文集 第 10 章

I had indeed promised you before this time a letter, most beloved sons, which, commending from the law the ordinances of all conduct, should contain summarily all things that pertain generally to all clerics for the directing of the rule of discipline. But because now some among you, by consorting with women, have commonly sunk into disgrace, I have been compelled to write to you specially about this matter also, by the Lord's chastisement—who, meeting wretched me with severity on account of your negligence, commanded me to charge you that clerics should not dwell together with women.

And although this admonition might suffice by the authority of my letter alone, yet, lest anyone mock me as a dreamer, as Joseph's brothers mocked him, we add the firmness of the Scriptures, so that all may know that the Lord commands, even in this manner, through revelation, what he is known to have commanded before by letter; and that we are not adulterating the word of the Lord, nor wishing boastfully to glory in revelations, but that, by thus referring it before the sight of the Lord, we do not lie in what we say—just as we trust that we have not heard a lie from the Lord, taking to ourselves the voice of the apostle Paul, who protests: 'For we are not,' he says, 'like the many, adulterating the word of God, but out of sincerity, as from God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.'

Set therefore in the greatest grief over certain wasted members of our body, and in the groaning of the Church that laments its loss—the Church which through our sloth is reduced day by day to an excessive fewness—we believe that we are in some part relieved, in that the negligence of certain persons cannot harm our diligence, to whom our letters have never been wanting, which through my absence have made up to all for my frequent presence. Let each despiser of his own dissimulation enroll himself as guilty; but we, with open brow, cry out to the despisers what Solomon confidently reproaches: 'Because,' he says, 'I called, and you did not hearken:'

'and I stretched out my words, and you gave no heed, but made my counsels of no effect, and gave no heed to my rebukes: therefore I too will laugh over your destruction. I will rejoice against you when ruin comes upon you, when tumult suddenly comes upon you, and overthrow like a storm, and when distress and assault come upon you. For it shall be that when you call upon me, I will not hear you. The wicked shall seek me, and shall not find me: for they hated wisdom, and did not take up the word of the Lord, nor would they give heed to my counsels. For they spurned my reproofs: therefore they shall eat the fruits of their own ways, and be filled with their own impiety.'

Now our exhortation is turned to you, whom we do not wish to experience such headlong plunges of ruin. Fear as much as you can the destructions of such downfalls, and let the examples of those slipping in this overthrow strike terror into us. Too headlong is he who strives to pass on when he has seen another fall, and violently unbridled is he into whom no fear is struck while another perishes. But he is truly a lover of his own salvation who avoids the onrush of another's death. And he himself is provident who becomes anxious at the disasters of others—as Solomon approves, saying: 'A prudent man, seeing evil punished, will be strongly instructed,' and again: 'When the impious fall, the just will be strongly terrified.'

Contrary to us is the confidence that entrusts its life to perils as a thing assured, and slippery is the hope that hopes to be saved amid the fomentations of sin. Uncertain is the victory of fighting amid hostile arms, and impossible is deliverance to be surrounded by flames and not burn. This Solomon denies, saying: 'Who will bind fire in his bosom, and not burn his garments? Or who will walk upon coals of fire, and not burn his feet? So he who goes in to his neighbor's wife shall not be innocent, nor anyone who touches her.' Believe, I beseech you, believe divine faith, nay rather than your own: for whatever it promises cannot deceive, since the Lord says:

'It is easier,' he says, 'for heaven and earth to pass away than for one jot of the law to fall.' And again: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.' We ourselves therefore deceive ourselves, as often as we believe irregularly, supposing that through our faith the precepts of the law can be changed, so that we should hope for immovable chastity to be preserved indiscriminately between males and females. Hardly will anyone drink poison and live. He who sleeps on the bank must fear lest he fall, since the apostle says: 'Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.' In this matter it is expedient to fear well rather than to trust ill. And it is more useful for a man to know himself weak, that he may prove strong, than to wish to seem strong, and emerge weak. On which matter the apostle rebukes the presumptuous, saying:

'If anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.' Assuredly the self-deceiver deludes his own soul, who, by not singing against things noxious, has committed himself to them. But he consults more safely for himself who, ever distrustful concerning the wicked, dreads all noxious appearances whatsoever. Their difference Solomon set forth, saying: 'The wise man, fearing, will turn aside from all evil; but the fool, confident of himself, mingles with iniquity.' A great counsel of divine wisdom has been found, whereby we are set free by the help of fear. Great are the shortcuts of providence, that at times virtue and victory may come to pass through fear. Great remedies has the Lord conferred unto salvation, so that even the fearful may have praise, as Solomon repeats, saying:

'Blessed is the man who reveres all things through dread.' Inestimable is the Lord's mercy, which has on every side conferred glory upon his man, and incomprehensible his goodness, which has granted, according to the battles, also the palms of victory, so that by trusting we may overcome the fierceness of males, and by fearing we may vanquish the blandishments of females—provided that the Lord works our glories over us both from strength and from weakness, so that in all things and through all things he may attest himself Almighty, dividing the differences of triumphs, so that both by counsels and by strength wars may be won by us; nor, if we should conquer by the fortitude of faith alone, would the works of wisdom, against Solomon, be void. Now therefore the arms of wisdom must be borne, where the female and the male sexes proclaim their contest.

Whence Solomon thus instructs, saying: 'Make prudence known to yourself,' he says, 'that it may preserve you from the strange and most wicked woman.' See now prudence in this war—that it is not faith that has been given to us as victress to set us free by the remedy of timidity—and contemplate what arms are now to be taken up, if you wish to have the helps of the law. Be fearful, that you may be undaunted; and although fear in a contest may seem to be weakness, yet, according to the word of the apostle, 'strength is made perfect in weakness.' Separate yourselves, I beseech you, separate yourselves from the pestilent contagion. However much further each one is from adversities, so much the less does he feel adversities. He is less goaded by pleasures who is not where there is a throng of pleasures.

And he suffers less the troubles of avarice who does not see riches—if we admit the apostle's promise: 'Those who wish,' he says, 'to become rich fall into temptation and a snare and many desires, useless and harmful, which plunge a man into perdition and destruction.' Not otherwise is he subject to temptations who is joined to a woman, in whom there is nothing else but that which wounds the one drawing near. The form of woman has become the sting of sin, and the condition of death arose from no other source than from womanly substance. This Solomon recalls to our vigilance, saying: 'From a woman was made the beginning of sin, and because of her we all die.' Thence we are held as mortals, and yet we do not fear. What if we were now immortal?

Through a woman Christ indeed set us free; but so long as we still die, we ought to be afraid. Then will that very deliverance stand fast in woman, if by us death be conquered which had come through woman. But if scandals still lord it over us through woman, we have assuredly made a loss of Christ's deliverance; since for the future there remains that hope of liberty which we believe Christ to have conferred upon our faith, so that then woman may not harm us at all, when death itself shall have been made void. For if we now suppose ourselves to be beyond temptation by womanly darts, then nothing remains for the heavenly kingdoms. Not undeservedly does the apostle rebuke such sentiments, saying: 'Now you are filled, now you have become rich:'

'without us you reign—and would that you did reign!' The time therefore of the struggle is still being waged, and death still ravages even now through woman. I lie, if we do not thereupon see the destruction of very many. How many and what kind of bishops and clerics, together with laymen, after the trodden-down contests of confessions and victories, after mighty deeds and signs or wonders shown on every side, are known to have made shipwreck along with all these things, when they choose to sail in a fragile boat? How many lions has one delicate weakness tamed—which, though it be cheap and wretched, makes prey of great ones? This Solomon says: 'The price of a harlot is as much as one loaf of bread, but a woman captures precious souls.' These matters are handled before us, and yet we are curbed by no terrors:

What would we do, if we heard of past histories only by report? But this is ever the unbelief of human hardness: that not only by hearing but even by seeing it does not believe that others have perished, unless it should also see its own self perishing; nor is it shaken by the deaths of its companions, so long as it reckons them to have deserved it or to have been weak. Yet it confidently supposes that it itself merits much or avails much, not knowing that examples are set before all when punishments have been inflicted upon certain persons, even as the Lord in the Gospel sets forth and says: 'Do you think that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? No; I say to you:'

'unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish, even as those upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they too were debtors above all the men dwelling in Jerusalem? No; I say to you: if you do not repent, you shall all likewise perish.' We marvel that Adam was seduced through Eve, though no examples of the dying had gone before him, but only one command had bound him, whereas now neither countless customs nor infinite commandments restrain us. To such as us it is fittingly said, according to the Lord's rebuke: 'If Adam had seen the deaths that have come to pass among you, long ago would he have done penance in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, that it shall be more tolerable for Adam in the day of judgment than for you.'

Far, very far, be that pestilence and plague and hidden ruin. O how disorderly is the nearness of a woman! It hurls the robbery of transgressions upon whomsoever it dwells beside. In this fellowship there is no approvable sincerity, for it holds clashings as though amid certain turbulent waves. In this familiarity no friendly concord dwells, since it breeds nothing but discordant enmities. The Lord indeed made woman a helper to man, but through the serpent's envy she took on a hostile role. And if she who was born of her own husband tempts to this very day the very one to whom she is joined, how much more she who is coupled, bound by no law?

And if those who, being two, are grown together into one flesh prick one another by mutual temptations, what do these do who in one flesh are neither born nor joined? Especially since he who is called away by love of another is no longer permitted even to call upon God, nor is he who has sought for himself one to whom he might render domestic care allowed to think upon divine things. On which account the Apostle thus counsels, saying: 'I would have you to be without solicitude. He who is without a wife is careful how he may please God; but he who has a wife thinks on the things of this world, how he may please his wife.' What is there now in this coupling that should delight, in which there are only quarrels? Or what advantage favors it, where there are no conjugal duties, since not even these themselves can be secure?

Everything that belongs to woman is a cause of trouble, and her coupling is always hostile. By her bond she brings great vexations, and to him who has clung to her against what is right she drives in an incurable wound. From coals sparks leap forth, from iron rust is nourished, asps hiss diseases, and woman pours forth the pestilence of concupiscence, which Solomon thus compares, saying: 'From garments comes forth the moth, and from a woman the iniquity of a man.' I wish to know what this common affection is, what disorder of disease it is. Ever ambiguous, she disturbs her own purpose by wavering counsels, assailing it. Why has he taken a woman to himself, who has scorned to lead home a wife? Everyone who will not eat flesh, why does he fill his dwelling with the equipment of the flesh?

And he who will not drink wine, why does he enjoy the delight of wine? As if the mind were not oftentimes fed by having, without tasting, an abundance of dainties, and as if the mind were not frequently roused by the mere fragrance of fragrant wine. Why through hypocrisy does he wish to be called abstinent by men, and in secret to be stuffed with meats and drunkenness? Many have riches which they deny to their own uses but keep for their covetousness; and if no covetousness had clung to them, they would not possess the tokens of covetousness either. But because they are possessed by covetousness, they enjoy in mind what they do not touch in use. So too he who has despised the bond of marriage is yet in another way bound by feminine bonds:

although he mingles in no intercourse, yet by desire, by sight, by conversation, by companionship he is ever delighted. For if he had no desire for the woman, he would never take a woman as his delight. Nay rather, over and above, he has given me a suspect resolve, who has not led home a lawful wife and has refused a lawful one: unless I am deceived, he has argued in public to promise sanctity to men, and in secret not to be without a woman. Two arguments, of lust and of sanctity, here and there are to be wondered at, which both mutually conceal each other and both mutually betray each other. The ingenious eunuch and adulterer envies himself while he takes counsel, and while he seeks both at once.

He did neither, so that he should by no means be reckoned holy who does not enjoy a true union, since Paul the Apostle says: 'Art thou bound to a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.' But I grant that the chastity of this continence is not violated: yet to the suspicious it holds out an evil reputation, and in vain does it guard the good of chastity within by laborious struggle, when outwardly it causes it to be defamed—destroying the teaching of Paul the Apostle, who alike provides and warns: 'Why,' he says, 'is my liberty judged by another's conscience? If I partake by grace, why am I blasphemed for that for which I give thanks?' It is worse than adultery to lead a continence that is criminal, and to make holiness infamous.

He brings blasphemy upon the religion which he has cultivated, who does not fulfill before all what he professes, lest Christianity be believed a deception and adultery seem clothed with the veil of sanctity. On which account the Lord in the Gospel thus forewarns, saying: 'So let your light shine before men, that seeing your good works they may glorify your Father who is in heaven.' Paul the Apostle follows this, saying: 'Let not then your good be blasphemed.' And again: 'Providing things good not only before God, but also before men.' And in another place:

'Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever else you do, do all to the glory of God, and be without offense to Jews and Greeks and to the Church of God, as I also in all things please all men.' But perhaps it is objected: what of the fact that he himself again said, 'If I still pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ'? Never do the sayings of the law exclude one another, but in certain places all the answers are firmly fixed. There it is not permitted to please men, where the will of men does not receive the will of the Lord; but where men accept what advances to the glory of God, Paul the Apostle himself commanded that it be made known to all. 'Let each one of us,' he says, 'please his neighbor unto good edification.'

To what extent, then, does he look for the reward of sanctity, who not only provokes blasphemy of sanctity from unbelievers, but also offers a pernicious example to the faithful? So that the weak, under the pretext of love, subtly commit fornication, and the chaste man most unchastely gives a schooling in chastity—destroying that which Paul the Apostle threatens: 'The weak brother,' he says, 'perishes in thy knowledge, for whom Christ died. But thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.' And indeed this befits not only the young but also the old, to have regard for the weakness of the brethren, lest old age provoke youth to perish, from which all salutary examples ought to proceed:

even as Eleazar in the book of the Maccabees professes and says that it is better for the wicked to be sent forward into hell [than to forsake the ancestral laws]. 'For it is not worthy of our age to feign, that many of the young, supposing that Eleazar at ninety years of age had gone over to the life of aliens, should through my pretense and for the sake of a little and corruptible span of life be led astray through me, and I should acquire hatred and a stain upon my old age.' He chose rather to expose his own life to torments than to become to anyone a master of perdition:

and we, where there are no torments at all, are unwilling to set the salvation of our brethren before mere idle pleasures, nor are we content, without any tortures, to profit ourselves as much as others—whereas he was unwilling to live, though about to die, as he further went on to say: 'Wherefore, bravely departing from life, I shall indeed appear worthy of old age, and shall leave to the young a brave example, that with ready mind and bravely they may withdraw by an honorable death for the sake of the grave and holy laws.' Since this befits even the laity, that they set before neither strangers occasions of blasphemy nor before the brotherhood opportunity of fornication, then most of all does this necessity vehemently bind the clergy, upon whom either religion blasphemed or brotherhood destroyed will inflict a double penalty.

Nor will they find in the Lord's judgment any consolation at all, who have ministered to strangers and to brethren the tinder of sinning. On which account Paul the Apostle thus instructs Titus, saying: 'Showing thyself in all things an example of good works, in doctrine, in integrity, in gravity, in sound and irreproachable speech, that the adversary may be abashed, having no evil to say of us.' And again: 'Show,' he says, 'good faith to all, that they may in all things adorn the good doctrine of our Savior the Lord.' So too he writes to Timothy, saying: 'Be a pattern to the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity.' And Peter the Apostle satisfies this too, saying:

'Let your conversation,' he says, 'among the Gentiles be good, that whereas they detract from us as from evildoers, they may by your good works glorify the Lord.' And again: 'For so,' he says, 'is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.' Nor let anyone set before himself and say: 'I do not wish to have that which I may overcome.' For this is to say, 'I desire to live beneath ruin.' Who is so foolish that he should long to be straitened toward labor, to whom it is offered more delightfully to triumph? For it is no double triumph to be proved a victor in the presence of a woman, rather than in solitude to preserve unbroken the pledge of holiness.

And since there is one single title of glories, in this case he is vainly brave who labors much, and yet is rewarded equally with him who, laboring little, has conquered. What of the fact that he indeed is rather reckoned perfected, who shows himself in every part cut off from feminine affections? For the Lord in the Gospel calls him perfect who has amputated his whole patrimony for his own uses. Certainly even to any solitary man daily triumphs on behalf of chastity are not wanting, since the human body never ceases to assail the spirit with carnal desires—which the Apostle affirms, saying: 'The flesh,' he says, 'lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: for these are contrary one to another, so that you may not do whatever things you would.'

You have now your own flesh which you must ever overcome: why do you wish to hire another as well? No one over one fever wishes to bring on a worse, lest he begin to labor under an incurable semitertian fever, which no physician might avail to relieve. Nor does anyone over his own burden take up besides another's, lest, oppressed by two burdens, he be plunged even to the depths. Whence Jeremiah the prophet thus teaches that the weight of holiness is to be borne singly. 'It is good,' he says, 'for a man when he has borne the heavy yoke in his youth: he shall sit solitary and shall keep silence, because he has taken the heavy yoke upon himself.' But should some malicious follower take refuge in the saying of Paul the Apostle, saying: 'Bear one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ':

These are not the burdens which Paul the Apostle commands to be carried, but rather that, bearing with one another, no discord may sever us, and that we may render mutual aids to brethren set amid temptations—not that we should procure temptations for ourselves through women, but rather that we should lighten the weights of temptations: since he knew what manner of thing the yoke of holiness is, which is scarcely borne even singly. Concerning which not only he himself but the Lord too was unwilling to define a fixed precept, saying: 'Not all receive this word, but they to whom it is given.' And again: 'He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' If therefore the greatness of this weight is with difficulty endured singly, how shall it be endured, if it be doubly weighed down by burdens twice increased?

And if almost all solitary men scarcely hold out to endure the snares of the flesh, what do those do who do not hesitate to press forward with swords hanging on either side? I say more. If husbands and wives, daily bearing conjugal desires, are not sufficient for themselves, what do those do who, for the increasing of assaults, are associated with women? Unexpectedly, or in passing for an hour, a feminine appearance meeting one hurls as it were arrows through another's eyes. When simple reverence is not free, what is transacted there, where a woman assumes the boldness of liberty in cohabitation?

When in domestic affairs she now bares her arms and thighs at wool-working tasks, now in her heat uncovers her limbs, now flings herself about wearied, or is sometimes dissolved in laughter, now displays blandishments, and—what is more venomous than all—delights to chant or to sing? To hear whose singing it were more tolerable to hear a basilisk hissing. Against which Solomon thus makes us cautious, saying: 'Be not continually with a dancing-woman, nor listen to her, lest perchance thou perish in her power.' I am silent about the rest, which are more shameful to be done than to be told; this only I say: to behold a woman broken down in grief or in anger is even now not without a certain sweetness. What shall we say if you should see her sporting, or—what is worse—caressing? Once for all let me have said:

Every unsuitable companionship with women is the glue of transgressions and the poisoned birdlime by which the devil catches his prey. Incongruous is the society of women, whose companionship Solomon again thus teaches us in all things to guard against beforehand: 'Sit not,' he says, 'at all with another man's wife, nor dispute with her over wine, lest perchance thy heart turn aside toward her, and by thy blood thou slip into perdition.' Finally, if we trust our own mind ever to persevere in this fellowship, even this ought to be suspect with us, lest the very women who consort with us be perhaps moved against us ourselves, or, on account of their rapid age, be goaded by furious incitements into other loves:

and it shall be to us a cause—what is worse, without a cause—that another's fornication should defile us, in whose case an occasion for the brothel is suggested to others, and we shall be swallowed up in the guilt of another's crime, for whom we ourselves have subverted the pandering to uncleanness. On which account the Apostle Paul thus instructs us concerning such things, saying: 'If because of food thy brother is scandalized, thou no longer walkest in charity. Destroy not with thy food him for whom Christ died.' And again: 'It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother is offended or scandalized or made weak.' And in another place: 'Judge this rather,' he says, 'that you put not a stumbling-block or scandal before a brother.' And concerning himself he thus speaks:

'Wherefore, if food scandalizes my brother, I will never eat flesh, lest I scandalize my brother.' Since therefore the detestable trouble of this union assails us, even though it cannot make men adulterers, yet it makes them procurers for adulterers and for the incestuous. For who is a searcher of another's heart, that he should weigh the quality of each one and presume to be a champion against Satan on behalf of another person, and yet a fit surety before God? He is out of his mind concerning his own self, who promises anything—I will not say if he even seem to lay down a pledge on behalf of a woman—when Paul the Apostle thus pronounces concerning himself, saying:

'Not that I have already attained, or am already justified, or am already perfect; but I follow after, if I may lay hold, in that in which I also am laid hold of by Christ. Brethren, I do not reckon myself to have laid hold yet: but one thing—forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to the things that are before—I follow after, according to the rule, unto the prize of the supernal calling of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded.' And again: 'To me,' he says, 'it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by man's day: but neither do I judge my own self. He who judges me is the Lord.' And in another place: 'Blessed,' he says, 'is he who judges not himself in that which he approves.'

Although therefore we have nothing certain even concerning our own stability, we who without ceasing are shaken amid the waves of the world, enduring stormy onslaughts—yet if anyone has such great confidence in the immobility of his own firmness, let him at least, being anxious, dread lest he himself be a scandal to others' eyes, and be terrified by the voice of the Lord threatening: 'Woe,' he says, 'to this world because of scandals: nevertheless woe to that man through whom the scandal comes.' If we fear and revere these threatenings of the Lord with a religious heart, let us dread danger to ourselves more on account of others than of ourselves, we who are bound by mutual advantages by the Apostle Paul. 'Each one,' he says, 'not considering the things that are his own, but those of others.' And again:

'Let no man seek what is his own, but what is another's.' But someone, seizing from Paul himself something to object, says: 'Each one of us shall render account to God for himself, and each shall bear his own burden.' He therefore who is unwilling to render account for another, ought not to be an unlawful partaker in that man's affairs or business; and he who strives to stand free or immune with regard to another's burdens, let him hold nothing of another's beneath him on the contrary condition. For necessarily he is subjected to the accounting of another who has handled another's business.

It behooves him to be bound by loss or by the expenditure of the burdens, with whom, under unsafe custody, a brother's goods have perished; for whatever in our house shall have been under less suitable guard, or robbers shall have broken into, is ours, and there is exacted from us whatever through our own inertia has been ill committed to us. Then indeed we are free from one another, if nothing of another's matter is reserved with us. Perhaps someone will say: 'Then ought we not even to come together to the house of prayer, lest anyone scandalize anyone?' Of heretical profession is this calumnious contradiction, which prescribes from good things so as to assert evil, and prejudges concerning sanctity so as subtly to introduce uncleanness, makes calumnies out of the lawful so that it may obtain the unlawful.

On which account the Apostle Paul beforehand prescribes against this heresy, saying: 'Nevertheless neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord.' Far, far be it that women should everywhere be prescribed, or that permission be everywhere granted. They have their own places—about the husband, about the children, about the brothers, about the parents, about the servants, and in the house of prayer only alongside all the clergy. But in a single dwelling, without kinship, they do not fittingly have companions. This is the balance that stands firm. But whatever inclines the balance cannot stand, for the Scripture says: 'Thou shalt not decline to the right hand nor to the left,' and the Lord in the Gospel: 'What is more than this is of evil.' Learn now the measure of temperance, thou who through license seekest excess.

Love women amid the sacred solemnities, and hold them in hatred in private communion, if you wish to hold Solomon's teaching: 'There is a time,' he says, 'for loving and a time for hating.' Then, therefore, are the associations of woman to be condemned, when there is carried on a frequenting of carnal cares in continual unanimity, since amid its cares the flesh ever provokes the incitements of desire, and there begets the fomentations of sinning, where, while handling its own conveniences of temporal life, it shall have felt itself a little relaxed in its thoughts—even as Solomon asserts, saying: 'The earthly thought presses down the mind that thinks on many things.'

But in the assembly of sacred things, where the spirit rules, the handmaid, knowing her own self, loses the exercise of her own pleasure, loses also her luxury while heavenly things are handled, while the holy mysteries are celebrated: the whole of humanity is engaged, where all things are not human but divine; where veneration, or dread and trembling, is struck into all minds, the carnal substance is truly buried. Even amid the very traffickings of the flesh many neglect the pleasure of the body, when soldiers meditate the exercises of their years' service, or the forum resounds with lawsuits, or the auditoriums re-echo with letters, or merchants urgently apply themselves to their commerce, or craftsmen are bent upon the crafts themselves:

how much more where not the carnal work of men, but the spiritual work of angels, is carried on? There the assaults can avail nothing, where even the demons themselves yield, and no distinction of any sex is permitted to be considered, where neither age nor rank, but only equality reigns: and, that I may say it more fully, all there receive such perceptions that even conjugality itself is unknown, where Christ is spoken, heard, attended to, and through all things and in all men He alone is the whole—the Apostle testifying and saying: 'Where there is,' he says, 'neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, male nor female, servant nor free, but all things and in all men Christ.'

To celebrate plainly this assembly with women is a glory, in which there is no discrimination of quality, wherein it is permitted only to make all equal without any difference, so that not even in baptism itself does anyone's nakedness blush, where the infancy of Adam and Eve is renewed, and one does not expose but rather receives a tunic. But if even there be someone worse than the devil, who is smitten by the sight of women, yet our congregation is blamed by no one, which is gathered for the sake of heavenly, not of earthly, things. Let anyone who has been there wicked with lustful gazes see to it for himself; in no way does he harm another, who has come forward not to a man but to Christ for the sake of salvation.

Nay more, I will exclude the contradictors by their own contradictions, so that they may yield not to my but to their own propositions. If amid the sacred festivals the common assembly can be scandalized, where the tempter, the devil himself, trembles, who there promises that he is stable, where the tempter boldly meets him? And if we are endangered there, where God's precepts gather us together, what do we do where God's commands separate us? And if we are troubled there, where by God's will we are fortified, how much more where we have not only the devil but even the Lord against us? For with sacrosanct commands divine protection is ministered to us, even as Isaiah says: 'The law,' he says, 'He gave for a help'; but without the divine commands there can be no safeguard.

It is one thing that God commands to be done, and another to resist His will: whose commandments are so to be kept that, if He shall have commanded anything which according to men seems unjust, it is to be believed just and done; and if He shall have commanded a just thing, it is to be reckoned just and done: since what He commands cannot be without victory—He who is powerful to call injustice justice by justifying it, and to prove perverse justice injustice by reproving it, whose will alone is also true justice. For if the whole of whatever we do we do only for this, that we may please the Lord, surely this alone will be just, whatever God, whom we are eager to please, shall have willed and commanded and approved.

For since servants cannot of themselves know what pleases their masters, unless they follow their masters' commands—and men indeed are but men, and since men themselves cannot ascertain the wills of men like themselves, unless they have received what they are to observe—much more can mortals not comprehend the justice of the immortal God, unless He Himself deign to show the tokens of His acts of justice, even as Solomon approves, saying: 'For what man shall be able to know the counsel of God? or who shall be able to think what God willeth? For the thoughts of mortals are timid, and our foresight uncertain. For the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation presses down the mind that thinks on many things.'

'With difficulty do we estimate the things that are on earth, and the things that are in our sight we find with labor: but the things that are in the heavens, who shall search out? And who shall know thy mind, unless thou give wisdom and send thy Holy Spirit from on high? And so the paths of those who are on earth are corrected, and men have learned the things that please thee, and by wisdom are they healed.' Those walking in darkness cannot show a light to themselves, unless a light freely offer itself to those who do not see it. Thus human blindness does not direct its way to God, unless He Himself show the lamp of the law. Whence David thus speaks, saying: 'Thy word,' he says, 'is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths.' And again:

'The precept of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes.' This, then, is light-bearing—whatever shall have been intimated by God: and this is worthy of God, which God Himself confesses to be acceptable to His own will, that He may exercise dominion through all things. Otherwise neither should we be enrolled as servants, nor should He Himself be held as Lord, if we were permitted to expend our servitude according to our own will, and were to choose the exercises of justice by our own judgment and not by God's. Such men Paul the Apostle renders vain, saying: 'Being ignorant,' he says, 'of the justice of God, and wishing to establish their own, they are not subject to the justice of God.' Let there now be removed from our midst these ambages so vain and complaints emptily calumnious.

For spiritual acts we do not fear, with God's help, to be united with women, we who believe that through God's command we work justice, from which we know that defenses are supplied to us. But privately, hospitality is to be kept most especially separate from continent clergy and from virgins, because what God judges unjust cannot be just. Yet cohabitation, even though in the cohabitation itself no base habit be known, inflames, because it is impossible for integrity to attain to victories which strives to fight against God's commands. For as much as the law suggests aid to the obedient, so much does it incite—nay rather, sin—to the disobedient, as the Apostle says: 'The virtue,' he says, 'of sin is the law.'

He therefore who commanded us to triumph with women in His sacred rites, He Himself bids us to beware privately of feminine combats. There are indeed other necessities which compel us to see women even privately, but these too command the efficacy of the divine precept or work, that we should visit, that we should furnish consolations, that we should wholesomely impart life-giving exhortations: nor yet in these duties is less care to be exercised for our own morals, that the tokens of purity may shine forth in our operation. Let there not be lacking a severity that under a cleric may be able to restrain the woman, so that she may receive our very consolation with trembling, and so feel the affection of the visitation that she may venerate the cleric.

And lest it be too tedious to range through the several matters, the whole of whatever we do can be honorable, if the signs of honorableness ever shine forth in us, even as Paul the Apostle embraced all things, saying: 'Let all your things be done honorably.' And again: 'As we have charged you,' he says, 'walk honorably.' Not well does anything succeed that is done at random, and that which is done as holy is not holy, unless what is holy be performed in a holy manner, even as Solomon asserts, saying: 'For they who shall have kept just things justly shall be justified.' Sincerely, therefore, is sincerity itself to be preserved, and everything that belongs to our vow is to be signed also in act, lest our vows commend one thing and our acts insinuate another.

On every side the disposition of the will must be tested, and on every side the course of each contest must be brought to completion, lest something be lacking for the triumph if the struggle be not fought out more fully. Hence the apostle Paul introduces proofs drawn from contests: 'But he too who strives in the games,' he says, 'is not crowned unless he strive lawfully.' And again, 'Know you not,' he says, 'that they who run in the stadium all indeed run, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain. And everyone who strives in the contest refrains himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one.'

It is therefore the fullness of holiness and the perfect palm of victory, that on every side one should keep about oneself nothing that one must refuse, lest by holding fast to what one professes to hate, one seem to love it. But if anyone say, 'I hold my adversary captive, that I may ever mock him,' let him beware lest perchance the captive begin to prevail against him. Never is a robber held shut in securely with a treasure, nor, dwelling within a single cage with a wolf, is a lamb safe. He willed himself to be pierced who led his own enemy within his gates; and he set an inward sword beneath himself who unbarred the place of his dwelling to the incursions of the adversary; and he who is bold to keep company with a stumbling-block says without cause, 'I wish to be at peace with the devil,' against the apostle who says:

'Give no place to the devil.' By every means, therefore, must that place be fortified where the treasure has been hidden, lest through a single cavern the robber undermine the whole wall. For if, assailing from without, he is scarcely driven off from the walls, how much shall he prevail if within the walls he take up a dwelling? And if those who shut him out are sometimes taken by him, how much more he who of his own accord opened him an entrance—since Solomon says: 'If the just man is scarcely saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?' All chinks, therefore—I will not say gates—must be closed, lest through one opening the whole camp be penetrated; and all the fortifications must be set in order, lest through a small unfortified spot the whole city fall, as Solomon repeats, saying:

'He that despises small things shall fall little by little.' But I am amazed at the judgment of this perversity, that by clerics a woman rather than a man is chosen for companionship. Is a woman as much the more useful to a cleric's needs, as a continent man or boy is profitable to a continent man? Or will that be a seemly usefulness which an unseemly companionship produces? And where will be that which Solomon says: 'Every living thing loves its like'? And again: 'The birds resort to their like.' But even were a woman deemed more useful, one ought not to prefer carnal advantages to the benefits of spiritual profit; and it was more expedient to endure any useless man for the safeguarding of one's reputation, than to have the good services of a woman together with a most shameful reputation.

This Solomon compares, saying: 'Better,' he says, 'is the iniquity of a man than a woman doing good.' Artful, therefore, are ever the benefits of the devil, whereby, exercising the ingenuity of his craftiness, he aids with deceitful conveniences those devoted to holiness, in order that he may destroy them; and among the continent, supplying, as though they were necessary advantages, mutual helps, he first drives a man and a woman alike to dwell together, so that, after he has made them inseparable, he may through their mutual comforts slay them—men who gave their simple souls to the keeping of chastity's vows—and, withdrawing for a while the weapons of his assault, like a peaceable well-wisher he suggests arguments of holiness, until for a longer season he may nourish between the two a hostile friendship.

He makes them affable to one another and eager to serve each other; and, a hostile flatterer, removing every hindrance, he delights to lend his effectiveness to their conveniences, so that, commending them to one another by every kind of dependence, he may make them hang upon each other by their accustomed consolation. He wishes to hinder them in nothing, lest he separate them either spiritually or carnally. He makes them live unshaken, lest the very beginnings of their fellowship—the compacts begun at an untimely season—be disturbed. To such a degree, providing all things, does he invite, foster, and support them toward the perfection of holiness, that they reckon to be God's gifts those very adverse things by which they are led on to perish, not knowing that God never aids what He forbids.

To such an extent, coaxing them, does the devil prepare a false security of holiness, that being joined they deem themselves rather to persist unmoved as regards lust than were they parted; and leading them on with all tranquillity, he troubles them with no storms or billows, and, as it were in mid-sea, he induces them, grown less cautious, to loosen their sails and not to seek the helm, that he may sink them—stirred up by a sudden tempest and made shipwrecks by an unlooked-for commotion. This gentleness he shows at first, that he may allure two ships to come together; and when he has made them joined, he may with sudden whirlwinds dash them against each other and break them:

And these blandishments he uses: with all his darts withdrawn, restraining adversities, suggesting prosperous things; and for so long he keeps the slumbering fire hidden without any flames, until, joining the two torches, he kindles both at once; and for so long he forbears to apply the weapons of his savagery, until, like a skilled hunter, he binds fast with the fetters of his snare what he is about to slay. But when he has bound them, fettered with an indissoluble chain, then, like a gladiator-trainer, he straightway compels the two gladiators to arm against each other, and, goading their limbs again and again, at once fits the swords, at once kindles frenzy, and, thrusting them into wound-dealing embraces, slays both together at a single stroke.

Thus he unfolds what before he seemed to bestow; thus out of simple charity he forges an unlawful love; thus through holiness he brings in destruction; while he is content to yield, so is he able the more strongly to seize; and while, submissive, he suffers himself to be shown as conquered, so he glories the more fully in conquering. His wiles the apostle Paul thus understands, saying: 'For we are not ignorant of his devices.' Ill, therefore, are they at peace in this partnership who are led into wars by the devil's peacemaking, and they advance not rightly in holiness, for whom the very advance is contrived to their harm by the enemy's craft; nor do they strive to climb the ladder of continence by a straight course—men whom the adversary labors to draw out to the summit, that from on high he may cast them down.

But needs must they be dashed down in ruinous falls who have kept to a slippery way, concerning which Solomon thus proclaims, saying: 'There is a way that seems to men to be right; but its end comes into the depth of hell.' But they say:

'If clerics are censured for this association, then along with us must also be censured very many of the saints—whether Elijah, who lodged with a widow, or the apostles, who led women about with them as companions, like John, who took the Lord's mother to himself at the Lord's own bidding; or the Lord Himself, to whom certain devout women furnished sustenance from their own means, whom Martha too served at table, and who spoke alone, sitting at the well, with the foreign Samaritan woman, or upon whom, as He reclined, a woman washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.'

Crafty pleaders and deceitful experts in law, who, while they long to transgress, pervert the disputes and pleadings of cases, and even the laws themselves; and, when they will not be curbed by the fitting injunctions of the laws, in order to mock the judges they cast up unsuitable examples as though they were like surmises of law. Such men are exposed by the very shrewdness of the law through Solomon: 'A sinful man,' he says, 'shuns reproof, and finds a comparison to suit his own will.' Such men, therefore, are to be refuted not first by discourse but first by reproof, that they be not instructed by expounded discourses before they have lost that which they had found for the solace of their defense—even as Solomon teaches us against men of this kind, saying:

'Answer not,' he says, 'a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him; but answer a fool against his folly, lest he seem to himself to be wise.' Great men indeed, who compare themselves to the saints, and surpassing is our manner of life, which may seem equal to the prophets or apostles! For an occasion of our own wantonness we are perversely unwilling to imitate the saints, and among our other deeds we are unwilling to follow the footsteps of the just. In some matters we excuse ourselves as too weak to imitate the deeds of our elders, and in others we declare ourselves equal to our elders—although Elijah himself, set in distress, confesses himself before God unequal to his fathers: 'Am I,' he says, 'better than my fathers?'

This Elijah in his weakness is constrained to cry out concerning his forefathers—and do we not hesitate to equal our own virtue to Elijah, or to the prophets and apostles and the Lord? I plainly behold covetousness so trodden down among us, even as the apostles left behind all their possessions. I behold gluttony and drunkenness so absent from our banquets, even as the apostles, having nothing, were often forced to hunger. I recognize that fasting, thirst, hunger, nakedness, for the sake of the ministry of doctrine alone, so prevail everywhere in us, even as we read that they triumphed in the apostles. And it is proved among us that the same exercises of virtues glow, at which all vices trembled in the apostles.

Plainly we practice the Lord's forty-day fast, and the prayers and vigils with which He, through the wildernesses, broke even the silences of the night. Do we frequent like contests against the wrestlings of the vices, and do we so bear ourselves in strictness, authority, vigils, sufferings, toil, hardship, affliction, abstinence—by which sins are trodden down—that no one may suspect any evil of us? By these things the apostle Paul glories that his conscience became known to all.

'In all things,' he says, 'commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in distresses, in necessities, in straits, in stripes, in imprisonments, in prisons, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the armor of justice on the right hand and on the left.' For these imitations we are too weak; but for leading women about we claim for ourselves the ability of matching the imitation.

But even if anyone should have boasted that he fulfilled all their deeds, still no one's persuasion could sway me to believe that there are now other apostles, against the apostle Paul's declaration: 'Are all,' he says, 'apostles? Are all prophets?' If Christ dared to compare Himself with God—He who says, 'The Father is greater than I'—or if the apostles dared to make themselves equal to Christ, then let a like fortitude also make us today equal to the apostles! O wretched humanity, in this equality do you not fear to be struck with lightning—you who do not scruple to borrow, from the Son of God or from the sons of thunder, examples for your sins as though they were alike?

Since it is the swollen boasting of pride to wish oneself enrolled as comparable even to the least of the Church—whereas Paul admonishes and says: 'each esteeming the other as better than himself.' And lower down he added, saying: 'Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, though He was established in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.' Assuredly one must think more humbly of our own powers, nor is our weakness to be compared with the fortitude of the saints, even as the apostle Paul sets before us instruction concerning himself, and says:

'For we dare not,' he says, 'match or compare ourselves with certain who commend themselves; but we, measuring ourselves by ourselves, commending ourselves to ourselves, glory not beyond measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God has measured to us.' But indeed let us consider what he again said: 'I have labored more than all of them.' Nothing better, nothing more fitting is set before me whereby I may prevail, than that, concerning the very man from whom I am confronted, I myself should confront them. Certainly he labored more than all, and yet he trembled to imitate his colleagues in leading women about, lest he expose himself to the uncertainty of carnal temptation. Whence he himself thus rendered his reason, saying:

'I,' he says, 'so run, not as at an uncertainty; so I fight, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should be found reprobate.' To this man, then, compare yourself, you who boast that you are an apostle, and from him learn what you should fear—he who cries out and says: 'I beseech you, be imitators of me.' He was unwilling, therefore, to have confidence in leading women about—he who was not ignorant how greatly some virtues differ from other virtues, and one brightness is of the sun, another of the moon, and yet another of the stars—having made the comparison from the ecclesiastical charisms, he had made it plain.

But we, on the contrary, flatter ourselves with an apostolic equality, not at all attending to what the apostles and all the saints achieved by unconquered virtue; and we seek to break through a difficult road, when by easy ways a more level one is set before us—against Solomon who says: 'Trust not yourself to a toilsome way, lest you set a stumbling-block for your soul.' Nor does anyone consider that one man walks securely on slippery ground, while another, who is unequal to it, slips; one at a run climbs the mountains over the crags, while another, if he venture into the narrows, falls; to one it befalls to bring his vessels safely through the tempests, while to another such good fortune cannot come—which the apostle Paul decrees, saying:

'Every one,' he says, 'has his proper gift from God, one indeed thus, and another thus.' But those who prejudge me by the example of the saints—why are they unwilling to contemplate another example, which they should fear? And he who strives to be made equal to the apostles—why does he not rather set before himself, for his own dread, the adulterous elders in Daniel? These things, however, I do not put forward in order to contradict, as it were, the imitators of the apostles, but in order to confound those who set themselves on a level with the saints.

Nor do I deny that those are to be followed whom we all have received as teachers; but I contend against those who, desiring to distort the histories of the good to their own evil ends, reckon the law to favor them—like all who hasten to perish, who wish their disgraces to lie concealed under the pretext of the saints, so that under the imitation of their elders they may commit all manner of contrary deeds. These men the apostle Paul exposes and publishes, saying: 'But what I do, that I will also do, that I may cut off the occasion of those who desire an occasion, that wherein they glory they may be found even as we are. For such false apostles are deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.'

This they add to heap up the pile of their perdition, that they defame the good, whose example they use for evil; for whom it would be useful enough and wholesome, if they would rather believe that they themselves had not understood the meaning of any given history, than judge anything dishonorable to be in the law. These men the apostle Paul confounds and rebukes, saying: 'understanding neither the things they say, nor the things whereof they affirm.' And again: 'If any man think that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know.' Idle, therefore, are the prejudgments of the insolent, whom the wandering devices of their own perversity lead astray, and who seek out histories agreeable to their own notions to expound—men who, doing evil, borrow legal patronage.

But to those who do well, all things whatsoever are written are good, who receive well the things well spoken, as the apostle Paul promises: 'We know,' he says, 'that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.' We have prevailed in confounding the gainsayers. We turn forthwith to instruct further the very ones whom we have overcome, lest we either suffer the saints to remain under accusation, or be reckoned ignorant in rendering an account—that, being publicly overcome, they may do penance; or, if they will not, we have discharged what pertains to our diligence, that, as we have satisfied the aforesaid sentence of Solomon, so we may satisfy also the apostle Paul as he proclaims:

'The servant of the Lord,' he says, 'must not wrangle, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, patient, with all meekness reproving those who resist, lest perhaps God give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth, and they recover themselves out of the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will.' Whatsoever was done by our authors was done with reason, that to us their posterity an authority fortified on every side might be handed down against the transgressors. On account of forestalling the heresy which we have censured above, concerning the taking up of women—whether by Himself or through His servants—the Lord relaxed a little, lest by excessive strictness the whole fabric of the Lord be condemned.

There were foreseen by the Lord the heretics who take away marriages, and who strive to separate those whom the Lord has joined, against the principle of nature and against the Gospel. Against these an authority was even then being prepared to forbid them, lest married women be forbidden to draw near to Christ, whom in His presence they served. But even that permission itself was procured not without restraint—working not for its own sake, but doing for others' sake what it did. For if the Lord addressed the Samaritan woman, He taught for an hour and withdrew, and made no defense for the prolonging of excesses. For an hour, too, He suffered Martha to serve. But what else was it to the Lord than to serve the banquets of the heavenly kingdom? Were there not, under the Lord, feasts?

Or under His majesty was there any other drink or food than the discipline alone that fed them?—the Lord Himself bearing witness and saying: 'My food is to do the will of Him that sent me.' Thus a company of women accompanied the apostles, not that they might perish, but that they might learn reverence; and they followed for the sake of rendering the ministry of kindness, as in the Gospel it is recorded of the Lord and of them alike:

'And it came to pass,' he says, 'afterward, that He too journeyed through the cities and villages, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve were with Him, and certain women who had been healed of unclean spirits and infirmities: Mary who is called Magdalene, out of whom seven demons had gone forth, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, who also ministered to Him of their means.' Did single women cling to single men, or did they persist in undisciplined cohabitation, consorting in an enticing fellowship, where wellnigh the whole Church was looking on, so that they followed not to shameful banquetings but to the learning of the pursuits of good conduct?

So far is nothing there described that might be put on a level with our banquetings: no laughter, no jesting is said to have been present. Nor, as is even now wont to happen among certain men, is a choir of chanting virgins asserted to have soothed the ears with poisonous songs. And that I may briefly prove concerning the apostles how greatly a loose familiarity could displease them—they who were constrained to be in doubt even about the Lord Himself speaking with a woman, had not the proven knowledge of His majesty restrained them—as the evangelist relates, saying: 'Meanwhile,' he says, 'His disciples came, and marveled that He was speaking with a woman; yet no one said to Him: What do You seek, or why do You speak with her?'

But what shall I say of the approach of the woman who cast herself down at the Lord's feet, whose weeping and wailing the shameless blush not to demand for the defense of their own wantonness? To such a degree does their own blindness carry them away, that they dare not even strive over like cases, concerning which Solomon says: 'Their own malice blinded them, and they knew not the mysteries of God.' John, moreover, is seen to have taken up the Lord's mother—but a mother whose character her maternal name indicates. Yet I cannot admit other mothers of Christ as well, nor is she to be equated with all women, who bore the Majesty. Elijah, too, was bidden by the Lord to leave the wilderness and to enter the tabernacle of the widow.

At the Lord's command he labored to lodge in the house—he for whom the wilderness had furnished a palace for repose; the Lord offered him an occasion for doing mighty works, that in the time of famine he might rather bestow upon the widow, and upon her orphans, sufficient sustenance—he who, everywhere afflicted with fastings, had endured want, and who, having come, being sent, to be fed, was fed—nay rather, conferring aid upon the wretched, caused the miseries of destitution to be shut out. And this can favor no man's looseness, since there was no opportunity for scandal, where, in passing, and what is worse, he had a needy lodging such as any guest would flee. But here, among those with whom he lodged, he filled them and departed—he who, even had he lingered, could not have been suspected.

What sort of feeling of companionship was there, where there was no food? And what sort of entrance had Elijah to the widow, to whom famine gave hospitality? Whoever you are who wish to be called a disciple of Elijah on account of his lodging with the widow, first endure the afflictions of the wilderness and the ordeal of forty days as a faster, and either you will not seek a woman, or there will be no one who would lodge with a woman—and yet, if you can, keep it to yourself. But to us, in the spirit and power of Elijah, both the angel and the Lord Christ intimate none other than John alone. O the shame! We are constrained to grieve at what we teach, who have come to such a pass that, in comparison with the dissolute, we must dispute concerning the awesome virtues of the saints. Spare now, spare, O insolence!