Letters 1 to 10: The Woman Struck Seven Times and the Aquileian Circle

How I wish I could now be present at your gathering, and, though these eyes do not deserve to behold it, embrace with all exultation that admirable company. I would gaze upon a desert more delightful than any city. I would see places forsaken by inhabitants beset, as though after the likeness of paradise, by companies of Saints. But because my own sins have brought this about, that a head beset by every crime should not be joined to the fellowship of the blessed, therefore I beseech—since I do not doubt that you can obtain it—that by your prayer you may free me from the darkness of this age. And as I said before in person, so now by letter I do not cease to declare my vow, that my mind is carried toward that goal with every eagerness of desire. Now it is yours, that the effect should follow the will. Mine it is, to will; it is for your prayers, that I may will and be able.

I am as it were a sick sheep straying from the whole flock. Unless the Good Shepherd carries me back on his shoulders to his own fold, my steps will falter, and, even as I strive to rise, my footing will collapse. I am that prodigal son, who, having squandered the whole portion my father entrusted to me, have not yet cast myself at my father's knees; have not yet begun to drive away from myself the allurements of my former excess. And because I have not so much ceased from vices as begun to wish to cease, now the devil binds me with new nets: now, setting new obstacles before me, he surrounds me with seas on every side, and on every side with ocean; now, set in the midst of the element, I neither wish to go back, nor am able to go forward. It remains that, by your prayer, the breath of the Holy Spirit may carry me onward, and bring me through to the harbor of the desired shore.

That God grants more than is asked, and often bestows things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, I had indeed known before from the mystery of the sacred volumes; yet now I have proved it in my own case, dearest Rufinus. For I, who thought it bold enough to hope that by an exchange of letters we might feign for ourselves the image of presence, now hear that you are penetrating the secrets of Egypt, visiting the choirs of monks, and going about a heavenly household upon earth. If now the Lord Jesus Christ should suddenly grant me the translation either of Philip to the Eunuch, or of Habakkuk to Daniel, with what close embraces would I now clasp your neck, with what pressed lips would I fasten upon that mouth which once erred with me, or was once wise with me?

But since I do not deserve that you should thus come to me, any more than that I should thus go to you; and since my frail little body, even when well, has been broken by frequent illnesses, I send these letters as my substitutes and as your escorts, that they, bound by the tie of love, may bring you even to me.

2. The first happy news of this unlooked-for joy was announced to me by brother Heliodorus. I did not believe as certain what I longed to be certain, especially since he said he had heard it from another, and the novelty of the thing took away credit from the report. Again my hopes hung in suspense, and my wavering mind was driven toward belief by a certain Alexandrian monk, who had long ago been sent, by the pious service of the people, to the Egyptian confessors—now martyrs in will—and he became a clear witness confirming the report. I confess that in this too my judgment wavered.

For though he knew neither your country nor your name, yet he seemed to bring more weight in that he affirmed the same things which another had already reported. At last the full weight of the truth burst forth: for a frequent throng of travelers reported that Rufinus was in Nitria, and had gone to the blessed Macarius. Then indeed I gave full rein to belief, and then I truly grieved that I was sick. And had not the weakened strength of my body held me back by a kind of fetter, neither the heat of midsummer nor the sea, ever uncertain for sailors, could have withstood me hastening on with pious eagerness. Believe me, brother, not so does a sailor tossed by storm gaze for the harbor; not so do thirsty fields long for rains; nor does an anxious mother, sitting on the curving shore, so await her son.

3. After a sudden whirlwind tore me from your side; after an impious rending pulled apart what the glue of love had joined together; then over my head there stood a dark rain-cloud; then seas on every side, and on every side the sky. At length, wandering in the uncertainty of my pilgrimage, when Thrace, Pontus, and Bithynia, and the whole journey through Galatia and Cappadocia, and the land of the Cilicians with its burning heat, had worn me down, Syria met me like a most faithful harbor for a shipwrecked man. There, having experienced whatever sicknesses could be, I lost one of two eyes: for a sudden burning fever carried off Innocentius, part of my soul. Now I enjoy in our Evagrius my one and whole remaining light, to whom I, though ever weak, came as an added burden in his labor. With us too was Hylas, servant of the holy Melanium, who by purity of morals had washed away the stain of servitude; and he too has reopened a scar not yet closed over.

But since we are forbidden by the Apostle's word to grieve over those who sleep, and since the excess of sorrow has been tempered by the arrival of joyful news, I tell you these things, that if you do not know them, you may learn; if you already knew them, we may rejoice together.

4. Your Bonosus—or rather, to speak more truly, ours—now climbs the ladder foreshadowed to my Jacob in his dream: he bears his cross, thinks not of the morrow, nor looks back behind him. He sows in tears, that he may reap in joy. And, by the mystery of Moses, he lifts up the serpent in the wilderness. Let the feigned miracles of lying tales, whether in Greek or Roman style, yield to this truth.

Behold a youth trained with us in the honorable arts of the world, to whom wealth was abundant and rank foremost among his equals; having despised mother, sisters, and a brother most dear to him, he has settled, like some new colonist of paradise, upon a shipwrecked island surrounded by the roaring sea, where rough crags and bare rocks and solitude bring terror. No farmer there, no monk—not even the little one you know, Onesimus, whom he used to enjoy embracing as a brother—clings to his side as companion in so great a waste. Alone there—nay, now, with Christ as his companion, not alone—he sees the glory of God, which even the Apostles did not see except in the desert. He indeed beholds no towered cities; but he has enrolled his name in the census of a new city. His limbs shudder in a rough sackcloth garment; but thus he will the better be caught up to meet Christ in the clouds.

He enjoys no pleasant strait of waters; but from the side of the Lord he drinks the water of life. Set these things before your eyes, sweetest friend, and turn your whole mind and soul to the reality of the thing. Then will you be able to praise the victory, when you have recognized the labor of the one who fights. All around the island the mad sea roars, and the deep, dashed against the winding rocks of the mountains, echoes back. No grass grows green upon the land, no field is thick with the shade of budding trees. Sheer cliffs enclose it as though in a prison of horror. He, secure, undaunted, and wholly armed with the Apostle's armor, now hears God as he reads over the divine words, now speaks with God as he prays to the Lord; and perhaps, after the example of John, he sees something, while he dwells upon the island.

5. What tricks do you think the devil is now weaving? What snares do you suppose he is preparing?

Perhaps, mindful of his ancient deceit, he will try to urge hunger upon him. But already the answer has been given him: Man does not live by bread alone. Perhaps he will set before him wealth and glory. But it will be said to him: They that desire to become rich fall into a snare and temptations. And: My glorying is wholly in Christ. He will shake his limbs, wearied with fasting, with the weight of sickness; but he will be struck back by the Apostle's word: For when I am weak, then am I strong. And: Virtue is made perfect in weakness. He will threaten death; but he will hear: I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. He will hurl fiery darts, but they will be caught upon the shield of faith. And, not to repeat too much: Satan will assail, but Christ will protect. Thanks to Thee, O Lord Jesus, that in Thy day I have one who can pray for me.

Thou knowest Thyself (for the hearts of each lie open to Thee, who searchest the secrets of the heart, who seest the Prophet enclosed in the belly of so great a beast in the depths) how he and I together grew from tender infancy up to flowering youth, how the same nurses' laps, the same porters' embraces, cherished us both; and how, after our Roman studies, when together on the half-barbarous banks of the Rhine we enjoyed the same food and equal lodging, I was the first to begin to wish to worship Thee. Remember, I beseech Thee, that this soldier of Thine was once my fellow-recruit. I hold the promise of Thy majesty: Whosoever shall teach, and not do, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Let him enjoy the crown of virtue, and, robed in the daily martyrdoms, follow the Lamb: for there are many mansions with the Father. And star differs from star in glory.

Grant to me that I may be able to lift my head among the heels of the saints: that where I have but willed, he may have accomplished; forgive me that I could not fulfill it, and grant to him the reward that he deserves. Perhaps I have drawn out in a long discourse more than the brevity of a letter allows, which is always wont to happen to me whenever something must be said in praise of our Bonosus.

6. But to return to where I had left off, I beg you, do not let your mind lose along with your eyes a friend who is long sought, scarcely found, and with difficulty kept. Let gold shine for whoever will; let gleaming metals flash from ostentatious dishes of luggage. Love cannot be compared to it. Affection has no price. A friendship that can cease was never true. Farewell in Christ.

How great a rumor of your blessedness has filled the different lands of the peoples, you may judge from this, that I begin to love you before I know you. For as the Apostle says, the sins of certain men are manifest, going before to judgment: so on the contrary the fame of your love is so spread abroad, that not so much is he to be praised who loves you, as he is thought to commit a crime who does not love you. I pass over the countless instances in which you have sustained, fed, clothed, and visited Christ. The need of brother Heliodorus, relieved by you, is able to loosen the mouths of many others also—with what thanks, with what proclamation did he report that the hardships of his journey had been soothed by you! So much so that I, that slowest of men, whom intolerable illness confines, have, as it were with winged feet, greeted you in the gesture and desire of love, and even embraced you.

I congratulate you, therefore, and I pray that the Lord may deign to confirm this budding friendship. 2. And because brother Rufinus, who is reported to have come with holy Melania from Egypt to Jerusalem, is bound to me by an undivided love of brotherhood, I ask that you not think it a burden to deliver to him my letter joined to this letter of yours. Do not judge us by his virtues; in him you will see the express marks of holiness: while I, ashes and the vilest part of clay, and already turning to embers as I am, hold it enough if the weakness of my eyes can bear the brightness of his character. He has now washed himself, and is clean, and whitened as snow; I, defiled with all the filth of sins, wait day and night in trembling to pay the last farthing.

Yet since the Lord looses them that are bound, and His word rests upon the humble and trembling, perhaps He will say to me too, lying in the tomb of my sins: Jerome, come forth. The holy priest Evagrius greets you warmly; and we greet, with joined salutation, brother Martinianus, whom I long to see, though bound by the chain of illness. Farewell in Christ.

But brother Rufinus, as you write, has not yet come; and even if he should come, it will not much profit my longing, since I shall not now be able to see him. For he is separated from me by so long a distance that he cannot come running hither; and I am confined within the bounds of the solitude I have seized upon, so that it has already ceased to be lawful for me to do what I wished. For this reason I beg, and I ask you too, most earnestly, to request that he grant you for copying the Commentaries of the blessed Rheticius, Bishop of Autun, in which he has expounded the Song of Songs in a lofty style. A certain old man, Paul, from the homeland of the aforesaid brother Rufinus, has also written to me that his own copy of Tertullian is in his possession, which he vehemently demands back.

And in this connection I ask, that you order copied on paper, by a scribe's hand, those books which the enclosed list will show me not to possess. I ask also that you have transcribed for me the Commentary on the Davidic Psalms, and the very lengthy book on the Synods by holy Hilary, which I myself once copied out with my own hand for him at Trier. You know that this is the food of a Christian soul, if he meditate on the law of the Lord day and night. You receive others in hospitality, comfort them with consolation, help them with expenses. If you grant me what I ask, you have given me everything. And since, by the Lord's bounty, we abound in many volumes of the sacred Library, command in turn whatever you wish me to send. And do not think it a burden to me, if you should command it. I have young scribes who serve the copyist's art.

Nor indeed do I promise this as a favor in return for what I ask. Brother Heliodorus has told me that you seek many things from the Scriptures and do not find them; or if you have all, love begins to claim more for itself, to ask for more. 5. As for the teacher of your boy, of whom you deigned to write (there is no doubt that he is a kidnapper of him), the priest Evagrius often rebuked him, while I was still at Antioch, in my presence. To whom he replied: I fear nothing. He says he was dismissed by his own master; and if it please you, here he is, send him wherever you wish. In this I think I do not sin, if I do not allow a wandering man to flee any further. Wherefore, since I, set in this solitude, cannot do what you have bidden, I have asked my dearest Evagrius to press the matter earnestly, both for your sake and mine. I wish you well in Christ.

There is an old saying: liars bring it about that even when they speak the truth, they are not believed: which I see has happened to me on your part, when I am reproached by you for my silence in writing. Shall I say, I have often written, but it was the negligence of the carriers? You will answer: that excuse is old and common to all who do not write. Shall I say, I found no one to carry the letters? You will say, so many have gone from here to there. Shall I contend that I gave letters even to these? But they, because they did not deliver them, will deny it: and there will be uncertain knowledge between the absent. What then shall I do?

I will ask pardon without pleading fault, judging it better to seek peace from a position of blame, than to stir up contests on equal footing: although indeed such continual sickness of body as well as sickness of soul has worn me down, that with death imminent, I was scarcely mindful even of myself. And lest you think this false, in oratorical fashion, after the arguments I will call witnesses. The holy brother Heliodorus was here present, who, when he wished to dwell with me in the desert, fled away, put to flight by my wickedness. But indeed my present wordiness will excuse all fault. For, as Flaccus says in his satire: "This is the fault of all singers among friends, that when asked they never sing, and unasked they never stop": so hereafter I will overwhelm you with bundles of letters, until you begin, on the contrary, to beg me not to write. I rejoice that my sister, your daughter in Christ, according to your own first report, remains in that which she had begun.

For here, where I now am, I do not know not only what is happening in my homeland, but whether my homeland itself still stands. And though the Spanish serpent tear me with malicious mouth, I will not fear the judgment of men, since I shall have God as my judge: according to that saying of a certain one: "Though the shattered world should fall in, the ruins would strike him undismayed". Wherefore I beg that, mindful of the Apostolic precept, by which he teaches that our work ought to endure, you may both prepare for yourself a reward from the Lord in her salvation, and make me more joyful with frequent words concerning our common glory in Christ.

Paper ought not to divide those whom mutual love has joined; nor ought the offices of my discourse to be distributed to each severally, since you so love one another that charity binds three no less than nature has joined two together; rather, if the condition of the matter allowed it, I would enclose your undivided names under the single stroke of one small letter, since your letters too so summon me that I regard you as one in three, and three in one. For after they were brought to me, sent through holy Evagrius, in that part of the desert which draws a vast boundary between the Syrians and the Saracens, I rejoiced so much that I would have surpassed even that day of Roman good fortune, when first, in the battle of Marcellus at Nola, after the battle of Cannae, Hannibal's columns were cut down.

And although the aforementioned brother often visits me, and cherishes me as his own flesh in Christ, yet, separated from me by a long distance, his departure left me no less longing than his coming brought joy.

2. Now I converse with your letters, I embrace them, they speak with me, they alone here know Latin. For here one must either learn a barbarous half-language, or be silent. As often as the familiar hand brings back the impressed traces of the faces dearest to me, so often either I am not here, or you are here. Believe love speaking the truth: and when I was writing this, I saw you. Concerning which I complain of this first, why, with so many spaces of sea and land lying between, you sent so short a letter, unless it is that I have deserved it, since I, as you write, did not write to you before. I do not think paper was lacking, Egypt supplying commerce.

And if somewhere Ptolemy had closed the seas, yet King Attalus had sent parchments from Pergamum, so that the scarcity of paper might be made up by skins. Whence also the name of "parchments" (pergamena) has been preserved to this day, handed down by posterity one to another. What then? Should I suppose the carrier hurried? Though one night suffices for a long letter. Or were you detained by some occupation? No necessity is greater than charity. Two things remain: either it wearied you, or I did not deserve it. Of these I would rather accuse you of tardiness than condemn myself as undeserving. For negligence can be corrected more easily than love can be born.

3. Bonosus, as you write, like a son of ἰχθύος, that is, of the fish, seeks watery things. We, foul with our former contagion, like basilisks and scorpions, pursue only dry places. He already treads upon the head of the serpent; we are still food to the serpent, which by divine sentence eats the earth.

He can already climb the highest of the Songs of Ascent; we, still weeping at the first step, I know not whether it will ever fall to us to say: I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, whence help shall come to me. He, sitting amid the threatening waves of the world in the safety of the island, that is, in the bosom of the Church, after the example of John, perhaps is already devouring the book: I, lying in the tomb of my own sins, and bound by the chains of my transgressions, await the Lord's cry from the Gospel: Lazarus, come forth. Bonosus, I say, (because according to the Prophet, all the devil's strength is in the loins) has carried his girdle beyond the Euphrates, where, hiding it in the cleft of the rock, and afterward finding it torn, he sang: Lord, thou hast possessed my reins. Thou hast broken my bonds: to thee will I offer the sacrifice of praise.

But as for me, Nebuchadnezzar has led me in chains to Babylon, that is, to the confusion of my mind: there he has placed upon me the yoke of captivity: there, fastening a ring of iron in my nostrils, he has commanded me to sing of the Songs of Zion. To whom I said: The Lord looseth them that are bound, the Lord giveth light to the blind. To end briefly the contrast I have begun: I beg for pardon, he awaits the crown.

4. My sister is the fruit of holy Julian in Christ. He planted, you water: the Lord will give the increase. Her Jesus gave to me, in place of that wound which the devil had inflicted, restoring her alive in place of dead. For her, as the pagan Poet says, I fear even things that are safe. You yourselves know the slippery path of youth, in which I too have fallen, and which you pass through not without fear.

Now especially as she enters upon this path, she must be propped up by the precepts of all, sustained by the comforts of all, that is, strengthened by frequent letters from your holiness. And because charity endures all things, I beg that you also obtain a letter from Pope Valerian to strengthen her. You know that girlish minds are usually confirmed in these matters, if they understand that they are the care of their elders.

5. For in my homeland, in the vernacular rusticity of the people, God is the belly, and men live for the day: and he is held more holy who is richer. To this dish (according to the well-worn popular proverb) a fitting lid has been added, Lupicinus the priest, according also to that saying about which Lucilius says Crassus once laughed in his whole life: "Their lips have a like lettuce," when the ass eats thistles: namely, that a feeble helmsman should steer a leaking ship, and a blind man lead the blind into a pit.

And such is the ruler as those who are ruled.

6. Our common mother (who, though joined with you in sanctity, surpasses you in this, that she bore such a one whose womb may truly be called golden) we salute with that honor which you know; together also all the sisters who are to be received, who have overcome their sex along with the world, who, with oil abundantly prepared for their lamps, await the coming of the bridegroom. O blessed house, in which dwell Anna the widow, the Virgin Prophetesses, a twin Samuel reared in the temple! O happy roofs, in which we behold a martyr mother encircled with the crowns of the Maccabean martyrs! For although you daily confess Christ, while you keep his precepts, yet to your private glory this public and open confession has been added, that through you the poison of the Arian doctrine was once excluded from your city. And perhaps you wonder that I have begun again even at the end of the letter. What shall I do?

I cannot deny voice to my heart. The brevity of the letter compels me to be silent: longing for you compels me to speak. My speech is too hasty: my discourse is confused and disturbed: love knows no order.

TURPILIUS the comic poet, treating of the exchange of letters, says: it is the one thing that makes absent men present. Nor did he give a false judgment, although in a matter not strictly true. For what is (so to speak) so present among the absent, as to address and to hear, through letters, those whom you love? For it happened that for this reason he was called less ἀγέλαστος (unlaughing), as the same author says. Those men of Italy, whom Ennius calls the Casci, who sought their living after the manner of beasts, before the use of paper and parchment, used to send mutual messages of letters either on tablets hewn from wood, or on the bark of trees. Whence they called the bearers of these "Tabellarii," and the writers, from the bark ("liber") of trees, "Librarii." How much more, then, should we, in a world now polished by the arts, not omit what they achieved for themselves, among whom there was raw rusticity, and who in a certain way did not know civilization?

Behold, blessed Chromatius, together with holy Eusebius—no more united by nature than by an equal likeness of character, as a brother—has provoked me by the office of letter-writing. But you, departing from us, rather tear apart than gently loosen a recent friendship, which Laelius in Cicero wisely forbids. Unless perhaps the East is so hateful to you, that you fear even your letters coming here. Awake, awake, rouse yourself from sleep, grant one little sheet of paper to charity. Amid the delights of your homeland, and the wanderings we shared together, sigh sometime. If you love, write to one beseeching you: if you are angry, write even in anger. I have this great consolation for my longing, if I receive letters from a friend even though indignant.

What affection I have toward you, Heliodorus, dear to us both, has been able to report to you faithfully; who loves you with no less love than I love you: so that I always sound your name upon my lips: so that at each first conversation I recall the most delightful memory of our fellowship, so that I admire your humility, extol your virtue, proclaim your charity. But you, having that quality which is inborn in lynxes, that looking back over their shoulder they do not remember what came before, and the mind loses what the eyes have ceased to see, have so utterly forgotten our bond, that that letter, which the Apostle says is written in the heart of Christians, you have erased—not with a slight blot, but, as they say, down to the very depths of the wax.

And indeed those beasts we mentioned, lurking beneath the leafy branch of a tree, seize the fleeing roe-deer, or the timid stags; and while they tear apart with greedy mouth from above the prey they have run down in vain, along with their enemy, they remember to hunt only so long as an empty belly, dry with hunger, gnaws at their throat. But when their savagery, fed on blood, has filled its distended belly, with satiety comes forgetfulness: and it will not know what it is seizing, until hunger recalls the memory. You, not yet sated with us, why do you join the end to the beginning? Why do you let go before you have even taken hold? Unless perhaps, with negligence as your ever-present companion excuse, you claim you had nothing to write: whereas you ought to have written this very thing, that you had nothing to write.

The brevity of human life is the condemnation of our sins. And often, at the very outset of life, death following upon birth proclaims that the ages are daily slipping into vice. For when first the serpent had led down to earth the tiller of Paradise, entangled in viperous coils, eternity was exchanged for mortality, and for nine hundred years and more had deferred, in a certain manner, a second immortality as the sentence upon the accursed man. From then on, as sin gradually broke out afresh, the impiety of the Giants brought about the shipwreck of the whole world. After that, so to speak, baptism of the purged world, the life of men was contracted to a brief span. Even this span we have almost lost, as our crimes ever fight against the divine will.

For how few reach the age of a hundred years, or, if they do, arrive at it in such a state that they repent of having arrived, according to what Scripture testifies in the book of Psalms: The days of our life are seventy years; but if in the strong, eighty years; and what is beyond that is labor and sorrow.

2. Why, you say, do I go back so far to a beginning so high, and start so far off, that someone might justly mock us with the Horatian jest concerning us: "And he begins the Trojan war from the twin egg" (Ars Poet.)? Namely, that we might proclaim your old age, and your head white in likeness to Christ, with worthy words. Behold, now the hundredth circle of your years is turning, and you, ever keeping the Lord's precepts, meditate on the blessedness of the life to come through present examples.

Your eyes are vigorous with pure light; your feet plant sure steps; your hearing is penetrating; your teeth are white, your voice tuneful; your body sound and full of vigor; your gray hairs are at odds with a ruddy complexion; your strength is at odds with your years. No prior old age, as we see in most men, dissolves the tenacity of memory. No cold blood blunts the keenness of a warm intellect. No plowed brow roughens a face wrinkled with age. No trembling hand, in short, leads a wandering stylus through the crooked paths of the wax tablet. In you the Lord has shown us the vigor of the resurrection to come, so that we may know that it is the fault of sin that others, though still living, die beforehand in the flesh; and the mark of righteousness, that you feign youth in an alien age.

And although we see this bodily health befall many, even sinners, yet in them it is the devil who supplies it, so that they may sin; in you the Lord grants it, so that you may rejoice.

3. All the most learned of the Greeks (of whom Cicero, pleading for Flaccus, says brilliantly: "Native levity and learned vanity") used to utter the praises of their kings or princes for a fee received. I, doing this now, ask a price for my praises. And lest you think that what I beg is a small thing, you shall be asked for the pearl of the Gospel. The words of the Lord, chaste words, silver tried by fire, proved of the earth, purified seven times: namely, the Commentaries of Fortunatianus, and, for the sake of knowledge of the persecutors, the History of Aurelius Victor, and together with these the Letters of Novatian, so that, knowing the poisons of a schismatic man, we may the more gladly drink the antidote of the holy Martyr Cyprian.

Meanwhile I have sent you to yourself, that is, to Paul the elder, Paul the elder; in which, for the sake of the simpler folk, I have labored much in bringing down my style. But somehow, even if the jar be full of water, it keeps the same odor with which it was steeped when new. If this little gift pleases you, we have other things also laid up in store, which, together with very many Eastern wares, shall sail to you, if the Holy Spirit breathes favorably.