(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.


ST. JEROME

LETTERS 108-124

[Translated by The Hon. W. H. Fremantle, M.A., Canon of Canterbury
Cathedral and Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, with the
assistance of the Rev. G. Lewis, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, Vicar of
Dodderhill near Droitwick, and the Rev. W. G. Martley, M.A., of Balliol
College, Oxford.]


LETTER CVIII: TO EUSTOCHIUM.

This, one of the longest of Jerome's letters, was written to console
Eustochium for the loss of her mother who had recently died. Jerome relates
the story of Paula in detail; speaking first of her high birth, marriage,
and social success at Rome, and then narrating her conversion and
subsequent life as a Christian ascetic. Much space is devoted to an account
of her journey to the East which included a visit to Egypt and to the
monasteries of Nitria as well as a tour of the most sacred spots in the
Holy Land. The remainder of the letter describes her daily routine and
studies at Bethlehem, and recounts the many virtues for which she was
distinguished. It then concludes with a touching description of her death
and burial and gives the epitaph placed upon her grave. The date of the
letter is 404 A.D.

   1. If all the members of my body were to be converted into tongues, and
if each of my limbs were to be gifted with a human voice, I could still do
no justice to the virtues of the holy and venerable Paula. Noble in family,
she was nobler still in holiness; rich formerly in this world's goods, she
is now more distinguished by the poverty that she has embraced for Christ.
Of the stock of the Gracchi and descended from the Scipios, the heir and
representative of that Paulus whose name she bore, the true and legitimate
daughter of that Martia Papyria who was mother to Africanus, she yet
preferred Bethlehem to Rome, and left her palace glittering with gold to
dwell in a mud cabin. We do not grieve that we have lost this perfect
woman; rather we thank God that we have had her, nay that we have her
still. For "all live unto" God,(2) and they who return unto the Lord are
still to be reckoned members of his family. We have lost her, it is true,
but the heavenly mansions have gained her; for as long as she was in the
body she was absent from the Lord(3) and would constantly complain with
tears:--" Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of
Kedar; my soul hath been this long time a pilgrim."(4) It was no wonder
that she sobbed out that even she was in darkness (for this is the meaning
of the word Kedar) seeing that, according to the apostle, "the world lieth
in the evil one;"(1) and that, "as its darkness is, so is its light;"(2)
and that "the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it
not."(3) She would frequently exclaim: "I am a stranger with thee and a
sojourner as all my fathers were,"(4) and again, I desire "to depart and to
be with Christ."(5) As often too as she was troubled with bodily weakness
(brought on by incredible abstinence and by redoubled fastings), she would
be heard to say: "I keep under my body and bring it into subjection; lest
that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway;"(6) and "It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine;"(7)
and "I humbled my soul with fasting;"(8) and "thou wilt make all" my "bed
in" my "sickness;"(9) and "Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is
turned into the drought of summer."(10) And when the pain which she bore
with such wonderful patience darted through her, as if she saw the heavens
opened" she would say "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I
fly away and be at rest."(12)

   2. I call Jesus and his saints, yes and the particular angel who was
the guardian and the companion of this admirable woman to bear witness that
these are no words of adulation and flattery but sworn testimony every one
of them borne to her character. They are, indeed, inadequate to the virtues
of one whose praises are sung by the whole world, who is admired by
bishops,(13) regretted by bands of virgins, and wept for by crowds of monks
and poor. Would you know all her virtues, reader, in short? She has left
those dependent on her poor, but not so poor as she was herself. In dealing
thus with her relatives and the men and women of her small household--her
brothers and sisters rather than her servants--she has done nothing
strange; for she has left her daughter Eustochium--a virgin consecrated to
Christ for whose comfort this sketch is made--far from her noble family and
rich only in faith and grace.

   3. Let me then begin my narrative. Others may go back a long way even
to Paula's cradle and, if I may say so, to her swaddling-clothes, and may
speak of her mother Blaesilla and her father Rogatus. Of these the former
was a descendant of the Scipios and the Gracchi; whilst the latter came of
a line distinguished in Greece down to the present day. He was said,
indeed, to have in his veins the blood of Agamemnon who destroyed Troy
after a ten years' siege. But I shall praise only what belongs to herself,
what wells forth from the pure spring of her holy mind. When in the gospel
the apostles ask their Lord and Saviour what He will give to those who have
left all for His sake, He tells them that they shall receive an hundredfold
now in this time and in the world to come eternal life.(1) From which we
see that it is not the possession of riches that is praiseworthy but the
rejection of them for Christ's sake; that, instead of glorying in our
privileges, we should make them of small account as compared with God's
faith. Truly the Saviour has now in this present time made good His promise
to His servants and handmaidens. For one who despised the glory of a single
city is to-day famous throughout the world; and one who while she lived at
Rome was known by no one outside it has by hiding herself at Bethlehem
become the admiration of all lands Roman and barbarian. For what race of
men is there which does not send pilgrims to the holy places? And who could
there find a greater marvel than Paula? As among many jewels the most
precious shines. most brightly, and as the sun with its beams obscures and
puts out the paler fires of the stars; so by her lowliness she surpassed
all others in virtue and influence and, while she was least among all, was
greater than all. The more she cast herself down, the more she was lifted
up by Christ. She was hidden and yet she was not hidden. By shunning glory
she earned glory; for glory follows virtue as its shadow; and deserting
those who seek it, it seeks those who despise it. But I must not neglect to
proceed with my narrative or dwell too long on a single point forgetful of
the rules of writing.

   4. Being then of such parentage, Paula married Toxotius in whose veins
ran the noble blood of neas and the Julii. Accordingly his daughter,
Christ's virgin Eustochium, is called Julia, as he Julius.

   "A name from great lulus handed down."(2)

   I speak of these things not as of importance to those who have them,
but as worthy of remark in those who despise them, Men of the world look up
to persons who are rich in such privileges. We on the other hand praise
those who for the Saviour's sake despise them; and strangely depreciating
all who keep them, we eulogize those who are unwilling to do so. Thus nobly
born, Paula through her fruitfulness and her chastity won approval from
all, from her husband first, then from her relatives, and lastly from the
whole city. She bore five children; Blaesilla, for whose death I consoled
her while at Rome;(1) Paulina, who has left the reverend and admirable
Pammachius to inherit both her vows(2) and property, to whom also I
addressed a little book on her death; Eustochium, who is now in the holy
places, a precious necklace of virginity and of the church; Rufina, whose
untimely end overcame the affectionate heart of her mother; and Toxotius,
after whom she had no more children. You can thus see that it was not her
wish to fulfil a wife's duty, but that she only complied with her husband's
longing to have male offspring.

   5. When he died, her grief was so great that she nearly died herself:
yet so completely did she then give herself to the service of the Lord,
that it might have seemed that she had desired his death.

   In what terms shall I speak of her distinguished, and noble, and
formerly wealthy house; all the riches of which she spent upon the poor?
How can I describe the great consideration she shewed to all and her far
reaching kindness even to those whom she had never seen? What poor man, as
he lay dying, was not wrapped in blankets given by her? What bedridden
person was not supported with money from her purse? She would seek out such
with the greatest diligence throughout the city, and would think it a
misfortune were any hungry or sick person to be supported by another's
food. So lavish was her charity that she robbed her children; and, when her
relatives remonstrated with her for doing so, she declared that she was
leaving to them a better inheritance in the mercy of Christ.

   6. Nor was she long able to endure the visits and crowded receptions,
which her high position in the world and her exalted family entailed upon
her. She received the homage paid to her sadly, and made all the speed she
could to shun and to escape those who wished to pay her compliments. It so
happened that at that time(3) the bishops of the East and West had been
summoned to Rome by letter from the emperors(4) to deal with certain
dissensions between the churches, and in this way she saw two most
admirable men and Christian prelates, Paulinus bishop of Antioch and
Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis or, as it is now called, Constantia, in
Cyprus. Epiphanius, indeed, she received as her guest; and, although
Paulinus was staying in another person's house, in the warmth of her heart
she treated him as if he too were lodged with her. Inflamed by their
virtues she thought more and more each moment of forsaking her home.
Disregarding her house, her children, her servants, her property, and in a
word everything connected with the world, she was eager--alone and
unaccompanied (if ever it could be said that she was so)--to go to the
desert made famous by its Paula and by its Antonies. And at last when the
winter was over and the sea was open, and when the bishops were returning
to their churches, she also sailed with them in her prayers and desires.
Not to prolong the story, she went down to Portus accompanied by her
brother, her kinsfolk and above all her own children eager by their
demonstrations of affection to overcome their loving mother. At last the
sails were set and the strokes of the rowers carried the vessel into the
deep. On the shore the little Toxotius stretched forth his hands in
entreaty, while Rufina, now grown up, with silent sobs besought her mother
to wait till she should be married. But still Paula's eyes were dry as she
turned them heavenwards; and she overcame her love for her children by her
love for God. She knew herself no more as a mother, that she might approve
herself a handmaid of Christ. Yet her heart was rent within her, and she
wrestled with her grief, as though she were being forcibly separated from
parts of herself. The greatness of the affection she had to overcome made
all admire her victory the more. Among the cruel hardships which attend
prisoners of war in the hands of their enemies, there is none severer than
the separation of parents from their children. Though it is against the
laws of nature, she endured this trial with unabated faith; nay more she
sought it with a joyful heart: and overcoming her love for her children by
her greater love for God, she concentrated herself quietly upon Eustochium
alone, the partner alike of her vows and of her voyage. Meantime the vessel
ploughed onwards and all her fellow-passengers looked back to the shore.
But she turned away her eyes that she might not see what she could not
behold without agony. No mother, it must be confessed, ever loved her
children so dearly. Before setting out she gave them all that she had,
disinheriting herself upon earth that she might find an inheritance in
heaven.

   7. The vessel touched at the island of Pontia ennobled long since as
the place of exile of the illustrious lady Flavia Domitilla who under the
Emperor Domitian was banished because she confessed herself a Christian;(1)
and Paula, when she saw the cells in which this lady passed the period of
her long martyrdom, taking to herself the wings of faith, more than ever
desired to see Jerusalem and the holy places. The strongest winds seemed
weak and the greatest speed slow. After passing between Scylla and
Charybdis(1) she committed herself to the Adriatic sea and had a calm
passage to Methone.(2) Stopping here for a short time to recruit her
wearied frame

   She stretched her dripping limbs upon the shore:
   Then sailed past Malea and Cythera's isle,
   The scattered Cyclades, and all the lands
   That narrow in the seas on every side.(3)

Then leaving Rhodes and Lycia behind her, she at last came in sight of
Cyprus, where failing at the feet of the holy and venerable Epiphanius, she
was by him detained ten days; though this was not, as he supposed, to
restore her strength but, as the facts prove, that she might do God's work.
For she visited all the monasteries in the island, and left, so far as her
means allowed, substantial relief for the brothers in them whom love of the
holy man had brought thither from all parts of the world. Then crossing the
narrow sea she landed at Seleucia, and going up thence to Antioch allowed
herself to be detained for a little time by the affection of the reverend
confessor Paulinus.(4) Then, such was the ardour of her faith that she, a
noble lady who had always previously been carried by eunuchs, went her way-
-and that in midwinter-riding upon an ass.

   8. I say nothing of her journey through Coele-Syria and Phoenicia (for
it is not my purpose to give you a complete itinerary of her wanderings); I
shall only name such places as are mentioned in the sacred books. After
leaving the Roman colony of Berytus and the ancient city of Zidon she
entered Elijah's town on the shore at Zarephath and therein adored her Lord
and Saviour. Next passing over the sands of Tyre on which Paul had once
knelt(5) she came to Acco or, as it is now called, Ptolemais rode over the
plains of Megiddo which had once witnessed the slaying of Josiah,(6) and
entered the land of the Philistines. Here she could not fail to admire the
ruins of Dor, once a most powerful city; and Struto's Tower, which though
at one time insignificant was rebuilt by Herod king of Judaea and named
Caesarea in honour of Caesar Augustus.(7) Here she saw the house of
Cornelius now turned into a Christian church; and the humble abode of
Philip; and the chambers of his daughters the four virgins "which did
prophesy." (1) She arrived next at Antipatris, a small town half in ruins,
named by Herod after his father Anti-pater, and at Lydda, now become
Diospolis, a place made famous by the raising again of Dorcas(2) and the
restoration to health of Aeneas.(3) Not far from this are Arimathaea, the
village of Joseph who buried the Lord,(4) and Nob, once a city of priests
but now the tomb in which their slain bodies rest.(5) Joppa too is hard by,
the port of Jonah's flight;(6) which also--if I may introduce a poetic
fable--saw Andromeda bound to the rock.(7) Again resuming her journey, she
came to Nicopolis, once called Emmaus, where the Lord became known in the
breaking of bread;(8) an action by which He dedicated the house of Cleopas
as a church. Starting thence she made her way up lower and higher
Bethhoron, cities founded by Solomon(9) but subsequently destroyed by
several devastating wars; seeing on her right Ajalon and Gibeon where
Joshua the son of Nun when fighting against the five kings gave
commandments to the sun and moon,(10) where also he condemned the
Gibeonites(who by a crafty stratagem had obtained a treaty) to be hewers of
wood and drawers of water.(11) At Gibeah also, now a complete ruin, she
stopped for a little while remembering its sin, and the cutting of the
concubine into pieces, and how in spite of all this three hundred men of
the tribe of Benjamin were saved(12) that in after days Paul might be
called a Benjamite.

   9. To make a long story short, leaving on her left the mausoleum of
Helena queen of Adiabene(13) who in time of famine had sent corn to the
Jewish people, Paula entered Jerusalem, Jebus, or Salem, that city of three
names which after it had sunk to ashes and decay was by Aelius Hadrianus
restored once more as Aelia.(14) And although the proconsul of Palestine,
who was an intimate friend of her house, sent forward his apparitors and
gave orders to have his official residence(15) placed at her disposal, she
chose a humble cell in preference to it. Moreover, in visiting the holy
places so great was the passion and the enthusiasm she exhibited for each,
that she could never have torn herself away from one had she not been eager
to visit the rest. Before the Cross she threw herself down in adoration as
though she beheld the Lord hanging upon it: and when she entered the tomb
which was the scene of the Resurrection she kissed the stone which the
angel had rolled away from the door of the sepulchre.(1) Indeed so ardent
was her faith that she even licked with her mouth the very spot on which
the Lord's body had lain, like one athirst for the river which he has
longed for. What tears she shed there, what groans she uttered, and what
grief she poured forth, all Jerusalem knows; the Lord also to whom she
prayed knows. Going out thence she made the ascent of Zion; a name which
signifies either "citadel" or "watch-tower." This formed the city which
David formerly stormed and afterwards rebuilt.(2) Of its storming it is
written, "Woe to Ariel, to Ariel"--that is, God's lion, (and indeed in
those days it was extremely strong)-- "the city which David stormed:"(3)
and of its rebuilding it is said, "His foundation is in the holy mountains:
the Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob."(4)
He does not mean the gates which we see to-day in dust and ashes; the gates
he means are those against which hell prevails not(5) and through which the
multitude of those who believe in Christ enter in.(6) There was shewn to
her upholding the portico of a church the bloodstained column to which our
Lord is said to have been bound when He suffered His scourging. There was
shewn to her also the spot where the Holy Spirit came down upon the souls
of the one hundred and twenty believers, thus fulfilling the prophecy of
Joel.(7)

   10. Then, after distributing money to the poor and her fellow-servants
so far as her means allowed, she proceeded to Bethlehem stopping only on
the right side of the road to visit Rachel's tomb. (Here it was that she
gave birth to her son destined to be not what his dying mother called him,
Benoni, that is the "Son of my pangs" but as his father in the spirit
prophetically named him Benjamin, that is "the Son of the right hand)."(8)
After this she came to Bethlehem and entered into the cave where the
Saviour was born.(9) Here, when she looked upon the inn made sacred by the
virgin and the stall where the ox knew his owner and the ass his master's
crib,(10) and where the words of the same prophet had been fulfilled
"Blessed is he that soweth beside the waters where the ox and the ass
trample the seed under their feet:"(11) when she looked upon these things I
say, she protested in my hearing that she could behold with the eyes of
faith the infant Lord wrapped in swaddling clothes and crying in the
manger, the wise men worshipping Him, the star shining overhead, the virgin
mother, the attentive foster-father, the shepherds coming by night to see
"the word that was come to pass"(1) and thus even then to consecrate those
opening phrases of the evangelist John "In the beginning was the word" and
"the word was made flesh."(2) She declared that she could see the
slaughtered innocents, the raging Herod, Joseph and Mary fleeing into
Egypt; and with a mixture of tears and joy she cried: 'Hail Bethlehem,
house of bread,(3) wherein was born that Bread that came down from
heaven.(4) Hail Ephratah, land of fruitfulness(5) and of fertility, whose
fruit is the Lord Himself. Concerning thee has Micah prophesied of old,
"Thou Bethlehem Ephratah art not(6) the least among the thousands of Judah,
for out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel;
whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore wilt
thou(6) give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought
forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of
Israel."(7) For in thee was born the prince begotten before Lucifer.(8)
Whose birth from the Father is before all time: and the cradle of David's
race continued in thee, until the virgin brought forth her son and the
remnant of the people that believed in Christ returned unto the children of
Israel and preached freely to them in words like these: "It Was necessary
that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye
put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we
turn to the Gentiles."(9) For the Lord hath said: "I am not sent but unto
the lost sheep of the house of Israel."(10) At that time also the words of
Jacob were fulfilled concerning Him, "A prince shall not depart from Judah
nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until He come for whom it is laid
up,(11) and He shall be for the expectation of the nations."(12) Well did
David swear, well did he make a vow saying: "Surely I will not come into
the tabernacle of my house nor go up into my bed: I will not give sleep to
mine eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, or rest to the temples of my head,(13)
until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the God of
Jacob."(14) And immediately he explained the object of his desire, seeing
with prophetic eyes that He would come whom we now believe to have come.
"Lo we heard of Him at Ephratah: we found Him in the fields of the
wood."(1) The Hebrew word Zo as have learned from your lessons(2) means not
her, that is Mary the Lord's mother, but him that is the Lord Himself.
Therefore he says boldly: "We will go into His tabernacle: we will worship
at His footstool."(3) I too, miserable sinner though I am; have been
accounted worthy to kiss the manger in which the Lord cried as a babe, and
to pray in the cave in which the tray, fling virgin gave birth to the
infant Lord. "This is my rest" for it is my Lord's native place; "here will
I dwell"(4) for this spot has my Saviour chosen. "I have prepared a lamp
for my Christ"(5) "My soul shall live unto Him and my seed shall serve Him.

   After this Paul, went a short distance down the hill to the tower of
Edar,(7) that is 'of the flock,(7) near which Jacob fed his flocks, and
where the shepherds keeping watch by night were privileged to hear the
words: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward
men."(8) While they were keeping their sheep they found the Lamb of God
whose fleece bright and clean was made wet with the dew of heaven when it
was dry upon all the earth beside,(9) and whose blood when sprinkled on the
doorposts drove off the destroyer of Egypt(10) and took away the sins of
the world.(11)

   11. Then immediately quickening her pace she began to move along the
old road which leads to Gaza, that is to the 'power' or 'wealth' of God,
silently meditating on that type of the Gentiles, the Ethiopian eunuch, who
in spite of the prophet changed his skin(12) and whilst he read the old
testament found the fountain of the gospel.(13) Next turning to the right
she passed from Bethzur(14) to Eshcol which means "a cluster of grapes." It
was hence that the spies brought back that marvellous cluster which was the
proof of the fertility of the land(15) and a type of Him who says of
Himself: "I have trodden the wine press alone; and of the people there was
none with me."(14) Shortly afterwards she entered the home(17) of Sarah and
beheld the birthplace of Isaac and the traces of Abraham's oak under which
he saw Christ's day and was glad.(18) And rising up from thence she went up
to Hebron, that is Kirjath-Arba, or the City of the Four Men. These are
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the great Adam whom the Hebrews suppose(from the
book of Joshua the son of Nun) to be buried there.(1) But many are of
opinion that Caleb is the fourth and a monument at one side is pointed out
as his. After seeing these places she did not care to go on to Kirjath-
sepher, that is "the village of letters;" because despising the letter that
killeth she had found the spirit that giveth life.(7) She admired more the
upper springs and the nether springs which Othniel the son of Kenaz the son
of Jephunneh received in place of a south land and a waterless
possession,(3) and by the conducting of which he watered the dry fields of
the old covenant. For thus did he typify the redemption which the sinner
finds for his old sins in the waters of baptism. On the next day soon after
sunrise she stood upon the brow of Caphar-barucha,(4) that is, "the house
of blessing," the point to which Abraham pursued the Lord when he made
intercession with Him.(5) And here, as she looked down upon the wide
solitude and upon the country once belonging to Sodom and Gomorrah, to
Admah and Zeboim, she beheld the balsam vines of Engedi and Zoar. By Zoar I
mean that "heifer of three years old"(6) which was formerly called Bela(7)
and in Syriac is rendered Zoar that is 'little.' She called to mind the
cave in which Lot found refuge, and with tears in her eyes warned the
virgins her companions to beware of "wine wherein is excess;"(8) for it was
to this that the Moabites and Ammonites owe their origin.(9)

   12. I linger long in the land of the midday sun for it was there and
then that the spouse found her bridegroom at rest(10) and Joseph drank wine
with his brothers once more.(11) I will return to Jerusalem and, passing
through Tekoa the home of Amos,(12) I will look upon the glistening cross
of Mount Olivet from which the Saviour made His ascension to the
Father.(13) Here year by year a red heifer was burned as a holocaust to the
Lord and its ashes were used to purify the children of Israel.(14) Here
also according to Ezekiel the Cherubim after leaving the temple rounded the
church of the Lord.(15)

   After this Paula visited the tomb of Lazarus and beheld the hospitable
roof of Mary and Martha, as well as Bethphage, 'the town of the priestly
jaws." Here it was that a restive foal typical of the Gentiles received the
bridle of God, and covered with the garments of the apostles(2) offered its
lowly back(3) for Him to sit on. From this she went straight on down the
hill to Jericho thinking of the wounded man in the gospel, of the savagery
of the priests and Levites who passed him by, and of the kindness of the
Samaritan, that is, the guardian, who placed the half-dead man upon his own
beast and brought him down to the inn of the church.(4) She noticed the
place called Adomim(5) or the Place of Blood, so-called because much blood
was shed there in the frequent incursions of marauders. She beheld also the
sycamore tree(6) of Zacchaeus, by which is signified the good works of
repentance whereby he trod under foot his former sins of bloodshed and
rapine, and from which he saw the Most High as from a pinnacle of virtue.
She was shewn too the spot by the wayside where the blind men sat who,
receiving their sight from the Lord,(7) became types of the two peoples(9)
who should believe upon Him. Then entering Jericho she saw the city which
Hiel founded in Abiram his firstborn and of which he set up the gates in
his youngest son Segub.(9) She looked upon the camp of Gilgal and the hill
of the foreskins(10) suggestive of the mystery of the second
circumcision:(11) and she gazed at the twelve stones brought thither out of
the bed of Jordan(12) to be symbols of those twelve foundations on which
are written the names of the twelve apostles.(13) She saw also that
fountain of the Law most bitter and barren which the true Elisha healed by
his wisdom changing it into a well sweet and fertilising.(14) Scarcely had
the night passed away when burning with eagerness she hastened to the
Jordan, stood by the brink of the river, and as the sun rose recalled to
mind the rising of the sun of righteousness;(15) how the priest's feet
stood firm in the middle of the river-bed;(16) how afterwards at the
command of Elijah and Elisha the waters were divided hither and thither and
made way for them to pass; and again how the Lord had cleansed by His
baptism waters which the deluge had polluted and the destruction of mankind
had defiled.

   13. It would be tedious were I tell of the valley of Achor, that is, of
'trouble and crowds,' where theft and covetousness were condemned;(17) and
of Bethel, 'the house of God,' where Jacob poor and destitute slept upon
the bare ground. Here it was that, having set beneath his head a stone
which in Zechariah is described as having seven eyes(1) and in Isaiah is
spoken of as a corner-stone,(2) he beheld a ladder reaching up to heaven;
yes, and the Lord standing high above it(3) holding out His hand to such as
were ascending and hurling from on high such as were careless. Also when
she was in Mount Ephraim she made pilgrimages to the tombs of Joshua the
son of Nun and of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, exactly opposite the
one to the other; that of Joshua being built at Timnath-serah "on the north
side of the hill of Gaash,"(4) and that of Eleazar "in a hill that
pertained to Phinehas his son."(5) She was somewhat surprised to find that
he who had had the distribution of the land in his own hands had selected
for himself portions uneven and rocky. What shall I say about Shiloh where
a ruined altar(6) is still shewn to-day, and where the tribe of Benjamin
anticipated Romulus in the rape of the Sabine women?(7) Passing by Shechem
(not Sychar as many wrongly read") or as it is now called Neapolis, she
entered the church built upon the side of Mount Gerizim around Jacob's
well; that well where the Lord was sitting when hungry and thirsty He was
refreshed by the faith of the woman of Samaria. Forsaking her five husbands
by whom are intended the five books of Moses, and that sixth not a husband
of whom she boasted, to wit the false teacher Dositheus,(9) she found the
true Messiah and the true Saviour. Turning away thence Paula saw the tombs
of the twelve patriarchs, and Samaria which in honour of Augustus Herod
renamed Augusta or in Greek Sebaste. There lie the prophets Elisha and
Obadiah and John the Baptist than whom there is not a greater among those
that are born of women.(10) And here she was filled with terror by the
marvels she beheld; for she saw demons screaming under different tortures
before the tombs of the saints, and men howling like wolves, baying like
dogs, roaring like lions, hissing like serpents and bellowing like bulls.
They twisted their heads and bent them backwards until they touched the
ground; women too were suspended head downward and their clothes did not
fall off.(11) Paula pitied them all, and shedding tears over them prayed
Christ to have mercy on them. And weak as she was she climbed the mountain
on foot; for in two of its caves Obadiah in a time of persecution and
famine had fed a hundred prophets with bread and water.(1) Then she passed
quickly through Nazareth the nursery of the Lord; Cana and Capernaum
familiar with the signs wrought by Him; the lake of Tiberias sanctified by
His voyages upon it; the wilderness where countless Gentiles were satisfied
with a few loaves while the twelve baskets of the tribes of Israel were
filled with the fragments left by them that had eaten.(2) She made the
ascent of mount Tabor whereon the Lord was transfigured.(3) In the distance
she beheld the range of Hermon;(4) and the wide stretching plains of
Galilee where Sisera and all his host had once been overcome by Barak; and
the torrent(5) Kishon separating the level ground into two parts. Hard by
also the town of Nain was pointed out to her, where the widow's son was
raised.(6) Time would fail me sooner than speech were I to recount all the
places to which the revered Paula was carried by her incredible faith.

   14. I will now pass on to Egypt, pausing for a while on the way at
Socoh, and at Samson's well which he clave in the hollow place that was in
the jaw.(7) Here I will lave my parched lips and refresh myself before
visiting Moresheth; in old days famed for the tomb of the prophet Micah,(8)
and now for its church. Then skirting the country of the Horites and
Gittites, Mareshah, Edom, and Lachish, and traversing the lonely wastes of
the desert where the tracks of the traveller are lost in the yielding sand,
I will come to the river of Egypt called Sihor,(9) that is "the muddy
river," and go through the five cities of Egypt which speak the language of
Canaan,(10) and through the land of Goshen and the plains of Zoan(11) on
which God wrought his marvellous works. And I will visit the city of No,
which has since become Alexandria;(12) and Nitria, the town of the Lord,
where day by day the filth of multitudes is washed away with the pure nitre
of virtue. No sooner did Paula come in sight of it than there came to meet
her the reverend and estimable bishop, the confessor Isidore, accompanied
by countless multitudes of monks many of whom were of priestly or of
Levitical rank.(12) On seeing these Paula rejoiced to behold the Lord's
glory manifested in them; but protested that she had no claim to be
received with such honour. Need I speak of the Macarii, Arsenius,
Serapion,(14) or other pillars of Christ! Was there any cell that she did
not enter? Or any man at whose feet she did not throw herself? In each of
His saints she believed that she saw Christ Himself; and whatever she
bestowed upon them she rejoiced to feel that she had bestowed it upon the
Lord. Her enthusiasm was wonderful and her endurance scarcely credible in a
woman. Forgetful of her sex and of her weakness she even desired to make
her abode, together with the girls who accompanied her, among these
thousands of monks. And, as they were all willing to welcome her, she might
perhaps have sought and obtained permission to do so; had she not been
drawn away by a still greater passion for the holy places. Coming by sea
from Pelusium to Maioma on account of the great heat, she returned so
rapidly that you would have thought her a bird. Not long afterwards, making
up her mind to dwell permanently in holy Bethlehem, she took up her abode
for three years m a miserable hostelry; till she could build the requisite
cells and monastic buildings, to say nothing of a guest house for passing
travellers where they might find the welcome which Mary and Joseph had
missed. At this point I conclude my narrative of the journeys that she made
accompanied by Eustochium and many other virgins.

   15. I am now free to describe at greater length the virtue which was
her peculiar charm; and in setting forth this I call God to witness that I
am no flatterer. I add nothing. I exaggerate nothing. On the contrary I
tone down much that I may not appear to relate incredibilities. My carping
critics must not insinuate that I am drawing on my imagination or decking
Paula, like sop's crow, with the fine feathers of other birds. Humility is
the first of Christian graces, and hers was so pronounced that one who had
never seen her, and who on account of her celebrity had desired to see her,
would have believed that he saw not her but the lowest of her maids. When
she was surrounded by companies of virgins she was always the least
remarkable in dress, in speech, in gesture, and in gait. From the time that
her husband died until she fell asleep herself she never sat at meat with a
man, even though she might know him to stand upon the pinnacle of the
episcopate. She never entered a bath except when dangerously ill. Even in
the severest fever she rested not on an ordinary bed but on the hard ground
covered only with a mat of goat's hair; if that can be called rest which
made day and night alike a time of almost unbroken prayer. Well did she
fulfil the words of the psalter: "All the night make I my bed to swim; I
water my couch with my tear"!(1)

Her tears welled forth as it were from fountains, and she lamented her
slightest faults as if they were sins of the deepest dye. Constantly did I
warn her to spare her eyes and to keep them for the reading of the gospel;
but she only said: 'I must disfigure that face which contrary to God's
commandment I have painted with rouge, white lead, and antimony. I must
mortify that body which has been given up to many pleasures. I must make up
for my long laughter by constant weeping. I must exchange my soft linen and
costly silks for rough goat's hair. I who have pleased my husband and the
world in the past, desire now to please Christ.' Were I among her great and
signal virtues to select her chastity as a subject of praise, my words
would seem superfluous; for, even when she was still in the world, she set
an example to all the matrons of Rome, and bore herself so admirably that
the most slanderous never ventured to couple scandal with her name.(1) No
mind could be more considerate than hers, or none kinder towards the lowly.
She did not court the powerful; at the same time, if the proud and the
vainglorious sought her, she did not turn from them with disdain. If she
saw a poor man, she supported him: and if she saw a rich one, she urged him
to do good. Her liberality alone knew no bounds. Indeed, so anxious was she
to turn no needy person away that she borrowed money at interest and often
contracted new loans to pay off old ones. I was wrong, I admit; but when I
saw her so profuse in giving, I reproved her alleging the apostle's words:
"I mean not that other men be eased and ye burthened; but by an equality
that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that
their abundance also may be a supply for your want."(2) I quoted from the
gospel the Saviour's words: "he that hath two coats, let him impart one of
them to him that hath none";(3) and I warned her that she might not always
have means to do as she would wish. Other arguments I adduced to the same
purpose; but with admirable modesty and brevity she overruled them all.
"God is my witness," she said, "that what I do I do for His sake. My prayer
is that I may die a beggar not leaving a penny to my daughter and indebted
to strangers for my winding sheet." She then concluded with these words:
"I, if I beg, shall find many to give to me; but if this beggar does not
obtain help from me who by borrowing can give it to him, he will die; and
if he dies, of whom will his soul be required?" wished her to be more
careful in managing her concerns, but she with a faith more glowing than
mine clave to the Saviour with her whole heart and poor in spirit followed
the Lord in His poverty, giving back to Him what she had received and
becoming poor for His sake. She obtained her wish at last and died leaving
her daughter overwhelmed with a mass of debt. This Eustochium still owes
and indeed cannot hope to pay off by her own exertions; only the mercy of
Christ can free her from it.

   16. Many married ladies make it a habit to confer gifts upon their own
trumpeters, and while they are extremely profuse to a few, with hold all
help from the many. From this fault Paula was altogether free. She gave her
money to each according as each had need, not ministering to self-
indulgence but relieving want, No poor person went away from her empty
handed. And all this she was enabled to do not by the greatness of her
wealth but by her careful management of it. She constantly had on her lips
such phrases as these: "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain
mercy:"(1) and "water will quench a flaming fire; and alms maketh an
atonement for sins;"(2) and "make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness that ... they may receive you into everlasting
habitations;"(3) and "give alms ... and behold all things are clean unto
you;"(4) and Daniel's words to King Nebuchadnezzar in which he admonished
him to redeem his sins by almsgiving.(5) She wished to spend her money not
upon these stones, that shall pass away with the earth and the world, but
upon those living stones, which roll over the earth;(6) of which in the
apocalypse of John the city of the great king is built;(7) of which also
the scripture tells us that they shall be changed into sapphire and emerald
and jasper and other gems.(8)

   17. But these qualities she may well share with a few others and the
devil knows that it is not in these that the highest virtue consists. For,
when Job has lost his substance and when his house and children have been
destroyed, Satan says to the Lord: "Skin for skin, yea all that a man hath,
will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now and touch his bone
and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face."(9) We know that many
persons while they have given alms have yet given nothing which touches
their bodily comfort; and while they have held out a helping hand to those
in need are themselves overcome with sensual indulgences; they whitewash
the outside but within they are "full of dead men's bones."(1) Paula was
not one of these. Her self-restraint was so great as to be almost
immoderate; and her fasts and labours were so severe as almost to weaken
her constitution. Except on feast days she would scarcely ever take oil
with her food; a fact from which may be judged what she thought of wine,
sauce, fish, honey, milk, eggs, and other things agreeable to the palate.
Some persons believe that in taking these they are extremely frugal; and,
even if they surfeit themselves with them, they still fancy their chastity
safe.

   18. Envy always follows in the track of virtue: as Horace says, it is
ever the mountain top that is smitten by the lightning.(2) It is not
surprising that I declare this of men and women, when the jealousy of the
Pharisees succeeded in crucifying our Lord Himself. All the saints have had
illwishers, and even Paradise was not free from the serpent through whose
malice death came into the world.(3) So the Lord stirred up against Paula
Hadad the Edomite(4) to buffet her that she might not be exalted, and
warned her frequently by the thorn in her flesh(5) not to be elated by the
greatness of her own virtues or to fancy that, compared with other women,
she had attained the summit of perfection. For my part I used to say that
it was best to give in to rancour and to retire before passion. So Jacob
dealt with his brother Esau so David met the unrelenting persecution of
Saul. I reminded her how the first of these fled into Mesopotamia;(6) and
how the second surrendered himself to the Philistines,(7) and chose to
submit to foreign foes rather than to enemies at home. She however replied
as follows:--'Your suggestion would be a wise one if the devil did not
everywhere fight against God's servants and handmaidens, and did he not
always precede the fugitives to their chosen refuges. Moreover, I am
deterred from accepting it by my love for the holy places; and I cannot
find another Bethlehem elsewhere. Why may I not by my patience conquer this
ill will? Why may I not by my humility break down this pride, and when I am
smitten on the one cheek offer to the smiter the other?(8) Surely the
apostle Paul says "Overcome evil with good."(9) Did not the apostles glory
when they suffered reproach for the Lord's sake? Did not even the Saviour
humble Himself, taking the form of a servant and being made obedient to the
Father unto death, even the death of the cross,(10) that He might save us
by His passion? If Job had not fought the battle and won the victory, he
would never have received the crown of righteousness, or have heard the
Lord say: "Thinkest thou that I have spoken unto thee for aught else than
this, that thou mightest appear righteous."(1) In the gospel those only are
said to be blessed who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake.(2) My
conscience is at rest, and I know that it is not from any fault of mine
that I am suffering; moreover affliction in this world is a ground for
expecting a reward hereafter.' When the enemy was more than usually forward
and ventured to reproach her to her face, she used to chant the words of
the psalter: "While the wicked was before me, I was dumb with silence; I
held my peace even from good:"(3) and again, "I as a deaf man heard not;
and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth:"(4) and "I was as a man
that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs."(5) When she felt
herself tempted, she dwelt upon the words in Deuteronomy: "The Lord your
God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul."(6) In tribulations and afflictions she
turned to the splendid language of Isaiah: "Ye that are weaned from the
milk and drawn from the breasts, look for tribulation upon tribulation, for
hope also upon hope: yet a little while must these things be by reason of
the malice of the lips and by reason of a spiteful tongue."' This passage
of scripture she explained for her own consolation as meaning that the
weaned, that is, those who have come to full age, must endure tribulation
upon tribulation that they may be accounted worthy to receive hope upon
hope. She recalled to mind also the words of the apostle, "we glory in
tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience
experience, and experience hope: and hope maketh not ashamed"(8) and
"though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by
day":(9) and "our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh in
us(10) an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which
are seen but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are
seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal.(11) She
used to say that, although to human impatience the time might seem slow in
coming, yet that it would not be long but that presently help would come
from God who says: "In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day
of salvation have I helped thee."(1) We ought not, she declared, to dread
the deceitful lips and tongues of the wicked, for we rejoice in the aid of
the Lord who warns us by His prophet: "fear ye not the reproach of men,
neither be ye afraid of their revilings; for the moth shall eat them up
like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool":(2) and she quoted
His own words, "In your patience ye shall win your souls":(3) as well as
those of the apostle, "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed m us":(4) and in
another place, "we are to suffer affliction"(5) that we may be patient in
all things that befall us, for "he that is slow to wrath is of great
understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly."(6)

   19. In her frequent sicknesses and infirmities she used to say, "when I
am weak, then am I strong:"(7) "we have our treasure in earthen vessels"(8)
until "this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal
shall have put on immortality"(9) and again "as the sufferings of Christ
abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ:"(10) and then
"as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the
consolation.(11) In sorrow she used to sing: "Why art thou cast down, O my
soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God for I shall
yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God."(12) In the
hour of danger she used to say: "If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross and follow me:"(13) and again "whosoever
will save his life shall lose it," and "whosoever will lose his life for my
sake the same shall save it."(14) When the exhaustion of her substance and
the ruin of her property were announced to her she only said: "What is a
man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul:"(15) and "naked came I out
of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and
the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord:"(16)and Saint
John's words, "Love not the world neither the things that are in the world.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the
eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And
the world passeth away and the lust thereof."(17) I know that when word was
sent to her of the serious illnesses of her children and particularly of
Toxotius whom she dearly loved, she first by her self-control fulfilled the
saying: "I was troubled and I did not speak,"(18) and then cried out in the
words of scripture, "He that loveth son or daughter more than me is not
worthy of me."(1) And she prayed to the Lord and said: Lord "preserve thou
the children of those that are appointed to die,"(2) that is, of those who
for thy sake every day die bodily. I am aware that a talebearer--a class of
persons who do a great deal of harm--once told her as a kindness that owing
to her great fervour in virtue some people thought her mad and declared
that something should be done for her head. She replied in the words of the
apostle, "we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to
men,"(3) and "we are fools for Christ's sake"(4) but "the foolishness of
God is wiser than men."(5) It is for this reason she said that even the
Saviour says to the Father, "Thou knowest my foolishness,"(6) and again "I
am as a wonder unto many, but thou art my strong refuge."(7) "I was as a
beast before thee; nevertheless I am continually with thee."(8) In the
gospel we read that even His kinsfolk desired to bind Him as one of weak
mind.(9) His opponents also reviled him saying "thou art a Samaritan and
hast a devil,"(10) and another time "he casteth out devils through
Beelzebub the chief of the devils."(11) But let us, she continued, listen
to the exhortation of the apostle, "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of
our conscience that in simplicity and sincerity ... by the grace of God we
have had our conversation in the world."(12) And let us hear the Lord when
He says to His apostles, "If ye were of the world the world would love his
own; but because ye are not of the world ... therefore the world hateth
you."(13) And then she turned to the Lord Himself, saying, "Thou knowest
the secrets of the heart,"(14) and "all this is come upon us; yet have we
not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant; our
heart is not turned back."(15) "Yea for thy sake are we killed all the day
long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter."(16) But "the Lord is on
my side: I will not fear what man doeth unto me."(17) She had read the
words of Solomon, "My son, honour the Lord and thou shalt be made strong;
and beside the Lord fear thou no man."(18) These passages and others like
them she used as God's armour against the assaults of wickedness, and
particularly to defend herself against the furious onslaughts of envy; and
thus by patiently enduring wrongs she soothed the violence of the most
savage breasts. Down to the very day of her death two things were
conspicuous in her life, one her great patience and the other the jealousy
which was manifested towards her. Now jealousy gnaws the heart of him who
harbours it: and while it strives to injure its rival raves with all the
force of its fury against itself.

   20. I shall now describe the order of her monastery and the method by
which she turned the continence of saintly souls to her own profit. She
sowed carnal things that she might reap spiritual things;(1) she gave
earthly things that she might receive heavenly things; she forewent things
temporal that she might in their stead obtain things eternal. Besides
establishing a monastery for men, the charge of which she left to men, she
divided into three companies and monasteries the numerous virgins whom she
had gathered out of different provinces, some of whom are of noble birth
while others belonged to the middle or lower classes. But, although they
worked and had their meals separately from each other, these three
companies met together for psalm- singing and prayer. After the chanting of
the Alleluia--the signal by which they were summoned to the Collect(2)-no
one was permitted to remain behind. But either first or among the first
Paula used to await the arrival of the rest, urging them to diligence
rather by her own modest example than by motives of fear. At dawn, at the
third, sixth, and ninth hours, at evening, and at midnight they recited the
psalter each in turn.(3) No sister was allowed to be ignorant of the
psalms, and all had every day to learn a certain portion of the holy
scriptures. On the Lord's day only they proceeded to the church beside
which they lived, each company following its own mother-superior. Returning
home in the same order, they then devoted themselves to their allotted
tasks, and made garments either for themselves or else for others. If a
virgin was of noble birth, she was not allowed to have an attendant
belonging to her own household lest her maid having her mind full of the
doings of old days and of the license of childhood might by constant
converse open old wounds and renew former errors. All the sisters were
clothed alike. Linen was not used except for drying the hands. So strictly
did Paula separate them from men that she would not allow even eunuchs to
approach them; lest she should give occasion to slanderous tongues (always
ready to cavil at the religious) to console themselves for their own
misdoing. When a sister was backward in coming to the recitation of the
psalms or shewed herself remiss in her work, Paula used to approach her in
different ways. Was she quick-tempered? Paula coaxed her. Was she
phlegmatic? Paula chid her, copying the example of the apostle who said:
"What will ye? Shall I come to you with a rod or in love and in the spirit
of meekness?"(1) Apart from food and raiment she allowed no one to have
anything she could call her own, for Paul had said, "Having food and
raiment let us be therewith content."(2) She was afraid lest the custom of
having more should breed covetousness in them; an appetite which no wealth
can satisfy, for the more it has the more it requires, and neither opulence
nor indigence is able to diminish it.(3) When the sisters quarrelled one
with another she reconciled them with soothing words. If the younger ones
were troubled with fleshly desires, she broke their force by imposing
redoubled fasts; for she wished her virgins to be ill in body rather than
to suffer in soul. If she chanced to notice any sister too attentive to her
dress, she reproved her for her error with knitted brows and severe looks,
saying; "a clean body and a clean dress mean an unclean soul. A virgin's
lips should never utter an improper or an impure word, for such indicate a
lascivious mind and by the outward man the faults of the inward are made
manifest." When she saw a sister verbose and talkative or forward and
taking pleasure in quarrels, and when she found after frequent admonitions
that the offender shewed no signs of improvement; she placed her among the
lowest of the sisters and outside their society, ordering her to pray at
the door of the refectory instead of with the rest, and commanding her to
take her food by herself, in the hope that where rebuke had failed shame
might bring about a reformation. The sin of theft she loathed as if it were
sacrilege; and that which among men of the world is counted little or
nothing she declared to be in a monastery a crime of the deepest dye. How
shall I describe her kindness and attention towards the sick or the
wonderful care and devotion with which she nursed them? Yet, although when
others were sick she freely gave them every indulgence, and even allowed
them to eat meat; when she fell ill herself, she made no concessions to her
own weakness, and seemed unfairly to change in her own case to harshness
the kindness which she was always ready to shew to others.

   21. No young girl of sound and vigorous constitution could have
delivered herself up to a regimen so rigid as that imposed upon herself by
Paula whose physical powers age had impaired and enfeebled. I admit that in
this she was too determined, refusing to spare herself or to listen to
advice. I will relate what I know to be a fact. In the extreme heat of the
month of July she was once attacked by a violent fever and we despaired of
her life. However by God's mercy she rallied, and the doctors urged upon
her the necessity of taking a little light wine to accelerate her recovery;
saying that if she continued to drink water they feared that she might
become dropsical. I on my side secretly appealed to the blessed pope
Epiphanius to admonish, nay even to compel her, to take the wine. But she
with her usual sagacity and quickness at once perceived the stratagem, and
with a smile let him see that the advice he was giving her was after all
not his but mine. Not to waste more words, the blessed prelate after many
exhortations left her chamber; and, when I asked him what he had
accomplished, replied, "Only this that old as I am I have been almost
persuaded to drink no more wine." I relate this story not because I approve
of persons rashly taking upon themselves burthens beyond their strength
(for does not the scripture say: "Burden not thyself above thy power"?(1))
but because I wish from this quality of perseverance in her to shew the
passion of her mind and the yearning of her believing soul; both of which
made her sing in David's words, "My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh
longeth after thee."(2) Difficult as it is always to avoid extremes, the
philosophers(3) are quite right in their opinion that virtue is a mean and
vice an excess, or as we may express it in one short sentence "In nothing
too much."(4) While thus un- yielding in her contempt for food Paula was
easily moved to sorrow and felt crushed by the deaths of her kinsfolk,
especially those of her children. When one after another her husband and
her daughters fell asleep, on each occasion the shock of their loss
endangered her life. And although she signed her mouth and her breast with
the sign of the cross, and endeavoured thus to alleviate a mother's grief;
her feelings overpowered her and her maternal instincts were too much for
her confiding mind. Thus while her intellect retained its mastery she was
overcome by sheer physical weakness. On one occasion a sickness seized her
and clung to her so long that it brought anxiety to us and danger to
herself. Yet even then she was full of joy and repeated every moment the
apostle's words: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?"(5) The careful reader may say that my words are an
invective rather than an eulogy. I call that Jesus whom she served and whom
I desire to serve to be my witness that so far from unduly eulogizing her
or depreciating her I tell the truth about her as one Christian writing of
another; that I am writing a memoir and not a panegyric, and that what were
faults in her might well be virtues in others less saintly. I speak thus of
her faults to satisfy my own feelings and the passionate regret of us her
brothers and sisters, who all of us love her still and all of us deplore
her loss.

   22. However, she has finished her course, she has kept the faith, and
now she enjoys the crown of righteousness.(1) She follows the Lamb
whithersoever he goes.(2) She is filled now because once she was hungry.(3)
With joy does she sing: "as we have heard, so have we seen in the city of
the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God."(4) O blessed change! Once she
wept but now laughs for evermore. Once she despised the broken cisterns of
which the prophet speaks;(5) but now she has found in the Lord a fountain
of life.(6) Once she were haircloth but now she is clothed in white
raiment, and can say: "thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with
gladness."(7) Once she ate ashes like bread and mingled her drink with
weeping;(8) saying "my tears have been my meat day and night;" (9) but now
for all time she eats the bread of angels(10) and sings: "O taste and see
that the Lord is good;"(11) and "my heart is overflowing with a goodly
matter; I speak the things which I have made touching the king."(12) She
now sees fulfilled Isaiah's words, or rather those of the Lord speaking
through Isaiah: "Behold, my servants shall eat but ye shall be hungry:
behold, my servants shall drink but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my
servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed: behold, my servants shall
sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall bowl
for vexation of spirit."(13) I have said that she always shunned the broken
cisterns: she did so that she might find in the Lord a fountain of life,
and that she might rejoice and sing: "as the hart panteth after the
waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. When shall I come and
appear before God?"(14)

   23. I must briefly mention the manner in which she avoided the foul
cisterns of the heretics whom she regarded as no better than heathen. A
certain cunning knave, in his own estimation both learned and clever, began
without my knowledge to put to her such questions as these: What sin has an
infant committed that it should be seized by the devil? Shall we be young
or old when we rise again? If we die young and rise young, we shall after
the resurrection require to have nurses. If however we die young and rise
old, the dead will not rise again at all: they will be transformed into new
beings. Will there be a distinction of sexes in the next world? Or will
there be no such distinction? If the distinction continues, there will be
wedlock and sexual intercourse and procreation of children. If however it
does not continue, the bodies that rise again will not be the same. For, he
argued, "the earthy tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many
things,"(1) but the bodies that we shall have in heaven will be subtle and
spiritual according to the words of the apostle: "it is sown a natural
body: it is raised a spiritual body."(2) From all of which considerations
he sought to prove that rational creatures have been for their faults and
previous sins subjected to bodily conditions; and that according to the
nature and guilt of their transgression they are born in this or that state
of life. Some, he said, rejoice in sound bodies and wealthy and noble
parents; others have for their portion diseased frames and poverty stricken
homes; and by imprisonment in the present world and in bodies pay the
penalty of their former sins. Paula listened and reported what she heard to
me, at the same time pointing out the man. Thus upon me was laid the task
of opposing this most noxious viper and deadly pest. It is of such that the
Psalmist speaks when he writes: "deliver not the soul of thy turtle dove
unto the wild beast,"(3) and "Rebuke the wild beast of the reeds;"(4)
creatures who write iniquity and speak lies against the Lord and lift up
their mouths against the Most High. As the fellow had tried to deceive
Paula, I at her request went to him, and by asking him a few questions
involved him in a dilemma. Do you believe, said I, that there will be a
resurrection of the dead or do you disbelieve? He replied, I believe. I
went on: Will the bodies that rise again be the same or different? He said,
The same. Then I asked: What of their sex? Will that remain unaltered or
will it be changed? At this question he became silent and swayed his head
this way and that as a serpent does to avoid being struck. Accordingly I
continued, As you have nothing to say I will answer for you and will draw
the conclusion from your premises. If the woman shall not rise again as a
woman nor the man as I a man, there will be no resurrection of the dead.
For the body is made up of sex and members. But if there shall be no sex
and no members what will become of the resurrection of the body, which
cannot exist without sex and members? And if there shall be no resurrection
of the body, there can be no resurrection of the dead. But as to your
objection taken from marriage, that, if the members shall remain the same,
marriage must inevitably be allowed; it is disposed of by the Saviour's
words: "ye do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. For in
the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as
the angels."(1) When it is said that they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, the distinction of sex is shewn to persist. For no one says of
things which have no capacity for marriage such as a stick or a stone that
they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but this may well be said of
those who while they can marry yet abstain from doing so by their own
virtue and by the grace of Christ. But if you cavil at this and say, how
shall we in that case be like the angels with whom there is neither male
nor female, hear my answer in brief as follows. What the Lord promises to
us is not the nature of angels but their mode of life and their bliss. And
therefore John the Baptist is called an angel(2) even before he is
beheaded, and all God's holy men and virgins manifest in themselves even in
this world the life of angels. When it is said "ye shall be like the
angels," likeness only is promised and not a change of nature.

   24. And now do you in your turn answer me these questions. How do you
explain the fact that Thomas felt the hands of the risen Lord and beheld
His side pierced by the spear?(3) And the fact that Peter saw the Lord
standing on the shore(4) and eating a piece of a roasted fish and a
honeycomb.(5) If He stood, He must certainly have had feet. If He pointed
to His wounded side He must have also had chest and belly for to these the
sides are attached and without them they cannot be. If He spoke, He must
have used a tongue and palate and teeth. For as the bow strikes the
strings, so to produce vocal sound does the tongue come in contact with the
teeth. If His hands were felt, it follows that He must have had arms as
well. Since therefore it is admitted that He had all the members which go
to make up the body, He must have also had the whole body formed of them,
and that not a woman's but a man's; that is to say, He rose again in the
sex in which He died. And if you cavil farther and say: We shall eat then,
I suppose, after the resurrection; or How can a solid and material body
enter in contrary to its nature through closed doors? you shall receive
from me this reply. Do not for this matter of food find fault with belief
in the resurrection: for our Lord after raising the daughter of the ruler
of the synagogue commanded food to be given her.(1) And Lazarus who had
been dead four days is described as sitting at meat with Him,(2) the object
in both cases being to shew that the resurrection was real and not merely
apparent. And if from our Lord's entering in through closed doors(3) you
strive to prove that His body was spiritual and aerial, He must have had
this spiritual body even before He suffered; since--contrary to the nature
of heavy bodies--He was able to walk upon the sea.(4) The apostle Peter
also must be believed to have had a spiritual body for he also walked upon
the waters with buoyant step.(5) The true explanation is that when anything
is done against nature, it is a manifestation of God's might and power. And
to shew plainly that in these great signs our attention is asked not to a
change in nature but to the almighty power of God, he who by faith had
walked on water began to sink for the want of it and would have done so had
not the Lord lifted him up with the reproving words, "O thou of little
faith wherefore didst thou doubt?"(6) I wonder that you can display such
effrontery when the Lord Himself said, "reach hither thy finger, and behold
my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side: and be not
faithless but believing."(7) and in another place, "behold my hands and my
feet that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh
and bones as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken he shewed them his
hands and his feet."(8) You hear Him speak of bones and flesh, of feet and
hands; and yet you want to palm off on me the bubbles and airy nothings of
which the stoics rave!(9)

   25. Moreover, if you ask how it is that a mere infant which has never
sinned is seized by the devil, or at what age we shall rise again seeing
that we die at different ages; my only answer--an unwelcome one, I fancy--
will be in the words of scripture: "The judgments of God are a great
deep,"(10) and "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his
counsellor?"(11) No difference of age can affect the reality of the body.
Although our frames are in a perpetual flux and lose or gain daily, these
changes do not make us different individuals. I was not one person at ten
years old, another at thirty and another at fifty; nor am I another now
when all my head is gray.(1) According to the traditions of the church and
the teaching of the apostle Paul, the answer must be this; that we shall
rise as perfect men in the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ.(2) At this age the Jews suppose Adam to have been created and at
this age we read that the Lord and Saviour rose again. Many other arguments
did I adduce from both testaments to stifle the outcry of this heretic.

   26. From that day forward so profoundly did Paula commence to loathe
the man--and all who agreed with him in his doctrines--that she publicly
proclaimed them as enemies of the Lord. I have related this incident less
with the design of confuting in a few words a heresy which would require
volumes to confute it, than with the object of shewing the great faith of
this saintly woman who preferred to subject herself to perpetual hostility
from men rather than by friendships hurtful to herself to provoke or to
offend God.

   27. To revert then to that description of her character which I began a
little time ago; no mind was ever more docile than was hers. She was slow
to speak and swift to hear,(3) remembering the precept, "Keep silence and
hearken, O Israel."(4) The holy scriptures she knew by heart, and said of
the history contained in them that it was the foundation of the truth; but,
though she loved even this, she still preferred to seek for the underlying
spiritual meaning and made this the keystone of the spiritual building
raised within her soul. She asked leave that she and her daughter might
read over the old and new testaments(6) under my guidance. Out of modesty I
at first refused compliance, but as she persisted in her demand and
frequently urged me to consent to it, I at last did so and taught her what
I had learned not from myself--for self- confidence is the worst of
teachers--but from the church's most famous writers. Wherever I stuck fast
and honestly confessed myself at fault she would by no means rest content
but would force me by fresh questions to point out to her which of many
different solutions seemed to me the most probable. I will mention here
another fact which to those who are envious may well seem incredible. While
I myself beginning as a young man have with much toil and effort partially
acquired the Hebrew tongue and study it now unceasingly lest if I leave it,
it also may leave me; Paula, on making up her mind that she too would learn
it, succeeded so well that she could chant the psalms in Hebrew and could
speak the language without a trace of the pronunciation peculiar to Latin.
The same accomplishment can be seen to this day in her daughter Eustochium,
who always kept close to her mother's side, obeyed all her commands, never
slept apart from her, never walked abroad or took a meal without her never
had a penny that she could call her own, rejoiced when her mother gave to
the poor her little patrimony, and fully believed that in filial affection
she had the best heritage and the truest riches. I must not pass over in
silence the joy which Paula felt when she heard her little granddaughter
and namesake, the child of Laeta and Toxotius--who was born and I may even
say conceived in answer to a vow of her parents dedicating her to
virginity-- when, I say, she heard the little one in her cradle sing
"alleluia" and falter out the words "grandmother" and "aunt." One wish
alone made her long to see her native land again; that she might know her
son and his wife and child(1) to have renounced the world and to be serving
Christ. And it has been granted to her in part. For while her granddaughter
is destined to take the veil, her daughter-in-law has vowed herself to
perpetual chastity, and by faith and alms emulates the example that her
mother has set her. She strives to exhibit at Rome the virtues which Paula
set forth in all their fulness at Jerusalem.

   28. What ails thee, my soul? Why dost thou shudder to approach her
death? I have made my letter longer than it should be already; dreading to
come to the end and vainly supposing that by saying nothing of it and by
occupying myself with her praises I could postpone the evil day. Hitherto
the wind has been all in my favour and my keel has smoothly ploughed
through the heaving waves. But now my speech is running upon the rocks, the
billows are mountains high, and imminent shipwreck awaits both you and me.
We must needs cry out: "Master; save us we perish:"(2) and "awake, why
sleepest thou, O Lord?"(3) For who could tell the tale of Paula's dying
with dry eyes? She fell into a most serious illness and thus gained what
she most desired, power to leave us and to be joined more fully to the
Lord. Eustochium's affection for her mother, always true and tried, in this
time of sickness approved itself still more to all. She sat by Paula's
bedside, she fanned her, she supported her head, she arranged her pillows,
she chafed her feet, she rubbed her stomach, she smoothed down the
bedclothes, she heated hot water, she brought towels. In fact she
anticipated the servants in all their duties, and when one of them did
anything she regarded it as so much taken away from her own gain. How
unceasingly she prayed, how copiously she wept, how constantly she ran to
and fro between her prostrate mother and the cave of the Lord! imploring
God that she might not be deprived of a companion so dear, that if Paula
was to die she might herself no longer live, and that one bier might carry
to burial her and her mother. Alas for the frailty and perishableness of
human nature! Except that our belief in Christ raises us up to heaven and
promises eternity to our souls, the physical conditions of life are the
same for us as for the brutes. "There is one event to the righteous and to
the wicked; to the good and to the evil; to the clean and to the unclean;
to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good so
is the sinner; and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath."(1) Man and
beast alike are dissolved into dust and ashes.

   29. Why do I still linger, and prolong my suffering by postponing it?
Paula's intelligence shewed her that her death was near. Her body and limbs
grew cold and only in her holy breast did the warm beat of the living soul
continue. Yet, as though she were leaving strangers to go home to her own
people, she whispered the verses of the psalmist: "Lord, I have loved the
habitation of thy house and the place where thine honour dwelleth,"(2) and
"How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth yea even
fainteth for the courts of the Lord,"(3) and "I had rather be an outcast in
the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness."(4) When I
asked her why she remained silent refusing to answer my call,(5) and
whether she was in pain, she replied in Greek that she had no suffering and
that all things were to her eyes calm and tranquil. After this she said no
more but closed her eyes as though she already despised all mortal things,
and kept repeating the verses just quoted down to the moment in which she
breathed out her soul, but in a tone so low that we could scarcely hear
what she said. Raising her finger also to her mouth she made the sign of
the cross upon her lips. Then her breath failed her and she gasped for
death; yet even when her soul was eager to break free, she turned the
death-rattle (which comes at last to all) into the praise of the Lord. The
bishop of Jerusalem and some from other cities were present, also a great
number of the inferior clergy, both priests and levites.(1) The entire
monastery was filled with bodies of virgins and monks. As soon as Paula
heard the bridegroom saying: "Rise up my love my fair one, my dove, and
come away: for, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone," she
answered joyfully "the flowers appear on the earth; the time to cut them
has come"(2) and" I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in
the land of the living."(3)

   30. No weeping or lamentation followed her death, such as are the
custom of the world; but all present united in chanting the psalms in their
several tongues. The bishops lifted up the dead woman with their own hands,
placed her upon a bier, and carrying her on their shoulders to the church
in the cave of the Saviour, laid her down in the centre of it. Other
bishops meantime carried torches and tapers in the procession, and yet
others led the singing of the choirs. The whole population of the cities of
Palestine came to her funeral. Not a single monk lurked in the desert or
lingered in his cell. Not a single virgin remained shut up in the seclusion
of her chamber. To each and all it would have seemed sacrilege to have
withheld the last tokens of respect from a woman so saintly. As in the case
of Dorcas,(4) the widows and the poor shewed the garments Paula had given
them; while the destitute cried aloud that they had lost in her a mother
and a nurse. Strange to say, the paleness of death had not altered her
expression; only a certain solemnity and seriousness had overspread her
features. You would have thought her not dead but asleep.

   One after another they chanted the psalms, now in Greek, now in Latin,
now in Syriac; and this not merely for the three days which elapsed before
she was buried beneath the church and close to the cave of the Lord, but
throughout the remainder of the week. All who were assembled felt that it
was their own funeral at which they were assisting, and shed tears as if
they themselves had died. Paula's daughter, the revered virgin Eustochium,
"as a child that is weaned of his mother,"(5) could not be torn away from
her parent. She kissed her eyes, pressed her lips upon her brow, embraced
her frame, and wished for nothing better than to be buried with her.

   31. Jesus is witness that Paula has left not a single penny to her
daughter but, as I said before, on the contrary a large mass of debt; and,
worse even than this, a crowd of brothers and sisters whom it is hard for
her to support but whom it would be undutiful to cast off. Could there be a
more splendid instance of self-renunciation than that of this noble lady
who in the fervour of her faith gave away so much of her wealth that She
reduced herself to the last degree of poverty? Others may boast, if they
will, of money spent in charity, of large sums heaped up in God's
treasury,(1) of votive offerings hung up with cords of gold. None of them
has given more to the poor than Paula, for Paula has kept nothing for
herself. But now she enjoys the true riches and those good things which eye
hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have they entered into the heart of
man.(2) If we mourn, it is for ourselves and not for her; yet even so, if
we persist in weeping for one who reigns with Christ, we shall seem to envy
her her glory.

   32. Be not fearful, Eustochium: you are endowed with a splendid
heritage. The Lord is your portion; and, to increase your joy, your mother
has now after a long martyrdom won her crown. It is not only the shedding
of blood that is accounted a confession: the spotless service of a devout
mind is itself a daily martyrdom. Both alike are crowned; with roses and
violets in the one case, with lilies in the other. Thus in the Song of
Songs it is written: "my beloved is white and ruddy;"(3) for, whether the
victory be won in peace or in war, God gives the same guerdon to those who
win it. Like Abraham your mother heard the words: "get thee out of thy
country, and from thy kindred, unto a land that I will shew thee;"(4) and
not only that but the Lord's command given through Jeremiah: "flee out of
the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul."(5) To the day of her
death she never returned to Chalda, or regretted the fleshpots of Egypt or
its strong-smelling meats. Accompanied by her virgin bands she became a
fellow-citizen of the Saviour; and now that she has ascended from her
little Bethlehem to the heavenly realms she can say to the true Naomi: "thy
people shall be my people and thy God my God."(6)

   33. I have spent the labour of two nights in dictating for you this
treatise; and in doing so I have felt a grief as deep as your own. I say in
'dictating' for I have not been able to write it myself. As often as I have
taken up my pen(7) and have tried to fulfil my promise; my fingers have
stiffened, my hand has fallen, and my power over it has vanished. The
rudeness of the diction, devoid as it is of all elegance or charm, bears
witness to the feeling of the writer.

   34. And now, Paula, farewell, and aid with your prayers the old age of
your votary. Your faith and your works unite you to Christ; thus standing
in His presence you will the more readily gain what you ask. In this letter
"I have built" to your memory "a monument more lasting than bronze,"(1)
which no lapse of time will be able to destroy. And I have cut an
inscription on your tomb, which I here subjoin; that, wherever my narrative
may go, the reader may learn that you are buried at Bethlehem and not
uncommemorated there.

THE INSCRIPTION ON PAULA'S TOMB.

   Within this tomb a child of Scipio lies,
   A daughter of the farfamed Pauline house,
   A scion of the Gracchi, of the stock
   Of Agamemnon's self, illustrious:
   Here rests the lady Paula, well-beloved
   Of both her parents, with Eustochium
   For daughter; she the first of Roman dames
   Who hardship chose and Bethlehem for Christ.

   In front of the cavern there is another inscription as follows:--

   Seest thou here hollowed in the rock a grave,
   'Tis Paula's tomb; high heaven has her soul.
   Who Rome and friends, riches and home forsook
   Here in this lonely spot to find her rest.
   For here Christ's manger was, and here the kings
   To Him, both God and man, their offerings made.

   35. The holy and blessed Paula fell asleep on the seventh day before
the Kalends of February, on the third day of the week, after the sun had
set. She was buried on the fifth day before the same Kalends, in the sixth
consulship of the Emperor Honorius and the first of Aristnetus. She lived
in the vows of religion five years at Rome and twenty years at Bethlehem.
The whole duration of her life was fifty-six years eight months and twenty-
one days.

LETTER CIX: TO RIPARIUS.

Riparius, a presbyter of Aquitaine had written to inform Jerome that
Vigilantius (for whom see Letter LXI.) was preaching in southern Gaul
against the worship of relics and the keeping of night vigils; and this
apparently with the consent of his bishop. Jerome now replies in a letter
more noteworthy for its bitterness than for its logic. Nevertheless he
offers to write a full confutation of Vigilantius if Riparius will send him
the book containing his heresies. This Riparius subsequently did and then
Jerome wrote his treatise Against Vigilantius, the most extreme and least
convincing of all his works.

The date of the letter is 404 A.D.

   1. Now that I have received a letter from you, if I do not answer it I
shall be guilty of pride, and if I do I shall be guilty of rashness. For
the matters concerning which you ask my opinion are such that they cannot
either be spoken of or listened to without profanity. You tell me that
Vigilantius (whose very name Wakeful is a contradiction: he ought rather to
be described as Sleepy) has again opened his fetid lips and is pouring
forth a torrent of filthy venom upon the relics of the holy martyrs; and
that he calls us who cherish them ashmongers and idolaters who pay homage
to dead men's bones. Unhappy wretch! to be wept over by all Christian men,
who sees not that in speaking thus he makes himself one with the Samaritans
and the Jews who hold dead bodies unclean and regard as defiled even
vessels which have been in the same house with them, following the letter
that killeth and not the spirit that giveth life.(1) We, it is true, refuse
to worship or adore, I say not the relics of the martyrs, but even the sun
and moon, the angels and archangels, the Cherubim and Seraphim and "every
name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to
come."(2) For we may not "serve the creature rather than the Creator, who
is blessed for ever.(3) Still we honour the relics of the martyrs, that we
may adore Him whose martyrs they are. We honour the servants that their
honour may be reflected upon their Lord who Himself says:--"he that
receiveth you receiveth me."(4) I ask Vigilantius, Are the relics of Peter
and of Paul unclean? Was the body of Moses unclean, of which we are told
(according to the correct Hebrew text) that it was buried by the Lord
Himself?(5) And do we, every time that we enter the basilicas of apostles
and prophets and martyrs, pay homage to the shrines of idols? Are the
tapers which burn before their tombs only the tokens of idolatry? I will go
farther still and ask a question which will make this theory recoil upon
the head of its inventor and which will either kill or cure that frenzied
brain of his, so that simple souls shall be no more subverted by his
sacrilegious reasonings. Let him answer me this, Was the Lord's body
unclean when it was placed in the sepulchre? And did the angels clothed in
white raiment merely watch over a corpse dead and defiled, that ages
afterwards this sleepy fellow might indulge in dreams and vomit forth his
filthy surfeit, so as, like the persecutor Julian, either to destroy the
basilicas of the saints or to convert them into heathen temples?

   5. I am surprised that the reverend bishop(4) in whose diocese he is
said to be a presbyter acquiesces in this his mad preaching, and that he
does not rather with apostolic rod, nay with a rod of iron, shatter this
useless vessel(1) and deliver him for the destruction of the flesh that the
spirit may be saved.(2) He should remember the words that are said: "When
thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst unto him; and hast been partaker
with adulterers;"(3) and in another place, "I will early destroy all the
wicked of the land; that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of
the Lord and again "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not
I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect
hatred."(5) If the relics of the martyrs are not worthy of honour, how
comes it that we read "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of
his saints?"(6) If dead men's bones defile those that touch them, how came
it that the dead Elisha raised another man also dead, and that life came to
this latter from the body of the prophet which according to Vigilantius
must have been unclean? In that case every encampment of the host of Israel
and the people of God was unclean; for they carried the bodies of Joseph
and of the patriarchs with them in the wilderness, and carried their
unclean ashes even into the holy land. In that case Joseph, who was a type
of our Lord and Saviour, was a wicked man; for he carried up Jacob's bones
with great pomp to Hebron merely to put his unclean father beside his
unclean grandfather and great grandfather, that is, one dead body along
with others. The wretch's tongue should be cut out, or he should be put
under treatment for insanity. As he does not know how to speak, he should
learn to be silent. I have myself before now seen the monster, and have
done my best to bind the maniac with texts of scripture, as Hippocrates
binds his patients with chains; but "he went away, he departed, he escaped,
he broke out,"(7) and taking refuge between the Adriatic and the Alps of
King Cotius(8) declaimed in his turn against me. For all that a fool says
must be regarded as mere noise and mouthing.

   3. You may perhaps in your secret thoughts find fault with me for thus
assailing a man behind his back. I will frankly admit that my indignation
overpowers me; I cannot listen with patience to such sacrilegious opinions.
I have read of the javelin of Phinehas,(9) of the harshness of Elijah,(10)
of the jealous anger of Simon the zealot,(11) of the severity of Peter in
putting to death Ananias and Sapphir,(1) and of the firmness of Paul who,
when Elymas the sorcerer withstood the ways of the Lord, doomed him to
lifelong blindness.(2) There is no cruelty in regard for God's honour.
Wherefore also in the Law it is said: "If thy brother or thy friend or the
wife of thy bosom entice thee from the truth, thine hand shall be upon them
and thou shalt shed their blood,(3) and so shalt thou put the evil away
from the midst of Israel."(4) Once more I ask, Are the relics of the
martyrs unclean? If so, why did the apostles allow themselves to walk in
that funeral procession before the body--the unclean body--of Stephen? Why
did they make great lamentation over him,(5) that their grief might be
turned into our joy?

   You tell me farther that Vigilantius execrates vigils. In this surely
he goes contrary to his name. The Wakeful one wishes to sleep and will not
hearken to the Saviour's words, "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?
Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is
willing but the flesh is weak."(6) And in another place a prophet sings:
"At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous
judgments."(7) We read also in the gospel how the Lord spent whole nights
in prayer(8) and how the apostles when they were shut up in prison kept
vigil all night long, singing their psalms until the earth quaked, and the
keeper of the prison believed, and the magistrates and citizens were filled
with terror.(9) Paul says: "continue in prayer and watch in the same,"(10)
and in another place he speaks of himself as "in watchings often."(11)
Vigilantius may sleep if he pleases and may choke in his sleep, destroyed
by the destroyer of Egypt and of the Egyptians. But let us say with David:
"Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."(12) So
will the Holy One and the Watcher come to us.(13) And if ever by reason of
our sins He fall asleep, let us say to Him: "Awake, why sleepest thou, O
Lord;"(14) and when our ship is tossed by the waves let us rouse Him and
say, "Master, save us: we perish."(15)

   4. I would dictate more were it not that the limits of a letter impose
upon me a modest silence. I might have gone on, had you sent me the books
which contain this man's rhapsodies, for in that case I should have known
what points I had to refute. As it is I am only beating the air(16) and
revealing not so much his infidelity--for this is patent to all--as my own
faith. But if you wish me to write against him at greater length, send me
those wretched dronings of his and in my answer he shall hear an echo of
John the Baptist's words: "Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the
trees; therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn
down and cast into the fire."(1)

LETTER CX: FROM AUGUSTINE.

Augustine's answer to Letter CII. He now tries to soothe Jerome's wounded
feelings, begs him to overlook the offence that he has committed, and
implores him not to break off the friendly relations hitherto maintained
between them. He touches on the quarrel between Jerome and Rufinus and
sincerely hopes that no such breach may ever separate Jerome from himself.
The tone of the letter is throughout conciliatory and is marked in places
with deep feeling. More than once Augustine dwells on Jerome's words
("would that I could embrace you and that by mutual converse we might learn
one from the other," Letter CII. 2) and speaks of the comfort which they
have brought to him. The date of the letter is 404 A.D.

LETTER CXI: FROM AUGUSTINE TO PRSIDIUS.

Augustine asks Prsidius to forward the preceding letter to Jerome and also
to write himself to urge him to forgive Augustine.

LETTER CXII: TO AUGUSTINE.

On receiving Letter CIV. together with duly authenticated copies of Letters
LVI. and LXVII. Jerome in three days completes an exhaustive reply to all
the questions which Augustine had raised. lie explains what is the true
title of his book On Illustrious Men, deals at great length with the
dispute between Paul and Peter, expounds his views with regard to the
Septuagint, and shews by the story of "the gourd" how close and accurate
his translations are. His language throughout is kind but rather
patronising: indeed in this whole correspondence Jerome seldom sufficiently
recognizes the greatness of Augustine. The date of the letter is 404 A.D.

LETTER CXIII: FROM THEOPHILUS TO JEROME.

Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, had compiled an invective against John
Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople who was nosy (largely through his
efforts) an exile from his see. This he now sends to Jerome with a request
that the latter will render it into Latin for dissemination in the West.
The invective (of which only a few fragments remain) is of the most violent
kind. Nevertheless Jerome translated it along with this letter, the date of
which is 405 A.D. The latter part of the letter has perished.

   To the well-beloved and most loving brother Jerome, Theophilus sends
greeting in the Lord.

   1. At the outset the verdict which is in accordance with the truth
satisfies but few. But the Lord speaking by the prophet says: "my judgment
goeth forth as the light?"(1) and they who are surrounded with a horror of
darkness and do not with clear comprehension perceive the nature of things,
are covered with eternal shame and know by the issues of their acts that
their efforts have been in vain. Wherefore we also have always desired for
John who has for a time ruled the church of Constantinople grace that he
might please God, and we have been slow to attribute to him the rash acts
which have caused his downfall. But, not to speak of his other misdeeds, he
has taken the Origenists into his confidence, has advanced many of them to
the priesthood, and by committing this crime has saddened with no slight
grief that man of God, Epiphanius of blessed memory, who has shone
throughout all the world a bright star among bishops. And therefore he has
rightly come to hear the words of doom: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen."(2)

   2. Knowing then that the Saviour has said: "judge not according to the
appearance but judge righteous judgment."(3) ...

LETTER CXIV: TO THEOPHILUS.

Jerome writes to Theophilus to apologize for his delay in sending Latin
versions of the latter's letter (CXIII.) and invective against John
Chrysostom. Possibly, however. the allusion may be not to these but to some
other work of Theophilus (e.g. a paschal letter.) This delay he attributes
to the disturbed state of Palestine, the severity of the winter, the
prevalent famine, and his own ill-health. He now sends the translations
that he has made and, while he deprecates criticism on his own work,
praises that of Theophilus, quoting with particular approval the directions
given by this latter for the reverent care of the vessels used in
celebrating the holy communion. The date of the letter is 405 A.D.

   To the most blessed pope Theophilus, Jerome.

   1. My delay in sending back to your holiness your treatise translated
into Latin is accounted for by the many interruptions and obstacles that I
have met with. There has been a sudden raid of the Isaurians; Phoenicia and
Galilee have been laid waste; Palestine has been panic-stricken, and
particularly Jerusalem; we have all been engaged in making not books but
walls. There has also been a severe winter and an almost unbearable famine;
and these have told heavily upon me who have the charge of many brothers.
Amid these difficulties the work of translation went on by night, as I
could save or snatch time to give to it. At last I got it done and by Lent
nothing remained but to collate the fair copy with the original. However,
just then a severe illness seized me and I was brought to the threshold of
death, from which I have only been saved by God's mercy and your prayers;
perhaps for this very purpose that I might fulfil your behest and render
with its writer's elegance the charming volume which you have adorned with
the scripture's fairest flowers. But bodily weakness and sorrow of heart
have, I need hardly say, dulled the edge of my intellect and obstructed the
free flow of, my language.

   2. I admire in your work its practical aim, designed as it is to
instruct by the authority of scripture ignorant persons in all the churches
concerning the reverence with which they must handle holy things and
minister at Christ's altar; and to impress upon them that the sacred
chalices, veils,' and other accessories used in the celebration of the
Lord's passion are not mere lifeless and senseless objects devoid of
holiness, but that rather, from their association with the body and blood
of the Lord, they are to be venerated with the same awe as the body and the
blood themselves.

   3. Take back then your book, nay mine or better still ours; for when
you flatter me you will but flatter yourself. It is for you that my brain
has toiled; it is for you that I have striven with the poor resources of
the Latin tongue to find an equivalent for the eloquence of the Greek. I
have not indeed given a word-for-word rendering, as skilled translators do,
nor have I counted out the money you have given to me coin by coin; but I
have given you full weight. Some words may be missing but none of the sense
is lost. Moreover I have translated into Latin and profixed to this volume
the letter that you sent to me, so that all who read it may know that I
have acted under the commands of your holiness, and have not rashly and
over-confidently undertaken a task that is beyond my powers. Whether I have
succeeded in it I must leave to your judgment. Even though you may blame my
weakness, you will at least give me credit for my good intention.

LETTER CXV: TO AUGUSTINE.

A short but most friendly letter in which Jerome excuses himself for the
freedom with which he has dealt with Augustino's questions (the allusion is
to Letter CXII.) and hopes that henceforth they may be able to avoid
controversy and to labour like brothers in the field of scripture.

Written probably in 405 A.D.

LETTER CXVI: FROM AUGUSTINE.

A long letter in which Augustine for the third time see Letters LVI.,
LXVII.) restates his opinion about Jerome's theory of the dispute between
Peter and Paul at Antioch. In doing so, however, he disclaims all desire to
hurt Jerome's feelings, apologizes for the tone of his previous letters,
and again explains that it is not his fault that they have failed so long
to reach Jerome. Written shortly after the preceding.

LETTER CXVII: TO A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER LIVING IN GAUL.

A monk of Gaul had during a visit to Bethlehem asked Jerome for advice
under the following circumstances. His mother was a church-widow and his
sister a religious virgin but the two could not agree. They were
accordingly living apart but neither by herself. For each had taken into
her house a monk ostensibly to act as steward but really to be a paramour.
At the request of his visitor Jerome now writes to both mother and daughter
urging them to dismiss their companions; or at any rate to live together:
and pointing out the grave scandal that must otherwise be caused.

From the treatise against Vigilantius ( 3) we learn that ill-natured
critics maintained that the persons and circumstances described in the
letter were alike fictitious and that Jerome in writing it was but
exercising his ingenuity on a congenial theme.

The date is A. D. 405.

INTRODUCTION.

   1. A certain brother from Gaul has told me that his virgin-sister and
widowed mother, though living in the same city, have separate abodes and
have taken to themselves clerical protectors either as guests or stewards;
and that by thus associating with strangers they have caused more scandal
than by living apart. When I groaned and expressed what I felt more by
silence than words; "I beseech you," said he, "rebuke them in a letter and
recall them to mutual harmony; make them once more mother and daughter." To
whom I replied, "a nice task this that you lay upon me, for me a stranger
to reconcile two women whom you, a son and brother, have failed to
influence. You speak as though I occupied the chair of a bishop instead of
being shut up m a monastic cell where, far removed from the world's
turmoil, I lament the sins of the past and try to avoid the temptations of
the present. Moreover, it is surely inconsistent, while one buries oneself
out of sight, to allow one's tongue free course through the world." "You
are too fearful," he replied; "where is that old hardihood of yours which
made you 'scour the world with copious salt,' as Horace says of
Lucilius?"(1) "It is this," I rejoined, "that makes me shy and forbids me
to open my lips. For through accusing crime I have been myself made out a
criminal. Men have disputed and denied my assertions until, as the proverb
goes, I hardly know whether I have ears or feeling left. The very walls
have resounded with curses levelled at me, and 'I was the song of
drunkards.'(2) Under the compulsion of an unhappy experience I have learned
to be silent, thinking it better to set a watch before my mouth and to keep
the door of my lips than to incline my heart to any evil thing,(3) or,
while censuring the faults of others, myself to fall into that of
detraction." In answer to this he said: "Speaking the truth is not
detraction. Nor will you lecture the world by administering a particular
rebuke; for there are few persons, if any, open to this special charge. I
beg of you, therefore, as I have put myself to the trouble of this long
journey, that you will not suffer me to have come for nothing. The Lord
knows that, after the sight of the holy places, my principal object in
coming has been to heal by a letter from you the division between my sister
ant my mother." "Well," I replied, "I will do as you wish, for after all
the letters will be to persons beyond the sea and words written with
reference to definite persons can seldom offend other people. But I must
ask you to keep what I say secret. You will take my advice with you to
encourage you by the way; if it is listened to, I will rejoice as much as
you; while if, as I rather think, it is rejected, I shall have wasted my
words and you will have made a long journey for nothing."

THE LETTER.

   2. In the first place my sister and my daughter, I wish you to know
that I am not writing to you because I suspect anything evil of you. On the
contrary I implore you to live in harmony, so as to give no ground for any
such suspicions. Moreover had I supposed you fast bound in sin--far be this
from you--I should never have written, for I should have known that my
words would be addressed to deaf ears. Again, if I write to you somewhat
sharply, I beg of you to ascribe this not to any harshness on my part but
to the nature of the ailment which I attempt to treat. Cautery and the
knife are the only remedies when mortification has once set in; poison is
the only antidote known for poison; great pain can only be relieved by
inflicting greater pain. Lastly I must say this that even if your own
consciences acquit you of misdoing, yet the very rumour of such brings
disgrace upon you. Mother and daughter are names of affection; they imply
natural ties and reciprocal duties; they form the closest of human
relations after that which binds the soul to God. If you love each other,
your conduct calls for no praise: but if you hate each other, you have
committed a crime. The Lord Jesus was subject to His parents.(1) He
reverenced that mother of whom He was Himself the parent; He respected the
foster-father whom He had Himself fostered; for He remembered that He had
been carried in the womb of the one and in the arms of the other. Wherefore
also when He hung upon the cross He commended to His disciple(2) the mother
whom He had never before His passion parted from Himself.

   3. Well, I shall say no more to the mother, for perhaps age, weakness,
and loneliness make sufficient excuses for her; but to you the daughter I
say: "Is a mother's house too small for you whose womb was not too small?
When you have lived with her for ten months in the one, can you not bear to
live with her for one day in the other? or are you unable to meet her gaze?
Can it be that one who has borne you and reared you, who has brought you up
and knows you, is dreaded by you as a witness of your homelife? If you are
a true virgin, why do you fear her careful guardianship; and, if you have
fallen, why do you not openly marry? Wedlock is like a plank offered to a
shipwrecked man and by its means you may remedy what previously you have
done amiss. I do not mean that you are not to repent of your sin or that
you are to continue in evil courses; but, when a tie of the kind has been
formed, I despair of breaking it altogether. However, a return to your
mother will make it easier for you to bewail the virginity which you have
lost through leaving her. Or if you are still unspotted and have not lost
your chastity, be careful of it for you may lose it. Why must you live in a
house where you must daily struggle for life and death? Can any one sleep
soundly with a viper near him? No; for, though it may not attack him it is
sure to frighten him. It is better to be where there is no danger, than to
be in danger and to escape. In the one case we have a calm; in the other
careful steering is necessary. In the one case we are filled with joy; in
the other we do but avoid sorrow.

   4. But you will perhaps reply: "my mother is not well-behaved, she
desires the things of the world, she loves riches, she disregards fasting,
she stains her eyes with antimony, she likes to walk abroad in gay attire,
she hinders me from the monastic vow, and so I cannot live with her." But
first of all, even though she is as you say, you will have the greater
reward for refusing to forsake her with all her faults. She has carried you
in her womb, she has reared you; with gentle affection she has borne with
the troublesome ways of your childhood. She has washed your linen, she has
tended you when sick, and the sickness of maternity was not only borne for
you but caused by you. She has brought you up to womanhood, she has taught
you to love Christ. You ought not to be displeased with the behaviour of a
mother who has consecrated you as a virgin to the service of your spouse.
Still if you cannot put up with her dainty ways and feel obliged to shun
them, and if your mother really is, as people so often say, a woman of the
world, you have others, virgins like yourself, the holy company of
chastity. Why, when you forsake your mother, do you choose for companion a
than who perhaps has left behind him a sister and mother of his own? You
tell me that she is hard to get on with and that he is easy; that she is
quarrelsome and that he is amiable. I will ask you one question: Did you go
straight from your home to the man, or did you fall in with him afterwards?
If you went straight to him, the reason why you left your mother is plain.
If you fell in with him afterwards, you shew by your choice what you missed
under your mother's roof.[1] The pain that I inflict is severe and I feel
the knife as much as you. "He that walketh uprightly walketh surely."[2]
Only that my conscience would smite me, I should keep silence and be slow
to blame others where I am not guiltless myself. Having a beans in my own
eye I should be reluctant to see the mote in my neighbour's. But as it is I
live far away among Christian brothers; my life with them is honourable as
eyewitnesses of it can testify; I rarely see, or am seen by, others. It is
most shameless, therefore, in you to refuse to copy me in respect of self-
restraint, when you profess to take me as your model. If you say: "my
conscience is enough for me too. God is my judge who is witness of my life.
I care not what men may say;" let me urge upon you the apostle's words:
"provide things honest" not only in the sight of God but also "in the sight
of all men."[3] If any one carps at you for being a Christian a virgin,
mind it not; you have left your mother it may be said to live in a
monastery among virgins, but censure on this score is your glory. When men
blame a maid of God not for self- indulgence but only for insensibility to
affection, what they condemn as callous disregard of a parent is really a
lively devotion towards God. For you prefer to your mother Him whom you are
bidden to prefer to your own soul.[1] And if the day ever comes that she
also shall so prefer Him, she will find in you not a daughter only but a
sister as well.

   5. "What then?" you will say, "is it a crime to have a man of religion
in the house with me?" You seize me by the collar and drag me into court
either to sanction what I disapprove or else to incur the dislike of many.
A man of religion never separates a daughter from her mother. He welcomes
both and respects both. A daughter may be as religious as she pleases;
still a mother who is a widow is a guaranty for her chastity. If this
person whoever he is is of the same age with yourself, he should honour
your mother as though she were his own; and, if he is older, he should love
you as a daughter and subject you to a mother's discipline. It is not good
either for your reputation or for his that he should like you more than
your mother: for his affection might appear to be less for you than for
your youth. This is what I should say if a monk were not your brother and
if you had no relatives able to protect you. But what excuse has a stranger
for thrusting himself in where there are both a mother and a brother, the
one a widow and the other a monk? It is good for you to feel that you are a
daughter and a sister. However, if you cannot manage both, and if your
mother is too hard a morsel to swallow, your brother at any rate should
satisfy you. Or, if he is too harsh, she that bore you may prove more
gentle. Why do you turn pale? Why do you get excited? Why do you blush, and
with trembling lips betray the restlessness of your mind? One thing only
can surpass a woman's love for her mother and brother; and that is her
passion for her husband.

   6. I am told, moreover, that you frequent suburban villas and their
pleasant gardens in the company of relatives and intimate friends. I have
no doubt that it is some female cousin or connexion who for her own
satisfaction carries you about with her as a novel kind of attendant. Far
be it from me to suspect that you would desire men's society; even though
they should be those of your own family. But pray, maiden, answer me this;
do you appear alone in your kinsfolk's society? or do you bring your
favourite with you? Shameless as you may be, you will hardly venture to
flaunt him in the eyes of the world. If you ever do so, your whole circle
will cry out about both you and him; every one's finger will be pointed at
you; and your cousins who in your presence to please you call him a monk
and a man of religion, will laugh at you behind your back for having such
an unnatural husband. If on the other hand you go out alone--which I rather
suppose to be the case--you will find yourself clothed in sober garb among
slave youths, women married or soon to be so, wanton girls, and dandies
with long hair and tight-fitting vests.[1] Some bearded fop will offer you
his hand he will hold you up if you feel tired, and the pressure of his
fingers will either be a temptation to you, or will shew that you are a
temptation to him. Again when you sit down to table with married men and
women, you will have to see kisses in which you have no part, and dishes
partaken of which are not for you. Moreover it cannot but do you harm to
see other women attired in silk dresses and gold brocades. At table also
whether you like it or not, you will be forced to eat flesh and that of
different kinds. To make you drink wine they will praise it as a creature
of God. To induce you to take baths they will speak of dirt with disgust;
and, when on second thoughts you do as you are bid, they will with one
voice salute you as spotless and open, a thorough lady. Meantime some
singer will give to the company a selection of softly flowing airs; and as
he will not venture to look at other men's wives, he will constantly fix
his eyes on you who have no protector. He will speak by nods and convey by
his tone what he is afraid to put into words. Amid inducements to
sensuality so marked as these, even iron wills are apt to be overcome with
desire; an appetite which is the more imperious in virgins because they
suppose. that sweetest of which they have no experience. Heathen legends
tell us that sailors actually ran their ships on the rocks that they might
listen to the songs of the Sirens; and that the lyre of Orpheus had power
to draw to itself trees and animals and to soften flints. In the banquet-
hall chastity is hard to keep. A shining skin shews a sin-stained soul.

   7. As a schoolboy I have read of one--and have seen his effigy true to
the life in the streets--who continued to cherish an unlawful passion even
when his flesh scarcely clung to his bones, and whose malady remained
uncured until death cured it. What then will become of you a young girl
physically sound, dainty, stout, and ruddy, if you allow yourself free
range among flesh-dishes, wines, and baths, not to mention married men and
bachelors? Even if when solicited you refuse to consent, you will take the
fact of your being asked as evidence that you are considered handsome. A
sensual mind pursues dishonourable objects with greater zest than
honourable ones; and when a thing is forbidden hankers after it with
greater pleasure. Your very dress, cheap and sombre as it is, is an index
of your secret feelings. For it has no creases and trails along the ground
to make you appear taller than you are. Your vest is purposely ripped
asunder to shew what is beneath and while hiding what is repulsive, to
reveal what is fair. As you walk, the very creaking of your black and shiny
shoes attracts the notice of the young men. You wear stays to keep your
breasts in place, and a heaving girdle closely confines your chest. Your
hair covers either your forehead or your ears. Sometimes too you let your
shawl drop so as to lay bare your white shoulders; and, as if unwilling
that they should be seen, you quickly conceal what you have purposely
disclosed. And when in public you for modesty's sake cover your face, like
a practised harlot you only shew what is likely to please.

   8. You will exclaim "How do you know what I am like, or how, when you
are so far away, can you see what I am doing?" Your own brother's tears and
sobs have told me, his frequent and scarcely endurable bursts of grief.
Would that he had lied or that his words had been words of apprehension
only and not of accusation. But, believe me, liars do not shed tears. He is
indignant that you prefer to himself a young man, not it is true clothed in
silk or wearing his hair long but muscular and dainty in the midst of his
squalor; and that this fellow holds the purse-strings, looks after the
weaving, allots the servants their tasks, rules the household, and buys
from the market all that is needed. He is at once steward and master, and,
as he anticipates the slaves in their duties,[1] he is carped at by all the
domestics. Everything that their mistress has not given them they declare
that he has stolen from them. Servants as a class are full of complaints;
and no matter what you give them, it is always too little. For they do not
consider how much you have but only how much you give; and they make up for
their chagrin in the only way they can, that is, by grumbling. One calls
him a parasite, another an impostor, another a money-seeker, another by
some novel appellation that hits his fancy. They noise it abroad that he is
constantly at your bed-side, that when you are sick he runs to fetch
nurses, that he holds basins, airs sheets, and folds bandages for you. The
world is only too ready to believe scandal, and stories invented at home
soon get afloat abroad. Nor need you be surprised if your servantmen and
servantmaids get up such tales about you, when even your mother and your
brother complain of your conduct.

   9. Do, therefore, what I advise you and entreat you to do: if possible,
be reconciled with your mother; or, if this may not be, at least come to
terms with your brother. Or if you are filled with an implacable hatred of
relationships usually so dear, separate at all events from the man, whom
you are said to prefer to your own flesh and blood, and, if even this is
impossible for you, (for, if you could leave him, you would certainly
return to your own) pay more regard to appearances in harbouring him as
your companion. Live in a separate building and take your meals apart; for
if you remain under one roof with him slanderers will say that you share
with him your bed. You may thus easily get help from him when you feel you
need it, and yet to a considerable degree escape public discredit. Yet you
must take care not to contract the stain of which Jeremiah tells us that no
nitre or fuller's soap can wash it out.[1] When you wish him to come to see
you, always have witnesses present; either friends, or freedmen, or slaves.
A good conscience is afraid of no man's eyes. Let him come in unembarrassed
and go out at his ease. Let his silent looks, his unspoken words and his
whole carriage, though at times they may imply embarrassment, yet indicate
peace of mind. Pray, open your ears and listen to the outcry of the whole
city. Yon have already both of you lost your own names and are known each
by that of the other. You are spoken of as his, and he is said to be yours.
Your mother and your brother have heard this and are ready to take you in
between them. They implore you to consent to this arrangement, so that the
scandal of your intimacy with this man which is confined to yourself may
give place to a glory common to all. You can live with your mother and he
with your brother. You can more boldly shew your regard for one who is your
brother's comrade; and your mother will more properly esteem one who is the
friend of her son and not of her daughter. But if you frown and refuse to
accept my advice, this letter will openly expostulate with you. 'Why,' it
will say, 'do you beset another man's servant? Why do you make Christ's
minister your slave? Look at the people and scan each face as it comes
under your view. When he reads in the church all eyes are fixed upon you;
and you, using the licence of a wife, glory in your shame. Secret infamy no
longer contents you; you call boldness freedom; "you have a whore's
forehead and refuse to be ashamed."[2]

   10. Once more you exclaim that I am over-suspicious, a thinker of evil,
too ready to follow rumours. What? I suspicious? I ill-natured? I, who as I
said in the beginning have taken up my pen because I have no suspicions? Or
is it you that are careless, loose, disdainful? You who at the age of
twenty-five have netted in your embrace a youth whose beard has scarcely
grown? An excellent instructor he must be, able no doubt by his severe
looks both to warn and frighten you! No age is safe from lust, yet gray
hairs are some security for decent conduct. A day will surely come (for
time glides by imperceptibly) when your handsome young favourite will find
a wealthier or more youthful mistress. For women soon age and particularly
if they live with men. You will be sorry for your decision and regret your
obstinacy in a day when your means and reputation shall be alike gone, and
when this unhappy intimacy shall be happily broken off. But perhaps you
feel sure of your ground and see no reason to fear a breach where affection
has had so long a time to develop and grow.

   11. To you also, her mother, I must say a word. Your years put you
beyond the reach of scandal; do not take advantage of this to indulge in
sin. It is more fitting that your daughter should learn from you how to
part from a companion than that you should learn from her how to give up a
paramour. You have a son, a daughter, and a son-in-law, or at least one who
is your daughter's partner.[1] Why then should you seek other society than
theirs, or wish to kindle anew expiring flames? It would be more becoming
in you to screen your daughter fault than to make it an excuse for your own
misdoing. Your son is a monk, and, if he were to live with you, he would
strengthen you in your religious profession and in your vow of widowhood.
Why should you take in a complete stranger, especially in a house not large
enough to hold a son and a daughter? You are old enough to have grand-
children. Invite the pair home then. Your daughter went away by herself;
let her return with this man. I say 'man' and not 'husband' that none may
cavil. The word describes his sex and not his relation to her. Or if she
blushes to accept your offer or finds the house in which she was born too
narrow for her, then move both of you to her abode. However limited may be
its accommodation, it can take in a mother and a brother better than a
stranger. In fact, if she lives in the same house and occupies the same
room with a man, she cannot long preserve her chastity. It is different
when two women and two men live together. If the third person concerned--
he, I mean, who fosters your old age--will not make one of the party and
causes only dissension and confusion, the pair of you[1] can do without
him. But if the three of you remain together, then your brother and son[2]
will offer him a sister and a mother. Others may speak of the two strangers
as step-father and son-in-law; but your son must speak of them as his
foster-father and his brother.

NOTE.

   12. Working quickly I have completed this letter in a single night
anxious alike to gratify a friend and to try my hand on a rhetorical theme.
Then early in the morning he has knocked at my door on the point of
starting. I wish also to shew my detractors that like them I too can say
the first thing that comes into my head. I have, therefore, introduced few
quotations from the scriptures and have not, as in most of my books,
interwoven its flowers in my discourse. The letter has been, in fact,
dictated off-hand and poured forth by lamp-light so fast that my tongue has
outstripped my secretaries' pens and that my volubility has baffled the
expedients of shorthand. I have said this much that those who make no
allowances for want of ability may make some for want of time.

LETTER CXVIII: TO JULIAN.

Jerome writes to Julian, a wealthy nobleman apparently of Dalmatia ( 5), to
console him for the loss of his wife and two daughters all of whom had
recently died. He reminds Julian of the trials of Job and recommends him to
imitate the patience of the patriarch. He also urges him to follow the
example set by Pammachius and Paulinus, that is, to give up his riches and
to become a monk for the sake of Christ. The date of the letter is 406 A.D.

   1. At the very instant of his departure Ausonius, a son to me as he is
a brother to you, gave me a late glimpse of himself but quickly hurried
away again, saying good- morning and good-bye together. Yet he thought that
be would return empty-handed unless he could bring you some trifle from me
however hastily written. Clothed in scarlet as befitted his rank, he had
already strapped on his sword-belt[3] and sent down a requisition to have a
stage-horse saddled. Still he made me send for my secretary and dictate a
letter to him. This I did with such rapidity that his nimble hand could
hardly keep pace with my words or manage to put down my hurried sentences.
Thus hasty dictation has taken the place of careful writing; and, if I
break my long silence, it is but to offer you an expression of good will.
This is an impromptu letter without logical order or charm of style. You
must ,look on me for once as a friend only; you will find, I assure you,
nothing of the orator here. Bear in mind that it has been dashed off on the
spur of the moment and given as a provision for the way to one in a hurry
to depart.

   Holy scripture says: "a tale out of season is as musick in
mourning."[1] Accordingly I have disdained the graces of rhetoric and those
charms of eloquence which boys find so captivating, and have fallen back on
the serious tone of the sacred writings. For in these are to be found true
medicines for wounds and sure remedies for sorrow. In these a mother
receives back her only son even on the bier.[2] In these a crowd of
mourners hears the words: "the maid is not dead but sleepeth."[3] In these
one that is four days dead comes forth bound at the call of the Lord."[4]

   2. I hear that in a short space of time you have suffered. several
bereavements, that you have buried in quick succession two young unmarried
daughters, and that Faustina, most chaste and loyal of wives, your sister
in the fervour of her faith and your one comfort in the loss of your
children, has suddenly fallen asleep and been taken from you. You have been
like a shipwrecked man, who has no sooner reached the shore than he falls
into the hands of brigands, or in the eloquent language of the prophet like
one "who did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house,
and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him."[5] Pecuniary
losses have followed your bereavements; the entire province has been
overrun by a barbarian enemy, and in the general devastation your private
property has been destroyed, your flocks and herds have been driven off,
and your poor slaves either made prisoners or else slain. To crown all,
your only daughter, made all the more dear to you by the loss of the
others, has for her husband a young nobleman who, to say nothing worse of
him, has given you more occasion for sorrow than for rejoicing. Such is the
list of the trials that have been laid upon you; such is the conflict waged
by the old enemy against Julian a raw recruit to Christ's standard. If you
look only to yourself your troubles are indeed great but if you look to the
strong Warrior,[6] they are but child's play and the conflict is only the
semblance of one. After untold trials a wicked wife was still left to the
blessed Job, the devil hoping that he might learn from her to blaspheme
God. You on the other hand have been deprived of an excellent one that you
might learn to go without consolation in the hour of misfortune. Yet it is
far harder to put up with a wife whom you dislike than it is to mourn for
one whom you dearly love. Moreover when Job's children died they found a
common tomb beneath the ruins of his house, and all he could do to shew his
parental affection was to rend his garments to fall upon the ground and to
worship, saying: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I
return thither: the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: it has been as
the Lord pleased: blessed be the name of the Lord."[1] But you, to put the
matter briefly, have been allowed to perform the obsequies of your dear
ones; and those obsequies have been attended by many respectful kinsmen and
comforting friends. Again Job lost all his wealth at once; and, as, one
after another, the messengers of woe unfolded new calamities, he flinched
as little as the sage of whom Horace writes:[2]--

   Shatter the world to atoms if you will.
   Fearless will be the man on whom it falls.

But with you the case is different. The greater part of your substance has
been left to you, and your trials have not been greater than you can bear.
For you have not yet attained to such perfection that the devil has to
marshal all his forces against you.

   3. Long ago this wealthy proprietor and still wealthier father was made
by a sudden stroke destitute and bereaved. But as, in spite of all that
befel him, he had not sinned before God or spoken foolishly, the Lord--
exulting in the victory of his servant and regarding Job's patience as His
own triumph--said to the devil: "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that
there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that
feareth God and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his
integrity?"[3] He finely adds the last clause because it is difficult for
innocence to refrain from murmuring when it is overborne by misfortune; and
to avoid making a shipwreck of faith when it sees that its sufferings are
unjustly inflicted. The devil answered the Lord and said: "Skin for skin,
yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine
hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy
face."[4] See how crafty the adversary is, and how hardened in sin his evil
days have made him! He knows the difference between things external and
internal. He knows that even the philosophers of the world call the former
adia'phora, that is indifferent, and that the perfection of virtue does not
consist in losing or disdaining them. It is the latter, those that are
internal and objects of preference,[1] the loss of which inevitably causes
chagrin. Wherefore he boldly contradicts what God has said and declares
that Job deserves no praise at all; since he has yielded up no part of
himself but only what is outside himself, since he has given for his own
skin the skins of his children, and since he has but laid down his purse to
secure the health of his body. From this your sagacity may perceive that
your trials have so far only reached the point at which you give hide for
hide, skin for skin, and are ready to give all that you have for your life.
The Lord has not yet stretched forth His hand upon you, or touched your
flesh, or broken your bones. Yet it is when such afflictions as these are
laid upon you that it is Bard not to groan and not to 'bless' God to His
face, that is to curse Him. The word 'bless' is used in the same way in the
books of Kings where it is said of Naboth that he 'blessed' God and the
king and was therefore stoned by the people.[2] But the Lord knew His
champion and felt sure that this great hero would even in this last and
severest conflict prove unconquerable. Therefore He said: "Behold he is in
thine hand; but save his life."[3] The holy man's flesh is placed at the
devil's disposal, but his vital powers are withheld. For if the devil had
smitten that on which sensation and mental judgment depend, the guilt
arising from a misuse of these faculties I would have lain at the door not
of him who committed the sin but of him who had overthrown the balance of
his mind.

   4. Others may praise you if they will, and celebrate your victories
over the devil. They may eulogize you for the smiling face with which you
bore the loss of your daughters, or for the resolution with which, forty
days after they fell asleep, you exchanged your mourning for a white robe
to attend the dedication of a martyr's bones; unconcerned for a bereavement
which was the concern of the whole city, and anxious only to share in a
martyr's triumph. Nay, say they, when you bore your wife to burial, it was
not as one dead but as one setting forth on a journey. But I shall not
deceive you with flattering words or take the ground froth under your feet
with slippery praises. Rather will I say what it is good for you to hear:
"My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for
temptation,"[1] and "when thou shalt have done all those things which are
commanded thee, say, I am an unprofitable servant; I have done that which
was my duty to do."[2] Say to God: "the children that thou hast taken from
me were Thine own gift. The hand-maiden that Thou hast taken to Thyself
Thou also didst lend to me for a season to be my solace. I am not aggrieved
that Thou hast taken her back, but thankful rather that Thou hast
previously given her to me."

   Once upon a time a rich young man boasted that he had fulfilled all the
requirements of the law, but the Lord said to him (as we read in the
gospel): "One thing thou lackest: if thou wilt be perfect, go thy way, sell
whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor; and come and follow me."[3] He
who declared that he had done all things gave way at the first onset to the
power of riches. Wherefore they who are rich find it hard to enter the
kingdom of heaven, a kingdom which desires for its citizens souls that soar
aloft free from all ties and hindrances. "Go thy way," the Lord says, "and
sell" not a part of thy substance but "all that thou hast, and give to the
poor;" not to thy friends or kinsfolk or relatives, not to thy wife or to
thy children. I will even go farther and say: keep back nothing for
yourself because you fear to be some day poor, lest by so doing you share
the condemnation of Ananias and Sapphira;[4] but give everything to the
poor and make to yourself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that
they may receive you into everlasting habitations.[5] Obey the Master's
injunction "follow me,"[6] and take the Lord of the world for your
possession; that you may be able to sing with the prophet, "The Lord is my
portion,"[7] and like a true Levite[8] may possess no earthly inheritance.
I cannot but advise you thus if you wish to be perfect, if you desire to
attain the pinnacle of the apostles' glory, if you wish to take up your
cross and to follow Christ. When once you have put your hand to the plough
you must not look back;[9] when once you stand on the housetop you must
think no more of your clothes within; to escape your Egyptian mistress[10]
you must abandon the cloak that belongs to this world. Even Elijah, in his
quick translation to heaven could not take his mantle with him, but left in
the world the garments of the world.[11] Such conduct, you will object, is
for him who would emulate the apostles, for the man who aspires to be
perfect. But why should not you aspire to be perfect? Why should not you
who hold a foremost place in the world hold a foremost place also in
Christ's household? Is it because you have been married? Peter was married
too, but when he forsook his ship and his nets he forsook his wife also.[1]
The Lord who wills that all men shall be saved and prefers the repentance
of a sinner to his death[2] has, in His almighty providence, removed from
you this excuse. Your wife can no longer draw you earthwards, but you can
follow her as she draws you heaven-wards. Provide good things for your
children who have gone home before you to the Lord. Do not let their
portions go to swell their sister's fortune, but use them to ransom four
own soul and to give sustenance to the needy. These are the necklaces your
daughters expect from you; these are the jewels they wish to see sparkle on
their foreheads. The money which they would have wasted in buying silks may
well be considered saved when it provides cheap clothing for the poor. They
ask you for their portions. Now that they are united to their spouse they
are loth to appear poor and undistinguished: they desire to have the
ornaments that befit their rank.

   5. Nor may you excuse yourself on the score of your noble station and
the responsibilities of wealth. Look at Pammachius and at Paulinus that
presbyter of glowing faith both of whom have offered to the Lord not only
their riches but themselves. In spite of the devil and his shuffling they
have by no means given skin for skin, but have consecrated their own flesh
and bones, yea and their very souls unto the Lord. Surely these may lead
you to higher things both by their example and by their preaching, that is,
by their deeds and words. You are of noble birth, so are they: but in
Christ they are made nobler still. You are rich and held in repute, so once
were they: but now instead of being rich and held in repute they are poor
and obscure, yet, because it is for Christ's sake, they are really richer
and more famous than ever. You too, it is true, show yourself beneficent,
you are said to minister to the wants of the saints, to entertain monks,
and to present large sums of money to churches. This however is only the a
b c of your soldiership. You despise money; the world's philosophers have
done the same. One of these[3]--to say nothing of the rest--cast the price
of many possessions into the sea, saying as he did so "To the bottom with
you, ye provokers of evil lusts. I shall drown you in the sea that you may
never drown me in sin." If then a philosopher--a creature of vanity whom
popular applause can buy and sell--laid down all his burthen at once, how
can you think that you have reached virtue's crowning height when you have
yielded up but a portion of yours? It is you yourself that the Lord wishes
for, "a living sacrifice ... acceptable unto God."[1] Yourself, I say, and
not what you have. And therefore, as he trained Israel by subjecting it to
many plagues and afflictions, so does He now admonish you by sending you
trials of different kinds. "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."[2] The poor widow did but cast two
mites into the treasury; yet because she cast in all that she had it is
said of her that she surpassed all the rich in offering gifts to God.[3]
Such gifts are valued not by their weight but by the good-will with which
they are made. You may have spent your substance upon numbers of people,
and a portion of your fellows may have reason to rejoice in your bounty;
yet those who have received nothing at your hands are still more numerous.
Neither the wealth of Darius nor the riches of Croesus would suffice to
satisfy the wants of the world's poor. But if you once give yourself to the
Lord and resolve to follow the Saviour in the perfection of apostolic
virtue, then you will come to see what your place has hitherto been, and
how you have lagged in the rear of Christ's army. Hardly had you begun to
mourn for your dead daughters when the fear of Christ dried the tears of
paternal affection upon your cheeks. It was a great triumph of faith, true.
But how much greater was that won by Abraham who was content to slay his
only son, of whom he had been told that he was to inherit the world, yet
did not cease to hope that after death Isaac would live again.[4] Jephthah
too offered up his virgin daughter. and for this is placed by the apostle
in the roll of the saints.[5] I would not therefore have you offer to the
Lord only what a thief may steal from you or an enemy fall upon, or a
proscription confiscate, what is liable to fluctuations in value now going
up and now down, what belongs to a succession of masters who follow each
other as fast as in the sea wave follows wave, and--to say everything in a
word--what, whether you like it or not, you must leave behind you when you
die. Rather offer to God that which no enemy can carry off and no tyrant
take from you, which will go down with you into the grave, nay on to the
kingdom of heaven and the enchantments of paradise. You already build
monasteries and support in the various islands of Dalmatia a large number
of holy men. But you would do better still if you were to live among these
holy men as a holy man yourself. "Be ye holy, saith the Lord, for I am
holy."[1] The apostles boasted that they had left all things and had
followed the Saviour."[2] We do not read that they left anything except
their ship and their nets; yet they were crowned with the approval of Him
who was to be their judge. Why? Because in offering up themselves they had
indeed left all that they had.

   6. I say all this not in disparagement of your good works or because I
wish to underrate your generosity in almsgiving, but because I do not wish
you to be a monk among men of the world and a man of the world among monks.
I shall require every sacrifice of you for I hear that your mind is devoted
to the service of God. If some friend, or follower, or kinsman tries to
combat this counsel of mine and to recall you to the pleasures of a
handsome table, be sure that he is thinking less of your soul than of his
own belly, and remember that death in a moment terminates both elegant
entertainments and all other pleasures provided by wealth. Within the short
space of twenty days you have lost two daughters, the one eight years old
and the other six; and do you suppose that one so old as you are yourself
can live much longer? David tells you how long a time you can look for:
"the days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of
strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and
sorrow."[3] Happy is he and to be held worthy of the highest bliss whom old
age shall find a servant of Christ and whom the last day shall discover
fighting for the Saviour's cause. "He shall not be ashamed when he speaketh
with his enemies in the gate."[4] On his entrance into paradise it shall be
said to him: "thou in thy lifetime receivedst evil things but nowhere thou
art comforted."[5] The Lord will not avenge the same sin twice. Lazarus,
formerly poor and full of ulcers, whose sores the dogs licked and who
barely managed to live, poor wretch, on the crumbs that fell from the rich
man's table, is now welcomed into Abraham's bosom and has the joy of
finding a father in the great patriarch. It is difficult nay impossible for
a man to enjoy both the good things of the present and those of the future,
to satisfy his belly here and his mind yonder, to pass from the pleasures
of this life to the pleasures of that, to be first in both worlds, and to
be held in honour both on earth and in heaven.

   7. And if in your secret thoughts you are troubled because I who give
you this advice am not myself what I desire you to be, and because you have
seen some after beginning well fall midway on their journey; I shall
briefly plead in reply that the words which I speak are not mine but those
of the Lord and Saviour, and that I urge upon you not the standard which is
possible to myself but the ideal which every true servant of Christ must
wish for and realize. Athletes as a rule are stronger than their backers;
yet the weaker presses the stronger to put forth all his efforts Look not
upon Judas denying his Lord but upon Paul confessing Him. Jacob's father
was a man of great wealth; yet, when Jacob went to Mesopotamia, he went
alone and destitute leaning upon his staff. When he felt weary he had to
lie down by the wayside and, delicately nurtured as he had been by his
mother Rebekah, was forced to content himself with a stone for a pillow.
Yet it was then[1] that he saw the ladder set up from earth to heaven, and
the angels ascending and descending on it, and the Lord above it holding
out a helping hand to such as fall and encouraging the climbers to fresh
efforts by the vision of Himself. Therefore is the spot called Bethel or
the house of God; for there day by day there is ascending and descending.
When they are careless, even holy men lose their footing; and sinners, if
they wash away their stains with tears regain their place. I say this not
that those coming down may frighten you but that those going up may
stimulate you. For evil can never supply a model and even in worldly
affairs incentives to virtue come always from the brighter side.

   But I have forgotten my purpose and the limits set to my letter. I
should have liked to say a great deal more. Indeed all that I can say is
inadequate alike to satisfy the seriousness of the subject and the claims
of your rank. But here is our Ausonius beginning to be impatient for the
sheets, hurrying the secretaries, and in his impatience at the neighing of
his horse, accusing my poor wits of slowness. Remember me, then, and
prosper in Christ. And one thing more; follow the example set you at home
by the holy Vera,[2] who like a true follower of Christ does not fear to
endure the hardships of pilgrimage. Find in a woman your 'leader in this
high emprise.'[3]

LETTER CXIX: TO MINERVIUS AND ALEXANDER.

Minervius and Alexander two monks of Toulouse had written to Jerome asking
him to explain for them a large number of passages in scripture. Jerome in
his reply postpones most of these to a future time but deals with two in
detail viz. (I) "we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed," I
Cor. xv. 51; and (2) "we shall be caught up in the clouds," I Th. iv. 17.
With regard to (I) Jerome prefers the reading "we shall all sleep but we
shall not all be changed," and with regard to (2) he looks upon the
language as metaphorical and interprets it to mean that believers will be '
assumed ' into the company of the apostles and prophets. The date of the
letter is 406 A.D.

LETTER CXX: TO HEDIBIA.[1]

At the request of Hedibia, a lady of Gaul much interested in the study of
scripture, Jerome deals with the following twelve questions. It will be
noticed that several of them belong to the historical criticism of our own
day.

   (1) How can anyone be perfect? and How ought a widow without children
to live to God?

   (2) What is the meaning of Matt. xxvi. 29?

   (3) How are the discrepancies in the evangelical narratives to be
accounted for? How can Matt. xxviii. I be reconciled with Mark xvi. I, 2?

   (4) How can Matt. xxviii. 9 (Saturday evening) be reconciled with John
xx. 1-18 (Sunday morning)?

   (5) How can Matt. xxviii. 9 be reconciled with John xx. 17?

   (6) How was it that, if there was a guard of soldiers at the sepulchre,
Peter and John were allowed to go in freely? (Matt. xxvii. 66: John xx. 1-
8.)

   (7) How is the statement of Matthew and Mark that the apostles were
ordered to go into Galilee to see Jesus there to be reconciled with that of
Luke and John who make Him appear to them in Jerusalem?

   (8) What is the meaning of Matt. xxvii. 50, 51?

   (9) How is the statement of John xx. 22 that Jesus breathed on his
apostles the Holy Ghost to be reconciled with that of Luke (Luke xxiv. 49:
Acts i. 4) that He would send it to them after His ascension?

   (10) What is the meaning of the passage, Rom. ix. 14-29?

   (11) What is the meaning of 2 Cor. ii. 16? (12) What is the meaning of
I Th. v. 23?

   The date of the letter is 406 or 407 A.D.

LETTER CXXI: TO ALGASIA.

Jerome writes to a lady of Gaul named Algasis to answer eleven questions
which she had submitted to him. They were as follows:--

   (1) How is Luke vii. 18, 19, to be reconciled with John i. 36?

   (2) What is the meaning of Matt. xii. 20?

   (3) And of Matt. xvi. 24?

   (4) And of Matt. xxiv. 19, 20?

   (5) And of Luke ix. 53?

   (6) What is the meaning of the parable of the unjust steward?

   (7) What is the meaning of Rom. v. 7? (8) And of Rom. vii.8?

   (9) And of Rom. ix. 3?

   (10) And of Col. ii. 18?

   (11) And of 2 Th. ii. 3?

   The date of the letter is 406 A.D.

LETTER CXXII: TO RUSTICUS.

Rusticus and Artemia his wife having made a vow of continence broke it.
Artemia proceeded to Palestine to do penance for her sin and Rusticus
promised to follow her. However he failed to do so, and Jerome was asked to
write this letter in the hope that it might induce him to fulfil his
promise. The date is about 408 A.D.

   1. I am induced to write to you, a stranger to a stranger, by the
entreaties of that holy servant of Christ Hedibia[1] and of my daughter in
the faith Artemia, once your wife but now no longer your wife but your
sister and fellow-servant. Not content with assuring her own salvation she
has sought yours also, in former days at home and now in the holy places.
She is anxious to emulate the thoughtfulness of the apostles Andrew and
Philip; who after Christ had found them, desired in their turn to find, the
one his brother Simon and the other his friend Nathanael.[2] To the former
of these it was said "Thou art Simon, the son of Jona: thou shall be called
Cephas which is by interpretation a stone;"[3] while the latter, whose name
Nathanael means the gift of God, was comforted by Christ's witness to him:
"behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile."[4] So of old Lot[5]
desired to rescue his wife as well as his two daughters, and refusing to
leave blazing Sodom and Gomorrah until he was himself half-on-fire, tried
to lead forth one who was tied and bound by her past sins. But in her
despair she lost her composure, and looking back became a monument of an
unbelieving soul.[6] Yet, as if to make up for the loss of a single woman,
Lot's glowing faith set free the whole city of Zoar. In fact when he left
the dark valleys in which Sodom lay and came to the mountains the sun rose
upon him as he entered Zoar or the little City; so-called because the
little faith that Lot possessed, though unable to save greater places, was
at least able to preserve smaller ones. For one who had gone so far astray
as to live in Gomorrah could not all at once reach the noonland where
Abraham, the friend of God,[7] entertained God and His angels.[8] (For it
was in Egypt that Joseph fed his brothers, and when the bride speaks to the
Bridegroom her cry is: "tell me where thou feedest, where thou makest thy
flock to rest at noon."[9]) Good men have always sorrowed for the sins of
others. Samuel of old lamented for Saul[10] because he neglected to treat
the ulcers of pride with the balm of penitence. And Paul wept for the
Corinthians[1] who refused to wash out with their tears the stains of
fornication. For the same reason Ezekiel swallowed the book where were
written within and without song, and lamentation and woe;[2] the song in
praise of the righteous, the lamentation over the penitent, and the woe for
those of whom it is written, "When the wicked man falleth into the depths
of evil, then is he filled with scorn."[3] It is to these that Isaiah
alludes when he says: "in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to
weeping and to mourning and to baldness and to girding with sackcloth: and
behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen; and killing sheep, eating flesh" and
saying, "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."[4] Yet of such persons
Ezekiel is bidden to speak thus: "O thou son of man, speak unto the house
of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be
upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live? Say unto them,
As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the
wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live," and again, "turn
ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of
Israel?"[5] Nothing makes God so angry as when men from despair of better
things cleave to those which are worse; and indeed this despair in itself
is a sign of unbelief. One who despairs of salvation can have no
expectation of a judgment to come. For if he dreaded such, he would by
doing good works prepare to meet his Judge. Let us hear what God says
through Jeremiah, "withhold thy foot from a rough way and thy throat from
thirst"[6] and again" shall they fall, and not arise? Shall he turn away,
and not return? "[7] Let us hear also what God says by Isaiah: "When thou
shalt turn and bewail thyself, then shall thou be saved, and then shalt
thou know where thou hast hitherto been."[8] We do not realize the miseries
of sickness till returning health reveals them to us. So sins serve as a
foil to the blessedness of virtue; and light shines more brightly when it
is relieved against darkness. Ezekiel uses language like that of the other
prophets because he is animated by a similar spirit. "Repent," he cries,
"and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be
your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have
transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye
die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that
dieth, saith the Lord."[9] Wherefore in a subsequent passage he says: "As I
live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked:
but that the wicked turn from his way and live."[1] These words shew us
that the mind must not through disbelief in the promised blessings give way
to despair; and that the soul once marked out for perdition must not refuse
to apply remedies on the ground that its wounds are past curing. Ezekiel
describes God as swearing, that if we refuse to believe His promise in
regard to our salvation we may at least believe His oath. It is with full
confidence that the righteous man prays and says, "Turn us, O God of our
salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease,"[2] and again, "Lord,
by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide
thy face and I was troubled."[3] He means to say, "when I forsook the
foulness of my faults for the beauty of virtue, God strengthened my
weakness with His grace." Lo, I hear. His promise: "I will pursue mine
enemies and overtake them: neither will I turn again till they are
consumed,"[4] so that I who was once thine enemy and a fugitive from thee,
shall be laid hold of by thine hand. Cease not from pursuing me till my
wickedness is consumed, and I return to my old husband who will give me my
wool and my flax, my oil and my fine flour and will feed me with the
richest foods.[5] He it was who hedged up and enclosed my evil ways[6] that
I might find Him the true way. who says in the gospel, "I am the way, the
truth, and the life."[7] Hear the words of the prophet: "they that sow in
tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious
seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with
him."[8] Say also with him: "All the night make I my bed to swim; I water
my couch with my tears "[9]: and again, "As the hart panteth after the
water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for
God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? My tears
have been my meat day and night,"[10] and in another place, "O God, thou
art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh
longeth for thee in a dry and weary land where no water is. So have I
looked upon thee in the sanctuary."[11] For although my soul has thirsted
after thee, yet much more have I sought thee by the labour of my flesh and
have not been able to look upon thee in thy sanctuary; not at any rate till
I have first dwelt in a land barren of sin, where the weary wayfarer is no
more assailed by the adversary, and where there are no pools or rivers of
lust.

   The Saviour also wept over the city of Jerusalem because its
inhabitants had not repented;[1] and Peter washed out his triple denial
with bitter tears,[2] thus fulfilling the words of the prophet: "rivers of
waters run down mine eyes."[3] Jeremiah too laments over his impenitent
people, saying: "Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of
tears, that I might weep day and night for ... my people!"[4] And farther
on he gives a reason for his lamentation: "weep ye not for the dead," he
writes, "neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he
shall return no more."[5] The Jew and the Gentile therefore are not to be
bemoaned, for they have never been in the Church and have died once for all
(it is of these that the Saviour says: "let the dead bury their dead"[6]);
weep rather for those who by reason of their crimes and sins go away from
the Church, and who suffering condemnation for their faults shall no more
return to it. It is in this sense that the prophet speaks to ministers of
the Church, calling them its walls and towers, and saying to each in turn,
"O wall, let tears run down."[7] In this way, it is prophetically implied,
you will fulfil the apostolic precept:" rejoice with them that do rejoice
and weep with them that weep,"[8] and by your tears you will melt the hard
hearts of sinners till they too weep; whereas, if they persist in evil
doing they will find these words applied to them, "I ... planted thee a
noble vine wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the
degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?"[9] and again "saying to a
stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for
they have turned their back unto me, and not their face."[10] He means,
they would not turn towards God in penitence; but in the hardness of their
hearts turned their backs upon Him to insult Him. Wherefore also the Lord
says to Jeremiah: "hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done?
She is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and
there hath played the harlot. And I said after she" had played the harlot
and "had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned
not."[11]

   2. How hard hearted we are and how merciful God is! who even after our
many sins urges us to seek salvation. Yet not even so are we willing to
turn to better things. Hear the words of the Lord: "If a man put away his
wife, and she go from him, and become another man's and shall afterwards
desire to return to him, will he at all receive her? Will he not loathe her
rather? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers: yet return again
to me, saith the Lord." In place of the last clause the true Hebrew text
(which is not preserved in the Greek and Latin versions) gives the
following: "thou hast forsaken me, yet return, and I will receive thee,
saith the Lord."[1] Isaiah also speaking in the same sense uses almost the
same words: "Return," he cries, "O children of Israel, ye who think deep
counsel and wicked."[2] Return thou unto me and I will redeem thee. I am
God, and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is
none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the
earth.[3] Remember this and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O
ye transgressors. Return in heart and remember the former things of old:
for I am God and there is none else."[4] Joel also writes: "turn ye even to
me with all your heart, and with fasting and with weeping and with
mourning: and rend your heart and not your garments and turn unto the Lord
your God; for he is gracious and merciful ... and repenteth him of the
evil."[5] How great His mercy is and how excessive--if I may so say--and
unspeakable is His pitifulness, the prophet Hosea tells us when he speaks
in the Lord's name: "how shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver
thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as
Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.
I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger.'[6] David also says in a
psalm: "in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall
give thee thanks? "[7] and in another place: "I acknowledged my sin unto
thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my
transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.
For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou
mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come
nigh unto him."[8]

   3. Think how great that weeping must be which deserves to be compared
to a flood of waters. Whosoever so weeps and says with the prophet Jeremiah
"let not the apple of mine eye cease "[9] shall straightway find the words
fulfilled of him: "mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and
peace have kissed each other;"[10] so that, if righteousness and truth
terrify him, mercy and peace may encourage him to seek salvation.

   The whole repentance of a sinner is exhibited to us in the fifty-
first[1] psalm written by David after he had gone in unto Bathsheba the
wife of Uriah the Hittite,[2] and when, to the rebuke of the prophet Nathan
he had replied, "I have sinned." Immediately that he confessed his fault he
was comforted by the words: "the Lord also hath put away thy sin."[3] He
had added murder to adultery; yet bursting into tears he says: "Have mercy
upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the
multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions."[4] A sin so
great needed to find great mercy. Accordingly he goes on to say: "Wash me
throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge
my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only
have I sinned"--as a king he had no one to fear but Gods--"and done this
evil in thy sight; that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and
be clear when thou judgest."[5] For "God hath concluded all in unbelief,
that he might have mercy upon all."[6] And such was the progress that David
made that he who had once been a sinner and a penitent afterwards became a
master able to say: "I will teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall
be converted unto thee."[7] For as "confession and beauty are before
God,"[8] so a sinner who confesses his sins and says: "my wounds stink and
are corrupt because of my foolishness "[9] loses his foul wounds and is
made whole and clean. But "he that covereth his sins shall not
prosper."[10]

   The ungodly king Ahab, who shed the blood of Naboth to gain his
vineyard, was with Jezebel, the partner less of his bed than of his
cruelty, severely rebuked by Elijah. "Thus saith the Lord, hast thou killed
and also taken possession?" and again, "in the place where dogs licked the
blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine;" and "the dogs
shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel."[11] "And it came to pass"--the
passage goes on--"when Ahab heard those words that he rent his clothes, and
put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackclothand the word
of the Lord came to Elijah saying, Because Ahab humbleth himself before me,
I will not bring the evil in his days."[12] Ahab's sin and Jezebel's were
the same; yet because Ahab repented, his punishment was postponed so as to
fall upon his sons, while Jezebel persisting in her wickedness met her doom
then and there.

   Moreover the Lord tells us in the gospel, "the men of Nineveh shall
rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it: because they
repented at the preaching of Jonas;"[1] and again He says I am not come to
call the righteous but sinners to repentance."[2] The lost piece of silver
is sought for until it is found in the mire.[3] So also the ninety and nine
sheep are left in the wilderness, while the shepherd carries home on his
shoulders the one sheep which has gone astray.[4] Wherefore also "there is
joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth."[5] What
a blessed thought it is that heavenly beings rejoice in our salvation! For
it is of us that the words are said: "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand."[6] Death and life are contrary the one to the other; there is
no middle term. Yet penitence can knit death to life. The prodigal son, we
are told, wasted all his substance, and in the far country away from his
father "would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did
eat." Yet, when he comes back to his father, the fatted calf is killed, a
robe and a ring are given to him.[7] That is to say, he receives again
Christ's robe which he had before defiled, and hears to his comfort the
injunction: "let thy garments be always white."[8] He receives the signet
of God and cries to the Lord: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and
before thee;" and receiving the kiss of reconciliation, he says to Him:
"Now is the light of thy countenance sealed upon us, O Lord."[9]

   Hear the words of Ezekiel: "as for the wickedness of the wicked, he
shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness;
neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the
day that he sinneth."[10] The Lord judges every man according as he finds
him. It is not the past that He looks upon but the present. Bygone sins
there may be, but renewal and conversion remove them. "A just man," we read
"falleth seven times and riseth up again."[11] If he falls, how is he just?
and if he is just, how does he fall? The answer is that a sinner does not
lose the name of just if he always repents of his sins and rises again. If
a sinner repents, his sins are forgiven him not only till seven times but
till seventy times seven.[12] To whom much is forgiven, the same loveth
much.[13] The harlot washed with her tears the Saviour's feet and wiped
them with her hair; and to her, as a type of the Church gathered from the
nations, was the declaration made: "Thy sins are forgiven."[1] The self-
righteous Pharisee perished in his pride, white the humble publican was
saved by his confession.[2]

   God makes asseveration by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah: "At what
instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to
pluck up to pull down and to destroy it: if that nation, against whom I
have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I
thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a
nation, and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it; if it do evil in
my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good
wherewith I said I would benefit them." And immediately he adds: "Behold, I
frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now
every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. And
they said, there is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we
will every one do the imagination of his evil heart."[3] The righteous
Simeon says in the gospel: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and
rising again of many,"[4] for the fall, that is, of sinners and for the
rising again of the penitent. So the apostle writes to the Corinthians: "it
is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such
fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should
have his father's wife. And ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned
that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you." [5]
And in his second epistle to the same, "lest such a one should be swallowed
up with overmuch sorrow,"[6] he calls him back, and begs them to confirm
their love towards him, so that he who had been destroyed by incest might
be saved by penitence.

   "There is no man clean from sin; even though he has lived but for one
day."[7] And the years of man's life are many in number. "The stars are not
pure in his sight,[8] and his angels he charged with folly."[9] If there is
sin in heaven, how much more must there be sin on earth? If they are
stained with guilt who have no bodily temptations, how much more must we
be, enveloped as we are in frail flesh and forced to cry each one of us
with the apostle: "O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?[10] For in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing."[11]
For we do not what we would but what we would not; the soul desires to do
one thing, the flesh is compelled to do another. If any persons are called
righteous in scripture, and not only righteous but righteous in the sight
of God, they are called righteous according to that righteousness mentioned
in the passage I have quoted: "A just man falleth seven times and riseth up
again,"(1) and on the principle laid down that the wickedness of the wicked
shall not hurt him in the day that he turns to repentance."(2) In fact
Zachariah the father of John who is described as a righteous man sinned in
disbelieving the message sent to him and was at once punished with
dumbness.(3) Even Job, who at the outset of his history is spoken of as
perfect and upright and uncomplaining, is afterwards proved to be a sinner
both by God's words and by his own confession. If Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, the prophets also and the apostles were by no means free from sin
and if the finest wheat had chaff mixed with it, what can be said of us of
whom it is written: "What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?"(4)
Yet the chaff is reserved for future burning; as also are the tares which
at present are mingled with the growing corn. For one shall come whose fan
is in His hand, and shall purge His floor, and shall gather His wheat into
the garner, and shall burn the chaff in the fire of hell.(5)

   4. Roaming thus through the fairest fields of scripture I have culled
its loveliest flowers to weave for your brows a garland of penitence; for
my aim is that, flying on the wings of a dove, you may find rest(6) and
make your peace with the Father of mercy. Your former wife, who is now your
sister and fellow-servant, has told me that, acting on the apostolic
precept,(7) you and she lived apart by consent that you might give
yourselves to prayer; but that after a time your feet sank beneath you as
if resting on water and indeed--to speak plainly--gave way altogether. For
her part she heard the Lord saying to her as to Moses: "as for thee stand
thou here by me;"(8) and with the psalmist she said of Him: "He hath set my
feet upon a rock."(9) But your house--she went on--having no sure
foundation of faith fell before a whirlwind of the devil.(10) Hers however
still stands in the Lord, and does not refuse its shelter to you; you can
still be joined in spirit to her to whom you were once joined in body. For,
as the apostle says, "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" with
him.(11) Moreover, when the fury of the barbarians and the risk of
captivity separated you again, you promised with a solemn oath that, if she
made her way to the holy places, you would follow her either immediately or
later, and that you would try to save your soul now that by your
carelessness you had seemed to lose it. Perform, now, the vow which you
then made in the presence of God. Human life is uncertain. Therefore, lest
you may be snatched away before you have fulfilled your promise, imitate
her whose teacher you ought to have been. For shame! the weaker vessel
overcomes the world, and yet the stronger is overcome by it!

   A woman leadeth in the high emprise;(1)

and yet you will not follow her when her salvation leads you to the
threshold of the faith! Perhaps, however, you desire to save the remnants
of your property and to see the last of your friends and fellow-citizens
and of their cities and villas. If so, amid the horrors of captivity, in
the presence of exulting foes. and in the shipwreck of the province, at
least hold fast to the plank of penitence;(2) and remember your fellow-
servant(3) who daily sighs for your salvation and never despairs of it.
While you are wandering about your own country (though, indeed, you no
longer have a country; that which you once had, you have lost) she is
interceding for you in the venerable spots which witnessed the nativity,
crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, and in the first of
which He uttered His infant- cry. She draws you to her by her prayers that
you may be saved, if not by your own exertions, at any rate by her faith.
Of old one lay upon his bed sick of the palsy, so powerless in all his
joints that he could neither move his feet to walk nor his hands to pray;
yet when he was carried to our Lord by others, he was by Him so completely
restored to health as to carry the bed which a little before had carried
him.(4) You too-- absent in the body but present to her faith--your fellow-
servant offers to her Lord and Saviour; and with the Canaanite woman she
says of you: "my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil."(5) Souls are
of no sex; therefore I may fairly call your soul the daughter of hers. For
as a mother coaxes her unweaned child which is as yet unable to take solid
food; so does she call you to the milk suitable for babes and offer to you
the sustenance that a nursing mother gives. Thus shall you be able to say
with the prophet: "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant;
for I do not forget thy commandments."(6)

LETTER CXXIII: TO AGERUCHIA.

An appeal to the widow Ageruchia, a highborn lady of Gaul, not to marry
again. It should be compared with the letters to Furia (LIV.) and to
Salvina (LXXIX.) The allusion to Stilicho's treaty with Alaric fixes the
date to 409 A.D.

   1. I must look for a new track on the old road and devise a natural
treatment, the same yet not the same, for a hackneyed and well-worn
theme.(1) It is true that there is but one road; yet one can often reach
one's goal by striking across country. I have several times written letters
to widows(2) in which for their instruction I have sought out examples from
scripture, weaving its varied flowers into a single garland of chastity. On
the present occasion I address myself to Ageruchia; whose very name(3)
(allotted to her by the divine guidance) has proved a prophecy of her
after-life. Around her stand her grandmother, her mother, and her aunt; a
noble band of tried Christian women. Her grandmother, Metronia, now a widow
for forty years, reminds us of Anna the daughter of Phanuel in the
gospel.(4) Her mother, Benigna, now in the fourteenth year of her
widowhood, is surrounded by virgins whose chastity bears fruit a
hundredfold.(5) The sister of Celerinus, Ageruchia's father, has nursed her
niece from infancy and indeed took her into her lap the moment that she was
born. Deprived of the solace of her husband she has for twenty years
trained her brother's child, teaching her the lessons which she has learned
from her own mother.

   2. I make these brief remarks to shew my young friend that in resolving
not to marry again she does but perform a duty to her family; and that,
while she will deserve no praise for fulfilling it, she will be justly
blamed if she fails to do so. The more so that she has a posthumous son
named after his father Simplicius and thus cannot plead loneliness or the
want of an heir. For the lust of many shelters itself under such excuses as
though the promptings of incontinence were only a desire for offspring. But
why do I speak as to one who wavers when I hear that Ageruchia seeks the
church's protection against the many suitors whom she meets in the palace?
For the devil inflames men to vie with one another in proving the chastity
of our beloved widow; and rank and beauty, youth and riches cause her to be
sought after by all. But the greater the assaults that are made upon her
continence, the greater will be the rewards that will follow her victory.

   3. But no sooner do I clear the harbour than I find my way to the sea
barred by a rock.(1) I am confronted with the authority of the apostle Paul
who in writing to Timothy thus speaks concerning widows: "I will therefore
that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none
occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. For some are already
turned aside after Satan." I must accordingly begin by considering the
meaning of this pronouncement and examining the context of the whole
passage. I must then plant my feet in the steps of the apostle and, as the
saying goes, not deviate a hair's breadth from them either to this side or
to that. He had previously described his idea widow as one who had been the
wife of one man, who had brought up children, who was well reported of for
good works, who had relieved the afflicted with her substance,(3) whose
trust had been in God, and who had continued in prayer day and night.(4)
With her he contrasted her opposite, saying: "She that liveth in pleasure
is dead while she liveth." And that he might warn his disciple Timothy with
all needful admonition, he immediately added these words: "the younger
widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they
will marry; having damnation because they have cast off their first
faith."(5) It is then for these who have outraged Christ their Spouse by
committing fornication against Him (for this is the sense of the Greek word
katastrhnia'swsi)--it is for these that the apostle wishes a second
marriage, thinking digamy preferable to fornication; but this second
marriage is a concession and not a command.

   4. We must also take the passage clause by clause. "I will," he says,
"that the younger women marry." Why, pray? because I would not have young
women commit fornication. "That they bear children;"(6) for what reason?
That they may not be induced by fear of the consequences to kill children
whom they have conceived in adultery. "That they be the heads of
households."(7) Wherefore, pray? Because it is much more tolerable that a
woman should marry again than that she should be a prostitute, and better
that she should have a second husband than several paramours. The first
alternative brings relief in a miserable plight, but the second involves a
sin and its punishment. He continues: "that they give none occasion to the
adversary to speak reproachfully," a brief and comprehensive precept in
which many admonitions are summed up. As for instance these: that a woman
must not bring discredit upon her profession of widowhood by too great
attention to her dress, that she must not draw troops of young men after
her by gay smiles or expressive glances, that she must not profess one
thing by her words and another by her behaviour, that she must give no
ground for the application to herself of the well known line:

   She gave a meaning look and slyly smiled.(1)

Lastly, that Paul may compress into a few words all the reasons for such
marriages, he shews the motive of his command by saying: "for some are
already turned aside after Satan." Thus he allows to the incontinent a
second marriage, or in case of need a third, simply that he may rescue them
from Satan, preferring that a woman should be joined to the worst of
husbands rather than to the devil. To the Corinthians he uses somewhat
similar language: "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good
for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them
marry: for it is better to marry than to burn."(2) Why, O apostle, is it
better to marry? He answers immediately: because it is worse to burn.(3)

   5. Apart from these considerations, that which is absolutely good and
not merely relatively so is to be as the apostle, that is loose, not bound;
free, not enslaved; caring for the things of God, not for the things of a
wife. Immediately afterwards he adds: "The wife is bound by the law to her
husband as long as her husband liveth, but if her husband be fallen
asleep,(4) she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the
Lord. But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think
also that I have the spirit of God."(5) This passage corresponds with the
former in meaning, because the spirit of the two is the same. For though
the epistles are different, they are the work of one author. While her
husband lives the woman is bound, and when be is dead, she is loosed.
Marriage then is a bond, and widowhood is the loosing of it. The wife is
bound to the husband and the husband to the wife; and so close is the tie
that they have no power over their own bodies, but each stands indebted to
the other. They who are under the yoke of wedlock have not the option of
choosing continence. When the apostle adds the words "only in the Lord," he
excludes heathen marriages of which he had spoken in another place thus:
"be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship
hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with
darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he
that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God
with idols?"(1) We must not plough with an ox and an ass together;(2) nor
weave our wedding garment of different colours. He at once takes back the
concession he made, and, as if repenting of his opinion, withdraws it by
saying: "She is happier if she so abide," that is, unmarried; and declares
that in his judgment this course is preferable. And that this may not be
made light of as a merely human utterance, he claims for it the authority
of the Holy Spirit, so that we are listening not to a fellowman making
concessions to the weakness of the flesh but to the Holy Spirit using the
apostle for his mouthpiece.

   6. Again, no widow of youthful age must quiet her qualms of conscience
by the plea that he gives commandment that no widow is to be taken into the
number under three- score years old.(3) He does not by this arrangement
urge unmarried girls or youthful widows to marry, seeing that even of the
married he says: "the time is short: it remaineth that they that have wives
be as though they had none."(4) No, he is speaking of widows who have
relations able to support them, who have sons and grandsons to be
responsible for their maintenance. The apostle commands these latter to
shew piety at home, and to requite their parents and to relieve them
adequately; that the church may not be charged, but may be free to relieve
those that are widows indeed. "Honour widows," he writes, "that are widows
indeed," that is, such as are desolate and have no relations to help them,
who cannot labour with their hands, who are weakened by poverty and
overcome by years, whose trust is in God and their only work prayer.(5)
From which it is easy to infer that the younger widows, unless they are
excused by ill health, are either left to their own exertions or else are
consigned to the care of their children or relations. The word 'honour' in
this passage implies either alms or a gift, as also in the verse
immediately following: "Let the elders ... be counted worthy of double
honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine."(6) So also in
the gospel when the Lord discusses that commandment of the Law which says:
"Hon-our thy father and thy mother,"(7) He declares that it is to be
interpreted not of mere words which while offering an empty shew of regard
may still leave a parent's wants unrelieved, but of the actual provision of
the necessaries of life. The Lord commanded that poor parents should be
supported by their children and that these should pay them back when old
those benefits which they had themselves received in their childhood. The
scribes and pharisees on the other hand taught the children to answer their
parents by saying: "It is Corban, that is to say, a gift(1) which I have
promised to the altar and engaged to present to the temple: it will relieve
you as much there, as if I were to give it you directly to buy food."(2) So
it frequently happened that while father and mother were destitute their
children were offering sacrifices for the priests and scribes to consume.
If then the apostle compels poor widows--yet only those who are young and
not broken down by sickness--to labour with their hands that the church,
not charged with their maintenance, may be able to support such widows as
are old, what plea can be urged by one who has abundance of this world's
goods, both for her own wants and those of others, and who can make to
herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness able to receive her into
everlasting habitations?(3)

   Consider too that no one is to be elected a widow, except she has been
the wife of one husband. We sometimes fancy it to be the distinctive mark
of the priesthood that none but monogamists shall be admitted to the altar.
But not only are the twice-married excluded from the priestly office, they
are debarred from receiving the alms of the church. A woman who has
resorted to a second marriage is held unworthy to be supported by the
faithful. And even the layman is bound by the law of the priest, for his
conduct must be such as to admit of his election to the priesthood. If he
has been twice married, he cannot be so elected. Therefore, as priests are
chosen from the ranks of laymen, the layman also is bound by the
commandment, fulfilment of which is indispensable for the attainment of the
priesthood.(4)

   7. We must distinguish between what the apostle himself desires and
what he is compelled to acquiesce in. If he allows me to marry again, this
is due to my own incontinence and not to his wish. For he wishes all men to
be as he is, and to think the things of God, and when once they are loosed
no more to seek to be bound. But when he sees unstable men in danger
through their incontinence of falling into the abyss of lust, he extends to
them the offer of a second marriage; that, if they must wallow in the mire,
it may be with one and not with many. The husband of a second wife must not
consider this a harsh saying or one that conflicts with the rule laid down
by the apostle. The apostle is of two minds: first, he proclaims a
command," I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them
if they abide even as I." Next. he makes a concession, "But if they cannot
contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn."(1) He
first shews what he himself desires, then that in which he is forced to
acquiesce. He wishes us--after one marriage--to abide even as he, that is,
unmarried, and sets before us in his own apostolic example an instance of
the blessedness of which he speaks. If however he finds that we are
unwilling to do as he wishes, he makes a concession to our incontinence.
Which then of the two alternatives do we choose for ourselves? The one
which he prefers and which is in itself good? Or the one which in
comparison with evil is tolerable, yet as it is only a substitute for evil
is not altogether good? Suppose that we choose that course which the
apostle does not wish but to which he only consents against his will,
allowing those who seek lower ends to have their own way; in this case we
carry out not the apostle's wish but our own. We read in the old testament
that the daughters of the priests who have been married once and have
become widows are to eat of the priests' food and that when they die they
are to be buried with the same ceremonies as their father and mother.(2) If
on the other hand they take other husbands they are to be kept apart both
from their father and from the sacrifices and are to be counted as
strangers.(3)

   8. These restraints on marriage are observed even among the heathen;
and it is our condemnation if the true faith cannot do for Christ what
false ones do for the devil, who has substituted for the saving chastity of
the gospel a damning chastity of his own.(4) The Athenian hierophant
disowns his manhood and weakens his passions by a perpetual restraint.(5)
The holy office of the flamen is limited to those who have been once
married, and the attendants of the flamens' wives must also have had but
one husband.(6) Only monogamists are allowed to share in the sacred rites
connected with the Egyptian bull.(7) I need say nothing of the vestal
virgins and those of Apollo, the Achivan Juno, Diana, and Minerva, all of
whom waste away in the perpetual virginity required by their vocation. I
will just glance at the queen of Carthage(8) who was willing to burn
herself rather than marry king Iarbas; at the wife of Hasdrubal(1) who
taking her two children one in each hand cast, herself into the flames
beneath her rather than surrender her honour; and at Lucretia(2) who having
lost the prize of her chastity refused to survive the defilement of her
soul. I will not lengthen my letter by quoting the many instances of the
like virtue which you can read to your profit in my first book against
Jovinian.(3) I will merely relate one which took place in your own country
and which will shew you that chastity is held in high honour even among
wild and barbarous and cruel peoples. Once the Teutons who came from the
remote shores of the German Ocean overran all parts of Gaul, and it was
only when they had cut to pieces several Roman armies that Marius at last
defeated them in an encounter at Aquae Sextiae.(4) By the conditions of the
surrender three hundred of their married women were to be handed over to
the Romans. When the Teuton matrons heard of this stipulation they first
begged the consul that they might be set apart to minister in the temples
of Ceres and Venus;(5) and then when they failed to obtain their request
and were removed by the lictors, they slew their little children and next
morning were all found dead in each other's arms having strangled
themselves in the night.(6)

   9. Shall then a highborn lady do what these barbarian women refused to
do even as prisoners of war? After losing a first husband, good or bad as
the case may be, shall she make trial of a second, and thus run counter to
the judgment of God? And in case that she immediately loses this second,
shall she take a third? And if he too is called to his rest, shall she go
on to a fourth and a fifth, and by so doing identify herself with the
harlots? No, a widow must take every precaution not to overstep by an inch
the bounds of chastity. For if she once oversteps them and breaks through
the modesty which becomes a matron, she will soon riot in every kind of
excess; so much so that the prophet's words shall be true of her "Thou hast
a whore's forehead, thou refusest to be ashamed."(7)

   What then? do I condemn second marriages? not at all; but I commend
first ones. Do I expel twice-married persons from the church? Far from it;
but I urge those who have been once married to lives of continence. The Ark
of Noah contained unclean animals as well as clean. It contained both
creeping things and human beings, In a great house there are vessels of
different kinds, some to honour and some to dishonour.(1) In the gospel
parable the seed sown in the good ground brings forth fruit, some an
hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.(2) The hundredfold which
comes first betokens the crown of virginity; the sixtyfold which comes next
refers to the work of widows; while the thirtyfold--indicated by joining
together the points of the thumb and forefinger(3)--denotes the marriage-
tie. What room is left for double marriages? None. They are not counted.
Such weeds do not grow in good ground but among briers and thorns, the
favourite haunts of those foxes to whom the Lord compares the impious
Herod.(4) A woman who marries more than once fancies herself worthy of
praise because she is not so bad as the prostitutes, because she compares
favourably with these victims of indiscriminate lust by surrendering
herself to one alone and not to a number.

   10. The story which I am about to relate is an incredible one; yet it
is vouched for by many witnesses. A great many years ago when I was helping
Damasus bishop of Rome with his ecclesiastical correspondence, and writing
his answers to the questions referred to him by the councils of the east
and west, I saw a married couple, both of whom were sprung from the very
dregs of the people. The man had already buried twenty wives, and the woman
had had twenty-two husbands. Now they were united to each other as each
believed for the last time. The greatest curiosity prevailed both among men
and women to see which of these two veterans would live to bury the other.
The husband triumphed and walked before the bier of his often-married wife,
amid a great concourse of people from all quarters, with garland and palm-
branch, scattering spelt as he went along among an approving crowd. What
shall we say to such a woman as that? Surely just what the Lord said to the
woman of Samaria: "Thou hast had twenty-two husbands, and he by whom you
are now buried is not your husband."(5)

   11. I beseech you therefore, my devout daughter in Christ, not to dwell
on those passages which offer succour to the incontinent and the unhappy
but rather to read those in which chastity is crowned. It is enough for you
that you have lost the first and highest kind, that of virginity, and that
you have passed through the third to the second; that is to say, having
formerly fulfilled the obligations of a wife, that you now live in
continence as a widow. Think not of the lowest grade, nay of that which
does not count at all, I mean, second marriage; and do not seek for far
fetched precedents to justify you in marrying again. You cannot too closely
imitate your grandmother, your mother, and your aunt; whose teaching and
advice as to life will form for you a rule of virtue. For if many wives in
the lifetime of their husbands come to realize the truth of the apostle's
words: "all things are lawful unto me but all things are not expedient,"(1)
and make eunuchs of themselves for the kingdom of heaven's sake(2) either
by consent after their regeneration through the baptismal laver, or else in
the ardour of their faith immediately after their marriage; why should not
a widow, who by God's decree has ceased to have a husband, joyfully cry
again and again with Job: "the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,"(3)
and seize the opportunity offered to her of having power over her own body
instead of again becoming the servant of a man. Assuredly it is much harder
to abstain from enjoying what you have than it is to regret what you have
lost. Virginity is the easier because virgins know nothing of the
promptings of the flesh, and widowhood is the harder because widows cannot
help thinking of the license they have enjoyed in the past. And it is
harder still if they suppose their husbands to be lost and not gone before;
for while the former alternative brings pain, the latter causes joy.

   12. The creation of the first man should teach us to reject more
marriages than one. There was but one Adam and but one Eve; in fact the
woman was fashioned from a rib of Adam.(4) Thus divided they were
subsequently joined together in marriage; in the words of scripture "the
twain shall be one flesh," not two or three. "Therefore shall a man leave
his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife."(5) Certainly it
is not said "to his wives." Paul in explaining the passage refers it to
Christ and the church;(6) making the first Adam a monogamist in the flesh
and the second a monogamist in the spirit As there is one Eve who is "the
mother of all living,"(7) so is there one church which is the parent of all
Christians. And as the accursed Lamech made of the first Eve two separate
wives,(8) so also the heretics sever the second into several churches
which, according to the apocalypse of John, ought rather to be called
synagogues of the devil than congregations of Christ.(9) In the Book of
Songs we read as follows:--"there are threescore queens, and fourscore
concubines, and virgins without number. 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."(1) It is to this choice one that the same John addresses an epistle
in these words, "the elder unto the elect lady and her children."(2) So too
in the case of the ark which the apostle Peter interprets as a type of the
church,(3) Noah brings in for his three sons one wife apiece and not
two.(4) Likewise of the unclean animals pairs only are taken, male and
female, to shew that digamy has no place even among brutes, creeping
things, crocodiles and lizards. And if of the clean animals there are seven
taken of each kind,(5) that is, an uneven number; this points to the palm
which awaits virginal chastity. For on leaving the ark Noah sacrificed
victims to God(5) not of course of the animals taken by twos for these were
kept to multiply their species, but of those taken by sevens some of which
had been set apart for sacrifice.

   13. It is true that the patriarchs had each of them more wives than one
and that they had numerous concubines besides. And as if their example was
not enough, David had many wives and Solomon a countless number. Judah went
in to Tamar thinking her to be a harlot;(7) and according to the letter
that killeth the prophet Hosea married not only a whore but an
adulteress.(8) If these instances are to justify us let us neigh after
every woman that we meet;(9) like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah let us
be found by the last day buying and selling, marrying and giving in
marriage;(10) and let us only end our marrying with the close of our lives.
And if both before and after the deluge the maxim held good: "be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth:"(11) what has that to do with us upon
whom the ends of the ages are come,(12) unto whom it is said, "the time is
short,"(13) and "now the axe is laid unto the root of the trees;"(14) that
is to say, the forests of marriage and of the law must be cut down by the
chastity of the gospel. There is "a time to embrace, and a time to refrain
from embracing."(15) Owing to the near approach of the captivity Jeremiah
is forbidden to take a wife.(16) In Babylon Ezekiel says: "my wife is dead
and my mouth is opened."(17) Neither he who wished to marry nor he who had
married could in wedlock prophesy freely. In days gone by men rejoiced to
hear it said of them: "thy children shall be like olive plants round about
thy table," and "thou shalt see thy children's children."(1) But now it is
said of those who live in continence: "he that is joined unto the Lord is
one spirit;"(2) and my soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand
upholdeth me."(3) Then it was said "an eye for an eye;" now the commandment
is "whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other
also."(4) In those days men said to the warrior: "gird thy sword upon thy
thigh, O most mighty;"(5) now it is said to Peter: "put up again thy sword
into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword."(6)

   In speaking thus I do not mean to sever the law from the gospel, as
Marcion(7) falsely does. No, I receive one and the same God in both who, as
the time and the object vary, is both the Beginning and the End, who sows
that He may reap, who plants that He may have somewhat to cut down, and who
lays the foundation that in the fulness of time He may crown the edifice.
Besides, if we are to deal with symbols and types of things to come, we
must judge of them not by our own opinions but in the light of the
apostle's explanations. Hagar and Sarah, or Sinai and Zion, are typical of
the two testaments.(8) Leah who was tender-eyed and Rachel whom Jacob
loved(9) signify the synagogue and the church. So likewise do Hannah and
Peninnah of whom the former, at first barren, afterwards exceeded the
latter in fruitfulness. In Isaac and Rebekah we see an early example of
monogamy: it was only to Rebekah that the Lord revealed Himself in the hour
of childbirth and she alone went of herself to enquire of the Lord.(10)
What shall I say of Tamar who bore twin sons, Pharez and Zarah?(11) At
their birth was broken down that middle wall of partition which typified
the division existing between the two peoples;(12) while the binding of
Zarah's hand with the scarlet thread even then marked the conscience of the
Jews with the stain of Christ's blood. And how shall I speak of the whore
married by the prophet(13) who is a figure either of the church as gathered
in from the Gentiles or--an interpretation which better suits the passage--
of the synagogue? First adopted from among the idolaters by Abraham and
Moses, this has now denied the Saviour and proved unfaithful to Him.
Therefore it has long been deprived of its altar, priests, and prophets and
has to abide many days for its first husband.(14) For when the fulness of
the Gentiles shall have come in, all Israel shall be saved.(1)

   14. I have tried to compress a great deal into a limited space as a
draughtsman does when he delineates a large country in a small map. For I
wish to deal with other questions, the first of which I shall give in
Anna's words to her sister Dido:

   Why waste your youth alone in ceaseless grief
   Unblest with offspring, sweetest gift of love?
   Think you the buried dead require this?

To whom the sufferer thus briefly replies:

   'Twas you, my sister, you, who were the first
   To plunge my frenzied soul into this woe.
   Why could I not have lived a virgin life
   Like some wild creature innocent of care?
   Alas ! I pledged my soul unto the dead:
   I vowed a vow and I have broken it.(2)

   You set before me the joys of wedlock. I for my part will remind you of
Dido's sword and pyre and funeral flames. In marriage there is not so much
good to be hoped for as there is evil which may happen and must be feared.
Passion when indulged always brings repentance with it; it is never
satisfied, and once quenched it is soon kindled anew. Its growth or decay
is a matter of habit; led like a captive by impulse it refuses to obey
reason. But you will argue, 'the management of wealth and property requires
the superintendence of a husband.' Do you mean to say that the affairs of
those who live single are ruined; and that, unless you make yourself as
much a slave as your own servants, you will not be able to govern your
household? Do not your grandmother, your mother and your aunt enjoy even
more than their old influence and respect, looked up to as they are by the
whole province and by the leaders of the churches? Do not soldiers and
travellers manage their domestic affairs and give entertainments to one
another with no wives to help them?(3) Why can you not have grave and
elderly servants or freed-men, such as those who have nursed you in your
childhood, to preside over your house, to answer public calls, to pay
taxes; men who will look up to you as a patroness, who will love you as a
nursling, who will revere you as a saint? "Seek first the kingdom of God,
and all these things shall be added unto you."(4) If you are careful for
raiment the gospel bids you "consider the lilies;" and, if for food, to go
back to the fowls which "sow not neither do they reap; yet your heavenly
father feedeth them."(5) How many virgins and widows there are who have
looked after their property for themselves without thereby incurring any
stain of scandal!

   15. Do not associate with young women or cleave to them, for it is on
account of such that the apostle makes his concession of second marriage,
and so you may be shipwrecked in what appears to be calm water. If Paul can
say to Timothy, "the younger widows refuse,"(1) and again "love the eider
women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity,"(2) what plea
can you urge for refusing to hear my admonitions? Avoid all persons to whom
a suspicion of evil living may attach itself, and do not content yourself
with the trite answer. 'my own conscience is enough for me; I do not care
what people say of me.' That was not the principle on which the apostle
acted. He provided things honest not only in the sight of God but in the
sight of all men;(3) that the name of God might not be blasphemed among the
Gentiles.(4) Though he had power to lead about a sister, a wife,(5) he
would not do so, for he did not wish to be judged by an unbeliever's
conscience.(6) And, though he might have lived by the gospel,(7) he
laboured day and night with his own hands, that he might not be burdensome
to the believers.(8) "If meat," he says, "make my brother to offend. I will
eat no flesh while the world standeth."(9) Let us then say, if a sister or
a brother causes not one or two but the whole church to offend, 'I will not
see that sister or that brother.' It is better to lose a portion of one's
substance than to imperil the salvation of one's soul. It is better to lose
that which some day, whether we like it or not, must be lost to us and to
give it up freely, than to lose that for which we should sacrifice all that
we have. Which of us can add--I will not say a cubit for that would be an
immense addition--but the tenth part of a single inch to his stature? Why
are we careful what we shall eat or what we shall drink? Let us "take no
thought for the morrow: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."(10)

   Jacob in his flight from his brother left behind in his father's house
great riches and made his way with nothing into Mesopotamia. Moreover, to
prove to us his powers of endurance, he took a stone for his pillow. Yet as
he lay there he beheld ladder set up on the earth reaching to heaven and
behold the Lord stood above it, and the angels ascended and descended on
it;(11) the lesson being thus taught that the sinner must not despair of
salvation nor the righteous man rest secure in his virtue.(12) To pass over
much of the story (for there is no time to explain all the points in the
narrative) after twenty years he who before had passed over Jordan with his
staff returned into his native land with three droves of cattle, rich in
flocks and herds and richer still in children.(1) The apostles likewise
travelled throughout the world without either money in their purses, or
staves in their hands, or shoes on their feet;(2) and yet they could speak
of themselves as "having nothing and yet possessing all things."(3) "Silver
and gold," say they, "have we none, but such as we have give we thee: in
the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk."(4) For they were
not weighed down with the burthen of riches. Therefore they could stand, as
Elijah, in the crevice of the rock, they could pass through the needle's
eye, and behold the back parts of the Lord.(5)

   But as for us we burn with covetousness and, even while we declaim
against the love of money, we hold out our skirts to catch gold and never
have enough.(5) There is a common saying about the Megarians which may
rightly be applied to all who suffer from this passion: "They build as if
they are to live forever; they live as if they are to die to-morrow." We do
the same, for we do not believe the Lord's words. When we attain the age
which all desire we forget the nearness of that death which as human beings
we owe to nature and with futile hope promise to ourselves a long length of
years. No old man is so weak and decrepit as to suppose that he will not
live for one year more. A forgetfulness of his true condition gradually
creeps upon him; so that--earthly creature that he is and close to
dissolution as he stands--he is lifted up into pride, and in imagination
seats himself in heaven.

   16. But what am I doing? Whilst I talk about the cargo, the vessel
itself founders. He that letteth(7) is taken out of the way, and yet we do
not realize that Antichrist is near. Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord
Jesus Christ "shall consume with the spirit of his mouth."(8) "Woe unto
them," he cries, "that are with child, and to them that give suck in those
days."(9) Now these things are both the fruits of marriage.

   I shall now say a few words of our present miseries. A few of us have
hitherto survived them, but this is due not to anything we have done
ourselves but to the mercy of the Lord. Savage tribes in countless numbers
have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the
Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of
Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians,
Allemanni and--alas! for the commonweal!--even Pannonians. For "Assur also
is joined with them."(1) The once noble city of Moguntiacum(2) has been
captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred.
The people of Vangium(3) after standing a long siege have been extirpated.
The powerful city of Rheims, the Ambiani, the Altrebatae,(4) the Belgians
on the skirts of the world, Tournay, Spires, and Strasburg have fallen to
Germany: while the provinces of Aquitaine and of the Nine Nations, of Lyons
and of Narbonne are with the exception of a few cities one universal scene
of desolation. And those which the sword spares without, famine ravages
within. I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse which has been kept from
failing hitherto by the merits of its reverend bishop Exuperius.(5) Even
the Spains are on the brink of ruin and tremble daily as they recall the
invasion of the Cymry; and, while others suffer misfortunes once in actual
fact, they suffer them continually in anticipation.

   17. I say nothing of other places that I may not seem to despair of
God's mercy. All that is ours now from the Pontic Sea to the Julian Alps in
days gone by once ceased to be ours. For thirty years the barbarians burst
the barrier of the Danube and fought in the heart of the Roman Empire. Long
use dried our tears. For all but a few old people had been born either in
captivity or during a blockade, and consequently they did not miss a
liberty which they had never known. Yet who will hereafter credit the fact
or what histories will seriously discuss it, that Rome has to fight within
her own borders not for glory but for bare life; and that she does not even
fight but buys the right to exist by giving gold and sacrificing all her
substance? This humiliation has been brought upon her not by the fault of
her Emperors(6) who are both most religious men, but by the crime of a
half-barbarian traitor(7) who with our money has armed our foes against
us.(8) Of old the Roman Empire was branded with eternal shame because after
ravaging the country and routing the Romans at the Allia, Brennus with his
Gauls entered, Rome itself.(9) Nor could this ancient stain be wiped out
until Gaul, the birth- place of the Gauls, and Gaulish Greece,(1) wherein
they had settled after triumphing over East and West, were subjugated to
her sway. Even Hannibal(2) who swept like a devastating storm from Spain
into Italy, although he came within sight of the city, did not dare to lay
siege to it. Even Pyrrhus(3) was so completely bound by the spell of the
Roman name that destroying everything that came in his way, he yet withdrew
from its vicinity and, victor though he was, did not presume to gaze upon
what he had learned to be a city of kings. Yet in return for such insults--
not to say such haughty pride--as theirs which ended thus happily for Rome,
one(4) banished from all the world found death at last by poison in
Bithynia; while the other(5) returning to his native land was slain in his
own dominions. The countries of both became tributary to the Roman people.
But now, even if complete success attends our arms, we can wrest nothing
from our vanquished foes but what we have already lost to them. The poet
Lucan describing the power of the city in a glowing passage says:(6)

   If Rome be weak, where shall we look for strength?

we may vary his words and say:

   If Rome be lost, where shall we look for help?

or quote the language of Virgil:

   Had I a hundred tongues and throat of bronze
   The woes of captives I could not relate
   Or ev'n recount the names of all the slain.(7)

Even what I have said is fraught with danger both to me who say it and to
all who hear it; for we are no longer free even to lament our fate. and are
unwilling, nay, I may even say, afraid to weep for our sufferings.

   Dearest daughter in Christ, answer me this question: will you marry
amid such scenes as these? Tell me, what kind of husband will you take? One
that will run or one that will fight? In either case you know what the
result will be. Instead of the Fescennine song,(8) the hoarse blare of the
terrible trumpet will deafen your ears and your very brides-women may be
turned into mourners. In what pleasures can you hope to revel now that you
have lost the proceeds of all your possessions, now that you see your small
retinue under close blockade and a prey to the inroads of pestilence and
famine? But far be it from me to think so meanly of you or to harbour any
suspicions of one who has dedicated her soul to the Lord. Though nominally
addressed to you my words are really meant for others such as are idle,
inquisitive and given to gossip. These wander from house to house and from
one married lady to another,(1) their god is their belly and their glory is
in their shame,(2) of the scriptures they know nothing except the texts
which favour second marriages, but they love to quote the example of others
to justify their own self-indulgence, and flatter themselves that they are
no worse than their fellow-sinners. When you have confounded the shameless
proposals of such women by explaining the true drift of the apostle's
meaning; then to show you by what mode of life you can best preserve your
widowhood, you may read with advantage what I have written. I mean my
treatise on the preservation of virginity addressed to Eustochium(3) and my
two letters to Furia(4) and Salvina.(5) Of these two latter you may like to
know that the first is daughter-in-law to Probus some time consul, and the
second daughter to Gildo formerly governour of Africa. This tract on
monogamy I shall call by your name.

LETTER CXXIV: TO AVITUS.

Avitus to whom this letter is addressed is probably the same person who
induced Jerome to write to Salvina (see Letter LXXIX.,(?) 1, ante). The
occasion of writing is as follows. Ten years previously (that is to say in
A.D. 399 or 400) Pammachius had asked Jerome to supply him with a correct
version of Origen's First Principles to enable him to detect the variations
introduced by Rufinus into his rendering. This Jerome willingly did (see
Letters LXXXIII. and LXXXIV.) but when the work in its integrity was
perused by Pammachius he thought it so erroneous in doctrine that he
determined not to circulate it. However, "a certain brother" induced him to
lend the MS. to him for a short time; and then, when he had got it into his
hands, had a hasty and incorrect transcript made, which he forthwith
published much to the chagrin of Pammachius. Falling into the hands of
Avitus a copy of this much perplexed him and he seems to have appealed to
Jerome for an explanation. This the latter now gives forwarding at the same
time an authentic edition of his version of the First Principles. The date
of the letter is A.D. 409 or 410.

   1. About ten years ago that saintly man Pammachius sent me a copy of a
certain person's rendering,(6) or rather misrendering, of Origen's First
Principles; with a request that in a Latin version I should give the true
sense of the Greek and should set down the writer's words for good or for
evil without bias in either direction.(7) When I did as he wished and sent
him the book,(8) he was shocked to read it and locked it up in his desk
lest being circulated it might wound the souls of many. However, a certain
brother, who had "a zeal for God but not according to knowledge,"(1) asked
for a loan of the manuscript that he might read it; and, as he promised to
return it without delay, Pammachius, thinking no harm could happen in so
short a time, unsuspectingly consented. Hereupon he who had borrowed the
book to read, with the aid of scribes copied the whole of it and gave it
back much sooner than he had promised. Then with the same rashness or--to
use a less severe term--thoughtlessness he made bad worse by confiding to
others what he had thus stolen. Moreover, since a bulky treatise on an
abstruse subject is difficult to reproduce with accuracy, especially if it
has to be taken down surreptitiously and in a hurry, order and sense were
sacrificed in several passages. Whence it comes, my dear Avitus, that you
ask me to send you a copy of my version as made for Pammachius and not for
the public, a garbled edition of which has. been published by the aforesaid
brother.

   2. Take then what you have asked for; but know that there are countless
things in the book to be abhorred, and that, as the Lord says, you will
have to walk among scorpions and serpents.(2) It begins by saying that
Christ was made God's son not born;(3) that God the Father, as He is by
nature invisible, is invisible even to the Son;(4) that the Son, who is the
likeness of the invisible Father, compared with the Father is not the truth
but compared with us who cannot receive the truth of the almighty Father
seems a figure of the truth so that we perceive the majesty and magnitude
of tire greater in the less, the Father's glory limited in the Son;(5) that
God the Father is a light incomprehensible and that Christ compared with
him is but a minute brightness, although by reason of our incapacity to us
he appears a great one.(6) The Father and the Son are compared to two
statues, a larger one and a small; the first filling the world and being
somehow invisible through its size, the second cognisable by the eyes of
men.(7) God the Father omnipotent the writer terms good and of perfect
goodness; but of the Son he says: "He is not good but an emanation and
likeness of goodness; not good absolutely but only with a qualification, as
'the good shepherd' and the like."(8) The Holy Spirit he places after the
Father and the Son as third in dignity and honour. And while he declares
that he does not know whether the Holy Spirit is created or uncreated,(1)
he has later on given his own opinion that except God the Father alone
there is nothing uncreated. "The Son," he states, "is inferior to the
Father, inasmuch as He is second and the Father first; and the Holy Spirit
which dwells in all the saints is inferior to the Son. In the same way the
power of the Father is greater than that of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Likewise the power of the Son is greater than that of the Holy Spirit, and
as a consequence the Holy Spirit in its turn has greater virtue than other
things called holy."(2)

   3. Then, when he comes to deal with rational creatures and to describe
their lapse into earthly bodies as due to their own negligence, he goes on
to say: "Surely it argues great negligence and sloth for a soul so far to
empty itself as to fall into sin and allow itself to be tied to the
material body of an unreasoning brute;" and in a subsequent passage: "These
reasonings induce me to suppose that it is by their own free act that some
are numbered with God's saints and servants, and that it was through their
own fault that others fell from holiness into such negligence that they
were changed into forces of an opposite kind."(3) He maintains that after
every end a fresh beginning springs forth and an end from each beginning,
and that wholesale variation is possible; so that one who is now a human
being may in another world become a demon, while one who by reason of his
negligence is now a demon may hereafter be placed in a more material body
and thus become a human being.(4) So far does he carry this transforming
process that on his theory an archangel may become the devil and the devil
in turn be changed back into an archangel. "Such as have wavered or
faltered but have not altogether fallen shall be made subject, for rule and
government and guidance, to better things--to principalities and powers, to
thrones and dominations; and of these perhaps another human race will be
formed, when in the words of Isaiah there shall be 'new heavens and a new
earth.'(5) But such as have not deserved to return through humanity to
their former estate shall become the devil and his angels, demons of the
worst sort; and according to what they have done shall have special duties
assigned to them in particular worlds." Moreover, the very demons and
rulers of darkness in any world or worlds, if they are willing to turn to
better things, may become human beings and so come back to their first
beginning. That is to say, after they have borne the discipline of
punishment and torture for a longer or a shorter time in human bodies, they
may again reach the angelic pinnacles from which they have fallen. Hence it
may be shewn that we men may change into any other reasonable beings, and
that not once only or on emergency but time after time; we and angels shall
become demons if we neglect our duty; and demons, if they will take to
themselves virtues, may attain to the rank of angels.

   4. Bodily substances too are to pass away utterly or else at the end of
all things will become highly rarified like the sky and rather and other
subtle bodies. It is clear that these principles must affect the writer's
view of the resurrection. The sun also and the moon and the rest of the
constellations are alive. Nay more; as we men by reason of our sins are
enveloped in bodies material and sluggish; so the lights of heaven have for
like reasons received bodies more or less luminous, and demons have been
for more serious faults clothed with starry frames. This, he argues, is the
view of the apostle who writes:--"the creation has been subjected to vanity
and shall be delivered for the revealing of the sons of God."(1) That it
may not be supposed that I am imputing to him ideas of my own I shall give
his actual words. "At the end and consummation of the world," he writes,
"when souls and beings endowed with reason shall be released from prison by
the Lord, they will move slowly or fly quickly according as they have
previously been slothful or energetic. And as all of them have free will
and are free to choose virtue or vice, those who choose the latter will be
much worse off than they now are. But those who choose the former will
improve their condition. Their movements and decisions in this direction or
in that will determine their various futures; whether, that is, angels are
to become men or demons, and whether demons are to become men or angels."
Then after adducing various arguments in support of his thesis and
maintaining that while not incapable of virtue the devil has yet not chosen
to be virtuous, he has Finally reasoned with much diffuseness that an
angel, a human soul, and a demon--all according to him of one nature but of
different wills--may in punishment for great negligence or folly be
transformed into brutes. Moreover, to avoid the agony of punishment and the
burning flame the more sensitive may choose to become low organisms, to
dwell in water, to assume the shape of this or that animal; so that we have
reason to fear a metamorphosis not only into four-footed things but even
into fishes. Then, lest he should be held guilty of maintaining with
Pythagoras the transmigration of souls, he winds up the wicked reasoning
with which he has wounded his reader by saying: "I must not be taken to
make dogmas of these things; they are only thrown out as conjectures to
shew that they are not altogether overlooked."

   5. In his second book he maintains a plurality of worlds; not, however,
as Epicurus taught, many like ones existing at once, but a new one
beginning each time that the old comes to an end. There was a world before
this world of ours, and after it there will be first one and then another
and so on in regular succession. He is in doubt whether one world shall be
so completely similar to another as to leave no room for any difference
between them, or whether one world shall never wholly be indistinguishable
from another. And again a little farther on he writes: "if, as the course
of the discussion makes necessary, all things can live without body, all
bodily existence shall be swallowed up and that which once has been made
out of nothing shall again be reduced to nothing. And yet a time will come
when its use will be once more necessary." And in the same context: "but
if, as reason and the authority of scripture shew, this corruptible shall
put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality, death shall
be swallowed up in victory and corruption in incorruption.(1) And it may be
that all bodily existence shall be removed, for it is only in this that
death can operate." And a little farther on: "if these things are not
contrary to the faith, it may be that we shall some day live in a
disembodied state. Moreover, if only he is fully subject to Christ who is
disembodied, and if all must be made subject to Him, we too shall lose our
bodies when we become fully subject to Him." And in the same passage: "if
all are to be made subject to God, all shall lay aside their bodies; and
then all bodily existence shall be brought to Bought. But if through the
fall of reasonable beings it is a second time required it will reappear.
For God has left souls to strive and struggle, to teach them that full and
complete victory is to be attained not by their own efforts but by His
grace. And so to my mind worlds vary with the sins which cause them, and
those are exploded theories which maintain that all worlds are alike." And
again: "three conjectures occur to me with regard to the end; it is for the
reader to determine which is nearest to the truth. For either we shall be
bodiless when being made subject to Christ we shall be made subject to God
and He shall be all in all; or as things made subject to Christ shall be
with Christ Himself made subject to God and brought under one law, so all
substance shall be refined into its most perfect form and rarified into
aether which is a pure and uncompounded essence; or else the sphere which I
have called motionless and all that it contains will be dissolved into
nothing, and the sphere in which the antizone(1) itself is contained shall
be called 'good ground,'(2) and that other sphere which in its revolution
surrounds the earth and goes by the name of heaven shall be reserved for
the abode of the saints."

   6. In speaking thus does he not most clearly follow the error of the
heathen and foist upon the simple faith of Christians the ravings of
philosophy? In the same book he writes: "it remains that God is invisible.
But if He is by nature invisible, He must be so even to the Saviour." And
lower down: "no soul which has descended into a human body has borne upon
it so true an impress of its previous character as Christ's soul of which
He says: 'no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.'"(3) And
in another place: "we must carefully consider whether souls, when they have
won salvation and have attained to the blessed life, may not cease to be
souls. For as the Lord and Saviour came to seek and to save that which was
lost(4) that it might cease to be lost; so the lost soul which the Lord
came to save, when saved, will cease to be a soul. We must ask ourselves
whether, as the lost was not lost once and again will not be, the soul
likewise may have been and again may be not a soul."(5) And after a good
many remarks upon the soul he brings in the following, "nou^s or"
intelligence by falling becomes a soul; and by acquiring virtue this will
become intelligence again. This at least is a fair inference from the case
of Esau who for his old sins is condemned to lead a lower life. And
concerning the heavenly bodies we must make a similar acknowledgment. The
soul of the sun--or whatever else you like to call it--does not date its
existence from the creation of the world; it already existed before it
entered its shining and glowing body. So also with the moon and stars. From
antecedent causes they have been made subject to vanity not willingly but
for future reward,(6) and are forced to do not their own will but the
creator's who has assigned to them their several spheres."

7. Hellfire, moreover, and the torments with which holy scripture threatens
sinners he explains not as external punishments but as the pangs of guilty
consciences when by God's power the memory of our transgressions is set
before our eyes. "The whole crop of our sins grows up afresh from seeds
which remain in the soul, and all our dishonourable and undutiful acts are
again pictured before our gaze. Thus it is the fire of conscience and the
stings of remorse which torture the mind as it looks back on former self-
indulgence." And again: "but perhaps this coarse and earthly body ought to
be described as mist and darkness; for at the end of this world and when it
becomes necessary to pass into another, the like darkness will lead to the
like physical birth." In speaking thus he clearly pleads for the
transmigration of souls as taught by Pythagoras and Plato.(1) And at the
end of the second book in dealing with our perfection he has said: "when we
shall have made such progress as not only to cease to be flesh or body but
perhaps also to cease to be souls our perfect intelligence and perception,
undimmed with any mist of passion, will discern reasonable and intelligible
substances face to face.

   8. In the third book the following faulty statements are contained. "If
we once admit that, when one vessel is made to honour and another to
dishonour,(2) this is due to antecedent causes; why may we not revert to
the mystery of the soul and allow that it is loved in one and hated in
another because of its past actions, before in Jacob it becomes a
supplanter and before in Esau it is supplanted?"(3) And again: "the fact
that souls are made some to honour and some to dishonour is to be explained
by their previous history." And in the same place: "on this hypothesis of
mine a vessel made to honour which fails to fulfil its object will in
another world become a vessel made to dishonour; and contrariwise a vessel
which has from a previous fault been condemned to dishonour will, if it
accepts correction in this present life, become in the new creation a
vessel 'sanctified and meet for the Master's use and prepared unto every
good work."(4) And he immediately goes on to say: "I believe that men who
begin with small faults may become so hardened in wickedness that, if they
do not repent and turn to better things, they must become inhuman
energies;(5) and contrariwise that hostile and demonic beings may in course
of time so far heal their wounds and cheek the current of their former sins
that they may attain to the abode of the perfect. As I have often said, in
those countless and unceasing worlds in which the soul lives and has its
being some grow worse and worse until they reach the lowest depths of
degradation; while others in those lowest depths grow better and better
until they reach the perfection of virtue." Thus he tries to shew that men,
or rather their souls, may become demons; and that demons in turn may be
restored to the rank of angels. In the same book he writes: "this too must
be considered; why the human soul is diversely acted upon now by influences
of one kind and now by influences of another." And he surmises that this is
due to conduct which has preceded birth. It is for this, he argues, that
John leaps in his mother's womb when at Mary's salutation Elizabeth
declares herself unworthy of her notice.(1) And he immediately subjoins:
"on the other hand infants that are hardly weaned are possessed with evil
spirits and become diviners and soothsayers;(2) indeed, some are indwelt
from their earliest years with the spirit of a python. Now as they have
done nothing to bring upon themselves these visitations, one who holds that
nothing happens without God's permission, and that all things are governed
by His justice, cannot suppose that God's providence has abandoned them
without good reason.

   9. Again, of the world he writes thus: "The belief commends itself to
me that there was a world before this world and that after it there will be
another. Do you wish to know that after the decay of this world there will
be a new one? Hear the words of Isaiah: 'the new heavens and the new earth
which I will make shall remain before me.'(3) Do you wish to know that
before the making of this world there have previously been others? Listen
to the Preacher who says: 'the thing which hath been, it is that which
shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is
no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See,
this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.'(4) A
passage which proves not only that other worlds have been but that other
worlds shall be; not, however, simultaneously and side by side but one
after another." And he immediately adds: "I hold that heaven is the abode
of the deity, the true place of rest; and that it was there that reasonable
creatures enjoyed their ancient bliss, before coming down to a lower plane
and exchanging the invisible for the visible, they fell to the earth and
came to need material bodies. Now that they have fallen, God the creator
has made for them bodies suitable to their surroundings; and has fashioned
this visible world, and has sent into it ministers to ensure the salvation
and correction of the fallen. Of these ministers some have held assigned
positions and have been subject to the world's necessary laws; while others
have intelligently performed duties laid upon them in times and seasons
determined by God's plan. To the former class belong the sun, moon, and
stars called by the apostle 'the creation;' and these have had allotted to
them the heights of heaven. Now the creation is subjected to vanity(1)
because it is encased in material bodies and visible to the eye. And yet it
is 'made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath
subjected the same in hope.' Others again of the second class, at
particular places and times known to their Maker only, we believe to be His
angels sent to steer the world." A little farther on he says: "the affairs
of the world are so ordered by Providence that while some angels fall from
heaven others freely glide down to earth. The former are hurled down
against their will; the latter descend from choice alone. The former are
forced to continue in a distasteful service for a fixed period; the latter
spontaneously embrace the task of lending a hand to those who fall." Again
he writes: "whence it follows that these different movements result in the
creation of different worlds; and that this world of ours will be succeeded
by one quite unlike it. Now, as regards this falling and rising, this
rewarding of virtue and punishment of vice, whether they take place in the
past, present, or future, God, the creator, can alone apportion desert and
make all things converge to one end. For He only knows why He allows some
to follow their own inclination and to descend from the higher planes to
the lowest; and why He visits others and giving them His hand draws them
back to their former state and places them once more in heaven."

   10. In discussing the end of the world he has made use of the following
language. "Since, as I have often said, a new beginning springs from the
end, it may be asked whether bodies will then continue to exist, or
whether, when they have been annihilated, we shall live without bodies and
be incorporeal as we know God to be. Now there can be no doubt but that, if
bodies or, as the apostle calls them, visible things, belong only to our
sensible world, the life of the disembodied will be incorporeal." And a
little farther on: "when the apostle writes, 'the creation shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of
the children of God,'(2) I explain his words thus. Reasonable and
incorporeal beings are the highest of God's creatures, for not being
clothed with bodies they are not the slaves of corruption. Since where
there are bodies, there corruption is sure to be found. But hereafter 'the
creation shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption,' and then men
shall receive the glory of the children of God and God shah be all in all."
And in the same passage he writes: "that the final state will be an
incorporeal one is rendered credible by the words of our Saviour's prayer:
'as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in
us.'(1) For we ought to realize what God is and what the Saviour will
finally be, and how the likeness to the Father and the Son here promised to
the Saints consists in this that as They are one in Themselves so we shall
be one in Them. For if in the end the life of the Saints is to be
assimilated to the life of God, we must either admit that the Lord of the
universe is clothed with a body and that he is enveloped in matter as we
are in flesh; or, if it is unbecoming to suppose this, especially in
persons who have but small clues from which to infer God's majesty and to
guess at the glory of His innate and transcendent nature, we are reduced to
the following dilemma. Either we shall always have bodies and in that case
must despair of ever being like God; or, if the blessedness of the life of
God is really promised to us, the conditions of His life must be the
conditions of ours."

   11. These passages prove what his view is regarding the resurrection.
For he evidently maintains that all bodies will perish and that we shall be
incorporeal as according to him we were before we received our present
bodies. Again when he comes to argue for a variety of worlds and to
maintain that angels will become demons, demons either angels or men, and
men in their turn demons; in a word that everything will be turned into
something else, he thus sums up his own opinion: "no doubt, after an
interval matter will exist afresh and bodies will be formed and a different
world will be created to meet the varying wills of reasonable beings who,
having forfeited the perfect bliss which continues to the end, have
gradually fallen into so great wickedness as to change their nature and
refuse to keep their first estate of unalloyed blessedness. Many reasonable
beings, it is right to say, keep it until a second, a third, and a fourth
world, and give God no ground for changing their condition. Others
deteriorate so little that they seem to have lost hardly anything, and
others again have to be hurled headlong into the abyss. God who orders all
things alone knows how to use each class according to its deserts in a
suitable sphere; for He only understands opportunities and motives and the
course in which the world must be steered. Thus one who has borne away the
palm for wickedness and has sunk into the lowest degradation will in the
world which is hereafter to be fashioned be made a devil, a kind of first
fruits of the Lord's handiwork, to be a laughing stock to the angels who
have lost their first virtue." What is this but to argue that the sinful
men of this world may become a devil and demons in another; and
contrariwise that those who are now demons may hereafter become either men
or angels? And after a lengthy discussion in which he maintains that all
corporeal creatures must exchange their material for subtle and spiritual
bodies and that all substance must become one pure and inconceivably bright
body, of which the human mind can at present form no conception, he winds
up thus:--"'God shall be all in all;' that is to say, all bodily existence
shall be made as perfect as possible; it shall be brought into the divine
essence, than which there is none better."

   12. In the fourth and last book of his work the following passages
deserve the church's condemnation. "It may be that as, when men die in this
world by the separation of soul and body, they are allotted different
positions in hell according to the difference in their works; so when
angels die, out of the system of the heavenly Jerusalem, they come down to
this world as a hell and are placed on earth according to their deserts."
And again: "as we have compared the souls which pass from this world to
hell with those which as they come from heaven to us are in a manner dead;
so we must carefully inquire whether this is true of all souls without
exception. For in that case souls born on earth when they desire better
things rise out of hell and assume human bodies or when they desire worse
things come down to us from better worlds; and in the firmament above us
likewise there are souls on their way from our world to higher ones, and
others who, while they have fallen from heaven, have not sinned so
grievously as to be thrust down to earth." He thus tries to prove that the
firmament, that is the sky, is hell compared with heaven; and that this
earth is hell compared with the firmament; and again that our world is
heaven to hell. Or in other words what is hell to some is heaven to others.
And not content with saying this he goes on: "at the end of all things when
we shall return to the heavenly Jerusalem the hostile powers shall declare
war(1) against the people of God to breathe and exercise their valour and
strengthen their resolve. For this they cannot have until they have faced
and foiled their foes; of whom we read in the book of Numbers(1) that they
are overcome by reason, discipline, and tactical skill."

   13. After saying that according to the apocalypse of John "the
everlasting gospel" which shall be revealed in heaven(2) as much surpasses
our gospel as Christ's preaching does the sacraments(3) of the ancient law,
he has asserted what it is sacrilegious even to think; that Christ will
once more suffer in the sky for the salvation of demons. And although he
has not expressly said it, it is yet implied in his words that as for men
God became man to set men free, so for the salvation of demons when He
comes to deliver them He will become a demon. To shew that this is no gloss
of mine, I must give his own words: "As Christ," he writes, "has fulfilled
the shadow of the law by the shadow of the gospel, and as all law is a
pattern and shadow of things done in heaven, we must inquire whether we are
justified in supposing that even the heavenly law and the rites of the
celestial worship are still incomplete and need the true gospel which in
the apocalypse of John is called everlasting to distinguish it from ours
which is only temporal, set forth in a world that shall pass away. Now if
we extend our inquiry to the passion of our Lord and Saviour, it may indeed
be overbold to suppose that He will suffer in heaven; yet if there is
spiritual wickedness in heavenly places(4) and if we confess without a
blush that the Lord has once been crucified to destroy those thing's which
He has destroyed by His passion; why need we fear to imagine a like
occurrence in the upper world m the fulness of time, so that the nations of
all realms shall be saved by a passion of Christ?"

   14. Here is another blasphemy which he has spoken of the Son. "Assuming
that the Son knows the Father, it would seem that by this knowledge He can
comprehend Him as much as a craftsman can comprehend the rules of his art.
And, doubtless, if the Father is in the Son, He is also comprehended by Him
in whom He is. But if we mean by comprehension not merely that the knower
takes a thing in by perception and insight but that he contains it within
himself by virtue of a special faculty; in this sense we cannot say that
the Son comprehends the Father. For the Father comprehends all things, and
of these the Son is one; therefore, He comprehends the Son." And to shew us
reasons why, while the Father comprehends the Son, the Son cannot
comprehend the Father, he adds: "the curious reader may inquire whether the
Father knows Himself in the same way that the Son knows Him. But if he
recalls the words: 'the Father who sent me is greater than I,'(1) he will
allow that they must be universally true and will admit that, in knowledge
as in everything else, the Father is greater than the Son, and knows
Himself more perfectly and immediately than the Son can do."

   15. The following passage is a convincing proof that he holds the
transmigration of souls and annihilation of bodies. "If it can be shewn
that an incorporeal and reasonable being has life in itself independently
of the body and that it is worse off in the body than out of it; then
beyond a doubt bodies are only of secondary importance and arise from time
to time to meet the varying conditions of reasonable creatures. Those who
require bodies are clothed with them, and contrariwise, when fallen souls
have lifted themselves up to better things, their bodies are once more
annihilated. They are thus ever vanishing and ever reappearing." And to
prevent us from minimizing the impiety of his previous utterances he ends
his work by maintaining that all reasonable beings, that is, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, angels, powers, dominations, and virtues, and
even man by right of his soul's dignity, are of one and the same essence.
"God," he writes, "and His only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit are
conscious of an intellectual and reasonable nature. But so also are the
angels, the powers, and the virtues, as well as the inward man who is
created in the image and after the likeness of God.(2) From which I
conclude that God and they are in some sort of one essence." He adds "in
some sort" to escape the charge of blasphemy; and while in another place he
will not allow the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of one substance with the
Father lest by so doing he should appear to make the divine essence
divisible, he here bestows the nature of God almighty upon angels and men.

   16. This being the nature of Origen's book. is it anything short of
madness to change a few blasphemous passages regarding the Son and the Holy
Spirit and then to publish the rest unchanged with an unprincipled eulogy
when the parts unaltered as well as the parts altered flow from the same
fountain head of gross impiety? This is not the time to confute all the
statements made in detail; and indeed those who have written against Arius,
Eunomius, Manichaeus, and various other heretics must be supposed to have
answered these blasphemies as well. If anyone, therefore, wishes to read
the work let him walk with his feet shod towards the land of promise; let
him guard against the jaws of the serpent and the crooked jaws of the
scorpion; let him read this treatise first and before he enters upon the
path let him know the dangers which he wilt have to avoid.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF II/VI, Schaff and Wace). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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