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| Chapter IX. How he fled to a monastery when his wife would not consent.
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Chapter IX.
How he fled to a monastery when his wife would not
consent.
And when his wife was
hard and would not consent to him as he constantly persisted with
entreaties of this kind, but said that as she was in the flower of her
age she could not altogether do without the solace of her husband, and
further that supposing she was deserted by him and fell into sin, the
guilt would rather be his who had broken the bonds of wedlock: to this
he, when he had for a long while urged the condition of human nature
(which being so weak and uncertain, it would be dangerous for it to be
any longer mixed up with carnal desires and works), added the assertion
that it was not right for anyone to cut himself off from that virtue to
which he had learnt that he ought by all means to cleave, and that it
was more dangerous to disregard goodness when discovered, than to fail
to love it before it was discovered; further that he was already
involved in the guilt of a fall if when he had discovered such grand
and heavenly blessings he had preferred earthly and mean ones. Further
that the grandeur of perfection was open to every age and either sex,
and that all the members of the Church were urged to scale the heights
of heavenly goodness when the Apostle said: “So run that ye may
obtain;”2179
nor should
those who were ready and eager for it hang back because of the delays
of the slow and dawdlers, as it is better for the sluggards to be urged
on by those running before than for those who are doing their best to
be hampered by the slothful. Further that he had determined and made up
his mind to renounce the world and to die to the world that he might
live to God, and that if he could not attain this happiness; viz., to
pass with his wife into union with Christ, he would rather be saved
even with the loss of one member, and enter into the kingdom of heaven
as one maimed rather than be condemned with his body whole. But he also
added and spoke as follows: If Moses suffered wives to be divorced for
the hardness of their hearts, why should not Christ allow this for the
desire of chastity, especially when the same Lord among those other
affections; viz., for fathers and mothers and children (all due regard
to which not only the law but He Himself also charged to be shown, yet
for His name’s sake and for the desire of perfection He decreed
that they should not simply be disregarded but actually hated)—to
these, I say, He joined also the mention of wives, saying: “And
everyone that hath left house, or brethren or sisters or father or
mother or wife or children for My name’s sake, shall receive an
hundredfold and shall inherit eternal life.”2180
So far then is He from allowing anything
to be set against that perfection which He is proclaiming, that He
actually enjoins that the ties to father and mother should be broken
and disregarded out of love for Him, though according to the Apostle it
is the first commandment with promise; viz., “Honour thy father
and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it
may be well with thee and that thy days may be long upon
earth.”2181
And as the word
of the gospel condemns those who break the chains of matrimony where
there has been no sin of adultery, so it clearly promises a reward of
an hundredfold to those who have cast off a carnal yoke out of love for
Christ and the desire for chastity. Wherefore if it can be brought
about that you may listen to reason and be turned together with me to
this most desirable choice; viz., that we should together serve the
Lord and escape the pains of hell, I will not refuse the affection of
marriage,
nay I will
embrace it with a still greater love. For I acknowledge and honour my
helpmeet assigned to me by the word of the Lord, and I do not refuse to
be joined to her in an unbroken tie of love in Christ, nor do I
separate from me what the Lord joined to me by the law of the original
condition,2182
if only you
yourself will be what your Maker meant you to be. But if you will not
be a helpmeet, but prefer to make yourself a deceiver and an assistance
not to me but to the adversary, and fancy that the sacrament of
matrimony was granted to you for this reason that you may deprive
yourself of this salvation which is offered to you, and also hold me
back from following the Saviour as a disciple, then I will resolutely
lay hold on the words which were uttered by the lips of Abbot John, or
rather of Christ Himself, so that no carnal affection may be able to
tear me away from spiritual blessings, for He says: “He that
hateth not father and mother and children and brothers and sisters and
wife and lands, yea and his own soul also, cannot be My
disciple.”2183
When then by
these and such like words the woman’s purpose was not moved and
she persisted in the same obstinate hardness, If, said the blessed
Theonas, I cannot drag you away from death, neither shall you separate
me from Christ: but it is safer for me to be divorced from a human
person than from God. And so by the aid of God’s grace he at once
set about the execution of his purpose and suffered not the ardour of
his desire to grow cool through any delay. For at once he stripped
himself of all his worldly goods, and fled to a monastery, where in a
very short time he was so famous for the splendour of his sanctity and
humility that when John of blessed memory departed this life to the
Lord, and the holy Elias, a man who was no less great than his
predecessor, had likewise died, Theonas was chosen by the judgment of
all as the third to succeed them in the administration of the
almsgiving.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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