Letters (CSEL) 1 part 75/85

The Saviour of the human race, who left us the example of his virtues and manner of life, immediately after his baptism was taken up by the Spirit to fight against the devil, and, having overwhelmed and crushed him, handed him over to his disciples to be trodden underfoot. Whence the Apostle also says: 'And may God crush Satan under your feet speedily.' And yet the ancient enemy, after the fast of forty days, contrives his snares through food and says: 'If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.' In the Law, in the seventh month after the sounding of the trumpets, on the tenth day of the month, there is a fast of the whole Hebrew nation, and that soul is cut off from its people which shall have preferred satiety to continence. In Job it is written of the dragon:

'His strength is in his loins, and his force in the navel of his belly.' Against young men and maidens he abuses the ardour of their age, and inflames the wheel of our nativity, and fulfils that saying in Hosea: 'All committing adultery, their hearts are like an oven' — which are restrained by the mercy of God and the cold of fastings. These are the fiery darts of the devil, which both wound and inflame at once, and are prepared by the king of Babylon for the three young men — he who kindled a furnace forty-nine cubits high, and himself the seven weeks unto destruction which the Lord had commanded to be observed unto salvation.

But just as there a fourth, having the appearance as of the Son of man, mitigated the immense flames and amid the fires of the burning furnace taught the flames to lose their heat, and to threaten one thing to the eyes while offering another to the touch — so also in a virginal soul, by heavenly dew and the cold of fastings, the fire of youth is extinguished, and for the human body the manner of life of angels is obtained. For which reason the vessel of election says that concerning virgins he has no commandment of the Lord, because it is against nature, nay beyond nature, not to exercise that for which you were born, to slay in yourself your own root, and to pluck only the fruits of virginity, to know no marriage-bed, to shudder at all contact of men, and to live in the body without the body.

Nor indeed do we command you immoderate fasts and an excessive abstinence from food, by which delicate bodies are at once broken and begin to sicken before they lay the foundations of a holy manner of life. It is also the opinion of the philosophers that 'the mean is virtue, and excesses are vice,' which the Latin tongue may thus render: that moderate things are virtues, while those exceeding measure and limit are reckoned among the vices. Whence also one of the seven sages said: 'Nothing too much.' This became so famous that it was expressed even in a comic verse.

You ought so to fast that you do not pant and can scarcely breathe, and are either carried or dragged along by the hands of your companions; but rather that, having broken the body's appetite, you do nothing less than usual in reading, in psalms, or in vigils. Fasting is not a perfect virtue, but the foundation of the other virtues; and it is a sanctification and chastity, without which no one shall see God: it offers a step to those climbing to the heights, yet, if it be alone, it will not be able to crown a virgin. Let us read in the Gospel of the wise and foolish virgins, of whom some enter the chamber of the bridegroom, while others, not having the oil of good works, are shut out with their lamps extinguished.

Broad is the field concerning fasts, in which we too have often run, and there are books of many held as their own, to the reading of which we refer you, that you may learn what good continence has, and, on the contrary, what evil satiety has. Imitate your Bridegroom: be subject to your grandmother and your mother. See no man — and especially no young man — except in their company. Know no one whom they do not know. It is a worldly saying too: 'To will the same things and to reject the same things — that, in the end, is firm friendship.' That you might desire virginity, that you might come to know the precepts of Christ, that you might know what was expedient for you, what you ought to choose — the examples of those women taught you, and the holy conversation at home instructed you.

Therefore think not that only that which is yours is yours, but also that of those women who have impressed their own chastity upon you, and have caused you to sprout as the most precious flower of an honourable marriage and an unstained bed — a flower which will bear perfect fruits, if you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and always remember what is written: 'God resists the proud, but to the humble he gives grace.' And where grace is, it is not the recompense of works but the bounty of the giver, that the saying of the Apostle may be fulfilled: 'It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.' And yet to will and not to will is ours; even that very thing which is ours, is not ours without the mercy of God.

Let the manners of eunuchs and of girls and of little servants be chosen by you rather than elegance of countenance; for in every sex and age, even of those whose bodies have been mutilated, the chastity of the mind must be considered, since these can be cut off by nothing but the fear of Christ. Let there be no place for buffoonery and wantonness in your presence. Never hear an unseemly word; or, if you have heard it, be not angry. Lost minds of men often attempt the barriers of chastity with a single light word. Leave laughing and being laughed at to worldly people; gravity befits your person.

Cato too — I mean Cato the Censor, once a leading man of your city — who in extreme old age was not ashamed as censor to learn Greek letters, nor despaired as an old man of learning; and Lucilius writes that Marcus Crassus laughed but once in his life. Let that severity have been affected and seeking glory and the breeze of popular favour; as for us, our affections and disturbances, so long as we dwell in the tabernacle of this body and are compassed about with frail flesh, we can moderate and rule, but cannot cut off. Whence the psalmist also says: 'Be angry, and sin not'; which the Apostle, expounding, says: 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath'; because to be angry is human, and to put an end to anger is Christian.

I think it superfluous to warn you against avarice, since it belongs to your family both to possess and to trample upon riches, and the Apostle teaches that avarice is the worship of idols, and the Lord answers the one inquiring: 'Good master, what good shall I do to possess eternal life? If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.' It belongs to the apostolic summit and to perfect virtue to sell all things and distribute to the poor, and thus, light and unencumbered, to fly up with Christ to the heavenly things. To us, nay to you, a diligent stewardship has been entrusted, although in this the freedom of choice has been left to every age and every person. 'If you wish,' he says, 'to be perfect':

'I do not compel, I do not command, but I set forth the palm, I show the rewards; it is yours to choose, if you wish to be crowned in the contest and the struggle.' And let us consider how wisely Wisdom has spoken: 'Sell what you have.' To whom are these things commanded? Surely to him to whom it was said: 'If you wish to be perfect.' Sell not a part of your goods, but all. And when you have sold, what follows? 'And give to the poor.' Not to the rich, not to kinsfolk, not for luxury but for need. Whether he be a priest or a kinsman or a relative by marriage, consider in him nothing else but poverty. Let the bowels of the hungry praise you, not the sumptuous banquets of those who belch.

In the Acts of the Apostles, when the blood of our Lord still glowed and faith burned fresh in the believers, they all sold their possessions and laid the prices of them at the feet of the apostles, to show that money is to be trampled underfoot; and it was given to each as there was need. Ananias and Sapphira, timid stewards — nay rather double of heart, and therefore condemned, because after their vow they offered as their own, and not as belonging to him to whom they had once vowed it, and reserved for themselves a part of a substance now no longer theirs, fearing a famine which true faith does not fear — merited present vengeance, not by any cruelty of sentence, but as an example of correction.

Finally, the apostle Peter by no means imprecated death upon them, as a foolish philosopher slanderously charges, but announced the judgment of God by a prophetic spirit, that the punishment of two persons might be the instruction of many. From the time that you were consecrated to perpetual virginity, the things that are yours are not yours — nay rather truly yours, because they have begun to be Christ's — things which, while your grandmother and mother are living, are to be dispensed at their own discretion. But if they shall have died and rested in the sleep of the saints — for I know that they too desire this, that they may have you surviving them — when your age is riper and your will weightier and your judgment firmer, you will do what shall seem good to you, nay rather what the Lord shall command, knowing that you will have nothing except what you have expended in good works.

Let others build churches, clothe the walls with slabs of marble, convey masses of columns and gild their capitals, which do not perceive the costly adornment; let them mark out doors with ivory and silver, and the golden or gilded altars with gems — I do not reprehend it, I do not refuse it; let each abound in his own opinion, and it is better to do this than to brood over hoarded riches — but for you the purpose is otherwise:

to clothe Christ in the poor, to visit him in the sick, to feed him in the hungry, to receive him in those who lack a roof — and especially in those of the household of faith — to nourish the monasteries of virgins, to have care in spirit for the servants of God and for the poor, who serve your Lord day and night, who, placed on earth, imitate the manner of life of angels and speak of nothing else but what pertains to the praises of God; and, having food and clothing, they rejoice in these riches, they who do not wish to have more — provided, however, that they keep their vow. Otherwise, if they desire more, they are proved unworthy even of the things that are necessary. Let these things be said by me to a rich virgin and a noble virgin.

Now I shall speak only to the virgin, that is, considering not those things which are outside you, but those which are within you. Besides the order of psalms and prayer — which you must always practise at the third, sixth, and ninth hours, at evening, at midnight, and in the morning — appoint how many hours you ought to spend learning the Holy Scripture, how long a time in reading, not for labour, but for the delight and instruction of the soul. And when you have finished these spaces, and the solicitude of your mind has often roused you to bend your knees, always have wool in your hands: either draw out the threads of the warp with your thumb, or let the spindles be turned in their baskets for twisting the weft; either gather into a ball the yarn spun by others, or arrange it for weaving. Examine what is woven; correct what is wrongly done;

determine what must be done. If you are occupied with such varieties of works, the days will never be long for you, but, however much they be drawn out under summer suns, they will seem short in which any piece of work has been left undone. Observing these things, you will save both yourself and others, and you will be a teacher of holy conversation, and you will make the chastity of many your gain, as Scripture says: 'The soul of every idler is in desires.' Nor for this reason must you cease from work, because by God's favour you lack nothing; but you must labour with all, so that through the occasion of work you may think of nothing else but what pertains to the service of the Lord. Let me speak plainly:

even though you distribute all your income to the poor, nothing will be more precious in Christ's sight than what you have yourself made with your own hands — whether for your own uses, or as an example to the other virgins, or that you may offer it to your grandmother and mother, to receive back from them greater prices for the refreshment of the poor. I almost passed over what is even of chief importance. When you were a little girl and Anastasius, bishop of holy and blessed memory, was governing the Roman church, from the parts of the East a savage tempest of heretics attempted to pollute and shake the simplicity of the faith which was praised by the voice of the Apostle. But that man of richest poverty and apostolic solicitude straightway smote the noxious head and stilled the hissing mouths of the hydra.

And because I fear — nay, I have learned by report — that among certain persons these venomous plantings still live and sprout, I think you must be forewarned with the pious affection of charity, that you hold the faith of holy Innocent, who is the successor and son of the aforesaid man of the apostolic chair, and that you receive no foreign doctrine, however prudent and clever it may seem to you. For men of this kind are wont to mutter in corners and, as it were, to seek out the justice of God: 'Why was that soul born in that province?

'What cause was there that some should be born of Christian parents, others among wild beasts and the most savage nations, where there is no knowledge of God?' And when they have struck all the simple-hearted with this, as with a scorpion's sting, and have made a place for themselves by the wound they have pierced, they pour in their poisons: 'Do you suppose that it is in vain that a tiny infant, one who scarcely recognizes its mother by a smile and by the cheerfulness of her face, one who has done nothing either good or evil, is seized by a demon, is oppressed by the royal disease (jaundice), and endures those things which we see impious men not enduring, while those who serve God do endure them?'

'But if,' they say, 'the judgments of the Lord are true and justified in themselves, and there is nothing unjust with God, then by reason itself we are compelled to believe that souls existed in the heavens and, on account of certain ancient sins, were condemned into human bodies and, so to speak, buried, and that we in this vale of tears pay the penalties for our sins. Whence the prophet also says: Before I was humbled, I sinned; and: Bring my soul out of prison; and: Did this man sin, that he should be born blind from the womb, or his parents?—and other things similar to these.'

This impious and wicked doctrine long ago flourished in Egypt and in the regions of the East, and now it lurks in hiding, as though in the dens of vipers, among very many, and pollutes the purity of those regions, and, like a hereditary evil, creeps among a few that it may reach the many. Of this I am certain: that if you should hear it, you would not accept it. For you have as teachers in the sight of God those whose faith is the norm of doctrine. You understand what I say—for God will give you understanding in all things—and you will not at once demand a refutation against this most savage heresy and against things far worse than I have said, lest I should seem not so much to have forbidden it as to have called attention to it, since it is the business of the present work to instruct a virgin, not to answer heretics.

For the rest, all their frauds and the burrows by which they strive to overthrow the truth, we have, with God's help, overthrown in another work, which, if you wish, we will send promptly and gladly. For they say that goods offered unsought grow rank, and that prices fall through their easy availability, whereas they are always greater in scarcity. There is wont to be a dispute among very many, whether the solitary life or the life with many is the better. Of these the former is indeed preferred to the latter, yet—in the case of men, if indeed it is perilous, lest, drawn away from the company of men, they lie open to sordid and impious thoughts, and, full of arrogance and haughtiness, despise all others and arm their tongues to disparage either the clergy or other monks—concerning whom it is most rightly said:

'The sons of men—their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword'—how much more so in the case of women, whose changeable and wavering resolve, if left to their own judgment, quickly slips down to worse things! I myself have known that in both sexes, through excessive abstinence, the soundness of the brain has been impaired in certain persons, especially in those who dwelt in damp and cold cells, so that they did not know what they were doing, or whither to turn, or what they ought to say or do.

Certainly, if those untrained in secular letters read something from the treatises of eloquent men, they learn only verbosity apart from any knowledge of the Scriptures, and according to the old saying, though they know not how to speak, they cannot keep silent; and they teach Scriptures which they do not understand, and, when they have persuaded others, they assume for themselves the haughtiness of the learned, becoming masters of the ignorant before they are disciples of the learned. It is good, therefore, to obey one's elders, to submit to the perfect, and, following the rules of the Scriptures, to learn from others the path of one's life, and not to employ the worst of teachers, namely one's own presumption. Of such women the Apostle also speaks, who are carried about by every wind of doctrine, ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.

Let the company of matrons, married and serving the world, be avoided by you, lest your mind be troubled and you hear what either husband has said to wife or wife to husband. Conversations of this kind are poisonous; over their condemnation the Apostle, taking up a secular verse, made it ecclesiastical: Evil conversations corrupt good morals—the metre of which iambic verse, while keeping word for word, the Latin translation has by no means expressed. Let grave women—and especially widows and virgins—be chosen as your companions, whose way of life is proved, whose speech is moderate, whose modesty is holy.

Flee the wantonness of girls who adorn their heads, let their hair fall over the forehead, smooth their skin, use cosmetic washes, wear tight sleeves, garments without a wrinkle, and crimped little slippers, so that under the name of virginity they may perish more saleably. For the character and pursuits of mistresses are for the most part indicated by the character of their maidservants and companions. Let her be beautiful to you, let her be lovely, let her be counted among your associates, who does not know herself to be beautiful, who neglects the advantage of beauty, and who, going forth in public, neither bares her breast and neck, nor, with her cloak thrown back, exposes her neck, but who conceals her face and scarcely walks with one eye uncovered, which is needed for the road.

I hesitate whether to speak, but—willy-nilly—since it happens often, it must be said, not because I ought to fear these things in you, which perhaps you do not know nor have ever heard, but that through your occasion other women may be forewarned. Let the virgin shun, as certain plagues and poisons of chastity, curly-haired and crimped boys who smell of the little pelts of foreign mice, of whom is that saying of Petronius: 'He does not smell good, who always smells good'—to say nothing of the rest, whose importunate visiting both defames itself and others, so that, even if nothing evil in deed be committed, yet this is the very greatest evil, to lie open in vain to the slanders and bites of the heathen.

Nor do we say this of all, but of those whom the Church herself rebukes, whom at times she casts out, against whom now and then the censure of bishops and presbyters rages, so that it is almost more perilous for wanton girls to go forth to places of religion than to a public place. Those who live in a monastery, and of whom the number together is great, let them never go forth alone, never without the mother. From a flock of doves the hawk often separates one, that it may straightway assail and tear her, and sate itself with her flesh and blood. Sickly sheep leave their flock and are devoured by the jaws of wolves.

I myself know holy virgins who on feast days, because of the throng of the peoples, keep their foot at home and do not go out even then, when a greater guard must be applied and the public place must be utterly avoided. About thirty years ago I published a book on preserving virginity, in which it was necessary for me to go against the vices and, for the instruction of the virgin whom I was admonishing, to lay bare the snares of the devil. That discourse offended very many, since each one, understanding what was said as applying to himself, listened not gladly as to an admonisher, but turned away as from an accuser of his own conduct. Yet what did it profit to have armed an army of protesters and to have shown the wound of conscience by its pain? The book remains; the men have passed away.

I have also written to very many virgins and widows brief studious little pieces, and whatever could be said has been culled in those small works, so that either the same things would be repeated by us superfluously, or, if now passed over, would do very great harm. Certainly the blessed Cyprian also published an excellent volume on virginity, and many others, both in the Latin tongue and in Greek, and in the letters and languages of all nations, especially in the churches, the pure (chaste) life has been praised. But let this pertain to those who have not yet chosen virginity and need exhortation, that they may know of what sort is that which they ought to choose;

but for us what has been chosen must be preserved, and we must walk as if among scorpions and serpents, so that, with our loins girded and our feet shod and staves grasped in hand, we may make our journey through the snares of this world and among poisons, and may be able to come to the sweet waters of the Jordan and to enter the land of promise and to ascend to the house of God, and to say with the prophet: Lord, I have loved the beauty of thy house and the place where thy glory dwells; and that other: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

Happy is that conscience and blessed that virginity, in whose heart, besides the love of Christ—who is wisdom, chastity, patience, and justice, and the rest of the virtues—no other love dwells, which neither sighs at any time for the remembrance of a man, nor desires to see one whom, once she has seen him, she would be unwilling to let go. The holy purpose of virgins and the glory of the heavenly and angelic family the reputation of certain women who do not conduct themselves well defames. To these it must be said openly: let them either marry, if they cannot contain themselves, or let them contain themselves, if they will not marry. It is a thing worthy of laughter—nay rather of lamentation: while the mistresses walk along, the virgin maidservant goes forth more adorned, so that, on account of her excessive familiarity, you would suppose her whom you saw unadorned to be the mistress.

Some seek separate lodgings, apart from witnesses, that they may live more licentiously, use the baths, and do what they will, and avoid the consciences of very many. These things we see and endure, and, if a gold coin gleams forth, we reckon them among good works. I join the end to the beginning, nor am I content to have admonished but once. Love the holy Scriptures, and wisdom will love you. Cherish her, and she will preserve you; honor her, and she will embrace you. Let these ornaments cling in your breast and in your ears. Let your tongue know nothing but Christ, let it be able to sound nothing but what is holy. Let the sweetness of your grandmother and mother be ever in your mouth, whose imitation is the pattern of virtue. Book 131. Augustine to Jerome, on the Origin of the Soul.

Our God, who has called us into his own kingdom and glory, I have prayed and do pray that this which I write to you, holy brother Jerome, consulting you concerning those things which I do not know, he may will to be fruitful to us. For although you are far greater than I in age, yet I myself, now an old man, nevertheless consult you. But for learning what is needful, no age can seem to me too late, since, although it more becomes old men to teach than to learn, yet it is more fitting to learn than to be ignorant of what they teach.

Indeed, in all my straits, which I suffer in the most difficult questions, I bear nothing more grievously than the absence of your charity so far away, so that I can scarcely send my letters, scarcely receive yours, at intervals not of days, not of months, but of several years, whereas, if it could be done, I would wish to have you present daily, with whom I might speak of whatever I wished. Yet not for that reason ought I not to have done what I could, even if I could not do the whole of what I wished.

Behold, there has come to me a devout young man, a brother in the Catholic peace, a son in age, our fellow-presbyter in rank, Orosius, watchful in genius, ready in speech, ardent in zeal, desiring to be a useful vessel in the house of the Lord for the refuting of the false and pernicious doctrines which have slaughtered the souls of the Spaniards far more unhappily than the barbarian sword their bodies. For from there, from the shore of the ocean, he hastened all the way to us, stirred by the report that from me he could hear whatever he wished concerning those things which he wished to know. Nor did he gain no fruit from his coming: first, that he might not believe too much of the report about me; then, I taught the man what I could, and, what I could not, I directed him where he might learn it, and I exhorted him to go to you.

In this matter, since he accepted my counsel or command gladly and obediently, I asked him that, coming from you, he might return to his own place through us. Holding fast to this promise of his, I believed that an occasion had been granted me by the Lord, whereby I might write to you concerning those things which I desire to know through you. For I was seeking whom I might send to you, and one suitable did not easily present himself to me—both in fidelity of acting and in eagerness of obeying and in the practice of traveling abroad. When, therefore, I had tested this young man to be himself just such a one as I was asking of the Lord, I could not doubt. Receive, then, the things which I ask you not to find it burdensome to open and expound. The question concerning the soul moves many, among whom I confess myself also to be. For what I hold most firmly concerning the soul, I will not keep silent;

then I will add what I still wish to be unraveled for me. The soul of man is immortal according to a certain manner of its own. For it is not immortal in every way as is God, of whom it is said that he alone has immortality—for concerning the deaths of the soul holy Scripture recounts many things, whence is that saying: Let the dead bury their dead—but it is such that it dies, alienated from the life of God, in such a way that nevertheless it does not altogether cease to live in its own nature; thus from some cause it is found to be mortal, so that not without reason it is also called immortal. The soul is not a part of God. For if it were this, it would be in every way unchangeable and incorruptible.

But if it were so, it would neither fail into worse nor advance into better, nor would it begin to have anything in itself which it did not have, nor cease to have what it had, so far as pertains to its own affections. But how differently it in fact is, there is no need of external testimony; whoever attends to himself, recognizes it. And it is said in vain by those who wish the soul to be a part of God, that this blemish and baseness which we see in the most wicked men, and finally this weakness and sickness which we feel in all men, is in it not from itself but from the body. What does it matter whence it grows sick—since, if it were unchangeable, it could not grow sick from any source whatever?