Latin original · 38 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 1:3196–1:3233 (3306 verses in all)
For if pardon is granted after sin to him who ceases to sin, and he who prays bends the judge, whereas every impenitent man provokes the judge to wrath, then the crime of despair alone is the one that cannot be healed. Furthermore, that you may know the Lord daily calls sinners to penitence — sinners who, if they stubbornly persist, make him severe and stern out of one who is clement — hear the words of Isaiah, saying: 'And the Lord of hosts called in that day to weeping and to mourning, to baldness and to the girding of sackcloth; but they made joy and gladness, killing calves and slaying sheep, that they might eat flesh and drink wine, saying: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.'
After these words the Scripture recalls also the boldness of a lost mind, saying: 'And these things were revealed in the ears of the Lord of hosts: This sin shall not be forgiven you, until you die.' For if they die to sin, then their sin shall be forgiven them, which, so long as they live in sin, shall not be forgiven. Spare your soul, I beseech you. Believe that there will be a judgment of God; remember by what kind of bishop you were ordained deacon.
Nor is it any wonder that even a holy man could be deceived in choosing a man, since even God repented that he had anointed Saul as king; and of the twelve apostles Judas was found a traitor; and of men once of your order, Nicolas of Antioch is reported to have arisen as the author of all uncleanness and of the heresy of the Ophites. I do not now recount to you those things — that you are said to have violated many virgins, that noble marriages violated by you have been avenged by the public sword, that, impure and gluttonous, you have run through the brothels. These indeed are great by their own weight, but they become lighter by comparison with those which I am about to bring forth. I ask, how great is the crime, where defilement and adultery are but a small thing?
Most wretched of mortals, do you enter that cave, in which the Son of God was born and truth arose from the earth and the earth gave forth its fruit, in order to contract a defilement? Do you not fear lest the Infant cry from the manger, lest the Virgin who has given birth see you, lest the Mother of the Lord behold you? The angels cry out, the shepherds run, the star glows from above, the Magi adore, Herod is terrified, Jerusalem is troubled — and you creep into the Virgin's chamber to deceive a virgin? I tremble, wretch that I am, and shudder in mind as much as in body, wishing to set your deed before your very eyes. The whole church was ringing with the praise of Christ the Lord in nocturnal vigils, and in the tongues of diverse nations one Spirit sang in concert unto the praise of God;
you, meanwhile, were propping up amorous letters between the doors — once of the Lord's manger, now of the altar — letters which that wretched woman was afterward to find and read as though she were bending her knee to adore. Then you stood in the choir of the psalm-singers and spoke with lewd nods. O the shame! I can go no further. Sobs burst forth before words, and my spirit, choked with indignation and grief alike, is constrained in the very passage of my throat. Where is that sea of Tullian eloquence? Where the rushing river of Demosthenes? Now, now indeed you would both be mute, and your tongues would grow numb. A thing has been found which no eloquence could unfold. A deed has been discovered which neither a mime could feign, nor a buffoon act out, nor an Atellan player utter.
It is the custom in the monasteries of Egypt and Syria that both virgin and widow who have vowed themselves to God, and, renouncing the world, have trampled underfoot all the delights of the age, offer their hair to the mothers of the monasteries to be shorn — not that they should afterward go about with head uncovered, against the will of the Apostle, but with it bound and veiled alike. Nor does anyone know of this except those who shear and those who are shorn — save that, because it is done by all, it is known to almost all. And this custom has, for a twofold cause, passed into second nature: either because they do not go to the baths, or because they know oil neither on head nor on face, lest they be overwhelmed by the little creatures that are wont to breed in unkempt hair, and by matted filth. Let us see, then, you 'good man,' what you did amid these things.
In that venerable cave you receive hair as it were certain hostages of a future marriage; you carry off little handkerchiefs of the unhappy woman and her girdle as a dowry-pledge; you swear to her that you will likewise love no other. Then you run to the place of the shepherds, and, with the din of the angels resounding from above, you attest the same words. I say nothing further — that you rushed into kisses, that you embraced. Everything indeed could be believed of you, but the reverence of the manger and the field do not permit me to believe more than that you fell in will and mind only. Wretch! When you began to stand in the cave with the virgin, did not your eyes grow dim, your tongue grow numb, your arms fall, your breast tremble, your step waver?
After the basilica of the Apostle Peter, in which she was consecrated with the bridal veil of Christ; after the sacraments of the Lord's cross and resurrection and ascension, in which she had again pledged that she would live in the monastery — do you dare to receive hair to sleep with you at night, hair which she had reaped for Christ in the cave? Then from evening until morning you sit beside that window of hers; and because, on account of its height, you were not permitted to cling to one another at close quarters, by a little cord you either receive something or send it back. See how great was the diligence of your mistress, that you never saw the virgin except in church, and that, though each of you had such a will, you had no opportunity of conversing except through the window by night. The sun, as I afterward learned, rose upon you unwilling.
Bloodless, faint, and pale, so that you might be free from all suspicion, you kept reading the Gospel of Christ as a deacon. We thought your pallor was that of fasting, and marveled at your bloodless face — so contrary to your habit and manner — as though worn out by vigils. Already the ladders by which you were to bring the wretched woman down were being prepared, already the journey was arranged, the ships decreed, the day agreed upon, the flight accomplished in mind — and behold, the angel, that doorkeeper of Mary's chamber, guardian of the cradle of the Lord and bearer of the infant Christ, before whom you were doing such things, himself betrayed you. O my ill-fated eyes! O that day most worthy of every curse, on which, with distracted mind, I read those letters of yours which to this day we retain! What baseness there! What flatteries!
What exultation over the defilement agreed upon! To think that a deacon could — I will not say speak — but even know such things! Where, wretch, did you learn these, you who boasted that you had been reared in the church? Except that in those very letters you swear that you were never chaste, never a true deacon. If you wish to deny it, your own hand will convict you; the very characters will cry out. Meanwhile keep the profit of your crime: I cannot cast in your teeth the things you wrote. And so you lie prostrate, fallen at my knees; 'a half-pint of blood,' to use your own words, you beg for — and, O wretch that you are, neglecting the judgment of God, you fear me only, as if I were an avenger. I have pardoned, I confess it; for what else could I, a Christian, do to you?
I exhorted you to do penance, and to roll yourself in sackcloth and ashes, to seek out solitude, to live in a monastery, to obtain the mercy of God by continual tears. But you, pillar of good hope, inflamed by the goads of the viper, have become to me a crooked bow, and you hurl the arrows of reproaches against me. I have become your enemy by speaking the truth. I do not grieve over your curses — for who does not know that nothing but the disgraceful is praised by your mouth? — this I bewail, that you do not bewail yourself, that you do not feel that you are dead, that, like a gladiator ready for Libitina, you adorn yourself for your own funeral. You wrap yourself in linens, you load your fingers with rings, you rub your teeth with powder;
you arrange the sparse hairs on your reddened bald pate; your bull-like neck, swelling with fatty rolls, is not bowed even though it is broken. Over and above this you reek of unguents, you frequent the baths, and you war against the hairs that grow again; through the forum and the streets you strut, a sleek and polished lover. The face of a harlot has become yours; you know not how to blush. Turn, wretch, to the Lord, that the Lord may turn to you; do penance, that he too may do penance over all the evils he has spoken that he would do to you. Why, neglecting your own wound, do you strive to defame others? Why do you tear me, who counsel you well and faithfully, with your bite, as though you were frenzied? Be it so; I am disgraceful, as you commonly boast: at least do penance along with me;
I am a criminal, as you charge: imitate the tears of a criminal. Are my sins your virtues? Or do you think it a solace for your evils, if you have many like yourself? Let a few tears flow from your eyes amid the silk and the linens in which you seem to yourself resplendent and comely; understand that you are naked, torn, filthy, a beggar. Penitence is never too late. Though you have come down from Jerusalem, and not, wounded on the way — whence the Samaritan too would carry you back, set upon a beast, to the inn to be healed — but lie dead in the tomb, yet the Lord raised even the one who stank.
Imitate at least those blind men for whose sake the Saviour, forsaking his house and his inheritance, came to Jericho, and to those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death a light arose. When they had learned that the Lord was passing by, they began to cry out, saying: 'Son of David, have mercy on us.' You too will be able to see, if you cry out thus, if, called by him, you cast off your filthy garments. When you have been converted in the darkness, you shall be saved, and then you shall know where you have been. Let him but touch your scars, let him handle the traces of what once were your eyes. Though you were so born from the womb, and your mother conceived you in sins, he will sprinkle you with hyssop and you shall be cleansed; he will wash you and you shall be made whiter than snow. Why do you cling, bent down, to the earth, and why are you wholly in the mire?
That woman whom Satan had bound eighteen years, after she was healed by the Saviour, stood upright and gazed upon heaven. What was said to Cain, reckon it said to you: 'Have you sinned? Be still.' Why do you withdraw further from the face of God and dwell in the land of Nod? Why do you toss wholly in the surge and not set your feet upon the rock? Beware lest Phinees too transfix you with his lance, fornicating with the Midianite woman. Why, after you have defiled Tamar the virgin as her brother and kinsman, turned into Absalom, do you desire to slay the one who bewails you both in your rebellion and in your death? The blood of Naboth cries out against you, and the vineyard of Jezreel — that is, 'of the seed of God' — which you have turned into a garden of pleasures and the vegetables of wantonness; they demand a worthy vengeance upon you.
Elijah is sent to you, announcing torments and destruction: bow down and clothe yourself in sackcloth for a little while; then God too will be able to say of you: 'Have you seen how Ahab was abashed before my face? I will not bring the calamity in his days.' But perhaps you flatter yourself that you were ordained deacon by so great a bishop. I have already said above that neither is the father punished for the son, nor the son for the parent. For the soul that has sinned, it shall itself die. Samuel too had sons who departed from the fear of God and went after avarice and iniquity. And Eli was a holy priest, but he had sons who, as we read in the volume of the Hebrews, fornicated with the women at the tabernacle of God, and, in your likeness, shamelessly claimed for themselves the ministry of God.
Hence the very place of the tabernacle was overthrown, and, on account of the vices of the priests, the sanctuary of God was forsaken. And yet Eli himself, being too lenient toward his sons, offended God; and so far are you from being freed by the righteousness of your bishop, that it is to be feared lest, on your account, he too, falling from his throne, should perish backward in an incurable manner. If Uzzah the Levite wished to steady the ark of the Lord — which he himself ought to have carried — as though it were falling, and was struck down, what do you think will become of you, who have attempted to cast down the standing threshing-floor of the Lord? By as much as the bishop who ordained you is estimable, by so much the more are you to be detested, who have deceived such a man.
We are wont to be the last to know the evils of our own house, and, while the neighbors sing of them, to be ignorant of the vices of our children and wives. All Italy knew you; all who stood before the altar of Christ groaned. Nor were you so cunning as to conceal your vices prudently. So did you seethe, so did pleasure snatch you here and there, wanton and rutting, that you as it were displayed certain triumphs and the palm of vices from your glutted lusts. In fine, amid the swords of the barbarian, and of a barbarian husband, and the watch of a powerful husband, the flame of unchastity carried you off. You did not fear to commit adultery in that house in which the injured husband could avenge himself without a judge.
You are led to the little gardens, you are dragged off to the suburban villa; so freely and insanely do you act, that, the husband being absent, you think you have a wife, not an adulteress. Then, through certain underground passages, while the flank is held, you break out; secretly you enter Rome, you lurk among the Samnite brigands; and at the first report of the husband — that a new Hannibal had come down for you from the Alps — you commit yourself to a ship for safety. So great was the swiftness of your flight, that you deemed the tempest safer than the land. You come somehow or other to Syria, and thence you promise that you wish to cross over to Jerusalem and to serve the Lord. Who would not receive one who promised to be a monk, especially being ignorant of your tragedies and reading the commendatory letters of your bishop to the other priests?
But you, unhappy man, were transforming yourself into an angel of light, and, a minister of Satan, into a minister of righteousness. Under the clothing of sheep you lay hidden a wolf, and after being the adulterer of a man you desired to be the adulterer of Christ. These things I write for this purpose, that I might depict for you the whole scene of your works as in a brief tablet, and set your deeds before your eyes, lest you reckon the mercy of the Lord and his excessive clemency to be an occasion of offenses, crucifying again to yourself the Son of God, and holding him up to open shame — not reading what follows: 'For the earth, which often drinks in the rain coming upon it, and brings forth the herb meet for them by whom it is tilled, receives blessing from God;
but that which brings forth thorns and briers is rejected and nigh unto a curse, whose end is to be burned.' CXLVIII. TO CELANTIA. It is an old and celebrated saying of Scripture that there is a shame by which glory is found and grace, and there is again a shame which is wont to bring forth sin. And although the truth of this saying shines forth clearly enough by its own brightness for the understanding of all, yet to me, I know not how, in the present case it has become more closely apparent. For, provoked to write by your letters, which demanded this of me with wondrous entreaties, I was long, I confess, in doubt about my reply, modesty commanding me to silence.
Yet against this the faithful eagerness of your prayers most stoutly resisted and did violence, and the humility of your entreaty fought fiercely with my hesitation, and with a certain great violence of faith beat upon the barriers of my mouth. And while diverse reflection kept my mind, wavering in both directions, in the balance, shame almost shut out the duty. But that saying of the wise man, which I set down above, armed me to drive away useless bashfulness and to break the harmful silence, since I saw the very cause of writing to be so honorable, so holy, that I should believe I sinned altogether if I kept silent, reckoning with myself that word of Scripture: 'A time to be silent and a time to speak,' and again: 'Withhold not a word in the time of salvation,' and that saying of blessed Peter:
always ready to give satisfaction to everyone who asks you for a reason. For you ask, and you ask anxiously and vigilantly, that we may lay down for you from the Holy Scriptures a fixed rule by which you may order the course of your life, so that, once the will of the Lord is known, you may amid the honor of the world and the allurements of riches love rather the furnishing of good character, and so that, set within marriage, you may be able not only to please your husband but also Him who granted marriage itself. To fail to satisfy so holy a request and so pious a desire — what else is it than not to love another's progress? I will therefore obey your prayers, and I will strive to spur you on, already prepared to fulfill the will of God, by His own pronouncements.
For the same true Lord and Master of all, who both commands us to please Him and teaches us how we may please Him, let Him Himself form you, let Him Himself teach you: He who, to the young man in the Gospel who asked what he should do to merit eternal life, at once set forth the divine commandments, showing us that the will of Him from whom we hope for rewards must be done. On which account He testifies in another place: Not everyone who says to me, 「Lord, Lord,」 shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. By which it is plainly shown that we do not earn the greatness of so great a reward by the confession of God alone, unless the works of the righteousness of faith are joined to it.
For what kind of confession is that, which believes in God in such a way as to count His authority as nothing? Or do we say from the heart, or truly, 「Lord, Lord,」 if we despise the precepts of Him whom we confess as Lord? Whence He Himself says in the Gospel: Why do you call me 「Lord, Lord,」 and do not do the things I say? And again: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And again He speaks through the prophet: The son honors the father, and the servant will fear his lord; and if I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a lord, where is my fear? From which it appears that the Lord is neither honored nor feared by those who do not keep His precepts. Whence it is said more expressly to David, who had committed sin:
And you have counted God as nothing. And the word of the Lord comes to Eli: Those who honor me, I will honor; but those who count me as nothing shall be reduced to nothing. And are we of a secure and easy mind, we who by each and every sin dishonor God and provoke the most merciful Lord to wrath, and by most proudly despising His commands go on to the injury of so great a Majesty? For what can ever seem so proud, what indeed so ungrateful, as to live against the will of Him from whom you have received life itself, as to despise the precepts of Him who therefore commands something so that He may have grounds for rewarding? For God does not need our obedience, but we need His command.
His commandments are more to be desired than gold and precious stone, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb; for in keeping them there is great reward. And therefore He is angry with us, and for this reason that immensity, that goodness of God is offended the more, because we despise Him even to the loss of so great a reward, and count as nothing not only His commands but also His promises. Whence often — nay rather always — that sentence of the Lord must be pondered by us: If you will enter into life, keep the commandments. For this the whole Law transacts with us, this the prophets, this the apostles teach, this both the voice of Christ and His blood demand of us — He who therefore died for all, that those who live should now no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them.
But to live for Him is nothing else than to keep His precepts, which He has entrusted to us to be kept as a kind of sure pledge of His love. If you love me, He says, keep my commandments; and: He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and again: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words. True love holds a mighty power, and he who is perfectly loved claims for himself the whole will of the lover; and nothing is more imperious than charity.
We, if we truly love Christ, if we remember that we have been redeemed by His blood, ought to wish nothing more, to do nothing at all, than what we know that He wishes. Now there are two kinds of commandments in which all righteousness is enclosed: one of forbidding, the other of commanding. For as evils are forbidden, so goods are enjoined. There leisure is commanded, here diligence; there the mind is restrained, here it is urged on; here to have done, there not to have done, is blameworthy. Whence the prophet says: Who is the man who wills life and desires to see good days? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips that they speak no guile. Turn away from evil and do good. And the blessed apostle: Hating evil, cleaving to good.
This twofold and diverse precept, namely of forbidding and of commanding, is enjoined upon all by equal right. Neither virgin, nor widow, nor married woman is free from this authority. In whatever purpose of life, in whatever rank, it is equally a sin either to admit what is forbidden or not to do what is commanded. Nor let the error of those seduce you who according to their own choice select which of God's commandments they may most freely despise, or which they may scorn as though cheap and trifling, and do not fear lest, according to the divine sentence, by despising the least things they gradually fall away. It belongs indeed to the Stoics to take away the distinction of sins and to punish all faults as equal, and to make no difference between crime and error.
But we, although we believe that there is a great difference between sins — since we also read it so — nevertheless say that it profits much for caution to fear even the least things as though they were the greatest. For we abstain from any offense the more easily, the more we fear it; nor does he quickly advance to greater sins who dreads even small ones. And truly I know not whether we can call any sin light which is committed in contempt of God. And that man is most prudent who considers not so much what has been commanded as Him who has commanded it, and thinks not of the magnitude of the command, but of the dignity of the One commanding.
And so, as you build a spiritual house, let the foundations of innocence first be laid, not upon the lightness of sand but upon the solidity of the rock, upon which you may more easily raise the lofty summit of righteousness. For he has fulfilled the greatest part of equity who has harmed no one, and blessed is he who can say with holy Job: I have harmed none of men; I have lived justly with all. Whence he spoke boldly and simply to the Lord: Who is he that shall be judged with me? that is: Who can invoke your judgment against me, so as to prove himself injured by me? It belongs to the purest conscience to sing securely with the prophet: I walked in the innocence of my heart, in the midst of my house. Whence the same says elsewhere:
God will not defraud of good things those who walk in innocence. Therefore let the Christian soul drive from itself malice, hatred, and envy, which are the greatest, or the sole, seeds of harming; and let it guard innocence not only with hand or tongue but also with the heart, and let it dread to harm not merely in deed but even in wish. For as far as pertains to the reckoning of sin, he too has harmed who has resolved to harm. Many of our own define the innocent man absolutely and fully as one who does no harm to any, even in this, that he ceases to be of profit. But if this is true, then rejoice at last in the consciousness of innocence, if, when you are able to help, you do not cease;
but if these things are divided among themselves and distinct — and it is one thing not to harm, which you can always do, another to profit when you can, one thing not to do evil, another to work good — then again let this occur to you: that it does not suffice for a Christian if he fulfills only one part of righteousness, when both are enjoined upon him. For we ought not to look to the examples of the multitude, which, following no discipline of morals, holding no order of living, is led not so much by reason as it is borne along by a kind of impulse. Nor are those to be imitated by us who under the Christian name lead a heathen life, and attest one thing by profession, another by conduct, and, as the apostle says, confess that they know God, but by their deeds deny Him.
For between a Christian and a heathen both faith and also life ought to distinguish, and to display a diverse religion through diverse works. Do not, says the apostle, bear the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation has righteousness with iniquity, or what fellowship has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial, or what part has the believer with the unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? Let there therefore be the greatest separation between us and them; let error and truth be distinguished by a sure boundary.
Let them savor earthly things who have no heavenly promises; let them entangle themselves wholly in this brief life who know nothing of the eternal; let them not fear to sin who suppose there is impunity for sins; let them serve vices who hope for no future rewards of virtues. But we, who confess with purest faith that every man must be made manifest before the tribunal of Christ, so that each one may receive the proper things of the body according as he has done, whether good or evil, ought to be far from vices. For they who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and lusts. Nor let those follow the erring throng who confess themselves to be disciples of the truth.
Certainly the Savior in the Gospel shows two ways of conduct and paths of living that lead in different directions: How spacious, He says, is the way that leads to death, and many there are who enter by it; and again: How narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there are who find it. See how great a separation there is between these ways, and how great a difference. That leads to life, this tends to death; that is thronged and worn by many, this is scarcely found by few;
for that way, being as it were more sloping and softer through the habit of vices, and, as though with certain pleasant flowers of pleasures, easily draws to itself the passing multitude; but this way, sadder and rougher through the unaccustomed track of virtues, is chosen only by those to whom the delight of the journey is not so much at heart as the usefulness of the dwelling. For the excessive habit of vices has made the way of the virtues harsh and unpleasant to us — which, if it be transferred to the other side, will find, as Scripture says, the paths of righteousness smooth. Let us therefore now set the account of our life, and by which way we should chiefly walk let us learn with conscience as witness. For everything that we do, everything that we speak, is either of the broad or of the narrow way.