Receive, embracing them, O virgin most worthy of Christ, these gifts which your brother Alcimus fashions for you, and in the light reed-pen regard the weight of the matters, and let the slender song commend its strong author. For as often as you have completed the holy course in order, chanting alternate psalms in sweet melody — which the lyre living in your heart, with tuneful power, desires in chaste harmonies with inner sound — then, though it may please you to play with unpremeditated verse and to release your wearied mind by meditation: here the lyre shall not be dipped in a deceitful stream, whence Pegasus, outstripping the light breezes with his movements, is feigned to have neighed as he hung in assumed flight, while the heavy hoof of the horse was borne on swift wing. But neither shall songs here lead in the Pierian sport, those thrice-three sisters whom fame falsely invents for itself.
True music gives you a brotherly quill, and the pipe that resounds Christ shall be closed to Phoebus. When your mother Audentia brought forth her fourth child, and, fruitful in her last childbirth, gave you to the family, at once she promised to lead a frugal life. And thereafter the care of your dear parents resolved with equal vows to keep a chaste bed. And because you were the beginning of so holy a covenant, you too are offered together to Christ, who at once receives your suckling limbs, dedicated in the very cradle. So once, when the shining earth first gleamed in its new dawning and its seeds gave beautiful fruits, righteous Abel, by faith prompting, had recognized that the lamb — which he led living to the holy altars — bleats to God with innocent bleatings, and by the one head offered the whole flock was found pleasing.
Therefore, when the life-giving water of the font had cherished you, and heavenly grace had now brought forth its pledge, they set no necklaces upon your jeweled neck, nor did a garment clothe you that flashes with spun gold, enclosing its threads with ductile weights. Nor did the Sidonian purple of twice-boiled murex clothe you, nor the purple gleaming with ruddy dye, nor the soft fleeces which the Seres send to the touch. Nor was there gold in your pierced ears, with which hanging pearls would adorn the wounds — precious things indeed, yet stones that would weigh down the cheeks.
But more fully the holy Isaiah describes these things, and tells the various adornments which beautify the limbs — limbs which soon will provide food for the worms to feed upon. And perhaps, while life remains, no one can run through in words the so many savage perils of diseases, which we are all taught to dread before death: that single things are liable to whole deaths, while all bodies are dissolved by their own end, and one final chance suffices to make the rest cease. And why does each one long to adorn a face that will perish, while the inner man lies foul and defiles himself with sin? But when your years had reached the twin lustrum, soon the white robe veils you in unstained garb — a virgin's countenance and becoming habit — and your now mature mind conceives every modesty, above all with flowers.
Not otherwise the barren woman, exulting, when after the losses of her youth she was made fruitful and bore a new offspring, joyfully wove a small garment for her nursling, that Samuel, even then a boy, might learn to be a priest. So the joyful household, fitting you to the holy altars, taught you, worthy, to grow up for the accustomed temple, enrolling you into the bridal chamber and the covenant of the great King. And Christ desires to join to himself the chosen beauty, whom powerful grace enriches with varied adornment.
When the mother, breathing again, anticipated these joys, and beheld the great good conferred on you in your small age — while virtue is entrusted to tender years — and, giving you birth again better than by the body's womb, between hope and fear, though now free by her vow, yet joyful as she is anxious bears such astonished cares, revealing her cause with tears, she then gives such commands: 'Fourth indeed by birth, but first in sacred office, sweet daughter to me, whom I twice bore, to heaven by faith and by flesh, and dedicated to Christ still tender from the womb — hitherto this had been ours, but as time has run on it now befits it to be yours; for that you will be kept, O virgin, the beginning comes from me and passes to you; you will begin to be able to do all things when the will is present: the footsteps glow, by which, following the path, you may ascend to heaven.'
Nor are examples lacking at home. For consider how many crowns our lineage, now flourishing in virgins, has sent to heaven — virgins whom mother Severiana, raising them by holy doctrine, desires also to join you to. And Aspida, not much older, now rejoicing, once, her consecrated head veiled, took up your gifts, joining twelve years to the holy altars. Though the final lot bore her hence by a swift death, yet nothing is sudden for those ever ready to depart. Look now upon the pillar which shines with a twin virgin, and the exceptional glory, of whom you, rightly akin, represent Fuscina by being Fuscina; nor less does she, mighty in piety — if her name be sounded in a Greek voice — signify her own mind by the name she has taken.
Though their ages yield to them a well-earned summit, and their life excels all in a lofty citadel, yet if you follow these noble mothers with your heart, they will rejoice to be surpassed while you advance, and of their own accord will give the highest palm to you as you outstrip them, with the vow as your mistress. Saying these things, she urged the tender senses with holy exhortation, kindling them to the love of virginity. So the mother fruitful in womb, more fruitful in spirit, the mighty Maccabean woman, blessed in the death of her offspring, rejoicing to be bereaved, with a spirit conquering old age, teaches by exhorting her children not to yield to the world, and inflames pious frenzies to brave deeds. Why should I now recount the answers you gave, stronger than your tender age, bearing a spirit beyond your years? No small page has undertaken your praise.
The outcome will come victorious when the time is fulfilled; praise is better sung when, triumph already proclaiming, the completed rewards shall be rendered to your deeds. Now it befits me to warn you, amid your amazement, with a cautious voice, to share and turn over anxious cares with you, and to aid your labors with encouraging words, while varied chance fights on through frequent perils, while slippery life runs along a fragile path, while the trodden serpent snatches at your footsteps — the serpent which the sole, ascending on the right bank, may crush. The present ages hold nothing free of strain, nor is secure rest given in perishable flesh. For the good are often turned aside, virtue perishes overwhelmed, and the rewards won of past praise depart.
And most often the mind, suddenly kindled with heat, which lately had been rigid, is wont to leave the world and to restrain its sins with a sudden rein. So the fates change the alternating wheel, that the impious may hope for pardon, and the just, profiting by fearing, may add a heap to his great virtues. For if perhaps the zeal of holy labor slackens, and lazy leisures dissolve the accustomed cares, the glory of a ruinous life slips headlong. Merit cannot stand still; if it does not gain by going, it loses by returning; one must strive with ample strength, so that the footsteps may keep to the narrow enough path. For he who, playing amid worldly things, now runs on the easy road of a broad street with its slackening space, a stricter prison shall bind with a cruel lot.
Only grant pardon to the love of him who exhorts you and warns you as you run, though he himself scarcely follows: the slow one urges shortcuts upon the swift step. For to the teaching which we sing in poor verse, you come already better taught, who, younger in birth but prior in religion, have laid down the laws of living. And following in years, you stand above in the lot of merits. But if we attain it, let it perhaps be thought ours; yet what we follow is this of yours: the conversion of the brethren, owed to your pious example, regards you as its author, and offers in you the first-fruits of the sacred harvest; but holy faith declares that with a kindred heart the shared burden may lighten the brotherly weight.
You, sister, who bear a pious burden from the breast, have — subject with a faithful neck — to carry the yoke not of the flesh but of the law, and not to go into the bonds of a spouse: to hate worldly ways and to traverse pure ones; on that side to refuse the marriage-bed, on this to seek Christ as bridegroom; thus to have despised the wedding-torches is to be warm with pious love, so that hearts sluggish to pleasure grow fervent for labor, to know no man yet to bring forth such offspring as no sad chance can ever take from you. Bereaved, you will not lament the pledges of a fruitful life, nor, a widow, will you fear to survive an everlasting spouse, being yourself free of evil; nor will the sentence touch you by which Eve, parent of offspring and of death, is compelled — bearing slain offspring while the guilt lives on.
She who, subject to a man, must suffer the lord of her bed, serves, enduring wedlock in an obscene couch. Thus a captive of the bed, though she bear an empty name and be called consort by the vain image of a wife, alone under the yoke, she is pressed to draw an unequal lot. And when the ten long months have brought their loathings, and the heavy womb is distended with the finished fetus, the seeds which had been the father's — these weights inflict harsh pains on the mother as her womb swells. For when the entrails are loosed in the struggled childbirth, she alone pays, hanging in so great a peril of the flesh for what the two joined in; hope perhaps soothes her in her pain, if the son brought forth into the light should live; but it most often happens that, groaning, she brings forth a dead one. Often too, when the offspring is not even born at the time of its death, the mother's limbs, dying with it, give it a double tomb.
That is now the lighter case, however often it happens, that the parent then perishes alone, and, the burden poured forth, sends out her soul together with her offspring. But what if the pledge, perhaps relieved and long nourished, is snatched away by death — the sole hope which so often looked to it — and all perishes which the joys promised themselves in the vows conceived? Heavier than all these is this: if perchance envious death should snatch away the tender child that lacks the heavenly font, begotten by a hard lot for Gehenna. And he who, when he ceases to be his mother's son, will belong to perdition; then the sad parents wish they had not brought forth the limbs which they begot only for the flames. Who could recount the perils of so great a misfortune, into which the glory of beloved flesh is dragged?
But far and wide the freedom by which you are bound with the law can distinguish your lot, so that the impious bonds of the deceiving world do not constrain you. You follow Mary, to whom it fell by a high gift to rejoice in the twin crown of virgin and mother, when she conceived God in the flesh, and the Creator of heaven entered the closed womb, unlocking its mysteries. Sprung from a mother, yet one whom he himself had formed, he chose the shining womb from which he would proceed — he alone who would arrange the proper birth of his own flesh, and foreknew the day far off, and saw the time in which he was to be born: the will preceded the limbs. God the Word himself, clothed, having taken flesh, who with the Father commands, serves in the maternal body, and the Lord, who had ordained the age, takes up also a servant's form. His seasons he has through the Father; through the mo—
—ther he knows no seed. She indeed was fruitful, who by a chaste burden merited to bear her own Maker and to bring forth the eternal Lord; yet neither will the glory of so great a deed be lacking to you, if, believing, conceiving Christ in your heart, you bring forth pious buds of works for heaven. 'If anyone,' he says, 'shall fulfill our law in due order, he shall always be to me brother, and mother, and sister.' Do you see how the heavenly image lacks sex, which the inner man retains in his allotted mind? The Redeemer, rising from death, gave an example when he thus set the feminine honor before the males. Christ tasted the death taken up for our sin, hanging on the height of the cross without sin. And the soul, which soon would return into his living limbs, he had breathed out from his holy mouth while still fixed by the nail.
The gathered crowd deserted such spectacles of the people, and could not bear the signs which the mournful heaven threatens. For the sun, veiled, its face turned away from the world, had yielded to nocturnal mournings hours that were not their own, and itself gave entrance to strange darkness, the seasons changed with a great overturning of things. It was night in the heights, and the lower regions saw light; the earth trembled, and with great effort the walls swayed, their crests shaken at the topmost peak. The rocks felt the motion, bidden to descend from their ancient places, and, dashed together, gave forth new sounds. Amid this din, while all fled, those mothers resolve, though trembling, to persist, that a wakeful and thus living care might serve the holy tomb, and, present, pay the honor of their vow.
They prepare rich linens smeared with fragrant juice, which, preserving, would keep the body safe. With these expenses love was preparing its mournful gifts, believing it was paying the last office. And when he, rising again, had thus quickly forestalled these things — the gift which was believed needful to be kept, which he did not need — Christ is appeased by the gift. In return for it, grace responding at once grants that human eyes should behold angelic countenances. A splendid garment shone white upon the heavenly body, and a ruddy radiance had sprinkled the face on every side, that the heavenly word might sound to the worthy mothers; the angel addresses them thus with holy mouth: 'By your feminine sex surpass manly minds, and do not tremble, most valiant hearts, at the new tumult.'
'These signs seek out adversaries; for you no cause of fear remains, whom the care of pious love confirms. You seek, I know, Jesus, lately entombed with solemn burial in the precious seat of the sepulchre. But it is fitting to remember what, foreknowing, he said with faithful mouth before his death — that he would be kept no more than two nights; and now this is the third day that fulfills his promises: behold, the tomb lies open, which he, rising again with death conquered, has deserted empty.' Thus the lofty minister spoke by commanded speech, and, about to scatter to the world the gifts of the life-giving triumph, granted them first to rejoice, and lifted them out of grief.
The mothers now went fearless, with joyful breast, keeping believing hearts to the salvation they had conceived, when Christ offers himself in their midst as they walk, bids himself be recognized, and greets them with gentle speech. 'Go,' he says, 'and now report these commands to our disciples, that they may know the master has risen.' They fasten kisses upon his embraced feet, and hasten back to the disciples with eager mind, and teach the teachers; and the things to be scattered through the world, the instructed first learn from feminine words. They recognize that it is the soul rather than the sex that lives. Common therefore is the virtue, common the peril, for mothers and for men alike; there is no distance of heart: to will the right is at hand, if grace holds firm for both — for which, nonetheless, let life sweat with attentive labor.
Or what do gifts profit a man, if with a loosened mind base idleness should squander the bestowed gift? Effort loves aid: for who would help the idle one, or join virtue to sluggish sleep? That heavenly King, preparing to depart from the earth, gave silver to his servants as each was strong in ability — five minae to the first, a double portion by lot to the second. And the third, unequal to great things, received one. Then, thus departing, he at once instructs all his servants: 'Now, if any of you shall be found faithful with devoted mind, to be known by this gain — by what virtue each is powerful, with what art endowed. Double my treasures, and polish them with use, lest a livid surface stain with black rust the shining metal which you receive with an unspotted face.'
'If I return, rewards shall be added to just merits,' he said, and by his departure sought the heavenly kingdoms. Two of the home-born servants applied themselves in the contest of zeal. The one, swift, lent out part of the shining heap, dispensing much to the poor with generous gift, and whatever is bestowed on the needy grows into heaps. The other, expounding the mysteries of the sacred word, rejoices that the interest grows with holy gain, and, desirous of the right, adds to his life while he preaches. But he alone who had received the coin of least weight laid his purse sunk in dug-out pits, and, flowing in degenerate luxury, chose to live so. But the judge at last, the time of the world being finished, returns; and the senseless servant, who had despised his delay, scorns his return.
Then he bids them all to declare by reckoning what fruit of their transacted business they render to him who demands it after so long a time. The two ministers bring forth silver doubled in mass, and report their dealings with joyful face. That third, slothful one brings forth the drachma hidden in the earth, which, drinking in the contagions of the clinging mire, had lost its own features, its light shut in. The lord then rebukes him with terrible mouth: 'Has such forgetfulness of me held you sluggish, slothful servant, and has care for my return so fled from you? The silver which you received pure with shining light — behold, you bring it back foul and tarnished. For the once-known form has lain hidden from me, nor, answering as it often used to, does the likeness of my face appear that was assigned to you;'
'But if they had been put to use, and the entrusted coins had touched the table of my altar, the coin inscribed with our Lord's name would have grown. Now therefore, you faithful servants, bring all forth, that the final lot may add to the useful and take away from the idle. This wicked one, unworthy in few things, will be worthy of none: whoever knows the master's will and despises it is beaten with many stripes, while he who errs unknowing is beaten with few.' Therefore come, with loins girded for brave battles, come with armed mind, nor, a woman, dread the war which the mind wages; for this glory of your sex has long been known to you by frequent reading.
Nor do I think you unaware how Deborah once led the marshaled troops after the brave battle-trumpets, and a woman, taking up the standard, went before the ranks, encouraging the wondering men, whom she herself, by her leadership, warning by example and word, kindled against the foe. But after the spirited leader-chief drove on the bands, kindling arms invigorated with frenzies, the barbaric forces fell; all the enemy's strength is dissolved, and wherever the woman shows herself, the scattering men turn their backs, and, seeking a hiding-place, they count it victory if they but live.
Then even that greatest one himself — whom the form of a giant's mass had joined in body, and, lifting him up, had put forth the immense citadel of his head — King Sisera, his bundle of weapons cast aside, takes flight unaccompanied, fearing that his lofty body be marked, and that his great bulk betray the fugitive. But after, thinking himself hidden and received under a roof, he loosed his soft eyes in perpetual sleep, a woman lays even him low, and as he lies upon the ground the hammer transfixes his temples with a driven nail. Thus that too was in every way a feminine triumph.
But you, virgin of God, whom holy manners adorn — here modesty, there faith — stronger than your inner years, wage the wars which the savage enemy stirs against the just. Let faithful hope be a fortunate helmet upon your head, let the belt of precious modesty gird your loins, let the breastplate of justice bind your garments, and in place of a sword let the sharp word ever protect you. These riches of virtue, these consolations of war, describing thus the various battles of the mind with the body, Prudentius once sang with prudent mouth. For there Virginity, a warrior-maid and mighty in full strength, comes armed; whom foul lust attacks and calls into contests with vain effort. So may the rival serpent feel you a warrior, and when the battles, once you were provoked, yield you the palm, may you joyfully bear the highest trophy from the trampled foe.
For whatever the divine volumes of the sacred law teach by eloquence and meaning; what that ancient prophet of the world proclaims, unfolding the world's beginnings, whether he weaves histories or perhaps figures; the great things which the diverse ages of many kings accomplished in succeeding order after Ruth; or the psalms which they wrote in thrice-fifty songs after the reprobate Saul and the Davidic reigns; whatever peaceful Solomon, amid wide scepters, said obscure in meaning through clear proverbs; what the twice-eight prophets saw after them; what gentle Job, shut in, spoke with open wound. Why should I mention Esther, and the falsehoods of chaste Judith, when the satrap is inflamed by her adorned face with guile, when the woman goes mocking to the obscene bed, and, his head cut off, subdues his fierce gaze?
What Tobit, seeing better in his blinded body; the secret things which the author Ezra, beholding, wrote down. Whatever grace, succeeding after the ancient law, thunders forth, and the miracles of the New Testament — here cries out the face of a man, you there the lion's, and the swift eagle, and the ox strong in contest. Thence what the four times three, the lambs of pure minds, did, scattering seeds through the whole world. What the twice-seven epistles of pious Paul scatter; what Peter and James teach; what Jude; and John himself, who reports the beheld secrets of heaven. Nay, and the many mysteries which the truthful expositors set forth, worthy, in their little books — all these you, holding with a thirsty mind, have drunk.
Nor, if our poets have sung anything sacred, does it lie hidden from you; recognizing it as you read, you keep the things laid up in store, and commend others' songs by your own singing. Why should I recount the whole? Use your learned senses, and turn to the work of virtue with manly zeal what is known to you, or what you have run through in reading. For unless a faithful life be joined to doctrine, to have known it, when not observed, will harm the more grievously. After the Lord hungered, when perchance a fig-tree spread with light foliage is seen by him as he journeys — and it was not yet the time to pluck ripe fruit from the aforesaid tree — as soon as he found it clothed only with leaves, yet bare of bud, the useless adornment, altogether idly green, is abhorred; suddenly the root is struck, breathed on by heat, and, its covering of branches laid aside, the trunk withered.
By such a sign we are instructed to know the law: lest the servant of Christ, confessing with word alone, lack living work while the name is professed. For if we think ourselves worshipers of Christ and holy, this too aggravates our guilt, unless deeds follow the word. So too virginity, devoted to sacred modesty, needs adjoined virtues; and unless, keeping the mind untouched, it joins it with a chaste body, it succumbs to vices; nor can it rightly call the flesh chaste which an adulterous spirit thus corrupts. Anger, fury, grief, envy, discord, excess, a double tongue, a tight-clenched hand, unloosed pleasure — when these commit adultery with the heart of man, then with the seed of death they nourish the offspring of death.
Behold to what every one is led who, while she boasts herself in the virgin name, does not know that within her mind swells pregnant with sins. Behold, here is one example for you out of many, by which you may know the rest. When the Lord happened to teach the people, with vigilant care, to know the last time, to await the day on which the judge threatens the world, he compares them to virgins sealed with holy chrism, and shows these ten to us at the head of the lesson, of whom, however, rich wisdom adorns five, while dull sloth tempted the stupid sense of the others. One rest embraces them alike as they slumber, and sleep, signifying death, weighed down their eyes. Scarcely, perhaps, had the middle of their repose passed, and it was that hour of night in which Christ, having taken back the flesh,
had broken through the barred gates, the hinge of death burst asunder — now, O hell, your gates — and, spurning the sepulchre, was returning joyful into the light, the darkness conquered. A sudden shout resounded and breaks the silences: 'At last the bridegroom is here; let the nocturnal torpor depart from the body; hasten swiftly, O prudent maidens.' At once all leap up, and, their beds left behind, fitted their flames with the light they sought. But then five, in whose heart was the greater diligence, though they hasten, yet had the anxious care to add oil to the vessels they took up, and with rich liquid to break the squalid night with armed fires. But the other part, which left the neglected oil behind, taking up its flame-bearing torches, lifted them up in vain.
A tiny flame of the stirred light flashes up, but the heat, lacking strength, forsakes the failing lamp; the flame runs over the dry wick, and amid the misty coils of pitch-black smoke the ashes, growing in a sluggish heap, vanish away. When they see themselves unworthy of such array — they who should meet the bridegroom now drawing near at hand — slow anxiety rouses a bashful toil with reluctant motions. Then with humble prayer they beg in foolish voices that a hand stretched out might revive the drowsy fires, and that rich wisdom might share out its own oil. The sisters answer alike with these words: 'Pitiable indeed is the cause of your misfortunes, yet here each one brings no more oil than suffices for herself, since the supply of the vessels is fixed, and the full measure keeps its own liquor.'
Nor is it right to divide or squander the sought-for liquid, lest, once scattered, the fuel fail the hollow lamps, and while our loss would gain you profit, all the lights at once grow numb with weary flames. Rejected by such words and by that sad rebuff, they roam wherever the trade of the place is busy, and the vendors' stalls; but while they depart, behold, the bridegroom has entered the chamber and led in those who were ready, and the door, leaving the wandering sisters outside, shut them out. You see how the name of virgin honour perishes, unless the holy fire is borne into the heavenly bridal chambers. Happy that band which, provident with generous gifts, nourished its kindled light with pure richness. For only so much oil is poured into the ample vessels as one has held out in pity to the needy who ask.
Hence the Lord admonishes us to bear burning lamps in our hands: this is the work, this the glory of a bright life. Let there be at hand for you, then, piety, patience, and virtue — but virtue of soul; for the constancy of mind has at times borne up to heaven maidens frail in flesh. Of Eugenia the fame was long most renowned throughout the whole world, while she gives her life for the name of Christ. Yet before that, the woman had advanced into brave deeds, when, with a throng of saints crowding round, she became an abbot, and, fulfilling a father's part, concealed the mother beneath a covering. But after she shone forth to all by her holy speech, and in her youthful years ruled old men heavy with merits and years and venerable through long religion;
The one impatient of righteousness — that serpent who at all times crawls and contrives a thousand arts of harming, and inflames with the goads of lust by which he longs to violate her fame — thereby gave her a crown. He stirs up someone to feign that Eugenia is kindled with mad love for a girl and burns with manly passion. The troubled crowd of elders gathers, grieving that so great a crime, a dejected mind — a man, as they supposed — could of late have loosed so austere a life, and that, bereft of its highest prelate, tottering perfection laments that the flesh can do anything. This youth is led to the forum, and, still a monk, enters the savage tribunal; the concord of the fraud prevails, and now and again the public power, ignorant of the secret, held the accused guilty, inflamed only with sinister hatred.
Then, conscious of her own sex and of her chaste heart, the woman is conquered that she may conquer, now disclosing the fraud; though outwardly compelled to confess the flesh, yet, the inner self preserved, she remains a hero. Ever safe was the guardianship of the chaste vow: however the cunning fraud of the wretched world assails, and stretches out snares with tricks, and weaves lies, the mind ignorant of guilt does not come to headlong ruin. And those whom the raging enemy afflicts with deceitful craft, patience shakes and tests in holy fire to be purified. Once the envious hand of his brothers had sold the young man, and the land of Memphis held Joseph as a slave;
He indeed endured a master, when, falsely charged with having willed the crime — the shameful wrong which he had shunned — he bore, enduring, the prison-house, the bonds, the chains, while the sun, unrolling its span, had joined two years together. Now he had forgotten the light; now his hair, nourished in leanness with flowing lock, touched his back. But, with God quickening it, his mind, shut in by no darkness, foresees the mystery — whatever the outcome afterward fulfils. At last, when he is brought forth, glory, not merely pardon, is eagerly conferred; and then, himself entreated with prayers that he might willingly set the diadem upon his captive head, he exchanges exile for a kingdom, a slave for a prince. Thus does he receive the rewards of a heart kept pure.
After him, who could ever extol Susanna with worthy praises, who once in her tender years overcame the wicked desires of the elders and their conspiring frenzies? At first the same cause seized them man by man in separate counsel, and each alone promised himself the hope of the sin; but the base fire burning in their hearts fused their minds together in the furnace of the two men's crime. They come together, for so it chanced on one day, so that with feigned departure they might return from different directions. And they came at once into the grove, and, revealed by turns, the pleasure blazing in each heart is laid bare in exchange. Straightway, deceiving the unwary girl by fraud, they assailed her together;
they demand that she consent before ever the report of disgrace should be moved against the rebellious woman, and threaten that soon, unless she yields, the crime is to be turned back upon herself. Having confessed their ardour, they alike bring forth their prearranged lies, and lay open the snares which they wished to weave. Doubtful, she long struggles within herself, and, wavering, is tossed as to where the weights of her uncertain mind incline: the law forbids to sin, and again infamy terrifies. Hence again she attempts to soften their harsh furies with entreaties, and to quench the obscene flames with tears. But after that the kindred lust had overcome the elders, unmoved and bound fast by no prayers or warnings —
the woman, her mind kindled with illustrious modesty, then resolved to die chaste, lest by so great a crime the traffic of the flesh should surround her wretched life. She calls heaven to witness and refuses empty repute, content with her own judgement, while she commends her knowing heart to the faith of the Most High and keeps it for the things to come. Yet He, the searcher of the secret, chose rather to furnish an open trial on the spot, and to unlock the hidden crime, and to bring forth the frauds set as snares. That boy, the younger one, was watching the city stirred with vain weeping — he himself destined afterward to be companion to the three youths, whom the Chaldean wrath, hotter than the flames, cast into the surging fire when its command was despised. As the drawn-in heat grew alike, here raged fury, there faith, while the fire, made gentler, served the saints, and the coal enclosed them with a tepid glow;
until the satrap, marvelling, commanded the fires to cease, and the throng of flames girt those standing round. Equalling these in merits, the neighbouring virtue of Daniel curbed the dreadful mouths of the gnashing lions, while they, though first kindled by the goads of hunger and rage, and at once, with their jaws bridled, laying their bodies low, lick him unharmed amid their fasting — while yet he takes the food which the prophet, hanging by the crown of his head, balanced by an angelic hand and sped through the void, treading the airs beneath with unmoved steps, brought in, himself borne in, a burden with a burden. Daniel received the meal sent down from above. The steaming dishes migrate from far-off lands and preserve their flavours in a foreign abode.
There, then, the beardless boy chanced to see Susanna hurried off to torments, whom the crowd, ignorant of the truth, had before condemned unheard, and all together strove to behold the guilty death of the innocent woman; when suddenly the youth rushes into the midst of the throng, chastising the kindled uproar with a tender voice: why in so great an assembly does no one judge the case, and he cries aloud that, being free, he will not run to an unjust death? Straightway, at the boy's word, the compliant crowd, deeply moved, restrained its passions; he himself is appointed judge and interrogator of the elders, through whom the true way might come to light. He questions them apart, what the order of the crime is; but while each gives a discordant answer, they confess the joint deed with divided voice. Then fear seizes them all alike:
on every side a shout is raised, and all the people overwhelm the authors of the crime. And God is praised, who never forsakes the prayers of the good and shows his help in due season. And yet prior to these is she who, in chaste virginity, offers her untouched body to everlasting vows. For if a girl marrying by earthly law, to have kept her marriage-bed and known one couch alone, is praised only by a mortal judging assembly, reckon then how much is laid up there for virgins, whither Christ calls them hence by their merits, where from his heavenly seat the Arbiter of the world shall part the human race into portions. Lifting the lambs on his right hand, that he may despise those on the left as goats, the angelic choirs shall stand marvelling at the deeds of the good and praising them: to all in common shall the merit of the flesh, its course run out, be laid open;
no fraud shall be able to hide anything in the darkness, or to spirit away the faults that are marked. There let a well-known life, standing firm, be sought for you, where the just Judge enriches you, dispensing rewards. Once it was tersely said by the Master's mouth, while the busy diligence of Martha, serving in her duty, flourishes, and holds her sister attentive by the power of the word — that her care was better than food, she who was worthy of the everlasting feeding. Then Martha, uttering empty complaints to the Lord: 'O teacher,' she says, 'do you not see that I alone am harried with the preparation, and this my sister lends no relief?' To whom Christ perhaps thus replies: 'There are many things which hold you bound, but the cause of rest is better, and the best part, chosen by Mary, shall not be able to be taken from her.' So, sister, while the ages blaze with their own cares, cease not to keep for yourself the chosen part.
The whole kindred has earned you as its foremost patroness. Now we follow you as standard-bearer, and, as you bear Christ's banners onward, the lineage of our forebears marches after them; though the world had endowed them with ancient honour and displays them by titles ever springing from a noble origin, yet the divine emblem more adorned those who wore it, in that by their own order they earned holy sees. I will not now recount for you your ancestors and forefathers, whom an illustrious life rendered worthy priests: look rather upon your father, taken up as a bishop for holy things. And while your father and your uncle, great on every side, are pleased to take up, after their secular offices, the burden of the peoples, receive those humble ones whom the Church, binding them by brotherhood, has joined, alike in office, to the fellowship of the fathers.
For whom let it not weary you to pay unceasing thanks to Christ, or to pour forth tears; that none of the number of your brothers may be lacking to you when you receive the rewards worthy of your deeds, and, made a mother of your forebears, as victrix you shall be joined, rejoicing, to the virgin's crown.