which you belong is not on earth, but in heaven.
The command to increase and multiply first finds fulfilment after the
expulsion from paradise, after the nakedness and the fig-leaves which
speak of sexual passion. Let them marry and be given in marriage who
eat their bread in the sweat of their brow; whose land brings forth to
them thorns and thistles,460
and whose crops are
choked with briars. My seed produces fruit a hundredfold.461
| 461 See Letter XLVIII.
§§ 2, 3. | “All men cannot receive God’s
saying, but they to whom it is given.”
Some people may be eunuchs from necessity; I am one of
free will.462
“There is a time to embrace
and a time to refrain from embracing. There is a time to cast away
stones, and a time to gather stones together.”463
Now that out of the hard stones of the
Gentiles God has raised up children unto Abraham,464
they begin to be “holy stones
rolling upon the earth.”465
They pass through
the whirlwinds of the world, and roll on in God’s chariot on
rapid wheels. Let those stitch coats to themselves who have lost the
coat woven from the top throughout;466
who delight
in the cries of infants which, as soon as they see the light, lament
that they are born. In paradise Eve was a virgin, and it was only after
the coats of skins that she began her married life. Now paradise is
your home too. Keep therefore your birthright and say: “Return
unto thy rest, O my soul.”467
To show that
virginity is natural while wedlock only follows guilt, what is born of
wedlock is virgin flesh, and it gives back in fruit what in root it has
lost. “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and
a flower shall grow out of his roots.”468
The rod469
| 469 In the Latin there is
a play on words here between virga and virgo. | is the mother of the Lord—simple,
pure, unsullied; drawing no germ of life from without but fruitful in
singleness like God Himself. The flower of the rod is Christ, who says
of Himself: “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the
valleys.”470
In another place He
is foretold to be “a stone cut out of the mountain without
hands,”471
a figure by which the prophet
signifies that He is to be born a virgin of a virgin. For the hands are
here a figure of wedlock as in the passage: “His left hand is
under my head and his right hand doth embrace me.”472
It agrees, also, with this interpretation
that the unclean animals are led into Noah’s ark in pairs, while
of the clean an uneven number is taken.473
Similarly, when Moses and Joshua were bidden to remove their shoes
because the ground on which they stood was holy,474
the command had a mystical meaning. So,
too, when the disciples were appointed to preach the gospel they were
told to take with them neither shoe nor shoe-latchet;475
| 475 Matt. x. 10. According to Letter XXIII. § 4,
these typify dead works. | and when the soldiers came to cast lots
for the garments of Jesus476
they found no
boots that they could take away. For the Lord could not Himself possess what He
had forbidden to His servants.
20. I praise wedlock, I praise marriage, but it is
because they give me virgins. I gather the rose from the thorns, the
gold from the earth, the pearl from the shell. “Doth the plowman
plow all day to sow?”477
Shall he not
also enjoy the fruit of his labor? Wedlock is the more honored, the
more what is born of it is loved. Why, mother, do you grudge your
daughter her virginity? She has been reared on your milk, she has come
from your womb, she has grown up in your bosom. Your watchful affection
has kept her a virgin. Are you angry with her because she chooses to be
a king’s wife and not a soldier’s? She has conferred on you
a high privilege; you are now the mother-in-law of God.
“Concerning virgins,” says the apostle, “I have no
commandment of the Lord.”478
Why was this?
Because his own virginity was due, not to a command, but to his free
choice. For they are not to be heard who feign him to have had a wife;
for, when he is discussing continence and commending perpetual
chastity, he uses the words, “I would that all men were even as I
myself.” And farther on, “I say, therefore, to the
unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as
I.”479
And in another place, “have
we not power to lead about wives even as the rest of the
apostles?”480
Why then has he no
commandment from the Lord concerning virginity? Because what is freely
offered is worth more than what is extorted by force, and to command
virginity would have been to abrogate wedlock. It would have been a
hard enactment to compel opposition to nature and to extort from men
the angelic life; and not only so, it would have been to condemn what
is a divine ordinance.
21. The old law had a different ideal of blessedness,
for therein it is said: “Blessed is he who hath seed in Zion and
a family in Jerusalem:”481
and “Cursed
is the barren who beareth not:”482
and
“Thy children shall be like olive-plants round about thy
table.”483
Riches too are promised to the
faithful and we are told that “there was not one feeble person
among their tribes.”484
But now even to
eunuchs it is said, “Say not, behold I am a dry tree,”485
for instead of sons and daughters you
have a place forever in heaven. Now the poor are blessed, now Lazarus
is set before Dives in his purple.486
Now he who
is weak is counted strong. But in those days the world was still
unpeopled: accordingly, to pass over instances of childlessness meant
only to serve as types, those only were considered happy who could
boast of children. It was for this reason that Abraham in his old age
married Keturah;487
that Leah hired
Jacob with her son’s mandrakes,488
and that
fair Rachel—a type of the church—complained of the closing
of her womb.489
But gradually the crop grew up and
then the reaper was sent forth with his sickle. Elijah lived a virgin
life, so also did Elisha and many of the sons of the prophets. To
Jeremiah the command came: “Thou shalt not take thee a
wife.”490
He had been sanctified in his
mother’s womb,491
and now he was
forbidden to take a wife because the captivity was near. The apostle
gives the same counsel in different words. “I think, therefore,
that this is good by reason of the present distress, namely that it is
good for a man to be as he is.”492
What is this
distress which does away with the joys of wedlock? The apostle tells
us, in a later verse: “The time is short: it remaineth that those
who have wives be as though they had none.”493
Nebuchadnezzar is hard at hand. The lion
is bestirring himself from his lair. What good will marriage be to me
if it is to end in slavery to the haughtiest of kings? What good will
little ones be to me if their lot is to be that which the prophet sadly
describes: “The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof
of his mouth for thirst; the young children ask for bread and no man
breaketh it unto them”?494
In those days, as
I have said, the virtue of continence was found only in men: Eve still
continued to travail with children. But now that a virgin has
conceived495
in the womb and has borne to us a
child of which the prophet says that “Government shall be upon
his shoulder, and his name shall be called the mighty God, the
everlasting Father,”496
now the chain of
the curse is broken. Death came through Eve, but life has come through
Mary. And thus the gift of virginity has been bestowed most richly upon
women, seeing that it has had its beginning from a woman. As soon as
the Son of God set foot upon the earth, He formed for Himself a new
household there; that, as He was adored by angels in heaven, angels
might serve Him also on earth. Then chaste Judith once more cut off the
head of Holofernes.497
Then
Haman—whose name means iniquity—was once more burned in fire of his own kindling.498
Then James and John forsook father and
net and ship and followed the Saviour: neither kinship nor the
world’s ties, nor the care of their home could hold them back.
Then were the words heard: “Whosoever will come after me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”499
For no soldier goes with a wife to battle.
Even when a disciple would have buried his father, the Lord forbade
him, and said: “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have
nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.”500
So you must not complain if you have but scanty
house-room. In the same strain, the apostle writes: “He that is
unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may
please the Lord: but he that is married careth for the things that are
of the world how he may please his wife. There is difference also
between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things
of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she
that is married careth for the things of the world how she may please
her husband.”501
22. How great inconveniences are involved in wedlock and
how many anxieties encompass it I have, I think, described shortly in
my treatise—published against Helvidius502
| 502 See the treatise
“Against Helvidius,” in this volume. | —on the perpetual virginity of the
blessed Mary. It would be tedious to go over the same ground now; and
any one who pleases may draw from that fountain. But lest I should seem
wholly to have passed over the matter, I will just say now that the
apostle bids us pray without ceasing,503
and that he who
in the married state renders his wife her due504
cannot so pray. Either we pray always and are virgins, or we cease to
pray that we may fulfil the claims of marriage. Still he says:
“If a virgin marry she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall
have trouble in the flesh.”505
At the outset I
promised that I should say little or nothing of the embarrassments of
wedlock, and now I give you notice to the same effect. If you want to
know from how many vexations a virgin is free and by how many a wife is
fettered you should read Tertullian “to a philosophic
friend,”506
| 506 Not extant. Jerome
alludes to it again in his treatise against Jovinian. | and his other treatises on virginity,
the blessed Cyprian’s noble volume, the writings of Pope
Damasus507
| 507 See Migne’s
“Patrologia,” xiii., col. 347–418. | in prose and verse, and the treatises
recently written for his sister by our own Ambrose.508
| 508 Ambrose de Virg.
Migne’s “Patrologia,” xvi., col. 187. | In these he has poured forth his soul with
such a flood of eloquence that he has sought out, set forth, and put in
order all that bears on the praise of virgins.
23. We must proceed by a different path, for our purpose
is not the praise of virginity but its preservation. To know that it is
a good thing is not enough: when we have chosen it we must guard it
with jealous care. The first only requires judgment, and we share it
with many; the second calls for toil, and few compete with us in it.
“He that shall endure unto the end,” the Lord says,
“the same shall be saved,”509
and
“many are called but few are chosen.”510
Therefore I conjure you before God and Jesus Christ and His elect
angels to guard that which you have received, not readily exposing to
the public gaze the vessels of the Lord’s temple (which only the
priests are by right allowed to see), that no profane person may look
upon God’s sanctuary. Uzzah, when he touched the ark which it was
not lawful to touch, was struck down suddenly by death.511
And assuredly no gold or silver vessel was
ever so dear to God as is the temple of a virgin’s body. The
shadow went before, but now the reality is come. You indeed may speak
in all simplicity, and from motives of amiability may treat with
courtesy the veriest strangers, but unchaste eyes see nothing aright.
They fail to appreciate the beauty of the soul, and only value that of
the body. Hezekiah showed God’s treasure to the Assyrians,512
who ought never to have seen what they were
sure to covet. The consequence was that Judæa was torn by
continual wars, and that the very first things carried away to Babylon
were these vessels of the Lord. We find Belshazzar at his feast and
among his concubines (vice always glories in defiling what is noble)
drinking out of these sacred cups.513
24. Never incline your ear to words of mischief. For men
often say an improper word to make trial of a virgin’s
steadfastness, to see if she hears it with pleasure, and if she is
ready to unbend at every silly jest. Such persons applaud whatever you
affirm and deny whatever you deny; they speak of you as not only holy
but accomplished, and say that in you there is no guile.
“Behold,” say they, “a true hand-maid of Christ;
behold entire singleness of heart. How different from that rough,
unsightly, countrified fright, who
most likely never married because she could never find a
husband.” Our natural weakness induces us readily to listen to
such flatterers; but, though we may blush and reply that such praise is
more than our due, the soul within us rejoices to hear itself
praised.
Like the ark of the covenant Christ’s spouse
should be overlaid with gold within and without;514
she should be the guardian of the law of the Lord. Just as the ark
contained nothing but the tables of the covenant,515
so in you there should be no thought of anything that is outside. For
it pleases the Lord to sit in your mind as He once sat on the
mercy-seat and the cherubims.516
As He sent His
disciples to loose Him the foal of an ass that he might ride on it, so
He sends them to release you from the cares of the world, that leaving
the bricks and straw of Egypt, you may follow Him, the true Moses,
through the wilderness and may enter the land of promise. Let no one
dare to forbid you, neither mother nor sister nor kinswoman nor
brother: “The Lord hath need of you.”517
Should they seek to hinder you, let them
fear the scourges that fell on Pharaoh, who, because he would not let
God’s people go that they might serve Him,518
suffered the plagues described in
Scripture. Jesus entering into the temple cast out those things which
belonged not to the temple. For God is jealous and will not allow the
father’s house to be made a den of robbers.519
Where money is counted, where doves are sold, where simplicity is
stifled where, that is, a virgin’s breast glows with cares of
this world; straightway the veil of the temple is rent,520
the bridegroom rises in anger, he says:
“Your house is left unto you desolate.”521
Read the gospel and see how Mary sitting at the feet of the Lord is set
before the zealous Martha. In her anxiety to be hospitable Martha was
preparing a meal for the Lord and His disciples; yet Jesus said to her:
“Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things.
But few things are needful or one.522
And Mary hath
chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.”523
Be then like Mary; prefer the food of the
soul to that of the body. Leave it to your sisters to run to and fro
and to seek how they may fitly welcome Christ. But do you, having once
for all cast away the burden of the world, sit at the Lord’s feet
and say: “I have found him whom my soul loveth; I will hold him,
I will not let him go.”524
And He will answer:
“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.”525
Now the mother of whom this is said is the
heavenly Jerusalem.526
25. Ever let the privacy of your chamber guard you; ever
let the Bridegroom sport with you within.527
Do
you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you.
When sleep overtakes you He will come behind and put His hand through
the hole of the door, and your heart528
shall be
moved for Him; and you will awake and rise up and say: “I am sick
of love.”529
| 529 Song of Sol. 5.2,4,8" id="v.XXII-p229.1" parsed="|Song|5|2|0|0;|Song|5|4|0|0;|Song|5|8|0|0" osisRef="Bible:Song.5.2 Bible:Song.5.4 Bible:Song.5.8">Cant. v. 2, 4, 8. | Then He will reply:
“A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a
fountain sealed.”530
Go not from home nor visit the daughters of a strange
land, though you have patriarchs for brothers and Israel for a father.
Dinah went out and was seduced.531
Do not seek the
Bridegroom in the streets; do not go round the corners of the city. For
though you may say: “I will rise now and go about the city: in
the streets and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul
loveth,” and though you may ask the watchmen: “Saw ye Him
whom my soul loveth?”532
no one will deign
to answer you. The Bridegroom cannot be found in the streets:
“Strait and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life.”533
So the Song goes on: “I sought him
but I could not find him: I called him but he gave me no
answer.”534
And would that failure to find Him
were all. You will be wounded and stripped, you will lament and say:
“The watchmen that went about the city found me: they smote me,
they wounded me, they took away my veil from me.”535
Now if one who could say: “I sleep
but my heart waketh,”536
and “A
bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me; he shall lie all night
betwixt my breasts”;537
if one who could
speak thus suffered so much because she went abroad, what shall become
of us who are but young girls; of us who, when the bride goes in with
the Bridegroom, still remain without? Jesus is jealous. He does not
choose that your face should be seen of others. You may excuse yourself
and say: “I have drawn close my veil, I have covered my face and
I have sought Thee there and have said: ‘Tell me, O Thou whom my
soul loveth, where Thou feedest Thy
flock, where Thou makest it to rest at noon. For why should I be as one
that is veiled beside the flocks of Thy companions?’”538
Yet in spite of your excuses He will be
wroth, He will swell with anger and say: “If thou know not
thyself, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps
of the flock and feed thy goats beside the shepherd’s
tents.”539
You may be fair, and of all faces
yours may be the dearest to the Bridegroom; yet, unless you know
yourself, and keep your heart with all diligence,540
unless also you avoid the eyes of the young men, you will be turned out
of My bride-chamber to feed the goats, which shall be set on the left
hand.541
26. These things being so, my Eustochium, daughter,
lady, fellow-servant, sister—these names refer the first to your
age, the second to your rank, the third to your religious vocation, the
last to the place which you hold in my affection—hear the words
of Isaiah: “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and
shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment,
until the indignation” of the Lord “be overpast.”542
Let foolish virgins stray abroad, but for
your part stay at home with the Bridegroom; for if you shut your door,
and, according to the precept of the Gospel,543
pray to your Father in secret, He will come and knock, saying:
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man…open the
door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with
me.”544
Then straightway you will eagerly
reply: “It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open
to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled.” It is
impossible that you should refuse, and say: “I have put off my
coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile
them?”545
Arise forthwith and open. Otherwise
while you linger He may pass on and you may have mournfully to say:
“I opened to my beloved, but my beloved was gone.”546
Why need the doors of your heart be closed
to the Bridegroom? Let them be open to Christ but closed to the devil
according to the saying: “If the spirit of him who hath power
rise up against thee, leave not thy place.”547
Daniel, in that upper story to which he
withdrew when he could no longer continue below, had his windows open
toward Jerusalem.548
Do you too keep
your windows open, but only on the side where light may enter and
whence you may see the eye of the Lord. Open not those other windows of
which the prophet says: “Death is come up into our
windows.”549
27. You must also be careful to avoid the snare of a
passion for vainglory. “How,” Jesus says, “can ye
believe which receive glory one from another?”550
What an evil that must be the victim of which cannot believe! Let us
rather say: “Thou art my glorying,”551
and
“He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord,”552
and “If I yet pleased men I should not
be the servant of Christ,”553
and “Far
be it from me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom the world hath been crucified unto me and I unto the
world;”554
and once more: “In God we boast
all the day long; my soul shall make her boast in the Lord.”555
When you do alms, let God alone see you. When
you fast, be of a cheerful countenance.556
Let
your dress be neither too neat nor too slovenly; neither let it be so
remarkable as to draw the attention of passers-by, and to make men
point their fingers at you. Is a brother dead? Has the body of a sister
to be carried to its burial? Take care lest in too often performing
such offices you die yourself. Do not wish to seem very devout nor more
humble than need be, lest you seek glory by shunning it. For many, who
screen from all men’s sight their poverty, charity, and fasting,
desire to excite admiration by their very disdain of it, and strangely
seek for praise while they profess to keep out of its way. From the
other disturbing influences which make men rejoice, despond, hope, and
fear I find many free; but this is a defect which few are without, and
he is best whose character, like a fair skin, is disfigured by the
fewest blemishes. I do not think it necessary to warn you against
boasting of your riches, or against priding yourself on your birth, or
against setting yourself up as superior to others. I know your
humility; I know that you can say with sincerity: “Lord, my heart
is not haughty nor mine eyes lofty;”557
I
know that in your breast as in that of your mother the pride through
which the devil fell has no place. It would be time wasted to write to
you about it; for there is no greater folly than to teach a pupil what
he knows already. But now that you have despised the boastfulness of
the world, do not let the fact inspire you with new boastfulness.
Harbor not the secret thought that
having ceased to court attention in garments of gold you may begin to
do so in mean attire. And when you come into a room full of brothers
and sisters, do not sit in too low a place or plead that you are
unworthy of a footstool. Do not deliberately lower your voice as though
worn out with fasting; nor, leaning on the shoulder of another, mimic
the tottering gait of one who is faint. Some women, it is true,
disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.558
As soon as they catch sight of any one
they groan, they look down; they cover up their faces, all but one eye,
which they keep free to see with. Their dress is sombre, their girdles
are of sackcloth, their hands and feet are dirty; only their
stomachs—which cannot be seen—are hot with food. Of these
the psalm is sung daily: “The Lord will scatter the bones of them
that please themselves.”559
Others change their
garb and assume the mien of men, being ashamed of being what they were
born to be—women. They cut off their hair and are not ashamed to
look like eunuchs. Some clothe themselves in goat’s hair, and,
putting on hoods, think to become children again by making themselves
look like so many owls.560
| 560 Cucullis fabrefactis, ut
ad infantiam redeant, imitantur noctuas et bubones. |
28. But I will not speak only of women. Avoid men, also,
when you see them loaded with chains and wearing their hair long like
women, contrary to the apostle’s precept,561
not
to speak of beards like those of goats, black cloaks, and bare feet
braving the cold. All these things are tokens of the devil. Such an one
Rome groaned over some time back in Antimus; and Sophronius is a still
more recent instance. Such persons, when they have once gained
admission to the houses of the high-born, and have deceived
“silly women laden with sins, ever learning and never able to
come to the knowledge of the truth,”562
feign a sad mien and pretend to make long fasts while at night they
feast in secret. Shame forbids me to say more, for my language might
appear more like invective than admonition. There are others—I
speak of those of my own order—who seek the presbyterate and the
diaconate simply that they may be able to see women with less
restraint. Such men think of nothing but their dress; they use perfumes
freely, and see that there are no creases in their leather shoes. Their
curling hair shows traces of the tongs; their fingers glisten with
rings; they walk on tiptoe across a damp road, not to splash their
feet. When you see men acting in this way, think of them rather as
bridegrooms than as clergymen. Certain persons have devoted the whole
of their energies and life to the single object of knowing the names,
houses, and characters of married ladies. I will here briefly describe
the head of the profession, that from the master’s likeness you
may recognize the disciples. He rises and goes forth with the sun; he
has the order of his visits duly arranged; he takes the shortest road;
and, troublesome old man that he is, forces his way almost into the
bedchambers of ladies yet asleep. If he sees a pillow that takes his
fancy or an elegant table-cover—or indeed any article of
household furniture—he praises it, looks admiringly at it, takes
it into his hand, and, complaining that he has nothing of the kind,
begs or rather extorts it from the owner. All the women, in fact, fear
to cross the news-carrier of the town. Chastity and fasting are alike
distasteful to him. What he likes is a savory breakfast—say off a
plump young crane such as is commonly called a cheeper. In speech he is
rude and forward, and is always ready to bandy reproaches. Wherever you
turn he is the first man that you see before you. Whatever news is
noised abroad he is either the originator of the rumor or its
magnifier. He changes his horses every hour; and they are so sleek and
spirited that you would take him for a brother of the Thracian king.563
| 563 Diomede. See
Lucretius, v. 31, and Virgil, A. i. 752. |
29. Many are the stratagems which the wily enemy employs
against us. “The serpent,” we are told, “was more
subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had
made.”564
And the apostle says: “We are
not ignorant of his devices.”565
Neither an
affected shabbiness nor a stylish smartness becomes a Christian. If
there is anything of which you are ignorant, if you have any doubt
about Scripture, ask one whose life commends him, whose age puts him
above suspicion, whose reputation does not belie him; one who may be
able to say: “I have espoused you to one husband that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Or if there should be
none such able to explain, it is better to avoid danger at the price of
ignorance than to court it for the sake of learning. Remember that you
walk in the midst of snares, and that many veteran virgins, of a
chastity never called in question, have, on the very threshold of
death, let their crowns fall from their hands.
If any of your
handmaids share your vocation, do not lift up yourself against them or
pride yourself because you are their mistress. You have all chosen one
Bridegroom; you all sing the same psalms; together you receive the Body
of Christ. Why then should your thoughts be different?566
| 566 Cur mens diversa sit.
The ordinary text has “menda.” | You must try to win others, and that you
may attract the more readily you must treat the virgins in your train
with the greatest respect. If you find one of them weak in the faith,
be attentive to her, comfort her, caress her, and make her chastity
your treasure. But if a girl pretends to have a vocation simply because
she desires to escape from service, read aloud to her the words of the
apostle: “It is better to marry than to burn.”567
Idle persons and busybodies, whether virgins or widows;
such as go from house to house calling on married women and displaying
an unblushing effrontery greater than that of a stage parasite, cast
from you as you would the plague. For “evil communications
corrupt good manners,”568
and women like
these care for nothing but their lowest appetites. They will often urge
you, saying, “My dear creature, make the best of your advantages,
and live while life is yours,” and “Surely you are not
laying up money for your children.” Given to wine and wantonness,
they instill all manner of mischief into people’s minds, and
induce even the most austere to indulge in enervating pleasures. And
“when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they will
marry, having condemnation because they have rejected their first
faith.”569
Do not seek to appear over-eloquent, nor trifle with
verse, nor make yourself gay with lyric songs. And do not, out of
affectation, follow the sickly taste570
of married
ladies who, now pressing their teeth together, now keeping their lips
wide apart, speak with a lisp, and purposely clip their words, because
they fancy that to pronounce them naturally is a mark of country
breeding. Accordingly they find pleasure in what I may call an adultery
of the tongue. For “what communion hath light with darkness? And
what concord hath Christ with Belial?”571
How
can Horace go with the psalter, Virgil with the gospels, Cicero with
the apostle?572
| 572 Viz., the epistles of
St. Paul. In like manner the Psalter was often called David. | Is not a brother made to stumble if
he sees you sitting at meat in an idol’s temple?573
Although “unto the pure all things
are pure,”574
and “nothing
is to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving,”575
still we ought not to drink the cup of
Christ, and, at the same time, the cup of devils.576
Let me relate to you the story of my own
miserable experience.
30. Many years ago, when for the kingdom of
heaven’s sake I had cut myself off from home, parents, sister,
relations, and—harder still—from the dainty food to which I
had been accustomed; and when I was on my way to Jerusalem to wage my
warfare, I still could not bring myself to forego the library which I
had formed for myself at Rome with great care and toil. And so,
miserable man that I was, I would fast only that I might afterwards
read Cicero. After many nights spent in vigil, after floods of tears
called from my inmost heart, after the recollection of my past sins, I
would once more take up Plautus. And when at times I returned to my
right mind, and began to read the prophets, their style seemed rude and
repellent. I failed to see the light with my blinded eyes; but I
attributed the fault not to them, but to the sun. While the old serpent
was thus making me his plaything, about the middle of Lent a
deep-seated fever fell upon my weakened body, and while it destroyed my
rest completely—the story seems hardly credible—it so
wasted my unhappy frame that scarcely anything was left of me but skin
and bone. Meantime preparations for my funeral went on; my body grew
gradually colder, and the warmth of life lingered only in my throbbing
breast. Suddenly I was caught up in the spirit and dragged before the
judgment seat of the Judge; and here the light was so bright, and those
who stood around were so radiant, that I cast myself upon the ground
and did not dare to look up. Asked who and what I was I replied:
“I am a Christian.” But He who presided said: “Thou
liest, thou art a follower of Cicero and not of Christ. For
‘where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be
also.’”577
Instantly I
became dumb, and amid the strokes of the lash—for He had ordered
me to be scourged—I was tortured more severely still by the fire
of conscience, considering with myself that verse, “In the grave
who shall give thee thanks?”578
Yet for all
that I began to cry and to bewail myself, saying: “Have mercy
upon me, O Lord: have mercy upon me.” Amid the sound of the
scourges this cry still made itself heard. At last the bystanders,
falling down before the knees of
Him who presided, prayed that He would have pity on my youth, and that
He would give me space to repent of my error. He might still, they
urged, inflict torture on me, should I ever again read the works of the
Gentiles. Under the stress of that awful moment I should have been
ready to make even still larger promises than these. Accordingly I made
oath and called upon His name, saying: “Lord, if ever again I
possess worldly books, or if ever again I read such, I have denied
Thee.” Dismissed, then, on taking this oath, I returned to the
upper world, and, to the surprise of all, I opened upon them eyes so
drenched with tears that my distress served to convince even the
incredulous. And that this was no sleep nor idle dream, such as those
by which we are often mocked, I call to witness the tribunal before
which I lay, and the terrible judgment which I feared. May it never,
hereafter, be my lot to fall under such an inquisition! I profess that
my shoulders were black and blue, that I felt the bruises long after I
awoke from my sleep, and that thenceforth I read the books of God with
a zeal greater than I had previously given to the books of men.
31. You must also avoid the sin of covetousness, and
this not merely by refusing to seize upon what belongs to others, for
that is punished by the laws of the state, but also by not keeping your
own property, which has now become no longer yours. “If have not
been faithful,” the Lord says, “in that which is another
man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?”579
“That which is another
man’s” is a quantity of gold or of silver, while
“that which is our own” is the spiritual heritage of which
it is elsewhere said: “The ransom of a man’s life is his
riches.”580
“No man can serve two masters,
for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will
hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and
Mammon.”581
Riches, that is; for in the heathen
tongue of the Syrians riches are called mammon. The
“thorns” which choke our faith582
are the taking thought for our life.583
Care for
the things which the Gentiles seek after584
is the root of covetousness.
But you will say: “I am a girl delicately reared,
and I cannot labor with my hands. Suppose that I live to old age and
then fall sick, who will take pity on me?” Hear Jesus speaking to
the apostles: “Take no thought what ye shall eat; nor yet for
your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the
body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not,
neither do they reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father
feedeth them.”585
Should clothing
fail you, set the lilies before your eyes. Should hunger seize you,
think of the words in which the poor and hungry are blessed. Should
pain afflict you, read “Therefore I take pleasure in
infirmities,” and “There was given to me a thorn in the
flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted
above measure.”586
Rejoice in all
God’s judgments; for does not the psalmist say: “The
daughters of Judah rejoiced because of thy judgments, O Lord”?587
Let the words be ever on your lips:
“Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I
return thither;”588
and “We
brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing
out.”589
32. To-day you may see women cramming their wardrobes
with dresses, changing their gowns from day to day, and for all that
unable to vanquish the moths. Now and then one more scrupulous wears
out a single dress; yet, while she appears in rags, her boxes are full.
Parchments are dyed purple, gold is melted into lettering, manuscripts
are decked with jewels, while Christ lies at the door naked and dying.
When they hold out a hand to the needy they sound a trumpet;590
when they invite to a love-feast591
they engage a crier. I lately saw the
noblest lady in Rome—I suppress her name, for I am no
satirist—with a band of eunuchs before her in the basilica of the
blessed Peter. She was giving money to the poor, a coin apiece; and
this with her own hand, that she might be accounted more religious.
Hereupon a by no means uncommon incident occurred. An old woman,
“full of years and rags,”592
| 592 “The eucharist
was at first preceded, but at a later date was more usually followed,
by the agape or love-feast. The materials of this were
contributed by the members of the congregation, all of whatever station
sat down to it as equals, and the meal was concluded with psalmody and
prayer.” (Robertson, C. H., i. p. 235.) Scandals arose in
connection with the practice, and it gradually fell into disuse, though
even at a later date allusions to it are not infrequent. | ran forward to
get a second coin, but when her turn came she received not a penny but
a blow hard enough to draw blood from her guilty veins.
“The love of money is the root of all
evil,”593
and the apostle speaks of
covetousness as being idolatry.594
“Seek ye
first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto
you.”595
The Lord will never allow a righteous
soul to perish of hunger. “I
have been young,” the psalmist says, “and now am old, yet
have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging
bread.”596
Elijah is fed by ministering
ravens.597
The widow of Zarephath, who with her sons
expected to die the same night, went without food herself that she
might feed the prophet. He who had come to be fed then turned feeder,
for, by a miracle, he filled the empty barrel.598
The apostle Peter says: “Silver and gold have I none, but such as
I have give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ rise up and
walk.”599
But now many, while they do not say
it in words, by their deeds declare: “Faith and pity have I none;
but such as I have, silver and gold, these I will not give thee.”
“Having food and raiment let us be therewith content.”600
Hear the prayer of Jacob: “If God will
be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me
bread to eat and raiment to put on, then shall the Lord be my
God.”601
He prayed only for things necessary;
yet, twenty years afterwards, he returned to the land of Canaan rich in
substance and richer still in children.602
Numberless are the instances in Scripture which teach men to
“Beware of covetousness.”603
33. As I have been led to touch to the subject—it
shall have a treatise to itself if Christ permit—I will relate
what took place not very many years ago at Nitria. A brother, more
thrifty than covetous, and ignorant that the Lord had been sold for
thirty pieces of silver,604
left behind him at
his death a hundred pieces of money which he had earned by weaving
linen. As there were about five thousand monks in the neighborhood,
living in as many separate cells, a council was held as to what should
be done. Some said that the coins should be distributed among the poor;
others that they should be given to the church, while others were for
sending them back to the relatives of the deceased. However, Macarius,
Pambo, Isidore and the rest of those called fathers, speaking by the
Spirit, decided that they should be interred with their owner, with the
words: “Thy money perish with thee.”605
Nor was this too harsh a decision; for so great fear has fallen upon
all throughout Egypt, that it is now a crime to leave after one a
single shilling.
34. As I have mentioned the monks, and know that you
like to hear about holy things, lend an ear to me for a few moments.
There are in Egypt three classes of monks. First, there are the
cœnobites,606
| 606 From κοινὸς
βίος (koinos bios), a common life. | called in their
Gentile language Sauses,607
| 607 Apparently an Egyptian
word. It does not occur elsewhere. | or, as we should
say, men living in a community.608
Secondly, there
are the anchorites,609
| 609 From ἀναχωρεῖν
(anachorein), to withdraw. | who live in the
desert, each man by himself, and are so called because they have
withdrawn from human society. Thirdly, there is the class called
Remoboth,610
| 610 These were monks who
lived under no settled rule, but collected in little groups of two and
three, generally in some populous place. They seem to have practised
all the arts whereby a reputation for sanctity may be won, while they
disparaged those who led more regular lives. Cassian (Collat. xviii. 7)
draws an unfavorable picture of them. See Bingham, Antiquities, vii.
ii. 4, and Dict. Xt. Ant., s.v. Sarabaitæ. | a very inferior and little regarded
type, peculiar to my own province,611
| 611 Pannonia, or possibly
Syria. | or, at least,
originating there. These live together in twos and threes, but seldom
in larger numbers, and are bound by no rule; but do exactly as they
choose. A portion of their earnings they contribute to a common fund,
out of which food is provided for all. In most cases they reside in
cities and strongholds; and, as though it were their workmanship which
is holy, and not their life, all that they sell is extremely dear. They
often quarrel because they are unwilling, while supplying their own
food, to be subordinate to others. It is true that they compete with
each other in fasting; they make what should be a private concern an
occasion for a triumph. In everything they study effect: their sleeves
are loose, their boots bulge, their garb is of the coarsest. They are
always sighing, or visiting virgins, or sneering at the clergy; yet
when a holiday comes, they make themselves sick—they eat so
much.
35. Having then rid ourselves of these as of so many
plagues, let us come to that more numerous class who live together, and
who are, as we have said, called Cœnobites. Among these the first
principle of union is to obey superiors and to do whatever they
command. They are divided into bodies of ten and of a hundred, so that
each tenth man has authority over nine others, while the hundredth has
ten of these officers under him. They live apart from each other, in
separate cells. According to their rule, no monk may visit another
before the ninth hour;612
except the deans613
above mentioned, whose office is to
comfort, with soothing words, those whose thoughts disquiet them. After
the ninth hour they meet together to sing psalms and read the
Scriptures according to usage. Then when the prayers have ended and all
have sat down, one called the father stands up among them and begins to
expound the portion of the day. While he is speaking the silence is
profound; no man ventures to look at his neighbor or to clear his
throat. The speaker’s praise is in the weeping of his hearers.614
Silent tears roll down their cheeks, but
not a sob escapes from their lips. Yet when he begins to speak of
Christ’s kingdom, and of future bliss, and of the glory which is
to come, every one may be noticed saying to himself, with a gentle sigh
and uplifted eyes: “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! For then
would I fly away and be at rest.”615
After this the meeting breaks up and each company of ten goes with its
father to its own table. This they take in turns to serve each for a
week at a time. No noise is made over the food; no one talks while
eating. Bread, pulse and greens form their fare, and the only seasoning
that they use is salt. Wine is given only to the old, who with the
children often have a special meal prepared for them to repair the
ravages of age and to save the young from premature decay. When the
meal is over they all rise together, and, after singing a hymn, return
to their dwellings. There each one talks till evening with his comrade
thus: “Have you noticed so-and-so? What grace he has! How silent
he is! How soberly he walks!” If any one is weak they comfort
him; or if he is fervent in love to God, they encourage him to fresh
earnestness. And because at night, besides the public prayers, each man
keeps vigil in his own chamber, they go round all the cells one by one,
and putting their ears to the doors, carefully ascertain what their
occupants are doing. If they find a monk slothful, they do not scold
him; but, dissembling what they know, they visit him more frequently,
and at first exhort rather than compel him to pray more. Each day has
its allotted task, and this being given in to the dean, is by him
brought to the steward. This latter, once a month, gives a scrupulous
account to their common father. He also tastes the dishes when they are
cooked, and, as no one is allowed to say, “I am without a tunic
or a cloak or a couch of rushes,” he so arranges that no one need
ask for or go without what he wants. In case a monk falls ill, he is
moved to a more spacious chamber, and there so attentively nursed by
the old men, that he misses neither the luxury of cities nor a
mother’s kindness. Every Lord’s day they spend their whole
time in prayer and reading; indeed, when they have finished their
tasks, these are their usual occupations. Every day they learn by heart
a portion of Scripture. They keep the same fasts all the year round,
but in Lent they are allowed to live more strictly. After Whitsuntide
they exchange their evening meal for a midday one; both to satisfy the
tradition of the church and to avoid overloading their stomachs with a
double supply of food.
A similar description is given of the Essenes by
Philo,616
| 616 See Letter LXX. §
3, De Vir. Ill. xi. | Plato’s imitator; also by Josephus,617
the Greek Livy, in his narrative of the
Jewish captivity.
36. As my present subject is virgins, I have said rather
too much about monks. I will pass on, therefore, to the third class,
called anchorites, who go from the monasteries into the deserts, with
nothing but bread and salt. Paul618
| 618 I.e. the
hermit of that name. See his Life in vol. iii. of this series. | introduced
this way of life; Antony made it famous, and—to go farther back
still—John the Baptist set the first example of it. The prophet
Jeremiah describes one such in the words: “It is good for a man
that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and keepeth
silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He giveth his cheek to him
that smiteth him, he is filled full with reproach. For the Lord will
not cast off forever.”619
| 619 Lam. iii. 27, 28, 30, 31. | The struggle of the
anchorites and their life—in the flesh, yet not of the
flesh—I will, if you wish, explain to you at some other time. I
must now return to the subject of covetousness, which I left to speak
of the monks. With them before your eyes you will despise, not only
gold and silver in general, but earth itself and heaven. United to
Christ, you will sing, “The Lord is my portion.”620
37. Farther, although the apostle bids us to “pray
without ceasing,”621
and although to the
saints their very sleep is a supplication, we ought to have fixed hours
of prayer, that if we are detained by work, the time may remind us of
our duty. Prayers, as every one knows, ought to be said at the third,
sixth and ninth hours, at dawn and at evening.622
| 622 In Jerome’s
time the seven canonical hours of prayer had not yet been finally
fixed. He mentions, however, six which correspond to the later,
Mattins, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Nocturns. Cp. Letters CVII.
§ 9, CVIII. § 20, and CXXX § 15. | No
meal should be begun without prayer, and before leaving table thanks
should be returned to the Creator. We should rise two or three times in
the night, and go over the parts of Scripture which we know by heart.
When we leave the roof which shelters us, prayer should be our armor;
and when we return from the street
we should pray before we sit down, and not give the frail body rest
until the soul is fed. In every act we do, in every step we take, let
our hand trace the Lord’s cross. Speak against nobody, and do not
slander your mother’s son.623
“Who
art thou that judgest the servant of another? To his own lord he
standeth or falleth; yea, he shall be made to stand, for the Lord hath
power to make him stand.”624
If you have fasted
two or three days, do not think yourself better than others who do not
fast. You fast and are angry; another eats and wears a smiling face.
You work off your irritation and hunger in quarrels. He uses food in
moderation and gives God thanks.625
Daily Isaiah
cries: “Is it such a fast that I have chosen, saith the
Lord?”626
and again: “In the day of your
fast ye find your own pleasure, and oppress all your laborers. Behold
ye fast for strife and contention, and to smite with the fist of
wickedness. How fast ye unto me?”627
What kind of fast can his be whose wrath is such that not only does the
night go down upon it, but that even the moon’s changes leave it
unchanged?
38. Look to yourself and glory in your own success and
not in others’ failure. Some women care for the flesh and reckon
up their income and daily expenditure: such are no fit models for you.
Judas was a traitor, but the eleven apostles did not waver. Phygellus
and Alexander made shipwreck; but the rest continued to run the race of
faith.628
Say not: “So-and-so enjoys her own
property, she is honored of men, her brothers and sisters come to see
her. Has she then ceased to be a virgin?” In the first place, it
is doubtful if she is a virgin. For “the Lord seeth not as man
seeth; for man looketh upon the outward appearance, but the Lord
looketh on the heart.”629
Again, she may be
a virgin in body and not in spirit. According to the apostle, a true
virgin is “holy both in body and in spirit.”630
Lastly, let her glory in her own way. Let
her override Paul’s opinion and live in the enjoyment of her good
things. But you and I must follow better examples.
Set before you the blessed Mary, whose surpassing purity
made her meet to be the mother of the Lord. When the angel Gabriel came
down to her, in the form of a man, and said: “Hail, thou that art
highly favored; the Lord is with thee,”631
she was terror-stricken and unable to reply, for she had never been
saluted by a man before. But, on learning who he was, she spoke, and
one who had been afraid of a man conversed fearlessly with an angel.
Now you, too, may be the Lord’s mother. “Take thee a great
roll and write in it with a man’s pen
Maher-shalal-hash-baz.”632
| 632 Isa. viii. 1, i.e. “the spoil speedeth,
the prey hasteth;” or, in Jerome’s rendering,
“quickly carry away the spoils.” | And when you have
gone to the prophetess, and have conceived in the womb, and have
brought forth a son,633
say:
“Lord, we have been with child by thy fear, we have been in pain,
we have brought forth the spirit of thy salvation, which we have
wrought upon the earth.”634
Then shall your
Son reply: “Behold my mother and my brethren.”635
And He whose name you have so recently
inscribed upon the table of your heart, and have written with a pen
upon its renewed surface636
—He, after
He has recovered the spoil from the enemy, and has spoiled
principalities and powers, nailing them to His cross637
—having been miraculously
conceived, grows up to manhood; and, as He becomes older, regards you
no longer as His mother, but as His bride. To be as the martyrs, or as
the apostles, or as Christ, involves a hard struggle, but brings with
it a great reward.
All such efforts are only of use when they are made
within the church’s pale;638
| 638 Cp. the maxim of
Cyprian: Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, “Outside the church there
is no salvation.” | we must
celebrate the passover in the one house,639
we must enter the ark with Noah,640
we must take
refuge from the fall of Jericho with the justified harlot, Rahab.641
Such virgins as there are said to be among
the heretics and among the followers of the infamous Manes642
| 642 Founder of the widely
prevalent sect of Manichæans, which at one time numbered Augustine
among its adherents. One of its leading tenets was that matter as such
was essentially evil. | must be considered, not virgins, but
prostitutes. For if—as they allege—the devil is the author
of the body, how can they honor that which is fashioned by their foe?
No; it is because they know that the name virgin brings glory with it,
that they go about as wolves in sheep’s clothing.643
As antichrist pretends to be Christ, such
virgins assume an honorable name, that they may the better cloak a
discreditable life. Rejoice, my sister; rejoice, my daughter; rejoice,
my virgin; for you have resolved to be, in reality, that which others
insincerely feign.
39. The things that
I have here set forth will seem hard to her who loves not Christ. But
one who has come to regard all the splendor of the world as
off-scourings, and to hold all things under the sun as vain, that he
may win Christ;644
one who has died
with his Lord and risen again, and has crucified the flesh with its
affections and lusts;645
he will boldly cry
out: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword?” and again: “I am persuaded that neither
death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus, our Lord.”646
| 646 Rom. viii. 35, 38, 39. |
For our salvation the Son of God is made the Son of
Man.647
| 647 An echo of the
Nicene Creed. | Nine months He awaits His birth in the
womb, undergoes the most revolting conditions,648
| 648 Cp. Virgil, Ecl.
iv. 61. |
and comes forth covered with blood, to be swathed in rags and covered
with caresses. He who shuts up the world in His fist649
| 649 Cp. Ps. xcv. 4, 5; Isa. xl. 12. | is contained in the narrow limits of a
manger. I say nothing of the thirty years during which he lives in
obscurity, satisfied with the poverty of his parents.650
When He is scourged He holds His peace; when He is crucified, He prays
for His crucifiers. “What shall I render unto the Lord for all
His benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon
the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of
His saints.”651
The only fitting
return that we can make to Him is to give blood for blood; and, as we
are redeemed by the blood of Christ, gladly to lay down our lives for
our Redeemer. What saint has ever won his crown without first
contending for it? Righteous Abel is murdered. Abraham is in danger of
losing his wife. And, as I must not enlarge my book unduly, seek for
yourself: you will find that all holy men have suffered adversity.
Solomon alone lived in luxury and perhaps it was for this reason that
he fell. For “whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth
every son whom He receiveth.”652
Which is
best—for a short time to do battle, to carry stakes for the
palisades, to bear arms, to faint under heavy bucklers, that ever
afterwards we may rejoice as victors? or to become slaves forever, just
because we cannot endure for a single hour?653
40. Love finds nothing hard; no task is difficult to the
eager. Think of all that Jacob bore for Rachel, the wife who had been
promised to him. “Jacob,” the Scripture says, “served
seven years for Rachel. And they seemed unto him but a few days for the
love he had to her.”654
Afterwards he
himself tells us what he had to undergo. “In the day the drought
consumed me and the frost by night.”655
So
we must love Christ and always seek His embraces. Then everything
difficult will seem easy; all things long we shall account short; and
smitten with His arrows,656
we shall say every
moment: “Woe is me that I have prolonged my pilgrimage.”657
For “the sufferings of this present
time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be
revealed in us.”658
For
“tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and
experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed.”659
When your lot seems hard to bear read
Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians: “In labors more
abundant; in stripes above measure; in prisons more frequent; in deaths
oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice
was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck;
a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in
perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own
countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils
in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false
brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger
and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.”660
Which of us can claim the veriest fraction
of the virtues here enumerated? Yet it was these which afterwards made
him bold to say: “I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that
day.”661
But we, if our food is less appetizing than usual, get
sullen, and fancy that we do God a favor by drinking watered wine. And
if the water brought to us is a trifle too warm, we break the cup and
overturn the table and scourge the servant in fault until blood comes.
“The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it
by force.”662
Still, unless you
use force you will never seize the kingdom of heaven. Unless you knock
importunately you will never receive the sacramental bread.663
Is it not truly violence, think you, when the flesh desires to be as God
and ascends to the place whence angels have fallen664
to judge angels?
41. Emerge, I pray you, for a while from your
prison-house, and paint before your eyes the reward of your present
toil, a reward which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
hath it entered into the heart of man.”665
What will be the glory of that day when Mary, the mother of the Lord,
shall come to meet you, accompanied by her virgin choirs! When, the Red
Sea past and Pharaoh drowned with his host, Miriam, Aaron’s
sister, her timbrel in her hand, shall chant to the answering women:
“Sing ye unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the
horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”666
Then shall Thecla667
fly with joy to embrace you. Then shall your Spouse himself come
forward and say: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away,
for lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.”668
Then shall the angels say with wonder:
“Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon,
clear as the sun?”669
“The
daughters shall see you and bless you; yea, the queens shall proclaim
and the concubines shall praise you.”670
And, after these, yet another company of chaste women will meet you.
Sarah will come with the wedded; Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, with
the widows. In the one band you will find your natural mother and in
the other your spiritual.671
| 671 Viz. Paula, for whom
see Letter CVIII., and Marcella, for whom see Letter CXXVII. | The one will
rejoice in having borne, the other will exult in having taught you.
Then truly will the Lord ride upon his ass,672
and thus enter the heavenly Jerusalem. Then the little ones (of whom,
in Isaiah, the Saviour says: “Behold, I and the children whom the
Lord hath given me”673
) shall lift up
palms of victory and shall sing with one voice: “Hosanna in the
highest, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, hosanna in
the highest.”674
Then shall the
“hundred and forty and four thousand” hold their harps
before the throne and before the elders and shall sing the new song.
And no man shall have power to learn that song save those for whom it
is appointed. “These are they which were not defiled with women;
for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb
whithersoever he goeth.”675
As often as this
life’s idle show tries to charm you; as often as you see in the
world some vain pomp, transport yourself in mind to Paradise, essay to
be now what you will be hereafter, and you will hear your Spouse say:
“Set me as a sunshade in thine heart and as a seal upon thine
arm.”676
And then, strengthened in body as
well as in mind, you, too, will cry aloud and say: “Many waters
cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”677
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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