To a Devoted Virgin

Chapter one.—Hear, O daughter, and see: incline your ear, and forget your people, and your father's house; for the King has desired your beauty; for he himself is the Lord your God, and they shall worship him. You have vowed yourself to be his bride, you are called devoted to God. What have you to do with worldly men, or what dealings do you have with them? What do you wish to know with them? The perdition which they themselves follow? If you seek chastity, they do not have it: if you seek faith, who among them is faithful, whom you would accompany? But if you seek Christ, he does not abide in them. I know not what you seek, what friendships or what conversations you have with them. You have vowed your soul to destroy all things that are of this world: how then do you seek the world, to which you renounced?

Do you wish to return to your vomit like a dog, or like a sow washed again in the mire, as it is written (I Peter II, 22), the Apostle saying: If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor of the law. Again he himself repeats, saying: Whatsoever is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes; which is not of God, but is of this world. Likewise elsewhere he says: If anyone will be a friend of this world, he shall be made an enemy of God. What do you say, one devoted to God? Do you wish to please men? What do you desire, or what do you seek? If you seek God, he is with you; but if you seek man, this you have not vowed. What are men? Men of this world: And the world passes away, and its concupiscence: but he who does the things that are written abides forever. What you desire, I know not.

If gold, silver, if life, if splendid clothing; this did not please you with God, this God does not admire, but a contrite and humbled heart. Why do you seek men of this world, whom the holy apostle Paul judges, saying: Whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things: but our conversation is in heaven? If therefore we have our conversation in heaven, we ought to seek the things that are above, where Christ is, not the things that are upon the earth. I ask, sister, who are these men of this world? You do not follow your spiritual brothers, and you follow carnal ones: who, if they are not satisfied, will murmur. You have cast your pearls before swine, who trample them under their feet, and turning, tear you to pieces. Have you not heard: Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers? Who are these? Men of this world, who do not follow the footsteps of Christ. I ask you, what do they show you; tell me.

Chastity, which they do not have? What? Faith, which they do not find? Doctrine, which they do not follow, except the diabolical wisdom of this world? Fasting, which they hate? Abstinence, which they condemn? Humility, which they oppress? Sobriety, which they neglect? Sincere mind, which they do not have, except a double one? Modesty, which they cast from themselves? I know not, however, what you wish to pursue with them.

—But what do you say? I, however, convert them to myself. But if they are converted to you, it does not profit you. What does a wolf seek with a lamb? Or what does a dog seek, but bread? Why does the lion roar (Isaiah xxxi, 4), but for prey? Keep yourself chaste, if you can. What do you wish to teach, which you yourself do not do? As the Apostle says: Believe not every spirit; but test the spirits, if they are of God. But if you accept doctrine from them, they will teach you what they do, or what they follow: concupiscence, fornication, lust, avarice, fraud, uncleanness, shamelessness, luxury, drunkenness, wickedness, foul speech, foolishness, sorceries, murders, wrath, strife, and all malice. What do you say, wretched one, or what do you excuse? You have vowed your soul, that you would withdraw from these very men: but now what do you seek?

I ask, are you not ashamed, when they make up stories about you among themselves, saying: Behold, one devoted to God, who follows us; for she has forsaken her way, and has wandered through the borders of her field, and has not found the way to her dwelling. Come, let us seize her beforehand, and let us lead her into our way. You have fallen, wretched one, into the broad and spacious way, which leads to death. What seems good to you is evil: you follow them out of your mind, and know not that you fall straight into the pit. Do you not remember that the way which leads to life is narrow and strait? What is good seems laborious to you: have you forgotten that it was said: That we must enter the kingdom of heaven through many tribulations? But now you wish to pursue your own will. Have you not read Solomon saying: Good things were created for the good from the beginning, likewise for the impious and sinners, good things and evil things?

Likewise he himself saying: The beginning of a man's life shall be judged spiritually. The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one. Where are you, one devoted to God? Being spiritual indeed, judging others, you yourself are judged. What do you seek with them? What part has the faithful with the unfaithful? Or what part has a holy man with the flesh? You can be a virgin in body, but not with a corrupted mind. Your eyes are blinded by excessive burning of lust, in which a beam lies hidden: your ears are full of every masculine filth: your feet indeed are swift, and are not slow to go out to the door. Where is holiness? Where is modesty? Where is sobriety? Where is gravity? Where is chastity? Where is modesty? Where is faith? Where is continence? Where is a pure mind? Where are all those things, for which you had pledged your faith, which you have lost?

For it would have been better for you not to have vowed and to act, than to vow, and not to act. You cannot serve two masters, either God, or mammon, as it is written. With the perverse you shall be overthrown. An old patch cannot be joined with a new one; for it takes away its strength, and the tear becomes worse. Birds flock together with their like; and truth returns to those who work it. Far be it that you should be called sister to me, who converse with such people. Either make the tree good, and its fruit good: or make the tree evil, and its fruit evil. Every tree is known by its fruit. And whoever, of whatever kind he may be, joins himself to one like himself. The dove, released from the hand of man, immediately returned to him in the ark: for the raven, released, followed the flesh; which you also wish to follow, so that you do not return to the door of Christ.

You have converse with the beasts of the field and with the birds of the sky: like the raven, you do not remember the Lord, who freed you from the flood: you do not seek your shady and good resting place, where you had temporary rest. The storm is not before your eyes, and you have forgotten the love of Christ, and you hold the love of the men of this world, who have no love in themselves, except a diabolical one: but they pursue other flesh, and do not cease until they die. Withdraw, wretched one, from those men; lest they eat your choice flesh, overturn your ankles, and you be left naked and stripped, as in a cucumber field. But now what will you do, since you are naked and stripped? You will go to your neighbors, whom you formerly hated, asking of them a covering for your shame: but they will refuse to give it, saying: Where is your splendid garment, which you formerly used to wear?

What do you say, and what do you answer to her whom the cold has bound? But they rejoice in your evils, which have come upon you. Then you will lament, saying: Woe is me, wretched one, to whom such things have come! What has that captivity profited me, which took me captive, wretched and unhappy? Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there: if I descend into hell, you are present. If I take my wings before the dawn, and dwell in the farthest part of the sea; even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me Then you will say: I will go and return to my former husband; for it was better with me then than now: who gave me my garments, and my oil in its season. But now what shall I do? Then you will return to your house with weeping, whence you had gone out rejoicing.

You will sit in the corner of your house mourning and grieved, weeping day and night, seeking one who will grieve together with you, and there will be none: and seeking comforters, and you will find none. And those whom you formerly hated will give you alms: and they will shake their heads over you, saying: Behold, she who was devoted to God, has now become like dung in the road, and like a city that is stormed. Where is her chastity? Where are all those things that followed her? For they have abandoned her; because chastity was their leader: she lost chastity, and all those things fled. But now what will you do, wretched one? Where are those whom you pursued? Let them redeem you if they can. What exchange can you give for your soul, which you have defrauded through your disobedience; so that you would not listen to your brothers, or your sisters, who showed you not to join yourself with worldly men?

But now what shall we do for you, or what shall we say, we whom you were unwilling to hear; except that we ourselves lament over you, saying: Spare, Lord, spare? Who perhaps may deign to hear our weeping and groaning, that he may give you the mind to turn back to him again; that, remembering your sins, you may say: How many loaves of bread abound to my father's hired servants, while I perish with hunger? I will arise, then, and go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your daughter, receive me as one of your servants, that I may live What if perhaps he should kill for you that fattened calf? For I am jealous over you with a jealousy; for I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ.

For I fear, lest as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds should be corrupted, and fall away from the love that is in Christ Jesus.