文集 第 1 章

I. The Letter of the Holy Presbyter Severus to his sister Claudia, concerning the Last Judgment. Having read your letters, in many ways and through a stirring of affection I could not hold back my tears: for I wept for joy, because from the very wording of your letters I could perceive that you live according to the precepts of the Lord our God; and out of longing for you I could not but grieve, because I was being estranged from you by the greatest injury, had you not sent a letter. Should I then not enjoy such a sister? But I call your salvation to witness: very often I have wished to come to you, but until now I have been hindered, the one who is wont to obstruct standing in the way.

For I was hastening, out of my longing, to satisfy myself in the sight of you, and we seemed likely to carry on the work of our Lord between us along the way, while, each consoling the other and the burden of the world trodden underfoot by us, we might live. But now I do not fix a day or time for coming, because as often as I have fixed one, I have not been able to fulfill it: I shall await the Lord's will, and I hope that by my prayers and yours he may grant us to reap fruit from our being present together. As for the rest—that in all the letters I had sent to you, you desired precepts for your life and faith—I have already, through the constancy of my writings, used up my words: I can now write back nothing new to you that I have not written before.

And indeed, God being gracious, you no longer need to be admonished, you who, consummating faith among first beginnings, display a devout charity in Christ. Yet one thing I do urge: that you do not go back over things already crossed, that you do not desire things despised, that you do not, putting your hand to the plough and turning back, look behind—whereby, the vice surely returning into you, the furrow must needs lose its proper line, nor indeed shall the husbandman receive his reward. Otherwise he does not even attain his portion, if he has ceased in part. For as one must flee from sin to righteousness, so for him who has entered upon righteousness it must be guarded against, lest he lie open to sin. For it is written that to the just man, on the day in which he goes astray, his righteousness shall not profit him.

On this, therefore, we must take our stand; on this we must labour: that we who have escaped our sins may not lose the rewards prepared for us. For the enemy stands ready against us, that he may strike us the moment we are stripped of the shield-boss of faith. The shield, then, must not be thrown away, lest the flank lie open; nor must the sword be lowered, lest the foe begin to lose his fear; but rather, when he sees us armed, he will depart. Nor are we unaware that it is hard and difficult to fight daily against the flesh and the world. Yet if you ponder eternity, if you consider the kingdoms of heaven, which the Lord will surely deign to grant us, sinners though we are, what suffering at last is so worthy that by it we might earn so great a reward? Our struggle in this world is of brief duration; for even if death does not come, old age will come.

The years slip away, the seasons flow on, and, as I hope, the Lord Jesus will swiftly call us, longed-for, to Himself. O how blessed will that departure of ours be, when Christ shall receive us into His own dwelling, cleansed from the stain of sin by the conduct of a better life! The martyrs and prophets will come to meet us, the apostles will join us, the angels will rejoice, the archangels will be glad, and Satan, conquered, will grow pale though his mouth be bloody, since he will have lost even our sins, which he had prepared for himself within us. He will see the glory granted through pardon, the merits honoured through glory; we shall triumph, the enemy overcome. Where then will the wise men of this world appear? Where will the miser, where the adulterer, where the impious, where the drunkard, where the slanderer be found again?

What will the wretched say in their own defence? 「We did not know You, Lord; we did not see that You were in the world; You sent no prophets, You gave no law to the age; we did not see the patriarchs, we did not read the examples of the saints. Your Christ was not on earth, Peter was silent, Paul would not preach, the Evangelist did not teach. There were no martyrs whose examples we might follow; no one foretold Your coming judgment, no one commanded us to clothe the poor, no one bade us restrain lust, no one persuaded us to resist greed; we fell through ignorance, and what we did, we did not knowing.」 Against these, from that choir of the saints, even Noah the righteous will first cry out:

「I, Lord, both proclaimed the flood that was to come because of the sins of men, and after the flood I gave an example of myself to the good, when I did not perish along with the wicked who perished, so that these men might learn both what salvation belongs to the innocent and what punishment to sinners.」 After him faithful Abraham will stand forth. 「I,」 he says, 「Lord, laid the foundation of the faith by which the human race might believe in You, at about the middle age of that world; I was chosen as the father of the nations, whose examples they might follow; I did not hesitate, Lord, to offer Isaac, still a little child, to You as a victim, that these men might recognize that nothing ought to be denied to the Lord, when they understood that I did not spare even my only son:」

「I forsook my land and my kindred at Your bidding, Lord, that to these too there might be an example of forsaking the wickedness of the world and the sins of the age; I, Lord, was the first to acknowledge You, though under a bodily image, and I did not hesitate to believe Him whom I saw, though You appeared to me in another substance, that these men might understand that judgment is to be made not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.」 To him blessed Moses will respond: 「I, Lord, delivered the law to all these at Your command, that those whom free faith did not hold, the law at least, once spoken, might restrain; I said, 'You shall not commit adultery,' to check the license of fornication; I said, 'You shall love your neighbour,' that charity might abound:」

「I said, 'You shall serve the Lord alone,' lest these men sacrifice to idols or suffer there to be temples. I decreed that no false testimony should be given, that I might shut the mouths of these men against every lie. I set forth the deeds and words from the beginning of the world, the Spirit of Your power working in me, that the knowledge of things past might impart to these men the teaching of things to come. I proclaimed that You, Lord Jesus, would come, that it might be no unforeseen thing for these men to recognize Him whose coming I had foretold beforehand.」 After him will stand one worthy of his Lord, of the seed of David: 「I, Lord, announced You in all things; I cried aloud that Your name alone was to be served:」

「I said, 'Blessed is the man who fears the Lord'; I said, 'The saints shall exult in glory'; I said, 'The desire of sinners shall perish,' that these men might acknowledge You and cease from sinning. I, though endowed with royal power, having put off the emblems of my magnificence, lay prostrate upon my garments, covered with sackcloth and strewn with dust, that an example of meekness and humility might be given to these men. I spared my enemies, who longed to slay me, that these men might prove my mercy worthy of imitation.」 After him Isaiah, worthy of the Spirit of God, will not be silent. 「I, Lord, You speaking through my mouth, forewarned: 'Woe to those who join house to house,' that I might set a limit to covetousness.」

「I bore witness that Your wrath had come upon sinners, that the fear of punishments, if not the hope of rewards, might at least restrain these men from their evil deeds.」 After these and many others, who rendered to us the offices of teaching, the Son of God Himself will speak these words:

「I, indeed, exalted upon a lofty throne, holding heaven in My palm and the earth in My fist, diffused within and without, more inward than all things that are begotten and more outward than all things that move, inestimable, infinite in the power of My nature, invisible to sight, incomprehensible to touch—that among you, to tame the hardness of your heart and to soften your perfidy by saving teachings, I might become the least of you, deigned to be born in the flesh; and having laid aside the glory of God, I took on the appearance of a servant's form, so that, having shared with you the weakness of the body, I might in turn admit you, through obedience to the precept of salvation, into the fellowship of My glory.

To all the sick and infirm I restored health, hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, voice to the dumb, the use of their feet to the lame, that I might move you by heavenly signs, so that you might more easily believe in Me and in the things I had proclaimed. I promised you the kingdoms of heaven; I also, that you might have an example of remission, placed the thief, who confessed Me at the time of his own death, in paradise, that you might follow even the faith of him who had merited that his sins be forgiven him. And that by My example you yourselves might also be able to suffer for one another, I suffered for you, that man might not hesitate to suffer for man what God endured for man. I showed Myself after the resurrection, lest your faith be confounded.

In Peter I admonished the Jews, in Paul I preached to the Gentiles; nor do I regret it: there is fruit of the good. The good understood My work, the faithful accomplished it, the just fulfilled it, the merciful brought it to completion; and a great part of the martyrs is theirs, a great part of the saints. Surely these others too were in the same body, in the same world. Why do I find no good work in you, O brood of viper's stock? You have not done penance for your evils even on the last day of your end. But what does it avail that you adore Me with your lips, if by deeds and works you deny Me? Where now are your riches, where your honours, where your power, where are your pleasures? I lay no new sentence upon you: you have the judgment which I foretold before.」

Then the Evangelist will recite to the wretched that word: 「Cast them into the outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.」 O wretches, whom these things do not move: they will see their own punishment and the glory of others. Let them enjoy the world, since they will not enjoy that eternity which is prepared for the saints; let them abound in riches, let them lie upon gold, while there they will be found needy, there destitute; let them be rich in the world, while in eternity they will be poor, of whom it is written: 「The rich have wanted and have hungered.」 But of the good the Scripture has added what follows: 「Those who seek the Lord, however, shall not be deprived of any good thing.」

And so, sister, although these people mock us, although they call us foolish and unhappy, let us rejoice the more happily in the reproaches by which glory is heaped upon us, and punishment upon them. Nor let us laugh at their folly, but rather let us grieve over their unhappiness, since among them is a great part of our own, whom, if we are able to win them, glory is increased in us. But let them do as they will, let them be to us as Gentiles and tax-collectors; but let us guard ourselves safe and unharmed. If they now rejoice while we grieve, we shall afterward rejoice in their grief. Farewell, sister most dear and most beloved in Christ. [A = Extracts in the acts of the Council of Aachen (a. 816). C = Cambridge codex.]

[H = the text of Lucas Holstenius in the Appendix to the Codex Regularum (Paris, 1663), p. 8 and following, where the letter is thus titled: 'Athanasius's Exhortation to the Bride of Christ.' R = the Roman Reginensis codex, no. 140. V = the Vienna codex, Theol. 664. ed. Vall. = the text of Vallarsi in the Appendix to the works of St. Jerome, XI, p. 127 and following. b = the edition of Baluze. From H we have noted only those readings which differ from the readings of the Reginensis codex; cf. the Preface, n.] The Letter of St. Severus to his sister Claudia, on Virginity.

How great a blessedness in heavenly things holy virginity possesses, we are taught, beyond the testimonies of the Scriptures, also by the custom of the Church, by which we learn that a special merit belongs to those whose consecration is distinctive. For although the whole multitude of believers receives equal gifts of grace and all glory in the same blessings of the sacraments, these have something of their own beyond the rest, since out of that holy and spotless flock of the Church they are chosen by the Holy Spirit, as it were the holier and purer victims, according to the merits of their own will, and are offered at the altar by the high priest of God. A worthy offering indeed to the Lord is the oblation of so precious a living thing, and none more pleasing to Him than a victim that is His own image.

For it is concerning such as these that I think the Apostle especially spoke: 「But I beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living victim, holy, well-pleasing to God.」 Virginity therefore possesses both what others have and what others do not have, since it obtains both the common and the special grace, and rejoices, so to speak, in the proper privilege of consecration. For ecclesiastical authority permits us to call virgins the brides of Christ, since after the manner of brides it veils those whom it consecrates to the Lord, showing that they especially will have a spiritual marriage, who have shunned bodily union.

And worthily for God, through the comparison of matrimony, are they spiritually united who, for the sake of His love, have spurned human marriages. In them is most fully accomplished that saying of the Apostle: 「But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit.」 For it is a great thing and immortal, almost beyond bodily nature, to lull lust to sleep and to quench by strength of soul the flame of concupiscence kindled by the torches of youth, by spiritual effort to shut out the force of innate pleasure, to live against the manner of the human race, to despise the solaces of marriage, to scorn the sweetness of children, and to count as nothing, in hope of future blessedness, whatever can be the advantages of the present life.

Great, as I have said, and admirable is this virtue, and not undeservedly destined, in proportion to the greatness of its labour, for an immense reward. 「I will give,」 says the Lord, 「to the eunuchs in My house and within My walls a place named better than that of sons and daughters; an everlasting name will I give them, and it shall not fail.」 Concerning which eunuchs the Lord repeats in the Gospel, saying: 「For there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.」 Great indeed is the labour of chastity, but greater is the reward—a guarding for a time, but a recompense eternal. For of these too the blessed Apostle John speaks, that they follow the Lamb wherever He goes.

Which I think is to be understood thus: that no place in the heavenly court is to be closed to them, and that all the dwellings of the divine mansions are to be opened to them. But that the merit of virginity may shine forth more illustriously, and that it may be more manifestly understood how worthy it is of God, let this be considered: that the Lord and our Saviour, God, when for the salvation of the human race He deigned to take up manhood, chose no other than a virginal womb, that He might show that virtue of this kind is most pleasing to Himself; and that He might commend the good of chastity to both sexes, He had a virgin mother, Himself destined to remain a virgin:

In Himself He furnished an example of virginity to men, and in His mother to women, whereby it might be shown that in both sexes the blessed and perfect fullness of divinity deigned to dwell, since the whole of what dwelt in the Son was present in the mother. But why do I labour to reveal the excellent and lofty merit of chastity and to display the glorious good of virginity, when I am not unaware that many have spoken at length on this matter and have proved its blessedness by the clearest arguments, and when it cannot come into doubt for any wise man that that thing is of greater merit which is of greater labour? For whoever esteems chastity as of no reward or of little, it is certain that he either is ignorant of it or does not bear its labour willingly.

Whence those always disparage chastity who either do not have it or are compelled to have it against their will. Now therefore, since—though briefly—we have shown both the labour and the merit of integrity, lest a thing which both consists in great virtue and is destined for an immense reward should be able to lack its fruit, we must keep watch more diligently. For the more precious any kind of thing is, the greater the care with which it is guarded.

And since there are many things which lack their own good unless they are aided by the help of other things—as is the case with the substance of honey, which, unless it is preserved by the protection of the wax and the cells of the combs and, to speak more truly, is nourished, loses its natural grace and cannot subsist by itself; as also with the substance of wine, which, unless it is cherished in vessels of good odour repaired often with pitch, loses the force of its innate sweetness—it must be more attentively provided for, lest perhaps there be also certain things necessary to virginity, without which it can by no means suffice to bear fruit, and so great a labour should profit nothing, while it is vainly believed to profit when it is possessed apart from the necessary things.

For unless I am mistaken, the integrity of chastity is kept for the sake of the reward of the heavenly kingdom, which it is sufficiently certain that no one can attain without the merit of eternal life. But that eternal life can be merited only through the keeping of all the divine precepts, the Scripture testifies, saying: 「If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments.」 Therefore he does not have life except he who has kept all the commandments of the law; and he who has not had life cannot be a possessor of the heavenly kingdom, in which not the dead but the living shall reign. Therefore virginity alone, which hopes for the glory of the heavenly kingdom, will profit nothing, unless it has also that to which perpetual life is promised, through which the reward of the heavenly kingdom is possessed.

Before all things, therefore, the precepts of the commandments are to be kept by those who preserve chastity and integrity and who hope for its recompense from the justice of God, lest the labour of glorious chastity and continence be brought to nothing. That virginity is above commandment or precept, no wise man is ignorant from the law, the Apostle saying: 「But concerning virgins I have no precept of the Lord, but I give counsel.」 Since therefore he gives counsel for obtaining virginity, and does not establish a precept, he has professed it to be above commandment. Whoever therefore preserve virginity do more than what is commanded. For then it will profit to have done more than was bidden, if you do what is bidden.

For how will you boast of having done more, if you do not do something that is less? Desiring to fulfil the divine counsel, before all things keep the commandment; wishing to obtain the reward of virginity, embrace the merits of life, that there may be something whose chastity can be recompensed. For as the observance of the commandments confers life, so on the contrary their transgression begets death. And he who through transgression has been adjudged to death will not be able to hope for the crown of virginity, nor, set in punishment, to await the reward of chastity. For there are three kinds of virtues through which the possession of the heavenly kingdom is entered:

The first is chastity, the second is contempt of the world, the third indeed is righteousness; which, when joined together, profit their possessors most, but, when divided, can hardly profit, since each one of them is demanded not for its own sake only, but for the sake of another. First, then, chastity is sought, that contempt of the world may more easily follow, since the world can more lightly be despised by those who are not held by the bonds of matrimony. But contempt of the world is required that righteousness may be preserved, which those can hardly fulfil who are entangled in the desires of worldly goods and the affairs of worldly pleasures. Whoever therefore possesses the first kind, chastity, and does not obtain the second, which is contempt of the world, almost without cause

he possesses the first, when he does not have the second, for the sake of which the first was sought. And if he should have the first and the second, but lack the third, which is righteousness, he labours in vain, since the two former are required chiefly for the sake of the third. For what does it profit to have chastity for the sake of contempt of the world, and not to have that for the sake of which you have it? Or why should you despise the things of the world, if you do not keep righteousness, for the sake of which it befits you to have chastity, for the sake of which to have contempt of the world? For as the first kind is for the sake of the second, so the first and second are for the sake of the third; and if this be lacking, neither the first nor the second will profit. You say perhaps:

「Teach me, then, what righteousness is, that, if I come to know it, I may more easily be able to fulfil it.」 I will say it briefly, as best I can, and I will use the simplicity of common words, because the matter of which we treat is such as ought by no means to be obscured by the more eloquent discourses of fine speech, but to be laid open by the simpler narrations of plain expression. For a thing necessary to all in common ought to be shown in common speech. Righteousness, then, is nothing other than not to sin, and not to sin is to keep the precepts of the law. But the observance of the precepts is guarded by a twofold kind: that you do nothing of those things which are forbidden, and that you strive to fulfil all things which are commanded. This is what He says: 「Turn away from evil and do good.」

For I would not have you think that righteousness consists in this, that you do not do evil, since not to do good is also evil, and in both cases a transgression of the law is committed; for He who said 'Turn away from evil' is the same who said 'and do good.' If you have turned away from evil and have not done good, you are a transgressor of the law, which is fulfilled not only in the abomination of evil acts, but also in the perfecting of good works. For this alone is not enjoined upon you, that you do not strip the clothed of their garments, but also that you clothe the naked with your own; not that you do not take away his bread from one who has it, but also that you freely impart your own to one who has none; not only that you do not drive the poor from his lodging, but that you receive into your own one who is cast out and has none.

For it is enjoined upon us to weep with those who weep. How do we weep with them, if we share in none of their necessities, nor furnish them any help in those matters for which they shed tears? For God does not seek the fruitless moisture of our weeping, but because tears are a sign of grief, He wills you so to feel another's distresses as your own. And as you would wish to be relieved, if you were in such tribulation, so do you yourself relieve another, on account of that saying: 「Whatever good you wish men to do to you, do you also to them.」 For to weep with one who weeps and to be unwilling, when you can, to render aid to the one who weeps, is a sign of mockery, not of piety.

In short, our Saviour, with Mary and Martha the sisters of Lazarus, both gave a sign and showed the affection of His immense mercy by the testimony of His tears. And the signs of true piety were soon followed by works, when Lazarus, raised up—for whose sake the tears were shed—was restored to his sisters. This was piously to weep with those who weep: to take away the occasion of weeping. But, you will say, He did it as one who is powerful. Yet nothing impossible is commanded of you either: he has fulfilled all things who has done what he could.

But as we had begun to say, it does not suffice for a Christian to abstain from evils, unless he also perfects the offices of good works; which is proved especially by that testimony in which the Lord threatens that those will be liable to eternal fire who, although they have done nothing evil, have not done all that is good, saying: 「Then the King will say to those on His left: 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which My Father has prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink,' and the rest.」 He did not say: 「'Depart from Me, you cursed, because you committed murder, because adultery, or because thefts':」

For not because they had done evil, but because they had not done good, are they condemned and consigned to the torments of eternal Gehenna; not because they had committed what was forbidden, but because they were unwilling to fulfil what was commanded. Whence it is to be observed what hope they can have who still do some of those things which are forbidden, when even those are guilty of eternal fire who did not do what is commanded. For I would not have you flatter yourself in this, that if you have not done some things, because you have done some, since it is written: 「Whoever shall have kept the whole law, but offend in one point, has become guilty of all.」 For Adam sinned once and died; and do you think that you can live, often committing that which killed another when he had perpetrated it but once?

Or do you think he committed so great a crime, that he was deservedly condemned to a sharper punishment? Let us see, then, what he did: contrary to the commandment he ate of the fruit of the tree. What then? Did God punish man with death on account of the fruit of the tree? Not on account of the fruit of the tree, but on account of contempt of the commandment. Therefore it is not a question of the quality of the sin, but of the transgression of the commandment. And He who said to Adam that he should not eat of the fruit of the tree, He Himself enjoins you that you should not curse, not lie, not detract, not listen to one who detracts, that you should not swear at all, that you should not covet, not envy, not be lukewarm, not be greedy, that you should render to no one evil for evil, that you should love your enemies, that you should bless those who curse you,

that you should pray for those who slander and persecute you, that to one who strikes you on the cheek you should offer the other, that in a secular court you should not go to law, that if anyone should wish to take away what is yours, you should let it go gladly, that you should admit into your breast neither the evil of anger nor of jealousy nor of envy, that you should flee the crime of greed, that you should beware of all the evil of pride and boasting, and that you should live humble and meek after the example of Christ, shunning the company of the wicked so far that you do not even take food with fornicators, or the greedy, or slanderers, or the envious, or detractors, or drunkards, or the rapacious. And if you despise Him in any of these, then if He spared Adam, He will spare you also.

Nay rather, he ought the more to have been spared, who was still untrained and new, and was held back by the example of no one previously sinning and dying on account of his sin. But you, if after so many proofs—after the law, after the prophets, after the gospels, after the apostles—you should be willing to transgress, how indulgence could be granted you, I do not know. Do you flatter yourself on the prerogative of virginity? Remember that Adam and Eve sinned as virgins, and that integrity of body did not profit them when they sinned. The virgin who sins is to be compared with Eve, not with Mary. We do not deny the remedy of penance in the present time, but we rather exhort that one ought to hope for the reward rather than for pardon.

For it is shameful that those who await the palm of virginity should beg indulgence for an offence, and that those who have castrated themselves even from things lawful should incur something unlawful; for it is indeed lawful to enter into the fellowship of matrimony. And as those are to be praised who, for the love of Christ and the glory of the heavenly kingdom, have despised the union of marriage, so those are to be condemned who, for the pleasure of incontinence, after they have vowed themselves to God, abuse the apostolic remedy. Therefore, as we have said, those who forsake marriages spurn not things unlawful, but things lawful.

But if such persons swear, if they curse, if they detract, if they suffer themselves to listen to those who detract, if they render evil for evil, if they incur the crime of covetousness in things belonging to others or of avarice in their own, if they harbour the poisons of jealousy or envy, if against legal and apostolic institutions they say or think anything unbecoming, if in the flesh, with zeal for pleasing, they go forth dressed up and adorned, if they do other unlawful things, as is wont to happen—what will it profit them to have spurned what was lawful and to practise what is not lawful? If you wish that your having despised lawful things should profit you, see that you do none of those things which are not lawful.

For it is foolish to have feared what is less, and not to fear what is greater [or not to avoid those things which are forbidden, while having spurned indeed those things which are permitted]. For the Apostle says: 「The unmarried woman thinks about the things of the Lord, how she may please God, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she who is married thinks about the things of this world, how she may please her husband.」 He asserts that the married woman pleases her husband by thinking about the things of the world, but the unmarried woman pleases God, in that she has no care of the age. Let her tell me, then, who has no husband and yet thinks about the things of the world—whom does she desire to please? Will not the married woman begin to be preferred to her? For the former, by thinking about the things of the world, is pleasing at least to her husband, but the latter can please neither a husband, whom she does not have, nor God.

But neither does it befit us to pass over in silence that which he said: 「The unmarried woman thinks about the things of the Lord, how she may please God, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.」 [She thinks, he says, about the things of the Lord; not about the things of the age, not the things of men, but she thinks about the things of God.] What, then, are the things of the Lord? Let the Apostle tell: 「Whatever things are holy, whatever things are just, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline.」 These are the things of the Lord, which the holy and truly apostolic virgins meditate upon and think about day and night, without any interval of time.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to the Lord, the resurrection of the dead belongs to the Lord, immortality belongs to the Lord, incorruption belongs to the Lord, the splendor of the sun which is promised to the saints belongs to the Lord, as it is written in the Gospel: 'Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.' To the Lord belong the many mansions of the righteous in the heavenly places; to the Lord belong the thirtyfold, the sixtyfold, and the hundredfold fruit. When women ponder these things, and ponder by what works they may be able to merit them, they ponder the things that are the Lord's. To the Lord also belongs the law of the new and the old testament, in which the holy utterances of His mouth shine forth; and if any virgins meditate upon these things without ceasing, they ponder the things that are the Lord's, and that prophetic word is fulfilled in them:

'Eternal foundations are upon the solid rock, and the commandments of God are in the heart of a holy woman.' There follows, 'how she may please God' — God, I say, not men — 'that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.' He did not say that she should be holy in a single member or in the body alone, but that she should be holy in body and spirit. For a member is one part of the body, whereas the body is the joining together of all the members. When therefore he says that she should be holy in body, he testifies that she ought to be sanctified in all her members, because the sanctification of the rest of the members will profit nothing if corruption is found even in one. Indeed, she will not be holy in body — which consists of all the members — if it has been defiled by the pollution of even a single one.

But that what I say may become more evident and clear: suppose a woman has been purified by the sanctification of all her members, and only her tongue sins, because it blasphemes or bears false witness — will all the members set the one free, or will the rest be judged on account of the one? Therefore, if the sanctification of the other members will not profit when there is a fault in one, how much more, if all are corrupted by the disgrace of various sins, will the integrity of a single one profit nothing! Wherefore I beg you, O virgin, do not flatter yourself in chastity alone, nor trust in the integrity of a single member, but, according to the Apostle, preserve the sanctity of your body wholly intact.

Cleanse your head from all defilement, for it is a crime, after the sanctification of the anointing, to be soiled with the juice or powder of saffron or any other pigment, or to be adorned with gold or gems or any other earthly finery — that which already shines with the splendor of heavenly adornment. For it is a great affront to divine grace to prefer worldly and secular ornament. Cleanse your forehead, that it may blush at human deeds and not at divine ones, and receive that confusion which begets not sin but the grace of God, as the Scripture says: 'There is a confusion that brings sin, and there is a confusion that brings grace.'

Cleanse your neck, that your hair may not bear golden nets nor hang with necklaces, but rather wear about it those ornaments of which the Scripture says: 'Let mercy and faith not depart from you; bind them upon your heart as upon your neck.' Cleanse your eyes, by withdrawing them from all covetousness, by never turning them away from looking upon the poor, and by keeping them free from all paints, in that sincerity in which they were made by God. Cleanse your tongue from lying, for 'the mouth that lies slays the soul'; cleanse it from detraction, from swearing of oaths, from flattery, from perjury.

I would not have you think the order reversed, that I said the tongue should be cleansed from swearing oaths before perjury; for you will more easily escape perjury if you do not swear at all, so that that saying may be fulfilled in you: 'Keep your tongue from evil, and let your lips not speak guile.' And be mindful of the Apostle who says: 'Bless, and curse not.' And recall also this more frequently: 'See that none render to any man evil for evil, nor cursing for cursing, but on the contrary, blessing, for to this you are called, that you may possess a blessing by inheritance.' And this also: 'But if any man offend not in tongue, he is a perfect man.'

For it is unlawful that those lips by which you confess God, beseech Him, bless Him, and praise Him, should be polluted by the filth of any sin. With what conscience, I know not, does the tongue beseech God when it either lies or curses or detracts? God hears holy lips, and quickly grants the prayers which an undefiled tongue utters. Cleanse your ears, that they may lend hearing to none but holy and true discourses, that they may never receive obscene or shameful or worldly words, nor hear anyone disparaging another, on account of that which is written: 'Hedge in your ears with thorns, and listen not to a wicked tongue,' that you may have a part with Him of whom it is said:

'Because by hearing and by sight he was righteous' — that is, he offended neither with his eyes nor with his ears. Cleanse your hands, that they be not stretched out to receive, but drawn in toward giving; not ready to strike, but fully prompt for all works of mercy and piety. Cleanse your feet, that they may not walk the broad and spacious way which leads to the splendid and costly banquets of the world, but rather tread the steep and narrow path which leads to heaven, for it is written: 'Make straight paths for your feet.' Recognize that your members were formed by God the Maker not for vices but for virtues:

and when you have cleansed all your members from every filth of sin and have been sanctified in your whole body, then understand that chastity will profit you, and with all confidence await the palm of virginity. I think I have expressed briefly yet fully what it is to be holy in body; now we must understand what follows — 'and in spirit' — that is, that what it is unlawful to do in deed, it is also not lawful to conceive in thought. For she is holy both in body and in spirit who offends neither in mind nor in heart, knowing also that God is the inspector of the heart, and therefore takes care to keep her soul, together with her body, in every way clean from sin, knowing that it is written: 'With all watchfulness keep your heart,' and again:

'God loves a holy heart, and all the undefiled are acceptable to Him,' and elsewhere: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' — which I judge to be said of those whom conscience convicts of no guilt of sin, of whom I think John too has spoken in his epistle: 'If our heart reprove us not, we have confidence toward God, and whatsoever we ask we shall receive from Him.' I would not have you suppose that you have escaped the crime of sin if the will is not followed by the act, since it is written: 'Whosoever shall look upon a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart.' Nor say, 'I did indeed think it, but I did not carry it out,' because it is unlawful even to desire what it is unlawful to do.

Wherefore blessed Peter also commands, saying, 'purifying your souls'; for if he had known of no defilement of the soul, he would not have desired that it be purified. But we ought also to consider more attentively that passage which contains: 'These are they who were not defiled with women, for they remained virgins; these follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes,' and to note whether these are joined to that divine company and range through all the courts of heaven by the merit of integrity and chastity alone, or whether there are also other things by which virginity, thus aided, attains the glory of so great a blessedness. But whence shall we be able to know this? From what follows, unless I am mistaken, in which it is written:

'These were redeemed from among men, the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb, and in their mouth was found no lie, for they are without blemish before the throne of God.' You see therefore that they are said to cleave to the Lord's footsteps not in one member only, but that they are those who, besides virginity, have led an immaculate life, free from all contagion of sin. For this reason above all the virgin spurns marriage, that, being more secure, she may more easily guard from all fault even that which is also required of married women, and may fulfill all the commandments of the law. For if she does not marry and yet nonetheless does those things from which even married women are bidden to be free, what will it profit her not to have married?

For although it is lawful for no Christian to sin, and it befits all who are cleansed by the sanctification of the spiritual washing to run an immaculate course of life, so that they may be brought into the inmost bosom of the Church, which is described as being without spot, without wrinkle, or any such thing — much more is it necessary for the virgin to fulfill this, whom neither husband, nor children, nor any other necessity prevents from accomplishing the divine Scripture, nor can she, if she sin, be defended by any excuse. O virgin, keep the resolve appointed to you for a great reward. Glorious before the Lord is the virtue of virginity and chastity, if it be not weakened by other lapses into sins and evils.

Recognize your state, recognize your place, recognize your resolve. You are called the bride of Christ: see that you admit nothing unworthy of Him to whom you appear betrothed. He will quickly write a bill of divorce if He sees in you even a single adultery. Whatever woman is pledged with the earnest-gifts of a human betrothal at once carefully and diligently inquires from the household, the intimates, the friends of the bridegroom what manners the young man has, what he especially loves, what he accepts, by what habit he lives, by what custom he governs himself, what foods he uses, in what things above all he delights and rejoices. And when she has learned these things, she so tempers herself in all matters that her compliance, her pleasantness, her diligence, her whole life may accord with the manners of the bridegroom.

You also, who have Christ as your bridegroom, inquire from the household and intimates of your bridegroom what His manners are, and earnestly and skillfully ask in what things especially He delights, what arrangement of garments upon you He loves, what kind of adornment He desires. Let His most intimate friend Peter tell you, who does not permit even married women bodily adornment, as he wrote in his epistle: 'Let wives likewise be subject to their own husbands, that, if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word by the conduct of the women, while they behold your chaste conduct in the fear of God:'

'whose adorning let it not be the outward adorning of hair, or wearing of gold, or putting on of apparel, but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruption of a quiet and modest spirit,' which is in the sight of God of great price. Let another Apostle also speak, the blessed Paul, who, writing to Timothy, testifies the same concerning the discipline of faithful women: 'In like manner also women in becoming attire, adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly raiment, but as becomes women professing chastity through good conduct.' But perhaps you say: Why did these same Apostles not give a command?

Because they did not judge it necessary, lest such an admonition should seem to virgins to be an injury rather than a correction. Nor would they ever have believed them capable of such great rashness, that they would presume to take up carnal and earthly adornments not even conceded to married women. In truth, the virgin ought to adorn and array herself: for how will she be able to please her bridegroom, unless she comes forth arrayed and adorned? Let her be plainly adorned, but with inner ornaments, and let her be arrayed spiritually, not carnally, because God desires in her not the beauty of the body but of the soul. Therefore you also, whoever you are who desire your soul to be loved and indwelt by God, array it with all diligence and adorn it with spiritual garments. Let nothing unseemly, nothing foul appear in it.

Let it shine with the gold of righteousness and gleam with the gems of holiness, and sparkle with the most precious pearl of chastity; instead of fine linen and silk, let it be clothed with the tunic of mercy and piety, according to what is written: 'Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humility,' and the rest. And let it seek not the comeliness of white-lead or any other pigment, but let it have the whiteness of innocence and simplicity, possess the rosy color of modesty and the purple blush of shame. Let it be washed with the heavenly soap of doctrine and cleansed with spiritual lye. Let no stain of malice, no stain of sin be left in it.

And lest at any time it give off the foul odor of sin, let it be drenched with the most sweet ointment of wisdom and knowledge. Such is the adornment that God seeks, and a soul thus arrayed He desires. Remember that you are called a daughter of God, according to what He says: 'Hear, O daughter, and see.' And you yourself too, as often as you name God your Father, testify that you are a daughter of God. Therefore, if you are a daughter of God, see that you do none of those things which are unbefitting to God your Father, but do all things as a daughter of God. Learn how the daughters of the nobles of this world conduct themselves, to what manners they accustom themselves, and by what disciplines they train themselves.

So great in some is the modesty, so great the gravity, so great the restraint, that out of regard for human nobility they surpass the manner of other people; and lest by some lapse of their own they brand any mark of infamy upon their honorable parents, they strive in a certain way to make for themselves among men a second nature of habit. You too, therefore, regard your origin, behold your lineage, attend to the glory of your nobility. Recognize that you are the daughter not of man only, but also of God, and adorned with the nobility of a divine birth. So conduct yourself that in you the heavenly birth may appear and the divine high-birth may shine clearly.

Let there be in you a new gravity, an admirable honorableness, an astonishing modesty, a wondrous patience, a virginal gait and the bearing of true chastity, speech always modest and uttered in its own time, so that whoever sees you may marvel and say: 'What is this patience of a new gravity among men? What modesty of shame, what restraint of honorableness, what maturity of wisdom? This is no human institution nor mortal discipline. Something heavenly is fragrant to me in this earthly body. I think that God dwells in certain people.' And when he has come to know that you are a handmaid of Christ, he will be seized with even greater astonishment and will ponder what manner of Lord that is whose handmaid is such.

If therefore you wish to be with Christ and to have a part with Christ, you must live by the example of Christ, who was so estranged from all malice and wickedness that He did not even render the like to His enemies, but rather prayed even for them. For I would not have you think those souls Christian which not only — I will not say hate — but do not love their brothers or sisters, their neighbors, with their whole heart and conscience before the testimony of God; since for Christians, after the likeness of Christ, it is necessary to love even their enemies. If you desire to have fellowship with the saints, cleanse your breast from the thought of malice and wickedness. Let no one circumvent you, let no one seduce you with deceitful speech. The heavenly court will receive none but the holy, the just, the simple, the innocent, and the pure:

Malice has no place with God. He who desires to reign with Christ must be clean from all wickedness and guile. Nothing is so contrary, nothing so detestable to God as to hate someone, to wish to harm someone; nothing so commendable as to love all. The Prophet, knowing this, testifies, teaching: 'You that love the Lord, hate evil.' See that you love human glory in nothing, lest your portion too be reckoned among those to whom it was said: 'How can you believe, who seek glory from one another?' and of whom it is said through the Prophet: 'Heap evils upon them, heap evils upon the glorious of the earth,' and elsewhere: 'Be confounded by your boasting, by the reproach in the sight of the Lord.'

For I would not have you look to those who are virgins of the world, not of Christ, who, forgetful of their resolve and profession, rejoice in delights, take pleasure in riches, and glory in the origin of their bodily nobility — who, if they truly believed themselves to be daughters of God, would never after a divine birth admire human nobility, nor glory in any honored father. If they perceived that they had God as their Father, they would not love the nobility of the flesh. Why, O foolish one, do you flatter and please yourself in the nobility of your lineage? God made two human beings at the beginning, from whom the whole forest of the human race descended: worldly nobility was not bestowed by the equity of nature, but by the ambition of covetousness.

Certainly we are all made equal through the grace of the divine washing, and there can be no distinction among those whom the second birth has begotten, through which both rich and poor, both free and slave, both noble and ignoble are made sons of God; and earthly nobility is overshadowed by the splendor of heavenly glory and nowhere any longer appears at all, while those who before were unequal in secular honors are equally clothed with the glory of heavenly and divine nobility. There is no longer any place there for ignobility, nor is anyone base-born whom the sublimity of a divine birth adorns — except in the eyes of those who do not think heavenly things are to be preferred to human ones.

Or if they do think so, how vain it is that they should prefer themselves in lesser matters to those whom they know to be their equals in greater ones, and that they should consider as placed beneath them on earth those whom they believe to be their equals in the heavens. But you, whoever you are, a virgin of Christ and not of the world, flee all the glory of the present life, that you may attain that which is promised in the future. Avoid words of contention and the causes of animosity; shun also the occasions of discords and quarrels. For if, according to the Apostle's teaching, the servant of the Lord must not quarrel, how much more the handmaid of God, whose mind ought to be as much more modest as her sex is more bashful.

Restrain your tongue from evil-speaking and put upon your mouth the bridle of the law, so that you may speak then, if perchance, when to be silent would be sin. Beware lest you say anything that may come into reproach. A word once uttered is a stone let fly: wherefore it must be pondered long before it is brought forth. Blessed indeed are the lips which never put forth what they would wish to recall. The speech of a chaste mind ought also to be chaste, which should always edify rather than ever destroy the hearers, according to what the Apostle commanded, saying: 'Let no evil speech proceed out of your mouth, but if any be good for the edification of faith, that it may give grace to the hearers.' The tongue is held in check —

which knows to frame words about nothing but divine things; and the mouth is holy from which heavenly utterances are always brought forth. Deter detractors of the absent as it were by the malignant authority of Scripture, because the Prophet too commemorates this among the virtues of the perfect man: 'if in the sight of the righteous the malignant be brought to nothing,' who has uttered against his neighbor things that are not to be approved. For it is not lawful for you patiently to hear the disparagement of another, since you do not wish your own to be received from others. For whatever comes against the Gospel of Christ is unjust, if you allow to be inflicted upon another what it is grievous to have done to yourself.

Accustom your tongue always to speak of good things, and direct your hearing rather to the praise of the good than to the censure of the wicked. See that whatever good you do, you do it for God's sake, knowing that you will receive from the Lord only so great a reward for the thing as you have accomplished it for the cause of His fear and love. Strive rather to be holy than to seem so, because it profits nothing to be esteemed what one is not, and it is the guilt of a double sin not to have what is believed and to feign not to lack what one does not have. Delight in fastings rather than in feasts, mindful of that widow who 'departed not from the temple, serving God with fastings and supplications day and night.' And if a widow, and indeed a Jewess, was such, what now ought a virgin of Christ to be?

Love rather the banquet of divine reading, and desire to be filled with spiritual feasts, and seek rather those foods by which the soul is refreshed more than the body. Flee the indulgence of flesh and wine as the fomentations of heat and the incitements of lust. And then, if perchance, use a little wine, when pain of the stomach and excessive weakness of the body compel it. Conquer wrath, restrain animosity, and whatever it is that brings repentance after the deed, shun it as the abomination of a sin close at hand. It is fitting that the mind which desires to be the dwelling-place of God be sufficiently tranquil and quiet, and far from all the disturbance of fury — which He testifies through the Prophet, saying:

'Upon whom shall I rest, save upon the humble and quiet and him that trembles at my words?' Believe God to be the watcher of all your works and thoughts, and beware lest you do or think anything that is unworthy of the divine eyes. When you desire to perform prayer, show yourself such as if you were about to speak with the Lord. When you say a psalm, recognize whose words you are saying, and delight rather in the compunction of the soul than in the sweetness of a tinkling voice. For God approves the tears of the one who chants more than the gracefulness of the voice, as the Prophet says: 'Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice in Him with trembling.' Where there is fear and trembling, there is no lifting up of the voice, but a tearful and weeping casting down of the soul.

Apply diligence to all your acts, because it is written: 'Cursed is the man who does the works of the Lord negligently.' Let grace increase in you with your years, let righteousness increase with your age, and let your faith appear to be the more perfect the older you are, because Jesus, who has left us an example of living, 'increased' not only in bodily age, but also in wisdom and spiritual grace 'before God and men.' Reckon that you have lost all the time in which you have not felt yourself to be better. Preserve to the very end the resolve of virginity once begun, because it is virtue not only to have begun but to have completed, as the Lord says in the Gospel: 'He that shall persevere unto the end, the same shall be saved.'

Beware therefore lest you give to anyone even an occasion of lusting, because your bridegroom God is a jealous God: for an adulteress of Christ is more guilty than an adulteress of a husband. Be therefore to all a pattern of living, be an example, and go before in deed those whom you outrun in the sanctification of chastity. Show yourself a virgin in all things: let no corruption be cast against your head. Whose body is intact, let her conduct also be inviolable.

And since at the beginning of the letter we premised that you have been made a sacrifice of God — which assuredly imparts its holiness also to others, so that whoever has worthily partaken of it may himself also be a partaker of sanctification — so therefore through you also, as through a divine victim, let others be sanctified, with whom you should show yourself so holy in all things that whoever has touched your life either by hearing or by sight may feel the power of sanctification and understand that so much grace is poured into him from your conduct that, while he desires to imitate you, he too may be worthy of the sacrifice of God. III. Letter of Severus to the holy Bishop Paul.

After I learned that all your cooks had renounced your kitchen — because, I suppose, they disdained to offer their service for cheap pottages — I have sent you from our own workshop a young lad, well taught to cook the pale bean and to season common beets with vinegar and broth, and to set cheap porridge before the hungry jaws of the monks; ignorant of pepper, unacquainted with silphium, familiar with cumin, and exceedingly skilled at driving the clattering mortar with sweet-smelling herbs. He has one fault: that he is no civil enemy of all gardens; for, if admitted, he will mow down with the sword whatever is nearest, and will never be sated with the slaughter of mallows. But in providing himself with firewood he will be no slanderer to you:

he will burn up whatever lies in his path, and will mow it down, nor will he hesitate to lay hands on the roofs and to remove the old rafters from the hearths. Him therefore, endowed with these manners and virtues, we desire to be given to you not as a slave, but as a son in place of a slave, since you do not blush to be a father of the least. I would have wished to serve you in his stead, but if the will is a part of the deed, only do you bring it about that amid happy luncheons and suppers you remember me, because it is more right to be your chattel than the master of others. Pray for me. IIII. Another letter. The faithful interpreter of sacred religion sets all things in order, so that there can be no further place for sins: for what else do you promise by so great a holiness of conduct, except that we should lead a blessed life with errors removed?

In which I see that the greatest praise belongs to your virtues, namely, that you have transformed an untaught mind by pious exhortations and drawn it to the best reasoning. For the rest, it would not seem so wonderful if you had strengthened learned minds with the wisdom poured into them: for there is a kinship between prudent men and devotion, nor is rusticity quickly agreeable to belief. Just so, those who draw the shapes of living creatures from stones carry on a task of more difficult work if they strike the very hardest rocks with their tools; but those who have undertaken the trials of softer material feel their hands aided by the ease of shaping, and it is thought consistent that an arduous labor be esteemed with the greatest honor for the craftsman:

so to you, lord, singular praise must be rendered, because you have made minds unpolished and rustic, freed from the darkness of guilt, both to perceive human things and to know divine ones. No less is that Xenocrates worthy of praise, by far the most learned of philosophers, who by stern exhortations brought it about that luxury was overcome. For when a certain Polemo, languid with wine from a banquet held before dawn, was wandering about in public — and it was at that hour when the hearers were flocking to the gymnasium of Xenocrates — he too entered and shamelessly sat down among the number of the students in that very dress in which he had come forth from dinner; for a blooming garland had wreathed his head:

nor was he ashamed to appear unlike all the rest, because in truth the long indulgence in drink had overturned his head, which is the dwelling-place of soundness. Then, while the others murmured gravely that an unseasonable hearer had crept in among the multitude of the learned, that master was not in the least moved, but rather set about to discourse on the discipline of morals and the laws of modesty; and the authority of the teacher prevailed so greatly that the spirit of that wanton man was impelled to the love of decency. And first indeed Polemo, confounded, took the garland from his head and professed himself a disciple; in the end he so bent himself to the duty of gravity and so wholly formed himself to modesty that a glorious amendment covered over the habit of his former life.

This very thing we admire in your precepts, that by no threats, by no terrors at all, you have turned frenzied minds to the worship of God, so that a confused mind might believe this to be most right: to live well and blessedly with all, rather than to hold unjust opinions with a few. V. Another letter. Although my lord and brother has petitioned of your honorableness that you would be pleased to make Tutus most safe, yet it has been lawful for me to commend the same man by a letter, so that by a doubled petition he may be held the safer: for to this man a childish fault and the error of an uncertain age may have done harm, so as to stain the beginnings of his years; but he who did not yet know what was owed to good morals sinned almost without fault.

For when he turned himself toward a sound mind and reflection, he understood that the life of the stage must be condemned by a better counsel; yet a full cleansing could not come to him unless he should wash away his sins by drawing near to the Divinity, since, having been transformed by the remedy of the catholic religion, he refused for himself the practice of a baser place and removed himself from the eyes of the crowd. Of the Lord, as above.

Since therefore both the divine laws and the public laws do not permit a faithful body and sanctified souls to display dishonourable pleasures and to put forth common delights—especially since it seems in a manner an injury to chaste devotion if anyone, renewed by holy baptism, should be called back into his old wantonness—it behoves your worthiness to favour good purposes, so that he who has obtained a pious gift by the kindness of God may not be compelled to fall into the pit of the theatre. Yet it does not refuse the judgment of you all, if you should impose other fitting public duties according to the need of our common fatherland. VI. To Salvius. The eloquence of the forum ought to glow with the exercise of the courts; for it is fitting that the arms of one who daily contends in industry should have their fearsome motions:

but when sonorous eloquence has sounded the retreat and has withdrawn into leisured groves and pleasant lodgings, it ought to cast off the roaring of idleness and cease from making ineffectual threats. For we know that the palm-bearing pairs of horses, once they have withdrawn from the circus, are stabled in utter quiet: them no continual dread, no doubtful palm troubles; but at last, fastened to peaceful mangers, they now know not to fear the driver, finding the sweet forgetting of seditious contention. Yet it also pleases the glorious soldier, his campaigns completed, to hang up his trophies and to bear old age patiently. And why it should be at your heart to terrify wretched ploughmen I do not at all understand, and why you should wish to press my country-folk with the dread of being summoned to appear, I do not recognize: