Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 721

We ought to render great thanks to Almighty God, that our most pious and most benign emperors have such kinsmen of their own stock near them, from whose way of life there should be great joy to us all. Wherefore we must continually pray for the same lords, that their life, with all their own, may be preserved through long and tranquil times, the heavenly grace protecting them. I inform you, moreover, that through certain persons who reported it, I have learned that through the fickleness of the people a tumult of detraction has arisen against you. From this cause I hear that your Excellency has been afflicted with no small weariness. If this is so, I greatly wonder why you, who have fixed your heart in heaven, should be agitated on earth by the words of men.

For blessed Job, when his friends who had come to console him had burst forth into rebuke, said: 'Behold, my witness is in heaven, and He who knows me is on high' (Job 16:20). For he who has a witness of his life in heaven ought not to dread the judgments of men on earth. The teacher of the good, Paul, also says: 'This is our glory, the testimony of our conscience' (2 Cor. 1:12). Who again says: 'Let each one prove his own work, and so shall he have glory in himself, and not in another' (Gal. 6:4). For if we rejoice in praises and are broken by detractions, we have placed our glory not in ourselves, but in the mouth of others.

And indeed the foolish virgins did not take oil in their vessels, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps (Matt. 25). Now our lamps are good works. Of which it is written: 'Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven' (Matt. 5:16). Then, however, do we take oil in our vessels with our lamps, when we seek the splendour of the glory of good deeds not from flattering neighbours, but preserve it in the testimony of our conscience. But in everything that is said of us outwardly, we ought to have recourse to the secret places of the mind. Even if all should revile, yet free is he whom his conscience does not accuse.

But even if all should praise, he cannot be free if his conscience accuses him. Whence concerning John the Truth says: 'What went ye out into the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind?' (Matt. 11:7). Which indeed is said by way of negation, not of affirmation, since it is added: 'But what went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold, they that are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings' (ibid. 8). For although, according to the truth of the Gospel, John was clad in a rough garment, yet by signification those are clothed in soft garments who delight in flatteries and praises. But it is denied that John was a reed shaken by the wind, since no breath of human mouth bent the fortitude of his mind.

For if we are lifted up by praises or humbled by reproaches, we are a reed shaken by the wind. But far be this, far be it from the heart of your Excellency. I know that you diligently read the teacher of the Gentiles, who says: 'If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ' (Gal. 1:10). If, however, any sadness, even a small one, has arisen in your mind from this cause, I believe that Almighty God has benignly permitted this to happen. For neither did He promise to His elect in this life the joys of delight, but the bitternesses of tribulation, so that, as in the manner of medicine, through a bitter cup they may return to the sweetness of eternal salvation. For what does He say? 'The world shall rejoice, but you shall mourn' (John 16:20). With what hope? with what promise? A little after it is added:

'Again I will see you, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you' (ibid. 22). Hence again He says to His disciples: 'In your patience you shall possess your souls' (Luke 21:19). Weigh, I pray, where patience will be, if that which is to be endured is lacking. I do not suppose Abel to be Abel, who did not have Cain as a brother. For the good, if they are without the wicked, cannot perfectly be good, because they are by no means purged. But the very fellowship of the wicked is the purgation of the good. Three sons of Noah were in the ark; one turned out to be a mocker of his father, who, though he himself was blessed, yet received the sentence of malediction upon his son.

Abraham had two sons before he took Keturah to wife, but nevertheless his carnal son persecuted the son of promise (Gen. 21). Which the great Doctor expounds, saying: 'As then he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also now' (Gal. 4:29). Isaac had two sons, but one, who was spiritual, fled before the threats of his carnal brother. Jacob had twelve sons, but one, who lived more rightly, ten sold in Egypt. In David the prophet, because there was that which ought to be purged, it came to pass that the blessed man endured a persecuting son. Blessed Job says of the fellowship of the reprobate: 'I was a brother of dragons, and a companion of ostriches' (Job 30:29). To Ezekiel the Lord says:

'Son of man, unbelievers and subverters are with you, and you dwell with scorpions' (Ezek. 2:6). Among the twelve apostles one reprobate was mingled, that there might be one by whose persecution the eleven should be tried. The prince of the apostles speaks to his disciples, saying: 'He delivered righteous Lot, oppressed by the injury and manner of life of the wicked. For that just man, dwelling among those who from day to day vexed the just soul with unjust works, was righteous in sight and hearing' (2 Pet. 2:7-8). The apostle Paul also writes to his disciples, saying: 'In the midst of a depraved and perverse nation, among whom you shine as luminaries in the world, holding forth the word of life' (Phil. 2:15).

Since therefore, on the witness of Scripture, we know that in this life the good cannot be without the wicked, your Excellency ought in no way to be troubled by the voices of fools, especially because there is then sure confidence in Almighty God, when for a good work something of adversity is received in this world, so that the full reward may be reserved in the eternal retribution. Whence also in the holy Gospel the Truth says: 'Blessed shall you be when men shall speak all evil against you, lying, for my name's sake' (Matt. 5:11). Who, for our consolation, deigned to bring forward as an example His own reproaches, saying: 'If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?' (ibid. 10:25). But there are very many (Gratian 6, q. 1, c.

11) who perhaps praise the life of the good more than they ought; and lest any elation should steal in from the praise, Almighty God permits the wicked to break forth into disparagement and rebuke, so that if any fault is born in the heart from the mouth of those who praise, it may be smothered by the mouth of those who censure. Hence, then, it is that the teacher of the Gentiles testifies that he runs in his preaching 'through infamy and good report' (2 Cor. 6:8). Who also says: 'As seducers, and yet true.' If there were those who imposed an evil reputation upon Paul, who called him a seducer, who then now ought a Christian to count it unworthy to hear injuries for Christ?

But of how great virtue the forerunner of our Redeemer was, we know: he who by the sacred utterance is called not only more than a prophet, but even an angel; and yet, as the history of his death testifies, after his death his body was burned by his persecutors. But why do we say these things of holy men? Let us speak of the very Holy of Holies, that is, of God who was made man for us, who before His death heard, by way of injury, that He had a demon; but after His death was called a seducer by His persecutors, when they said: 'We know that that seducer said: After three days I will rise again' (Matt. 27:63).

How much then must we sinners, who are to be judged at the coming of the eternal Judge, bear from the tongue or hands of wicked men, if He too endured so many things, both before and after death, who comes even as Judge? These things, sweetest and most excellent daughter, I have said briefly, lest, as often as you learn that foolish men disparage you, you should be touched by any, even the smallest, sadness of mind. But since this very murmuring of foolish men can be settled by tranquil reasoning, I believe it a sin if the good that can be done is neglected, so that it may gape open. For when we can appease insane minds and lead them back to salvation, we ought by no means to scandalize them. For there are certain scandals which are altogether to be despised;

but others, when they can be avoided without fault, are not to be despised, lest they be kept together with fault. Which we have learned by the preaching of the holy Gospel, since, when the Truth said: 'Not that which enters into the mouth defiles a man, but that which proceeds from the mouth, this defiles a man' (Matt. 15:11), and the disciples answered, saying: 'Knowest thou that the Pharisees, when they heard this word, were scandalized?' (ibid. 12), He straightway answered: 'Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind, and leaders of the blind' (ibid. 13-14). And yet, when tribute was demanded, He first rendered the reason why He ought not to pay tribute, and immediately subjoined:

'But that we may not scandalize them, go to the sea, and cast a hook, and take the fish which shall first come up; and having opened its mouth, you shall find a stater. Taking it, give it for me and you' (Matt. 17:26). What is it that of some who were scandalized it is said: 'Let them alone; they are blind, and leaders of the blind'; and lest others be scandalized, tribute is paid by the Lord, which is not even owed? And what is it that He permitted one scandal to be, but forbade the other to come to others?

—unless that He might teach us both to despise those scandals which entangle us in sins, and by all means to mitigate those which we can appease without sin? And so your Excellency can, the Lord protecting you, decline the scandals of depraved men with great tranquillity. For their leaders are of your own accord to be secretly called to you, and the reasoning is to be rendered to them, and certain perverse chapters, which they suppose to be held, are to be anathematized before them. But if also, as is said, they falsely suspect that the anathema is given feignedly, it must even be confirmed by oath that you never held those same chapters, never have held them.

Nor let it seem unworthy to you to satisfy them in such a manner, nor, on account of your imperial lineage, let there be in your mind any disdain against them. For we are all brothers, created under the power of one Emperor, and redeemed by His blood. And therefore we ought in nothing to despise our brothers, however poor and abject. For certainly (Gratian 2, q. 7, c. 11) Peter had received the power of the kingdom of heaven, so that whatever he should bind or loose on earth should be bound or loosed in heaven:

he walked upon the sea, healed the sick with his shadow, slew sinners with a word, raised the dead by prayer. And because, at the admonition of the Spirit, he had entered in to Cornelius the Gentile, a question was raised against him by the faithful, why he had gone in to the Gentiles, and had eaten with them, and why he had received them in baptism. And yet this same first of the apostles, filled with so great a grace of gifts, sustained by so great a power of miracles, answered the complaint of the faithful not from power, but from reason; he set forth the case in order: how he had seen a certain vessel, as it were a linen cloth, in which were quadrupeds of the earth, and beasts, and creeping things, and birds, let down from heaven (Acts 11:5 ff.), and had heard a voice:

'Rise, Peter, kill and eat' (ibid. 7); how three men came, calling him to Cornelius; how the Holy Spirit commanded him to go with them; how the same Spirit, who was accustomed to come into the baptized in Judea after baptism, came into the Gentiles before baptism. For if, when he was blamed by the faithful, he had attended to the authority which he had received in the holy Church, he could have answered so that his sheep, which had been committed to him, would not dare to reprove their shepherd. But if, in the complaint of the faithful, he had said anything about his own power, surely he would not have been a teacher of meekness. He therefore appeased them with humble reasoning, and in the matter of his own reproof even produced witnesses, saying:

'And these six brethren also came with me' (Acts 11:12). If therefore the shepherd of the Church, the prince of the apostles, doing signs and miracles singularly, did not disdain in the matter of his own reproof humbly to render a reason; how much more must we sinners, when we are reproved in any matter, appease our reprovers with humble reasoning? For to me, as you know, when I lingered at the feet of the lords in the royal city, many of them were wont to come who were accused concerning the aforesaid chapters. But, my conscience bearing witness, I confess that I never found in them anything of error, anything of depravity, anything of those things which were said against them.

Whence also I took care, despising the rumour, to receive them familiarly, and rather to defend them from their persecutors. For it was said against them that under the pretext of religion they dissolved marriages; and that they said that baptism did not take away sins entirely, and that if anyone should do penance for his iniquities for three years, afterward it was permitted him to live perversely; and that if, when compelled, they said they anathematized any of the things for which they were reproved, they were in no way held by the bond of the anathema. And if there are those who most certainly hold or maintain such things, there is no doubt that they are not Christians. And I too, and all catholic bishops, and the whole Church, anathematize them, because they think things contrary to the truth, and speak things contrary to it.

For if they say that marriages ought to be dissolved for the sake of religion, it must be understood that, although human law has granted this, the divine law has nevertheless forbidden it. For Truth itself says: 'What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder' (Matthew 19:6). And it also says: 'It is not lawful to put away a wife, save for the cause of fornication' (ibid., 9). Who then would contradict this heavenly Lawgiver? We know that it is written: 'They shall be two in one flesh' (Genesis 2:24).

If therefore husband and wife are one flesh, and for the sake of religion the husband forsakes the wife, or the woman the husband who remains in this world, or even perhaps one who goes over to unlawful things, what manner of conversion is this, in which one and the same flesh in part passes over to continence, and in part remains in defilement? But if it be agreeable to both to lead a continent life, who would dare to accuse them, since it is certain that Almighty God, who granted the lesser things, has not forbidden the greater? And indeed we know that many of the saints both formerly led a continent life together with their spouses, and afterwards passed over to the governance of holy Church. For holy men are wont to abstain even from lawful things in two ways.

Sometimes that they may increase their merits before Almighty God, but sometimes that they may wipe away the faults of a former life. For the three young men, brought into the service of the king of Babylon, asking for pulse to eat, refused to use the royal foods, not because it would be a fault if they ate what God had created. They therefore declined to take what was lawful, that by continence their virtue might grow. But David, who had taken another man's wife and had been sorely scourged for his fault, long afterwards desired to drink water from the cistern of Bethlehem. When his most valiant soldiers had brought it to him, he refused to drink, and by pouring it out he offered it as a libation to the Lord. For he was permitted to drink if he had wished;

but because he remembered that he had done unlawful things, he laudably abstained even from lawful ones. And he who formerly, for his own fault, did not fear to shed the blood of dying soldiers, afterwards judged that, if he drank the water, he had shed even the blood of living soldiers, saying: 'Shall I drink the blood of these men who went forth at the peril of their lives?' (1 Chronicles 11:19). Therefore, when good spouses desire either to increase their merit or to blot out the faults of a former life, so as to bind themselves to continence and to seek a better life, it is lawful. But if the wife does not follow the continence which the husband seeks, or the husband refuses that which the wife seeks, it is not lawful to divide the marriage, because it is written: 'The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband';

'and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife' (1 Corinthians 7:4). But if there are any who say that sins are only superficially remitted in baptism, what is more faithless than this preaching, in which they hasten to dissolve the very sacrament of faith? In it the soul is chiefly bound to the mystery of heavenly purity, that, absolved from the very root of all sins, it may cleave to Him alone of whom the Prophet says: 'But it is good for me to cleave unto God' (Psalm 73:28). For surely the passage of the Red Sea was a figure of holy baptism, in which the enemies died behind, but others were found facing them in the wilderness.

For thus indeed all who are washed in holy baptism have all their past sins loosed, because for them, like the Egyptian enemies, these die behind. But in the wilderness we find other enemies, because while we live in this life, before we reach the land of promise, many temptations weary us and hasten to bar the way to us as we press on toward the land of the living. Whoever therefore says that sins are not utterly remitted in baptism, let him say that the Egyptians did not truly die in the Red Sea. But if he confesses that the Egyptians truly died, he must of necessity confess that sins truly die in baptism, because indeed truth avails more in our absolution than the shadow of truth. In the Gospel the Lord says:

'He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit' (John 13:10). If therefore sins are by no means utterly remitted in baptism, how is he who is washed clean every whit? For he cannot be called wholly clean, for whom anything of sin has remained. But no one resists the voice of Truth: 'He that is washed is clean every whit.' Nothing therefore of the defilement of his sin remains to him whom He who redeemed him declares wholly clean. But if there are any who say that penance is to be done for any given sin every three years, and after the three years one is to live in pleasures, these men have not yet known either the tenets of true faith or the precepts of Holy Scripture. Against these the excellent preacher Paul says:

'He that soweth in his flesh shall of the flesh also reap corruption' (Galatians 6:8). Against these again he says: 'They that are in the flesh cannot please God' (Romans 8:8). Where he adds to his disciples: 'But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.' For those are in the flesh who live in carnal pleasures. Against these it is said: 'Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption' (1 Corinthians 15:50). But if they say that a penance of brief time ought to suffice against sin, so that it may again be permitted to return to sin, rightly does the sentence of the first shepherd strike them, who says: 'It hath happened unto them according to the true proverb: The dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire' (2 Peter 2:22).

For great is the power of penance against sin, but only if one perseveres in that same penance. For it is written: 'He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved' (Matthew 10:22; 24:13). Hence again it is written: 'He that is baptized after touching the dead, and toucheth him again, what availeth his washing?' (Ecclesiasticus 34:30). For every perverse work is dead, which drags down to death, which does not live the life of righteousness. He therefore is baptized after touching the dead, and toucheth him again, who bewails the wicked works he remembers having done, but after his tears again entangles himself in the very same things.

And so any soul whatever profits nothing by the washing away of that same dead thing, which, by doing again what it bewailed, does not rise up through the laments of penance to the uprightness of righteousness. For truly to do penance is to bewail things committed, but to shun the things to be bewailed again. But if there are any who say that whoever has been compelled by necessity, if he has pronounced an anathema, is not held by the bond of anathema, they are themselves witnesses to themselves that they are not Christians. Because they suppose that they can loose the bonds of holy Church by vain efforts, and thereby they neither hold the absolution of holy Church, which she affords to the faithful, to be true, if they judge that her bindings have no force.

Against such there is no need to dispute at length, because they are in all things to be despised and anathematized, so that from that very source whence they believe they deceive the truth, they may thence truly be bound in their own sins. If therefore there are any who under the Christian name dare either to preach these chapters of errors which we have named above, or to hold them silently within themselves, these without doubt we have anathematized and do anathematize. Yet of all these chapters, in those, as I have said, who were accustomed to come to me in the royal city, I recognized no error at all of any of the aforesaid chapters, nor do I think there was any. For if there had been, I would have recognized it.

But because there are many of the faithful who are inflamed with an unskilled zeal, and often, while they pursue certain persons as if they were heretics, they themselves make heresies, their weakness must be attended to, and, as I have said, they are to be appeased by reason and gentleness. For they are like those of whom it is written: 'I bear them witness that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge' (Romans 10:2). Your Excellency, therefore, who lives unceasingly in reading, in tears, and in almsgiving, ought, as I have asked, to appease their inexperience with gentle exhortations and answers, that you may find the glory of eternal recompense not only from yourself, but also from them.

An excessive love has persuaded me to say these things to you, because I both reckon that I grow in your joy and am diminished in your sorrow. May Almighty God guard you with heavenly grace, and, with the safety of our lord's piety and the tranquillity of our most pious lady preserved, may He extend your life yet longer for the nurture of our little lords.