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| Against Vigilantius.
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Against
Vigilantius.
————————————
Introduction.
Full details respecting Vigilantius, against whom this
treatise, the result of a single night’s labour, is directed, may
be found in a work on “Vigilantius and His Times,”
published in 1844 by Dr. Gilly, canon of Durham. It will perhaps,
however, assist the reader if we briefly remark that he was born about
370, at Calagurris, near Convenæ (Comminges), which was a station
on the Roman road from Aquitaine to Spain. His father was probably the
keeper of the inn, and Vigilantius appears to have been brought up to
his father’s business. He was of a studious character, and
Sulpicius Severus, the ecclesiastical historian, who had estates in
those parts, took him into his service, and, possibly, made him manager
of his estates. Having been ordained he was introduced to Jerome (then
living at Bethlehem, in 395) through Paulinus of Nola, who was the
friend of Sulpicius Severus. After staying with Jerome for a
considerable time he begged to be dismissed, and left in great haste
without giving any reason. Returning to Gaul, he settled in his native
country. Jerome hearing that he was spreading reports of him as
favouring the views of Origen, and in other ways defaming him and his
friends, wrote him a sharp letter of rebuke (Letter LXI.). The work of
Vigilantius which drew from Jerome the following treatise was written
in the year a.d. 406; not “hastily,
under provocation such as he may have felt in leaving Bethlehem.”
but after the lapse of six or seven years. The points against which he
argued as being superstitious are: (1) the reverence paid to the relics
of holy men by carrying them round the church in costly vessels or
silken wrappings to be kissed, and the prayers offered to the dead; (2)
the late watchings at the basilicas of the martyrs, with their
attendant scandals, the burning of numerous tapers. alleged miracles,
etc.; (3) the sending of alms to Jerusalem, which, Vigilantius urged,
had better be spent among the poor in each separate diocese, and the
monkish vow of poverty; (4) the exaggerated estimate of virginity.
The bishop of the diocese, Exsuperius of Toulouse, was
strongly in favour of the views of Vigilantius, and they began to
spread widely. Complaints having reached Jerome through the presbyter
Riparius, he at once expressed his indignation, and offered to answer
in detail if the work of Vigilantius were sent to him. In 406 he
received it through Sisinnius, who was bearing alms to the East. It has
been truly said that this treatise has less of reason and more of abuse
than any other which Jerome wrote. But in spite of this the author was
followed by the chief ecclesiastics of the day, and the practices
impugned by Vigilantius prevailed almost unchecked till the sixteenth
century.
1. The world has given birth to many monsters; in4944
Isaiah we read of centaurs and sirens,
screech-owls and pelicans. Job, in mystic language, describes Leviathan
and Behemoth; Cerberus and the birds of Stymphalus, the Erymanthian
boar and the Nemean lion, the Chimæra and the many-headed Hydra,
are told of in poetic fables. Virgil describes Cacus. Spain has
produced Geryon, with his three bodies. Gaul alone has had no monsters,
but has ever been rich in men of courage and great eloquence. All at
once Vigilantius, or, more correctly, Dormitantius, has arisen,
animated by an unclean spirit, to fight against the Spirit of Christ,
and to deny that religious reverence is to be paid to the tombs of the
martyrs. Vigils, he says, are to be condemned; Alleluia must never be
sung except at Easter; continence is a heresy; chastity a hot-bed of
lust. And as Euphorbus is said to have been born again in the person of
Pythagoras, so in this fellow the corrupt mind of Jovinianus has
arisen; so that in him, no less than in his predecessor, we are bound
to meet the snares of the devil. The words may be justly applied to
him:4945
“Seed of evil-doers, prepare thy
children for the slaughter because of the sins of thy father.”
Jovinianus, condemned by the authority of the Church of Rome, amidst
pheasants and swine’s flesh, breathed out, or rather belched out
his spirit. And now this tavern-keeper of Calagurris, who, according to
the name of his4946
| 4946 Quintilian, the
rhetorician, was born at Calagurris, in Spain, but not the same as the
birthplace of Vigilantius. | native
village is a Quintilian, only dumb instead of eloquent, is4947
| 4947 Combining the
cheating tavern-keeper with the heretic. | mixing water with the wine. According
to the trick which he knows of old, he is trying to blend his
perfidious poison with the Catholic faith; he assails virginity and
hates chastity; he revels with worldlings and declaims against the
fasts of the saints; he plays the philosopher over his cups, and
soothes himself with the sweet strains of psalmody, while he smacks his
lips over his cheese-cakes; nor could he deign to listen to the songs
of David and Jeduthun, and Asaph and the sons of Core, except at the
banqueting table. This I have poured forth with more grief than
amusement, for I cannot restrain myself and turn a deaf ear to the
wrongs inflicted on apostles and martyrs.
2. Shameful to relate, there are bishops who are said to
be associated with him in his wickedness—if at least they are to
be called bishops—who ordain no deacons but such as have been
previously married; who credit no celibate with chastity—nay,
rather, who show clearly what
measure of holiness of life they can claim by indulging in evil
suspicions of all men, and, unless the candidates for ordination appear
before them with pregnant wives, and infants wailing in the arms of
their mothers, will not administer to them Christ’s ordinance.
What are the Churches of the East to do? What is to become of the
Egyptian Churches and those belonging to the Apostolic Seat, which
accept for the ministry only men who are virgins, or those who practice
continency, or, if married, abandon their conjugal rights? Such is the
teaching of Dormitantius, who throws the reins upon the neck of lust,
and by his encouragement doubles the natural heat of the flesh, which
in youth is mostly at boiling point, or rather slakes it by intercourse
with women; so that there is nothing to separate us from swine, nothing
wherein we differ from the brute creation, or from horses, respecting
which it is written:4948
“They
were toward women like raging horses; everyone neighed after his
neighbour’s wife.” This is that which the Holy Spirit says
by the mouth of David:4949
“Be ye
not like horse and mule which have no understanding.” And again
respecting Dormitantius and his friends:4950
“Bind the jaws of them who draw not
near unto thee with bit and bridle.”
3. But it is now time for us to adduce his own words and
answer him in detail. For, possibly, in his malice, he may choose once
more to misrepresent me, and say that I have trumped up a case for the
sake of showing off my rhetorical and declamatory powers in combating
it, like the letter4951
which I wrote
to Gaul, relating to a mother and daughter who were at variance. This
little treatise, which I now dictate, is due to the reverend presbyters
Riparius and Desiderius, who write that their parishes have been
defiled by being in his neighbourhood, and have sent me, by our brother
Sisinnius, the books which he vomited forth in a drunken fit. They also
declare that some persons are found who, from their inclination to his
vices, assent to his blasphemies. He is a barbarian both in speech and
knowledge. His style is rude. He cannot defend even the truth; but, for
the sake of laymen, and poor women, laden with sins, ever learning and
never coming to a knowledge of the truth, I will spend upon his
melancholy trifles a single night’s labour, otherwise I shall
seem to have treated with contempt the letters of the reverend persons
who have entreated me to undertake the task.
4. He certainly well represents his race. Sprung from a
set of brigands and persons collected together from all quarters (I
mean those whom Cn. Pompey, after the conquest of Spain, when he was
hastening to return for his triumph, brought down from the Pyrenees and
gathered together into one town, whence the name of the city
Convenæ4952
| 4952 From
convenio, to come together. | ), he has carried on their brigand
practices by his attack upon the Church of God. Like his ancestors the
Vectones, the Arrabaci, and the Celtiberians, he makes his raids upon
the churches of Gaul, not carrying the standard of the cross, but, on
the contrary, the ensign of the devil. Pompey did just the same in the
East. After overcoming the Cilician and Isaurian pirates and brigands,
he founded a city, bearing his own name, between Cilicia and Isauria.
That city, however, to this day, observes the ordinances of its
ancestors, and no Dormitantius has arisen in it; but Gaul supports a
native foe, and sees seated in the Church a man who has lost his head
and who ought to be put in the strait-jacket which Hippocrates
recommended. Among other blasphemies, he may be heard to say,
“What need is there for you not only to pay such honour, not to
say adoration, to the thing, whatever it may be, which you carry about
in a little vessel and worship?” And again, in the same book,
“Why do you kiss and adore a bit of powder wrapped up in a
cloth?” And again, in the same book, “Under the cloak of
religion we see what is all but a heathen ceremony introduced into the
churches: while the sun is still shining, heaps of tapers are lighted,
and everywhere a paltry bit of powder, wrapped up in a costly cloth, is
kissed and worshipped. Great honour do men of this sort pay to the
blessed martyrs, who, they think, are to be made glorious by trumpery
tapers, when the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne, with all the
brightness of His majesty, gives them light?”
5. Madman, who in the world ever adored the martyrs? who
ever thought man was God? Did not4953
Paul and
Barnabas, when the people of Lycaonia thought them to be Jupiter and
Mercury, and would have offered sacrifices to them, rend their clothes
and declare they were men? Not that they were not better than Jupiter
and Mercury, who were but men long ago dead, but because, under the
mistaken ideas of the Gentiles, the honour due to God was being paid to
them. And we read the same respecting Peter, who, when Cornelius wished
to adore him, raised him by the hand, and said,4954
“Stand up, for I also am a
man.” And have you the audacity to speak of “the mysterious
something or other which you carry
about in a little vessel and worship?” I want to know what it is
that you call “something or other.” Tell us more clearly
(that there may be no restraint on your blasphemy) what you mean by the
phrase “a bit of powder wrapped up in a costly cloth in a tiny
vessel.” It is nothing less than the relics of the martyrs which
he is vexed to see covered with a costly veil, and not bound up with
rags or hair-cloth, or thrown on the midden, so that Vigilantius alone
in his drunken slumber may be worshipped. Are we, therefore guilty of
sacrilege when we enter the basilicas of the Apostles? Was the Emperor
Constantius I. guilty of sacrilege when he transferred the sacred
relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy to Constantinople? In their
presence the demons cry out, and the devils who dwell in Vigilantius
confess that they feel the influence of the saints. And at the present
day is the Emperor Arcadius guilty of sacrilege, who after so long a
time has conveyed the bones of the blessed Samuel from Judea to Thrace?
Are all the bishops to be considered not only sacrilegious, but silly
into the bargain, because they carried that most worthless thing, dust
and ashes, wrapped in silk in golden vessel? Are the people of all the
Churches fools, because they went to meet the sacred relics, and
welcomed them with as much joy as if they beheld a living prophet in
the midst of them, so that there was one great swarm of people from
Palestine to Chalcedon with one voice re-echoing the praises of Christ?
They were forsooth, adoring Samuel and not Christ, whose Levite and
prophet Samuel was. You show mistrust because you think only of the
dead body, and therefore blaspheme. Read the Gospel—4955
“The God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, the God of Jacob: He is not the God of the dead, but of the
living.” If then they are alive, they are not, to use your
expression, kept in honourable confinement.
6. For you say that the souls of Apostles and martyrs
have their abode either in the bosom of Abraham, or in the place of
refreshment, or under the altar of God, and that they cannot leave
their own tombs, and be present where they will. They are, it seems, of
senatorial rank, and are not subjected to the worst kind of prison and
the society of murderers, but are kept apart in liberal and honourable
custody in the isles of the blessed and the Elysian fields. Will you
lay down the law for God? Will you put the Apostles into chains? So
that to the day of judgment they are to be kept in confinement, and are
not with their Lord, although it is written concerning them,4956
“They follow the Lamb,
whithersoever he goeth.” If the Lamb is present everywhere, the
same must be believed respecting those who are with the Lamb. And while
the devil and the demons wander through the whole world, and with only
too great speed present themselves everywhere; are martyrs, after the
shedding of their blood, to be kept out of sight shut up in a4957
| 4957 Another reading
is, “Shut up in the altar.” | coffin, from whence they cannot escape?
You say, in your pamphlet, that so long as we are alive we can pray for
one another; but once we die, the prayer of no person for another can
be heard, and all the more because the martyrs, though they4958
cry for the avenging of their blood,
have never been able to obtain their request. If Apostles and martyrs
while still in the body can pray for others, when they ought still to
be anxious for themselves, how much more must they do so when once they
have won their crowns, overcome, and triumphed? A single man, Moses,
oft4959
wins pardon from God for six hundred
thousand armed men; and4960
Stephen, the
follower of his Lord and the first Christian martyr, entreats pardon
for his persecutors; and when once they have entered on their life with
Christ, shall they have less power than before? The Apostle Paul4961
says that two hundred and seventy-six
souls were given to him in the ship; and when, after his dissolution,
he has begun to be with Christ, must he shut his mouth, and be unable
to say a word for those who throughout the whole world have believed in
his Gospel? Shall Vigilantius the live dog be better than Paul the dead
lion? I should be right in saying so after4962
Ecclesiastes, if I admitted that Paul
is dead in spirit. The truth is that the saints are not called dead,
but are said to be asleep. Wherefore4963
Lazarus, who was about to rise again, is said to have slept. And the
Apostle4964
forbids the Thessalonians to be
sorry for those who were asleep. As for you, when wide awake you are
asleep, and asleep when you write, and you bring before me an
apocryphal book which, under the name of Esdras, is read by you and
those of your feather, and in this book it is4965
| 4965 vii.
35 sq. The passage occurs in
the Ethiopic and Arabic versions, not in the Latin. It was probably
rejected in later times for dogmatic reasons. | written that after death no one dares
pray for others. I have never read the book: for what need is there to
take up what the Church does not receive? It can hardly be your
intention to confront me with Balsamus, and Barbelus, and the Thesaurus
of Manichæus, and the ludicrous name of Leusiboras; though
possibly because you live at the foot of the Pyrenees, and border on
Iberia, you follow the incredible
marvels of the ancient heretic4966
| 4966 The chief of the
Egyptian Gnostics. | Basilides
and his so-called knowledge, which is mere ignorance, and set forth
what is condemned by the authority of the whole world. I say this
because in your short treatise you quote Solomon as if he were on your
side, though Solomon never wrote the words in question at all; so that,
as you have a second Esdras you may have a second Solomon. And, if you
like, you may read the imaginary revelations of all the patriarchs and
prophets, and, when you have learned them, you may sing them among the
women in their weaving-shops, or rather order them to be read in your
taverns, the more easily by these melancholy ditties to stimulate the
ignorant mob to replenish their cups.
7. As to the question of tapers, however, we do not, as
you in vain misrepresent us, light them in the daytime, but by their
solace we would cheer the darkness of the night, and watch for the
dawn, lest we should be blind like you and sleep in darkness. And if
some persons, being ignorant and simple minded laymen, or, at all
events, religious women—of whom we can truly say,4967
“I allow that they have a zeal
for God, but not according to knowledge”—adopt the practice
in honour of the martyrs, what harm is thereby done to you? Once upon a
time even the Apostles4968
pleaded that
the ointment was wasted, but they were rebuked by the voice of the
Lord. Christ did not need the ointment, nor do martyrs need the light
of tapers; and yet that woman poured out the ointment in honour of
Christ, and her heart’s devotion was accepted. All those who
light these tapers have their reward according to their faith, as the
Apostle says:4969
“Let
every one abound in his own meaning.” Do you call men of this
sort idolaters? I do not deny, that all of us who believe in Christ
have passed from the error of idolatry. For we are not born Christians,
but become Christians by being born again. And because we formerly
worshipped idols, does it follow that we ought not now to worship God
lest we seem to pay like honour to Him and to idols? In the one case
respect was paid to idols, and therefore the ceremony is to be
abhorred; in the other the martyrs are venerated, and the same ceremony
is therefore to be allowed. Throughout the whole Eastern Church, even
when there are no relics of the martyrs, whenever the Gospel is to be
read the candles are lighted, although the dawn may be reddening the
sky, not of course to scatter the darkness, but by way of evidencing
our joy.4970
And accordingly the virgins in the
Gospel always have their lamps lighted. And the Apostles are4971
told to have their loins girded, and
their lamps burning in their hands. And of John Baptist we read,4972
“He was the lamp that burneth
and shineth”; so that, under the figure of corporeal light, that
light is represented of which we read in the Psalter,4973
“Thy word is a lamp unto my
feet, O Lord, and a light unto my paths.”
8. Does the bishop of Rome do wrong when he offers
sacrifices to the Lord over the venerable bones of the dead men Peter
and Paul, as we should say, but according to you, over a worthless bit
of dust, and judges their tombs worthy to be Christ’s altars? And
not only is the bishop of one city in error, but the bishops of the
whole world, who, despite the tavern-keeper Vigilantius, enter the
basilicas of the dead, in which “a worthless bit of dust and
ashes lies wrapped up in a cloth,” defiled and defiling all else.
Thus, according to you, the sacred buildings are like the sepulchres of
the Pharisees, whitened without, while within they have filthy remains,
and are full of foul smells and uncleanliness. And then he dares to
expectorate his filth upon the subject and to say: “Is it the
case that the souls of the martyrs love their ashes, and hover round
them, and are always present, lest haply if any one come to pray and
they were absent, they could not hear?” Oh, monster, who ought to
be banished to the ends of the earth! do you laugh at the relics of the
martyrs, and in company with Eunomius, the father of this heresy,
slander the Churches of Christ? Are you not afraid of being in such
company, and of speaking against us the same things which he utters
against the Church? For all his followers refuse to enter the basilicas
of Apostles and martyrs, so that, forsooth, they may worship the dead
Eunomius, whose books they consider are of more authority than the
Gospels; and they believe that the light of truth was in him just as
other heretics maintain that the Paraclete came into Montanus, and say
that Manichæus himself was the Paraclete. You cannot find an
occasion of boasting even in supposing that you are the inventor of a
new kind of wickedness, for your heresy long ago broke out against the
Church. It found, however, an opponent in Tertullian, a very learned
man, who wrote a famous treatise which he called most correctly
Scorpiacum,4974
because, as
the scorpion bends itself like a bow to inflict its wound, so what was
formerly called the heresy of Cain pours poison into the body of the
Church; it has slept or rather been
buried for a long time, but has been now awakened by Dormitantius. I am
surprised you do not tell us that there must upon no account be
martyrdoms, inasmuch as God, who does not ask for the blood of goats
and bulls, much less requires the blood of men. This is what you say,
or rather, even if you do not say it, you are taken as meaning to
assert it. For in maintaining that the relics of the martyrs are to be
trodden under foot, you forbid the shedding of their blood as being
worthy of no honour.
9. Respecting vigils and the frequent keeping of
night-watches in the basilicas of the martyrs, I have given a brief
reply in another letter4975
which, about
two years ago, I wrote to the reverend presbyter Riparius. You argue
that they ought to be abjured, lest we seem to be often keeping Easter,
and appear not to observe the customary yearly vigils. If so, then
sacrifices should not be offered to Christ on the Lord’s day lest
we frequently keep the Easter of our Lord’s Resurrection, and
introduce the custom of having many Easters instead of one. We must
not, however, impute to pious men the faults and errors of youths and
worthless women such as are often detected at night. It is true that,
even at the Easter vigils, something of the kind usually comes to
light; but the faults of a few form no argument against religion in
general, and such persons, without keeping vigil, can go wrong either
in their own houses or in those of other people. The treachery of Judas
did not annul the loyalty of the Apostles. And if others keep vigil
badly, our vigils are not thereby to be stopped; nay, rather let those
who sleep to gratify their lust be compelled to watch that they may
preserve their chastity. For if a thing once done be good, it cannot be
bad if often done; and if there is some fault to be avoided, the blame
lies not in its being done often, but in its being done at all. And so
we should not watch at Easter-tide for fear that adulterers may satisfy
their long pent-up desires, or that the wife may find an opportunity
for sinning without having the key turned against her by her husband.
The occasions which seldom recur are those which are most eagerly
longed for.
10. I cannot traverse all the topics embraced in the
letters of the reverend presbyters; I will adduce a few points from the
tracts of Vigilantius. He argues against the signs and miracles which
are wrought in the basilicas of the martyrs, and says that they are of
service to the unbelieving, not to believers, as though the question
now were for whose advantage they occur, not by what power. Granted
that signs belong to the faithless, who, because they would not obey
the word and doctrine, are brought to believe by means of signs. Even
our Lord wrought signs for the unbelieving, and yet our Lord’s
signs are not on that account to be impugned, because those people were
faithless, but must be worthy of greater admiration because they were
so powerful that they subdued even the hardest hearts, and compelled
men to believe. And so I will not have you tell me that signs are for
the unbelieving; but answer my question—how is it that poor
worthless dust and ashes are associated with this wondrous power of
signs and miracles? I see, I see, most unfortunate of mortals, why you
are so sad and what causes your fear. That unclean spirit who forces
you to write these things has often been tortured by this worthless
dust, aye, and is being tortured at this moment, and though in your
case he conceals his wounds, in others he makes confession. You will
hardly follow the heathen and impious Porphyry and Eunomius, and
pretend that these are the tricks of the demons, and that they do not
really cry out, but feign their torments. Let me give you my advice: go
to the basilicas of the martyrs, and some day you will be cleansed; you
will find there many in like case with yourself, and will be set on
fire, not by the martyrs’ tapers which offend you, but by
invisible flames; and you will then confess what you now deny, and will
freely proclaim your name—that you who speak in the person of
Vigilantius are really either Mercury, for greedy of gain was he; or
Nocturnus, who, according to Plautus’s “Amphitryon,”
slept while Jupiter, two nights together, had his adulterous connection
with Alcmena, and thus begat the mighty Hercules; or at all events
Father Bacchus, of drunken fame, with the tankard hanging from his
shoulder, with his ever ruby face, foaming lips, and unbridled
brawling.
11. Once, when a sudden earthquake in this province in
the middle of the night awoke us all out of our sleep, you, the most
prudent and the wisest of men, began to pray without putting your
clothes on, and recalled to our minds the story of Adam and Eve in
Paradise; they, indeed, when their eyes were opened were ashamed, for
they saw that they were naked, and covered their shame with the leaves
of trees; but you, who were stripped alike of your shirt and of your
faith, in the sudden terror which overwhelmed you, and with the fumes
of your last night’s booze still hanging about you, showed your
wisdom by exposing your nakedness in only too evident a manner to the
eyes of the brethren. Such are the
adversaries of the Church; these are the leaders who fight against the
blood of the martyrs; here is a specimen of the orators who thunder
against the Apostles, or, rather, such are the mad dogs which bark at
the disciples of Christ.
12. I confess my own fear, for possibly it may be
thought to spring from superstition. When I have been angry, or have
had evil thoughts in my mind, or some phantom of the night has beguiled
me, I do not dare to enter the basilicas of the martyrs, I shudder all
over in body and soul. You may smile, perhaps, and deride this as on a
level with the wild fancies of weak women. If it be so, I am not
ashamed of having a faith like that of those who were the first to see
the risen Lord; who were sent to the Apostles; who, in the person of
the mother of our Lord and Saviour, were commended to the holy
Apostles. Belch out your shame, if you will, with men of the world, I
will fast with women; yea, with religious men whose looks witness to
their chastity, and who, with the cheek pale from prolonged abstinence,
show forth the chastity of Christ.
13. Something, also, appears to be troubling you. You
are afraid that, if continence, sobriety, and fasting strike root among
the people of Gaul, your taverns will not pay, and you will be unable
to keep up through the night your diabolical vigils and drunken revels.
Moreover, I have learnt from those same letters that, in defiance of
the authority of Paul, nay, rather of Peter, John, and James, who gave
the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas, and commanded them
to remember the poor, you forbid any pecuniary relief to be sent to
Jerusalem for the benefit of the saints. Now, if I reply to this, you
will immediately give tongue and cry out that I am pleading my own
cause. You, forsooth, were so generous to the whole community that if
you had not come to Jerusalem, and lavished your own money or that of
your patrons, we should all be on the verge of starvation. I say what
the blessed Apostle Paul says in nearly all his Epistles; and he makes
it a rule for the Churches of the Gentiles that, on the first day of
the week, that is, on the Lord’s day, contributions should be
made by every one which should be sent up to Jerusalem for the relief
of the saints, and that either by his own disciples, or by those whom
they should themselves approve; and if it were thought fit, he would
himself either send, or take what was collected. Also in the Acts of
the Apostles, when speaking to the governor Felix, he says,4976
“After many years I went up to
Jerusalem to bring alms to my nation and offerings, and to perform my
vows, amidst which they found me purified in the temple.” Might
he not have distributed in some other part of the world, and in the
infant Churches which he was training in his own faith, the gifts he
had received from others? But he longed to give to the poor of the holy
places who, abandoning their own little possessions for the sake of
Christ, turned with their whole heart to the service of the Lord. It
would take too long now if I purposed to repeat all the passages from
the whole range of his Epistles in which he advocates and urges with
all his heart that money be sent to Jerusalem and to the holy places
for the faithful; not to gratify avarice, but to give relief; not to
accumulate wealth, but to support the weakness of the poor body, and to
stave off cold and hunger. And this custom continues in Judea to the
present day, not only among us, but also among the Hebrews, so that
they who4977
meditate in the law of the
Lord, day and night, and have4978
no father
upon earth except the Lord alone, may be cherished by the aid of the
synagogues and of the whole world; that there may be4979
equality—not that some may be
refreshed while others are in distress, but that the abundance of some
may support the need of others.
14. You will reply that every one can do this in his own
country, and that there will never be wanting poor who ought to be
supported with the resources of the Church. And we do not deny that
doles should be distributed to all poor people, even to Jews and
Samaritans, if the means will allow. But the Apostle teaches that alms
should be given to all, indeed,4980
especially, however, to those who are of the household of faith. And
respecting these the Saviour said in the Gospel,4981
“Make to yourselves friends of
the mammon of unrighteousness, who may receive you into everlasting
habitations.” What! Can those poor creatures, with their rags and
filth, lorded over, as they are, by raging lust, can they who own
nothing, now or hereafter, have eternal habitations? No doubt it is not
the poor simply, but the poor in spirit, who are called blessed; those
of whom it is written,4982
“Blessed is he who gives his
mind to the poor and needy; the Lord shall deliver him in the evil
day.” But the fact is, in supporting the poor of the common
people, what is needed is not mind, but money. In the case of the
saintly poor the mind has blessed exercises, since you give to one who
receives with a blush, and when he has received is grieved, that while sowing spiritual things he
must reap your carnal things. As for his argument that they who keep
what they have, and distribute among the poor, little by little, the
increase of their property, act more wisely than they who sell their
possessions, and once for all give all away, not I but the Lord shall
make answer:4983
“If
thou wilt be perfect, go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor,
and come, follow Me.” He speaks to him who wishes to be perfect,
who, with the Apostles, leaves father, ship, and net. The man whom you
approve stands in the second or third rank; yet we welcome him provided
it be understood that the first is to be preferred to the second, and
the second to the third.
15. Let me add that our monks are not to be deterred
from their resolution by you with your viper’s tongue and savage
bite. Your argument respecting them runs thus: If all men were to
seclude themselves and live in solitude, who is there to frequent the
churches? Who will remain to win those engaged in secular pursuits? Who
will be able to urge sinners to virtuous conduct? Similarly, if all
were as silly as you, who could be wise? And, to follow out your
argument, virginity would not deserve our approbation. For if all were
virgins, we should have no marriages; the race would perish; infants
would not cry in their cradles; midwives would lose their pay and turn
beggars; and Dormitantius, all alone and shrivelled up with cold, would
lie awake in his bed. The truth is, virtue is a rare thing and not
eagerly sought after by the many. Would that all were as the few of
whom it is said:4984
“Many
are called, few are chosen.” The prison would be empty. But,
indeed, a monk’s function is not to teach, but to lament; to
mourn either for himself or for the world, and with terror to
anticipate our Lord’s advent. Knowing his own weakness and the
frailty of the vessel which he carries, he is afraid of stumbling, lest
he strike against something, and it fall and be broken. Hence he shuns
the sight of women, and particularly of young women, and so far
chastens himself as to dread even what is safe.
16. Why, you will say, go to the desert? The reason is
plain: That I may not hear or see you; that I may not be disturbed by
your madness; that I may not be engaged in conflict with you; that the
eye of the harlot nay not lead me captive: that beauty may not lead me
to unlawful embraces. You will reply: “This is not to fight, but
to run away. Stand in line of battle, put on your armour and resist
your foes, so that, having overcome, you may wear the crown.” I
confess my weakness. I would not fight in the hope of victory, lest
some time or other I lose the victory. If I flee, I avoid the sword; if
I stand, I must either overcome or fall. But what need is there for me
to let go certainties and follow after uncertainties? Either with my
shield or with my feet I must shun death. You who fight may either be
overcome or may overcome. I who fly do not overcome, inasmuch as I fly;
but I fly to make sure that I may not be overcome. There is no safety
in sleep with a serpent beside you. Possibly he will not bite me, yet
it is possible that after a time he may bite me. We call women mothers
who are no older than sisters and daughters,4985
| 4985 He seems to
mean that monks spoke of young ladies as Mothers of the Convents, so as
to be able to frequent their society without reproach. | and we do not blush to cloak our
vices with the names of piety. What business has a monk in the
women’s cells? What is the meaning of secret conversation and
looks which shun the presence of witnesses? Holy love has no restless
desire. Moreover, what we have said respecting lust we must apply to
avarice, and to all vices which are avoided by solitude. We therefore
keep clear of the crowded cities, that we may not be compelled to do
what we are urged to do, not so much by nature as by choice.
17. At the request of the reverend presbyters, as I have
said, I have devoted to the dictation of these remarks the labour of a
single night, for my brother Sisinnius is hastening his departure for
Egypt, where he has relief to give to the saints, and is impatient to
be gone. If it were not so, however, the subject itself was so openly
blasphemous as to call for the indignation of a writer rather than a
multitude of proofs. But if Dormitantius wakes up that he may again
abuse me, and if he thinks fit to disparage me with that same
blasphemous mouth with which he pulls to pieces Apostles and martyrs, I
will spend upon him something more than this short lucubration. I will
keep vigil for a whole night in his behalf and in behalf of his
companions, whether they be disciples or masters, who think no man to
be worthy of Christ’s ministry unless he is married and his wife
is seen to be with child. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
