Exhortation to a Bride of Christ

It is a great thing, and immortal, and almost beyond bodily nature, to lull luxury to sleep, and to quench by strength of soul the flame of concupiscence kindled by the torches of youth, and by spiritual endeavor to shut out the force of natural delight, to live contrary to the custom of the human race, to despise the comforts of spouses, to scorn the sweetness of children, and to count as nothing, for hope of future blessedness, whatever advantages the present life can afford. This, as I have said, is a great and admirable virtue, and not undeservedly, for the greatness of its labor, is it destined to an immense reward. I will give, says the Lord, to my eunuchs in my house, and within my walls, a place and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not perish. Of which eunuchs the Lord repeats in the Gospel, saying: For there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven.

Great indeed is the labor of chastity, but greater the reward: temporal the custody, but eternal the recompense. Of these also the blessed Apostle John speaks, that they follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Which is to be understood thus, that no place is to be closed to them in the heavenly hall, and that all the dwellings of the divine mansions are to be unbarred for them. But that the merit of virginity may shine forth more illustriously, and that it may be understood more clearly how worthy it is of God, let this be considered: that our Lord and Savior God, when for the salvation of the human race he deigned to assume man, chose no other than a virginal womb.

And that he might show how greatly such a thing pleased him, and might commend the good of chastity to both sexes, he who was to remain a virgin had a virgin for his mother; in himself he offered the example of virginity to men, and in his mother to women: that it might be shown that blessed integrity belongs to the divinity in both sexes, and has deserved its fullness; since all that was in the Son was wholly present in the Mother. But why do I labor to reveal the excellent and sublime merit of chastity, and to show forth the good of glorious virginity, since I am not unaware that many have discoursed on this matter, and have proved its blessedness by most manifest reasons, and that it can come into doubt with no wise man that that thing is of greater merit which is of greater labor? For whoever reckons chastity to be of no reward, or of little, it is certain that he either does not know the labor, or does not bear it voluntarily.

Hence those always disparage chastity who either do not have it, or are compelled to have it against their will.

Now therefore, since in few words we have shown both the labor and the merit of integrity, lest a thing that consists of such great virtue, and is destined for so great a reward, should be able to lack its fruit, careful watch must be kept. For the more precious any species is, the greater the vigilance with which it is guarded. And since there are many things that lack their own good unless they are aided by the help of other things: as is the case with honey, which unless it be preserved by the guard of wax and the cells of the honeycomb, and (to speak more truly) nourished by them, loses its natural grace, and cannot subsist by itself. So too with wine, which unless it be in a vessel of good odor, and be tended by pitch renewed frequently, loses the force of its native sweetness.

More carefully, therefore, must it be provided, lest perhaps other things also be necessary to virginity, without which it cannot suffice to bear fruit: and lest so great a labor profit nothing, while it is vainly believed to profit, when it is possessed apart from necessary things. For unless I am mistaken, the integrity of chastity is kept for the sake of the reward of the heavenly kingdom, which it is quite certain no one can attain without the merit of eternal life. But Scripture testifies that eternal life cannot be merited except through the complete keeping of the divine precepts, saying: If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments. Therefore he does not have life who has not kept all the commandments of the law: and he who does not have life cannot be possessor of the heavenly kingdom, in which not the dead but the living shall reign.

Virginity alone, therefore, will profit nothing to one who hopes for the glory of the heavenly kingdom, unless she also has that to which perpetual life is promised, through which the reward of the heavenly kingdom is possessed. Before all things, therefore, for those who keep chastity and integrity and hope for its reward from the equity of God, the precepts of the commandments must be kept, lest the labor of glorious chastity and continence be brought to nothing. That virginity is above commandment or precept, no wise man who reads is ignorant; the Apostle saying: Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give counsel. Since therefore he gives counsel for obtaining virginity, he does not establish a precept; he has professed it to be above commandment or precept. Whoever therefore keep virginity do more than is commanded. For then it will profit more to have done more than was commanded, if you do what was commanded.

Desiring to fulfill the divine counsel, before all things keep the commandment: wishing to obtain the reward of virginity, embrace the merits of life, that your chastity may be able to be rewarded. For as the recompense of the commandments bestows life, so on the contrary their transgression begets death. And he who through transgression shall have been consigned to death cannot hope for the crown of virginity; nor can one placed in punishment expect the reward of chastity.

For there are three kinds through which the possession of the heavenly kingdom is entered. The first is chastity; the second, contempt of the world; the third, justice: which, as when joined together they render great benefit to those who possess them, so divided they can scarcely profit; since each of them is required not for its own sake only, but for the sake of another. In the first place, therefore, chastity is sought, that contempt of the world may more easily follow: because the world can be despised more lightly by those who are not held by the bonds of matrimony. But contempt of the world is required, that justice may be preserved; which they can hardly fulfill who are entangled in the business of worldly goods and mundane pleasures! Whoever therefore possesses the first kind, chastity, and does not obtain the second, which is contempt of the world, possesses the first almost without cause, since he lacks the second, for the sake of which the first was sought.

And if he has the first and the second, but lacks the third, which is justice, he labors in vain: since the two former are required chiefly for the sake of justice. For what does it profit to have chastity for the sake of contempt of the world, and not to have that for the sake of which you have it; or why should you despise the things of the world, if you do not keep the justice for the sake of which it is fitting that you have chastity and contempt of the world? Because as the first kind is for the sake of the second, so the first and second are for the sake of the third: which if it be absent, neither the first nor the second will profit.

Perhaps you say, teach me then what justice is, that if I know it I may be better able to fulfill it. I will say it briefly as I am able, and will use the simplicity of common words: because the matter we are treating is such that it ought by no means to be obscured by more eloquent speeches of rhetoric, but be laid open by simpler narrations of expression: for a thing necessary in common ought to be shown in common speech. Justice therefore is nothing other than not to sin. But not to sin is to keep the precepts of the law. Now the observance of the precepts is kept by a twofold kind: that you do none of the things that are forbidden, and that you strive to fulfill all the things that are commanded. This is what he says: Depart from evil, and do good.

For I would not have you think that justice consists in this, that you do not do evil; since not to do good is also evil, and in either case a transgression of the law is committed. For he who said, Depart from evil, also said, do good. If you have departed from evil and have not done good, you are a transgressor of the Law; which is fulfilled not only in the abomination of evil acts, but also in the perfection of good works. For it is not enjoined on you only that you not strip the clothed of their garments; but that you clothe the stripped with your own: not only that you not take away his bread from him who has it, but that you willingly share yours with him who has none: not only that you not drive the poor man from your hospitality; but that you receive into yours the one driven out and having none. For it is commanded us, to weep with those who weep.

How do we weep with them, if we share in none of their necessities, nor offer them any help in those matters for which they weep? For God does not seek the fruitless moisture of our tears; but because tears are a sign of grief, he wants you to feel another's straits as your own; and as you would wish to be helped if you were in such tribulation, so help another, because of that saying: Whatsoever good things you wish that men should do to you, do you also likewise to them. For to weep with one who weeps, and to give him nothing when you can, is a sign of mockery, not of piety. Finally our Savior wept with Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus; and showed the affection of his immense mercy by the witness of tears, and the signs of true piety soon followed in works, when Lazarus, raised up, for whose sake the tears were shed, was restored to his sisters.

This was to weep piously with those who weep, to remove the occasion of the weeping. But you will say, he did it as one who was powerful. Yet nothing impossible is commanded of you either: he has fulfilled all things who has done what he could.

But, as we had begun to say, it is not enough for a Christian to abstain from evils, unless he also fulfills the duties of good works. This is proved especially by that testimony in which the Lord threatens that those will be guilty of eternal fire who, although they have done no evil, have not done all that is good, saying: Then the King will say to those on the left: Depart from me, accursed ones, into eternal fire, which my Father prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you did not give me to eat. He did not say: Depart from me, accursed ones, because you committed murder, because adultery, or because thefts: for they are not condemned because they did evil; but because they did not do good, they are condemned and consigned to the punishments of eternal Gehenna: not because they had committed what was forbidden; but because they had refused to fulfill what was commanded.

Whence it must be noted what hope those can have who still do some of the things that are forbidden; since even those who have not done what is commanded are guilty. For I do not want you to flatter yourself in this, that if you have not done some things, because you have done others, when it is written: Whoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all. For Adam sinned once, and died: and do you think yourself alive, committing often that which killed another when he had committed it but once? Or do you think he committed a great crime, for which he was justly condemned to a harsher punishment? Let us then see what he did against the commandment. He ate of the fruit of the tree. What then? Did God punish man with death on account of the fruit of a tree? Not on account of the fruit of the tree, but on account of the contempt of the commandment.

Therefore it is not a question of the quality of the sin, but of the transgression of the commandment.

And he who told Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree, he himself commands you not to curse, not to lie, not to speak evil of others, not to listen to one who does so, not to swear at all, not to covet, not to envy, not to be lukewarm, not to be avaricious; that you render evil for evil to no one, that you love your enemies, that you bless those who curse you, that you pray for your slanderers and your persecutors, that you offer the other cheek to one who strikes you, that you not go to law in a secular court, that if anyone wishes to take what is yours, you let it go willingly, that you admit into your breast neither the evil of wrath, nor of zeal, nor of envy, that you flee the crime of avarice, that you avoid every evil of pride and boasting, and live by the example of the humble and meek Christ: shunning the company of evildoers to such a degree that you not even take food with fornicators, or the avaricious, or the slanderous, or the envious, or detractors, or drunkards, or the rapacious.

If in anything you despise him, if he spared Adam, he will spare you too. Indeed, Adam ought rather to have been spared more, who was still untried and new, and was not held back by the example of anyone who had sinned before and died because of his sin: but you, after so many proofs, after the Law, after the Prophets, after the Gospels, after the Apostles, if you should wish to transgress: I do not know how he could be indulgent.

Do you flatter yourself on the prerogative of virginity? Remember that Adam and Eve, virgins, sinned, and that the integrity of the body did not profit them as they sinned. A virgin who sins is to be compared to Eve, not to Mary. We do not deny that in the present time there is a remedy of penance; but we exhort rather that a reward ought to be hoped for than pardon. For it is shameful for those to seek indulgence for a fault who await the palm of virginity; and to fall into something unlawful, who have even cut themselves off from what is lawful. For it is lawful to enter the fellowship of marriage. And as those are to be praised who, for the love of Christ and the glory of the heavenly kingdom, have scorned the union of marriage; so those are not to be condemned who, out of a desire for innocence, not yet vowed to God, make use of the apostolic remedy.

Therefore, as we have said, those who forsake marriage spurn not what is unlawful, but what is lawful. But if such as these swear, if they curse, if they slander, if they suffer to hear slanderers, if they render evil for evil, if they fall into the crime of covetousness of others' goods, or of avarice for their own, if they possess the poisons of zeal or envy, if against the precepts of the law and the apostles they speak or think anything unseemly; if for the sake of pleasing in the flesh they go about adorned and dressed up; if they do some of the things that, as usually happens, are unlawful, what will it profit them to have spurned what was lawful, and to practice what is not lawful? If you wish what you have scorned as lawful to profit you, see that you do none of those things that are not lawful.

For it is foolish to have feared what is less and not to fear what is greater, or to avoid what is permitted while failing to avoid what is forbidden. For the Apostle says: The unmarried woman thinks on the things of the Lord, how she may please God, that she may be holy in body and spirit. But she who is married thinks on the things of this world, how she may please her husband. He asserts that the married woman pleases her husband by thinking on the things of the world: but the unmarried pleases God, because she has no care for the world. Let her then tell me, she who has no husband, and yet thinks on the things of the world, whom does she desire to please? Will not the married woman begin to be preferred to her? Because she, by thinking on the things of the world, pleases at least her husband: but this one can please neither her husband, whom she does not have, nor God.

But neither is it fitting for us to pass over in silence what he said: The unmarried woman thinks on the things of the Lord, how she may please God, that she may be holy in body and spirit. What then are the things of the Lord, let the Apostle say: Whatsoever things are holy, whatsoever just, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good report. If there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline. These are the things of the Lord, which holy and true, and apostolic virgins meditate and think upon day and night without any interval of time. The kingdom of heaven is the Lord's; the resurrection of the dead is the Lord's; immortality is the Lord's; incorruption is the Lord's; the splendor of the sun which is promised to the saints is the Lord's, as it is written in the Gospel: Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

The many mansions of the saints in the heavens are the Lord's; the thirtyfold and sixtyfold and hundredfold fruit is the Lord's. These things they think upon, and by what works they may be able to merit the things that are the Lord's, they consider. The Lord's also is the law of the New and Old Testament, in which the holy words of his mouth shine forth; which if any virgins meditate upon without ceasing, they think on the things that are the Lord's; and in them is fulfilled that prophetic saying: Eternal foundations upon a solid rock: and the commandments of the Lord in the heart of a holy woman. There follows: How she may please God. God, I say, not men: That she may be holy in body and spirit. He did not say, that she may be holy in a limb or only in body; but, that she may be holy in body and spirit.

For a limb is one part of the body: but the body is the joining together of all the limbs. When therefore he says: that she may be holy in body, he testifies that she ought to be sanctified in all her limbs. Because the sanctification of the other limbs will not profit if corruption be found even in one. And she will no longer be holy in body, which consists of all the limbs, if it has been defiled by the pollution of even one.

But that what I say may become more manifest and clear; suppose that a woman were purged by the sanctification of all her limbs, and only her tongue should sin, by which she either blasphemes or bears false witness; will all the limbs free the one? Or will the others also be judged because of the one? Therefore if the sanctification of the other limbs will not profit, when the fault is in one; how much more, if all be corrupted by the crime of various sins, will the integrity of one profit nothing? Wherefore I ask you, O virgin, do not flatter yourself in chastity alone, nor trust in the integrity of one member alone: but according to the Apostle, preserve the holiness of the body for God alone.

Cleanse your head from every defilement: for it is a crime, after the sanctification of chrism, to be soiled with the dye of saffron, or of any other pigment, or with powder; or to be adorned with gold or gems of any earthly kind: since it already shines with the splendor of heavenly adornment. For it is a great insult to divine grace to prefer worldly and secular adornment. Cleanse the forehead, that it may blush at human, not divine, works, and receive that confusion which brings forth not sin, but the glory of God, Scripture saying: There is a confusion that brings sin: and there is a confusion that brings glory. Cleanse the neck, that the hair may not wear golden nets, and hanging necklaces, but rather bear about those ornaments of which Scripture says: Let not mercy and faith forsake thee, hang them about thy neck as about thy heart.

Cleanse the eyes, while you withdraw them from every concupiscence, and never turn them away from the sight of the poor, and keep, free from all paint, those things which were made by God, in their sincerity. Cleanse the tongue from lying: for the mouth that lies kills the soul. Cleanse it from detraction, from swearing, from flattery, from perjury. Do not think it a preposterous order that I said the tongue ought to be cleansed from swearing before perjury: because you will more easily avoid perjury if you do not swear at all. Let that sentence be fulfilled in you: Keep thy tongue from evil, and let thy lips not speak guile. And be mindful of the Apostle who says: Bless, and curse not. But recall more often this: See that none render evil for evil to anyone, nor curse for curse; but on the contrary blessing: because unto this you are called, that you may possess a blessing by inheritance; and this: If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.

For it is wicked that those lips by which you confess the Lord, entreat him, bless, and praise him, should be polluted by any filth of sin. I do not know with what conscience, and with what tongue, anyone asks God, who either lies, or curses, or slanders. God hears holy lips; and grants swiftly the prayers which an unstained tongue utters. Cleanse the ears, that they may give hearing to nothing but holy and true words; that they never receive obscene, or shameful, or worldly words, or hear anyone speaking ill of another, because of what is written: Hedge thy ears about with thorns, and hear not a wicked tongue; that you may be able to have part with him of whom it is said, that he was just in hearing and sight; that is, he sinned neither with his ears nor with his eyes. Let your hands not be stretched out to receive, but folded for giving, nor ready to strike, but very ready for all works of mercy and piety.

Cleanse the feet, that they walk not the broad and spacious way, which leads to the splendid and precious banquets of the world; but rather tread the steep and narrow path, which tends toward heaven, because it is written: Make straight paths for your feet. Recognize that your limbs were formed by God the artisan not for vices, but for virtue: and when you have cleansed all your joints from every filth of sin, and have been sanctified in your whole body, then understand that chastity will profit you, and await with full confidence the palm of virginity.

What it is to be holy in body I think I have explained briefly, but fully: now what follows we must also know, that is, in spirit; that is, that what it is wicked to do in deed, it should not be lawful even to conceive in thought. For she is holy both in body and in spirit who offends neither in mind nor in heart; knowing also that God is the inspector of the heart; and therefore she strives that in every way she may keep her mind, along with her body, clean from sin, knowing that it is written: With all watchfulness keep thy heart; and again: The Lord loves holy hearts; but all who are undefiled are acceptable to him; and elsewhere: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. This I think is said of those whom conscience convicts of no fault of sin.

Of these I believe John said in his Epistle: If our heart does not reprove us, we have confidence toward God, and whatsoever we shall ask we shall receive from him. Do not think that you have escaped the crime of sin, if the effect does not follow the will, since it is written: Whosoever shall look upon a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart. Nor should you say, I indeed thought of it, but did not accomplish it: because even to desire it is wicked. Whence blessed Peter commanded, saying: Purifying your souls, who, if he had known no defilement of the soul, would not have desired it to be purified.

But also that passage in which it is contained: These are they who have not defiled themselves with women, for they remained virgins: these follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, we ought to consider more attentively and note, whether it is by the merit of integrity of chastity alone that they are joined to that divine company, and range through all the levels of the heavens: or whether there are other things as well, joined to which virginity attains the glory of so great a blessedness. But whence shall we be able to know this? From what follows, unless I am mistaken, in which it is written: These were purchased from among men, the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb, and in their mouth was found no lie: for they are without spot. You see then that they are not said to cling to the Lord's footsteps in one member alone; but they who, besides virginity, have led a life unstained by any contagion of sin.

For this reason the virgin especially spurns marriage, so that, being more secure, she may the more easily keep herself from every offense—which is also sought even of the married—and fulfill all the commandments of the law. For if she does not marry, and nevertheless does those things from which even married women are commanded to be free, of what profit will it be not to have married? For although it is not lawful for any Christian to sin, and it is fitting that all who are cleansed by the sanctification of the spiritual washing should run their course with a life unspotted, so that they may be able to be incorporated into the inward parts of the Church, which is described as being without spot, without wrinkle, or any such thing: much more, however, is it necessary for the Virgin to fulfill this, whom neither husband, nor children, nor any other necessity prevents from perfecting the divine Scripture; nor can she, if she sins, be defended by any excuse.

O Virgin, keep the resolve appointed to you with so great a reward. The virtue of virginity and chastity is glorious before God, if it is not weakened by other lapses of sins and evils. Recognize your state, recognize your place, recognize your resolve. You are called the bride of Christ; see that you admit nothing unworthy of him to whom you are seen to be betrothed: he will quickly write a bill of divorce, if he sees in you even one adultery. For whosoever is pledged by the tokens of human espousals immediately, anxiously and diligently, inquires and asks of the household, of the intimates, of the friends of the bridegroom, and of the servants, what manners the young man has, what especially he loves, what he approves, by what habit he lives, by what custom he governs himself, what fare he uses, in what things especially he delights and rejoices.

And when she has learned these things, she so tempers herself in all things that her compliance, her cheerfulness, her diligence, her life may agree with the bridegroom's manners. And you, who have Christ as your bridegroom, ask of his household and intimates the manners of your bridegroom, and inquire vigorously and diligently; in what things he especially delights, what arrangement of garments he loves in you, what sort of adornment he desires. Let Peter, his most intimate friend, tell you—who does not even permit bodily adornment to married women—as he wrote in his epistle: Wives, likewise, be subject to your husbands, that if any believe not the word, they may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives: considering in fear your chaste conversation, whose adorning let it not be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel; but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptibility of a quiet and modest spirit, which is rich in the sight of God.

Let also that other apostle, blessed Paul, speak, who, writing to Timothy the bishop, testifies the same concerning the discipline of faithful women: Women likewise, in modest apparel, adorning themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but, which becometh women professing chastity, through good works.

But perhaps you say: why did the apostles not command these same things to virgins? Because they judged it not necessary: lest such an admonition to virgins should seem an injury rather than an amendment. But they would never have believed that virgins would come to such a degree of rashness as to presume even those carnal and earthly ornaments not granted even to married women. Truly the Virgin ought to adorn and compose herself: for how shall she be able to please her bridegroom, unless she comes forth composed and adorned? Let her indeed be adorned, but with inward ornaments, and let her be composed spiritually, not carnally: because God considers in her not the beauty of the body, but of the soul. Therefore you also, whoever desires your soul to be loved and inhabited by God, compose it with all diligence, and adorn it with spiritual garments. Let nothing unseemly, nothing foul appear in it. Let it shine with the gold of justice, glitter with the gems of holiness, and gleam with the most precious pearl of chastity.

Instead of fine linen and silk, let it be clothed with the tunic of mercy and piety, according as it is written: Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humility. And let it not seek the beauty of white lead or of any other pigment, but let it have the whiteness of innocence and simplicity. Let it possess the rosy color of modesty and the purple of blushing shame. Let it be washed with the heavenly nitre of doctrine, and be cleansed with spiritual laments. Let no stain of malice, no stain of the devil be left in it; and lest at any time it smell badly with the odor of sin, let it be anointed with the most sweet ointment of wisdom and knowledge.

Such is the adornment God seeks, and such a soul, so composed, he desires. Remember that you are called the daughter of God, according to what he says: Hearken, O daughter, and see. But you too, as often as you call God Father, testify that you are the daughter of God. Therefore if you are the daughter of God, take care that you do nothing of those things which are unbecoming to God the Father; but do all things as a daughter of God. Learn how the daughters of the nobles of this world conduct themselves, to what manners they are accustomed, by what discipline they are trained. Some have such great modesty, such gravity, such moderation, that in view of human noble birth they exceed the ways of other men: and lest by any lapse of theirs they should brand any mark of infamy upon their honorable parents, they strive in a manner to make for themselves another nature by custom among men.

Do you also then look to your origin, consider your lineage, mark the glory of your nobility: recognize that you are the daughter not of man, but of God, and adorned with the nobility of divine birth. Show yourself such that in you a heavenly birth may appear, and a divine noble birth may shine forth. Let there be in you a new gravity, an admirable honesty, an astonishing modesty, a wondrous patience, a virginal gait, and the demeanor of true chastity, and speech always modest, and to be uttered in its own time; so that whoever sees you may marvel and say: what is this new patience of gravity among men? What modesty of shame? What restraint of honesty? What maturity of wisdom? This is not human training, nor mortal discipline: something heavenly breathes to me in an earthly body. I think that God dwells in certain men.

And when he has learned that you are a handmaid of Christ, he will be held with greater astonishment, and will consider what sort of Lord he must be, whose handmaid is such as this.

If therefore you wish to be with Christ, and to have a part with Christ, you must live by the example of Christ, who was so foreign to all malice and wickedness that he did not even repay his enemies in kind, but rather even prayed for them. For I do not wish you to reckon those souls Christian which—I will not say hate brothers or sisters—but which do not love their neighbors with the whole heart and conscience before the testimony of God; since it is necessary for Christians, in the likeness of Christ, to love even their enemies. If you desire to have the fellowship of the saints, purge your breast from the thought of malice and wickedness. Let no one circumvent you, let no one seduce you with deceitful speech. The heavenly court will receive none but the holy and just and simple and innocent and pure. Malice has no place with God. It is necessary that whoever desires to reign with Christ be clean from all wickedness and deceit.

Nothing is so contrary, nothing so execrable to God, as to hate anyone, to wish to harm anyone: nothing is so approved, as to love all. Which the Prophet, knowing, testifies, saying: Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.

See that you love human glory in nothing; lest your portion also be reckoned among those to whom it is said: How can you believe, who seek glory one of another? And of whom it is said through the Prophet: Increase evils to them, increase evils to the glorious of the earth. And elsewhere: Be confounded because of your glorying, from the reproach in the sight of God. For I do not wish you to look to those who are virgins of the world, not of Christ; who, unmindful of their resolve and profession, rejoice in delights, delight in riches, and delight in the origin of bodily nobility. If indeed they truly believed themselves to be daughters of God, they would never, after their divine birth, admire human nobility, nor glory in any honored father whatsoever: if they perceived that they had God as Father, they would not love nobility of the flesh. Why do you flatter and please yourself in nobility of lineage?

God made two people from the beginning, from whom the whole forest of the human race descends: worldly nobility was not bestowed by the equity of nature, but by the ambition of greed. Certainly we are all made equal through the begetting of the divine washing, and there can be no distinction among those whom the second birth has begotten; through which as much the rich as the poor, as much the free as the slave, as much the noble as the ignoble, is made a Son of God; and earthly nobility is overshadowed by the splendor of heavenly glory, and nowhere at all does it any longer appear: while those who formerly were unequal in worldly honors are clothed equally with the glory of heavenly and divine nobility.

There is now no place for ignobility, nor is anyone base-born, whom the sublimity of the divine birth adorns, except among those who do not think heavenly things should be preferred to human things: or if they do think so, how vain it is that they should prefer themselves to others in lesser things, whom they know to be their equals in greater things, and should reckon as beneath them on earth those whom they believe to be their equals in heavenly things? But you, whoever you are, a virgin of Christ and not of the world, flee all the glory of the present life, that you may attain that which is promised in the future.

Avoid words of contention, and causes of animosity; likewise flee occasions of discord and quarrels. For if, according to the Apostle's teaching: The servant of the Lord must not wrangle; how much more the handmaid of God? Whose spirit ought to be the more modest, the more modest her sex is. Restrain your tongue from evil speech, and set upon your mouth the bridle of the Law; so that then, if you speak at all, when silence would be sin, take care that you say nothing that would come into reproach. A word once uttered is a stone let loose; wherefore it must be pondered long before it is brought forth. Blessed indeed are the lips that never send forth anything they would wish to call back again.

The speech of a chaste mind ought also to be chaste, such as always builds up rather than at any time destroys its hearers, according to what the Apostle commands, saying: Let no evil word proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good for edifying the faith, that it may give grace to the hearers. Precious to God is the tongue that knows how to frame words not without divine matters; and holy is the mouth from which heavenly utterances are ever brought forth. Deter as malicious, by the authority of Scripture, the detractors of the absent: for the Prophet numbers this among the virtues of the perfect man, that in the sight of the just man the malicious one is brought to nothing, who has uttered against his neighbor things not to be approved. It is not lawful for you to hear patiently the vituperation of another; for you do not wish your own to be received by others either.

Unjust indeed is whatever comes against the Gospel of Christ, if you allow to be inflicted upon another what is troublesome to you when done by another. Accustom your tongue always to speak of good things, and turn your hearing rather to the praise of the good than to the vituperation of the wicked. See that whatever good you do, you do for God's sake; knowing that you will receive from the Lord only so much reward for a thing as you have accomplished it for the sake of His fear and love. Strive to be holy rather than to seem so: for it profits nothing to be esteemed what one is not: and it is the guilt of a double sin, not to have what is believed of one, and to feign what one does not have.

Delight more in fasting than in feasting, mindful of that widow who did not depart from the temple, serving God with fastings and supplications day and night. And if such a widow existed in Judea, how much more such ought a virgin of Christ to be now. Love rather the banquet of divine reading, and desire to be satisfied with spiritual dishes; and seek rather those foods by which the soul, rather than the body, is refreshed. Flee the delicacies of meat and wine as fuel for warmth and incitements to lust, and then, if perhaps you use a little wine, let it be when pain of stomach and excessive weakness of the body compel it. Conquer wrath; restrain animosity; and whatever it is that brings on repentance after the deed, shun it as an abomination of a neighboring crime.

It befits the mind to be quite tranquil and quiet, and estranged from every disturbance of fury, that mind which desires to be the dwelling place of God; who testifies through the Prophet and says: Upon whom shall I rest but upon him that is humble and quiet, and trembles at my words? Believe God to be the beholder of all your works and thoughts, and take care that you neither do nor think anything unworthy of the divine eyes.

When you desire to perform prayer, show yourself such as one who is about to speak with the Lord. When you say a psalm, recognize the words you are saying; and delight more in the compunction of the mind than in the sweetness of a ringing voice. For God approves more the tears of the one singing psalms than the grace of the voice, as the Prophet says: Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto him with trembling. Where fear and trembling are, there is no lifting up of the voice, but a tearful and weeping abasement of the soul. Apply diligence to all your deeds, for it is written: Cursed is the man who does the work of the Lord negligently. Let grace grow in you with the years, let righteousness grow with age; and let your faith appear the more perfect, the older you are: for our Lord Jesus, who left us an example of living, advanced not only in bodily age, but also in wisdom and spiritual grace before God and men.

Reckon that you have lost every time in which you have not felt yourself become better. Preserve the undertaken purpose of virginity even to the end; for it is a matter of virtue not merely to have begun, but to have completed, as the Lord says in the Gospel: He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved . Take care that you give occasion of desire to no one: for your Bridegroom God is a jealous one: for she who is an adulteress against Christ is more culpable than one who is an adulteress against a husband. Whence the Roman Church, beautifully—animated, no doubt, by the Apostolic spirit whose see it holds—recently established so severe a sentence in such a matter, that she scarcely judged worthy even of penance the one who had defiled with lustful pollution a body sanctified to God.

Be, then, a pattern of living for all, be an example; go before also in act those whom you outrun in the sanctification of chastity. Show yourself a virgin in all things; let nothing of corruption be cast up against your head, whose body is whole, that your manner of life too may be inviolable. And since, as we said at the beginning of the letter, you have been made a sacrifice of God—which surely imparts its holiness to others also, so that whoever worthily partakes of it becomes himself also a sharer of its sanctification—so, then, may others too be sanctified through you, as through a divine victim, since you show yourself in all things such that whoever comes into contact with your life, whether by hearing or by sight, may feel the force of sanctification, and may understand that grace is so poured out upon him from your manner of living, that while he desires to imitate you, he too may become worthy of God's sacrifice.