書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 28 章

VII. On the Good of Widowhood. Augustine, bishop, servant of Christ and of the servants of Christ, to the religious handmaid of God, Juliana, greeting in the Lord of lords. That I might no longer be in debt to your petition and to my promise given in the love that is in Christ, I have, amid my other most pressing occupations, set myself somehow to write something to you concerning the profession of holy widowhood; for both, being present, you burdened me by asking, and, when I could not deny you this, you often demanded my promise by letters. In this work of ours, when you read some things that pertain in no way to your person or to that of your household, who live together in Christ, nor are properly necessary to the admonition of your life, you ought not on that account to judge them superfluous.

For these letters, though written to you, were nevertheless not to be written to you alone, but that through you they might profit others also. This surely was not to be neglected by us. Whatever, then, you find here that has either never been necessary to you, or is now no longer so, and yet you perceive to be of use to others, let it neither irk you to keep it, nor to give it to be read, so that your charity may be the benefit of others. Since, then, in every question that pertains to life and morals, not only doctrine but also exhortation is necessary — that by doctrine we may know what is to be done, and by exhortation be roused, lest it irk us to do what we already know must be done — what more should I teach you than that which we read in the Apostle?

For holy Scripture fixes the rule of our doctrine, that we should not dare to be wise beyond what it behoves to be wise, but be wise, as he himself says, unto temperance, as God has apportioned to each one the measure of faith. Let it, then, be for me nothing else to teach you than to expound to you the words of your teacher, and to discuss, as the Lord shall grant, concerning them. And so the Apostle, the teacher of the nations, the vessel of election, says: 'But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they so remain, even as I.' These words are so to be understood that we do not think widows ought not to be called unmarried, because they seem to have experienced marriage; for by the name of the unmarried he signifies those who are not bound by marriage, whether they have been so or have not been. Which he opens up in another place, where he says:

'There is a difference between the unmarried woman and the virgin.' Since indeed he also adds the virgin, what does he wish the unmarried woman to be understood as, save the widow? Whence also afterward, under the one name of the unmarried, he embraces both professions, saying: 'She who is unmarried is anxious about the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord; but she who is married is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.' By the unmarried he certainly did not wish only her to be understood who has never married, but also her who, freed by widowhood from the bond of marriage, has ceased to be married; for he does not call married any but her who has a husband — not also her who has had one and has him no longer. Wherefore every widow is unmarried;

But because not every unmarried woman is a widow — for there are also virgins — therefore he here set down both, where he says: 'But I say to the unmarried and to widows'; as if he said: 'What I say to the unmarried, I say not to those alone who are virgins, but also to those who are widows: that it is good for them if they so remain, even as I.' Behold, this good of yours is compared with that good which the Apostle calls his own, if faith be present — nay rather, because faith is present. This teaching is brief, and not therefore to be despised because it is brief; but rather the more easily and dearly to be held, because in its brevity it is not worthless. For the Apostle would not have commended here any ordinary good, which he set, without any ambiguity, above the fidelity of the married.

But how great a good the fidelity of the married possesses — that is, of Christian and religious married women — can be understood from this: that, when he was giving precept concerning the fleeing of fornication, where indeed he was also addressing married persons, he said, 'Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ?' So great, then, is the good of faithful wedlock, that even those very members are the members of Christ. But since, above this good, the good of widowed continence is better, it is not brought about by this profession that a catholic widow should be something more than a member of Christ, but that she should hold a better place than a married woman among the members of Christ. For the same Apostle says:

'For as in one body we have many members, yet all the members have not the same functions, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and each one members one of another, having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.' Therefore, also, when he was admonishing married persons not to defraud one another of the debt of carnal intercourse, and thereby lest either of them, the conjugal debt being denied him, should through his own intemperance, being tempted by Satan, slip into fornication, 'But this I say,' he says, 'by way of concession, not by way of command. For I would that all men were even as myself; but each one has his proper gift from God, one after this manner, another after that.'

You see also that conjugal chastity and the matrimonial fidelity of the Christian marriage-bed are a gift, and that from God — like that other gift — so that what somewhat exceeds, beyond the necessity of procreating children, the measure of intercourse through carnal concupiscence, is not the evil of marriage, but is pardonable on account of the good of marriage. For it is not concerning the marriage which is joined for the sake of procreating children, and with the fidelity of conjugal chastity, and with the indissoluble sacrament of matrimony (as long as both live) — all of which are goods — but concerning that immoderate use of the flesh which is recognized in the weakness of spouses, and is forgiven through the intervention of the nuptial good, that the Apostle says: 'By way of concession I speak, not by way of command.' Likewise when he says:

'The wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband die, she is freed: let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord. But she will be more blessed if she so remain, according to my counsel.' He shows well enough that a faithful woman marrying again in the Lord even after her husband's death is blessed, but that a widow in that same Lord is more blessed: that is (to speak not only with the words but also with the examples of the Scriptures), that Ruth is blessed, but Anna more blessed. Wherefore it behoves you first to know this: that by the good which you have chosen, second marriages are not condemned, but honoured less. For just as the good of holy virginity, which your daughter has chosen, does not condemn your one marriage, so neither does your widowhood condemn anyone's second.

For hence chiefly did the heresies of the Cataphrygians and Novatians swell up, which Tertullian too, with sounding but not wise cheeks, inflated, when with slandering tooth he cut down second marriages as if they were unlawful — marriages which the Apostle, with a sober mind, altogether allows as lawful. From this soundness of doctrine let you not be moved by the disputation of any unlearned or any learned man; nor so extol your own good that you should charge as evil another's good which is not evil, but rejoice in your own good so much the more, the more you see that by it not only are evils avoided, but even certain goods are surpassed. For adultery and fornication are evils.

But from these unlawful things she is very far removed who by the liberty of a vow has bound herself, and has made even lawful things not lawful for her, not by the command of law, but by the counsel of charity. And conjugal chastity is a good, but widowed continence is a better good. This better good, then, is honoured by the subordination of that good, not is that good condemned by the praise of this better one. But as to what the Apostle said, when he was commending the fruit of the celibate and the unmarried, because 'they think on the things of the Lord, how they may please God,' he added and said: 'But this I say for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you' — that is, not that I may compel you, but unto that which is honourable. Because he called the good of the unmarried honourable, we ought not therefore to think the conjugal bond base;

Otherwise we shall also condemn first marriages, which neither the Cataphrygians nor the Novatians nor their most eloquent supporter Tertullian dared to call base. But just as, when he says, 'But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they so remain,' he certainly set down 'good' for 'better' — since everything which, compared with a good, is called better, is without doubt itself also good (for what else is that which is thus called 'better,' but that which is more good?) — nor do we accordingly suppose that he meant it to be evil if they should marry, since he said 'it is good for them if they so remain': so also when he says:

'But unto that which is honourable,' he did not show matrimony to be base, but commended, under the general name of what is honourable, that which was more honourable than what is honourable — for what is 'more honourable' but that which is more honourable? And what is more honourable is assuredly honourable. For he plainly declared this to be better than that good, where he says: 'He that gives in marriage does well; and he that gives not in marriage does better'; and this to be more blessed than that blessed thing, where he says: 'But she will be more blessed if she so remain.' As, therefore, 'better' is to 'good,' and 'more blessed' to 'blessed,' so 'more honourable' is to 'honourable' — which he chose to call honourable. For far be it that it should be base, whereof the Apostle Peter, speaking, says:

'You husbands, give honour to your wives as to the weaker and subject vessel, as to fellow-heirs of grace;' and, addressing the wives themselves, he exhorts them to be subject to their own husbands after the example of Sarah; for 'so,' he says, 'certain holy women, who hoped in God, adorned themselves, being obedient to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you have become, doing well and fearing no disturbance.'

(Textual apparatus and manuscript variant readings.) He exhorts them to be subject to their own husbands after the example of Sarah. Whence also that saying which Paul the Apostle spoke concerning the unmarried woman, 'that she may be holy both in body and in spirit,' is not so to be taken as if a faithful and chaste married woman, subject to her husband according to the Scriptures, were not holy in body, but only in spirit.

For it cannot be that, the spirit being sanctified, the body also should not be holy, which the sanctified spirit uses. But lest we should seem rather to argue than to prove this by the divine oracle — since Peter, about to make mention of Sarah, said only 'holy women,' and did not add 'in body also' — let us consider that saying of the same Paul, where, forbidding fornications, he says: 'Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid.' Let anyone, then, dare to say that the members of Christ are not holy; or truly let him dare to separate from the members of Christ the bodies of faithful married women. Whence also a little after he says:

'Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a great price.' He said that the body of the faithful is both the members of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Wherein assuredly the faithful of both sexes are understood. There, then, are the married; there also the unmarried; but distinguished by merits, and, as members preferred to members, of which nevertheless neither are separated from the body. Therefore what, speaking of the unmarried, he says, 'that she may be holy both in body and in spirit,' he wished to be understood as an ampler sanctification of the unmarried, both in body and in spirit; he did not deprive the body of the married of all sanctification. Learn, then, your good. Nay rather, remember what you have learned.

Your good is the more praised because there is another good by which it is better, than if this good could not be a good otherwise unless that other were an evil, or did not exist at all. The eyes have great honour in the body; but they would have less, if they alone existed and there were no other members of lesser honour. In heaven itself the sun surpasses the moon by its light, yet does not disparage it; and star differs from star in glory, yet does not fall out with it in pride. Therefore God made all things, and behold, they were very good: not only good, but even very — for no other reason than that they were all. For also of the several works it was said, 'God saw that it was good.' But where all were named, 'very' was added, and it was said, 'God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good.'

For certain individual things are better than certain other individual things; but all things together are better than any individual things whatever. Therefore let the sound doctrine of Christ, in his body, make you sound through his grace, so that the very Spirit which rules the body may neither insolently exalt, nor ignorantly discern, that which you have better than others in body and spirit. Nor, because I have said Ruth blessed and Anna more blessed — since the former married twice, while the latter, wife of one husband, quickly widowed, lived long — should you at once think yourself also better than Ruth.

In the days of the prophets the ordering of holy women was indeed different: obedience, not lust, compelled them to marry, so that the people of God might be propagated, among whom the prophets of Christ would be sent ahead; for that very people itself, through the things which happened among them in figure — whether in those who understood them or in those who did not know them — was nothing else than a prophet of Christ, from whom the very flesh of Christ was also to be born. Therefore, that this people might be propagated, whoever did not raise up seed in Israel was held accursed by the sentence of the Law.

Hence the holy women too were kindled, not by a desire of lying with a man, but by a devotion to bearing children, so that most rightly they are believed not to have sought intercourse if offspring could have come about in any other way; and to the men the use of several living wives was permitted. That the cause of this was not the concupiscence of the flesh but the provision for offspring, this shows: that whereas holy men were allowed to have several living wives, it was not likewise allowed to holy women to be joined to several living husbands, since they would be the more shameful the more they craved that whereby they would not become the more fruitful. Accordingly holy Ruth, when she had no seed in Israel — such as was necessary in that time — her husband being dead, sought another by whom she might have it.

And so, although this woman had been twice married, yet Anna, wife of one husband and a widow, was the more blessed, because she also merited to be a prophetess of Christ. Of her we must believe — even if she had no children (which indeed Scripture, by keeping silence, left uncertain) — that by that Spirit she foresaw that Christ was soon to come from a virgin, by which she was able to recognize him even as a little child. Whence, deservedly, even without children (if indeed she had none), she refused a second marriage, because she already knew that the time had come when Christ would be better served not by the office of childbearing, but by the zeal of continence — not by wombs made fruitful in wedlock, but by widowed conduct made chaste.

But if Ruth also knew that through her flesh would be propagated the seed from which Christ was to take flesh, and by marrying rendered service to this knowledge, then I do not now dare to say that Anna's widowhood was more blessed than Ruth's fruitfulness. But you, who both have children and live at that end of the age when it is now the time not for casting stones but for gathering them, not for embracing but for refraining from embrace — since the Apostle cries out: 'But this I say, brethren: the time is short; it remains that they also who have wives be as though they had none' — surely, if you had sought a second marriage, it would have been no service of prophecy or of the Law, no fleshly desire even for offspring, but only a sign of incontinence.

For you would have done what the Apostle says, when he had said: 'It is good for them if they so remain, even as I'; for immediately he added: 'But if they cannot contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.' This he said, so that the evil of unbridled lust might not be plunged into the baseness of scandalous deeds, since it would be received into the honorable estate of marriage. But thanks be to the Lord, since you have borne what you did not wish to be, and the virginity of your offspring has compensated for the loss of your own virginity; for Christian teaching, diligently questioned, answers that even a first marriage is now, in this age, to be scorned — unless incontinence be a hindrance. For he who said, 'If they cannot contain themselves, let them marry,' could have said:

'If they have no children, let them marry' — if, after the resurrection and preaching of Christ, when now from all nations so great an abundance of children to be spiritually begotten is at hand, it were such an office to propagate children from the flesh as it was in the earliest times. And as for what he says elsewhere — 'I will therefore that the younger widows marry, bear children' — he commends, with apostolic soberness and authority, the good of marriage and of being mothers of families; he does not impose the office of procreation, as though it were a compliance with the Law, even upon those who take hold of the good of continence. Finally, why he said this he discloses when he adds and says: 'to give no occasion to the adversary for the sake of reviling';

for already certain women had turned back after Satan, so that by these words of his we understand that those whom he wished to marry could better have contained themselves than marry, but could better marry than turn back after Satan — that is, than fall and perish by looking backward from that excellent purpose of virginal or widowed chastity to the things behind. Accordingly, let those who do not contain themselves marry, before they profess continence, before they vow to God — which vow, if they do not render it, they are justly condemned. For in another place he says of such women: 'For when they have lived wantonly in Christ, they will marry, having condemnation, because they have made void their first faith' — that is, they have turned their will toward marriage away from the purpose of continence.

For they made void the faith by which they had earlier vowed what by perseverance they were unwilling to fulfill. The good of marriage, therefore, is indeed always a good; but among the people of God it was once a compliance with the Law, now it is a remedy for weakness, and in certain persons a solace of human nature. For to give attention to the procreation of children — not in dog-like fashion by the promiscuous use of women, but in the honorable marital order — is an affection not to be condemned in man; yet even this the Christian mind, thinking on heavenly things, more laudably transcends and surpasses. But since, as the Lord says, 'not all receive this word,' let her therefore who can receive it, receive it; and let her who does not contain herself marry; let her who has not begun, deliberate; let her who has undertaken it, persevere.

let no occasion be given to the adversary, let no offering be withdrawn from Christ. For in the marriage bond, if chastity is preserved, condemnation is not to be feared; but in widowed and virginal continence there is sought the excellence of a fuller gift: which gift, once sought and chosen and offered by the debt of a vow, it is then damnable not only to take up marriage, but even, though one does not marry, to wish to marry. For that the Apostle might show this, he does not say, 'When they have lived wantonly in Christ, they marry,' but 'they wish to marry, having,' he says, 'condemnation, because they have made void their first faith' — even by not marrying, merely by wishing.

Not that the marriage itself, even of such women, is declared to be condemned; but there is condemned the fraud against the purpose, there is condemned the broken faith of the vow, there is condemned not the taking up of a lower good, but the ruin from a higher good; finally, such women are condemned, not because they afterward entered into the marital faith, but because they made void their first faith of continence. And that he might briefly convey this, the Apostle was unwilling to say that those women have condemnation who marry after a purpose of higher sanctity — not because they are not condemned, but lest in them the marriage itself be thought to be condemned — but when he had said, 'they wish to marry,' he immediately added, 'having condemnation,' and said why:

'because they have made void their former faith,' so that it may appear that the will which has fallen away from its purpose is what is condemned, whether marriages ensue or are lacking. Accordingly, those who say that the marriages of such women are not marriages but rather adulteries do not seem to me to consider keenly and carefully enough what they say; for the semblance of truth deceives them. For because those women who, out of Christian sanctity, do not marry are said to choose the espousals of Christ, from this certain persons argue, saying: If a woman who, while her husband lives, marries another is an adulteress — as the Lord himself defined in the Gospel — then, while Christ lives, over whom death has no further dominion, the woman who had chosen his espousals, if she marries a man, is an adulteress.

Those who say these things are indeed keenly moved, but they pay too little attention to how great an absurdity of consequences follows this argument. For since, in a praiseworthy manner, even while her husband lives, a woman may — with his consent — vow continence to Christ, then, according to the reasoning of these men, no woman ought to do this, lest she make Christ himself (which it is impious to think) an adulterer, to whom she marries while her husband lives. Then, since a first marriage is of better merit than a second, far be it that this be the sense of holy widows, that Christ should seem to them as it were a second husband; for they had him even before, when they were faithfully subject to their own husbands, serving a husband not carnally but spiritually:

the husband to whom the Church herself, of whom they are members, is spouse — the Church which, in the integrity of faith, hope, and love, is wholly a virgin, not only in holy virgins, but also in widows and married women who are faithful. For to the universal Church, of which all those are members, the Apostle says: 'I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ.' Now he knows how to make the virgin spouse fruitful without corruption, who in that very flesh could be brought forth by a mother without corruption. But by this ill-considered opinion — by which they think that there are no marriages of women fallen from a holy purpose if they marry — no small evil arises: that wives are separated from their husbands as though they were adulteresses, not wives;

and when they wish to restore these women, thus separated, to continence, they make the husbands of these women true adulterers, when, their own wives still living, they take others. Wherefore, I cannot indeed say that women fallen from a better purpose, if they marry, are adulteries and not marriages; but I would plainly not hesitate to say that lapses and downfalls from that holier chastity which is vowed to the Lord are worse than adulteries. For if — as is in no way to be doubted — it pertains to the offense of Christ when a member of his does not keep faith with her husband, how much more grievously is he offended when faith is not kept to him in that which he demands when offered, though he had not demanded that it be offered!

For when anyone does not render what he has vowed — not compelled by command, but admonished by counsel — he increases the iniquity of the defrauded vow the more, the less necessity he had of vowing. I discuss these matters for this reason, lest you suppose either that a second marriage is a crime, or that any marriages whatever, since they are marriages, are an evil. Therefore do not wish that those women be condemned by you, but scorned. The good of widowed continence, then, more brilliantly befits, since for the sake of vowing and professing it women are able to scorn what both pleases and is permitted; but after the profession of the vow, that which pleases must be perseveringly bridled and conquered, because it is now not permitted. Concerning third and fourth and yet more numerous marriages men are wont to raise a question.

Whence, that I may briefly answer, I neither dare to condemn any marriages, nor to take away from them the modesty owed to their number. But lest the brevity of this my answer perhaps displease anyone, I am prepared to hear my critic dispute more copiously. For perhaps he may bring some reason why a second marriage should not be condemned, yet a third be condemned. For I, as I warned at the beginning of this discourse, do not dare to be wiser than it behooves to be wise. For who am I, that I should think I must define what I do not see the Apostle to have defined? For he says: 'A woman is bound as long as her husband lives.' He did not say 'first' or 'second' or 'third' or 'fourth'; but 'a woman,' he says, 'is bound as long as her husband lives.'

'But if her husband be dead, she is free. Let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord; but she will be more blessed if she so remain.' What could be added to or taken from this sentence, as far as this matter is concerned, I do not know. Then I hear also the Master and Lord of the apostles and of us answering the Sadducees, when they had set forth a woman not of one husband nor of two, but — if it may be said — of seven husbands, whose wife she would be in the resurrection. For, rebuking them, he says: 'You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor take wives; for they shall not begin to die, but shall be equal to the angels of God.'

He therefore made mention of the resurrection of those who rise to life, not of those who rise to punishment. He could therefore have said: 'You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God; for in that resurrection these many-times-married women cannot exist,' and then added: 'because no woman marries there.' But not even he himself, as we see, condemned by any indication of his judgment the woman of so many husbands. Wherefore neither, against the sense of human modesty, do I dare to say that a woman may marry husbands, as often as she wishes, when they die; nor out of my own heart, apart from the authority of Holy Scripture, do I dare to condemn any number of marriages whatever. But what I say to the widow of one husband, this I say to every widow: 'You will be more blessed if you so remain.'

For this too is not unwisely wont to be proposed, that whoever can may say which widow is to be preferred in merits: whether the woman of one husband who, having lived rather long with her husband, and her children begotten and safe, was widowed and professed continence; or she who, as a young girl, within two years having lost two husbands and having no children for consolation, vowed continence to God though children were surviving, and grew old in that most persevering sanctity. Let them here exercise themselves, if they can, by disputing and demonstrating something to us — they who weigh the merits of widows by the number of husbands, not by the strength of continence itself.

For if they say that the woman of one husband is to be preferred to the woman of two, unless they bring forward some spiritual reason or authority, they will assuredly be found to prefer to strength of soul not a greater strength of soul, but a felicity of the flesh. For to the felicity of the flesh it belonged both to live long with a husband and to beget children. But if they do not prefer her on this account — because she had children — that very thing, that she lived long with a husband, what else was it than a felicity of the flesh? Furthermore, the merit of that Anna is chiefly commended by this: that, having so quickly buried her husband, she strove long against the flesh through her extended age, and conquered. For thus it is written: 'And there was Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser:

she had advanced in many days, and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity; and she was a widow up to eighty-four years, who departed not from the temple, serving with fastings and prayers night and day.' You see how the holy widow is praised not only because she was the wife of one husband, but also because she lived few years with her husband from her virginity, and because she carried on the office of widowed continence up to so great an old age with so great a service of devotion. Let us therefore set before our eyes three widows, each having one of all those things which were in this woman:

let us set down one as the wife of one husband, who lacks both so great a length of widowhood — namely, that she lived long with her husband — and so great a zeal of devotion, namely that she does not so serve with fastings and prayers; another, who after the very brief life of her first husband also quickly lost a second and has been a widow for a long age, but who likewise does not so much give her attention to the most religious service of fastings and prayers;

a third, who not only had two husbands, but also lived with both of them singly, or with one of them, for a longer time, and being widowed in her later age — in which, indeed, if she had wished to marry, she could also have begotten children — took up widowed continence, but is more intent upon God, more solicitous to keep doing the things that please him, serving night and day, like Anna, with fastings and prayers. If it be contended which of these women is superior in merits, who does not see that in this contest the palm must be given to the greater and more fervent devotion?

So too, if three other women are set down, in whom two of those three things are present and one is lacking, who would doubt that those would be the better in whom, among their two goods, a devout humility more excellently prevailed, so that their devotion might be lofty? Now none of these six widows is equal to your standard. For you, if you carry this vow through to old age, can have all three things by which the merit of Anna excelled; for you both had one husband, and he did not live long with you in the flesh. And through this, if you exhibit obedience to the words of the Apostle, who says: 'She who is truly a widow and desolate has hoped in the Lord and continues in prayers night and day,' and if by sober vigilance you avoid that which follows:

'But she who lives in wanton pleasures is dead while she lives' — all those three goods which were Anna's will also be yours. But you also have children, whom perhaps she did not have; nor are you to be praised on this account, that you have them, but because you take pains devoutly to nourish and educate them. For that they were born to you belongs to fruitfulness; that they live, to felicity; but that they are so instructed, to your will and power. In them let men congratulate you; in this let them imitate you. Anna, through prophetic knowledge, recognized Christ in his virgin mother; evangelical grace made you the mother of a virgin of Christ. That holy virgin, therefore, whom you offered to Christ, willing and asking it, has added something of virginal merit to the widowed merits of grandmother and mother.

For you who have this virgin do not have nothing from her, and you are in her what in yourselves you are not. For that holy virginity might be denied to you when you married, it was for this cause brought about that it should be born of you. These things, therefore, concerning the diverse merits of married women and of diverse widows, I would not discuss in this work, if what I write to you I were writing to you only. But since there are certain most difficult questions in this kind of discourse, I have wished to say something more than what properly pertains to you, on account of certain persons who do not seem learned to themselves unless they attempt to shake others' labors — not by judging, but by tearing to pieces with lacerating;

then also so that you yourself may not only keep what you have vowed and make progress in that good, but also may more diligently and more firmly know that this good of yours is not distinguished from an evil of marriage, but is preferred to the good of marriage. For those who condemn the marriages of widowed women — even though they wonderfully and fervently exercise their own continence by abstinence from many things which you use — let them not for this reason seduce you into thinking what they think, even though you cannot do what they do. For no one wishes to be frenzied, even if he should see the strength of the frenzied to be stronger than the strength of the sound. Let sound doctrine, therefore, especially both adorn and fortify the goodness of your purpose.

For this is the reason why Catholic women, even those often married, are by a just judgment preferred not only to widows of one husband, but even to the virgins of the heretics. There are indeed many recesses of questions concerning these three things — marriage, widowhood, and virginity — and many perplexities; for penetrating and resolving these by disputation there is need both of greater care and of more copious discourse, so that either in all of them we may be rightly wise, or, if we are otherwise wise in anything, God may reveal that also to us. Nevertheless, what the Apostle also there consequently says, 'in what we have attained, let us walk in that.'

Now we have attained — as far as pertains to this matter of which we speak — that we prefer continence to marriage, and holy virginity even to widowed continence, and that we do not condemn any marriages, which are nevertheless not adulteries but marriages, by the praise of the purpose of any one of us or of our people. Many other things concerning these matters have been said by us in the book On the Good of Marriage, and in another book On Holy Virginity, and in the work which, with as much labor as we could, we wrote against Faustus the Manichean — since, by most bitingly reproaching in his writings the chaste marriages of the patriarchs and prophets, he perverted the minds of certain unlearned persons away from the soundness of the faith.

Accordingly, since at the beginning of this little work I had proposed two certain necessary things and had promised to carry them out — one which pertains to doctrine, the other which pertains to exhortation — and to the former part, as I could, in accordance with the undertaken task, I have not been wanting, let us now come to the exhortation, so that the good which is prudently known may also be ardently loved. In which matter I first admonish this: that whatever love of devout continence you feel to be in you, you should attribute to the gift of God and give thanks to him, who has bestowed so much upon you from his Spirit, that, his charity being poured out in your heart, the love of a better good might take away from you the license of a permitted thing.

For he granted that it should not be pleasing to marry, though it was permitted; and that it should now not be permitted, even if it were pleasing; and from this, more firmly, that it should not be pleasing, lest that be done which would not be permitted — that which was not done even when it was permitted; and that you should merit so much as a widow of Christ, that you should also see your daughter a virgin of Christ; for while you pray like Anna, she became what Mary was. The more you know these to be gifts of God, the more you are blessed by his gifts; nay rather, you are not otherwise blessed, unless you know from whom you have what you have. For attend to what the Apostle has said concerning this matter: 'But we have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are given to us by God.'

For many indeed have many gifts of God, and, not knowing from whom they have them, are puffed up with impious vanity. But no one is blessed by the gifts of God who is ungrateful to the Giver; for that also, whereby amid the sacred mysteries we are bidden to have our heart on high — by his own help we are able to do that whereto, by his command, we are admonished. And therefore it follows that, lifted up in heart concerning so great a good, we should not attribute the glory to ourselves as though of our own strength, but should give thanks to the Lord our God. For we are immediately reminded of this, that this is worthy, this is just. You recall from whence these words are, and you recognize by what sanction and by how great a sanctity they are commended. Hold, therefore, and keep what you have received, and give thanks to the Giver.

For although to receive and to have is yours, yet you have that which you have received, since to the one who is proud, and who glories impiously from that which he had as though he had it from himself, truth says through the Apostle: 'For what have you that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?' These things compel me to admonish you to beware of and to shun the little talks of certain persons, which have begun to creep through the ears into the souls of many — which must be said with tears — enemies of the grace of Christ, through whom it is urged that not even prayer to the Lord should seem necessary to us, that we enter not into temptation. For thus they try to defend man's free will, that by it alone, not even aided by the grace of God, we may be able to fulfill what is divinely commanded.

And through this it follows that in vain the Lord said, 'Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation,' and in vain we daily say in the Lord's own Prayer: 'Lead us not into temptation.' For if it is only of our own power that we not be overcome by temptation, why do we pray that we enter not, or be not led, into it? Let us rather do what is of our own free will and most absolute power, and let us mock the Apostle when he says, 'God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able,' and let us resist him, saying, 'Why do I ask of the Lord that which he has placed in my own power?' But far be it that he who is soundly wise should think this. Accordingly, let us ask that he give what he commands us to have.

For to this end he commands what we do not yet have, that we may have it: that he may admonish us what we should ask, and that when we have found ourselves able to do what he has commanded, we may also understand from whom we have received it, lest, puffed up and elated by the spirit of this world, we not know the things that are given to us by God. Accordingly, we by no means destroy the free choice of the human will, when the grace of God, by which that very choice is aided, we do not by ungrateful pride deny, but rather by grateful devotion proclaim. For to will is ours; but the will itself is both admonished that it may rise, and healed that it may be strong, and enlarged that it may take in, and filled that it may have. For if we did not will, neither should we receive the things that are given, nor should we have them.

For who would have continence — to speak of this rather among the other gifts of God, concerning which I speak to you — who, I say, would have continence unless willing? For no one would receive it unless willing. But by whom it is given, so that it can be received and had by our will — if you ask, attend to Scripture; nay rather, since you know it, recall what you have read. 'When I knew,' he says, 'that no one can be continent unless God grant it, this too was of wisdom, to know whose gift it was.' Great are these two gifts — wisdom and continence: wisdom, namely, by which we are formed in the knowledge of God; continence, indeed, by which we are not conformed to this world.

Now God commands us to be both wise and continent, without which goods we cannot be just and perfect. But let us pray that he give what he commands, by aiding and inspiring, who has admonished us what we ought to will, by enjoining and calling. Whatever he has hence given, let us pray that he preserve it; but what he has not yet given, let us pray that he supply it: yet let us pray and give thanks for what we have received, and let us trust that we shall receive what we have not yet received, by this very fact — that we are not ungrateful for what we have received. For he who gave to the faithful married to contain themselves from adulteries and fornications, he himself gave to holy virgins and widows to contain themselves from all intercourse: in which virtue now, properly, either integrity or continence is named.

Or perhaps from him indeed we have received continence, but from ourselves we have wisdom? What then is it that the Apostle James says: 'But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and upbraids not; and it shall be given him'? But concerning this question we have already said much in our other little works, as far as the Lord has helped, and we shall say more, on another occasion given, as far as through him we shall be able. Now I have wished to say something on this subject for the sake of certain of our brethren, most friendly and most beloved to us, and indeed not maliciously entangled in this error, but entangled nonetheless — who think that, when they exhort any persons to justice and devotion,

their exhortation will have no power, unless they place all that — which they do together with man, so that man may act — in the power of man, not aided by the gift of God, but exerted by the free will alone — as though the free will could be capable of accomplishing a good work except by being freed by the gift of God — nor do they attend to this, that they themselves have even this very thing by the gift of God, that with that faculty they exhort, so that toward taking hold of the good life they rouse the sluggish wills of men, kindle the cold, correct the depraved, convert the averse, pacify the resisting. For thus they can persuade what they urge. Or if they do not effect these things in the wills of men, what do they effect? Why do they speak? Let them rather dismiss those wills to their own choice.

But if they do effect these things in them, is it then so, that man in man's will effects so much by speaking, and God there effects nothing by aiding? Nay rather, however much a man may excel in the faculty of speech, so that by skill of disputing and by sweetness of speaking he may implant truth in a man's will, may nourish charity, may by teaching remove error, by exhorting remove torpor — 'neither he that plants is anything, nor he that waters, but God that gives the increase.' For in vain would the workman labor at everything outwardly, unless the Creator worked inwardly and in a hidden manner. I hope, therefore, that these my letters, by the merit of your excellence, will quickly come into the hands even of such persons. Therefore I have judged that some things should here be said on this matter;

Then, that you yourself and whatever other widows may read these things, or hear them when they are read, may know that you avail more toward loving and holding fast the good of continence by your own prayers than by our exhortations; for if anything helps you—even that our words too are ministered to you—the whole of it is to be attributed to the grace of Him in whose hand, as it is written, are both we and our words. If, therefore, you had not yet vowed widowed continence to God, we would surely exhort you to vow it; but since you have already vowed it, we exhort you to persevere. Yet I see that such things ought to be said by me as would move even those who were still thinking of marriage to love and lay hold of continence. Let us therefore incline our ear to the Apostle.

「She who is unmarried,」 he says, 「is careful for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she who is married is careful for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.」 He did not say: she is careful for the things of the world, so that she may not be holy. But surely the divine sanctity is the less on that side of cares whereon worldly pleasure is pondered. Whatever intentness of soul, therefore, would be expended even on those things whereby a husband was to be pleased, the unmarried Christian woman ought in a certain manner to gather up and redirect into that intention whereby the Lord is to be pleased. And consider whom she pleases who pleases the Lord. And assuredly she is the more blessed the more she pleases Him; but the more she thinks upon the things of the world, the less she pleases.

Therefore please with your whole intent Him who is beautiful in form beyond the sons of men. For it is by His grace, which is poured out upon His lips, that you please Him. Please Him also with that part of your thought which would have been occupied with the world in order that a husband might be pleased. Please Him who displeased the world, that those pleasing Him might be freed from the world. For this One, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, men beheld upon the cross of His passion, and He had no form nor comeliness, but His face was despised and His posture deformed. Yet out of this deformity of your Redeemer flowed the price of your comeliness—but of an inner comeliness; for all the beauty of the king's daughter is within. With this beauty please Him;

compose this beauty by earnest care and solicitous thought. He loves not the paints of deceits; the Truth is delighted with things true. And He—if you recognize what you have read—is called the Truth: 「I am,」 He says, 「the Way and the Truth and the Life.」 Run to Him through Him; please Him from Him; live in Him, with Him, of Him. With true affections and most holy chastity, love to be loved by such a Husband. Let the inner ear of your holy virgin offspring also hear these things. How far she goes before you in the kingdom of that King, I shall see: that is another question. Yet you have found, mother and daughter, Him whom, with marriage despised—she despising all marriage, you second marriage—you ought together to please by the beauty of chastity.

Surely, if there were husbands whom you had to please, you would perhaps now be ashamed, together with your daughter, to adorn yourself; but now let it not shame you to do those things whereby you may both be adorned together, since it is not a thing of reproach but rather of glory that you should both together be loved by that one Husband. But a feigned whiteness and redness smeared on with paints you would not employ, even if you had husbands, deeming them unworthy whom you would deceive, nor yourselves who ought to deceive. Now, then, please truly and together that King who has desired the beauty of His one and only Bride, whose members you are. Cleave to Him together—she in her virginal integrity, you in widowed continence, both in spiritual beauty. In which beauty even His grandmother, your mother-in-law, who now surely has grown old, is beautiful together with you.

For while charity extends the vigor of this beauty into the things that are before, old age makes no wrinkle in it. You have with you a holy aged woman, both in the house and in Christ, whom you may consult concerning perseverance—how one must fight against this or that temptation, what must be done that it may be easily overcome, what defense must be taken up lest it easily lay its snares again; and if there be anything of this sort, she teaches you with a duration now assured, with a love benevolent, with a piety solicitous, with an age secure. You especially, you consult her in such matters, who has experienced what you have experienced. For your offspring sings that song which none but virgins can sing in the Apocalypse. Yet for both of you she prays more anxiously than for herself;

but she is more solicitous for her granddaughter, for whom a longer space of years remains for the conquering of temptations. But she sees you as nearer to her own age and as the mother of her granddaughter; and had she seen you married—which is now not lawful, and God forbid—I think she would have blushed to bear children along with her granddaughter. How great, then, is the perilous portion of age that now remains to you, who are for this reason not called a grandmother, that you may be fruitful together with your daughter in the offspring of holy thoughts and works? Not without reason, therefore, is the grandmother more solicitous for her for whom you also are a mother, because both what she has vowed is greater and the whole of it remains to her which she has but now begun. May the Lord hear her prayers, and may we holily comply with the merits of her who bore the flesh of your husband in her youth and travailed to bring forth the heart of your daughter in her old age.

Therefore all of you together and in concord, please by your conduct and press on in prayers to that one Husband of your one wedlock, in whose body you live by one Spirit. The day that is past does not return into the future, and after yesterday comes today, and after today tomorrow is about to come on: and behold, all times and temporal things pass away, that the abiding promise may come, and 「he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.」 If the world is now perishing, for whom does the married woman bear children? Or why does she marry, who is to bear in heart and not to bear in flesh? But if the world is still to last, why is He not rather loved through whom the world was made? If the allurements of the age are now failing, there is nothing for the Christian mind to seek after with desire;

but if they are still to remain, there is that which sanctity may despise. Of these two, in the one there is no hope of lust, in the other there is a greater glory of charity. How many, or how great, are those very years in which the flower of carnal age seems to flourish? Not a few women, thinking of marriage and ardently desiring it, while they are spurned or put off, have suddenly grown old, so that it now shamed them to marry more than it pleased them. And many wives, by the most recent bond of their union, when their husbands set out to far countries, awaiting their return have become aged, and, as though soon widowed, sometimes when their old men did not even return, they, now old women, were counted worthy to receive them. If, then, whether when suitors spurned or delayed them,

or when their husbands were traveling abroad, carnal concupiscence could be restrained, that no fornication or adultery might be committed, why can it not be restrained, that no sacrilege may be committed? If it was repressed when, being deferred, it burned, why is it not suppressed when, being cut off, it has grown cold? For they bear a more burning lust who do not despair of the pleasure of that same lust. But those unmarried women who vow their chastity to God withdraw the very hope which is the tinder of love. Whence concupiscence is the more easily bridled, which is kindled by no expectation: whereas, unless prayer be made that it may be overcome, that which is unlawful is the more ardently longed for. Let spiritual delights, therefore, in holy chastity, succeed to carnal delights:

reading, prayer, the psalm, good thought, the frequent doing of good works, the hope of the age to come, and the heart lifted up, and, concerning all these, thanksgiving to the Father of lights, from whom, without any doubt—Scripture being witness—every best gift and every perfect gift descends. For when, in place of the delights of married women, which they have in the flesh of their husbands, the use of other carnal delights is taken up as though for solace, what shall I say of the evils that follow, since the Apostle has briefly said that a widow living in pleasures is dead while she lives? But far be it from you that you should be captured by the desire of riches in place of the desire of marriage, and that in your hearts money should succeed to the love of a husband.

For, observing the conduct of men, we have often found by experience that in certain persons, when wantonness was checked, avarice grew. For just as in the very senses of the body those who do not see hear more keenly and by touching discern many things—nor do they who use their eyes touch with such liveliness—wherein it is understood that from one avenue, that is, the intent of perceiving being repressed in the case of sight, it puts itself forth in the other senses with a sharper edge of discernment, as if it strove from the one to fill up what is denied in the other—so also often carnal desire, restrained from the pleasure of lying together, stretches itself with greater force into the appetite for money, and, turned away from thence, converts itself hither with more ardent impulse.

But in you let the love of riches grow cold together with the love of marriage, and let the pious use of the things you possess be conferred upon spiritual delights, and let your liberality glow more warmly toward helping the needy than toward enriching the greedy. For into the heavenly treasury are sent, not the gifts of the covetous, but the alms of the poor, which help the prayers of widows in immeasurable measure. Fastings also and vigils, insofar as they do not disturb health, if they be spent in praying, singing psalms, reading, and meditating on the law of God, are turned—even those very things that seem laborious—into spiritual delights.

For in no way are the labors of lovers burdensome; rather, they themselves even delight—as with those who hunt, fowl, fish, gather the vintage, do business, or amuse themselves with some game. It matters, therefore, what is loved. For in that which is loved, either there is no labor, or the labor itself is loved. And consider how shameful and lamentable it is, if labor delights that a wild beast may be caught, that a cask and a purse may be filled, that a ball may be thrown—and it does not delight that God may be gained. In all spiritual delights, indeed, which the unmarried enjoy, their holy conversation ought also to be circumspect, lest perchance, though there be no evil life through wantonness, there be an evil reputation through negligence.

Nor are those—whether holy men or women—to be heeded who, when their negligence has been reproved in some matter, through which it comes about that they fall into evil suspicion (from which they know their life to be far removed), say that a conscience clear before God suffices for them, despising the estimation of men not only imprudently but even cruelly, when they slay the souls of others—either of those blaspheming the way of God, to whom, according to their suspicion, the chaste life of the saints displeases as if it were shameful, or even of those imitating with an excuse not what they see but what they suppose. Accordingly, whoever guards his life from the crimes of disgraceful and wicked deeds does well for himself; but whoever guards his reputation also is merciful toward others as well.

For our life is necessary to us, your reputation to others. And assuredly even what we minister mercifully to others for salvation redounds also to our own advantage. Whence not in vain the Apostle says: 「We provide good things not only before God, but also before men」; likewise he says: 「Please all men in all things, as I also please all men in all things, not seeking what is profitable to me but what is profitable to the many, that they may be saved.」 In a certain exhortation also he says: 「For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever holy, whatsoever just, whatsoever chaste, whatsoever most dear, whatsoever of good report, if there be any virtue, if any praise, think on these things: which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.」

You see how, among the many things of which he admonished in exhorting, he did not neglect to set down: 「whatsoever things are of good report,」 and how he concluded them all in two words, where he says: 「if there be any virtue, if any praise.」 For to virtue belong those good things which I mentioned before, but reputation belongs to praise. I think that the Apostle did not take the praise of men for a great thing, saying in another place: 「But to me it is a very small matter to be judged by you, or by man's day」; and elsewhere: 「If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ」; and again: 「For our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience.」

But of those two, that is, of a good life and a good reputation—or, to say it more briefly, of virtue and praise—the one he most wisely retained for its own sake, the other he most mercifully provided for the sake of others. But since human caution, however great, cannot on every side avoid the most malevolent suspicions, when we shall have done for our reputation whatever we rightly can, if some try to blacken our reputation, whether by inventing evil or by believing evil, let there be present the solace of conscience and plainly also joy, because 「our reward is great in heaven」—even when men say many evil things against us who nevertheless live piously and justly.

For that reward is like the wages of those who war through the arms of righteousness not only on the right hand but also on the left—that is, through glory and ignobility, through infamy and good report. Run therefore your course and run perseveringly, that you may lay hold; and by the example of your life and by the word of exhortation carry off into the same course as many as you can. Let not the complaint of the vain break you from this zeal, whereby you rouse many to imitation—those who say: 「How does the human race subsist, if all shall be continent?」 As though this age were retarded for any other cause than that the predestined number of the saints may be filled up, which being the more quickly filled, assuredly the end of the age would not be deferred.

Nor let this retard you from the zeal of persuading others of your good, if it be said to you: 「Since marriages also are good, how will all things be good in the body of Christ—both the greater, that is, and the lesser—if all are changed into the praise and love of continence?」 First, because, in striving that all be continent, then either few will be so; for not all receive this word. But since it is written: 「He that can receive it, let him receive it,」 then those who can, do receive, if it be not kept silent even from those who cannot receive it. Next, neither ought we to fear lest perchance all should receive it and something of the lesser goods, that is, of the conjugal life, should be lacking in the body of Christ.

For if all should hear and all should receive it, we ought to understand that this very thing was predestined, namely, that the conjugal goods should suffice even in the number of those members who have passed out of this life so many in number. For neither now, if all should be continent, are they about to give the honor of the continent to those who bore the thirtyfold fruit. If in the conjugal good he himself is understood, they have already carried it into the Lord's storehouses. There, then, all these goods will have their place, even if thereafter no woman should wish to marry or any man to take a wife. Securely, therefore, press on with those whom you can, that they may become what you are;

and pray watchfully and fervently, that by the help of the right hand of the Most High and by the abundance of the most merciful grace of the Lord you may both persevere in that which you are and advance toward that which you shall be. Then I beseech you, through Him from whom you have received this gift and from whom you hope for the rewards of this gift, that you remember to insert me too in your prayers, together with your whole household church.