For who could have supposed, in the days of your youth—O lady honorable to me indeed in integrity and merits, but in order and rank my daughter in Christ—when, packed in the convent of holy virgins amid a spiritual choir, intent upon the study and instructions of the divine Scriptures, you then loved me as a part of your soul, a young man and one of no great endowment, who wandered through the precipices of pleasures and wantonness, and through toilsome windings, hastening—for the sake, that is, of temporal happiness—to be plunged in a secret cast, whose name besides you knew only by hearing and whose face you were wholly ignorant of—that the dispensation of Almighty God should hold us predestined for this office: namely, that He should hand over His household to you to be governed, with this rank at least, that you should minister in the workshop of this Church, according to the oracle of the divine precept.
'If,' He says, 'you separate the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth' (Jer. 15:19). Like a most skillful money-changer, that among those who preserve in themselves the image of the eternal King impressed upon them, you may set apart, by a sagacious and discerning division, those who defile His coin with the filthy adulterine key against conscience: since you have exercised these sacred, dedicated ministries not as a raw recruit or a neophyte, but almost from the very cradle, through the years of infancy and adolescence, from youth onward you have exercised your life in regular studies, in which you have learned the norm of living, and have abundantly attained a store of doctrine.
But I, who—hindered by sloth—have not attained the prerogative of knowledge, and who see myself standing far from the abstinence which the divine condescension has brought into you, and see myself entangled in earthly necessities: whence I am justly reproached as garrulous by the wise rather than as one speaking anything rightly, as even the unpolished matter of my very speech shows. But although stupid and befouled with the mire of earthly work, yet recalling a foreknowing love, it cannot be believed—after you obtained this office which you now hold—what solicitude and fear I have concerning you. Whence, however great the devotion I had, that you should take it up ordinately according to God, and bear it without blemish;
so much the more keenly I fear, lest perchance either the divine gaze or human opinion should reproach in you that which lies open beside you to reproach; and lest it be found in you, so that those who wish to reproach may seem worthily to tear you apart, or those who have sought to imitate may go astray: which you will the more augustly be able to avoid, if you always set the supreme judgment before the eyes of your heart. Hear me therefore, O sweetest virgin of Christ, sister and daughter: however much you always desire to be occupied in spiritual studies, yet for your sister's sake, sometimes even external affairs must at times be managed by you.
Therefore you must take the greatest care that you so transact temporal things as if for the time, and always cling more tenaciously in spiritual things with devotion and love, so that, when you have more quickly dispensed spiritual matters, you may forthwith run back to prayer or to reading as to a mother's bosom. For you ought to desire that, casting off the solicitude of the world, you may always think about the service of Christ, on account of that: 'No one,' he says, 'warring for God, entangles himself in secular affairs' (2 Tim. 2:4). Think without intermission that you are established as the lamp of this Church, not to be hidden under the bushel, but set upon the candlestick, that you may impart to all who dwell in this house the light of good works by your examples, on account of that:
'In all things,' he says, 'show thyself an example of good works' (Titus 2:7), and let your life, like a winged creature, ever fly aloft through desire, resound through the word, shine through example. But when you have set yourself to announce the word of God to your sisters, or when the necessity of contending for the good of souls and for keeping the tenor of the rule has pressed upon you, first weigh with cautious consideration, so that what you utter with your mouth you fulfill with your deeds; that what you preach to others, you may show forth in works: namely, that on your own shoulders and neck you may first feel whether you burden the sisters with heavy or with light loads;
for example, if it should please you to enjoin a fasting beyond the daily one, or an abstinence beyond the customary, and likewise, as is usual, to chant more psalms than usual in the assembly. Let you be found first in the church, and go out last; be first to take up labors, and last to lay them down; and in the daily nourishment of the body and the common food, be equal with those with whom you use an equal seat at the same table; so that you who sit at one table, one and equal nourishment may refresh you; and let you delight in the same flavors of dishes as your sisters, and let the common servers or cupbearers set out or offer to you equal foods and drinks; and let you vindicate your primacy, which you hold first at the table, first in the virtue of frugality;
so that the abstinence which the tongue preaches, the nearest throat or neighboring stomach may feel, lest perchance the subjects, hearing, say in silent thoughts: 'O how beautifully a full belly preaches abstinence to us, and bids us be content with the vilest foods and drinks, a gullet crammed with choice foods and delightful drinks, and belching!' For that preaching about abstinence is acceptable which mouths pale with fastings chant. And in all these and other things, know that this befits you: that you should first tread the narrow path of the journey, by which you admonish your companions to walk; that all things which are to be done, you should first fulfill in deeds;
so that afterward, like a trumpet led into sound by a stroke, you may burst forth more rightly in voice, on account of that dominical word: 'He who,' He says, 'shall scandalize one of these little ones who believe in me' (Matt. 18:6), and the rest. Among other things, with great caution you must guard that you love equally all in the monastery, whose governance you have equally imposed upon your neck; nor love one more, another less: but dispose all the things there are, in which possibility exists, with equal moderation, and dispense them with equal measure, and impart to them equal charity, and bestow what is necessary, not on any by private love, but on all according to the merits of each.
Do not prefer her who has pleased you by countenance and gaze, nor her whom you have known by appearance, nor her by whose more flattering compliance you have been charmed; but her whom the love of Christ and a more religious life shall have shown. If the Lord has deigned to bestow some little substance upon the monastery by the course of things, let it be dispensed with the highest line of equity, with an equal balance for all, as each shall have need; yet reverence being preserved for the elders, at least for those who have merited to be pillars of the Church. Be not more adorned in garments than the rest: display not what the malice of men (thus), but in those things which the devil can envy; so that in place of the adornment of garments you may be adorned in conduct and morals; and let divine reading season all these things.
For it behooves you, as I fear, on account of certain ones, sometimes to have a knife in the throat, to bear a cautery on the tongue, to carry a rod and a staff in your hand; that by the knife you may cut away vices, but by the cautery bring back the cut parts to health; that by the discipline of the rod you may correct, but by the staff sustain the disciplined. But if you have imposed a penance on anyone for her debts, it must be observed that, when you behold her bowed down and bent beneath the burden imposed by you, you imitate the diligence of the ant, according to the precept of the most wise Solomon, and put your shoulder under the burden of her spirit, so that in the middle of her journey you may relieve or sustain the burdened as you meet them;
and so admonish and instruct each in their several negligences or special faults, that from their salvation eternal glory may be presented to you by Christ the Lord. If at any time you are called to converse with secular persons, and it is necessary to go, first arm your forehead with the trophy of the cross, redouble upon your breast the standard of Christ, that Christ may deign to accompany you, His little virgin: yet always covered with virginal modesty, mindful of blessed Mary, who, having spoken very few words with the angel, afterward leapt forth with Elizabeth into song, chanting the praises of God. And when after this you come to them with such constancy of honorableness, do not even put forward your speech first;
so that those who see you may give thanks to Christ the Lord, who deigned to provide such a mother for His family. Your going forth in public, moreover, ought to be as reasonable as it is rare. Let your conversation with them be always tempered with gravity and sweetness — that sweetness, namely, which proceeds from a holy and pure love; and let it always be restrained and mingled with modesty, as befits a virgin of Christ. Likewise, do not be forever silent, lest you incur the mark either of pride or of folly; but speak only so much as the occasion of the matter and the time demands, so that whoever it may be, on departing, may long to see you more than himself, or to hear your speech, which the gravity of your manners, the sweetness of your affection, and your fewness of words adorn.
If anything is asked of you by them which you decide you ought to grant, grant it with a cheerful countenance. But if there is anything which it is not fitting to grant, soften their petition at least by the courtesy of your words. Let more people know your name, let more feel your kindnesses insofar as you are able, but let few come to know your face. If ever, however, for the necessity of the monastery, you must speak apart with the steward, do so with two, or certainly with three, chosen sisters; or if a more private matter should arise, converse at least in an open place with others looking on. For the reputation of a good name, like the guarding of a perfect life, is necessary for you; and human detraction is then first to be despised, when Christ is the cause.
If ever such a thing should have to be done that, hemmed in by ambiguity, whichever way you turn, as though bound up in a syllogism, you must advance into uncertainty, then at last, if you must act, turn yourself to the lesser peril, which you may more easily steer back toward the good by good governance. And not only in doubtful matters, but let your every action be for the sake of God, your speech about God, your thought toward God; and, apart from those vices toward which not compassion but rectitude is owed, I desire you to be compassionate toward all, gracious to all, kind to all, affectionate to all, and animated toward all good things — even as Paul adorned the virgin of Christ, that you may be holy in body and in spirit (1 Cor. 7);
with your very Bridegroom and Lord ruling your mind and ordering all your ways, He who lives and reigns God in perfect Trinity unto the ages of ages. Amen. (See the Letters: of Ruricius to Caesarius, Patrologia vol. 58, cols. 108, 111; of Caesarius to Pope Symmachus and of the latter to Caesarius, vol. 62, cols. 53, 54; of Boniface II to Caesarius, vol. 65, col. 31; of Avitus of Vienne to Caesarius, vol. 59, col. 229; of John II to Caesarius, vol. 66, col. 25; and of Agapetus I to Caesarius, vol. 66, cols. 45, 46).