Letters 61 to 70: Origen, Augustine, and the Priestly Vestments

As to what you say, that many have been deceived by Origen's error, and that my holy son Oceanus resists their madness, I both grieve and rejoice at once: while either the simple have been tripped up, or the erring are being helped by a learned man.

And since you ask the opinion of my littleness, whether, according to brother Faustinus, he ought to be wholly rejected, or, according to some, read in part: I think that Origen, on account of his learning, is at times to be read, just as Tertullian, Novatus, Arnobius, Apollinarius, and several Ecclesiastical Writers, both Greek and Latin: so that we may choose their good points, and avoid the contrary, according to the Apostle who says, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." But those who are led either to too great a love of him, or to hatred through the depravity of their own temper, seem to me to lie under that prophetic curse: "Woe to those who call good evil, and evil good; who make the bitter sweet, and the sweet bitter." For neither ought perverse dogmas to be received on account of his teaching, nor, on account of the perversity of his dogmas, ought whatever useful Commentaries he has published on the sacred Scriptures to be utterly rejected.

But if his admirers and his detractors have drawn taut between them a contentious rope, so that they seek no middle course, nor keep any measure, but either approve or disapprove the whole; I would more willingly choose a pious rusticity than a learned blasphemy. The holy brother Tatianus the Deacon greets you back most warmly.

Hieronymus to the most blessed pope Theophilus.

1. Your Beatitude remembers that in that time in which you kept silence with us, my own speech never ceased from its duties: nor did I consider what you might then be doing by way of dispensation; but what it behooved me to do. And now, having received the letters of your Dignity, I see myself to have begun to reap some fruit of the Gospel reading. For if the frequent petition of the woman bent the sentence of the harsh judge, how much more are fatherly bowels softened by persistent entreaty?

2. As to what you admonish concerning the Ecclesiastical Canons, we give thanks; "For whom the Lord loves, he chastens; and he scourges every son whom he receives." But know that nothing is more precious to us than to preserve the rights of Christ, and not to transfer the boundaries of the Fathers, and always to remember the Roman faith, praised by an Apostolic mouth, of participation in which the Alexandrian Church glories.

3. As to your bearing much patience toward the nefarious heresy (of Origen), and thinking that those who lie nestled in the bowels of the Church can be corrected by your leniency, this displeases many Saints: lest, while you await the repentance of a few, you nourish the boldness of the lost, and the faction becomes stronger. Farewell in Christ.

Even to this day, in the reading of the Old Testament, a veil is placed over the face of Moses. He speaks with a glorified countenance, and the people cannot bear the glory of him speaking. But when we shall have been turned to the Lord, the veil will be taken away: the killing letter dies, the life-giving spirit is raised up. For the Lord is the Spirit, and the law is spiritual. Whence also David prayed in the Psalm, "Reveal my eyes: and I will consider the wonders of your law." Is God concerned about oxen? By no means. Much more about the liver of the ox, the ram, and the goats, and the right shoulder, the breast, and the belly, by which the dung is digested; two of which the priests receive to eat: the third Phinehas deserves as a reward.

Of the peace-offerings, the fat with which the breast is wrapped, and the lobe of the liver, are offered upon the altar: but the breast itself and the right arm are given to Aaron and his sons, a perpetual statute from the children of Israel. The seat of feeling is in the heart, the dwelling of the heart is in the breast. It is asked where the chief seat of the soul may be. Plato places it in the brain: Christ shows it in the heart: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And, "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts." And, "Why do you think evil things in your hearts?" Pleasure and concupiscence, according to those who dispute on physical matters, reside in the liver.

Its lobe, flitting hither and thither, and bursting forth through the windows of the eyes, the priests offer to God: that after they have said to God by their works, "Let your burnt offering be made fat," and have burned with the fire of the Spirit concupiscence, the seed-bed of lust, they may deserve to receive the reward, the breast and the arm. In the breast, pure thoughts, knowledge of the law, the truth of doctrines: in the arm, good works and the fight against the devil and an armed hand: so that what they have conceived in mind they may prove by example. For Jesus "began to do and to teach." The breast itself is also called ἐπίθεμα, that is, an addition, or something outstanding and excellent: for Thenupha has more this sense.

From which we understand, according to that saying of Malachi: "The lips of the priest keep knowledge, and they seek the law at his mouth"; that in priests there ought to be a chief knowledge of the law and of doctrine: and that by the addition of spiritual grace such a man is to be established, who can resist those who contradict, and have nothing sinister in himself that leads to hell: but a right and separated arm, that the works of the priest, by comparison with his virtues, may be separated from all men. These things concerning the victims, and those things which are offered on the altar: and those which are given to the priests by the Lord.

2. Moreover also the other three parts, besides the first-fruits of the victims, both from private slaughter and from the public market, where it is not religion but the necessity of sustenance, are given to the priests as portions: the shoulder, the jaw, and the belly. Of the shoulder we have already spoken.

The jaw signifies the eloquent and learned man, so that what we conceive in the breast we may bring forth with the mouth. The belly, the receptacle of foods, pierced by the priestly dagger in the harlot of Midian, condemns to the end of dung all the labors of men and the momentary blandishments of gluttony: and shows to minds consecrated to God that all we care for, all we devour, is cast into the privy. Whence also the Apostle says: "Food for the belly, and the belly for foods: but God shall destroy both this and those." And on the contrary, of the luxurious: "Whose God is their belly: and their glory is in their shame". The dust of the calf which Israel had worshipped, the people received in drink, in contempt of superstition, that they might learn to despise what they had seen cast into the privy.

It is commanded to the priests, that when about to minister in the temple they should not drink wine or strong drink, lest their hearts be weighed down by drunkenness and surfeit and the cares of this life; nor should they have any portion in the land, but God alone; so that they might be marked by no blemish: not with cut-off ears, injured eye, flat nostrils, lame foot, or altered color of skin—all of which are referred to the vices of the soul. For it is the will in man, not nature, that is condemned. If any of the priests has had an emission of seed, he is forbidden to approach the priestly table; and on the contrary the widow, whose womanly functions have failed like Sarah's, is received on account of continence and chastity into her father's house, and is fed from the treasury of the temple.

But if she has sons, she is given back to her offspring, so that, according to the Apostle, ministry may be given to those "who are widows indeed": and so that she who is sustained from the priestly food may be held by love of no other. The neighbor and the hired servant are excluded from the banquet of the priests; to the servants are granted the leftovers of the foods. Already then Phygellus and Hermogenes were being rejected, and Onesiphorus was being received. The first-fruits of foods and of all crops and fruits are offered to the High Priest: so that, having food and clothing, he may serve the Lord securely and freely without any hindrance. The priests receive the firstborn of the clean animals; the price of the unclean. The first births of men also are redeemed, and because the condition of birth is one and the same, the price is offered equally, so moderate and light, that neither does the rich man swell with pride, nor is the poor man burdened.

The temple-keepers and doorkeepers receive tithes: and again they offer tithes of the tithes to the priests: so much the smaller for them, as they themselves are greater in relation to the people. Forty-eight cities are set apart for the dwelling of the Levites and priests; six cities of refuge are chosen, on this side and beyond the Jordan; and the end of exile is the death of the high priest. All the things which our hasty discourse has touched upon, and whose mysteries I have only knocked at, not opened, pertain to all the priests: but with how many privileges the high priest is endowed, I shall say briefly.

3. "He shall not," it says, "uncover his head"—he has the miter, and bears the name of God upon his forehead: he is adorned with a royal diadem, he has come to the perfect age of Christ, he must always be protected by His glory: "and he shall not rend his garments," because they are white, because unstained, because following the lamb, and made from the fleece of the shorn sheep. Thamar, having lost her chastity, tore her tunic. Caiaphas, having lost the priesthood, publicly rent his garments. "He shall not go in to any soul that is dead." Wherever there is sin, and in sin death, there the high priest does not approach. "The soul that sins, it shall die." However rich he may be, however powerful, and though he offer a multitude of victims, if he is dead, he is not touched by the high priest, he is not seen.

But if he rises again, and comes forth from the tomb at the voice of the Savior, and walks loosed from the bandages of sins, the high priest will enter in to him: and there he will make his abode, and will dine with him who has risen. 4. "He shall not be defiled for his father or for his mother." Affection compels us to do many things: and while we regard the closeness of bodies, we offend the Creator both of body and of soul. He who loves father or mother above Christ is not worthy of Him. A disciple wishing to go to bury his father is forbidden by the Savior's command. How many of the monks, while they pitied father and mother, have lost their own souls! We are not permitted to be defiled for father and mother; how much more for brother, sisters, cousins, household, little servants? We are a royal and priestly race.

Let us attend to that father who never dies, or who dies for us: and who, living, was so dead that He might make us, the dead, live. If we have anything from Egypt which the prince of this world can recognize as his own, let us leave it to the Egyptian woman who holds it, along with the cloak. The young man, covered with linen cloth, was following the bound Lord: he would have fallen into the snares, had he not, freed and naked, declined the onrush of his pursuers. Let us render to our parents the things that are our parents'—if indeed they live: if, serving the Lord, they glory that their children are preferred above themselves. 5. "And he shall not go out from the sanctuary: and he shall not profane the sanctification of his God." For an idle word too we shall have to render account: And everything that does not edify the hearers turns to the peril of those who speak.

If I do, if I say anything worthy of reproof: I go out from the sanctuary, and I profane the name of Christ, in which I flatter myself: how much more the high priest and bishop, who ought to be without crime: and of such virtues that he always dwells among the saints: and is ready to offer sacrifices for the people, a mediator between men and God, and consecrating the flesh of the lamb with his sacred mouth: "For the holy oil of Christ his God is upon him." He shall not go out from the sanctuary, lest he defile the garment with which he is clothed. For as many of us as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ. Let us keep the tunic we have received, let us guard it holy in the holy place. That mountain dweller who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho was not wounded before he was stripped.

Oil is poured on him, a gentle remedy, tempered with mercy: and because he was bound to feel the pain of his negligence, he is stung with the harshness of wine: so that through the oil he may be provoked to repentance, through the wine he may feel the severity of the one judging. 6. "He shall take a wife who is a virgin, but a widow, and one that is cast off, and a harlot he shall not take, but a virgin of his own kindred, and he shall not defile his seed among his people. I am the Lord who sanctifies him." I know that the high priest, to whom these precepts are now given, is understood by many to be Christ: and that what is said, "he shall not be defiled for father or mother," is explained of the virgin birth of Mary: and much easier is the interpretation concerning the Lord, who hears in the Psalm: "Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek."

And in Zechariah: "Hear, O Jesus, thou great priest": and he from whom the filthy garments of our sins are taken away, that they may receive the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. 7. But lest anyone think that I am doing violence to Scripture, and so love Christ that I take away the truth of history, I shall interpret in the members what is referred to the head: I shall understand of the servants what is fulfilled in the Lord. Although the glory of the Lord is the glory of his servants. And wherever the occasion of the place shall allow, I shall so discourse of the true light, that it may be derived to those to whom Christ has granted to be light. This high priest, whom the Mosaic word describes, does not take to wife a widow, one cast off, or a harlot. A widow is one whose husband has died. One cast off is she who is thrown out by her husband while he lives.

A harlot is she who lies open to the lust of many. But he shall take, it says, a virgin wife, and of his own kindred, not a foreigner, lest in an evil land the grain of noble seeds degenerate. Not a harlot, who is exposed to many lovers. Not one cast off, who was even unworthy of her former marriage. Not a widow, lest she remember her former pleasures: but that soul which has no spot, nor wrinkle, which, reborn with Christ, is renewed from day to day, of which the Apostle speaks: "For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." I do not wish the disciple-spouse of the high priest to have anything of the old man. If we have risen with Christ, let us mind the things that are above. Forgetful of the past, eager for the future. Unhappy Simon, because after baptism he was thinking of his old marriage, and had not come to virginal purity, was unworthy of the fellowship of Peter.

8. You have compelled me, Fabiola, by your letters, to write to you about the priesthood and vestments of Aaron. I have offered even more, that I might construct a little preface concerning the foods and first-fruits of the priests, and the observance of the high priest. Having gone out from Sodom, and hastening to the mountains, you do not wish to dwell in the small city of Segor. Passing over the proselytes, you pass by the Israelites, letting go the Levitical rank, and flying past the priests on swift wing, you come to the high priest. But while you diligently inquire about his vestments and the Rational of the breast, our company has displeased you. And you indeed enjoy the leisure you desired: and near Babylon you perhaps sigh for the fields of Bethlehem. We, in Ephrata, peace at last restored, hear the infant crying from the manger: and we desire that his complaints and little cries reach your ears.

9. We read in Exodus of the tabernacle, the table, the candlestick, the altar, the pillars, the hangings, the scarlet, the fine linen, the hyacinth, the purple, of gold, silver, bronze—various vessels; the tabernacle divided into three parts, twelve loaves placed on the table for each week, seven lamps on the candlestick, the altar set for victims and holocausts, bowls, cups, censers, phials, mortars, pegs, red skins, goats' hair, and imperishable wood. Such and so many things are offered in the tabernacle of God, that no one may despair of salvation. Let one offer the gold of the senses, another the silver of eloquence, another the sound of bronze. The whole world is described in the mystery of the tabernacle. The first and second forecourt are open to all. For water and earth are given to all mortals. But in the holy of holies, as it were toward the ether and heaven, the entrance and flight is for the few. The twelve loaves signify the circle of the twelve months. The seven lamps show the seven wandering stars.

And lest I make this too long (for it is not my purpose now to write about the tabernacle), I shall come to the priestly vestments: and before I search out the mystical meaning, I shall, after the manner of the Jews, simply set forth what is written: so that after you have seen the priest clothed, and all his adornment has become plain to your eyes, we may then together inquire into the causes of each thing. 10. Let us first learn the common vestments of priests and of high priests. By linen breeches, which come down to the knees and the hollow of the knee, the private parts are concealed, and the upper part is drawn tight strongly below the navel: so that if at any time, being unencumbered, they slaughter the victims, drag bulls and rams, and carry burdens, and are engaged in the office of ministering, even if they should stumble and their thighs be uncovered, what is covered may not be exposed.

Hence also steps are forbidden to be made to the altar, lest the people below see the private parts of those ascending; and this kind of garment is called in the Hebrew tongue Machnase, in Greek περισκελή, by us "femoralia," or breeches reaching to the knees. Josephus relates (for in his time the temple was still standing, and Vespasian and Titus had not yet overturned Jerusalem, and he himself was of the priestly race; and much more is understood by what is seen with the eyes than what is perceived by the ear) that these breeches were woven, for the sake of strength, of twisted fine linen, and after being cut were sewn with a needle. For it was not possible for them to be made in a web of this kind.

11. The second garment, of linen, is the ποδήρης, that is, reaching to the feet, of double fine linen, which Josephus also calls byssine, and it is called Chotonath, that is, χιτών, which in Hebrew speech is translated "linen." This clings to the body, and is so tight, with close-fitting sleeves, that there is no wrinkle at all in the garment: and it descends to the legs. I wish, for the ease of the reader, to make use of common speech. Soldiers are accustomed to have linen garments, which they call "camisiae," so fitted to the limbs and drawn tight to the body, that they are ready either for running or for battle, for aiming the javelin, holding the shield, brandishing the sword, and wherever necessity leads. So also the priests, ready for the ministry of God, use this tunic; so that, having the beauty of the vestments, they may move about with the swiftness of the naked. 12. The third kind of garment is that which they call Abanet, which we may call a girdle, or belt, or zone.

The Babylonians, with a new word, call it Hemian. We set down different words, lest anyone err in the name. This girdle, in the likeness of the skin of a serpent, by which it sheds its old age, is so woven round that you would think it a rather long purse. It is woven of a woof of scarlet, purple, and hyacinth, with a warp of fine linen, for beauty and strength: and so distinguished with varied-thread work, that you would think the diverse flowers and gems were not woven by the artist's hand, but added on. The linen tunic, of which we spoke above, they bind between the navel and the breast with this girdle, which, having a width of four fingers, and hanging down on one side to the legs, when there is need for haste and readiness for the sacrifices, is twisted back over the left shoulder.

13. The fourth kind of vestment is the round little cap, such as we see depicted on Ulysses, as though a sphere were divided in the middle and one part placed on the head: this the Greeks and our people call τιάρα (tiara), some call it a galerus, the Hebrews Misnepheth: it does not come to a point at the top, nor does it cover the whole head down to the hair; but it leaves the third part uncovered from the forehead: and thus at the back of the head it is bound with a band, so that it does not easily slip from the head. It is moreover of fine linen, and so skillfully covered with linen cloth that no trace of the needle appears on the outside. 14. These four vestments, that is, the drawers, the linen tunic, the girdle, which is woven of purple, scarlet, fine linen, and hyacinth, and the cap, of which we have now spoken, are used both by Priests and by Pontiffs.

The remaining four belong properly to the Pontiffs, of which the first is Mail, that is, the ankle-length tunic, entirely of hyacinth color, having sleeves of the same color sewn on at the sides, and open at the top part, where it is put on over the neck—what is commonly called the "capitium"—with the edges very firmly woven of the same material, so that they may not easily tear. At the extreme part, that is, at the feet, there are seventy-two little bells, and as many pomegranates, woven of the same colors as those above the girdle. Between two bells is one pomegranate; between two pomegranates is one bell, so that each is in the middle of the other; and the reason is given. The bells were therefore attached to the garment so that when the Pontiff enters the Holy of Holies, he might go in wholly resounding, and would die instantly if he did not do this. 15. The sixth vestment is that which in the Hebrew tongue is called Ephod.

The Septuagint call it ἐπωμίς, that is, the "superhumeral." Aquila calls it ἐπένδυμα; we render Ephod by its own name. And wherever in Exodus or Leviticus "superhumeral" is read, let us know that among the Hebrews it is called Ephod. Now that this is the vestment of the Pontiff, I recall having written also in a certain epistle, and all Scripture testifies that it is something sacred, and suited to Pontiffs alone. Nor should it at once occur to anyone as an objection that Samuel, who was a Levite, is written in the first Book of Kingdoms to have had, while still of tender age, an ephod bad, that is, a linen superhumeral: since David also is recorded to have worn the same before the ark of the Lord. For it is one thing to have it woven of the four aforesaid colors, that is, hyacinth, fine linen, scarlet, purple, and of gold; and another to have it, in the likeness of the priests, plain and of linen.

Plates of gold, that is, thin sheets, are stretched out with marvelous fineness, from which cut threads are twisted, together with the weft of the three colors, hyacinth, scarlet, purple, and with the warp of fine linen: and there is produced a little mantle of wondrous beauty, dazzling the eyes with its brightness, in the manner of the Caracallae, but without hoods. Against the breast nothing is woven, and a place is left for the future Rationale.

On each shoulder it has a single stone, enclosed and bound with gold, which in Hebrew are called soom: by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion they are rendered onyx-stones; by the Septuagint they are translated as emeralds: Josephus calls them sardonyxes, agreeing with the Hebrew and with Aquila, so as to indicate either the color of the stones or their country of origin. And on each of the stones are the six names of the Patriarchs, by whom the people of Israel is divided. On the right shoulder are written the names of the elder sons of Jacob, on the left the younger: so that the Pontiff, entering the Holy of Holies, might bear on his shoulders the names of the people for whom he is about to entreat the Lord. 16. The seventh vestment is small in measure, but more sacred than all the aforesaid. Attend, I beg, your mind, that you may understand what is said.

In Hebrew it is called Hosen, but in Greek λόγιον; we may call it the Rationale, so that from the very name itself you may know at once that what is spoken of is mystical. It is a short cloth woven of gold and four colors, that is, the same as those of the Superhumeral, having the size of a span squared; and it is doubled, lest it easily tear. For woven into it are twelve stones of wondrous size and value, in four rows: so that in each little row three stones are placed. In the first row is set the sardius, the topaz, and the emerald. Symmachus disagrees regarding the emerald, translating "ceraunium" in its place. In the second, the carbuncle, the sapphire, the jasper. In the third, the ligure, the agate, the amethyst. In the fourth, the chrysolite, the onyx, the beryl. And I marvel greatly why the hyacinth, a most precious stone, is not placed among their number—unless perhaps it is itself, under another name, the ligure.

Searching through those who have written on the nature of stones and gems, I have not been able to find the ligure. On each of the stones, according to their ages, are engraved the names of the twelve tribes. These stones we read of in the diadem of the prince of Tyre, and in the Apocalypse of John, out of which the heavenly Jerusalem is built: and under their names and appearance is signified either the order or the diversity of the virtues. Through the four corners of the Rationale there are four golden rings, having opposite them on the Superhumeral four others, so that when the λόγιον is placed in the spot which we said was left on the Ephod, ring might come opposite ring, and they might be joined to one another by hyacinth-colored bands.

Furthermore, lest the size and weight of the stones should tear the woven threads, they were bound and enclosed with gold: nor was this sufficient for firmness, unless chains also were made of gold, which for beauty's sake were covered with golden tubes, and had also on the Rationale, above the two larger rings, which were fastened by golden hooks to the Superhumeral, two others below: for at the back, on the Superhumeral, opposite the breast and stomach, on either side there were golden rings, which were joined by chains to the lower rings of the Rationale: and thus it came about that both the Rationale was bound fast to the Superhumeral, and the Superhumeral to the Rationale, so that to those beholding it, it seemed to be one single weaving. 18. The eighth is the golden plate, that is, Sis zaab, on which is written the name of God in four Hebrew letters, Jod, He, Vav, He, which among them is called ineffable.

This is placed above the linen cap common to all Priests, but in the Pontiff something more is added, so that at the forehead it is bound fast by a hyacinth-colored band, and the name of God crowns and protects the whole beauty of the Pontiff. 19. We have learned what vestments are common with the Priests, and what are special to the Pontiff: and if there was so much difficulty in the earthen vessels, how great will be the majesty of the treasure that lies hidden within? Let us then say first what we have received from the Hebrews: and afterward, according to our custom, let us unfold the veils of spiritual understanding. Four colors correspond to four elements, from which all things subsist. Fine linen is assigned to earth, because it is produced from the earth. Purple to the sea, because it is dyed from its little shellfish. Hyacinth to the air, because of the likeness of its color. Scarlet to fire and to the ether, which in Hebrew is called Sani: which Aquila has translated διάφορον, Symmachus δίβαφον.

For "scarlet," according to the Latin tongue, among the Hebrews Tholath is written, that is, "little worm": and they record that it is fitting that the Pontiff should pray to the Creator not only for Israel, but for the whole world: since indeed this world consists of earth and water and air and fire, and these elements belong to all things. Hence the first, linen, vestment signifies the earth: the second, the hyacinth-colored one, displays the air in its color: because we are gradually lifted up from earthly things to the heights: and the hyacinth garment itself, coming from the head down to the ankles, indicates the air poured out from the heavens down to the earth. The pomegranates and bells, moreover, placed in the lower parts, signify lightnings and thunders: or the earth and the water, and the harmony of all the elements among themselves: and thus all things are interwoven with one another, so that in each single part all are found.

And the fact that the aforesaid colors are interwoven with gold is meant to signify that the vital heat, and the providence of the divine sense, penetrates all things. The Superhumeral and the two stones, whether emerald or onyx, which are above and cover each shoulder, are interpreted as the two hemispheres: of which one is above the earth, the other below the earth; or else the sun and the moon, which gleam above. That girdle by which the priest's breast is bound tight, and by which the linen tunic, that is, the earth, is constrained, they interpret as the ocean. The Rationale placed in the middle they explain as the earth: which, like a point, though it has all things in itself, is nevertheless hemmed in by all the elements. The twelve stones they interpret either as the zodiacal circle, or as the twelve months, and to each little row they assign single seasons, and allot two months apiece. Nor let this exposition seem to anyone a pagan one.

For even if the heavens and the disposition of God have been dishonored under the names of idols, the providence of God is not therefore to be denied, which runs and is borne along by a fixed law, and governs all things. For in Job also we read of Arcturus and Orion, and Mazuroth, that is, the zodiacal circle, and other names of the stars. Not that the same words exist among the Hebrews, but because we cannot understand what is said except by familiar terms. And beautifully is that very thing which is in the middle called the Rationale; for all things are full of reason, and earthly things cling to heavenly ones: indeed the reason of earthly things and of the seasons, of heat and cold, and the twofold temperance between the two, descends from the course and reason of heaven. Hence also the Rationale is bound more tightly with the Ephod.

Furthermore, that it is said that in the Rationale itself there is δήλωσις and ἀλήθεια, that is, manifestation and doctrine, or truth, signifies this very thing: that there is never falsehood in the reason of God; but truth itself is shown to men by many signs and proofs, and comes even to mortals. Whence it has come about that we know the reason of the sun and the moon and the year and the months and the seasons and the hours, of tempests too, of fair weather and of the winds, and of all things, receiving wisdom implanted in us by God, with God Himself as inhabitant and teacher, showing us the knowledge of His own dwelling and structure. Above all things, the mitre and the hyacinth-colored band show the heaven: and the golden plate which is on the forehead of the Pontiff, with the name of God inscribed upon it, shows that all things beneath are governed by the will of God.

This same thing I think is figured under other names both in the Cherubim and in the four living creatures, which are so intermingled with one another and cling together, that in one all the others are found: and that they go forward instantly, and do not turn back. For times slip away, and, leaving behind what is past, hasten toward what is to come.

And the fact that they are always in motion signifies this, which the philosophers also suspect, that the world runs in its own order, and is ceaselessly turned like a wheel upon its own axle: whence also there is wheel within wheel, that is, time within time, and the year revolves back upon itself: and the very wheels are lifted up to heaven, and above the crystal is a throne of sapphire, and above the throne the likeness of one sitting: whose lower parts are fiery, whose upper parts are of electrum: to show that the lower things have need of fire and of purging, while the things above persist in the equality of their own condition. And just as here, in the priest's attire, the golden plate is above, so in Ezekiel the electrum is placed on the breast and on the crown of the head.

It was fitting, therefore (as we have said in part above), that the Pontiff of God, bearing on his vestments the type of all creatures, should indicate that all things stand in need of God's mercy: and that when he sacrificed to Him, the whole condition of the universe should be expiated, so that he might pray not for children and parents and kinsfolk only, but for the whole of creation, both in voice and in vesture. 20. We have touched upon the Hebrew exposition, and, reserving the boundless forest of meanings for another time, we have laid down certain foundations of a house to come. Concerning the linen drawers, they are accustomed to say this: the reason of seeds and of generation pertaining to the flesh is thereby assigned to the earth.

Whence also God speaks to Adam: "Earth thou art, and unto earth thou shalt go." And the causes of this matter—how from so small a seed and such foul beginnings so great a beauty, whether of men or of various things, is born—are wrapped up, and do not lie open to human eyes. We read in Leviticus that, according to the command of God, Moses washed Aaron and his sons: even then the sacraments of Baptism signified the cleansing of the world and the holiness of all things. They do not receive their vestments unless the filth is first washed away, nor are they adorned for sacred things unless in Christ they are reborn as new men. For new wine is put into new wineskins. And the fact that Moses does the washing is a sign of the Law. They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.

And "from Adam even to Moses all have sinned." We are to be washed by the commands of God, and when, made ready for the garment of Christ, we shall have laid aside the tunics of skin, then we shall be clothed with the linen vestment, having in itself nothing of death, but wholly white: so that, rising from baptism, we may gird our loins in truth, and the whole disgrace of former sins may be hidden. Whence David also says: "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered." 21. After the feminalia and the linen tunic we are clothed with the hyacinth-colored garment, and we begin to ascend from earthly things to the heights. This same hyacinthine tunic is called by the Seventy ὑποδύτης, that is, the undergarment, and is properly the Pontiff's, signifying that the reasoning of sublime things does not lie open to all, but to the greater and perfect.

This Moses and Aaron and the Prophets had, and all to whom it is said: Go up onto a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion. Nor is it enough for us to have the washing away of former sins, the grace of baptism, a more secret doctrine, unless we shall also have works. Whence the Ephod is joined also, that is, the Superhumeral, which is coupled to the Rational: so that it be neither loose nor unfastened, but that they cling to one another, and be of mutual assistance. For reason has need of works, and works of reason: so that what we perceive in mind we may accomplish in deed. And the two stones on the Superhumeral signify either Christ and the Church, containing the names of the twelve Apostles, who were sent forth to preach: or the letter and the spirit, in which are contained all the mysteries of the law. On the right is the spirit, on the left the letter. Through letters we descend to words, through words we come to the sense.

How beautiful the order, and how it shows forth mysteries from the very vesture itself. On the shoulders are works, in the breast reason. Whence also the priests eat the little breast. But this Rational is twofold, open and hidden, simple and mystical, having in itself twelve stones, and four rows, which I think to be the four virtues, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and Temperance, which cleave to one another: and while they are mutually mingled, they make up the number twelve: or the four Gospels, which in the Apocalypse are described as full of eyes, and, shining with the light of the Lord, illumine the world. In the one are the four, and in the four each single one. Whence δήλωσις and ἀλήθεια, that is, doctrine and truth, are in the breast of the Priest.

For when one has been clothed with the manifold garment, it follows that he should utter in speech the truth which he retains in his heart: and for this reason there is truth in the Rational, that is, knowledge, that he may know what things are to be taught: and manifestation and doctrine, that he may be able to instruct others in what he has conceived in mind. Where are they who say that innocence can suffice for a Priest? The old law agrees with the new: Moses says the same thing as the Apostle. The one adorns the priest's knowledge in his vestments: the other instructs Timothy and Titus in disciplines. But the very order of the vestments is also notable. Let us read Leviticus. Not first the Rational, and then the Superhumeral, but before the Superhumeral, and afterward the Rational. From thy commandments, he says, I have understood: let us first do, and so teach: lest the authority of doctrine be destroyed by works left undone.

This is what we read in the Prophet: Sow for yourselves in justice, and reap the fruit of life: enlighten for yourselves the light of knowledge. First sow in justice, and reap the fruit of eternal life, afterward claim for yourselves knowledge. Nor is perfection at once complete, if anyone has the Superhumeral and the Rational: unless these very things be joined together by a strong bond among themselves, and be connected one to another: so that both operation cleave to reason, and reason to works: and, these preceding, doctrine and truth follow. 22. The four elements, of which we spoke above, and the two stones, either onyx or emerald, and the twelve gems which are placed in the Rational, if there were time for me to discuss them, I would set forth to you the natures and causes of each: and I would demonstrate more fully what each one signifies, and how they are compared to the several virtues, matters thoroughly inquired into.

Let it suffice that the holy Pope Epiphanius also published an excellent volume on this subject: which if you wish to read, you will attain the fullest knowledge. I already perceive that I am exceeding the measure of a letter, and I see that the wax tablets of the recipient are full. Whence I pass to the rest, that at last the discourse may be finished. The golden plate glows upon the forehead: for the learning of all things profits us nothing, unless we be crowned with the knowledge of God. We are clothed with linen garments, adorned with hyacinthine ones, girded with the sacred belt, works are given to us, the Rational is placed on the breast: we receive truth, speech brings forth doctrine: all things are imperfect, unless a charioteer worthy of so fine a chariot be sought, and unless the Creator, standing over His creatures, Himself rule what He has made. What was formerly shown in the plate is now displayed in the sign of the Cross.

The blood of the Gospel is more precious than the gold of the law. Then the sign was fixed on the foreheads of those who groaned, according to the voice of Ezekiel: now, bearing the cross, we say: The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us. Twice in Exodus we read, at the Lord's command, and Moses performing His bidding, of eight kinds of the Pontiff's vestments. In Leviticus only seven are written of; and it is related how Moses clothed his brother Aaron with them: of the feminalia alone nothing is said, for this reason (as I think), that the law does not put its hand to our genitals and private parts, but we ourselves ought to cover and veil our more secret and shameful parts, and reserve the purity of conscience for God the judge, by means of the feminalia.

Concerning the other virtues, for example, wisdom, fortitude, justice, temperance, humility, meekness, liberality, others also can judge: chastity conscience alone knows, and human eyes cannot be certain judges of this matter: save for those who are commonly exposed to lust after the manner of brute animals. Whence also the Apostle says: Concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: as though Moses were speaking: I do not clothe with feminalia, nor impose necessity on anyone: he who wishes to be a Priest, let him clothe himself. O how many virgins, and how many men's hoped-for chastity will be dishonored on the day of judgment: how many men's defamed chastity will be crowned by God the judge. Let us ourselves, then, take up the feminalia: let us ourselves cover our private parts: let us not seek the eyes of others. Let the genitals be so covered that they lie open to no one's eyes: lest, when we enter the Holy of Holies, if any shamefulness should appear, we die the death.

23. Now the discourse is ending, and I am drawn back to higher matters. So great ought to be the knowledge and learning of God's Pontiff, that even his step, and his movement, and all things about him should be vocal. Let him conceive truth in mind, and let him make it resound through his whole bearing and adornment: so that whatever he does, whatever he speaks, may be the teaching of peoples. For without the little bells and the varied colors, and the gems and flowers of the virtues, he can neither enter the Holy Places, nor possess the name of Bishop.

These things I dictated for a single night's labor, in hasty speech, when the rope was already being loosed from the shore, and the sailors were calling out more and more insistently, such things as I was able to hold in memory, and which I had gathered together over long reading in the Rational of my own breast: well aware that I flow rather with the impulse of speaking than with the judgment of a writer, and bring forth turbid speech after the manner of a torrent. There is said to be, in the index of Septimius Tertullian, a book on the vestments of Aaron, which up to this day I have not been able to find. If it should be found by you, on account of the fame of the City, I beg you not to compare my little drop to that river. For I am not to be judged by the genius of great men, but by my own powers.

I know that I, Principia, daughter in Christ, am reproached by many, because I sometimes write to women, and prefer the weaker sex to men. And therefore I ought first to answer my detractors, and thus come to the little discussion which you asked of me. If men were to inquire concerning the Scriptures, I would not speak to women. If Barak had been willing to go to battle, Deborah would not have triumphed over the vanquished enemies. Jeremiah is shut in prison, and because Israel, about to perish, had not received a man prophesying, Huldah, a woman, is raised up for them. The priests and Pharisees crucify the Son of God, and Mary Magdalene weeps at the cross, prepares ointments, seeks Him in the tomb, questions the gardener, recognizes the Lord, goes to the Apostles, announces that He is found. They doubt, she has confidence. Truly πυργίτης a tower-woman, truly a tower of whiteness and of Lebanon, which looks toward the face of Damascus, that is, toward the blood of the Savior, calling to the penance of sackcloth.

Sarah's womanly powers had failed, and therefore Abraham is made subject to her, and it is said to him: In all that Sarah says to thee, hearken to her voice. Their womanly powers had failed; thou hast never had womanly powers at all. Sex is swallowed up by the virgin, she bears Christ in her body. Already she possesses what she is to be. Rebecca goes to inquire of God: and hears oracles worthy of her answer: two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided from thy belly. She bears two who are at strife: thou dost daily conceive, bring forth, and beget One, fruitful in union, manifold in majesty, harmonious in trinity. Miriam, sister of Moses, sings the victories of the Lord, and Rachel marks our Bethlehem and Ephratha with the stock of her name for posterity. The daughters of Zelophehad deserve to receive an inheritance among their brothers. Ruth and Esther and Judith are of such glory that they have given their names to the sacred books.

Anna the Prophetess bears a son who is a Levite, a Prophet, a Judge, venerable for his sacred hair, and offers him in the tabernacle of God. The woman of Tekoa confounds King David with her question, teaches by riddle, softens him by the example of God. We read also of another wise woman, who, when a city was besieged, and because of one rebel, Joab, the leader of the army, was battering the walls with a ram, spoke to the people in her wisdom, and by womanly authority calmed the peril of so great a multitude. What shall I say of the queen of Sheba, who came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and shall by the Lord's testimony condemn all the men of Jerusalem? Elizabeth prophesies both in womb and in voice. Anna the daughter of Phanuel becomes, in the temple, a temple of God, and by daily fasting finds the heavenly bread. Women follow the Savior, and minister to Him from their substance.

He who fed five thousand men, besides women and children, from five loaves, does not refuse to receive food from holy women. When He speaks with the Samaritan woman at the well, and is satisfied by the conversion of one who believed, He disregards the food that had been bought. Aquila and Priscilla instruct Apollos, an apostolic man and most learned in the law, and teach him the way of the Lord. If it was not shameful for an Apostle to be taught by a woman, why should it be shameful for me, after men, also to teach women?

2. These and such-like things, most revered daughter, I have briefly touched upon, so that you may neither be sorry for your sex, nor men be puffed up because of theirs: for whose condemnation, the life of women in the sacred Scriptures is praised. I rejoice, and my mind is, as it were, lifted up with a kind of dance, when Daniel is found in Babylon, and Ananias, Azarias, Misael.

O how many old men and judges of Israel does the king of Babylon fry in his frying pan! How many Susannas—which is interpreted “lily”—who by the whiteness of their chastity weave garlands for the bridegroom, and change the crown of thorns into the glory of the one triumphant. You have there, in the study of the Scriptures, and in holiness of mind and body, Marcella and Asella: of whom the one may lead you through green meadows, and through the varied flowers of the divine Volumes, to Him who says in the Canticle: I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys; the other, herself the Lord's flower, may deserve to hear with you: As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters. And since we have begun to speak of flowers and lilies, and virginity is always compared to flowers, it seems fitting to me, writing to the flower of Christ, to discourse of many flowers.

3. Reading the forty-fourth Psalm, I found in the title: Unto the end, for them that shall be changed, for the sons of Core, for understanding, a Song for the beloved: in the Hebrew it is written, Lamanasse al sosannim labne core meschil sir ididoth: which we have translated into Latin: For the victor, for the lilies of the sons of Core, a Song of instruction, of the most beloved. Symmachus, more clearly after his manner, has translated it as a triumph for flowers.

Therefore Sosannim is rendered either as “for them that are to be changed,” or as “lilies and flowers”: Meschil likewise signifies both “instruction” and “most learned”: Sir, “song”: Ididia is the ancient name of Solomon, since in another sense he is called “peaceable.” Now four Psalms, though they differ in the latter part of their titles, are marked at the beginning with this same phrase—the forty-fourth, the fifty-ninth, the sixty-eighth, the seventy-ninth: of which the two middle ones are inscribed “of David”; the first and the last, “of the Sons of Core” and “of Asaph.” To speak of all of these is not for this present time; let us explain the one we have begun.

4. Rightly, those who are to be changed at the end of the ages, of whom the Apostle speaks: We shall all sleep, but we shall not all be changed, are referred to the end. And this very mystery prepares the reader for spiritual understanding.

For where the sense is simple and open, what need is there for the hearer to be forewarned to understanding, and for it to be said to him, He who has ears to hear, let him hear? A song too is sung to the most dear and beloved one, because for his sake the change promised to the saints will come. This can indeed also be understood in this life, when we put off the old man, and put on the new, who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of the Creator, and beholding the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image as it were from glory to glory.

Nor is there any time in which the saint is not being changed, forgetting the things behind and stretching forward to what is before, since our inner man is renewed day by day, and the unchangeable God who says through the prophet: I am God, and I am not changed, has for our sake changed his countenance, and taken the form of a servant, and migrating from Judea to the Philistines, who are interpreted as "falling by the cup" (for they had been made drunk by the golden cup of Babylon), was first mocked because of the foolishness of the cross, then received because of the glory of his triumphs. But that beloved one is he of whom Isaiah sings: I will sing a Song to my beloved of my vineyard; and the Gospel: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear him. To him not one prophet, but the whole choir of the sons of Korah now sings praises.

Who the sons of Korah are, that is, of the Skull, is discussed more fittingly in the forty-first Psalm. And that we may know that the text of the Song agrees with its title, it speaks of a change from one thing to another, as when the daughter is bidden to forget her former parent and prepare herself for the embraces of the king. And that he is the victor who says: Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world; and to whom this prayer of the youth is addressed: Yours is victory, and wisdom, and glory, and I am your servant—this indeed he knows who, by the Lord's conquering, has overcome, and is a partaker of his triumphs, and who has woven for the Savior the unfading crown of glory from the brightness of good works and the variety of virtues.

5. My heart has belched forth a good word.

For which Symmachus interpreted, My heart was moved by a good word: indicating that the heart of the speaker was moved by another's speech, and that the Holy Spirit, disclosing the future mysteries of Christ, made him also burst forth into speech, so that just as others have spoken of his coming, so too would this one speak. Now "belch" properly denotes the digestion of food, and the exhaling into wind of foods that have been digested. For just as, according to the quality of the foods, a belch bursts forth from the stomach, and the breath is an indication of a good or bad odor, so the thoughts of the inner man bring forth words, and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The just man, eating, fills his soul, and when he has been satisfied with sacred teachings, he brings forth from the treasury of a good heart the things that are good, and speaks with the Apostle: Do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ?

Some wish this to be understood as spoken from the person of the Father, because from the innermost vitals and secret places of the heart he brought forth his Word which was always in him, according to the prophecy of another Psalm: From the womb before the daystar I begot you. So that, just as "womb" does not signify a womb (for God is not divided into members) but shows the same substance of the Father and the Son, so also "heart" and the word that is brought forth from the heart show the Father and the Son. And what follows: I speak my works to the king, they fit to this understanding: He himself spoke and they were made, he himself commanded and they were created—meaning that while the Father spoke, the Son worked. For all things that the Father does, the Son likewise does, and the Father, abiding in him, works all things through the Son.

6. "I speak my works to the king." The prophetic choir, about to speak the mysteries of Christ and the Church, lest it seem unworthy of the song, and lest, because of the consciousness of sins, it be said to it, "Why do you declare my righteous acts, and take my covenant in your mouth?" confesses its own works to the king whom it is about to praise, so that, if they are good, he himself may receive them, or, if bad, may cleanse them; and it does what it is bidden: "Declare your iniquities, that you may be justified." And, "The just man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech". It is, moreover, an idiom not only of the Hebrew but also of the Latin language to call compositions and writings "little works." Therefore this one too, who is about to sing praises to the Lord, consecrates his song and his little work to him, and instead of the Muses of the gentiles, invokes at the beginning the very one whom he is about to praise.

7. "My tongue is the pen of a scribe, writing swiftly." For which we translated, "My tongue is the stylus of a swift scribe." This is the last part of the prologue; and join with what precedes what follows: My heart has belched forth a good word in praise of God. And my little works, by which I am about to proclaim him, I have above all consecrated to him. I ought therefore also to prepare my tongue as a stylus and pen, so that through it the Holy Spirit may write in the heart and ears of hearers. For it is mine, as it were, to offer the tongue as an instrument; it is his, as it were through an instrument, to sound forth what is his own. A stylus writes in wax; a pen either on paper or on parchment, or in whatever material is suited for writing.

But my tongue, in the likeness of a swift scribe—whom we may understand as a notary—by a certain shorthand of signs, has traced out an abbreviated and condensed discourse of the Gospel upon the fleshly tablets of the heart. For if the Law was written by the finger of God through the hand of the Mediator, and what was destroyed has been glorified, how much more will the Gospel, which is to remain, be written by my tongue by the Holy Spirit: so that the swift word in the heart of believers may describe the praises of him to whom it is said in Isaiah, "Quickly strip off the spoils, plunder swiftly." 8. "You are beautiful in form beyond the sons of men." In the Hebrew: "You are fairer in comeliness than the sons of men." The proem finished, here begins the narration, and an apostrophe is made to the beloved one himself, and the dear one, and the king, to whom the speaker's works have been consecrated.

Now it is asked how he is more beautiful than all the sons of men, of whom we read in Isaiah: "We have seen him, and he had no form nor comeliness, but his form was without honor and lacking beside the sons of men. A man set in affliction, and knowing how to bear infirmity, for he turned away his face." Nor let the Scripture at once seem discordant: because there the ignobility of the body is commemorated on account of the scourges and the spittings and the blows and the nails, and the injuries of the gibbet; here the beauty of virtues in the sacred and venerable body. Not that the divinity of Christ, compared to men, is more beautiful; for this admits no comparison: but apart from the sufferings of the cross, he is more beautiful than all. A virgin from a virgin, who was born not of the will of man, but of God.

For unless he had had something starlike also in his countenance and eyes, the Apostles would never have followed him at once, nor would those who came to seize him have fallen down. Finally, in the present testimony too, where it says, "A man set in affliction and knowing how to bear infirmity," it gives the reasons why he suffered these things. "For he turned away his face," that is, with his divinity slightly withdrawn, he left his body to injury. Some join this verse to what precedes, so that "beautiful in form beyond the sons of men" refers not to Christ, but to the pen. 9. "Grace is poured out on your lips, therefore God has blessed you forever." In the Vulgate Edition, instead of "has blessed," we read "has anointed." But it must be known that the error of the copyists ought not to be imputed to the Seventy Translators, who at this place agree with the Hebrew Truth.

Reading that, "Jesus increased in age and wisdom and grace before God and men": and elsewhere: "They marveled at the words of grace that proceeded out of his mouth": and that "he had authority over his speech"—we can understand in what sense it is said: "Grace is poured out on your lips." Noah found grace before the Lord in his days, and Moses, and the rest of the prophets. But the whole multitude of grace was poured out on the lips of the Savior, which in a short time filled the whole world. And he himself, like a bridegroom, came forth from his chamber. "His going forth is from the highest heaven, and his circuit even to the height thereof." For holy Mary too, because she had conceived him in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells bodily, is greeted as full of grace.

And the Apostle, knowing that his preaching, not in worldly eloquence but in the power of God, had surpassed all the teachings of the world, says: "And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." And rebuking himself, because he had said, "But I have labored more abundantly than they all," he immediately added: "Yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me." And again: "For his grace which is in me was not void." Now the word "outpouring" is properly joined to the Savior, to signify the abundance of grace, according to that: "I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh." And, "the love of God is poured out in our hearts." And note that the understanding of all that is said should be referred to the person who was assumed from Mary: that because of the grace of his lips he is said to be blessed forever: something similar the Apostle also preaches: "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

For which cause God also has exalted him, and given him a name above every name." For just as there the form of a servant is the injury of the passion, and the exaltation and the gift of the name return to the Father, so here the outpouring of grace and blessing forever is to be referred to him who is able to be humbled, and to grow. 10. "Gird your sword upon your thigh, most mighty one: in your comeliness and your beauty." In the Hebrew: "Gird your sword upon your thigh, most strong one. In your glory and your comeliness." I think you understand this passage very well, that Christ is girded for battle with a sword. And that you may know that virginity always has as its sword the sword of chastity, by which it cuts off the works of the flesh and overcomes pleasures—even gentile error fashioned the goddess-virgins as armed. Peter too girded his loins, and had a burning lamp in his hands.

But that "thigh" signifies the works of marriage, you will be briefly taught by these examples. Abraham, sending to seek a wife for his son Isaac, says to the eldest of his house: "Put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord God of heaven." No doubt this refers to him who was to be born of his seed. Jacob, after wrestling with the man who appeared to him at the torrent Jabbok, having left Mesopotamia and entering the land of Promise, was not allotted the name Israel until the sinew of his thigh had withered. And to his son: "A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a ruler from his thighs." And again, he himself, about to die, makes Joseph swear by his thigh, that he should not bury him in Egypt. In the book of Judges too we read: "Gideon had seventy sons, who came out of his thighs".

In the Song of Songs it is said, "Behold the bed of Solomon, sixty mighty men round about it, of the mighty men of Israel, all holding swords, taught in war, each man his sword upon his thigh." Therefore in his own glory and comeliness, or in the form and beauty of his divinity, mortifying the works of the flesh, and born of a virgin, he was the prince of virginity for the virgins to come. « And attend prosperously, proceed and reign. On account of truth and meekness and justice; and thy right hand shall lead thee wonderfully. » In the Hebrew: « In thy comeliness ascend prosperously: on account of truth and meekness of justice, and thy right hand shall lead thee wonderfully. » It is written twice among the Hebrews, "in thy comeliness," lest anyone think this same phrase repeated by a fault of the copyists. And it is a figure which among the Rhetoricians is called Repetition.

Therefore, after the manner of a Panegyric, in which those praising speak to those whom they extol with encomiums, he exhorts the armed one to battle: that having once taken up wars he may not abandon them, and marching victorious over the slaughter of enemies, may prepare for himself a kingdom among those whom, snatching from the power of the devil, he has joined to his own empire; and may say: But I have been established king by him over Sion his holy mountain. Nor is there any doubt that truth, and gentleness, and justice, are called Christ, who says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And, Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart. And, Who was made unto us by God justice, and redemption, and sanctification. But all these things are said in the body, that they may be required in the members. The Lord's victory is the servants' triumph. The Master's instruction is the disciples' progress.

And what follows, Thy right hand shall lead thee wonderfully, must be understood either of the signs which he performed in the Gospel, or τροπικῶς (figuratively) of the slaughter which he wrought among the enemies. The heart of the wise is at the right hand, and the heart of the fool at his left. Christ is wholly on the right hand: Antichrist on the left. The Hebrew interpretation differs in the words, not in the sense. 12. Thy arrows are sharp, most powerful one, peoples shall fall under thee into the hearts of the king's enemies. In the Hebrew, without "most powerful one," the rest the same. And this little verse is fitted especially for thee, who wounded by the dart of the Lord, sing with the bride in the Canticle, I am wounded with love.

Nor is it a wonder, if thy spouse has many arrows, of which it is said in the hundred and nineteenth Psalm: The arrows of the mighty are sharp, with coals that lay waste; since he himself is the dart of the Father, and speaks in Isaiah: He has placed me as a chosen arrow, in his quiver he has hidden me. By these arrows Cleophas also, wounded on the road with the other disciple, was saying, Was not our heart burning within us, while he spoke on the way, and opened to us the Scriptures? And in another place we read: As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so the sons of the shaken off. By these arrows the whole world has been wounded and captured. Paul was an arrow of the Lord, who after being sent from Jerusalem even unto Illyricum by the bow of the Lord, flew hither and thither, hastens to go to Spain: that as a swift arrow under the feet of his Lord, he might lay low the east and the west.

And because there are many enemies of the most powerful king, who had been wounded by the fiery arrows of the devil, and struck as a stag with a dart in the liver; the arrows of the Lord are sent fiery with coals that lay waste, that whatever fault there may be in the heart of the king's enemies, they may burn away, and by saving fire cast out the destroying fire. « Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, a sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity, therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. » In the Hebrew: « Thy throne, O God, is for ever and to eternity: a sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of exultation above thy partakers. » Understand two persons, that of him who is anointed of God, and of him who anoints.

Whence also Aquila interprets the Hebrew word ᴇʟᴏɪᴍ not in the nominative case, but in the vocative, saying Θεὲ, and we, for the sake of understanding, have put "Dee," which the Latin tongue does not receive; lest anyone perversely think that the God of the beloved and most loving one and king is twice called the Father. For although the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, and they are to each other both dweller and throne: yet in this place the speech is directed to the king, who is God; and it is said to him that his empire has no end.

This indeed the Angel also announced to Mary: « The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. » Nor let us think this contrary to what the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians, says, that the Son will hand over the kingdom to God, and will be subjected to him who subjected all things to himself: that God may be all in all. For he did not say, he will hand it to the Father, so that he might seem to separate the Son, but he will hand it to God, that is, to God dwelling in the assumption of the body: that God may be all in all: and Christ, who before through few virtues was in individuals, may through all virtues abide in all. But that the sceptre and the rod are the insignia of one reigning, the Prophet himself signifies, saying: A sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

Some, bringing forward testimony from Isaiah: A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise from its root, understand this of the man who was assumed, to whom empire is also conferred, and who is said to reign because of loved justice and hated iniquity, and to be anointed with the oil of exultation above his partakers: as if to receive as a reward of love, and of hatred of iniquity, the anointing. We are taught, however, that on both sides, of love and of hatred, there are seeds in us, since he himself who raised up the firstfruits of the mass of our bodies to the heavens, both loved justice and hated iniquity. Whence David: Have not I hated them, O Lord, that hated thee? And pined away because of thy enemies? I hated them with a perfect hatred. What follows: God, thy God, hath anointed thee. The first name of God is to be understood in the vocative case, the following in the nominative.

At which I am rather astonished, why Aquila did not, as he had begun in the first little verse, interpret in the vocative case, but in the nominative, naming God twice, who anointed the aforesaid God. In this passage Photinus is crushed, but Arius lifts up his head, bringing forward testimony from the Gospel: « I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God. » But when he hears him called beloved, girded with a sword upon his thigh, and reigning because of truth and meekness, anointed on account of loved justice and hated iniquity, and anointed above his partners, of whom it is written: « We are made partakers of Christ, if only we hold firm the beginning of our substance unto the end »; I marvel why he calls only "God of God" to calumny, as if all the things that have been said pertain to the divinity of the Word and not to the lowliness of the man.

Let him hear the Acts of the Apostles: « Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit. » Let him hear the Gospel: « The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: therefore also that which shall be born of thee shall be called holy, the Son of God. » Let him perceive the Lord himself thundering: « The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me. » By "partakers," however, he signifies the Apostles and believers; to whom he grants the name of his own anointing, that from the Anointed they may be called anointed, that is, from Christ, Christians. « Myrrh and gutta and cassia from thy garments, from the ivory houses, out of which the daughters of kings have delighted thee in thy honor. » In the Hebrew, « Myrrh and stacte and cassia are on all thy garments from the ivory houses, wherewith the daughters of kings have made thee glad in thy honor. » The preface itself has taught thee that I wished to explain this Psalm for this reason, that writing to a virgin, I found a title concerning lilies and flowers.

Therefore I will accordingly refer these little verses to thee, for whom this volume is written. Thou hast mortified thy members upon the earth, and daily thou offerest myrrh to Christ. Thou art the good odor of Christ, and therefore thou dost present stacte, that is, a drop or gutta, to the Lord. Those also who know the properties of spices relate that stacte is the flower of myrrh. But what follows, cassia, is that which by others is called σύριγξ, that is, a reed-pipe, vocal in the praises of God, and burning away by its heat all the phlegm and rheum of pleasures. Where in our copies it is written, gutta, or stacte, in the Hebrew is read ᴍᴀʟᴏᴛʜ. Whence also Nicodemus prepared a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes for the burial of the Lord. And the bridegroom speaks to the bride: Myrrh and aloe with all the chief ointments. And she replies: My hands have dropped with myrrh; my fingers are full of myrrh. Cast thou too away the works of death.

Being buried together with Christ in baptism, and dead to this world, and thinking of nothing but heavenly things, say to thy bridegroom: My hands have dropped with myrrh; my fingers are full of myrrh. We read also of a priestly ointment, which David also mentions: Like the ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, that ran down to the skirt of his garment. In which, mixed with the other spices, is also stacte. The Magi also offer myrrh. And in the present passage, the beginning of Christ's garments is to take up his death, and to show it forth in one's own flesh. Prepare these garments for thy bridegroom: let him go forth adorned with these vestments by thee.

And when thou shalt have woven for him garments of this kind, thou shalt thyself be made the temple of God, and shalt make him glad from the ivory houses, or as it is better written in the Hebrew, from the temple of teeth; and thou shalt sing praises to the Lord, and being wholly dead to the world, thou shalt imitate the choirs of Angels. For ivory and teeth are, by the very nature of the names, a token of death and of the voice. And accordingly it is added: Out of which the daughters of kings have delighted thee in thy honor. The King of kings and Lord of lords is thy bridegroom. These kings who are underlings beneath so great a king are thy fathers, who begot thee by Evangelical teaching.

Thou art their daughter, and thou honorest in all thy garments and good odors and ivory temple him, of whom it was said above: Grace is poured abroad in thy lips; And: Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, most powerful one; And, Thy arrows are sharp; And, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. For what we have translated "ivory houses," because in the Greek it is written ἀπὸ βαρέων ἐλεφαντίνων some of the Latins, because of the ambiguity of the word, have translated "from heavy things," since βάρις is a word local to Palestine: and even to this day houses closed on every side, and built after the manner of towers and public walls, are called βάρις. « The queen stood at thy right hand in gilded clothing; » and what follows, which we render « surrounded with variety, » no interpreter has translated except the Vulgate Edition. In the Hebrew, « The consort stood at thy right hand in a diadem of gold. » Where we have rendered "consort," there is read among the Hebrews Segal.

For which Aquila has σύγκοιτον, that is, "bedfellow": Symmachus and the Fifth Edition have παλλακήν, that is, "concubine"; the Seventy, Theodotion, and the Sixth Edition have translated "queen." Then where I have put, "in a diadem of gold," Symmachus translated, "in prime gold": Aquila, the Fifth and Sixth Editions, "in dye," or "in gold of Ophir." Those who are the daughters of kings, and are prepared for the embraces of the bridegroom, delight him by myrrh and gutta and cassia and ivory houses, whose throne is for ever and ever. But she who is already founded upon the rock, Christ, with stable root, the Catholic Church, one dove, perfect and nearest, stands at the right hand, and has nothing sinister in herself. She stands in gilded garments, passing from the words of the Scriptures to the sense, and full of all virtues: or as we have translated, in a diadem of gold.

For she is a queen, and reigns with the king: whose daughters we may understand to be both, in common, the souls of believers, and, in particular, the choirs of virgins. Ophir is a kind of gold, either from a place in India, or from the color given it as a name. For among the Hebrews there are seven names for gold.

Let us also understand "wife" and "concubine" from the Song of Solomon, who cannot sleep without her bridegroom or husband. « Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house, and the king shall desire your beauty: for he is the Lord your God, and they shall adore him. » In the Hebrew: « Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people, and your father's house, and the king shall desire your beauty; for he is your Lord, and adore him. » Up to this point the Holy Spirit speaks through the tongue of the Prophet, which is compared to the pen of a swift writer, addressing the king himself, and warrior, and God, and bridegroom.

Hence the person of the Father is introduced speaking to the bride of his Son, and exhorting her that, having despised the error of her old paganism and idolatry, she should first attend to the things that are said; and this is why she is named as a daughter of a foreign race; then let her see either the very things that are spoken, or the whole of creation, understanding invisible things from visible ones, and perceiving the Creator from his creatures, and let her diligently incline her ear, so that she may keep in memory the things that are said. And when she has heard, seen, and inclined her ear, and has given herself wholly over to doctrine and to the understanding of the things spoken, let her first forget her own people: and, like Abraham going forth from Chaldea, let her leave the land of her birth and of her kindred.

No one doubts that our father, before we were adopted by God, was the devil, whence the Savior says: « You are born of your father the devil. » When, then, he says, you shall have forgotten your ancient father, and shall have shown yourself such, having laid aside your former filth, that whitened you may ascend above your kinsman, and be such as my Son may love, then the king shall desire your beauty. And lest you think that he is one from the crowd by whom you are to be loved, he himself is your King and your Lord. But because sometimes those who are kings and lords are indeed kings and lords by power, yet of the same nature as those over whom they rule and reign; I declare to you that he is also your God, and that you ought to adore him.

The Seventy Interpreters did not say, "and you shall adore him," but "they shall adore him," so that the sense is: This one who is about to love you, who is about to cherish your beauty, is God, and is to be adored by all. What we have expounded concerning the Church gathered from the nations, let each one refer to himself, and let the soul of the believer understand that, its former vices being abandoned, it is adopted as a daughter; let it incline its ear, let it forget its old manner of life: and, with the Apostle, let it dismiss its dead father, and show itself such as may be loved by the king. For he is her Lord, to whom she ought to bend the knee, and, having laid aside pride, take up the yoke of humility. 17. Let us ask the Jews who this daughter is to whom God speaks. I do not doubt that they will answer, the Synagogue.

And how is it said to the Synagogue and to the Israelite people: « Send away your people, and your father's house »? Will she then abandon the Hebrew nation, and Abraham her ancient father? If they say that Abraham is signified by this calling, who left the Chaldeans, who then is this king who is about to love the beauty of Abraham? Surely one is he who speaks: Hear, O daughter, and another is he of whom it is spoken: The king shall desire your beauty. He who is other is not only king, but also Lord and God, who is to be adored. « O daughter of Tyre, the rich among the people shall entreat your face with gifts. » In the Hebrew it is: « O daughter of the most strong, the rich of the people shall entreat your face with gifts. » The Hebrew word Sor, which we read in Ezekiel according to the Seventy, can be interpreted both as Tyre, and as tribulation, and as most strong, or most strong (feminine), and as Flint, that is, hardest stone.

Hence in the present passage the error arose: for Aquila, and the Seventy, and Theodotion, and the Fifth Edition, interpreted it as Tyre. The Sixth kept the Hebrew word Sor: Symmachus rendered κραταιὰν, that is, most strong. We have referred this to God, so that she to whom he had said above, Hear, O daughter, and see, might be called daughter of the most strong. Or certainly she herself is most strong, because she has imitated her strong Father, whose face the rich of the people shall entreat with various gifts. The rich in all good works and in knowledge; or those who are thought rich in this age, the wise of this world, and those instructed in the disciplines of the Philosophers; or, what is better, those who had formerly been rich, having the oracles of God, and the Testaments, and the Prophets, that is, from the people of Israel.

For as before the coming of the Savior, those who were of Tyre, that is, of the people of the nations, and who desired to be proselytes, entreated the rich people of Israel, and through them were brought into the Temple; so after the coming of the Lord, whoever from Israel shall have wished to believe (once rich in familiarity with, and protection of, God) shall come to the daughter of Tyre, and offering various gifts of virtues and of confession in Christ, shall entreat her, that the salvation which they lost in Judea, they may find among the nations. « All the glory of the king's daughter is within, in golden fringes, clothed round about with varieties. » In the Hebrew: « All the glory of the king's daughter is within, she is clothed with golden bands. » For that which is written in the Seventy as ἔσωθεν, and which we have translated either as "from within" or "inwardly"; in certain copies is found Esebon, which means "thoughts." From which it is shown that all the glory of the Church, to whom it was said above, « Hear, O daughter, and see, » and, « O daughter of Tyre, » and who is now called daughter of the king, is within, and in thoughts, that is, in the interior man, and in circumcision not made by hand, but by the spirit; having confidence of conscience before God, and all beauty placed rather in the substance of meaning than in the flower of words.

But just as in the warp, from which the fringes hang, the woof is woven in, and the whole strength of the garment is in the warp: so in the various senses of the Scriptures, in which the whole garment of the Church is woven, some things are mingled concerning nature, concerning morals; and this very thing is signified by the vestment of Aaron woven of gold, purple, scarlet, fine linen, and hyacinth, which the women made, to whom God gave wisdom for weaving. And that we may understand that the whole adornment of the king's daughter is within, she herself speaks in the Canticle: « The king brought me into his chamber »: in which, the door of the lips being shut, we are bidden to pray to God the Father. In the ninth Psalm too the title is inscribed, « For the hidden things of the son. » Joseph too had a coat of many colors, which his mother the Church wove for him.

Of these fringes of the Savior the woman with the issue of blood touched one; and she was healed. But what is written in the Hebrew, « she is clothed with golden bands, » signifies the same thing as above: « All the glory of the king's daughter is within; » the interior members of the Church are wrapped in the bands of divine senses, and the whole compass of the womb is covered. The bride cannot forget these bands, according to Jeremiah, which bind the breasts, and cover the chest, in which the thoughts are. « Virgins shall be brought to the king after her, her companions shall be brought to you. They shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing, they shall be led into the temple of the king. » According to the Seventy the first verse still sings of the daughter's adornment; the following is directed to the bridegroom and king himself.

But according to the Hebrew, the whole is addressed to the bride up to the place where it is written: « You shall make them princes over all the earth. » And it reads: « In embroidered garments she shall be led to the king, virgins shall follow her, her friends shall be led there, they shall be led in joy and exultation, they shall enter the chamber of the king. » That there is a great distance among the souls that believe in Christ, the Song of Songs shows, in which it is written: « There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and maidens without number. One is my dove, my perfect one, my companion, » of whom it is said, « The daughters saw her, and the queens and concubines called her blessed, and praised her. » She, then, who is perfect and holy in body and spirit, deserves to be called both dove and companion.

This is the daughter of whom it was said above, « The queen stood at your right hand in gilded clothing. » But those who have passed beyond the six days of the world, and sigh for the kingdoms to come, are called queens. If any indeed has the circumcision of the eighth day, but has not yet come to the marriage, she is called a concubine. But the diverse multitude of believers, who cannot yet be joined in the embraces of the bridegroom, nor bear children by him, is called a maiden. I think that of these virgins who follow the Church, and are placed in the first rank, you also are one, and all who persevere in virginity of body and soul. But the companions and friends are widows, and those continent in marriage: all of whom are led with gladness and exultation to the temple and into the chamber of the king. Into the temple as priests of God: into the chamber as brides of the king and bridegroom.

This temple John also saw in the Apocalypse, and the Prophet desires it. « One thing, » he says, « have I asked of the Lord, this will I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. » And again: « Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house, and the place where your glory dwells. » And in another place: « For I shall pass into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God, with the voice of exultation and confession, the sound of those keeping festival. » But the embroidered garments with which the queen is adorned for her bridegroom are the very things which we read in the Seventy as "clothed round about with variety." « Instead of your fathers, sons are born to you; you shall make them princes over all the earth. » In the Hebrew:

« Instead of your fathers, you shall have sons, you shall make them princes in all the earth. » And this word can be understood not from the person of the Father concerning the daughter, but again as addressed to the daughter; and also from the person of the Holy Spirit, and of the sons of Core. If then the word is directed to the daughter, the bride, and the bride is gathered from the nations, to whom it was said above: « Forget your people and your father's house, » we ought to know the bride's fathers, so that consequently we may know also her sons. Instead of your fathers, of whom you spoke in Jeremiah: « What false idols our fathers possessed, and there is none among them that gives rain ». Instead of Plato and the rest of the teachers of various doctrines and errors, sons are born to you, whom you have made your princes, and made teachers among the peoples.

Or certainly otherwise: O Church, your sons whom you have borne to yourself shall be turned into your fathers, when you shall have made them from disciples into teachers, and shall have placed them in the priestly rank by the testimony of all.

But if we understand the Fathers of the Church to be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the rest of the Patriarchs; let us understand the sons who were born to her in the honor of fathers to be the Apostles, who were sent by the Lord to preach even to the ends of the earth, and to baptize believers in the name of the Trinity.

But it is asked how the Church of the nations can have as fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when it was said to her above: « Forget your people and your father's house. » Let us read the Gospel: « Do not say, we have Abraham for our father: God is able out of these stones, » that is, out of the hard heart of the nations, « to raise up children to Abraham. » And in another place: « If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. » And in Genesis God speaks to Abraham himself: « In your seed shall all nations be blessed. » For just as he was justified in uncircumcision by faith, so we too shall be justified by that same faith, if we have the faith and the works of our father Abraham. This very thing can be said to the Savior, either from the Father, or from the prophetic choir and the Holy Spirit.

Instead of your fathers, that is, of the stock of the Jews, who abandoned and denied you, sons are born to you, the Apostles, and those believing from the nations, whom you have made princes over all the earth. « I will remember thy name in every generation and generation. Therefore shall the peoples confess to thee for ever, and for ever and ever. » In the Hebrew: « I will remember thy name in every generation and generation.

Therefore shall the peoples confess to thee for ever and to eternity. » What we have translated as « they shall confess to thee, » Symmachus rendered « they shall praise thee. » The queen, who had stood at the right hand of the king in gilded raiment, and had been bidden to forget her people and her father’s house; and to whom again it had been said: « Instead of thy fathers, sons are born to thee; thou shalt make them princes over all the earth, » understanding how great a glory was to be adorned for her, and with what rewards she was to be uplifted, turns her voice to the bridegroom, and promises that she will ever remember the name of the bridegroom, in every generation and generation. What she promised, we see fulfilled.

She, being Christian, has set upon all of us the name of Christians: a new name, in which « all the families of the nations shall be blessed. » She remembers, however, not in one generation, but in all: signifying either all nations, or the two generations, of Jews and of Gentiles. And because it is too little that in two generations the name of the Lord should be remembered, therefore the peoples who shall be in the Church shall confess and praise the Lord for ever and unto the age of ages. When you also, O daughter Principia, mingled with the choir of the saints, shall be led among the virgins to the king, and from the ivory houses shall delight the bridegroom to your honor: then remember me also, who by the Lord’s revealing have granted you the understanding of this Psalm, and say: « I will remember thy name; » that you, who have understood part of the song, if life shall accompany you, may understand also the whole Song of Songs.

On a wound that is healed and a skin drawn over into a scar, if medicine should wish to restore the color, while seeking the beauty of the body, it renews the pain of the injury. So too do I, a late comforter, who through two years kept an unseasonable silence, fear now that I may speak more unseasonably still, and that in touching the wound of your breast, which has been healed by time and reason, I may fester it anew by the mention. For what ears are so hard, what hearts hewn out of flint and nourished on the milk of Hyrcanian tigresses, can hear the name of your Paulina without tears? Who could look with dry eyes upon a rose in bud, and a bunch of grapes just forming into clusters, cut down untimely before the round fruit is poured into the basket, and before the whole boastful array of reddening leaves is spread abroad, withering away? The most precious pearl is broken. The green gem of the emerald is crushed. What good health holds, sickness reveals.

We felt more what we had, after we ceased to have it.

2. In the field of good ground, we read of three fruits, the hundredfold, the sixtyfold, and the thirtyfold. In three women joined both by blood and by virtue, I recognize the three rewards of Christ. Eustochium reaps the flowers of virginity: Paula treads the laborious threshing-floor of widowhood: Paulina keeps the chaste bed of matrimony. Their mother, supported by such a company of daughters, claims for herself on earth the whole of what Christ has promised in heaven. And that one house might send forth a fourfold team of holiness, and that men might answer to the virtues of women, there is added as companion Pammachius, a true Cherub of Ezekiel, kinsman, son-in-law, husband—nay rather, most loving brother, because holy fellowships of the spirit do not keep the names of marriage. Over this team Jesus presides. Of these horses Habakkuk also sings: Thou didst mount upon thy horses, and thy chariot is salvation.

With unequal pace but equal spirit they press toward the palm. The horses are of differing color, but concordant in will, drawing one yoke for their charioteer, not waiting for the lashes of the whip, but burning at the exhortations of his voice.

3. Let us say something too of the Philosophers. The Stoics describe four virtues, so bound to one another and mutually cohering, that whoever lacks one lacks them all: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance. All these you have, each one of you, in such a way that yet each excels in one. Prudence is proclaimed in you, justice in the mother, fortitude in the virgin, temperance in the married woman. For what is wiser than he who, despising the folly of the world, has followed Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God? What is more just than the mother, who, distributing her wealth among her children, taught by despising riches what her children ought to love?

What is braver than Eustochium, who by her virginal resolve has broken the gates of nobility and the arrogance of consular lineage, and in the first city has subjugated the first family to chastity? What is more temperate than Paulina, who, reading that saying of the Apostle: Marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled, dared to aspire neither to her sister’s felicity nor to her mother’s continence, but chose to proceed safely in humbler paths, rather than to waver with an unsteady step in loftier ones? Although she, once wedlock had been entered upon, thought of nothing else day and night, but that, the fruit of marriage once rendered, she might attain to the second degree of chastity, and, as a woman leader of so great a deed, might join her husband to her purpose, not leaving behind a companion of salvation, but awaiting one.

And while, through repeated miscarriages, and having proved the fruitfulness of her conceivings, she does not despair of children, and prefers her mother-in-law’s eagerness and her husband’s sorrow to her own weakness, she suffered something after the example of Rachel; and instead of a son of sorrow, and of the right hand, she brought forth as heir the husband of her desire. And I have learned on sure authority that she wished to serve not the first sentence of God: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, nor the marital duty; but desired children for this reason, that she might bear virgins to Christ.

4. We read too that the wife of the priest Phinehas, on hearing of the captivity of the Ark of the Lord, was suddenly seized with the pangs of the womb, and brought forth a son Ichabod, and amid the hands and offices of the women, gave up her soul along with her offspring.

From the first was born Benjamin, that is, son of might and of the right hand; from the second, the renowned Priest of God, so named from the Ark. For us, after the falling asleep and the sleep of Paulina, the Church has borne to us a posthumous Pammachius the Monk, a patrician by the nobility of his father and his wife, rich in alms, exalted in humility. The Apostle writes to the Corinthians: See your calling, brethren, that not many wise, not many noble. This the beginnings of the nascent Church required, that the grain of mustard-seed should grow little by little into a tree, that gradually the leaven of the Gospel should raise the whole mass of the Church to a higher level. In our times Rome possesses what the world before did not know. Then rare were the wise, the powerful, the noble who were Christian: now many Monks are wise, powerful, noble. Of all these my Pammachius is wiser, mightier, nobler: great among the great, first among the first, ἀρχιστρατηγὸς of Monks.

Such children Paulina by her death has given us, whom living she had longed to possess. « Rejoice, O barren one who bearest not, break forth and cry out, thou who travailest not, for as many poor as there are in Rome, so many sons hast thou suddenly brought forth.

5. The glittering gems with which once neck and face were adorned now fill the bellies of the needy. The silken garments, and the gold drawn out into pliant threads, have been changed into soft woolen garments, by which cold is repelled, not by which ambition is stripped bare. Virtue now spends what was once the furniture of luxury. That blind man, stretching out his hand, and often crying out where no one is, is heir of Paulina, co-heir of Pammachius. That man, maimed of foot and dragging himself along with his whole body, is sustained by the hand of a tender girl. The doors which formerly disgorged crowds of those paying respects are now besieged by the wretched.

One man is bringing forth death from a swollen belly; another, tongueless and mute, and not even having wherewith to beg, begs the more by not being able to beg. This man, crippled from childhood, does not beg alms for himself. That man, rotted with the king’s disease, outlives his own corpse.

Not if I had a hundred tongues and a hundred mouths,
could I run through all the names of their sufferings.

Attended by this army he goes forth, in these he cherishes Christ, by their filth he is anointed. The almoner of the poor, the candidate of the needy, thus hastens toward heaven. Other husbands scatter violets, roses, lilies, and purple flowers over the tombs of their wives, and console the sorrow of their hearts by such rites. Our Pammachius drenches the holy ashes and the venerable bones with the balsams of almsgiving. With these ointments and perfumes he cherishes the resting ashes, knowing it is written: « As water quenches fire, so does almsgiving quench sin ». How great a power mercy possesses, and with what rewards it is to be repaid, blessed Cyprian also pursues in a great volume, and approves the counsel of Daniel, who knew that a most impious king, if he would but listen to him, would be saved through the sustenance of the poor. The mother rejoices in an heir of such a daughter.

She does not grieve that her wealth has passed to another, seeing it distributed to the very persons to whom she herself had wished it given. Rather she rejoices that her vows are fulfilled without her own labor. For it is not a diminishing of the substance, but a change of the laborer.

6. For who would believe that the great-grandson of Consuls, the ornament of the Furian stock, amid the purples of Senators, should go about clad in a swarthy tunic, and not blush before the eyes of his companions, so that he himself mocked those who mocked him? « There is a confusion that leads to death, and there is a confusion that leads to life ». It is the first virtue of a Monk to despise the judgments of men, and always to remember the Apostle, who says: « If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ ».

Something like this the Lord also speaks to the Prophets: that he set their face like a brazen wall, and an adamantine stone, and an iron pillar, lest they should be frightened at the wrongs of the people, but should crush with the hardness of their brow the impudence of scoffers. Natures liberally trained are more easily overcome by shame than by fear. And those whom torments do not conquer, shame sometimes conquers. It is no small thing for a noble man, an eloquent man, a wealthy man, to avoid the retinue of the powerful in the streets, to mingle with the crowds, to cling to the poor, to associate with rustics, to become from a prince a commoner. But the more humble, the more exalted he. A pearl shines even in filth, and the brightness of a most pure gem gleams even in mud.

This is what the Lord promised: « Them that glorify me, I will glorify. » Let others understand this of the future, when mourning shall be turned into joy, and, the world passing away, the crown of the Saints does not pass away: I even now, in the present, see the promises of the Saints fulfilled. Before he served Christ with his whole mind, he was known in the Senate, but many others had proconsular provinces. The whole world is full of such honors. He was first, but among the first. He went before others in dignity; but he also followed others. Yet a distinguished honor grows cheap in a crowd: and among good men that very dignity becomes less worthy, which many unworthy men possess. Whence Tully finely said of Caesar, that when he wished to honor certain men, he did not so much confer honor on them as throw the honors themselves into confusion. But now all the Churches of Christ speak of Pammachius. The world marvels at a poor man, whom until now it knew only as rich.

What is more illustrious than the Consulship? It is an annual honor, and after another has succeeded, the former ceases to be. Laurels lie hidden in the multitude, and triumphs are sometimes polluted by the vileness of those who triumph. What formerly was handed down through patrician hands, and only nobility possessed—for which the Consul Marius, victor over Numidia and the Teutons and Cimbri, was thought unworthy on account of the lowliness of his family; what Scipio earned through years of merit for his valor—now the soldiery alone possesses, and the palm now shines round bodies long since rustic. We have received, then, more than we gave. We have let go small things, and we possess great ones. At a hundredfold interest the promises of Christ are repaid. In such a field once Isaac also had sown, who, ready for death before the Gospel, bore the cross of the Gospel.

8. "If thou wilt," He says, "be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow me." If thou wilt be perfect. Great things are always placed in the judgment of the hearer. And therefore the Apostle does not command virginity, because the Lord, when discoursing about eunuchs who had made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, added at the end: "He that can receive it, let him receive it." "For it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy." If thou wilt be perfect. Necessity is not imposed upon thee, so that the will may obtain the reward. If therefore thou wilt be perfect, and desirest to be what the Prophets, what the Apostles, what Christ is, sell—not a part of thy substance, lest fear of want become an occasion of unbelief, and thou perish with Ananias and Sapphira—but all that thou possessest.

And when thou hast sold it, give to the poor, not to the wealthy, not to the proud. Give what may sustain need, not what may increase riches. And when thou hast read that saying of the Apostle: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn," and, "The laborer is worthy of his hire," and, "They that serve the altar partake with the altar"; remember also this saying: "Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." Where thou seest dishes smoking, and Phasian birds cooked in slow steam, where there is a weight of silver, where fervent Mannos, curly-haired boys, precious garments, embroidered tapestries—there he is richer than the giver, to whom giving must be done. It is a part of sacrilege to give the property of the poor to those who are not poor. And yet it is not enough for the perfect and consummate man to despise riches, to squander money, and to cast away what in a moment can both be lost and be found again.

This Crates the Theban did, Antisthenes did, many did whom we read of as most vicious. The disciple of Christ ought to offer more than the philosopher of the world, a creature of glory and a venal slave of popular breath and rumors. It does not suffice for thee to despise riches, unless thou follow Christ. Now he follows Christ who forgives sins, and is a companion of the virtues. We know Christ as wisdom. There the treasure is born in the field of the Scriptures, this pearl is bought with many gems. But if thou hast come to love a captive woman, that is, secular wisdom, and hast been captivated by her beauty, shave her head, and cut off the allurements of her hair and the adornments of words along with the dead nails. Wash her with prophetic nitre, and then, resting with her, say: "Her left hand is under my head, and her right hand shall embrace me," and the captive will give thee many offspring, and from a Moabitess she will be made an Israelite.

Christ is sanctification, without which no one shall see the face of God. Christ is redemption, both redeemer and price, Christ is all things, so that he who has left all things for Christ's sake may find one in place of all, and may be able freely to cry out: The Lord is my portion. 9. I perceive that thou burnest with divine teachings, and dost not teach with the rashness of some what thou dost not know; but first learn what thou art to teach. The simple style of thy letters savors of the Prophets, tastes of the Apostles. Thou dost not affect buskined eloquence, nor, after the manner of boys, dost thou construct clever little sentences at the close of periods. Foam swelling quickly subsides; and however great a swelling, it is contrary to health. That saying of Cato also is well known: Soon enough, if well enough. Which we, as youths, once laughed at, when it was said by a perfect Orator in a little preface.

I think thou dost remember our common error, when the whole Athenaeum resounded with the voices of students: Soon enough, if well enough. Happy, says Fabius, would the arts be, if only artists judged of them. No one can know the Poet, save one who can construct a verse. No one understands the Philosophers, save one who knows the varieties of their doctrines. Handmade things, submitted to the eyes, are better approved by craftsmen. From this thou canst perceive how hard our necessity is, that we must stand to the judgment of the crowd, and that man is to be feared in a throng whom, when thou hast seen him alone, thou wouldst despise. This I have touched upon in passing, that, content with learned ears, thou mayest not greatly care what little rumors of the ignorant are bandied about concerning thy genius; but mayest daily drink the marrow of the Prophets, thou mystic of Christ, fellow-initiate of the Patriarchs.

10. Whether thou readest, or writest, or keepest watch, or sleepest, let Amos always sound his trumpet in thine ears. Let this clarion arouse thy soul: maddened with this love, seek in thy bed him whom thy soul desires, and say confidently: "I sleep, and my heart watcheth." And when thou hast found him and held him, do not let him go. And if, while thou art slumbering a little, he should slip from thy hands, do not despair at once. Go out into the streets, adjure the daughters of Jerusalem, thou shalt find him lying at noon, weary, drunk, moistened with the dew of night, among the flocks of his companions, in the varieties of spices, among the apples of paradise. There let him suck thy breasts, let him suck from thy learned bosom, let him rest among the midst of the lots, the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her inward parts with the brightness of gold.

This little one and boy, who is fed with butter and honey, who has been nourished among cheese-bearing mountains, quickly grows into a young man, swiftly despoils enemies within thee, in due time plunders Damascus, and conquers the king of Assyria. 11. I hear that thou hast built a hospice in the Roman harbor, and hast planted a rod from the tree of Abraham on the Ausonian shore. As though thou wert Aeneas, thou dost mark out new camps, and above the wave of the Tiber, where he once, compelled by want, did not spare fated crusts and broad squares; thou dost build our little village, that is, the House of Bread (Bethlehem), and dost compensate a long hunger with sudden fullness. Well done: thou dost surpass our beginnings; thou dost hold the highest state: from the root thou arrivest at the summit; first among monks, in the first city, thou dost follow the first patriarch.

Let Lot, whose name is interpreted "declining," choose the plains, and, according to the letter of Pythagoras, follow rather the easy and the left-hand path. Do thou, in rugged and rocky places, prepare thyself a monument with Sarah. Let the city of letters be nearby, and, the giants, the sons of Enac, being destroyed, let joy and laughter receive thy inheritance. Abraham was rich in gold, silver, cattle, possessions, garments: he had so great a household, that at sudden tidings he could arm an army of chosen young men, and overtake and slay the four kings whom five kings had fled from, at Dan; and yet after such frequent offices of hospitality, while he did not refuse men, he deserved to receive God. He did not command servants and maidservants to minister to guests, nor did he lessen through others the good he was doing; but as though finding booty, he alone with his Sarah devoted himself to hospitality. He himself washed feet, he himself carried the fat calf on his shoulders from the herd.

He stood like a servant while the strangers dined, and, himself to fast, set before them the food cooked by Sarah's hands. 12. These things I urge, dearest brother, out of the affection with which I love thee; that thou mayest offer to Christ not only money, but thyself, a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, thy reasonable service; and that thou mayest imitate the Son of man, who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. And what the patriarch showed to strangers, this the Master and Lord showed to disciples and servants. "Skin for skin, and all that a man hath he will give for his life. But touch," says the devil, "his flesh, and see if he will not bless thee to thy face". The ancient enemy knows that the struggle of continence is greater than that of money. What clings from outside is easily cast off; internal war is more dangerous. We tear apart things joined together; we sever things united. Zacchaeus was rich, the Apostles were poor.

He restored fourfold what he had taken by extortion, and divided among the poor half of the substance that remained; he received Christ as a guest, salvation was made for his house; and yet, because he was small, and could not stretch himself to apostolic stature, he was not among the number of the twelve Apostles. But the Apostles, as far as riches go, left nothing, but as far as will goes, they left the whole world equally. If we offer Christ our riches along with our soul, He will gladly receive them. But if we give to God the things that are outward, and to the devil the things that are inward, the division is not equal, and it is said to us: "If thou offerest rightly, but dost not divide rightly, hast thou not sinned?" 13. That thou, being of patrician family, first among the first, hast begun to be a monk, let this be to thee an occasion not of pride, but of humility, knowing that the Son of God was made the Son of man.

However much thou lowerest thyself, thou wilt not be humbler than Christ. Suppose thou goest barefoot, art clothed in a dark tunic, dost make thyself equal to the poor, dost enter graciously into the little cells of the needy; art an eye to the blind, a hand to the weak, a foot to the lame; thyself carriest water, cuttest wood, buildest the fire—where are the chains? Where the blows? Where the spittings? Where the scourgings? Where the gibbet? Where death? And when thou hast done all that I have said, thou wilt be surpassed by thy own Eustochium and Paula, if not in deed, at least certainly in sex. I indeed was not at Rome, and then the desert held me (and would that it had held me still more), when, while thy father-in-law Toxotius was still living, they were serving the world.

But nevertheless I hear of those who could not bear the filth of the streets, who were carried in the hands of eunuchs, and crossed uneven ground with more difficulty; for whom a silken garment was a burden, and the heat of the sun a conflagration—now, soiled and mourning, and, compared to their former selves, quite hardy, they trim the lamps, or kindle the fire, sweep the pavements, clean vegetables, throw bundles of herbs into the boiling pot, set the tables, hand round the cups, pour out the food, run hither and thither. And indeed a great chorus of virgins dwells with them. Could they not have commanded others to perform such services? But they do not wish to be outdone in bodily labor by those whom they themselves surpass in strength of soul. I say these things, not because I doubt anything of the ardor of thy mind, but that I may urge on one already running, and, to one fighting fiercely, add fervor to fervor.

14. We, in this province, having built a monastery, and a guesthouse constructed nearby, lest perchance, even now, Joseph with Mary coming to Bethlehem should not find lodging, are so overwhelmed by such throngs of monks flocking together from the whole world, that we can neither abandon the work begun, nor bear it beyond our strength. Whence, because that saying of the Gospel has almost happened to us, that we did not first compute the expenses of the tower to be built, we have been compelled to send our brother Paulinian to his homeland, that he might sell the half-ruined little farms which have escaped the hands of the barbarians, and the estate of our common parents, lest, by abandoning the ministry of the Saints begun, we should provide occasion for laughter to the malicious and to rivals. 15. At the close of the letter I remembered your foursome, and, Blaesilla being absent from the proposed number of five, I nearly forgot to speak of her, who was the first of you to go before to the Lord.

Truly now we see the five divided into three and two; she enjoys sweet sleep with her sister Paulina, thou, in the midst of the two, shalt fly up more lightly to Christ.

To the most beloved lord, and one to be observed and embraced with the most sincere devotion of charity, brother and fellow-presbyter Jerome, Augustine. 1. "I am grateful that, instead of a subscribed greeting, you gave me back a full Letter, but much shorter than I should have wished to receive from you, since for such a man no discourse is prolix, however much time presses. And so, although we are surrounded by huge cares of business belonging to others, and secular matters at that: yet I would not easily forgive the brevity of your Letter, were it not that I consider with how few words of mine it is answered. Wherefore take up, I beg, this literary conversation with us, lest bodily absence be allowed too much power to separate us; although we are joined together in unity of spirit in the Lord, even if we rest from the pen and are silent. And indeed the books which you have elaborated from the Lord's granary show you to us almost entirely.

For if we do not know you for this reason, that we have not seen the face of your body, in this way you do not know yourself either: for you too do not see it. But if you are known to yourself for no other reason than that you know your own mind: we too know it not slightly in your writings, in which we bless the Lord, that He has given you such as you are, to yourself, and to us, and to all the brothers who read your works." 2. "A certain book of yours, among others, has not long since come into our hands: what its title is, we do not yet know. For the codex itself did not display this, as is customary, on its title page. Yet the brother with whom it was found called it an Epitaph, which we would believe was the name that pleased you to give it, if we had read there the lives or writings only of men who were already dead.

But since the works of many who were alive both at the time it was written and even now, are commemorated there, we wonder why you either gave it this title, or are believed to have given it. Nevertheless we quite approve that this same book was written usefully by you." 3. "In the exposition also of the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, we have found something which moves us greatly. For if officious lies are to be admitted into the sacred Scriptures, what authority will remain in them? What judgment at last will be brought forward from those Scriptures, by whose weight the wickedness of contentious falsehood might be overthrown? For as soon as you produce it, if one who resists thinks otherwise, he will say that what has been produced was a lie told by the writer under some honorable pretext.

For where will this not be possible, if it was possible in that narrative, where the Apostle, beginning, says: Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I lie not; and yet it is believed and asserted that he lied in that place where he said of Peter and Barnabas: When I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel? For if they walked uprightly, he lied; but if he lied there, where did he speak truly? Or will it seem that he spoke truly there, wherever he said what the reader thinks fitting? But when something occurs contrary to the reader's own view, will it be attributed to an officious lie? For causes will not be lacking why it might be judged that he not only could, but even ought to have lied, if a place is granted to this rule. There is no need to argue this case at length, especially with you, to whom, wisely providing, enough has been said.

I would by no means presume so far as to try to enrich your genius, golden by divine gift, with my copper coins: nor is there anyone more fit than you to correct that work." 4. "Nor indeed do you need to be taught by me how it is to be understood, when he likewise says: I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews, and the other things said there out of compassion of mercy, not the pretense of deceit. For he becomes as one sick who ministers to the sick: not by lying that he has fevers, but by thinking with the mind of one who sympathizes, how he himself would wish to be served, if he himself were sick. For indeed he was a Jew; but having become a Christian, he had not abandoned the sacraments of the Jews, which that people had fittingly received at the lawful time when it was proper.

But he had taken up the observance of these, when he was already an Apostle of Christ, in order to teach that it was not harmful to those who wished, as they had received from their parents through the Law, to keep them, even when they had believed in Christ, provided they did not now place in them their hope of salvation, since through the Lord Jesus that very salvation, which was signified by those sacraments, had come. And therefore he judged that this burden, heavy and unnecessary, should in no way be imposed on the Gentiles, lest it recall those unaccustomed to the faith." 5.

"Wherefore he did not correct Peter for this reason, that he observed the paternal traditions: for if he wished to do this, he would do it neither falsely nor unfittingly; for although they were already superfluous, yet the customary practices did not harm; but because he was compelling the Gentiles to judaize, which he could by no means do, unless he acted as though these things were still necessary for salvation even after the Lord's coming: which truth strongly dissuaded through Paul's Apostleship. Nor was the Apostle Peter ignorant of this: but he did it, fearing those who were of the Circumcision. And so he himself was truly corrected, and Paul told the truth; lest holy Scripture, which has been published for the faith of posterity, should, once the authority of a lie has been admitted, waver and fluctuate entirely in doubt. For it cannot, nor ought it, be explained in writing how great and how inexplicable are the evils that would follow, if we were to grant this.

But it could be shown more opportunely and less dangerously, if we were speaking together face to face. 6. "This then Paul had let go of the Jews, that which they had as an evil: and first of all this, that being ignorant of God's righteousness, and wishing to establish their own righteousness, they are not subject to the righteousness of God. Then, that after the passion and resurrection of Christ, the sacrament of grace having been given and made manifest according to the order of Melchisedech, they still thought that the old sacraments were to be celebrated not from the custom of solemnity, but from the necessity of salvation. Yet if these had never been necessary, the Jews would have been fruitlessly persecuted as enemies of the law.

These, then, and errors and vices of this kind, he says he counted as loss and dung, that he might gain Christ: not the observances of the law, if celebrated according to ancestral custom: just as they were celebrated by himself without any necessity of salvation: not as the Jews thought they must be celebrated, nor by deceitful pretense, which he had reprehended in Peter.

For if he celebrated those sacraments for this reason, because he pretended to be a Jew, in order to gain them: why did he not also sacrifice with the Gentiles, because to those who were without the law he became as one without the law, in order to gain them too: unless it was because he did the former as a Jew by nature: and said all this, not that he might falsely feign to be what he was not; but that he might feel that they were to be helped in this merciful way, as if he himself labored in the same error? not, that is, by the cunning of one lying, but by the affection of one sympathizing: as in that very place he generally added: I became to the weak as weak, that I might gain the weak; so that the following conclusion:

I became all things to all men, that I might gain all, is to be understood as referring to this, that he might appear to pity each one's weakness as though it were in himself. For not even when he said: Who is weak, and I am not weak? Did he wish it to be understood that he had pretended another's weakness rather than grieved with it. 7. "Wherefore take up, I beseech you, a noble and truly Christian severity joined with charity, and sing a παλινῳδία (recantation), as it is called. For incomparably more beautiful is the truth of Christians, than Helen of the Greeks. For this truth our Martyrs fought more bravely against this Sodom, than those heroes fought for that Helen against Troy.

Nor do I say this so that you may recover the eyes of your heart, which far be it that you have lost; but that you may attend to what, though you have them sound and watchful, you have somehow, by some dissimulation, turned away from; so that you did not consider what adverse consequences follow, if it should once be believed that a writer of the divine books could honestly and piously lie in some part of his work. 8. "I had already at some point written a Letter to you from here, which was not delivered, because the one to whom I had entrusted it to be delivered did not go. From this it occurred to me, as I was dictating these things, that I ought not to omit this also here: that if your view is different, and it is better, you would kindly forgive my apprehension.

For if you think otherwise, and you think truly (for unless it be true, it cannot be better), so that I do not say there is no fault, certainly not a great fault, my error favors the truth, if truth can rightly favor a lie in any matter." 9. Concerning Origen, however, what you have deigned to write back, I already knew: that not only in Ecclesiastical letters, but in all things, you approve and praise what is right and true wherever we find it, but disapprove and reprehend what is false and wrong. But this I desired from your prudence and learning, and still desire, that you make known to us those very errors of his, by which that so great man is convicted of having departed from the truth of the faith.

Also in the book in which you have recorded all the Ecclesiastical Writers you could remember, and their writings, it would be more convenient, I think, if, having named those whom you know to be heresiarchs (since you were unwilling to omit even them), you would add also in what points they are to be guarded against: although you have omitted some also, which I should like to know for what reason it was done.

Or if perhaps you were unwilling to burden that volume, so as not to add, when the heretics were mentioned, the points on which Catholic authority has condemned them, I beg that it not be burdensome to your literary labor—by which, through the grace of the Lord our God, you have not a little kindled and assisted the studies of the saints in the Latin language—that, through my humility, fraternal charity may urge upon you this: that if your occupations allow, you would set forth in one small book, briefly digested, the perverse dogmas of all the heretics who up to this time have tried, whether through imprudence, or ignorance, or obstinacy, to corrupt the rectitude of the Christian faith, for the information of those who either have no leisure because of other business, or are not able, because of a foreign tongue, to read and become acquainted with so many things. I would ask this of you at length, were it not that this is apt to be a sign of one presuming too little upon charity.

Meanwhile I commend greatly to your kindness this our brother in Christ, Paul, whose good reputation in our regions we testify before God with a good conscience."

My holy son the deacon Heraclius has reported to me that out of desire for us you had come as far as Cissa: and you, a man of Pannonia, that is, an earthly creature, did not fear the surges of the Adriatic sea, and to undergo the perils of the Aegean and the Ionian. And unless the pious affection of the brothers had restrained you, you would have carried out in deed what you had willed. I give thanks accordingly, and I count it as a favor received. For among friends it is not the deed that is sought, but the will. Because the one is often shown even by enemies; the other only love bestows. At the same time I beg you not to think that the bodily weakness which you endure has come upon you on account of sin.

This indeed the Apostles too suspected concerning him who had been born blind from the womb, when, questioning the Lord and Savior, "Did this man sin, or his parents, that he should be born blind?" they hear: "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but that the works of God might be made manifest in him." For how many Pagans and Jews, heretics, and men of various sects we see wallowing in the mire of lusts, dripping with blood, surpassing wolves in savagery, kites in rapacity; and nevertheless no scourge draws near their tents, nor are they beaten along with other men: and therefore they grow proud against God, and their mouth passes even unto heaven. Whereas, on the contrary, we know that holy men are tormented with sicknesses, miseries and want, who perhaps say: Have I then in vain purified my soul, and washed my hands among the innocent? And immediately, reproaching themselves, they say: If I tell it thus, behold I have condemned the nation of thy children.

If you think that blindness is caused by sin, and that God's wrath brings it, though physicians frequently remedy it, you will accuse Isaac, who was so far deprived of this light that, deceived by error, he blessed even him whom he did not wish. You will lay the charge against Jacob too, whose sight had grown dim, and though with his inner eyes, and with a prophetic spirit, he could see far into the future, and discerned that Christ was to come of the royal stock, he could not see Ephraim and Manasseh. What among kings was holier than Josiah? He was slain by an Egyptian sword. What more exalted than Peter, what than Paul? They stained the sword of Nero with their blood. And (to say nothing of men) the Son of God endured the ignominy of the cross: and do you think blessed those who enjoy the happiness and delights of this age? It is a great wrath, when God is not angry with sinners.

Whence also in Ezekiel it is said to Jerusalem: Now I will no longer be angry with thee, my jealousy has departed from thee. For whom the Lord loves, He rebukes; And He chastises every son whom He receives. A father does not train save the one he loves. A teacher does not rebuke a pupil save the one he perceives to be of a more ardent disposition. If a physician ceases to treat, he has given up hope. But if you should answer: how then did Lazarus receive evils in his lifetime—I will gladly now suffer torments, so that glory may be reserved for me hereafter; for the Lord will not take vengeance twice for the same thing. Job, a holy and blameless man, and righteous in his generation, why he suffered such things is contained in his own book. 2. And lest by repeating old histories I should make this too long, and exceed the measure of a letter, I will relate to you a short story, which happened in the time of my infancy.

When blessed Antony had been summoned to the city of Alexandria by the holy Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, for the confuting of heretics, and Didymus, a most learned man, deprived of sight, had gone to him, among the other conversations they held concerning the Holy Scriptures, when he was marveling at his intellect and praising the sharpness of his mind, he asked him: Are you not sad, that you lack the eyes of the flesh? When he, out of shame, kept silent; asking a second and a third time, he at length drew from him the simple confession of the grief of his mind. To whom Antony said: I marvel that a prudent man should grieve at the loss of that thing which ants and flies and gnats have, and should not rather rejoice in the possession of that which the saints alone and the Apostles have merited. From which you may perceive that it is much better to see with the spirit than with the flesh: and to possess those eyes into which the mote of sin cannot fall.

As for us, although you have not come this year, still we do not despair of your coming. But if the holy Deacon, the bearer of this letter, should again be caught fast in your embraces, and, with him accompanying you, you should come hither, I will gladly receive it, that the delay of the debt be doubled by the greatness of the interest.

I never thought, son Oceanus, that the indulgence of a Prince would sustain the calumny of the guilty; and that men, on coming forth from prisons, after the filth and the marks of chains, should grieve that others had been released. In the Gospel the envious man hears concerning another's salvation: Friend, if I am good, why is your eye evil? God has enclosed all things under sin, that He might have mercy on all. Where sin abounded, grace has abounded still more. The firstborn of Egypt were slain, and not even a beast of Israel was left behind in Egypt. And the heresy of Cain rises up against me, and the viper, long since dead, lifts its crushed head, which does not, as it formerly used, in part, but wholly undermines the sacrament of Christ. For it says that there are certain sins which Christ cannot cleanse by His blood; and that scars of former crimes cling so deeply to bodies and souls that they cannot be lessened by His medicine.

What else does this do but make Christ to have died in vain? But He has died in vain, if He is unable to give life to some. John the Baptist lies, pointing to Christ with finger and voice: Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, if there are still in the world those whose sins Christ has not taken away. For either it must be shown that they are not of the world, whom Christ's indulgence does not know; or if they are of the world, one of two things must be chosen. If freed from sins, they prove the power of Christ: if not freed, as still guilty, they demonstrate His weakness. But God forbid that we should believe this of the Omnipotent, that in anything He is powerless. All things that the Father does, the Son also does likewise. The weakness of the Son redounds upon the Father. All the members of the little sheep have been carried. The whole Epistles of the Apostles resound with the grace of Christ.

And lest the simple mention of grace should seem too little: Grace, he says, and peace be multiplied unto you. Multiplication is promised, and we affirm a paucity.

2. To what end are these things said? You know your problem: Carterius, Bishop of Spain, a man advanced both in age and in priesthood, married one wife before he was baptized, another after the washing, the former having died; and you think that he acted against the sentence of the Apostle, who, in the catalogue of virtues, prescribed that a Bishop be ordained as the husband of one wife. I marvel, however, that you have brought forward this one man alone, when the whole world is full of such ordinations; I do not speak of Presbyters, nor of the lower rank: I come to Bishops, of whom, if I wished to name them one by one, so great a number would be gathered together that the multitude of the Council of Rimini would be surpassed.

But it is unseemly thus to defend one man in such a way that you seem to accuse many; and to defend by the fellowship of sinners him whom you cannot defend by reason. I once endured at Rome, from a most eloquent man, what is called a horned syllogism, so that wherever I turned, I was more tightly held. To marry a wife, he said, is it a sin, or not? I, simple, and not knowing how to avoid traps, said it was not a sin. Again he proposed another question: in baptism are good works forgiven, or evil ones? And to this, with the same simplicity, I answered that sins are forgiven. When I thought myself safe, horns began to grow upon me from this side and that, and the point, hidden before, began to widen. If, he said, to marry a wife is not a sin; but baptism forgives sins; whatever is not forgiven is retained.

Immediately, as though I had been struck by the mightiest of boxers, a mist began to be seen before my eyes, and at once, recalling the sophism of Chrysippus: "If you lie, and say this truly, you lie;" and turning back upon myself I turned the trick of the proposition against my adversary. I beg you, I said, to answer me. Does baptism make a man new, or not? He scarcely granted that it makes him new. By degrees I pressed on: does it make him wholly new, or only in part? He answered, wholly. Next I asked, therefore nothing of the old man is retained in baptism? He shook his head. At once I began to weave my argument: If baptism makes a new man, and creates him wholly new, and nothing of the old is retained in him, then that which was once in the old man cannot be imputed to the new.

At first our little thorny fellow fell silent; but afterward, by a Pisonian fault, though he did not know how to speak, he could not be silent either. His brow sweated, his cheeks grew pale, his lips trembled, his tongue stuck fast, his saliva dried up, and he shrank more from fear than from age. At length he burst out: Have you not read that the Apostle prescribed that a man of one wife be taken into the priesthood, and that the matter is not defined by times? Since he had provoked me with syllogisms, and I saw the man tending toward twisted little questions, I hurled his own weapons back against him. Did the Apostle, I said, choose the baptized for the Episcopate, or the Catechumens? He was unwilling to answer. I nevertheless pressed the same point, and asked a second and a third time. You would have thought him Niobe, who by excessive weeping was turned into stone.

I turned to the hearers: it makes no difference, good judges, whether I bind an adversary who is awake or asleep, except that it is easier to fasten chains on one at rest than on one struggling. If the Apostle did not choose catechumens into the clergy, but the faithful; and he who is ordained Bishop is faithful; then the faults of the catechumen will not be imputed to the faithful man. I kept hurling darts of this sort, and directing quivering spears against the lethargic man. At last he yawned, and, as if belching and feeling nauseous through a kind of drunkenness of mind, he vomited forth: The Apostle Paul, he said, taught these things.

3. The Apostle's Epistles are therefore produced, one to Timothy, the other to Titus. In the first it was written: « If any man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, sober, prudent, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous, one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil ». To Titus, at the very beginning, these commands are set down: « For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.

For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers » (Ch. 1:5 and following). In each Epistle, whether of Bishop or of Presbyter, though among the ancients the same men were both Bishops and Presbyters (for the one name is of dignity, the other of age), men married but once are commanded to be chosen into the Clergy. Certainly no one doubts that the Apostle is speaking of the baptized.

If, then, all the things which are required in the ordination of a Bishop do not prejudice the man being ordained, though he did not have them before baptism (for what he is, not what he was, is examined), why should the mere name of wife alone stand in the way—a thing which alone was no sin? You say, because it was not a sin, therefore it was not remitted in baptism. I hear a strange thing: because it was not a sin, it shall be reckoned as a sin. All harlotries and the filth of public defilement, impiety toward God, parricide, incest against parents, and nature changed for extraordinary pleasures of either sex—these are cleansed by the fountain of Christ: shall the stains of a wife cling fast, and brothels be preferred to the marriage-chamber?

I do not charge you with armies of harlots, flocks of catamites, the shedding of blood, and wallowing like swine in every mire of lust; and do you drag out to me my little wife, long since dead, from her grave—whom I took precisely that I might not do what you did? Let the heathen hear this, the harvest of the Church, of whom our barns are daily filled; let the catechumens hear it, who are candidates for the faith, that they should not take wives before baptism, nor join in honorable marriages; but rather, after the manner of the Scots and Attacotti, and from Plato's Republic, let them have wives in common, and children in common: nay, let them beware of the very name of spouse, lest, after they have believed in Christ, someone teach them that once they had not concubines nor harlots, but wives.

4. Let each man search his own conscience, and mourn the wounds of the whole age; and when he shall have shown himself a true judge of his former offences, let him hear Jesus rebuking him: Hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Truly like the Scribes and Pharisees, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel, we tithe mint and anise, and we pass over the judgment of God. What is a wife like to a harlot? Is the misfortune of a dead spouse charged against him, and harlot's lust crowned? That man, if his former wife were alive, would not have another spouse: what excuse can you make, who joined dog-like unions at will? Perhaps you will say you feared that if you had entered into marriage, you could never be ordained a Cleric. That man desired children in a wife; you destroyed offspring in a harlot.

That man, serving nature and the blessing of the Lord—Increase and multiply, and fill the earth—was covered by the secrecy of the bedchamber: your lustful face, panting for intercourse, was execrated in public. That man hid, with modest shame, what was lawful; you thrust, shamelessly, before the eyes of all, what was not lawful. Of him it is written: Marriage is honourable, and the bed undefiled; of you it is read: But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge: And, he that defiles the temple of God, him shall God destroy. All our crimes, you say, were pardoned in baptism: nor after that indulgence is the severity of the Judge to be feared, since the Apostle says: And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. All sins are forgiven; well and truly. But I ask, how were your filthy things washed, and my clean things made filthy?

I do not say, you reply, that yours were made filthy, but that they remained in the same state in which they were; for if they had been filthy, they would certainly have been washed, as mine were. I ask, what is this evasion, and this subtlety blunter than any pestle? Because it was not a sin, it is a sin? Because it was not filthy, it is filthy? The Lord did not remit it, because He had nothing to remit; and because He did not remit it, therefore that remains which was not remitted.

5. How great a power baptism has, and what grace water sanctified in Christ possesses, I shall show a little later: meanwhile, according to the common proverb, for a hard knot in wood, a hard wedge must be sought. What he says—husband of one wife—can also be explained otherwise. The Apostle was of the Jews: the first Church of Christ was gathered from the remnants of Israel.

He knew it was granted by the Law, and he knew from the familiar example of the Patriarchs and of Moses that it was customary among the people to scatter children among many wives: even to the priests themselves this liberty of choice lay open. He therefore commanded that the priests of the Church should not claim for themselves this same license: that they should not obtain two or three marriages at once, but should each have but one wife at a time.

Lest you cry out that what we have said is merely contentious, take also another explanation: lest it be allowed to you alone not to join your will to the Law, but the Law to your will. Some interpret, though forcedly, that "wives" is to be taken for Churches, and "husbands" for Bishops. And this too, they say, was decreed by the fathers in the Council of Nicaea, that a Bishop should not be transferred from one Church to another: lest, despising the fellowship of a poor virgin, he should seek the embraces of a richer adulteress: that just as fault, and the vice of children, is reckoned in λογισμοῖς, that is, in thoughts, and the management of the household is referred to soul and body, so too the wives of Pontiffs are said to be the Churches. Of whom it is written in Isaiah: Rise up, ye women that are at ease, come from the spectacle: for it is not a people of understanding. And again: Rise up, ye women that are wealthy, and hear my voice.

And in Proverbs: Who shall find a virtuous woman? She is more precious than jewels who is such. The heart of her husband trusts in her. And in the same book: Wise women build the house; but the foolish pulls it down with her hands. Nor, they say, should this seem unworthy of Bishops, since even of God it is written: As a wife despises her husband, so has the house of Israel despised me. And in the Apostle: For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. And "woman," that is, gynaika, woman, according to the ambiguity of the Greek tongue, in all these testimonies, understand rather as "wife." Violent, you will say, and quite harsh, is even this interpretation. Restore, then, to Scripture its own simplicity, lest we fight against you with your own laws. Let me ask this too: if a man, before baptism, had a concubine, and she having died, after baptism took a wife, ought he to be made a Cleric or not?

You will answer that he can be made one, because he had a concubine, not a wife. It is, then, the marriage documents and the rights of dowry, not the intercourse, that are condemned by the Apostle. We see many men, on account of excessive poverty, avoiding the burden of wives, and having their maidservants instead of wives, and rearing the children begotten of them as their own: who, if perchance, enriched by the Emperor, they should merit the senatorial robe, will straightway bow their necks to the Apostle, and will be compelled, unwilling, to receive these women among their wives. But if their same poverty should fail to obtain an imperial rescript, then, along with the Roman laws, the decrees of the Church will be changed. See whether what is said—husband of one wife—may be understood as "of one woman," so as to refer rather to intercourse than to the documents of dowry.

All these things we bring forward, not that we resist the true and simple understanding, but that we may teach you to understand the holy Scriptures as they are written; and not to make void the baptism of the Saviour, nor render null the whole sacrament of the cross.

6. Let us pay what we promised a little before, and, in the manner of the school of the Rhetoricians, proclaim the praises of water and of baptism. The rude world, when the sun had not yet grown ruddy, nor the moon grown pale, nor the stars gleamed, oppressed the unformed and invisible matter with the vastness of the abysses and shapeless darkness. Alone the Spirit of God was borne over the waters, after the manner of a charioteer, and was bringing forth the nascent world in the figure of baptism.

Between heaven and earth the firmament was set up in the midst; and according to the ἐτυμολογία of the Hebrew tongue, heaven, that is Samaim, takes its name from the waters: and the waters which are above the heavens are set apart for the praises of God. Whence also in the Prophet Ezekiel a crystal is seen stretched out above the Cherubim, that is, waters compacted and made denser. The first thing that lives comes forth from the waters, and lifts the winged faithful from earth to heaven. Man is fashioned from clay, and between the hands of God the mysteries of the waters are turned over. Paradise is planted in Eden; and one fountain is divided into four heads, which afterward, going forth from the temple and moving against the rising of the sun, gives life to bitter and dead waters. The world sins, and is not cleansed without the Flood of waters.

And straightway the dove of the Holy Spirit, the most foul bird being expelled, flies down to Noah as it were to Christ in the Jordan, and announces peace to the world with the branch of refreshment and of light. Pharaoh, with his army, unwilling that the people of God should go forth from Egypt, is drowned in a type of baptism. And in the Psalms it is written of his slaying: « Thou didst confirm the sea by thy strength, thou didst break the heads of the dragons in the waters; thou didst break the heads of the great dragon ». Whence also basilisks and scorpions pursue only dry places; and once they come to the waters, they become ὑδροφόβους (fearful of water) and are driven mad. The sea is changed by the sacrament of the cross; and the seventy palms of the Apostles are watered by the sweetened depths of the Law. Abraham and Isaac dig wells, the Philistines fight against them. And Bersabee, the city of the oath, and the kingdom of Solomon, takes its name from the wells.

Rebecca is found at the well. Rachel, because of the waters, is greeted with the kiss of the supplanter. Moses vindicates the daughters of the priest of Midian from injury by opening a well. The Forerunner of the Lord, in the waters of the springs near Salim, which is interpreted "peace" or "perfection," prepares the people for Christ. The Saviour Himself, after baptism, and after the waters of the Jordan had been sanctified by His washing, begins to preach the kingdom of heaven. He performs His first sign from water; the Samaritan woman is called to the well, being thirsty she is invited to drink. To Nicodemus He says in secret: « Except a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven ». Because He had begun from waters, He ended in waters. The side of Christ is pierced with a lance, and the mysteries of baptism and of martyrdom are poured out together.

After the resurrection He sends the Apostles to the Gentiles, and commands them to baptize them in the mystery of the Trinity. The people of the Jews repents of its deed, and is straightway sent by Peter to baptism. Before she is in travail, Zion brings forth, and a nation is born at once. Paul, the persecutor of the Church, and the ravening wolf of Benjamin, bows his head to the sheep Ananias; nor does he recover his sight before he heals his blindness by baptism. The eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, is prepared for the baptism of Christ by the reading of the Prophet. The Ethiopian, against nature, changes his skin, and the leopard his spots.

Those who had received John's baptism, because they knew not the Holy Spirit, are baptized again, lest anyone should think that, for Gentiles and Jews alike, waters without the Holy Spirit could suffice for salvation. « The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the Lord is upon many waters, the Lord makes the flood to abide ». « Her teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep which have come up from the washing, all bearing twins, and none is barren among them. If none is barren, nor sterile, all have breasts dropping with milk, who with the Apostle may say: My little children, of whom I travail again, until Christ be formed in you: and, I have given you milk to drink, not meat. Micah prophesies of the grace of baptism: He will turn again, and have compassion upon us: he will subdue our iniquities, and thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

7. How then are all sins submerged in the laver, if one wife floats above it: Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin. I think that we too can join something to this canticle: Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute a wife. Let us also hear Ezechiel the son of man, how he proclaims concerning the virtue of him who was to be the Son of man: I will take you from among the nations, and will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your uncleannesses: and I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit. From all, he says, will I cleanse you of filthiness. In "all," nothing is omitted. If filth is cleansed, how much more is cleanness not defiled? I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

Whence we sing a new canticle: and having put off the old man, we walk not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit. This is the new stone, on which a new name is inscribed; which no one can read except him who has received it. For as many of us as have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death. For we are buried with him by baptism into death, that as Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. So often do we read of newness, and yet can no newness blot out the stained name of "wife"? We are buried together with Christ in baptism, and we have risen again through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

And when we were dead in our sins, and in the uncircumcision of our flesh, he quickened us together with him, forgiving all our sins; blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he took it out of the way, fastening it to the cross. All that was ours has died together with Christ, all the sins of the old handwriting have been blotted out; does the name of "wife" alone live on? The day would fail me if I wished to gather from the holy Scriptures all that pertains to the power of baptism, and to set forth the mysteries of the second birth—nay rather, of the first birth, in Christ.

8. Before I make an end of dictating (for I now perceive that I am exceeding the measure of a letter), I wish to run through briefly the earlier chapters, in which the life of the future Bishop is described; so that we may receive the Apostle, the Teacher of the Gentiles, not only in his pronouncement about a single wife, but in all things that he enjoins. At the same time I beg that no one think that what I have written was written to disparage the Priests of this age, but for the benefit of the Church. For just as orators and philosophers, in describing what sort of person a perfect orator or philosopher ought to be, do not thereby wrong Demosthenes and Plato, but define the matters themselves apart from persons: so in the description of the Bishop, and in the exposition of what has been written, a mirror of the Priesthood, as it were, is set forth.

Now it lies in the power and conscience of each individual, of what sort they see themselves to be therein; so that they may either grieve at their deformity, or rejoice at their beauty. If any man desires the office of a Bishop, he desires a good work. A work, not a dignity; a labor, not delights; a work by which he is diminished through humility, not swollen with pride at his eminence. A Bishop then must be blameless. The same is said also to Titus: If any man be without crime. He comprehends all the virtues in one word, and demands something almost contrary to nature. For if every sin, even in an idle word, is worthy of reproof: who is he that lives in this world without sin, that is, without reproof? But the future Pastor of the Church is chosen to be such, that in comparison with him the rest may rightly be called the flock. Rhetoricians define the orator as a good man, skilled in speaking.

Before speech, then, blamelessness of life is sought, so that he may be rightly received. For he loses the authority to teach whose word is destroyed by his deeds. The husband of one wife; of this we have spoken above. Now we only remind you of this: that if the husband of one wife is required even before baptism, we should likewise require, before baptism, the other things that are enjoined. For it is not fitting to understand all the rest as applying after baptism, and this one commandment alone as applying before baptism. Sober, or watchful, for νηφάλιος signifies both. Prudent, of good behavior, hospitable, apt to teach. Priests who minister in the temple of God are forbidden to drink wine and strong drink: lest their hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness; and so that the mind, performing its office, may always be alert to God, and slender. But in adding "prudent," he excludes those who excuse the foolishness of Priests under the name of simplicity. For unless the brain be sound, all the members will be diseased.

"Of good behavior" also is an intensification of the earlier word, that is, "blameless." He who has no vices is called blameless: he who abounds in virtues is "of good behavior." We can also understand something else from this word, according to that saying of Tully: The chief point of art is that what you do should be fitting. For there are some who, ignorant of their own measure, and of such stupidity and folly, provide laughter for onlookers in their movement and gait, and dress, and common speech: and as though understanding what good behavior is, they adorn themselves with garments and bodily elegance, and prepare the dishes of a more sumptuous table: whereas all such adornment and refinement is fouler than filth. That teaching is required of Priests is both an old precept of the Law, and is written more fully to Titus. For innocent and wordless conduct benefits as much by example as it harms by silence.

For the madness of wolves must be deterred both by the barking of dogs and by the staff of the shepherd. Not given to wine, not a striker. He has set vices over against virtues.

9. We have learned what sort of persons we ought to be: let us learn what sort of persons Priests ought not to be. Drunkenness belongs to buffoons and revelers; and a belly seething with wine quickly foams over into lusts. In wine is luxury, in luxury is pleasure, in pleasure is shamelessness. He who lives in luxury is a living dead man: therefore he who is drunk is both dead and buried. Noah, for one hour's drunkenness, exposed his thighs, which through six hundred years he had covered with sobriety. Lot, through drunkenness, unknowingly mingled incest with lust: and he whom Sodom had not overcome, wine overcame. But he condemns the Bishop who is a striker, who set his back to the scourges, and being cursed, cursed not again. But mild.

He has set one good against two evils; that drunkenness and anger might be restrained by mildness. Not quarrelsome, not covetous. For nothing is more shameless than the arrogance of rustics, who think garrulity to be authority; and, ever ready for strife, thunder with swollen speech against the flock subject to them. Samuel too teaches that avarice is to be avoided in a Priest: proving before the people that he had taken nothing from anyone by force: and the poverty of the Apostles, who received relief for their expenses from the brethren, and boasted that besides food and clothing they had, and wished to have, nothing else. Which avarice he marks most openly to Timothy, and the desire for base gain to Titus. One who rules his own house well.

Not that he may increase his wealth, not that he may prepare royal banquets, not that he may set out engraved dishes, not that he may cook Phasian birds with slow steaming, so that they reach the bone without the surface of the flesh being dissolved by an artful tempering: but that what he is about to require of the people, he may first exact from his own household. Having his children in subjection with all chastity; lest, that is, they imitate the sons of Eli, who slept with women in the vestibule of the Temple; and, thinking religion to be plunder, turned whatever was best in the sacrifices to their own delights. Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the judgment of the devil. I cannot marvel enough at how great is the blindness of men, that they dispute about wives before baptism; and drag into calumny a matter dead in baptism—nay, quickened together with Christ—while so open and evident a precept as this no one observes.

Yesterday a catechumen, today a pontiff: yesterday in the amphitheater, today in the Church; in the evening at the circus, in the morning at the altar: lately a patron of actors, now a consecrator of virgins. Did the Apostle not know our evasions, was he ignorant of the futility of such arguments? He who said, the husband of one wife, himself commanded: blameless, sober, prudent, of good behavior, hospitable, apt to teach, mild: not given to wine, not a striker, not quarrelsome, not covetous, not a novice. To all these things we close our eyes, we see only wives. But as for what he says: Lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the judgment of the devil, who does not prove this true by example?

The Priest of a moment knows not the humility and gentleness of rustics: he knows not Christian gentleness; he does not know how to despise himself: he is transferred from dignity to dignity: he has not fasted, has not bent, has not often reproved his own character and corrected it by assiduous meditation: he has not distributed his substance to the poor. He is led, as it were, from a chair to a chair, that is, from pride to pride. But the judgment and ruin of the devil, no one doubts, is arrogance. They fall into it who, in the space of an hour, being not yet disciples, are already masters. Moreover he must have a good testimony from those who are without. Such as the beginning, such also the close. He who is blameless is praised with concordant voice not only by his own household, but by strangers also. Strangers, and those outside the Church, are the Jews, heretics, and Gentiles.

Let the Priest of Christ, then, be such, that those who detract from religion may not dare to detract from his life. But now we see very many, either buying the favor of the people with money, in the manner of charioteers: or living in such hatred of all men, that they do not extort with money what mimes obtain by their gestures.

10. These things, son Oceanus, you must seek out with anxious care: these the teachers of the Church must guard: these canons must they observe in choosing Priests: not interpreting the law of Christ according to their own private hatreds and personal quarrels, ever gnawing at its author, envy. See how weighty is the testimony against this husband, whom they accuse, since besides the bond of marriage—and that before baptism—nothing else can be objected against him by his rivals. "He who commanded, Thou shalt not commit adultery, himself also said, Thou shalt not kill." If we do not commit adultery, but we kill, we are transgressors of the law.

"He who shall have kept the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all." Therefore, when they object to us a wife before baptism, let us in turn require of them all things that have been commanded after baptism. They pass over what is not lawful: and they object what has been permitted.

That our Sebesius has profited by your admonitions, we have learned not so much from your letter as from his own repentance. And, in wondrous fashion, he has pleased us more when corrected than he had grieved us when erring. There was a contest between the indulgence of a parent and the dutifulness of a son: the one not remembering things past, the other promising also for the future his dutiful services. Whence we and you alike have cause for mutual joy: because we have received back a son, and you have proved a disciple.

2. But as to what you ask at the close of your letter—why in our little works we sometimes set down examples from secular literature, and pollute the whiteness of the Church with the filth of the Gentiles—take briefly this answer. You would never ask this, unless Tully possessed you wholly; if you read the sacred Scriptures, if you unrolled their Interpreters, leaving Volcatius aside.

For who does not know that even in Moses and in the volumes of the Prophets certain things were taken over from the books of the Gentiles, and that Solomon both proposed some things to the philosophers of Tyre and made some answers to them? Whence at the beginning of Proverbs he admonishes us to understand the sayings of prudence, and the subtleties of words, parables, and dark speech, the sayings of the wise, and enigmas, which properly belong to the dialecticians and philosophers. But even the Apostle Paul made use of a verse of the poet Epimenides, writing to Titus: "The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." A hemistich of this heroic verse Callimachus afterward employed. Nor is it strange if among the Latins a metrical translation expressed word for word does not keep its measure, since even Homer, turned into prose in the same tongue, scarcely holds together.

In another letter also he sets down a senarius of Menander: "Evil communications corrupt good manners." And disputing among the Athenians in the court of Mars, he calls Aratus as a witness: "For we are also his offspring," which in Greek is said, τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν; and it is the close of a heroic verse. And lest this should seem too little, the leader of the Christian army, the unconquered orator pleading the cause of Christ, even twists to his purpose, by art, a chance inscription, into an argument for the faith. For he had learned from the true David to wrest the sword from the hands of the enemy, and to cut off the head of the most arrogant Goliath with his own blade. He had read in Deuteronomy the precept given by the voice of the Lord, that a captive woman's head should be shaved, her eyebrows and all the hairs of her body removed, and the nails of her body cut, and thus she should be taken in marriage.

What wonder, then, if I too desire, for the sake of the grace of its eloquence and the beauty of its limbs, to make of secular wisdom, a handmaid and captive, an Israelite? And if whatever in her is dead—of idolatry, of pleasure, of error, of lusts—I either cut away or shave off: and, being joined to her most pure body, beget from her servants unto the Lord of Sabaoth? My labor increases the household of Christ; unlawful union with another only augments the number of fellow-servants. Hosea took to wife the harlot Gomer, daughter of Debelaim, and there was born to him of the harlot a son Jezreel, who is called "the seed of God". Isaiah with a sharp razor shaves the beard and the legs of sinners; and Ezekiel, in the type of fornicating Jerusalem, shears off his own hair, that whatever in it is without sense and life may be taken away.

3. Cyprian, a man mighty in eloquence and in martyrdom, is bitten at, as Firmianus relates, because in writing against Demetrianus he used testimonies of the Prophets and Apostles, which the other called feigned and fabricated, rather than testimonies of the Philosophers and Poets, whose authority, being a heathen, he could not contradict. Celsus and Porphyry wrote against us: to the former Origen, to the latter Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinaris replied most vigorously. Of these Origen wrote eight books; Methodius proceeds to as many as ten thousand verses; Eusebius and Apollinaris composed twenty-five and thirty volumes. Read them, and you will find us, by comparison with them, most unskilled: and after so long a rest, scarcely, as though in a dream, do we recall what we learned as boys. The emperor Julian vomited forth seven books against Christ during his Parthian expedition; and, after the fashion of the poets' fables, tore himself with his own sword.

If I should attempt to write against this man, I suppose you would forbid me to strike the rabid dog with the teachings of the Philosophers and Stoics, that is, with the club of Hercules? Although he felt, straightway in battle, our Nazarene—as he himself used to say—the Galilean; and received the wages of his most fetid tongue, pierced through the vitals by a spear. Josephus, vindicating the antiquity of the Jewish people, wrote two books against Apion, the Alexandrian grammarian; and he brings forward so many testimonies of secular writers that it amazes me how a Hebrew man, trained from infancy in the sacred Letters, should have unrolled the whole library of the Greeks. What shall I say of Philo, whom critics pronounce either a second Plato, or a Jewish Plato?

4. Let me run through them one by one: Quadratus, a disciple of the Apostles, and the Athenian Pontiff of the Church, did he not deliver a book in defense of our religion to the Emperor Hadrian, when he was visiting the Eleusinian rites?

And it won such admiration from all that his excellent genius quelled a most grievous persecution. Aristides the philosopher, a most eloquent man, offered to the same emperor an Apology for the Christians, woven together with the sayings of the philosophers; and Justin, himself also a philosopher, imitating him afterward, delivered to Antoninus Pius and his sons and to the Senate a book against the Gentiles, defending the ignominy of the cross, and proclaiming with entire freedom the resurrection of Christ. What shall I say of Melito, Bishop of Sardis? What of Apollinaris, priest of the Church of Hierapolis, and Dionysius, Bishop of the Corinthians, and Tatian, and Bardesanes, and Irenaeus, the successor of the martyr Photinus, who set forth in many volumes the origins of the several heresies, and from what fountains of the philosophers they flowed? Pantaenus, a philosopher of the Stoic sect, on account of the glory of his exceptional learning, was sent by Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, into India, to preach Christ among the Brahmans and the philosophers of that nation.

Clement, presbyter of the Church of Alexandria, in my judgment the most learned of all, wrote eight books of Stromata, and as many of Hypotyposeis, and another against the Gentiles, and also three volumes of the Paedagogus. What is unlearned in these? Nay, what in them is not drawn from the very midst of philosophy? Origen, imitating him, wrote ten Stromateis, comparing the opinions of Christians and philosophers with one another, and confirming all the doctrines of our religion from Plato and Aristotle, Numenius and Cornutus. Miltiades also wrote an excellent volume against the Gentiles. Hippolytus too, and Apollonius, a senator of the city of Rome, composed their own works.

There are extant also the books of Julius Africanus, who wrote histories of the times; and of Theodore, who was afterward called Gregory (St. Gregory Thaumaturgus), a man of apostolic signs and virtues; and of Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria; and of Anatolius, priest of the Church of Laodicea; and also of the presbyters Pamphilus, Pierius, Lucian, Malchion, of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, and Eustathius of Antioch, and Athanasius of Alexandria; and also of Eusebius of Emisa, and Triphilius of Cyprus, and Asterius of Scythopolis, and Serapion the Confessor; and also of Titus, Bishop of Bostra; and of the Cappadocians Basil, Gregory, Amphilochius; all of whom so patch together their books with the teachings and opinions of the philosophers, that you do not know which you ought first to admire in them, the erudition of the world, or the knowledge of the Scriptures.

5. I shall come to the Latins. What is more learned than Tertullian, what more acute? His Apologeticus, and his books against the Gentiles, embrace the whole discipline of the world.

Minucius Felix, a pleader of the Roman forum, in the book entitled Octavius, and in another against the Astrologers (if indeed the title does not misattribute the author), what work of Gentile writing did he leave untouched? Arnobius published seven books against the Gentiles, and his disciple Lactantius as many, who also composed two volumes on the Wrath and on the Workmanship of God: which, if you care to read them, you will find in them an epitome of Cicero's dialogues. In Victorinus the Martyr's books, although learning is lacking, yet the will to learning is not lacking. Cyprian, in his work "That idols are not gods," with what brevity, with what knowledge of all histories, with what splendor of words and of thought did he touch upon them! Hilary, the confessor and bishop of my own times, both in style and in number imitated the twelve books of Quintilian; and in the brief little book which he wrote against Dioscorus the physician, he showed what he could do in letters.

Juvencus the presbyter, under Constantine, set forth in verse the history of the Lord the Saviour, and did not fear to bring the majesty of the Gospel under the laws of meter. Of the rest, whether dead or living, I say nothing, whose powers and whose will are manifest in their writings.

6. And do not be deceived by the wrong-headed opinion that this is lawful only against the Gentiles, but must be concealed in other disputations, since almost all the books of almost all writers, except those who, like Epicurus, never learned letters, are most full of erudition and doctrine. Though I think rather this: that it occurred to you as you were dictating, not that you were ignorant of what has always been the practice of learned men, but that the question was proposed to me through you by another, who is perhaps, on account of his love of Sallust's histories, one Calpurnius, surnamed Lanarius.

I beg you to persuade him not to let the toothless man envy those who eat with their teeth, nor the mole despise the eyes of the roes. Rich, as you see, is the material for disputing; but now the narrow limits of a letter must be brought to an end.