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Letter XXXIX.
To Paula.
Blæsilla died within three months of her
conversion, and Jerome now writes to Paula to offer her his sympathy
and, if possible, to moderate her grief. He asks her to remember that
Blæsilla is now in paradise, and so far to control herself as to
prevent enemies of the faith from cavilling at her conduct. Then he
concludes with the prophecy (since more than fulfilled) that in his
writings Blæsilla’s name shall never die. Written at Rome in
389 a.d.
1. “Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a
fountain of tears: that I might weep,” not as Jeremiah says,
“For the slain of my people,”789
nor as Jesus, for the miserable fate of Jerusalem,790
but for holiness, mercy, innocence,
chastity, and all the virtues, for all are gone now that Blæsilla
is dead. For her sake I do not grieve, but for myself I must; my loss
is too great to be borne with resignation. Who can recall with dry eyes
the glowing faith which induced a girl of twenty to raise the standard
of the Cross, and to mourn the loss of her virginity more than the
death of her husband? Who can recall without a sigh the earnestness of
her prayers, the brilliancy of her conversation, the tenacity of her
memory, and the quickness of her intellect? Had you heard her speak
Greek you would have deemed her ignorant of Latin; yet when she used
the tongue of Rome her words were free from a foreign accent. She even
rivalled the great Origen in those acquirements which won for him the
admiration of Greece. For in a few months, or rather days, she so
completely mastered the difficulties of Hebrew as to emulate her
mother’s zeal in learning and singing the psalms. Her attire was
plain, but this plainness was not, as it often is, a mark of pride.
Indeed, her self-abasement was so perfect that she dressed no better
than her maids, and was only distinguished from them by the greater
ease of her walk. Her steps tottered with weakness, her face was pale
and quivering, her slender neck scarcely upheld her head. Still she
always had in her hand a prophet or a gospel. As I think of her my eyes
fill with tears, sobs impede my voice, and such is my emotion that my
tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. As she lay there dying, her
poor frame parched with burning fever, and her relatives gathered round
her bed, her last words were: “Pray to the Lord Jesus, that He
may pardon me, because what I would have done I have not been able to
do.” Be at peace, dear Blæsilla, in full assurance that your
garments are always white.791
For yours is the
purity of an everlasting virginity. I feel confident that my words are
true: conversion can never be too late. The words to the dying robber
are a pledge of this: “Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou
be with me in paradise.”792
When at last her
spirit was delivered from the burden of the flesh, and had returned to
Him who gave it;793
when, too, after
her long pilgrimage, she had ascended up into her ancient heritage, her
obsequies were celebrated with customary splendor. People of rank
headed the procession, a pall made of cloth of gold covered her bier.
But I seemed to hear a voice from heaven, saying: “I do not
recognize these trappings; such is not the garb I used to wear; this
magnificence is strange to me.”
2. But what is this? I wish to check a mother’s
weeping, and I groan myself. I make no secret of my feelings; this
entire letter is written in tears. Even Jesus wept for Lazarus because
He loved him.794
But he is a poor comforter who is
overcome by his own sighs, and from whose afflicted heart tears are
wrung as well as words. Dear Paula, my agony is as great as yours.
Jesus knows it, whom Blæsilla now follows; the holy angels know
it, whose company she now enjoys. I was her father in the spirit, her
foster-father in affection. Sometimes I say: “Let the day perish
wherein I was born,”795
and again,
“Woe is me, my mother, that
thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole
earth.”796
I cry: “Righteous art thou, O
Lord…yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. Wherefore doth
the way of the wicked prosper?”797
and
“as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well-nigh
slipped. For I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked, and I said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in
the most high? Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the world;
they increase in riches.”798
| 798 Ps. lxxiii. 2, 3, 11, 12, Vulg. | But again I
recall other words, “If I say I will speak thus, behold I should
offend against the generation of thy children.”799
Do not great waves of doubt surge up over
my soul as over yours? How comes it, I ask, that godless men live to
old age in the enjoyment of this world’s riches? How comes it
that untutored youth and innocent childhood are cut down while still in
the bud? Why is it that children three years old or two, and even
unweaned infants, are possessed with devils, covered with leprosy, and
eaten up with jaundice, while godless men and profane, adulterers and
murderers, have health and strength to blaspheme God? Are we not told
that the unrighteousness of the father does not fall upon the son,800
and that “the soul that sinneth it
shall die?”801
Or if the old
doctrine holds good that the sins of the fathers must be visited upon
the children,802
an old man’s countless sins
cannot fairly be avenged upon a harmless infant. And I have said:
“Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in
innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued.”803
Yet when I have thought of these things,
like the prophet I have learned to say: “When I thought to know
this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of
God; then understood I their end.”804
Truly the judgments of the Lord are a great deep.805
“O the depth of the riches both of
the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments,
and His ways past finding out!”806
God is good,
and all that He does must be good also. Does He decree that I must lose
my husband? I mourn my loss, but because it is His will I bear it with
resignation. Is an only son snatched from me? The blow is hard, yet it
can be borne, for He who has taken away is He who gave.807
If I become blind a friend’s
reading will console me. If I become deaf I shall escape from sinful
words, and my thoughts shall be of God alone. And if, besides such
trials as these, poverty, cold, sickness, and nakedness oppress me, I
shall wait for death, and regard them as passing evils, soon to give
way to a better issue. Let us reflect on the words of the sapiential
psalm: “Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy
judgments.”808
Only he can
speak thus who in all his troubles magnifies the Lord, and, putting
down his sufferings to his sins, thanks God for his clemency.
The daughters of Judah, we are told, rejoiced, because
of all the judgments of the Lord.809
Therefore,
since Judah means confession, and since every believing soul confesses
its faith,810
he who claims to believe in Christ
must rejoice in all Christ’s judgments. Am I in health? I thank
my Creator. Am I sick? In this case, too, I praise God’s will.
For “when I am weak, then am I strong;” and the strength of
the spirit is made perfect in the weakness of the flesh. Even an
apostle must bear what he dislikes, that ailment for the removal of
which he besought the Lord thrice. God’s reply was: “My
grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in
weakness.”811
Lest he should be
unduly elated by his revelations, a reminder of his human weakness was
given to him, just as in the triumphal car of the victorious general
there was always a slave to whisper constantly, amid the cheerings of
the multitude, “Remember that thou art but man.”812
| 812 Cf. Tertullian,
Apol. 33. |
3. But why should that be hard to bear which we must one
day ourselves endure? And why do we grieve for the dead? We are not
born to live forever. Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah, Peter, James, and
John, Paul, the “chosen vessel,”813
and even the Son of God Himself have all died; and are we vexed when a
soul leaves its earthly tenement? Perhaps he is taken away, “lest
that wickedness should alter his understanding…for his soul
pleased the Lord: therefore hasted he to take him away from the
people”814
—lest in life’s long
journey he should lose his way in some trackless maze. We should indeed
mourn for the dead, but only for him whom Gehenna receives, whom
Tartarus devours, and for whose punishment the eternal fire burns. But
we who, in departing, are accompanied by an escort of angels, and met
by Christ Himself, should rather
grieve that we have to tarry yet longer in this tabernacle of death.815
For “whilst we are at home in the
body, we are absent from the Lord.”816
Our one longing should be that expressed by the psalmist: “Woe is
me that my pilgrimage is prolonged, that I have dwelt with them that
dwell in Kedar, that my soul hath made a far pilgrimage.”817
Kedar means darkness, and darkness
stands for this present world (for, we are told, “the light
shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not”818
). Therefore we should congratulate our
dear Blæsilla that she has passed from darkness to light,819
and has in the first flush of her dawning
faith received the crown of her completed work. Had she been cut off
(as I pray that none may be) while her thoughts were full of worldly
desires and passing pleasures, then mourning would indeed have been her
due, and no tears shed for her would have been too many. As it is, by
the mercy of Christ she, four months ago, renewed her baptism in her
vow of widowhood, and for the rest of her days spurned the world, and
thought only of the religious life. Have you no fear, then, lest the
Saviour may say to you: “Are you angry, Paula, that your daughter
has become my daughter? Are you vexed at my decree, and do you, with
rebellious tears, grudge me the possession of Blæsilla? You ought
to know what my purpose is both for you and for yours. You deny
yourself food, not to fast but to gratify your grief; and such
abstinence is displeasing to me. Such fasts are my enemies. I receive
no soul which forsakes the body against my will. A foolish philosophy
may boast of martyrs of this kind; it may boast of a Zeno820
| 820 A famous stoic who
committed suicide in extreme old age. See Diogenes Laertius (vii. 1)
for an account of his death. | a Cleombrotus,821
| 821 An academic
philosopher of Ambracia, who is said to have killed himself after
reading the Phædo of Plato. |
or a Cato.822
My spirit rests only upon him
“that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my
word.823
Is this the meaning of your vow to me
that you would lead a religious life? Is it for this that you dress
yourself differently from other matrons, and array yourself in the garb
of a nun? Mourning is for those who wear silk dresses. In the midst of
your tears the call will come, and you, too, must die; yet you flee
from me as from a cruel judge, and fancy that you can avoid falling
into my hands. Jonah, that headstrong prophet, once fled from me, yet
in the depths of the sea he was still mine.824
If you really believed your daughter to be alive, you would not grieve
that she had passed to a better world. This is the commandment that I
have given you through my apostle, that you sorrow not for them that
sleep, even as the Gentiles, which have no hope.825
Blush, for you are put to shame by the
example of a heathen. The devil’s handmaid826
| 826 Viz. Paulina, wife
of Prætextatus and priestess of Ceres. See Letter XXIII. §
3. | is better than mine. For, while she
imagines that her unbelieving husband has been translated to heaven,
you either do not or will not believe that your daughter is at rest
with me.”
4. Why should I not mourn, you say? Jacob put on
sackcloth for Joseph, and when all his family gathered round him,
refused to be comforted. “I will go down,” he said,
“into the grave unto my son mourning.”827
David also mourned for Absalom,
covering his face, and crying: “O my son, Absalom…my son,
Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son!”828
Moses,829
too, and Aaron,830
and the rest of
the saints were mourned for with a solemn mourning. The answer to your
reasoning is simple. Jacob, it is true, mourned for Joseph, whom he
fancied slain, and thought to meet only in the grave (his words were:
“I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning”), but
he only did so because Christ had not yet broken open the door of
paradise, nor quenched with his blood the flaming sword and the
whirling of the guardian cherubim.831
(Hence in
the story of Dives and Lazarus, Abraham and the beggar, though really
in a place of refreshment, are described as being in hell.832
) And David, who, after interceding in
vain for the life of his infant child, refused to weep for it, knowing
that it had not sinned, did well to weep for a son who had been a
parricide—in will, if not in deed.833
And when we read that, for Moses and
Aaron, lamentation was made after ancient custom, this ought not to
surprise us, for even in the Acts of the Apostles, in the full blaze of
the gospel, we see that the brethren at Jerusalem made great
lamentation for Stephen.834
This great
lamentation, however, refers not to the mourners, but to the funeral
procession and to the crowds which accompanied it. This is what the Scripture says of Jacob:
“Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the
servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the
land of Egypt, and all the house of Joseph and his brethren”; and
a few lines farther on: “And there went up with him both chariots
and horsemen: and it was a great company.” Finally, “they
mourned with a great and very sore lamentation.”835
This solemn lamentation does not impose
prolonged weeping upon the Egyptians, but simply describes the funeral
ceremony. In like manner, when we read of weeping made for Moses and
Aaron,836
this is all that is meant.
I cannot adequately extol the mysteries of Scripture,
nor sufficiently admire the spiritual meaning conveyed in its most
simple words. We are told, for instance, that lamentation was made for
Moses; yet when the funeral of Joshua is described837
no mention at all is made of weeping.
The reason, of course, is that under Moses—that is under the old
Law—all men were bound by the sentence passed on Adam’s
sin, and when they descended into hell838
| 838 Ad inferos.
Hades is meant, not Gehenna. | were rightly accompanied with tears.
For, as the apostle says, “death reigned from Adam to Moses, even
over them that had not sinned.”839
But under
Jesus,840
that is, under the Gospel of Christ, who
has unlocked for us the gate of paradise, death is accompanied, not
with sorrow, but with joy. The Jews go on weeping to this day; they
make bare their feet, they crouch in sackcloth, they roll in ashes. And
to make their superstition complete, they follow a foolish custom of
the Pharisees, and eat lentils,841
| 841 I learn from Dr.
Neubauer, of Oxford, that this is still a practice during mourning
among the Jews of the East. He refers to Tur Joreh Deah. §378. | to show, it would
seem, for what poor fare they have lost their birthright.842
Of course they are right to weep, for as
they do not believe in the Lord’s resurrection they are being
made ready for the advent of antichrist. But we who have put on
Christ843
and according to the apostle are a
royal and priestly race,844
we ought not to
grieve for the dead. “Moses,” the Scripture tells us,
“said unto Aaron and unto Eleazar, and unto Ithamar, his sons
that were left: Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest
ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people.”845
Rend not your clothes, he says, neither
mourn as pagans, lest you die. For, for us sin is death. In this same
book, Leviticus, there is a provision which may perhaps strike some as
cruel, yet is necessary to faith: the high priest is forbidden to
approach the dead bodies of his father and mother, of his brothers and
of his children;846
to the end, that
no grief may distract a soul engaged in offering sacrifice to God, and
wholly devoted to the Divine mysteries. Are we not taught the same
lesson in the Gospel in other words? Is not the disciple forbidden to
say farewell to his home or to bury his dead father?847
Of the high priest, again, it is said:
“He shall not go out of the sanctuary, and the sanctification of
his God shall not be contaminated, for the anointing oil of his God is
upon him.”848
Certainly, now
that we have believed in Christ, and bear Him within us, by reason of
the oil of His anointing which we have received,849
we ought not to depart from His
temple—that is, from our Christian profession—we ought not
to go forth to mingle with the unbelieving Gentiles, but always to
remain within, as servants obedient to the will of the Lord.
5. I have spoken plainly, lest you might ignorantly
suppose that Scripture sanctions your grief; and that, if you err, you
have reason on your side. And, so far, my words have been addressed to
the average Christian woman. But now it will not be so. For in your
case, as I well know, renunciation of the world has been complete; you
have rejected and trampled on the delights of life, and you give
yourself daily to fasting, to reading, and to prayer. Like Abraham,850
you desire to leave your country and
kindred, to forsake Mesopotamia and the Chaldæans, to enter into
the promised land. Dead to the world before your death, you have spent
all your mere worldly substance upon the poor, or have bestowed it upon
your children. I am the more surprised, therefore, that you should act
in a manner which in others would justly call for reprehension. You
call to mind Blæsilla’s companionship, her conversation, and
her endearing ways; and you cannot endure the thought that you have
lost them all. I pardon you the tears of a mother, but I ask you to
restrain your grief. When I think of the parent I cannot blame you for
weeping: but when I think of the Christian and the recluse, the mother
disappears from my view. Your wound is still fresh, and any touch of
mine, however gentle, is more likely to inflame than to heal it. Yet why do
you not try to overcome by reason a grief which time must inevitably
assuage? Naomi, fleeing because of famine to the land of Moab, there
lost her husband and her sons. Yet when she was thus deprived of her
natural protectors, Ruth, a stranger, never left her side.851
And see what a great thing it is to
comfort a lonely woman! Ruth, for her reward, is made an ancestress of
Christ.852
Consider the great trials which Job
endured, and you will see that you are over-delicate. Amid the ruins of
his house, the pains of his sores, his countless bereavements, and,
last of all, the snares laid for him by his wife, he still lifted up
his eyes to heaven, and maintained his patience unbroken. I know what
you are going to say: “All this befell him as a righteous man, to
try his righteousness.” Well, choose which alternative you
please. Either you are holy, in which case God is putting your holiness
to the proof; or else you are a sinner, in which case you have no right
to complain. For if so, you endure far less than your deserts.
Why should I repeat old stories? Listen to a modern
instance. The holy Melanium,853
| 853 Or Melania. She
went with Rufinus to the East, and settled with him on the Mt. of
Olives; and incurred Jerome’s resentment as Rufinus’
friend. See Ep. cxxxiii. 3. “She whose name of blackness attests
the darkness of her perfidy.” | eminent among
Christians for her true nobility (may the Lord grant that you and I may
have part with her in His day!), while the dead body of her husband was
still unburied, still warm, had the misfortune to lose at one stroke
two of her sons. The sequel seems incredible, but Christ is my witness
that my words are true. Would you not suppose that in her frenzy she
would have unbound her hair, and rent her clothes, and torn her breast?
Yet not a tear fell from her eyes. Motionless she stood there; then
casting herself at the feet of Christ, she smiled, as though she held
Him with her hands. “Henceforth, Lord,” she said, “I
will serve Thee more readily, for Thou hast freed me from a great
burden.” But perhaps her remaining children overcame her
determination. No, indeed; she set so little store by them that she
gave up all that she had to her only son, and then, in spite of the
approaching winter, took ship for Jerusalem.
6. Spare yourself, I beseech you, spare Blæsilla,
who now reigns with Christ; at least spare Eustochium, whose tender
years and inexperience depend on you for guidance and instruction. Now
does the devil rage and complain that he is set at naught, because he
sees one of your children exalted in triumph. The victory which he
failed to win over her that is gone he hopes to obtain over her who
still remains. Too great affection towards one’s children is
disaffection towards God. Abraham gladly prepares to slay his only son,
and do you complain if one child out of several has received her crown?
I cannot say what I am going to say without a groan. When you were
carried fainting out of the funeral procession, whispers such as these
were audible in the crowd. “Is not this what we have often said.
She weeps for her daughter, killed with fasting. She wanted her to
marry again, that she might have grandchildren. How long must we
refrain from driving these detestable monks out of Rome? Why do we not
stone them or hurl them into the Tiber? They have misled this unhappy
lady; that she is not a nun from choice is clear. No heathen mother
ever wept for her children as she does for Blæsilla.” What
sorrow, think you, must not Christ have endured when He listened to
such words as these! And how triumphantly must Satan have exulted,
eager as he is to snatch your soul! Luring you with the claims of a
grief which seems natural and right, and always keeping before you the
image of Blæsilla, his aim is to slay the mother of the victress,
and then to fall upon her forsaken sister. I do not speak thus to
terrify you. The Lord is my witness that I address you now as though I
were standing at His judgment seat. Tears which have no meaning are an
object of abhorrence. Yours are detestable tears, sacrilegious tears,
unbelieving tears; for they know no limits, and bring you to the verge
of death. You shriek and cry out as though on fire within, and do your
best to put an end to yourself. But to you and others like you Jesus
comes in His mercy and says: “Why weepest thou? the damsel is not
dead but sleepeth.”854
The bystanders
may laugh him to scorn; such unbelief is worthy of the Jews. If you
prostrate yourself in grief at your daughter’s tomb you too will
hear the chiding of the angel, “Why seek ye the living among the
dead?”855
It was because Mary Magdalene had
done this that when she recognized the Lord’s voice calling her
and fell at His feet, He said to her: “Touch me not, for I am not
yet ascended to my Father;”856
that is to
say, you are not worthy to touch, as risen, one whom you suppose still
in the tomb.
7. What crosses and tortures, think you, must not our
Blæsilla endure to see Christ angry with you, though it be but a little! At
this moment she cries to you as you weep: “If ever you loved me,
mother, if I was nourished at your breast, if I was taught by your
precepts, do not grudge me my exaltation, do not so act that we shall
be separated forever. Do you fancy that I am alone? In place of you I
now have Mary the mother of the Lord. Here I see many whom before I
have not known. My companions are infinitely better than any that I had
on earth. Here I have the company of Anna, the prophetess of the
Gospel;857
and—what should kindle in you more
fervent joy—I have gained in three short months what cost her the
labor of many years to win. Both of us widows indeed, we have been both
rewarded with the palm of chastity. Do you pity me because I have left
the world behind me? It is I who should, and do, pity you who, still
immured in its prison, daily fight with anger, with covetousness, with
lust, with this or that temptation leading the soul to ruin. If you
wish to be indeed my mother, you must please Christ. She is not my
mother who displeases my Lord.” Many other things does she say
which here I pass over; she prays also to God for you. For me, too, I
feel sure, she makes intercession and asks God to pardon my sins in
return for the warnings and advice that I bestowed on her, when to
secure her salvation I braved the ill will of her family.
8. Therefore, so long as breath animates my body, so
long as I continue in the enjoyment of life, I engage, declare, and
promise that Blæsilla’s name shall be forever on my tongue,
that my labors shall be dedicated to her honor, and that my talents
shall be devoted to her praise. No page will I write in which
Blæsilla’s name shall not occur. Wherever the records of my
utterance shall find their way, thither she, too, will travel with my
poor writings. Virgins, widows, monks and priests, as they read, will
see how deeply her image is impressed upon my mind. Everlasting
remembrance will make up for the shortness of her life. Living as she
does with Christ in heaven, she will live also on the lips of men. The
present will soon pass away and give place to the future, and that
future will judge her without partiality and without prejudice. As a
childless widow she will occupy a middle place between Paula, the
mother of children, and Eustochium the virgin. In my writings she will
never die. She will hear me conversing of her always, either with her
sister or with her mother. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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