But if you shall have refreshed the members of Christ also, which are in that region, from their deadly fear and sadness, and shall have consoled my old age with this merciful justice, he will repay you with good things for good, both in the present life and in the life to come—he who through you succors us in this tribulation, and who set you in that see. CCX. To the most beloved and most holy mother Felicitas and to brother Rusticus and to the sisters who are with you, Augustine and those who are with me in the Lord send greeting. The Lord is good, and his mercy is diffused everywhere, which consoles us out of your charity within his own bowels of compassion.
For how greatly he loves those who believe and hope in him, and who love both him and one another, and what he keeps in store for them hereafter, he shows chiefly from this: that even upon the unfaithful and the despairing and the perverse—those who, persevering in evil will unto the end, he threatens with everlasting fire together with the devil—yet in this present age he lavishes such great goods, he who makes his sun to rise over the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust. For briefly is something said, that more may be pondered; for who can enumerate how many gifts and free favors the impious have in this life from him whom they despise? Among which is this great one, that by examples of tribulations interposed—which, like a good physician, he mingles with the sweetness of this world—
—he admonishes them, if they be willing to attend, to flee from the wrath to come and, while they are on the way, that is, in this life, to agree with the word of God, whom by living evilly they have made their adversary. What then is not mercifully bestowed on men by the Lord God, from whom even tribulation is a benefit? For prosperity is the gift of a God who consoles, but adversity is the gift of a God who admonishes. And if he bestows these things, as I have said, even on the wicked, what does he prepare for those who endure for his sake? In whose number rejoice that you have been gathered through his grace, bearing with one another in love, being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
For there will not be lacking that in which you may bear with one another, until the Lord shall so carry you, death being swallowed up in victory, that God may be all in all. But dissensions ought never to be loved; yet sometimes they either are born of charity or prove charity. For who is easily found who is willing to be rebuked? And where is that wise man of whom it is said: 'Rebuke a wise man and he will love you'? Yet ought we not therefore to refrain from rebuking and correcting a brother, lest he go carelessly into death? For it commonly happens, and frequently comes to pass, that at the moment he is saddened when he is rebuked, and resists and contends, and yet afterward considers with himself in silence, where there is no one but God, and himself does not fear to displease men,
—because he is rebuked, but fears to displease God, because he is not corrected—and thereafter he no longer does that for which he was justly rebuked. And as much as he hates his own sin, so much let him love the brother whom he perceived to be an enemy of his sin. But if he is of that number of whom it is said: 'Rebuke a fool and he will add to hate you,' the dissension is not born of his charity; yet nevertheless it exercises and proves the charity of his rebuker, since hatred is not repaid to him, but the love that compels the rebuke endures unperturbed even when he who was rebuked hates. But if he
who rebukes, if he wishes to render evil for evil to the one who is indignant at his rebuker, was not worthy to rebuke, but plainly worthy that he himself too ought to be rebuked. Do these things, so that either indignations may not arise among you, or, once arisen, may at once be destroyed by the swiftest peace. Give greater effort to being reconciled among yourselves than to convicting one another; for just as vinegar corrupts a vessel if it remains there too long, so anger corrupts the heart if it lasts into another day. Do these things, therefore—and the God of peace will be with us—praying together also for us, that we may cheerfully fulfill the things which we rightly admonish. CCXI. Just as severity is prepared to punish the sins it may find, so charity does not wish to find what it may punish.
This cause made me not come to you, when you were seeking my presence not for the joy of your peace but for the increase of your dissension. For how could I have despised it and left it unpunished, if, with me present, so great a tumult of yours should arise as, with me absent, though it escaped my eyes, yet beat upon my ears with your outcries? For perhaps your sedition would even be greater in my presence, when what you sought—which is not expedient for you, being a most pernicious example against sound discipline—had of necessity to be denied you; and thus I should not find you such as I wish, and I myself should be found by you such as you did not wish. Since therefore the Apostle writes to the Corinthians, saying:
'I call God as witness against my soul, that it was to spare you that I came not yet to Corinth—not because we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy'—this too I say to you: that it was to spare you that I have not come to you.
I have spared myself also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow, and I chose not to show my face to you, but to pour out my heart to God on your behalf, and to plead the cause of your great peril not before you with words but before God with tears—lest he turn into mourning that joy of mine wherewith I am wont to rejoice over you, and, amid so many scandals with which this world everywhere abounds, to be sometimes consoled by considering your abundant congregation and chaste love and holy manner of life, and the more bountiful grace of God which has been given you, that you should not only despise carnal marriages but should also choose in one house the fellowship of dwelling together with one mind, so that you might have one soul and one heart toward God.
Considering these goods in you, these gifts of God, amid the many tempests by which it is shaken from other evils, my heart is wont somehow to find rest. You were running well; who has bewitched you? That persuasion is not from him who called us. A little leaven—I will not say what follows; for this I rather desire and pray and exhort, that the leaven itself may turn back into something better, and not the whole lump, as it had almost already done, be turned into worse. If therefore you have sprouted again into sound sense, pray that you enter not into temptation, nor again into contentions, emulations, animosities, dissensions, detractions, seditions, whisperings. For we did not so plant and water the Lord's garden in you, that we should reap these thorns from you.
But if your weakness is still in tumult, pray that you may be rescued from temptation. And those things which trouble you—if they still trouble you—unless they correct themselves, will bear their judgment, whoever they may be. Consider what an evil it is that, while we rejoice over those born of God in unity, we should mourn internal schisms in the monastery. Persevere in your good resolve, and you will not desire to change the superior under whom, persevering in that monastery through so many years, you have grown both in number and in age—she who received you as a mother, not by the womb but by the mind. For all of you who came thither found her either serving and pleasing my holy sister the superior, or found her already the very superior who received you;
under her you were instructed, under her you were veiled, under her you were multiplied; and yet you are in tumult to have her changed for you, when you ought to mourn if we wished to change her for you. She is the one whom you know; she is the one to whom you came; she is the one by having whom through so many years you grew. You have received nothing new except a superior (a provost); or, if it is on account of him that you seek novelty, and in envy of him you have so rebelled against your mother, why did you not rather ask this—that he be changed for you? But if you shrink from this, because I know how reverently you love him in Christ, why not rather her?
For in the governing of you the beginnings of the superior (provost) are so disturbed that he himself would rather desert you than endure this ill-repute and envy from us—that it be said you would not have sought another superior (a woman), had you not begun to have him as your provost. May God therefore calm and compose your minds; may the work of the devil not prevail in you, but may the peace of Christ conquer in your hearts; and do not, out of grief of mind because what you wish is not done, or because you are ashamed to have wished what you ought not to have wished, run blushing into death; but rather, by repenting, resume your virtue, and do not have the repentance of Judas the betrayer, but rather the tears of Peter the shepherd. These are the things which we prescribe that you observe, being established in the monastery.
First, that on account of which you have been gathered into one: that you dwell in the house with one mind, and that you have one heart and one soul toward God, and that you call nothing your own, but that all things be common to you; and that food and covering be distributed to each one of you by your superior—not equally to all, because you are not all of equal strength, but to each one as she has need. For thus you read in the Acts of the Apostles, that they had all things common, and distribution was made to each, as each had need. Those who had anything in the world, when they entered the monastery, let them willingly wish it to be common:
but those who had nothing, let them not seek in the monastery what they could not have even outside; yet nevertheless let what is needful be granted to their weakness, even if their poverty, when they were outside, could not find even the very necessities. Only let them not on that account now think themselves happy, because they have found food and covering such as they could not find outside. Nor let them lift up their necks, because they are associated with those to whom outside they did not dare to approach; but let them have their heart on high, and not seek earthly goods, lest monasteries begin to be useful to the rich and not to the poor, if the rich are there humbled and the poor there puffed up. But again, those too who seemed to be something in the world, let them not hold in disdain their sisters
who came to that holy society out of poverty; but let them rather be eager to glory, not in the dignity of rich parents, but in the fellowship of poor sisters. Nor let them be exalted if they have contributed something of their own means to the common life, nor let them be more proud of their riches because they share them with the monastery, than if they were enjoying them in the world. For any other iniquity whatsoever is exercised in evil works, that they may be done: but pride lies in ambush even in good works, that they may perish. And what does it profit to scatter by giving to the poor and to become poor, if the wretched soul is made prouder by despising riches than it had been by possessing them?
All of you therefore, live with one mind and in concord, and honor in one another God, whose temples you have been made. Be instant in prayers at the appointed hours and times. In the oratory let no one do anything except that for which it was made, and from which it also took its name; so that, if any also outside the appointed hours, if she has leisure, should wish to pray, let not those be a hindrance to her who thought to do something else there. When you pray to God with psalms and hymns, let that be pondered in the heart which is uttered by the voice; and do not sing except what you read is to be sung; but what is not so written that it should be sung, let it not be sung. Subdue your flesh by fastings and by abstinence from food and drink, as far as health permits.
But when any is unable to fast, let her not, outside the hour of the midday meal, take any food, unless when she is sick. When you come to table, until you rise from it, hear without tumult and contentions that which is read to you according to custom; nor let your jaws alone take food, but let your ears also receive the word of God. Those who are weak from their former manner of life, if they are treated otherwise in food, ought not to be troublesome to the others, nor seem unjust to those whom another manner of life has made stronger. And let these not think those happier, because they take what they themselves do not take, but let them rather congratulate themselves that they are strong in what the others are not strong.
And if to those who came to the monastery from more delicate habits, something of food, clothing, bedding, or coverings is given which is not given to others who are stronger and therefore happier, those to whom it is not given ought to consider how far those others have descended from their secular life to this—although they have been unable to attain to the frugality of the others who are stronger in body. Nor ought these to be disturbed because they see those receiving more—not because they are honored, but because they are borne with—lest that detestable perversity befall, that in the monastery, where the strong become rich as much as they can, the delicate should become poor.
Certainly, just as the sick must needs receive less, lest they be burdened, so after sickness they are to be so treated that they may more quickly be restored, even if they came from the humblest poverty of the world—as though the more recent sickness conferred on them what earlier custom conferred on the rich. But when they have repaired their former strength, let them return to their happier custom, which so much the more befits the handmaids of God the less they are in need; nor let the will hold them, now vigorous, in that to which necessity had raised them when they were weak. Let those account themselves the richer who are the stronger in enduring frugality; for it is better to have less need than to have more.
—let not the coverings of your heads be so fine that the little nets appear beneath. Have your hair nowhere bare, nor let it either be scattered by negligence or arranged by pains. When you go forth, walk together; when you have come where you are going, stand together. In your gait, in your bearing, in your dress, in all your movements, let nothing be done which allures anyone's lust, but only what befits your holiness. Your eyes, even if they are cast upon someone, let them be fixed upon no one. For when you go forth you are not forbidden to see men, but to desire them or to wish to be desired by them. For a woman is desired and desires, not by touch alone, but also by affection and by look.
Nor let you say that you have chaste minds if you have unchaste eyes, for an unchaste eye is the messenger of an unchaste heart; and when, with the tongue even silent, hearts announce themselves unchaste to one another by mutual gaze, and according to the concupiscence of the flesh delight in one another with mutual ardor, then, even though the bodies remain untouched by unclean violation, chastity itself flees from their conduct. Nor ought she who fixes her eye upon a male and delights in his fixed upon herself to think that she is not seen by others when she does this; she is seen entirely, and by those by whom she does not suppose herself to be seen. But suppose she lie hidden and be seen by no human being—what will she do about that Overseer from on high, whom nothing can escape?
Or is he to be thought not to see, because he sees so much the more patiently as he sees the more wisely? Let the holy woman therefore fear to displease him, lest she wish to please a man evilly; let her consider that he sees all things, lest she wish evilly to look upon a man. For his fear is commended in this very matter, where it is written: 'An abomination to the Lord is the one who fixes the eye.' When therefore you are together in church, and wherever men also are, guard one another's chastity mutually; for God, who dwells in you, guards you also in this way through yourselves. And if you notice in any one of you this wantonness of the eyes of which I speak, admonish her at once, so that what has begun may not go further, but be corrected forthwith.
But if, even after admonition, you see her doing the very same thing again, whether on another day or whenever, let whoever has been able to discover this now disclose her as one wounded and to be healed—yet first having shown it to another, or to a third, that she may be convicted by the mouth of two or three, and coerced with fitting severity. Nor judge yourselves to be ill-willed when you report these things; for indeed you are rather not innocent if, by keeping silent, you allow your sisters to perish, whom by reporting you could correct. For if your sister had a wound in her body which she wished to conceal while she feared to be cut, would it not be cruelly kept silent by you and mercifully disclosed? How much more, then, ought you to make her manifest, lest she rot more perniciously in her heart!
But before she is disclosed to others by whom she must be convicted, if she should deny it, she ought first to be shown to the superior, lest perchance, corrected more privately, she need not become known to the rest. But if she denies it, then to her, thus lying, others must be brought, so that now before all she may be convicted, not by one witness, but by two or three. And once convicted, she ought to submit to corrective discipline according to the judgment of the superior or of the presbyter. And if she refuses to bear it, and if she herself does not depart, let her be cast out of your society. For this is done not cruelly but mercifully, lest by pestilential contagion she destroy very many.
And this which I have said about not fixing the eye, let it also be diligently observed in discovering, forbidding, reporting, convicting, and punishing the other sins, with love of persons and hatred of vices. But whoever shall have advanced so far into evil that she secretly receives from anyone letters or any little gifts, if she confesses this of her own accord, let her be spared and let prayer be made for her; but if she is caught and convicted, let her be more gravely corrected according to the judgment of the superior or of the presbyter or even of the bishop. Keep your garments under one custodian, or two, or as many as can suffice to shake them out, lest they be harmed by moth; and just as you are fed from one storeroom, so be clothed from one wardrobe.
And if it can be done, let it not pertain to you what is brought forth for you to wear according to the fitness of the season—whether each of you receive back that which she had laid aside, or another thing which another had had—provided only that to each one what is needful be not denied. But if from this contentions and murmurs arise among you, when some one complains that she has received something worse than she had before, and judges herself unworthy to be so clothed as another sister of hers was clothed—from this prove yourselves, how much you lack in that inner holy habit of the heart, you who quarrel over the habit of the body.
Yet if your weakness is tolerated, so that you receive back what you had laid aside, nevertheless keep in one place, under common custodians, what you lay by—so, indeed, that no one may work anything for herself, whether that from which she may be clothed, or where she may lie, or that with which she may be girded, or covered, or veil her head; but let all your works be done in common, with greater zeal and more frequent eagerness than if you were doing them for yourselves. For charity, of which it is written that 'it seeks not the things that are its own,' is so understood, that it prefers the common to the private, not the private to the common.
And therefore, the more you care for the common property rather than your own, the more you shall know that you have profited—so that in all things which passing necessity uses, that which abides, namely charity, may be pre-eminent. It follows, then, that even that which anyone—man or woman—confers upon her own, whether daughters or persons belonging to her by some tie of kinship established in the monastery, whether a garment or anything else to be reckoned among necessities, be not received secretly, but be in the power of the superior, so that, reduced to common use, it may be furnished to whomever has need. But if anyone conceals property conferred upon her, let her be condemned by the judgment of theft.
Let your garments be washed at the discretion of the superior, whether by yourselves or by fullers, lest an excessive craving for clean clothing contract inward stains upon the soul. Let the washing of your bodies and the use of the baths not be frequent, but be granted at the customary interval of time, that is, once a month. But when the necessity of some infirmity compels the body to be bathed, let it not be put off too long; let it be done without murmuring, on the advice of medicine, so that even if she is unwilling, at the bidding of the superior she may do what must be done for her health. If, however, she is willing and it perhaps is not expedient, let her craving not be obeyed; for sometimes what gives pleasure is believed to do good even when it does harm.
Finally, if there is a hidden pain in the body of one of God's handmaids, let her be believed without hesitation when she tells what pains her; yet if it is not certain whether what gives pleasure is expedient for healing that pain, let a physician be consulted. Let them not go to the baths, or wherever it may be necessary to go, in fewer than three. And she who has need to go somewhere ought to go, not with those whom she herself wishes, but with those whom the superior has commanded.
The care of the sick, or of those who are recovering after sickness, or of those who labour under some weakness even without fever, ought to be enjoined upon someone, so that she herself may ask from the storeroom whatever she perceives each one to need. And let those who are set over the storeroom, or over the clothing, or over the books, serve their sisters without murmuring. Let the books be asked for at a fixed hour each day; those who ask outside that hour, let them not receive them. But as for garments and shoes, when they are needful to one in want, let those under whose keeping they are not delay to give what is requested. Have no quarrels, or end them as quickly as possible, lest anger grow into hatred, and make a beam out of a splinter, and make the soul a murderer.
For that which is written, 'Whoever hates his brother is a murderer,' does not pertain to men alone; but the female sex too has received the precept together with the male sex, which God made first. Whoever has injured another by insult, or by cursing, or even by charging her with a crime, let her remember to heal by satisfaction, as quickly as she can, what she has done; and let her who was injured forgive without dispute. But if they have injured one another, they will have to remit to one another their mutual debts, for the sake of your prayers, which, the more frequent they are, the holier you ought to hold them.
For better is she who, though often tried by anger, nevertheless hastens to beg forgiveness of the one to whom she knows she has done wrong, than she who is more slowly moved to anger yet is more reluctantly inclined to seek pardon. She who is unwilling to forgive her sister, let her not hope to receive the fruit of prayer; but she who is never willing to ask pardon, or does not ask it from the heart, is in the monastery without cause, even if she is not cast out from it. Therefore spare yourselves harsh words; and if they have gone forth from your mouth, let it not irk you to bring forth the remedies from the same mouth from which the wounds were made. But when the necessity of discipline, for the restraining of the younger ones, compels you to speak harsh words,
even if you feel that in these very things you have exceeded due measure, it is not required of you that you should beg pardon of them, lest among those who ought to be subject, while too great a humility is preserved, the authority of governing be broken. Yet pardon must nonetheless be sought from the Lord of all, who knows with how great goodwill you love even those whom you perhaps chastise more than is just. Moreover, the love among you ought not to be carnal but spiritual; for the things which women do, forgetful of modesty, when jesting shamefully and playing with one another, are not to be done, not only by widows and untouched handmaids of Christ established in a holy purpose, but not at all by married women either, nor by virgins about to marry. Let the superior be obeyed as a mother, with due honour preserved,
lest in her God be offended; and much more so the presbyter, who bears the care of you all. That all these things may be observed, and, if anything has not been observed, that it be not passed over negligently, but that care be taken to have it emended and corrected, pertains chiefly to the superior, in such wise that whatever exceeds her measure or her strength she may refer to the presbyter, who has charge of us. But let her not think herself happy in a power that domineers, but in a charity that serves. In honour before men let her be set over you; before God let her be laid low beneath your feet. Concerning all things let her show herself an example of good works. Let her reprove the restless, comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all; let her willingly maintain discipline, and impose it with fear.
And although both are necessary, yet let her seek to be loved by us rather than feared, ever mindful that she must render an account of us to God. Wherefore, by obeying the more, you have mercy not only on yourselves but also on her; because among you, the higher the place in which she is set, the greater the peril in which she is engaged. May the Lord grant that you observe all these things with love, as lovers of spiritual beauty, exhaling the good odour of Christ from a good manner of life, not as bondservants under the law, but as free women established under grace.
And that you may be able to look into yourselves in this little book as in a mirror, and neglect nothing through forgetfulness, let it be read to you once a week; and where you find yourselves doing the things that are written, give thanks to the Lord, the bestower of all good things; but where any one of you sees that something is lacking to herself, let her grieve over the past and beware for the future, praying both that the debt may be forgiven and that she be not led into temptation. 212. TO THE MOST BLESSED LORD AND DESERVEDLY VENERABLE BROTHER AND FELLOW-BISHOP QUINTILIAN, AUGUSTINE SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD.
I commend to your veneration, in the love of Christ, the honourable handmaids of God and choice members of Christ, Galla the widow of holy purpose, and her daughter Simpliciola, a consecrated virgin, subject to her mother in age but set above her in holiness, whom we have nourished with the word of the Lord as best we could; and as it were by my own hand, through this letter, I hand them over to be comforted and to be helped in all things which their advantage or their necessity may require. And this your holiness would doubtless do even without my commendation.