Jerome struggled on the road to perfection. I like to read his comments, as they apply to my own life of trying to form the day around God's Will. His words speak to us today, those of us on the road to perfection.
Here are snippets from his works.
...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. 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. (Letter 22.37)
Letter
XII. To Antony, Monk.
The subject of this letter is similar to that of the
preceding. Of Antony nothing is known except that some mss. describe him as “of Æmona.” The date
of the letter is 374 a.d.
While the disciples were disputing concerning precedence
our Lord, the teacher of 13humility,
took a little child and said: “Except ye be converted and become
as little children ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”158 And lest He should seem to preach more
than he practised, He fulfilled His own precept in His life. For He
washed His disciples’ feet,159 he received the
traitor with a kiss,160 He conversed with the
woman of Samaria,161 He spoke of the
kingdom of heaven with Mary at His feet,162 and
when He rose again from the dead He showed Himself first to some poor
women.163 Pride is opposed to humility, and through
it Satan lost his eminence as an archangel. The Jewish people perished
in their pride, for while they claimed the chief seats and salutations
in the market place,164 they were
superseded by the Gentiles, who had before been counted as “a
drop of a bucket.”165 Two poor fishermen,
Peter and James, were sent to confute the sophists and the wise men of
the world. As the Scripture says: “God resisteth the proud and
giveth grace to the humble.”166 Think,
brother, what a sin it must be which has God for its opponent. In the
Gospel the Pharisee is rejected because of his pride, and the publican
is accepted because of his humility.167
Now, unless I am mistaken, I have already sent you ten
letters, affectionate and earnest, whilst you have not deigned to give
me even a single line. The Lord speaks to His servants, but you, my
brother servant, refuse to speak to me. Believe me, if reserve did not
check my pen, I could show my annoyance in such invective that you
would have to reply—even though it might be in anger. But since
anger is human, and a Christian must not act injuriously, I fall back
once more on entreaty, and beg you to love one who loves you, and to
write to him as a servant should to his fellow-servant. Farewell in the
Lord.
And, part of, perhaps, his most famous letter of all...only part.
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 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 23a 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 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 24every 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
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
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 25among 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
9. When Elijah, in his flight from Jezebel, 26 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
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 safe27guard, 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 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 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 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 28high 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
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 29Lord, 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 “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 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
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
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—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 and his other treatises on virginity,
the blessed Cyprian’s noble volume, the writings of Pope
Damasus507 in prose and verse, and the treatises
recently written for his sister by our own Ambrose.508 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,
un32sightly, 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 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 33loveth, 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 34not 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
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
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.
35If 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 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
