It is a difficult task to write to a little girl who does not understand what you say, whose mind you do not know, of whose will you make promises at your peril, so that, according to the exordium of that illustrious orator, the hope in her is more to be praised than the reality. For to what should you exhort a girl who longs for cakes, who prattles in her mother's lap with babbling voice, to whom honey is sweeter than words? Should she hear the depths of the Apostle, who delights more in old wives' tales? Should she perceive the riddles of the prophets, whom the sterner face of her nurse frightens? Should she understand the majesty of the Gospel, at whose lightnings every mortal sense is dulled? Should I exhort her to be subject to her parent, who with tender hand strikes her laughing mother?
So let our Pacatula receive this little letter to read later on; meanwhile let her only learn the elements of the little letters, join syllables, learn names, put words together, and, that she may practice these with tinkling voice, let there be set before her as prizes little cakes of honeyed sweetness and whatever is pleasant to the taste, whatever blooms in flowers, whatever glitters in gems, whatever charms in dolls; and let her hasten to receive them. Meanwhile let her try with tender thumb to draw out the threads, let her often break the strands, that one day she may not break them; after her labor let her frolic in play, hang upon her mother's neck, snatch the kisses of her kinsfolk, chant psalms for a reward, love what she is compelled to say, so that it may be not toil but delight, not necessity but choice.
Some women are wont, when they have vowed a daughter to future virginity, to clothe her in a dark tunic and cover her with a somber little mantle, to take away the fine linens, to allow no gold on neck or head — with truly good counsel, that she may learn to lack in tenderness what she will afterward be compelled to lay aside. To others the opposite seems best. «For why,» they say, «if she herself does not have such things, should she not see others who have them? Womankind is a covetous sort, and we know that many even of remarkable modesty, though they adorn themselves for none of the men, yet gladly adorn themselves for their own sake. Rather let her be sated by having, and see others praised who do not have these things. And it is better that, being sated, she despise them, than that by not having she should desire to have.»
They say that the Lord did something of the sort to the people of Israel, when to those craving the fleshpots of Egypt he supplied swarms of quails even to nausea and vomiting; and that many men who had first known the world could more easily go without bodily pleasure once tried, than those who from boyhood have not known lust; for by the one class known things are trampled underfoot, by the other unknown things are sought after; the former avoid, by repenting, the snares of a sweetness which they have fled, while the latter, flattered by the enticements of the flesh and by the sweet titillation of the caressing body, while they think it honey, find noxious poisons; for honey drips from the lips of a harlot woman, which for a time fattens the throat of those who feed on it, but afterwards is found more bitter than gall.
Hence too, in the Lord's sacrifices honey is not offered, and wax is despised, which is the lodging of honey; oil is kindled in the temple of God, which is pressed from the bitterness of olives; the Passover too is eaten with bitter herbs in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and whoever has these will endure persecution in the world. Hence too the prophet mystically sings: «I sat alone, because I was filled with bitterness.» What then? Must one revel in adolescence, that afterward luxury may be more strongly despised? God forbid, they say; for «let each one remain in the calling wherein he was called. Is any called being circumcised,» that is, a virgin?
«Let him not bring on the foreskin,» that is, let him not seek those garments of skins of marriage, in which Adam, cast out of the paradise of virginity, was clothed. «Is any called in the foreskin,» that is, having a wife and surrounded by the skin of matrimony? Let him not seek the nakedness of virginity and of eternal chastity, which he has once ceased to have; but let him «use his own vessel in sanctification and chastity,» and drink from his own fountains, and not seek the scattered cisterns of the brothels, which cannot hold the purest waters of chastity. Hence too the same Paul, in the same chapter, disputing about virginity and marriage, calls those established in matrimony slaves of the flesh, and free those who without any yoke of marriage serve the Lord in all liberty.
What we say, we do not say universally, but we treat of a part; nor do we speak of all, but of certain ones. Our discourse is directed to both sexes, not only to the weaker vessel. You are a virgin: why does the society of a woman delight you? Why do you commit a frail and patched-together raft to the great waves, and, without a care, mount the grave peril of an uncertain voyage? You know not what you desire, and yet you so join yourself to her as though either you had desired before, or — to speak most lightly — you were going to desire afterward. «But this sex is fitter for service.» Choose then an old woman, choose a homely one, choose one of proven continence in the Lord. Why does youth, why does a beauty, why does a wanton woman delight you?
You use the baths, you go about with glowing skin and ruddy complexion, you feed on flesh, you overflow with riches, you are wrapped in costly raiment — and do you believe that you sleep secure beside a deadly serpent? Do you not dwell in the same lodging, at least by night? But spending whole days in conversation of this kind, why do you sit alone with a woman alone and not with witnesses? Even though you yourself do not sin, you seem to others to sin, and are an example to the wretched who transgress on the authority of your name. You too, virgin or widow, why are you detained by so long a discourse with a man? Why, left alone with him alone, do you not fear?
At least let the necessity of belly and bladder compel you, that you go outside, that you leave him for a while — you with whom you have dealt more freely in this matter than with a brother, and far more modestly with a husband. But you ask something about the holy Scriptures: ask it in public; let your handmaids hear, let your companions hear. «Everything that is made manifest is light.» A good discourse does not seek secret places, but rather delights in its own praises and in the testimony of many. This excellent master despises men, scorns brethren, and sweats over the secret instruction of a single little woman. I have turned aside a little from the road on the occasion of others; and while I instruct — nay, nourish — the infant Pacatula, I have suddenly taken up wars against many who are ill at peace with me. Let me return to my purpose.
Let the female sex be joined to its own sex; let her not know — nay, let her fear — to play with boys. Let her know no immodest word, and, if perchance in the tumult of a household running to and fro she hears something base, let her not understand it. Let her hold her mother's nod for words, and admonition for command. Let her love her as a parent, be subject to her as a mistress, fear her as a teacher. But when the seventh year of her age has received the little girl, untutored and toothless, and she begins to blush, to know what to keep silent, to hesitate over what to say, let her learn the psalter by heart, and up to the years of puberty let her make the books of Solomon, the Gospels, the Apostles, and the prophets the treasure of her heart. Nor let her go out too freely into public, nor always seek the crowds of the churches.
Let her have all her delights in her own chamber. Let her never see young men, never see curly-haired dandies who wound the soul through the ears with the sweetness of their voice. Let the wantonness of girls too be repelled, who, the more freely they approach, the more difficult they are to avoid, and who teach in secret what they have learned, and violate the shut-up Danaë with the talk of the crowd. Let her attendant be a companion, her governess a guardian, not given to much wine, not, according to the Apostle, idle and full of words, but sober, grave, skilled in wool-work, and speaking only such things as instruct a girl's mind to virtue. For as water in a channel follows the finger that goes before it, so a soft and tender age is flexible in either direction, and is drawn wherever you lead it.
Wanton and foppish young men are wont, by flatteries, by affability, by little gifts, to seek an approach for themselves to the wards through the nurses; and when they have gently entered, from sparks they kindle conflagrations, and little by little advance to shamelessness, and can by no means be prevented, that little verse being verified against them: «You could scarcely blame what you allow to become a habit.» It is shameful to say, and yet it must be said: noble women, destined to have nobler suitors, couple themselves with men of the meanest condition and with slaves, and under the name of religion and the shadow of continence sometimes desert their husbands, following Alexanders as Helens, and fearing no Menelaus. These things are seen, are bewailed, and are not avenged, because the multitude of sinners furnishes the license to sin.
O shame! The world falls in ruin, and in us our sins do not fall. The renowned city and head of the Roman empire was swallowed up in a single conflagration. There is no region that does not have exiles of hers. Into ashes and embers have fallen churches once sacred, and yet we are eager for avarice. We live as though about to die tomorrow, and we build as though about to live forever in this world. With gold our walls, with gold our ceilings, with gold gleam the capitals of our columns — and naked and hungry, before our doors, in the person of the poor Christ dies. We read that Aaron the high priest went out to meet the raging flames, and, kindling the censer, restrained the wrath of God; the great priest stood between death and life, nor did the fire dare to advance beyond his footsteps. God speaks to Moses:
«Let me alone, and I will destroy this people.» When he says «Let me alone,» he shows himself to be held back from doing what he threatened; for the prayers of his servant hindered God's power. Who, think you, is there under heaven who could now withstand the wrath of God, who could go to meet the flames and, according to the Apostle, say: «I could wish myself anathema for my brethren»? The flocks perish with their shepherds, because «as the people, so the priest.» Moses spoke with the affection of compassion: «If thou wilt forgive this people, forgive; but if not, blot me out of thy book.» He wishes to perish with the perishing, and is not content with his own salvation. For «the glory of a king is a multitude of people.»
In these times was Pacatula born; amid these rattles she plucks her first age, destined to know tears before laughter, to feel weeping before joy. Scarcely has she entered, and already the exit is upon her; she thinks the world was always such. She knows not the past, flees the present, longs for the future. That I should dictate these things in hasty speech, and that, after the deaths of friends and perpetual mourning, an old man should write to an infant by a long restoration, your love, brother Gaudentius, has impelled me; and I preferred to give little rather than nothing at all to one who asks, because in the one case the will is oppressed by grief, and in the other there is a dissembling of friendship. TO DARDANUS, ON THE LAND OF PROMISE.
You ask, Dardanus, most noble of Christians, most Christian of the noble, what is the land of promise which the Jews, returning from Egypt, possessed — since it had already been possessed before by their forefathers, and therefore was not promised but restored. For you use these very words at the close of your letter. In asking this you seem to perceive that which pleases very many of our own: that another land of promise is to be sought, of which David too speaks in the psalm: «I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living»; and the Lord in the Gospel: «Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land.»
Assuredly David, when he sang these things in the spirit, was in the land of promise, and not only dwelt within the borders of Judea, but had stood forth as victor over many surrounding nations, which extended from the torrent of Egypt, which is Rhinocorura, as far as the river Euphrates — saying in another place: «Into Idumaea will I stretch out my shoe; the foreigners shall be subject to me.» How then did he believe himself to be receiving what he already possessed by victory? And lest perchance he leave it ambiguous to Jewish readers what that land is which he desired to see, he shows it by his very speech, saying: «I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.»
Therefore the land of Judaea, which was under his dominion, is not the land of the living—that is, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, concerning whom the Lord says in the question about the resurrection, 'He is not the God of the dead, but of the living'—but rather the land and region of the dead, concerning whom He speaks in Ezekiel, 'The soul that has sinned, the same shall die,' and, 'The dead shall not praise thee, O Lord, but we who live,' who at the resurrection shall go to meet the Lord and Saviour, as the Apostle says: 'For this I say to you in the word of the Lord, that we who live, who are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall not go before those who sleep.' Of these Jeremiah also speaks: 'Those who forsake Him shall be written upon the earth.' And what He promises:
'I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord'—this plainly draws us to a spiritual understanding. For what other good things did this king seek, or of what did he stand in need, who was of such great power that his son Solomon, made rich by the wealth won through him, than whom no one in the whole world was wealthier, was content with his portion? Rather, in the land of the living he sought those good things which 'eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love Him.' But what is said in the Gospel, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth,' according to the letter seems to contradict itself.
For the promise of the land is not for the gentle and meek, who often through their very meekness lose even what has been left them by their parents, but for men strong and violent, who are most ready for wars. Thus also in the forty-fourth Psalm, which under the name of Solomon is referred to the mystery of Christ and His Church, it is written: 'Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty. In thy comeliness and thy beauty set out, prosper, and reign, because of meekness and justice and truth; and thy right hand shall lead thee wonderfully.' This is He who in another Psalm spoke: 'Remember, O Lord, David and all his meekness,' and again, 'The Lord takes up the meek,' and more openly in the Gospel:
'Learn of me, for I am humble and meek of heart.' As a type of Him, Moses too is described as the meekest of all men who were upon the earth. This, as we have said, is the land of the living, in which the good things of the Lord are prepared for holy and meek men—things which, before the coming of the Lord and Saviour in the flesh, neither Abraham nor Isaac nor Jacob nor the prophets nor other righteous men could attain. For Abraham, though in a different place, is seen among the dead together with Lazarus, and Jacob, a righteous man, says, 'Mourning and groaning I shall go down into hell.' The blood of Christ is the key of paradise, for He said to the thief, 'This day thou shalt be with me in paradise.'
This, as we have said, is the land of the living, the land of the riches and good things of God, which the first Adam lost and the second found—nay, what the former lost, the latter restored, as the Apostle says: 'Death reigned from Adam unto Moses'—under whose person the Law is understood—'in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the figure of Him that was to come.' Do we wish to know more plainly what that land is? Let us read Malachi: 'All shall call you blessed, says the Lord, for you shall be a land of good pleasure'—which in Greek is more significantly called (the desirable land), such as the saints long for and such as pleases God. Isaiah too agrees in these words, saying:
'And there shall be a man hiding his words, and he shall appear in the land of Zion like a glorious river in a thirsty land.' What is this land of Zion in which a glorious river shall appear? Clearly that of which the same David sings in another Psalm: 'Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God,' and again, 'The Lord loves the gates of Zion above all the tents of Jacob.' Does God love those gates which we see turned into ashes and cinders? Not to the wise, but not even to the foolish can this be made credible. I also think that what we read in the sixty-fourth Psalm—'Thou hast visited the earth and inebriated it; thou hast multiplied to enrich it. The river of God is filled with water; thou hast prepared their food, for such is thy provision.'
'Water its furrows abundantly, multiply its produce; in its raindrops it shall rejoice as it springs up'—that this fits this same sense. For that land is daily visited by God, is made rich and full of all riches. From it goes forth the river of God, of which it is written, 'The rushing of the river makes glad the city of God,' which is also told in mystical language in the description of the temple in Ezekiel, on whose banks trees stand on either side, abounding with new fruits each month; concerning which land the wisest man also wrote in Proverbs, 'He who works his land shall be filled with bread.' But if anyone supposes this is to be understood of this land which we behold and which is possessed rather by sinners, of which it is written:
'Cursed is the earth in your works,' let him answer how this sentence can stand: 'He who works his own land shall be filled with bread.' For how many work the land and drive the ploughshare, and yet, hindered by many causes, are worn out by want and poverty! But it must be considered what Scripture says: 'He who works his OWN land,' which is properly of his own right, from which he can never be cast out; according to which sense that too is written, 'The ransom of a man's soul is his own riches.' And do you think this too is false according to the letter? For how many are ransomed with the money of others and of friends! The cultivators, the farmers of this land, are the apostles, to whom it is said, 'You are the salt of the earth,' and in another place:
'In your patience you shall possess your souls'; one of whom, the vessel of election, spoke most confidently: 'For we are God's fellow-workers; you are God's tillage, God's building,' and many other things which I do not repeat, lest I seem to dull the reader's understanding and to distrust his memory. Let us also treat this with careful mind, and let the authority of the Scriptures teach us, that the saints are not inhabitants of this land which the Jews claim to be the land of promise, but sojourners and pilgrims. In the person of a righteous man we read: 'I am a stranger and a pilgrim, as all my fathers were.' And when he had long dwelt in the darkness of this land, he groans tearfully and says:
'Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged! I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Kedar; my soul has long been a sojourner.' But wherever an 'inhabitant of the earth' is mentioned, let us examine the first, middle, and last passages, and it can be clearly proved by the rule of the Scriptures that the inhabitants of the earth are always called sinners; of whom in the Apocalypse of John there is this example: 'Woe to the inhabitants of the earth.' Abraham, to whom the promise was first made when the Lord said, 'To thee will I give this land, and to thy seed,' according to the sermon of Stephen, the first martyr in Christ, is said to have received not even a footstep. For thus it is written:
'Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran; and thence, after his father died, he removed into this land, in which you now dwell; and He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a footstep, yet He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him.' And lest perhaps the reader's silent thought draw him to that understanding, that what was not given to the father should be repaid to the descendants, the vessel of election speaks to the Hebrews: 'By faith he who is called Abraham obeyed to go out into a place which he was to receive for a possession; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.'
'By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the co-heirs of the same promise; for he looked for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.' And again, when he had spoken of Abel and Enoch, Noah and Sarah, he added: 'According to faith all these died, not having received the promises, but beholding them from afar, and greeting them, and confessing that they are pilgrims and strangers upon the earth. For those who speak thus show that they seek a homeland. And indeed, if they had remembered that from which they went out, they had time to return; but now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly one.' And after many saints in between, at the end he added:
'And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect without us. For we have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to many thousands of angels in solemn assembly, and to the church of the firstborn who are written in heaven.' Nor does it escape me that the perfidy of the Jews does not accept these testimonies, which are nevertheless confirmed by the authority of the Old Testament.
This must be said to our own people: that this epistle, which is written to the Hebrews, is received as the Apostle Paul's not only by the churches of the East but by all the earlier Greek-speaking writers of the Church—although many think it to be either Barnabas's or Clement's—and that it makes no difference whose it is, since it is the work of a churchman and is daily read aloud in the churches.
But if the custom of the Latins does not receive it among the canonical Scriptures, neither do the churches of the Greeks receive the Apocalypse of John with the same liberty; and yet we receive both, following by no means the custom of this present time, but the authority of the ancient writers, who for the most part make use of the testimonies of both—not as they are sometimes wont to do with apocryphal books (indeed they rarely use examples even from pagan literature), but as canonical and ecclesiastical. Let those answer me who think this land—which now, through Christ's passion and resurrection, has been made for us the land of promise—was possessed by the people of the Jews after they returned from Egypt: how much did they possess?
Indeed from Dan to Beersheba, which scarcely stretches a distance of a hundred and sixty miles in length. For Scripture does not testify that David and Solomon, most powerful kings, held more—apart from those whom after victory they received into friendship. And I say this, to say nothing of the five cities of Palestine, Gaza, Ascalon, Geth, Accaron, Azotus; nor of the Idumaeans too, separated toward the southern region seventy-five miles from Jerusalem; nor of the Arabs and Hagarenes—now called Saracens—in the vicinity of the city of Jerusalem. I am ashamed to state the breadth of the land of promise, lest we seem to have given the pagans occasion for blasphemy.
From Joppa to our little village of Bethlehem is forty-six miles, beyond which follows a vast wilderness full of ferocious barbarians, of whom it is said, 'Against the face of all thy brethren shalt thou dwell,' and of whom the most eloquent poet makes mention: 'the Barcaeans, wandering far and wide'—from the town of Barca, which is situated in the wilderness, whom now, by a corruption of speech, the Africans call Baricians. These are they who, according to the qualities of the places, are called by various names, and stretch from Mauretania through Africa and Egypt and Palestine and Phoenicia, Coele-Syria and Osrhoene, Mesopotamia and Persia, as far as India.
This, O Jew, is the length and breadth of your lands; in these you glory, over these you boast to those in various provinces who do not know you: trappings for the crowd! But I know you inside and to the very skin.
But if you object that the land of promise is that described in the Book of Numbers—from the south of the Salt Sea through Sinai and Kadesh-Barnea to the torrent of Egypt, which flows near Rhinocorura into the Great Sea; and from the west the sea itself, which lies before Palestine, Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, and Cilicia; from the north Mount Taurus and Zephyrium as far as Emath, which is called Epiphania of Syria; and to the east through Antioch and the lake of Chinnereth, which is now called Tiberias, and the Jordan, which flows into the Salt Sea, now called the Dead Sea—while beyond the Jordan lies the possession of the two and a half tribes, Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh—then I too will confess that these were promised to you, but not delivered, IF you had kept the commandments of God and walked in His precepts, IF you had not worshipped, in place of the almighty God, Beelphegor and Baalim, Beelzebub and Chamos; because you preferred these to God, you lost all the things that had been promised to you.
And to me the kingdom of heaven is promised in the Gospel, which the Old Testament does not name at all. But if I do not do what has been commanded, the fault will by no means be in Him who promises, but in me, who have not deserved to receive the promise. [For where a choice is set before us, if the works are neglected, in vain would you desire what has been promised.] Read the book of Joshua and of Judges, and you will understand within what narrow straits of possession you have been confined.
Why should I recall the foreigners of various cities, whom the people of the Jews could not drive out from their cities and dwellings, when your very metropolis—first Jebus, then Salem, thirdly Jerusalem, and now Aelia—could not drive out the Jebusites, but remained among them as a stumbling-block and an example of vices, to such a degree that, where your temple was founded, was the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, and that very temple was built by the pagans, with eighty thousand stone-cutters and seventy thousand bearers—that is, a hundred and fifty thousand, not counting the overseers of the works—on account of the multitude of the uncircumcised dwelling with you?
Nor do I say this in disparagement of the land of Judaea, as a heretical slanderer lies, nor to take away the truth of history, which is the foundation of spiritual understanding, but to strike down the arrogance of the Jews, who prefer the narrowness of the synagogue to the breadth of the Church. For if they follow only the western letter and not the life-giving spirit, let them show a land of promise flowing with milk and honey; but if they think it was said figuratively, for the abundance of all things, then we too prefer the land of confession and the land of the living to the land of thorns, since the Lord said to Moses concerning the rejection of Israel and the taking-up of the Gentiles: 'Let me alone, that I may destroy this people, and I will make thee into a vast and great nation,' and the same Father to the Son: