Letters 145 to 150: Letters of Uncertain Date and Spurious Letters

We read in Isaiah: The fool will speak foolish things. I hear that someone has broken out into such madness as to set Deacons before Presbyters, that is, before Bishops. For since the Apostle plainly teaches that Presbyters are the same as Bishops, how does it happen that a minister of tables and widows so puffs himself up as to exalt himself above those at whose prayers the Body and Blood of Christ are made? Do you seek authority? Hear the testimony: Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the Bishops and Deacons. Do you want another example? In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul speaks thus to the priests of a single Church: Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as Bishops, to rule the Church of the Lord, which he acquired with his own blood.

And lest anyone contentiously argue that there were several Bishops in one Church, hear also another testimony, in which it is most clearly proved that a Bishop and a Presbyter are the same. For this cause I left you in Crete, that you might correct what was lacking, and appoint Presbyters in every city, as I also directed you. If any is without crime, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riotous living, or unruly. For a Bishop must be blameless, as God's steward. And to Timothy: Neglect not the grace that is in you, which was given you by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery. But Peter also, in his first Epistle, says: The Presbyters among you I exhort, as a fellow-presbyter, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker of the glory that is to be revealed, to feed the flock of Christ, and to oversee it not by constraint, but willingly, according to God.

Which indeed is more significantly expressed in Greek as ἐπισκοποῦντες, that is, overseeing; whence also the name of Bishop is derived. Do the testimonies of such great men seem small to you? Let the evangelical trumpet sound, the son of thunder, whom Jesus loved exceedingly, who drank the streams of doctrine from the breast of the Savior: The Presbyter, to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth. And in another Epistle: The Presbyter, to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. But that afterward one was chosen to be set over the rest, this was done as a remedy against schism, lest each one, drawing the Church of Christ to himself, should rend it. For at Alexandria, from Mark the Evangelist down to Heraclas and Dionysius, the Presbyters always named as Bishop one chosen from among themselves and placed in a higher rank—just as if an army should make an emperor, or the Deacons should choose from among themselves one whom they knew to be diligent, and call him Archdeacon.

For what does a Bishop do, except ordination, that a Presbyter does not do? Nor is the Church of the city of Rome to be considered one thing and that of the whole world another. Both Gaul and Britain, and Africa, and Persia, and the East, and India, and all the barbarian nations worship one Christ, observe one rule of truth. If authority is sought, the world is greater than the City. Wherever there is a Bishop, whether at Rome, or at Eugubium, or at Constantinople, or at Rhegium, or at Alexandria, or at Tanis, he is of the same merit, and of the same priesthood. The power of riches, and the humility of poverty, do not make a Bishop higher or lower. As for the rest, all are the successors of the Apostles.

But you will say, how is it that at Rome a Presbyter is ordained on the testimony of a Deacon? Why do you bring forward to me the custom of a single city? Why do you claim for the laws of the Church a scarcity from which arrogance has arisen? Whatever is rare is more sought after. Pennyroyal is more precious among the Indians than pepper. Scarcity makes Deacons honorable, the crowd makes Presbyters contemptible. Moreover, even in the Church of Rome, Presbyters sit, and Deacons stand; although, with vices gradually growing more frequent, I have seen a Deacon sit among the Presbyters, the Bishop being absent, and give blessings to Presbyters at private banquets. Let those who do this learn that they are not acting rightly, and let them hear the Apostles: It is not fitting that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Let them know why Deacons were instituted. Let them read the Acts of the Apostles, let them recall their own condition.

Presbyter and Bishop are one name in terms of age, another in terms of rank. Hence also, concerning the ordination of a Bishop and a Deacon, mention is made to Titus and to Timothy: of Presbyters altogether nothing is said, because in the Bishop the Presbyter also is included. He who is promoted, is promoted from a lesser to a greater office. Therefore either let a Deacon be ordained from a Presbyter, so that a Presbyter is proved lesser than a Deacon, into whom he grows from a lesser rank; or if a Presbyter is ordained from a Deacon, let him know that he is inferior in gains, but greater in priesthood. And that we may know that the Apostolic traditions were taken from the Old Testament—since Aaron and his sons and the Levites were in the Temple—let Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons claim this for themselves in the Church.

Samuel once mourned for Saul, because the Lord repented that he had anointed him king over Israel; and Paul, with a tearful voice, admonished the Corinthians, among whom fornication was heard of, and such fornication as was not even found among the Gentiles, saying: Lest, when I come again, God humble me among you, and I mourn for many of those who have sinned before, and have not repented of the uncleanness which they have committed in lasciviousness and fornication. If the Prophet and the Apostle, themselves stained by no blemish, did this with a mind merciful toward all, how much more ought I, a sinner myself, to act toward you, a sinner, who do not wish to be raised up after your fall, nor lift your eyes to heaven; but having squandered your Father's substance, you delight in the husks of swine, and climbing the steep cliffs of pride, you fall headlong into the deep?

You wish to have your belly as your god instead of Christ; you serve lust; you glory in your flesh and in your shame, and, like a fat victim, you are fattened for your own death, and you imitate the life of those whose torments you do not fear; not knowing that the goodness of God invites you to repentance. But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself against the day of wrath. Is it perhaps for this reason, like Pharaoh, that your heart is hardened—because you are not struck at once, but your punishment is long deferred? He too was given delay, and endured ten plagues, not as from an angry God, but as from a warning father, until, his repentance having been turned to perversity, he pursued through the deserts the people whom he had let go, and dared to enter the seas—through which alone he might have been taught to fear him whom even the elements obeyed.

He too had said, I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. Imitating him, you say: The vision which this man sees is for many days hence, and he prophesies for times far off. Concerning which the same Prophet says: Thus says the Lord God: All my words which I shall speak shall no longer be delayed; for I will speak the word, and I will do it. Holy David speaks of the impious and the wicked (of whom you are no small part, but rather the chief) saying that they enjoy the happiness of this world and say: How does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these are sinners, and abounding in the world they have obtained riches; with foot almost slipping and step nearly faltering, he accused himself, saying: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.

For he had said before: Because I was envious of the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners; for there is no regard paid to their death, and their stripes are not lasting. They are not in the trouble of men, neither shall they be scourged like other men. Therefore pride has taken hold of them; they are covered with iniquity and impiety as with a garment. Their iniquity shall come forth as from fatness; they have passed into the affection of the heart. They have thought and spoken wickedness; they have spoken iniquity on high. They have set their mouth against heaven, and their tongue has gone through the earth.

Does it not seem to you that this whole Psalm has been composed about you? For indeed you are vigorous in body, and a new apostle of Antichrist, since, being known in one city, you pass over into another. You do not lack means; you are not struck with a strong blow; and, unlike other men, you do not deserve to be corrected along with those who, like yourself, are as unreasoning beasts. Therefore you have been lifted up into pride, and your garment is luxury made manifest, and, as though belching forth deadly words out of rich fat and a certain fatness, you do not consider that you are going to die, nor are you ever bitten by repentance after your lust is spent. You have passed into the affection of the heart, and lest you should seem to have erred alone, you feign wicked things about the servants of God, not knowing that you speak iniquity on high, and set your mouth against heaven.

Nor is it any wonder if the servants of God, whatever they may be, are blasphemed by you, since your fathers called the master of the household Beelzebub. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. If they did such things in the green wood, what will you do to me, the dry wood? Something like this the people of believers, scandalized, speak from your heart also in Malachi: They have said, He serves God in vain. And what more? Because we have kept his commandments, and because we have gone as suppliants before the face of the Lord Almighty. And now we call the strangers blessed. All that do wickedness are built up. They have resisted God, and are saved. To whom afterward the Lord threatens the day of judgment, and, foretelling long before what shall be between the just and the unjust, says: And you shall return, and shall see what is between the just and the unjust: between him that serves the Lord, and him that serves him not.

These things may perhaps seem ridiculous to you, who delight in comic writers, and lyric poets, and the mimes of Lentulus: although I would not even grant that these things could be understood by you, on account of the excessive dullness of your heart. You will scorn the words of the prophets; but Amos will answer you: And for three and for four impieties, shall I not turn away from him, saith the Lord? For since Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Idumea, the Ammonites, and the Moabites, the Jews also and Israel, though often summoned to themselves by God's appointed prophecy, that they might at some time do penance, disdained to listen, the Lord sets forth the most just causes of the wrath which He is about to bring, saying: For three and four impieties shall I not turn away from them? It is wicked, He says, to think evil things: this I have granted. It is worse to wish to carry into effect things wickedly thought, and this too, out of my mercy, I have kindly indulged.

But was the sin also to be fulfilled in deed? And was my clemency to be trampled upon in pride? Yet even after the deed is done, because I prefer the repentance of the sinner rather than his death: For they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick, I stretch out my hand to the one lying prostrate, and exhort him, sprinkled in his own blood, to be washed by his own tears. But if not even so he is willing to do penance, and, his ship having been wrecked, does not cling to the plank by which he could be saved, I am compelled to say: For three and four impieties, shall I not turn away from him, saith the Lord? Reckoning that this turning away is in place of punishment, while the sinner is left to his own will.

Hence it is that He visits the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation, since He does not wish to punish sinners at once, but, forgiving the earlier sins, condemns the later ones. Otherwise, if He had at once become the avenger of crimes, the Church would not have many others, and certainly not the Apostle Paul. The prophet Ezekiel, whom we mentioned above, relating the word of God made to him, says: Open thy mouth, and eat what I shall give thee. And I saw, he says, and behold a hand stretched out to me; and in it a scroll of a book. And he unrolled it before me, and in it there was written, on the front and on the back, lamentation, and song, and woe. The first writing pertains to you, if only you will be willing to do penance after your offense. The second pertains to the saints, who are called forth to the song of God. For praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner.

The third pertains to those like you, who, despairing of themselves, have given themselves over to uncleanness, and fornication, and the belly, and to those things which are beneath the belly; who think that all things end in death, and that there is nothing after death, and who say: If the storm shall have passed, it will not come upon us. That book which the prophet devours is the whole course of the Scriptures. In which the penitent is both lamented, and the just man is sung, and the man in despair is cursed. Nothing is so contrary to God as an impenitent heart. It is the only crime which cannot obtain pardon. For if pardon is given after sin to him who ceases to sin, and he who asks bends the judge; but every impenitent man provokes the judge to wrath: the crime of despair alone is that which cannot be healed.

Furthermore, that you may know that God daily calls sinners to repentance, and that they, if they persist in hardness, make Him out of clement to be severe and fierce, hear the words of Isaiah, saying: And the Lord of Sabaoth shall call, he says, in that day to weeping, and to great mourning, and to baldness, and to the girding of sackcloth. But they made gladness and rejoicing, killing calves, and sacrificing sheep, that they might eat flesh, and drink wine, saying: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. After these words and this audacity of a ruined mind, Scripture records, saying: And these things were revealed in the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, this sin shall not be forgiven you, until you die. For if they shall have died to sin, then the sin shall be forgiven them. But as long as they shall have lived in sin, it is not forgiven.

Spare, I beg, your soul. Believe that the judgment of God is to come. Remember by what sort of bishop you were ordained deacon. Nor is it strange that, however holy a man he may be, he could nevertheless be deceived in the choosing of a man, since even God repented that He had anointed Saul as king. And among the twelve apostles Judas was found a traitor; and of men of your own order once, Nicolaus of Antioch is reported to have been the author of all uncleannesses, and of the heresy of the Nicolaitans. I do not now recount to you the fact that you are said to have violated several virgins; that the marriages of noble persons were defiled by you, and cut down by the public sword; that, impure and beastlike, you ran through brothels. These things are indeed great in their own weight, but they become lighter in comparison with those which I am about to bring forward. I ask, how great a crime is it where fornication and adultery are too little?

Most wretched of mortals, you are about to enter, for the sake of a fornication you have contrived, that very cave in which the Son of God was born, and truth arose out of the earth, and the earth gave her fruit. Do you not fear lest the infant wail from the manger; lest the Virgin mother in childbirth see you; lest the mother of the Lord behold you? Angels cry out, shepherds run, the star glows from above, the Magi worship, Herod is terrified, Jerusalem is troubled; and do you creep into the chamber of a virgin, intending to deceive a virgin? I shudder, wretched man, and I am horrified both in mind and in body, wishing to set before your eyes your own deed. The whole Church, in nightly vigils, was resounding with Christ the Lord, and in the tongues of diverse nations one spirit sang together in the praises of God.

You, amid the doors once of the Lord's manger, now of the altar, were fastening love letters, which afterward that wretched woman, as though about to worship on bended knee, would find and read; and then you would stand in the choir of those singing psalms, and speak with shameless nods.

Alas, wickedness, I cannot proceed further. Sobs burst forth before words, and by indignation together with grief, the breath is straitened in the very passage of the throat. Where now is that sea of Ciceronian eloquence? Where the torrential river of Demosthenes? Now surely you would both be mute, and your tongue would grow numb. A thing has been found which no eloquence can unfold. A deed has been discovered which neither a buffoon in feigning, nor a jester in sport, nor an Atellan player could express less than it deserves. It is the custom in the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, that both virgin and widow, who have vowed themselves to God, and, renouncing the world, have trampled underfoot all the delights of the world, offer their hair to be cut by the mothers of the monasteries, so that afterward they shall not go about with head uncovered, contrary to the will of the Apostle, but bound and veiled alike.

And no one knows of this except those who cut and those who are cut, save that, because it is done by all, it is known almost by all. This, moreover, for a twofold reason, has by custom passed into nature, either because they do not go to the bath, or because they know no oil, neither for head nor face, lest they be oppressed by the small creatures which are wont to be bred between the skin and the hair, and by hardened filth.

Let us see, then, good man, what you did among these things. In prospect of a future marriage, in that venerable cave, as though receiving certain pledges, you take hair, the little handkerchiefs of the poor girl, and a girdle, as a dowry-pledge, you carry away, swearing to her that you would in like manner never love another. Then you run to the place of the shepherds, and, while the din of Angels sounds from above, you swear the same words there. I say nothing further of the fact that you rushed to kisses, that you embraced her. Anything indeed could be believed of you, but veneration for the manger and for the place does not allow me to believe more than that you fell only in will and in mind. Wretched man: was it not so, that when you began to stand with the virgin in the cave, your eyes grew dark, your tongue grew numb, your arms fell, your breast trembled, your step faltered?

After the Basilica of the Apostle Peter, in which she was consecrated as Christ's bride: after the mysteries of the Cross and of the Resurrection and of the Lord's Ascension, in which again she had pledged herself to live in the monastery, do you dare to receive hair to sleep with at night, which she had reaped for Christ in the cave? Then from evening until morning you sit by her window, and, because on account of its height you were not permitted to come close to one another, by a little cord you either receive something, or send something back. See how great was the diligence of the Lady, that you never saw the virgin except in the church: and though both of you had such a will, you had no opportunity of speaking except by night through the window. The sun would rise upon you, as I later learned, unwelcome. Bloodless, wasted, pale, that you might be free of all suspicion, you were reading the Gospel of Christ, as though a deacon.

We thought the pallor was that of fasting, and we marveled at your bloodless face, contrary to your habit and custom, as though it were worn away by vigils. Already ladders too were being prepared for you, by which you might bring down the poor girl; already the journey was arranged, ships decided upon, a day agreed, flight turned over in mind; and behold, that Angel, guardian of Mary's chamber, keeper of the cradle of the Lord, and bearer of the infant Christ, in whose presence you did such things, himself betrayed you.

O my accursed eyes! O that day most worthy of every curse, on which I read, with a stunned mind, those letters of yours, which we still retain! What filthiness was there? What flatteries? How much exultation over the fornication agreed upon? Was it possible for a deacon, I will not say to speak, but even to know, such things? Where, wretched man, did you learn these things, you who used to boast that you had been brought up in the Church? Except that in these same letters you swear that you were never chaste, that you were never a deacon. If you should wish to deny it, your own hand will convict you, the very letters will cry it out. Keep meanwhile the gain of your crime; I cannot bring myself to repeat to you what you wrote.

You lie, then, thrown down at my knees, and beg for a pint, to use your own words, of blood. And, O wretched man, disregarding the judgment of God, you fear only me, as though I were your avenger! I have forgiven, I confess; for what else, being a Christian, can I do to you? I have exhorted you to do penance, and to wallow in sackcloth and ashes, to seek solitude, to live in a monastery, to implore the mercy of God with continual tears. But you, pillar of good hope, inflamed by the goads of the serpent, have become to me a crooked bow, and hurl at me the arrows of your abuse. I have become your enemy, by speaking the truth. I shall not grieve over your curses; for who does not know that nothing but what is shameful is praised by your mouth?

This I lament, that you yourself do not lament yourself, that you do not perceive yourself to be dead; that, like a gladiator prepared for the undertaker, you adorn yourself for your own funeral. You clothe yourself in linens, you load your fingers with rings, you rub your teeth with powder, you arrange sparse hairs upon your reddened scalp: your bull-like neck, swelling with fatty masses, though broken by lust, is not bowed. Besides these things, you are fragrant with unguents, you frequent the baths, and you fight against your re-growing hairs; through the forum and the streets, you strut, a sleek and polished lover. You have taken on the face of a harlot, you know not how to blush. Turn, wretched man, to the Lord, that the Lord may turn to you. Do penance, that He too may repent of all the evils which He said He would do to you.

Why, neglecting your own wound, do you strive to defame others? Why do you tear at me, who counsel you well and diligently, as if with a madman's bite? Grant that I am wicked, as you commonly proclaim, at least do penance with me; you accuse me of crime, as you pretend—imitate the tears of the accused. Are my sins your virtues? Or do you think it a solace for your own evils, if you have many like yourself? Let a few tears flow from your eyes amid the silk and linen in which you seem to yourself splendid and handsome; understand that you are naked, torn, filthy, a beggar. Repentance is never too late. Although you have gone down from Jerusalem, and been wounded on the way, from there the Samaritan will set you upon his beast and carry you to the inn to be healed. But even if you lie dead in the tomb, still the Lord will raise you up though you stink.

Imitate at least those blind men, for whose sake the Savior, leaving his own house and inheritance, came to Jericho. To those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death a light has arisen; who, after they knew that the Lord was passing by, began to cry out, saying: Son of David, have mercy on us. You too will be able to see, if you cry out; if, summoned by him, you cast off your filthy garments. When, being converted, you have groaned, then you will be saved, and then you will know where you have been. Let him but touch your scars, let him handle the traces of your former wounds. Though you were so begotten from the womb, and your mother conceived you in iniquities, he will sprinkle you with hyssop, and you shall be cleansed; he will wash you, and you shall be made whiter than snow. Why do you cling bent over to the earth, and lie wholly in the mire?

She whom Satan had bound for eighteen years, after she was healed by the Savior, stood erect and looked up to heaven. What was said to Cain, consider said to you: You have sinned, be still. Why do you withdraw so far from the face of God, and dwell in the land of Nod? Why are you tossed wholly upon the deep, and do not set your foot upon the rock? Beware lest Phinehas transfix you with a spear as you fornicate with the Midianite woman. Why, after you, brother and kinsman, defiled the virgin Tamar, have you turned into Absalom, desiring to kill him who mourns you as rebel and dead? The blood of Naboth cries out against you: and the vineyard of Jezreel—that is, the seed of God—which you have turned into a garden of pleasures, the herbs of wantonness, demands a fitting vengeance upon you. Elijah is sent to you, announcing torments and destruction.

Bow yourself down, and clothe yourself with sackcloth for a while, and God may be able to say of you: Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before my face? I will not bring evil in his days.

But perhaps you flatter yourself, because you were ordained deacon by such a bishop. I have already said above, that neither is the father punished for the son, nor the son for the father. For the soul that sins, it shall die. And Samuel had sons who departed from the fear of God, and went after avarice and iniquity. And Eli was a holy priest; but he had sons who, as we read in the Hebrew volume, fornicated with women in the tabernacle of God, and, in likeness to you, shamelessly claimed for themselves the ministry of God. Whence also the place of the tabernacle itself was overthrown, and because of the vices of the priests of God, the sanctuary was left desolate. Yet even Eli himself, being overly lenient toward his sons, offended God; so far is it from being the case that the righteousness of your bishop can free you, that it is rather to be feared lest, falling from his throne on your account, he perish incurably, bent backward.

If Uzza the Levite, wishing to steady the Ark of the Lord, which he ought rather to have carried, as it seemed to totter, was struck down: what do you think will become of you, who have attempted to cast down the Ark of the Lord while it stood firm? The more approved the bishop who ordained you is, the more detestable are you, who deceived such a man. We are wont to be the last to know the evils of our own house, and to remain ignorant of the vices of our children and spouses, while the neighbors sing of them. All Italy knew you. Everyone groaned to see you standing before the altar of Christ. Nor were you so cunning as to conceal your vices prudently. So did you burn, so did lust drag you here and there, rutting and wanton, that you would raise up, as it were, certain triumphs and the palm of vice from the satisfaction of your lusts.

In short, amid the swords of the barbarian, and the watches of the barbarian husband, and of a powerful husband, the flame of impudicity swept you away. You did not fear to commit adultery in that house, where, injured, the husband, without a judge, could have avenged himself. You were led to the gardens, dragged to the suburbs; you conducted yourself so freely and madly, that in the husband's absence you thought you had a wife, not an adulteress. From there, through certain tunnels, while she was held, you broke out. You entered Rome in secret, you hid among the Samnite brigands, and at the first news of the husband—that a new Hannibal had descended upon you from the Alps—you believed yourself safe aboard ship. Such was the speed of your flight, that you thought the land safer than the storm. You came somehow into Syria, thence you claimed you wished to cross to Jerusalem, and you promised to serve the Lord.

Who would not have received one who professed himself a monk, especially not knowing your tragedies, and reading the letters of commendation from your bishop to the other priests? But you, wretched man, transformed yourself into an angel of light, and, a minister of Satan, feigned to be a minister of righteousness. Under a sheep's clothing you lurked, a wolf, and after the adultery of a man, you wished to be the adulterer of Christ.

I have related these things for this reason, that I might paint for you, as it were on a small tablet, the whole drama of your deeds, and set your actions before your own eyes, lest you think the mercy of the Lord and his excessive clemency a material for sins, again crucifying to yourself the Son of God, and holding him up to mockery, and not reading what follows. For the earth, often drinking in the rain that falls upon it, and producing herbage useful to those by whom it is tilled, receives blessing from the Lord: but bringing forth thorns and briers, it is reprobate and near to a curse, whose end is to be burned.

It is an old and celebrated saying of Scripture, that there is a shame by which glory and grace are found; and again, that there is a shame which is wont to bring forth sin. The truth of this saying, although it shines clearly enough of its own light for the understanding of all, has nevertheless, I know not how, become more apparent to me in the present case. For, provoked to write by your letters, which demanded this of me with wondrous entreaties, I confess I long hesitated about a response, modesty commanding me to silence. Yet against this modesty the faithful ambition of your request most strongly resisted, and did violence to my hesitation. And my humility fought sharply with your suppliant humility, and with a certain great violence of faith knocked upon the closure of my lips. And when this thought, thus wavering in my mind between the two, weighed it out, shame nearly excluded the duty.

But that wise saying which I set above armed me to drive off useless bashfulness, and to loosen a harmful silence, since indeed I saw the very cause of writing to be so honorable, so holy, that I should believe myself to sin if I kept silence: pondering with myself that word of Scripture: A time to be silent, and a time to speak. And again: Do not withhold a word in the time of salvation. And that saying of blessed Peter: Always ready to give satisfaction to everyone who asks you a reason.

For you ask, and you ask anxiously and urgently, that we should determine for you from the Holy Scriptures a fixed rule, by which you might order the course of your life, so that, the will of the Lord being known, among the honors of the world and the enticements of riches, you may love more the furnishing of character, and so that, established in marriage, you may be able not only to please your husband, but also him who granted that very marriage. Not to satisfy so holy a petition, and so pious a desire—what else is that but not to love another's progress? I will therefore obey your prayers, and will strive to spur you on, ready as you are to fulfill the will of the Lord, by his own sayings. For he is the same true Lord and Master of all, who both bids us to please him, and teaches us how we may please him.

Let him himself, then, form you, let him himself teach you, who, to the young man who asked in the Gospel what he should do to merit eternal life, at once set forth the divine commandments, showing us that it is his will that must be done, from whom we hope also for rewards. Concerning which he testifies in another place: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. By which it is clearly shown, that we do not merit the greatness of so great a reward by the confession of God alone, unless the works of faith and righteousness are joined together.

For what sort of confession is that, which so believes God, as to hold his command as nothing? Or how do we truly, from the heart, say, Lord, Lord, if we despise the precepts of him whom we confess as Lord? Whence he himself says in the Gospel: Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say? And again: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And again he speaks through the Prophet: The son honors the father, and the servant fears his master. And if I am father, where is my honor? And if I am Lord, where is my fear? From which it is apparent, that the Lord is neither honored nor feared by those who do not do his precepts.

And to David it is said even more expressly, who had committed a sin: And you have counted the Lord as nothing; and to Eli the word of the Lord comes: He who honors me, I will honor; but they who count me as nothing, shall be brought to nothing.

And are we secure and of good mind, we who, dishonoring the most merciful Lord God through each and every precept, provoke him to wrath, and by most proudly despising his command, go into injury of so great a majesty? For what can ever seem so proud, what indeed so ungrateful, as to live against the will of him from whom you have received life itself? Than to despise the precepts of him who therefore commands something, that he may have grounds for rewarding? For God does not need our obedience, but we need his command. His commandments are to be desired above gold and precious stone exceedingly, and sweeter above honey and the honeycomb: for in keeping them there is great reward. And therefore he is angry with us, therefore is that immense goodness of God the more offended, because we despise it even to the loss of so great a reward: nor do we count as nothing only his commands, but even his promises.

Whence often, nay always, that saying of the Lord must be turned over in our minds: If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments; for this is the whole matter with us under the law: this the Prophets, this the Apostles teach: this both the voice of Christ and his blood demand of us: who therefore died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them. But to live for him is nothing other than to keep his precepts, which he has commanded to be kept for us as a certain sure pledge of his love. If you love me, he says, keep my commandments. And, he who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And again: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our dwelling with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words. True love holds great power.

And he who is perfectly loved claims for himself the whole will of the one who loves. Nothing is more commanding than love. If we truly love Christ: if we remember that we have been redeemed by his blood, we ought to will nothing more, nor to do anything at all, except what we know him to will.

There are, moreover, two kinds of commandments in which all righteousness is contained. One is of prohibiting, the other of commanding. For as evils are forbidden, so goods are enjoined. In the one, rest is commanded; in the other, effort. In the one, the mind is restrained; in the other, roused. In the one, to have done is blameworthy; in the other, not to have done. Whence also the Prophet says: Who is the man that desires life, and longs to see good days? Keep thy tongue from evil, and let thy lips speak no guile. Turn away from evil, and do good. And the blessed Apostle: Hating what is evil, cleaving to what is good. This twofold and diverse precept, then, namely of prohibiting and of commanding, is enjoined upon all with equal right. Neither virgin, nor widow, nor married woman is free from this command. In any state of life, in any rank, it is an equal sin either to commit what is forbidden, or to fail to do what is commanded.

Nor let the error of those deceive you who, by their own choice, select which of God's commandments they will chiefly perform, and which, as though vile and small, they will despise: nor do they fear that, according to the divine sentence, by contemning the least things they may gradually fall.

It is indeed the way of the Stoics to remove the distinction of sins, and to judge all offenses equal: and to make no difference between crime and mere error. We, however, although we believe—since we also read it—that there is much distance between sins, yet say that it is sufficiently useful for caution to guard even against the smallest as against the greatest. For the more we fear any offense, the more easily we abstain from it. Nor does he quickly advance to greater sins who dreads even the small ones. And indeed I do not know whether we can call any sin light which is committed in contempt of God. And that man is most prudent who considers not so much what has been commanded, as him who commanded it: nor does he weigh the greatness of the command, but the dignity of the one commanding.

Therefore, as you build for yourself a spiritual house not upon the lightness of sand, but upon the solidity of rock, let the foundation of innocence be laid first, upon which you may more easily raise the lofty summit of righteousness. For he has fulfilled the greater part of equity who has harmed no one: and blessed is he who can say with holy Job: I have harmed none of men; I have lived justly with all. Whence he spoke boldly and simply to the Lord: Who is he that shall be judged with me? That is, who can invoke judgment against me, to convict himself as having been wronged by me? It belongs to the purest conscience to sing securely with the Prophet: I walked in the innocence of my heart, in the midst of my house. Whence the same says elsewhere: God has not defrauded of good things those who walk in innocence.

Therefore let the Christian soul drive from itself malice, hatred, and envy, which are the greatest, or indeed the sole seeds of doing harm: let it guard innocence not only with hand or tongue, but with heart also: and let it dread to harm not only in deed, but even in wish. For as far as the reckoning of sin is concerned, he too has done harm who has resolved to do harm. Many of our teachers define the innocent man, absolutely and entirely, as one who does not harm anyone even in this respect, that he ceases to do good.

But if this is true, then rejoice in the awareness of innocence, if, when you are able to help, you do not cease to do so; but if these things are separate and distinct from each other—if it is one thing not to harm, which you can always do, another to do good when you are able, one thing not to do evil, another to work good—let this in turn occur to you: that it is not enough for a Christian to fulfill one part of righteousness, since both are commanded.

For we ought not to look to the examples of the multitude, which, following no discipline of morals, holding to no order of living, is guided not so much by reason as carried along by a certain impulse. Nor are we to imitate those who, under the Christian name, lead a pagan life, and bear witness to one thing by profession, another by manner of life: and, as the Apostle says, confess that they know God, but by their deeds deny him. Between the Christian and the pagan not only faith ought to distinguish, but life also: and diverse religion ought to be shown through diverse works. Do not, says the Apostle, be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what participation has righteousness with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what part has the believer with the unbeliever? What consent has the temple of God with idols?

Let there be, then, the greatest separation between us and them. Error and truth are disjoined by a certain distinction. Let them savor earthly things who have no heavenly promises. Let them entangle themselves wholly in this brief life who know nothing of eternity. Let them not fear to sin, who think there is no punishment for sins. Let them serve vices, who hope for no future rewards of virtues. But we, who confess with a most pure faith that every man must be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that each may receive the things proper to his body, according to what he has done, whether good or evil, ought to be far from vices, the Apostle saying: For they who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and desires. Nor let those who confess themselves disciples of the truth follow the wandering crowd.

Two ways of life indeed, and paths of living distinct in opposite directions, the Savior shows in the Gospel. How, he says, wide is the way that leads to death, and many are they who enter by it. And again: How narrow and strait is the way that leads to life, and few are they who find it.

See how great a separation there is between these ways, and how great a distinction. That leads to death, this tends toward life. That is frequented and trodden by many, this is scarcely found by few. For that, through the habit of vices, being as it were more sloping and softer, and pleasant, as it were, with certain flowers of pleasures, easily draws to itself a multitude of travelers; but this, by the unaccustomed path of virtues, sadder and rougher, is chosen only by those to whom the pleasure of the journey is less dear than the usefulness of the dwelling. For excessive habituation to vices makes the way of the virtues seem harsh and unpleasant to us, which, if transferred to the other side, will be found, as Scripture says, to be a light path of righteousness. Let us therefore now weigh the reasoning of our life, and let us learn, with conscience as witness, by which way chiefly we walk. For everything we do, everything we say, belongs either to the wide or to the narrow way.

If with few we find the narrow path and a certain subtle track, we tend toward life. But if we accompany the way of the many, according to the sentence of the Lord, we go toward death.

If, then, we are possessed by hatred and envy, if we yield to desire and avarice, if we prefer present advantages to future ones, we walk along the broad way. For we have a multitude of companions for these things, and are thronged by widely similar troops. If we wish to indulge wrath and lust, if we avenge injury, if we curse back the one who curses us, and are ill-disposed toward an enemy with an enemy's mind, we likewise are carried along with the many. If we either flatter ourselves, or gladly hear one who flatters, if we are hindered by favor from speaking the truth, and fear more to offend the minds of men than not to speak from the heart—we are likewise of the way of the many. As many are our companions as there are strangers to the truth.

But on the contrary, if we are strangers to all these vices, if we present a pure and free mind, and, trampling all desire underfoot, strive to be rich only in the virtues, we press on along the narrow way. For that manner of life belongs to few. And it is very rare and difficult to find fit companions for this journey. Indeed many pretend to walk this way, and by diverse byways of error return to the way of the multitude. And so it must be feared, lest those whom we believe we have as guides of this right way, we have as companions in error.

If, then, examples are found which may lead us along this way, and which keep to the straight path of the Gospel, they are to be followed. But if these are lacking, or thought to be lacking, the pattern of the Apostles is set before all. The vessel of election, Paul, cries out, and calling us as it were to this narrow way, says: Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ. Certainly, greater than all, shines forth the example of the Lord himself, who says in the Gospel: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. If it is dangerous to imitate those of whom you doubt whether they should be imitated, surely it is safest to imitate him, and to follow the footsteps of him who said: I am the way, the truth, and the life. For he never errs who follows the truth.

Whence also the Apostle John says: He who says he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk just as he walked. And the blessed Peter says: Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps: who did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return; when he suffered, he threatened not; but delivered himself to him who judges unjustly. Who himself bore our sins in his body upon the tree, that, being dead to sins, we might live to righteousness.

Let every excuse for errors cease; let the foul consolations for sinning be taken away. We accomplish nothing at all when we defend ourselves by examples of the multitude, and, for our own consolation, often reckoning the vices of others, say that we lack those whom we ought to follow. Let us strive toward the example of him whom we all confess ought to be imitated. And therefore let your chief care be to know the divine law, through which you may be able, as it were, to discern present examples of the saints: learn from its counsel what is to be done, and what to be avoided. For the greatest help toward righteousness is to fill the mind with the divine sayings, and always to meditate in the heart on what you desire to accomplish in deed.

To a people still untaught, and men unaccustomed to obedience, it was commanded by the Lord through Moses that, as a sign of remembrance, whereby they might recall the precepts of the Lord, they should have upon the fringes of their garments marks of hyacinth color together with scarlet, so that even to eyes glancing here and there by chance, the memory of the heavenly commandments might arise. Concerning these fringes the Pharisees are rebuked by the Lord, because by a perverse use they began to wear them not for the reminder of God's precepts, but for their own display, so that, as it were, from the appearance of greater diligence in observance, they might be judged holy by the people.

But for you, who now observe not the precepts of the letter, but of the spirit, the memory of the divine commandments must be cultivated spiritually. For you the precepts of the Lord are not so much to be recalled frequently, as to be always in your thoughts. Let the divine Scriptures, then, always be in your hands, and continually turned over in your mind. And do not think it enough for you to hold God's commandments in memory, and to forget them in your works. But know them for this purpose, that you may do whatever you have learned must be done. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who shall be justified. Wide indeed and immense extends the field of the divine law, which, blooming with diverse testimonies of truth, as with certain heavenly flowers, feeds and refreshes with wondrous delight the mind of the reader.

To know all these things always, and to turn them over within oneself, is an immense benefit for preserving righteousness. But, as a kind of compendium and reminder, that saying of the Gospel should be chosen by you, and inscribed upon your heart, which is uttered by the Lord's own mouth as the summary of all righteousness: Whatever you wish that men should do to you, do also to them. For this is the Law and the Prophets. For infinite are the species and parts of righteousness, which it is most difficult not only to pursue in writing, but even to grasp in thought. All of these one brief saying comprehends, and, by the secret judgment of the mind, either acquits or condemns the hidden conscience of men.

Therefore in every act, in every word, and even in every thought, let this maxim be reconsidered: which, set before you like a mirror always ready and at hand, may show you the quality of your will, and either reprove you for an unjust deed, or gladden you for a just one. For as often as you have such a disposition toward another as you desire another to keep toward you, you hold the path of equity. But as often as you have been toward another such as you would wish no one to be toward you, you have abandoned the way of justice. Behold the whole of that arduous and difficult matter of the divine law. Behold the reason why we cry out against the Lord's hard commands, and say that we are burdened either by the difficulty or the impossibility of the precepts.

Nor is it enough that we do not do what is commanded, unless we also pronounce the one who commands unjust: while we complain that the very author of equity has prescribed things not only hard and arduous, but even impossible. All things, He says, whatsoever you wish that men should do to you, do also to them. He wishes charity to be joined and bound together among us through mutual benefits. And that all men be linked together by a reciprocal love, so that each one rendering to another what he would wish rendered to himself by all: this whole justice, and this precept of God, is the common advantage of men. And, O wondrous clemency of the Lord! O ineffable kindness of God! He promises us a reward, if we love one another, that is, if we render to one another those things which we in turn need. And we, with a spirit both proud and ungrateful, resist His will: whose very command is a benefit.

Never detract from anyone at all, nor wish to seem praiseworthy by the disparagement of others: rather learn to adorn your own life than to carp at another's.

And always be mindful of the Scripture which says: Do not love to detract, lest you be rooted out. There are very few who renounce this vice, and you will rarely find one who so wishes to show his own life irreproachable that he does not gladly reproach another's. So great is the lust for this evil that has invaded the minds of men, that even those who have withdrawn far from other vices nevertheless fall into this one as into the devil's last snare. But do you flee this evil in such a way that you not only do not detract yourself, but do not ever believe another who detracts. Do not give authority to detractors by your consent, lest by assenting you nourish their vice. Do not, says Scripture, be in agreement with those who disparage your neighbor, and you will not incur sin over him. And elsewhere: Hedge your ears with thorns, and do not listen to a wicked tongue.

Whence blessed David also, enumerating the various kinds of innocence and of justice, did not keep silent about this virtue too, saying: And he took not up a reproach against his neighbors: because he not only opposes but also pursues the detractor. For he says: Him that detracted his neighbor secretly, I did pursue. This vice is indeed of such a kind that it ought above all to be extinguished, and utterly excluded by those who wish to establish themselves in holiness. For nothing so disturbs the mind, nothing so makes the mind fickle and light, as readily believing everything, and following the words of detractors with rash assent of mind. From this arise frequent dissensions, from this unjust hatreds are born. This is what often makes enemies even of the closest friends, while a malicious tongue separates souls that were concordant but credulous. On the contrary, it is a great peace of mind, and a great gravity of character, not rashly to hear anything sinister about anyone.

And blessed is he who has so armed himself against this vice that no one dares to detract in his presence. But if we had this diligence in ourselves, not to believe detractors indiscriminately, already all would fear to detract: lest by detracting they make not so much others as themselves vile. But this evil is so widespread for this reason, this vice burns so hotly in many, because it is heard gladly by almost everyone.

Flee also the flatteries of adulators, and the harmful blandishments of deceit, as certain plagues of the soul. Nothing so easily corrupts the minds of men, nothing wounds the soul with so sweet and soft a wound. Whence a certain wise man says: The words of flatterers are soft, but they strike the inward parts of the belly. And the Lord speaks through the Prophet: My people, they that call you blessed deceive you, and destroy the paths of your feet. In many, especially in this age, this vice reigns, and—what is most grievous—it is taken for humility and benevolence. Whence it comes about that whoever does not know how to flatter is thought either envious or proud. It is indeed a great and subtle artifice to praise another for the sake of commending oneself, and by deceiving to bind to oneself the mind of the deceived: and it is especially typical of this vice that feigned praises are sold at a fixed price.

What great levity of mind is this, what great vanity, to abandon one's own conscience and follow another's opinion—and indeed a feigned and simulated one? To be carried away by the wind of false praise, to rejoice at one's own deception, and to accept illusion as a benefit? Do you, therefore, if you truly wish to be praiseworthy, not seek the praise of men. Rather prepare your conscience for Him who will both illuminate the hidden things of darkness and manifest the counsels of hearts, and then praise will be yours from God.

Let your mind, therefore, be attentive and watchful, and always armed against sins. Let your speech in all things be measured and sparing, and let it show more the necessity of speaking than the will to speak. Let modesty adorn prudence, and—what has always been foremost in women—let shame surpass in you all other virtues. Consider long beforehand what is to be said, and while still silent take care that you may not regret having said something. Let reflection weigh your words, and let the balance of the mind dispense the office of the tongue. Whence Scripture says: Refine your silver and your gold, and make a balance for your words, and set right reins upon your mouth: and take heed lest perhaps you slip with your tongue. Let no evil word ever proceed from your mouth, since you are bidden, for the perfection of kindness, even to bless those who curse. Be, it says, merciful, modest, humble, not rendering evil for evil, nor curse for curse, but on the contrary blessing.

Let your tongue be wholly ignorant of lying and swearing, and let such a love of truth be in you, that whatever you say you may consider as though sworn. Of which the Savior says to His disciples: But I say to you, swear not at all. And a little after: But let your speech be, yes, yes: no, no: for whatever is more than these is of evil. In every act, therefore, and every word, let a quiet and peaceful mind be kept: and let the presence of God always meet your thought; let your spirit be humble and mild, and roused only against vices. Never let pride exalt it, nor avarice bend it, nor anger cast it headlong. For nothing ought to be more tranquil, nothing purer, nothing indeed more beautiful, than that mind which is to be prepared as God's dwelling place—whom not gold-gleaming temples, not altars adorned with gems delight, but a soul adorned with virtues.

Therefore the hearts of the saints are also called the temple of God, the Apostle affirming, who says: If any man violate the temple of God, God shall destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which you are.

Hold nothing more excellent than humility, and nothing more lovable. For this is the chief preserver, and, as it were, a certain guardian of all the virtues: and nothing so makes us pleasing both to men and to God, as if, being great by merit of life, we are lowest in humility. Wherefore Scripture says: The greater you are, humble yourself in all things, and you shall find favor before God. And the Lord speaks through the Prophet: Upon whom shall I rest, but upon him who is humble, and quiet, and trembles at my words? But do you follow that humility which is not displayed and feigned by bodily gesture, or by the broken tone of words, but which is expressed by the pure affection of the heart. For it is one thing to have virtue, another to have the likeness of virtue: one thing to follow the shadow of things, another the truth. Far more deformed is that pride which hides under certain signs of humility.

For I know not how, but vices which are concealed under the appearance of virtues are the more shameful.

Never set yourself above anyone because of nobility of birth, nor think yourself superior to those born more obscurely and of humbler station. Our religion knows not how to receive persons: it looks not at men's conditions, but at the minds of each. It pronounces slave and noble alike by their character. The only freedom before God is not to be a slave to sins. The highest nobility before God is to be renowned for virtues. Who among men is nobler before God than Peter, who was a fisherman and poor? Who among women more illustrious than blessed Mary, who is described as the wife of a carpenter? Yet to that poor fisherman are entrusted by Christ the keys of the heavenly kingdom. This wife of a carpenter deserved to be the mother of Him by whom the very keys were given. For God chooses the ignoble and contemptible things of this world, that He might more easily lead the powerful and noble to humility.

For otherwise, in vain does anyone applaud himself for nobility of birth, since all are of equal honor and of the same worth before God, who have been redeemed by the one blood of Christ: nor does it matter in what condition anyone was born, since we are all reborn equally in Christ. For even if we forget that we are all generated from one, at least we ought always to remember that we are all regenerated through One.

Take care lest, if you begin to fast or to abstain, you think yourself already holy. For this virtue is an aid, not the perfection, of holiness. And it must rather be provided against, lest this, while you despise things lawful, produce in you a certain security in things unlawful. Whatever is offered to God beyond justice ought not to hinder justice, but to help it. What does it profit that the body be thinned by abstinence, if the mind swell with pride? What praise shall we merit for the pallor of fasting, if we are livid with envy? What virtue is there in not drinking wine, and being drunk with anger and hatred? Then, I say, is abstinence excellent, then is the chastisement of the body beautiful and magnificent, when the mind is fasting from vices.

Nay, those who hold the virtue of abstinence rightly and knowingly afflict their flesh for this purpose, that they may break the pride of the soul: that they may descend, as it were from a certain height of self-contempt and arrogance, to the fulfilling of the Lord's will, which is chiefly accomplished in humility. Therefore they withdraw the mind from various desires of foods, that they may occupy its whole force in the desire of virtues. And now the flesh feels less the labor of fasts and abstinence, while the soul hungers for justice. For even the vessel of election, Paul, while he chastises his body and brings it into subjection, lest, preaching to others, he himself should be found reprobate, does not do this, as some unlearned think, for chastity alone: for abstinence helps not this alone, but absolutely all the virtues.

Nor is it the Apostle's whole or chief glory not to fornicate: but he does this, that by the chastisement of the body the mind may be trained; and the less he desires of pleasures, the more he may be able to think upon virtues: lest the teacher of perfection show something imperfect in himself; lest the imitator of Christ do anything beyond the precept or will of Christ; lest he teach less by example than by word, and, having preached to others, be himself reproved; and hear, along with the Pharisees: For they say, and do not.

It is indeed both the precept and the example of the Apostle that we should take account, not only of conscience, but also of reputation. This the teacher of the nations teaches as neither superfluous nor void of fruit: for he wishes that even men outside the faith should profit by the works of the faithful, so that religion itself may commend itself by the discipline of religion. And therefore, just as he bids us shine like lights in the world, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, so that the unbelieving minds of those in error may perceive, from the light of our deeds, the darkness of their own ignorance. Whence he himself also says to the Romans: Providing for good things, not only before God, but also before men. And elsewhere: Be without offense to the Jews, and to the Gentiles, and to the Church of God, even as I please all men in all things, not seeking what is profitable to myself, but to many.

Blessed is he who has ordered his life so holily and so gravely that not even anything sinister can be feigned about him: while against the lust of detractors the greatness of merit contends, and no one dares to feign what he thinks no one would believe. But if this is difficult to attain, and too arduous, let us at least apply this diligence to our life, that evil minds may find no occasion for detraction. Let no spark proceed from us by which the flame of sinister repute might be kindled against us. Otherwise we are born in vain to be detractors of ourselves, if we ourselves furnish material for detraction to them. But if, while we ourselves diligently and carefully provide for all things with honesty, and set the fear of God before all our acts, they nonetheless rave madly: let our conscience console us, which is then most safe, then best secure, when it has given no occasion even for thinking ill of it.

For woe is pronounced by the Prophet upon those who call good evil; who call light darkness, and call what is sweet, bitter. To us, then, will apply the word of the Savior: Blessed are you when men shall curse you, lying. Let us now act, then, that no one may be able to speak evil of us without lying.

So keep the care of the household, that you nevertheless grant some leisure to the soul. Let a convenient place be chosen for you, somewhat removed from the noise of the household, into which you may withdraw as into a harbor, as if from no storm of cares, and may calm the waves of thoughts stirred up outside, by the tranquility of solitude. Let there be there such zeal for divine reading, such frequent turns of prayer, such firm and pressing meditation on things to come, that you may easily compensate for all the occupations of the rest of the time by this calling. Nor do we say this in order to draw you away from your own; rather we do this, that there you may learn, and there meditate, what sort of person you ought to show yourself to be to your own.

Rule and cherish your household in such a way that you wish to appear to your people rather a mother than a mistress, from whom you should exact reverence by kindness rather than by severity. Obedience is always more faithful and more pleasing when it proceeds from love than when it proceeds from fear. But especially in venerable and immaculate marriage let the order of the Apostolic rule be kept.

Let the husband's own authority above all be preserved, and let the whole household learn from you how much honor it owes him. Show him to be lord by your obedience, show him to be great by your humility; you yourself will be all the more honored, the more you shall have honored him. For, as the Apostle says, the head of the woman is the man: nor is the rest of the body adorned from any other source more than from the dignity of the head. Whence the same says elsewhere: Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. But blessed Peter the Apostle also says: Likewise let wives be subject to their husbands, so that even if any believe not the word, they may be won without a word, by the behavior of their wives. If, then, honor is owed even to pagan husbands by the right of marriage, how much more must it be rendered to Christian husbands.

And to show with what ornaments women joined even to husbands ought to be adorned, he says: Whose adorning let it not be the outward plaiting of hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel, but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptibility of a quiet and modest spirit, which is rich in the sight of God. For so also in former times holy women who hoped in the Lord adorned themselves, being subject to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. In enjoining this, he does not bid them go squalid in filth and be covered with bristling rags of clothing, but he forbids immoderate cultivation and overly elaborate adornment, and commends a simple ornament and dress. Concerning which the vessel of election also says: Likewise also women in modest apparel, adorning themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array, but which becomes women professing godliness, through good works.

I have found, indeed, that you, kindled with a marvelous ardor of faith, some years ago already proposed continence, and consecrated the remaining time of your life to chastity. This is a sign of great courage, and an indication of perfect virtue: to renounce suddenly a pleasure once experienced, to flee the familiar allurements of the flesh, and to quench, by love of the faith, the flames of an age still warm. But I have learned this too at the same time, which troubles and stings me not a little: namely, that you began to keep this good thing without the consent and agreement of your husband, whereas the Apostolic authority altogether forbids this, which, in this matter at least, subjects not only the wife to the power of the husband, but also the husband to the power of the wife. The wife, he says, has not power of her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband has not power of his own body, but the wife.

But you, as though forgetful of the marriage covenant, and unmindful of this pact and right, have vowed chastity to the Lord without consulting your husband. But it is perilously promised, what is still in another's power. And I know not how welcome a gift it is, if one offers a thing belonging to two. Many divisions of marriages have we already, through such ignorance, both heard of and seen, and—what it grieves me to recall—adultery perpetrated on the occasion of chastity. For while one party abstains even from what is lawful, the other has fallen away into what is unlawful. And I know not, in such a case, who ought to be accused more, who blamed more, whether he who, being repulsed by his spouse, commits fornication, or she who, by repelling her husband from herself, in a manner exposes him to fornication. And that you may know what the truth holds concerning this matter, a few things must be set forth by me from divine authority.

The rule of Apostolic teaching neither equates, with Jovinian, the works of continence with marriage, nor, with Manichaeus, condemns marriages. Thus the vessel of election and teacher of the Gentiles walks tempered between the two, and takes the middle course, so that he grants a remedy for incontinence, and calls continence forth to a reward. And his whole sense in this matter is this: that chastity be proposed by the agreement of both, or else that the common debt be paid by both alike.

But let us now set forth the Apostle's own words, and retrace this whole matter from its beginning. For he speaks to the Corinthians: Now concerning the things whereof you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. And although here he has praised chastity, yet lest he should seem to some to prohibit marriage, he adds: But because of fornications, let every man have his own wife. Let the husband render the debt to the wife: and likewise also the wife to the husband. The wife has not power of her own body, but the husband. And likewise also the husband has not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud not one another. And again, lest by saying so much in favor of marriage he should seem to exclude chastity, he continues: except perhaps by consent, for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer.

And immediately he as it were retracts what he said, for a time, lest he should seem to teach a temporal and brief continence rather than a perpetual one. For he says: because of your incontinency. But this I say by way of indulgence, not of commandment. Whence what he said, for a time, teaches that a meditation of chastity ought to be made, so that, through certain intervals of time, having as it were tested the strength of their continence, both may promise without danger what must always be kept by both. But what he absolutely wills, he says plainly: I would that all men were even as myself, that is, that they should live in continual and perpetual chastity.

Do you see how cautiously, how providently, how without any occasion of scandal, the teacher has established his opinion concerning chastity, unwilling that so great a good should waver upon the rashness of one alone, which ought to be bound and confirmed by the consent of both? And indeed, what is firmer than that chastity, what safer, than that which, begun by the agreement of both, is kept by both as it were in common? Nor should the one party alone, careful for itself, but let them mutually encourage one another to perseverance in virtue. For this, as also other good things, is to be praised not merely for having been begun, but for having been completed. For a long while now, as you perceive, my discourse has moved in a rocky and difficult place, and dares not incline to either side, while it fears each equally; but from our own difficulty recognize your own peril, for we have preferred perhaps to grieve you by speaking the truth, than to deceive you by feigned flattery.

It is, as you see, a double evil, an equal and doubtful danger: on both sides you are constrained, on both sides you are bound. To despise and disdain your husband altogether is openly against the Apostle's judgment; but to lose the chastity of so long a time, and not render to God what you had promised, is a thing to be feared and dreaded. As the common saying goes: You will easily make an enemy of a friend, to whom you do not render what you have promised. For so Scripture says: If you have vowed a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it; because the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it shall be a sin to you. He says therefore: Show due honor to your husband, that you may be able to render to the Lord from both what you have vowed.

Of whose conscience we do not doubt, had you waited a little: not that we draw you back from the good of chastity, but that we may with all our strength stir his mind toward the oracle of chastity; that he may offer a voluntary sacrifice to God, for an odor of sweetness; that the mind, stripped of all worldly restraints and bodily pleasures, may be able the more fully to cleave to the Lord's precepts. And that you may not think anything has been said by us carelessly, we have taught this by the testimonies of the divine Scriptures, as also the Apostle says: And they two shall be in one flesh; now no more one flesh, but one spirit.

This is a great sacrament, and the way of chastity is arduous: but great are the rewards, and the Lord calls us in the Gospel, saying: Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. The same Lord says: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls; for my yoke is sweet, and my burden light. For the same Lord says to those who shall be on his left: Depart from me, cursed, into everlasting fire, which my Father prepared for the devil and his angels: I know you not, workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

All those surely will lament, all those will mourn, who so entangle themselves in the cares of the present life as to forget the life to come; whom, oppressed as by a sleep of ignorance and false security amid the waves, the Lord's coming will overtake: whence he himself says in the Gospel: Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day come upon you suddenly; for as a snare it shall come upon all who sit upon the face of the whole earth. And again: Watch and pray, for you know not what hour it is.

Blessed are they who so await, so watch for that day, that they prepare themselves for it daily, who, not flattering themselves upon past righteousness, according to the Apostle, are renewed in virtue day by day. For the righteousness of the righteous man will not profit him from the day on which he ceases to be righteous. Just as, likewise, the iniquity of the wicked man will not harm him from the day on which he turns from his iniquity.

Therefore neither ought the holy man to feel secure, so long as he is engaged in the contest of this life; nor ought the sinner to despair, who, according to the aforesaid saying of the Prophet, can make himself righteous in a single day; but the whole span of your life, toward which you strive, is given you that you may work out righteousness; nor should you, trusting in past righteousness, become more remiss; but as the Apostle says, Forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling, knowing it is written that God is the searcher of the heart. And therefore he is anxious to keep his soul clean from sin. Wherefore it is written, Keep your heart with all diligence. And again: The Lord loves clean hearts. But all who are without blemish are acceptable to him.

Therefore act so as to order the rest of the time of your life without offense, that you may be able to sing securely with the Prophet: I will walk in the innocence of my heart, in the midst of my house. And again: I will go in to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth. For it does not suffice to have begun; but righteousness is to have completed.

Compelled by the command of your charity to speak concerning the solemnities and Sabbaths, and New Moons, which the Lord commands in the Law to be observed—what according to the letter ought to be rejected, or what ought to be observed spiritually—we are first forced to answer the lovers of the letter, adversaries of the truth; whom, though I might by my own right beat back, yet, addressing them rather gently and mildly, I desire them to come to the knowledge of the truth, who, wishing to chew the bitter bark of roots, spit out the fruit, and marveling at the dust of gold, despise the wrought metals.

Who, even though they contend that all things must be observed according to the letter of the Law, with the veil placed over the face of Moses, cannot be illumined by the light of the spirit of truth—though they do not yield to the truth, yet, like the scapegoat, being ready upon the shoulder of our patience for the satisfaction of that faith which is in us, into the wilderness of their own perdition, and afterward to wash their garments, lest they remain polluted by the contagion of heretical sense. But we, at the beginning of this little work, taught by the example of Jeremiah, propose first to pluck up, to destroy, and afterward to plant and to build.

Desiring first to show from the Scriptures how these feast-days of the Lord, which are commanded to be kept by the Law, are celebrated not by shadow, but by spiritual observance. And if any should wish to disregard the authority of our weakness, let them hear the Prophets, who, foreseeing with provident care the rejection of these things in the time of the Gospel, foretold it with open voice. Indeed, with the Lord himself speaking in them: My soul hates your feast days, and your New Moons, and Sabbaths. And the Lord declares that he did not command these things, although it is manifest that he himself commanded these in the Law. In these words what else is shown, but that when Christ, the end of the Law, had come, he no longer commanded these to be kept according to the letter? Concerning sacrifices, moreover, he speaks through another Prophet: I will not reprove you for your sacrifices.

But your burnt offerings are before me continually; nor will I drink of the goats from your flocks, and the rest, down to, or the blood of goats. With which words the Apostle, filled with the same spirit, in agreement says: Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a feast day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath, which is a shadow of things to come, and the rest. By which words he declares most clearly that in the observance of these days temporally, or of these carnal foods, one can find nothing else but a most vain shadow and the sedition of error. And the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel declared the Sabbath to be dissolved when he commanded the paralytic: Take up your bed, which was forbidden by the Law—namely, that burdens should be carried on the Sabbath—as is manifest.

He dissolved also the Feast of Tabernacles, when he said: I will not go up to this feast day; as if he had said, in the observance of this festival the glory of my honor shall not go up.

Concerning the Passover, however, as the greatest sacrament of our salvation, I intend to say something at somewhat greater length, even though it is not the time to discuss everything; I wish first to show for what and how many reasons the observance of the Lord's Passover is commanded. In the first month, on the tenth day of the month, an unblemished yearling lamb is commanded to be set apart, and kept until the thirteenth and fourteenth, to be killed by Moses' command, by the Lord, by the whole assembly of the children of Israel, in the evening. These arrangements the Lord himself, the true Lamb, when he went forth to his Passover in the evening, wishing some to remain, kept; others, not desiring them to be observed, he changed. For when he deigned to be immolated in the first month according to the precept of the law, he by no means allowed the thirteenth day to be anticipated in the timing of his passion.

Yet the Gospel narrates that he did some things contrary to the figure, because when he was betrayed by Judas to the Jews, he was seized on the eleventh day of the first month. And since he deigned to give the sacraments of his body and blood during his life, to his disciples, this is shown to have been done contrary to the figure. For that lamb, then, commanded to be killed as the Passover in the type of Christ, was roasted with fire, with the head and the feet, and the entrails were commanded to be consumed by the people after its slaughter. This, however, as it seems to me, the Lord is known to have done for two reasonable causes: lest, when he ate the Passover with his disciples, unless he had afterward changed the sacrifice, saying, This is my body, it should be believed that it ought afterward to be observed in the same manner.

The other cause, as I think, is this: that they might behold, before the passion, the body of the Lord whole, containing his own blood within itself, and might believe that they were spiritually nourished by this body, and that we also should now believe likewise. And this too we ought to note, that it was not on the fourteenth day at evening, as the Law commands, that that Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, and our Passover, Christ, was immolated; but on the fifteenth day, on which it is manifest that the feast day of the Jews, with its sacrifice, was dissolved by the Lord. But what ought we to understand by this, that he first typifies the eating of the flesh of the lamb, and afterward refreshes our Apostles with the food of his own body, and after the typical Passover of the Jews, Christ was immolated?

This, as I think, was not that the truth should precede the figure, but that the figure should precede the truth, because that which is spiritual is not first, but that which is animal, and then that which is spiritual; whence the chosen and beloved bride of Christ, the universal Church, anathematizes those who determine that the Paschal feast should be celebrated with the Jews on the fourteenth day, and the Sabbaths, and the rest of this shadowy observance, and only deigned to observe this—that the Lord decreed without any ambiguity that in the first month, after the fourteenth day, on the Lord's Day preceding the Paschal feast, it should be celebrated—though in this the truth of the Church arose: some believing it sufficient not to celebrate the Passover with the Jews on the fourteenth; others keeping this more strongly and cautiously, that they dare not celebrate the immolation of the true Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, before the fourteenth, according to that legal precept which the Lord himself, coming to his passion, did not by any means disregard—you shall observe it until the fourteenth day; which the Church now especially observes, following the authority of the Apostolic See.

But leaving these matters aside, since it is not the time to discuss each point, we turn the gaze of the mind to spiritual understanding, by which we are commanded, in the month of new grain, on the fourteenth day of the Paschal month, to eat the flesh of the lamb, so that, being born to ourselves for the fruits of good works, when the words of the Decalogue have been fulfilled in us, standing in the perfection of the Gospel in the fourfold number, we may eat the flesh of our Lamb in the evening of the world, in which the end of the ages has come, our hearts not darkened, the Holy Spirit illuminating our night.

Concerning the Sabbath: we are commanded to work six days; but on the seventh, that is the Sabbath, we are forbidden from all servile work. By the number six, the perfection of works is designated, because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth. On the Sabbath, however, we are forbidden to do any servile work, that is, sin, because he who commits sin is the slave of sin; so that when we have completed the perfection of works in this present age, not hardening our hearts, we may deserve to attain to the true rest which was denied to the contumacious, the Lord saying through David: If they shall enter into my rest.

Concerning the fiftieth day: from the day after the Sabbath we are commanded by the Law to count seven full weeks, until the day after the completion of the seventh week, that is, the fiftieth day, on which the firstfruits are offered; which reckoning of full perfection through the number seven, and fifteen times and five times ten, I think signifies this: that through the number fifty, which contains remission in itself, by charity, which is diffused in our hearts through the outpouring of the sevenfold spirit of grace, we may also have the five senses of our body subjected to the law of God.

These words contain the Decalogue within themselves, and through charity, as I said, which charity covers a multitude of sins, and thus we offer a new sacrifice to the Lord from all our dwellings for the use of our Priest, together with our peace offerings, if we have made peace with the Lord, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, who, though the loaves of the firstfruits of our land are leavened, yet, consecrated to himself, are eaten by the High Priest, who, having passed through the heavens, is able to have compassion on our infirmities; and since we have him as an advocate with the Father, works which, leavened with the leaven of our frailty, being lifted up by the hand of prayer for the use of this Priest, he devours through the bowels of mercy, which give an odor of sweetness to God, but rather require indulgence.

Concerning the Feast of Tabernacles: and at the end of the solar year among the Hebrews, in the same seventh month, when the fruits are gathered into the granaries or storehouses, then the solemnities are commanded by the Law to be celebrated; that is, on the first day, the feast of trumpets; on the tenth day, the days of atonement are to be kept as Sabbaths; and on the fifteenth day, for seven days until they are finished, and on the eighth day the feasts of tabernacles are commanded.

By these things, perhaps, it may be signified that, since we at the end of the age are consecrated by the sacrament of the threefold invocation, we do not cease to proclaim by the trumpet of the preaching of the Gospel the faith and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, in whom is the true propitiation, the time of the Law being finished; and having gathered the fruits of good works, resting from every evil work through the grace of the sevenfold spirit, sustained through persecution, may we deserve to attain to the number of the eighth beatitude. Which, however, is not doubtful to be accomplished through the labor of fasting and prayer, since souls are also commanded by the Law to be afflicted.

Concerning the New Moons: at the New Moon it is commanded to sound the trumpet, that is, at the new moon, because he who is illumined in the light of knowledge ought not to cease preaching to others—which Paul, illumined by the splendor of the knowledge of Christ, did not fail to observe, preaching in the synagogues. I had decided to say a few things, which, since they contain in themselves the figure of the sacrifices of the true High Priest, ought also to be offered spiritually by us to the Lord.

For by the calf is understood our labor; by the sheep, innocence; by the goat, the mortification of fornicating pleasure; by the she-goat, which grazes on the heights, the contemplative life; by the ram, the virtue of preaching, which begets lambs for the good shepherd; by the virtue of chastity of the solitary mind, joined to none but Christ; by the dove, the perspicacity of the gaze into the mysteries; by the bread, the solidity of the precepts; by the fine flour, the sincerity of life; by the wine and salt, the truth of preaching; by the oil, the fomentations of charity are understood. All these, whether feasts or sacrifices, the Law commands to be celebrated and offered in one place, because all things profit only when they are carried out in the unity of the Church, without any error of schism.

Having discussed these few things out of the great abyss of the precepts of the Law, I have not feared, poor man to rich, stranger to citizen, to offer this small portion; perfect love casts out fear: believing also this, O venerable Pope, that obedience with faith avails more than the capacity of human wit. These things have been asked by you, and said by me, on account of those who, though they appear Christian on the surface, through the impiety of Jewish sense, do not fear to tear the body of Christ, the Church, with their schisms. These things we have run through briefly, which, if they were treated in full, would demand a great volume, which the leisure of this time does not allow. Pray for me, venerable Pope.

Again Egypt and softness, and we are poor men to you, and no account is taken of the absent. This is nothing; only laugh, gazing upon the Nile flowing with gold. Even if you raise your eyebrow still higher, we shall endure the contempt altogether. For a time will come when you will again see Elusa, and will weep to see the sand scattered by the winds and laying waste the vines down to the very root. Certain foreign Nymphs coming from the sea, and Jupiter the rain-giver, will there be nowhere. Then indeed I myself shall laugh and mock at fortune. But you now think me cast down, and then will think me blessed. Nevertheless, while the Nile permits you to live in delights, only write, and call us small folk, and as it were some creatures crawling upon the ground. For thus we shall enjoy even your writing, and I shall bear your pride the more gently in expectation of what is to come.