Letters (CSEL) 1 part 35/85

This he writes about three hundred years ago, and he writes it in those books which he composed against all the heresies in most learned and eloquent speech. From this thy prudence may weigh how worthy of praise is our Lucinus, who stopped his ear that he might not hear the judgment of blood, and scattered all his substance and gave to the poor — 'his righteousness endureth for ever.' Nor content with his bounty to his own homeland, he sent to the churches of Jerusalem and Alexandria as much gold as might relieve the need of many. And while many marvel at this and proclaim it, I for my part will rather praise in him his fervour and his zeal for the Scriptures.

With what longing he demanded our little works — so that, sending six copyists (since in this province there is a scarcity of the Latin tongue and of scribes), he had transcribed for himself whatever I have dictated from my youth up to the present time — not honouring me, who am the least and littlest of all Christians and who, for conscience of my sins, dwell among the rocks of the Bethlehem countryside, but Christ, who is honoured in His servants and who promises in His apostles, saying: 'They that receive you receive me; and they that receive me receive him that sent me.'

Therefore, dearest daughter, hold this letter of my love toward him as his epitaph; and whatever thou shalt know that I can do in spiritual labour, command it boldly, that the ages to come may know that He who says in Isaiah, 'He set me as a chosen arrow, in His quiver He hid me,' has by His keenness wounded two men separated from one another by such vast spaces of sea and land, that, though they knew each other not in the flesh, they were joined together by the love of the Spirit. Subscription. May that Samaritan — that is, the Saviour and Keeper — keep thee holy both in body and in spirit, of whom it is written in the Psalm, 'He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep,' so that the Watcher (Hir, which is interpreted 'wakeful'), who came down to Daniel, may come also to thee, and thou mayest be able to say:

'I sleep, but my heart waketh.' LXXVI. TO ABIGAUS THE SPANIARD. Although I am conscious to myself of many sins, and daily in prayer, with bended knees, I say, 'Remember not the sins of my youth and my ignorances,' yet knowing what is said by the Apostle, 'lest, being puffed up with pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil,' and what is written in another place, 'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble,' I have from boyhood striven to avoid nothing so much as a swelling spirit and a stiff neck that provokes against itself the hatred of God. For I know that my Master and Lord and God said, in the humility of the flesh, 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart,' and before that sang through the mouth of David, 'Remember, O Lord, David and all his meekness.'

And in another place we read: 'Before glory the heart of a man is humbled, and before ruin it is lifted up.' Therefore I beseech thee, do not think that I kept silence before, when I had received thy letters, nor lay to my charge the faithlessness or negligence of others. For what would it have profited me, when challenged by an act of courtesy, to keep silence, and to repel thy friendship by my silence — I who of my own accord am wont to seek the intimacy of good men and to thrust myself upon their love? For 'two are better than one, and if one shall fall, he shall be held up by the other. A threefold cord is not quickly broken,' and 'a brother that helpeth his brother shall be exalted.' Write therefore boldly, and overcome the absence of our bodies by frequent discourse. Grieve not if thou hast not that which ants and flies and serpents have, that is, the eyes of the flesh;

but rejoice that thou hast that eye of which it is said in the Song of Songs, 'Thou hast wounded me, my sister spouse, with one of thine eyes,' by which God is seen, of which it is said to Moses, 'Passing over, I shall see this great vision.' In fact we read that certain of the philosophers of the world, in order to bend their whole thought to purity of mind, put out their own eyes. And it is said by the prophet, 'Death is entered in through your windows.' And the apostles hear, 'He that shall look upon a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.' Whence it is commanded them to 'lift up their eyes and behold the white fields, which are ready for the harvest.'

But as to thy prayer, that by our admonitions Nebuchadnezzar and Rabshakeh and Nebuzaradan and Holofernes may be slain within thee — thou wouldst never have sought our aid if they were living within thee. But because they are dead, and with Zerubbabel and Jesus the son of Josedech the high priest, and with Ezra also and Nehemiah, thou hast begun to build up the ruins of Jerusalem, 'not putting thy wages into a bag with holes,' but laying up for thyself treasures in heaven — therefore thou seekest our friendship, whom thou judgest to be servants of Christ.

My holy daughter Theodora, sister of Lucinus of blessed memory, commended by herself, I commend by my word: that she may not grow weary in the journey she has begun; that she may reach the Holy Land through the desert with much toil; that she may not think it perfect virtue to have gone out of Egypt, but that through countless snares one comes to Mount Nebo and to the river Jordan; that she may receive the second circumcision at Gilgal; that Jericho may fall before her, overthrown by the blasts of the priestly trumpets; that Adonibezek may be slain; that Ai and Hazor, once most fair cities, may fall. The brethren who are with us in our little monastery salute thee. The saints who deign to love us we greatly salute through thee. LXXVII. TO OCEANUS, ON THE DEATH OF FABIOLA.

Many years have passed since, over the falling asleep of Blesilla, I consoled Paula, that venerable woman, when the wound was yet fresh. The circle of the fourth summer rolls on since, writing to bishop Heliodorus the epitaph of Nepotianus, I spent in that grief whatever strength I could muster. About two years before this, I gave to my Pammachius a brief letter concerning the sudden departure of Paulina, blushing to say more to so eloquent a man and to press my words upon him, lest I should seem not so much to console a friend as, by foolish boasting, to instruct one already perfect. Now, my son Oceanus, upon me, willing and of my own accord desiring it, thou layest a due office: that for the novelty of her virtues I should make an old theme new.

For in those cases either a parent's affection, or an uncle's mourning, or a husband's longing had to be tempered, and, according to the diversity of persons, a diverse medicine from the Scriptures had to be applied. At present thou deliverest to me Fabiola — the praise of Christians, the marvel of the Gentiles, the mourning of the poor, the solace of monks. Whatever I first lay hold of, it grows cheap by comparison with what follows. Shall I proclaim her fasting? Her almsgiving outstrips it. Shall I praise her humility? Greater is the ardour of her faith. Shall I tell of the squalor she sought after, and, in condemnation of silken garments, her plebeian dress and the servile clothing she chose? It is more to have laid aside pride than costly attire. It is harder to be without arrogance than without gold and gems.

For when these are cast aside, we sometimes swell with our glorious squalor, and offer up a poverty that is for sale to the breath of popular applause. Hidden virtue, and that which is cherished in the secret of the conscience, looks to God alone as judge. Wherefore she must be extolled by me with new praises, and, setting aside the order of the rhetoricians, my whole theme must be taken from the very cradle of her conversion and penitence. Another, perhaps, mindful of the school, would bring forward Quintus Maximus — 'the one who by delaying restored the state to us' — and the whole Fabian clan; he would tell of battles, describe engagements, and boast that through so many degrees of nobility Fabiola had come down, so as to display in the roots what could not be shown in the twig.

But I, a lover of the Bethlehem lodging and of the Lord's manger, in which the virgin who had borne a child poured forth the infant God, will bring forward the handmaid of Christ, not from the nobility of ancient history, but from the humility of the Church. And because at the very outset, as it were a certain rock and storm, the reproach of her detractors is set against me — namely, that she left her first husband and took a second — I will not praise her as converted unless I first acquit her as accused. Her first husband is related to have had such vices that not even a harlot or a cheap slave-woman could have endured them. If I should choose to tell them, I should destroy the virtue of the woman, who preferred to bear the fault of divorce rather than to defame a certain part of her own body and to uncover its stains.

This only will I bring forward, which is enough for a modest matron and a Christian woman. The Lord commanded that a wife ought not to be put away except for the cause of fornication, and that, if she has been put away, she must remain unmarried. Whatever is commanded to men consequently redounds to women. For neither is an adulterous wife to be put away while an adulterous husband is to be retained. If 'he who is joined to a harlot is one body,' then also she who is united to a fornicator and an unclean man is made one body with him. There are the laws of the Caesars, there are other laws of Christ; one thing Papinian commands, another thing our Paul.

Among them the reins of chastity are loosened for men, and, with only rape and adultery condemned, lust is allowed freely through the brothels and among slave-girls, as though it were rank, not pleasure, that makes the fault. Among us, what is not lawful for women is likewise not lawful for men, and the same servitude is reckoned on an equal condition. She therefore put away, as they say, a vicious man; she put away one guilty of this crime and that; she put away — I had almost said what, with the neighbourhood crying out, the wife alone did not betray. But if she is charged, why, having repudiated her husband, she did not remain unmarried, I will readily confess the fault, provided I may relate the necessity. 'It is better,' says the Apostle, 'to marry than to burn.' She was a young woman; she could not keep her widowhood.

She saw another law in her members warring against the law of her mind, and herself bound and captive being dragged to coition. She thought it better openly to confess her weakness and to undergo a certain shadow of a wretched marriage, than under the glory of being a univira to practise harlotry. The same Apostle wishes young widows to marry, to bear children, to give no occasion for reproach. And straightway he sets forth why he wishes this: 'for already some are turned back after Satan.' Therefore Fabia too, because she had persuaded herself and thought her husband lawfully put away by her, and did not know the strictness of the Gospel — in which every pretext for marrying is cut off from Christian women while their husbands are living — while she avoids many wounds of the devil, incautiously received one wound.

But why do I linger over things abolished and ancient, seeking to excuse a fault whose penitence she herself has confessed? Who would believe this — that, after the death of her second husband, having returned to herself, at the very time when widows, freed from the yoke of servitude, are wont to act more freely in their negligence, to frequent the baths, to flit through the streets, to carry about harlots' faces — she put on sackcloth, publicly confessed her error, and, with all Rome looking on, before the day of Easter, in the basilica that once belonged to Laterani (who was beheaded by Caesar's sword), stood in the rank of penitents, while bishop and priests and all the people wept together — submitting her scattered hair, her sallow face, her squalid hands, her filthy neck? What sins would that weeping not cleanse?

What inveterate stains would these lamentations not wash away? Peter blotted out his threefold denial by a threefold confession. Aaron's sacrilege and the head of the calf cast from gold, his brother's prayers set right. David, a holy and most gentle man, corrected both a murder and an adultery by a fast of seven days. He lay upon the ground, he wallowed in ashes, and, forgetful of his royal power, he sought light in the darkness, and looking only upon Him whom he had offended, with tearful voice he said, 'Against thee only have I sinned and done evil before thee,' and, 'Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and stablish me with a princely spirit.'

And so it came to pass that He who had first taught me by His virtues how, standing, I should not fall, taught me also through penitence how, having fallen, I should rise again. What so impious do we read among the kings as Ahab, of whom the Scripture says, 'There was none other such as Ahab, who was sold to do evil in the sight of the Lord'? He, when he had been rebuked by Elijah for the blood of Naboth, and had heard the Lord's wrath through the prophet — 'Thou hast slain, and moreover taken possession,' and, 'Behold, I will bring evils upon thee and cut off thy posterity,' and the rest — rent his garments and covered his flesh with sackcloth, and fasted in sackcloth, and walked with his head bowed down. Then came the word of the Lord to Elijah the Tishbite, saying:

'Hast thou not seen Ahab humbled before me? Because therefore he is humbled in fear of me, I will not bring the evil in his days.' O happy penitence, which drew to itself the eyes of God, which by confession of error changed the raging sentence of the Lord! This same thing we read that Manasseh did in Paralipomenon (Chronicles), and Nineveh in the prophet, and the publican too in the Gospel. Of whom the first deserved to receive not only pardon but also his kingdom; the second (a king) broke the impending wrath of God; the third, beating his breast with his fists, would not lift up his eyes to heaven, and departed far more justified by his humble confession of vices than the Pharisee by his proud boasting of virtues.

It is not the place here to preach penitence, and, as though writing against Montanus and Novatus, to say that it is a victim well-pleasing to the Lord, and 'a sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit,' and, 'I prefer the penitence of a sinner rather than his death,' and, 'Arise, arise, O Jerusalem,' and many other things which the trumpets of the prophets sound forth. This one thing only will I say, which is both useful to readers and suited to the present cause: 'she was not ashamed of the Lord on earth, and He will not be ashamed of her in heaven.' She laid open her wound to all, and weeping Rome beheld the discoloured scar upon her body. She had her sides bared, her head uncovered, her mouth closed.

She did not enter the church of the Lord, but sat apart outside the camp with Miriam the sister of Moses, so that He whom the priest had cast out might Himself recall her. She came down from the throne of her delights, took the millstone, made flour, and with unshod feet crossed the streams of tears. She sat upon the coals of fire; these were to her for a help. The face by which she had pleased her second husband she beat; she hated gems, she could not bear to look upon fine linen, she fled from ornaments. She grieved as though she had committed adultery, and with many expenditures of medicines she longed to heal a single wound. Long have we lingered in penitence, in which we have settled as in shallow places, so that a greater field of her praises, without any hindrance, might open before us.

Received back into communion under the eyes of the whole church, what did she do? Did she, forsooth, in a good day forget her evils, and, after the shipwreck, wish again to try the perils of sailing? Nay rather, all the wealth she could possess — and it was very great and answerable to her lineage — she scattered abroad and sold, and, gathering it into money, made it ready for the uses of the poor. And first of all she founded an infirmary (nosocomium), in which she might gather the sick from the streets and refresh the members of the wretched, wasted with sicknesses and hunger. Shall I now describe the diverse calamities of men — noses cut off, eyes gouged out, feet half-burned, sallow hands, swollen bellies, wasted thighs, distended legs, and little worms swarming out of the eaten-away and rotting flesh?

How often did she herself carry upon her own shoulders those wasted with the royal disease (jaundice) and with filth! How often did she wash the purulent matter of wounds which another dared not even look upon! She offered food with her own hand, and moistened the breathing corpse with little sips of broth. I know that many rich and religious persons, on account of the delicacy of their stomach, exercise mercy of this kind through the ministry of others, and are merciful with money, not with the hand. These I certainly do not reprove, nor do I by any means interpret tenderness of soul as faithlessness; but, just as I grant pardon to weakness of stomach, so I extol to heaven with praises the ardour of a perfect mind. This great faith despises such things; it knows what the purple-clad rich man once failed to do to Lazarus, and with what retribution that proud mind was condemned.

That man whom we despise, whom we cannot bear to look upon, at the very sight of whom the vomit bursts forth from us, is like unto ourselves, formed of the same clay as we, compacted of the same elements. Whatever he suffers, we too can suffer. Let us reckon his wounds as our own, and all hardness of soul toward another will be broken by a merciful thought toward our very selves. 'Not if a hundred tongues were mine, and a hundred mouths, a voice of iron,' could I run through all the names of the diseases which Fabiola changed into such refreshment for the wretched, that many of the poor who were well began to envy the sick. And although she showed like liberality toward clergy and monks and virgins — what monastery was not sustained by her wealth? — whom, naked and bedridden, did the garments of Fabiola not

cover? Upon whom did her headlong and hasty bounty toward the needy not pour itself out? Rome was too narrow for her mercy; therefore she traversed the islands, the Etruscan sea and the province of the Volsci, and the hidden recesses of the winding shores, in which the choirs of monks abide, going about either in her own person or by munificence transmitted through faithful and holy men. Whence suddenly, and against the expectation of all, she sailed to Jerusalem, where, received with a great concourse of people, she made use of our hospitality for a little while; and, recalling that fellowship, I seem to myself still to see her whom I saw.

Good Jesus, with what fervour, with what zeal she was intent upon the divine volumes! And, as though desiring to satisfy a certain hunger, she ran through the prophets, the gospels, and the psalms, propounding questions and storing up the answers in the little casket of her breast. Nor indeed was she sated with the desire of hearing, but adding knowledge she added sorrow, and, as if you were adding oil to the flame, she took in fuel for a greater ardour.

One day, when we held the book of Numbers in the hands of Moses, and she modestly asked me what such a great heap of names meant, why the several tribes were joined together variously in different places, how Balaam the soothsayer so prophesied the future mysteries of Christ that almost none of the prophets foretold so plainly concerning Him — I answered as I could, and seemed to satisfy her inquiry. Turning back the book, then, she came to that place where the catalogue is described of all the encampments through which the people, going out of Egypt, came as far as the streams of Jordan.

And when she sought the causes and reasons of each, in some I hesitated, in others I ran with unstumbling foot, in very many I simply confessed my ignorance. But then she began to press me the more, and, as though it were not permitted me not to know what I do not know, to expostulate and to call herself unworthy of such great mysteries. What more? The shame of denying wrung from me a promise that I would compose for her a proper work of this kind of little disputation — which, up to the present time, as I now understand, was, by the will of the Lord, deferred, and is now rendered to her memory: so that, clad in the priestly vestments of the former volume addressed to her, she may rejoice, through the solitude of this world, that she has come at last to the land of promise. But let us pursue what we have begun.

While we were seeking a dwelling worthy of so great a woman — since she so longed for solitude that she was unwilling to be without the lodging of Mary — behold, suddenly, as messengers ran to and fro, the whole East trembled: from farthest Maeotis, between the icy Tanais and the monstrous peoples of the Massagetae, where the barriers of Alexander confine the wild tribes among the crags of Caucasus, there had burst forth swarms of Huns, who, flying hither and thither on swift horses, filled all things alike with slaughter and terror. The Roman army was then absent, and was held in Italy by civil wars. This nation Herodotus relates to have held the East captive for twenty years under Darius king of the Medes, and to have exacted an annual tribute from the Egyptians and Ethiopians.

May Jesus turn away such beasts, and worse, from the Roman world! They were present everywhere unexpectedly, and outrunning rumour by their speed, they had pity neither on religion, nor on dignities, nor on age, nor on wailing infancy. Those who had but lately begun to live were compelled to die, and, not knowing their own evil, laughed amid the hands and weapons of their enemies. There was one common rumour among all, that they were making for Jerusalem, and that through excessive greed of gold they were flocking to this city. The neglected walls, through the carelessness of peace, were being repaired at Antioch; Tyre, wishing to break off from the land, sought its ancient island.

Then we too were compelled to fit out ships, to be upon the shore, to guard against the coming of the enemy, and, though the winds raged, to fear the barbarians more than shipwreck — providing not so much for our own safety as for the chastity of the virgins. There was at that time a certain dissension among us, and domestic wars surpassed the battle with the barbarians. Us in the East our fixed abodes now held, and the inveterate longing for the holy places; but she, because she was wholly in her baggage and a pilgrim in all the world, returned to her homeland, that she might live poor where she had been rich, dwelling in another's house, she who had before entertained many guests, and — that I may not draw out my discourse further — that in the sight of the city of Rome she might dispense to the poor what she had sold with that same city as witness.

We grieve only for this, that we have lost from the holy places a most precious necklace. Rome received back what it had lost, and the shameless and slanderous tongue of the heathen was confuted by the testimony of their own eyes. Let others praise her mercy, her humility, her faith: I will rather praise the ardour of her soul. The book by which, as a young man, I once exhorted Heliodorus to the desert, she held by heart, and, gazing upon the walls of Rome, she lamented that she was shut in. Forgetful of her sex, unmindful of frailty, and desirous only of solitude, she was there where she dwelt in her mind. She could not be held back by the counsels of her friends: so eagerly did she long to burst forth from the city as from chains. The management of money and its cautious distribution she called a kind of faithlessness.

She wished not to bestow alms upon others, but, having likewise poured out her own, herself to receive doles for Christ. Thus she hastened, thus impatient was she of delays, so that you would have believed she was about to set out. And so, while she is ever making ready, death could not find her unready. In the midst of the woman's praises, suddenly my Pammachius arises before me. Paulina sleeps, that he himself may keep watch; she goes before her husband, that she may leave a servant behind for Christ. He is his wife's heir, and others are the possessors of the inheritance. Man and woman strove, which should pitch the tent of Abraham in the harbour, and this was the contest between the two, which should surpass the other in hospitality. Each conquered, and each was conquered. Both confess themselves conquered and conquerors, since, what the one desired, both accomplished.

They join their wealth, they unite their wills, so that what rivalry would have scattered, concord might increase. Scarcely was it said, and already it was done: a guest-house is bought, and to the guest-house the multitude rushes together. For 'there is no labour in Jacob, nor sorrow in Israel.' They bring together over the seas those whom the land may receive into its bosom. Rome sends in haste those whom, as they are about to sail, the soft shore may cherish. What Publius once did in the island of Melita toward a single apostle — and, that I may give no room to contradiction, in a single ship — this these do both frequently and toward many. Nor is only the need of the destitute sustained, but a bounty inclined toward all provides something even for those who have. The guest-house situated in the harbour of Rome the whole world alike has heard of.

In a single summer Britain learned what Egypt and Parthia had come to know in spring. What is written — 'To them that fear the Lord all things work together for good' — we saw proved in the death of so great a woman. By a certain presage of things to come, she had written to many monks, that they should come and release her, labouring under a heavy burden, and that she might make to herself friends of the mammon of iniquity, who might receive her into everlasting dwellings. They came, they were made friends: she fell asleep — as she wished — and, her burden at last laid down, flew the lighter to the heavens. What a marvel Rome had in the living Fabiola, it showed in the dead.

She had not yet breathed out her spirit, had not yet rendered to Christ the soul that was owed, and already flying fame, the herald of so great a mourning, was gathering the peoples of the whole city to her funeral. Psalms resounded, and the gilded ceilings of the temples were shaken by the 'Alleluia' echoing on high. Here a choir of young men, there of old, who should bear in song the praises and deeds of the woman. Not so did Furius triumph over the Gauls, nor Papirius over the Samnites, nor Scipio over Numantia, nor Pompey over the peoples of Pontus. They conquered bodies, she subdued spiritual wickednesses. I hear: the throngs of those going before, and the multitude surging in companies at her funeral, neither the streets, nor the porticoes, nor the roofs overhanging above could contain the onlookers.

Then Rome beheld its peoples in one: all applauded themselves in the glory of the penitent. Nor is it any wonder if men exulted over the salvation of her, over whose conversion the angels rejoiced in heaven. This gift of my aged wit, O Fabiola, these funeral offerings of duty, I have given thee. We have praised virgins, widows, and married women, whose garments were ever white, who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Happy the proclamation that is stained by no defilement of the whole life! Far be envy, let malice depart. If the master of the household is good, why is our eye evil? She who had fallen among robbers was carried back on the shoulders of Christ. 'There are many mansions with the Father.' 'Where sin abounded, grace did more abound.' 'To whom more is forgiven, the same loveth more.'

LXXVIII. TO FABIOLA, ON THE ENCAMPMENTS OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL THROUGH THE DESERT. In the seventy-seventh psalm, which, according to the evangelist Matthew, we believe to have been spoken in the person of the Lord, there is narrated the history of the ten plagues in Egypt and of the going out of Israel into the wilderness. And since it is doubtful to no one that the things which are written were done, yet, as though the letter should sound one thing and the spirit hold shut another: 'I will open,' he says, 'my mouth in a parable; I will utter propositions from the beginning. How great things we have heard and seen, and our fathers have told us.' Whence the Apostle too, in the same words, because in the same spirit, says: 'But all these things happened to them in a figure; and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.' And: