Letters 148.26–154.3

First of all, let your husband keep his authority, and let the whole house learn from you how much honour it owes him. By your obedience show him to be master; by your humility show him to be great; you yourself will be the more honoured the more you honour him. For, as the apostle says, “the head of the woman is the man”; and the rest of the body is adorned from nowhere more than from the dignity of the head. Hence the same apostle says elsewhere: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” And blessed Peter too says: “Likewise let wives be subject to their husbands, so that even if some do not believe the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.” If, then, honour is owed by right of marriage even to pagan husbands, how much more must it be paid to Christian ones!

And to show with what ornaments even women joined to husbands ought to adorn themselves, he says: “Let their adornment not be outward, the braiding of hair or the putting on of gold or fine clothing, but the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptibility of a quiet and modest spirit, which is rich in the sight of God. For so once the holy women too, who hoped in the Lord, adorned themselves, being subject to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.” In giving these precepts he does not command them to be squalid with dirt and covered with shaggy patched rags, but he forbids immoderate dress and too exquisite adornment and commends simple adornment and bearing, of which the vessel of election also says: “Likewise also women, in adorned dress, adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, as is fitting for women who profess chastity, with good works.”

I have learned that, kindled by a wonderful ardour of faith, you some years ago resolved on continence and consecrated the rest of your life to chastity. This is a sign of a great spirit and an indication of perfect virtue: suddenly to renounce a pleasure once experienced, to flee the known allurements of the flesh, and to quench the flames of an age still warm by the ardour of faith. But I learned at the same time something that troubles and pricks me not a little: that you began to keep this great good without the consent and agreement of your husband, although the apostle's authority altogether forbids this, for in this matter at least it has placed not only the wife under the power of the husband but also the husband under the power of the wife. “The wife,” he says, “does not have power over her own body, but the husband; likewise the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife.” But you, as if forgetful of the marriage covenant and unmindful of this agreement and right, vowed chastity to the Lord without consulting your husband. But it is dangerous to promise what is still in another's power, and I do not know how welcome a gift is if one person offers what belongs to two. We have already heard of and seen many marriages torn apart through ignorance of this kind, and, what is painful to recall, adultery committed on the occasion of chastity. For while one party abstains even from what is lawful, the other has slipped into what is unlawful. And I do not know, in such a case, who should be more accused, who more blamed: he who, repelled by his spouse, commits sexual immorality, or she who, by repelling her husband from herself, in a sense exposed him to sexual immorality. And so that you may know what the truth holds in this matter, I must set down a few things from divine authority. The rule of apostolic teaching neither equates, with Jovinian, the works of marriage with those of continence, nor condemns marriage with the Manichee. The vessel of election and teacher of the Gentiles walks temperately and in the middle between the two, so that he both allows a remedy for incontinence and calls continence to its reward. His whole meaning in this matter is this: that chastity should be undertaken by the decision of both, or else that the common debt should be paid by both.

But let us now set down the apostle's own words and go over this whole matter from its beginning. He says to the Corinthians: “Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman.” And although he has praised chastity here, yet, lest he seem to some to forbid marriage, he adds: “But because of sexual immorality let each man have his own wife (and let each woman have her own husband). Let the husband render the debt to the wife, and likewise also the wife to the husband. The wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband; and the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife. Do not defraud one another.” And again, lest by saying so much on the side of marriage he seem to exclude chastity, he goes on: “unless perhaps by consent for a time, so that you may be free for prayer.” And immediately he as it were takes back what he said, “for a time”, so that he may not seem to teach a temporary and brief continence rather than a lasting one. For he says: “because of your incontinence; but I say this by way of concession, not of command.” So by saying “for a time” he teaches that there should be a practice of chastity, so that at certain intervals of time, having as it were tested the strength of their continence, both may safely promise what is always to be kept by both. What he wishes absolutely, he says plainly: “But I wish all men to be as I myself am”, that is, in constant and perpetual chastity.

Do you see how cautiously, how prudently, how without occasion of scandal to anyone the teacher established his judgment on chastity, not wishing so great a good to waver through the rashness of one, when the consent of both ought to bind and confirm it? And in truth what is firmer or safer than that chastity which, begun by the decision of two, is kept by both in common, where neither party is anxious only for itself, but each urges the other to persevere in virtue? For this, like other good things too, is praiseworthy not in being begun but in being completed. For some time now, as you understand, my discourse has been moving in a rocky and difficult place, and does not dare to lean to either side, since it fears both equally; but from our difficulty recognize your danger. For we prefer perhaps to sadden you by telling the truth rather than to deceive you by feigned flattery. The evil, as you see, is twofold, the danger equal and double-edged: you are hemmed in on both sides, constrained on both. To despise and disregard your husband altogether is openly against the apostle's judgment; but to betray a chastity of so long a time and not to render to God what you had promised is to be feared and dreaded. As the common saying goes, you will easily make an enemy of a friend to whom you do not pay what you promised. For so Scripture says: “If you vow a vow to the Lord your God, do not delay to pay it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it will be a sin in you.” He says, therefore: show your husband due honour, so that with the consent of both you may pay to the Lord the debt you have vowed. We do not doubt his conscience, if you had waited a little; not that we draw you back from the good of chastity, but that we would urge his mind with all our strength to the counsel of chastity, so that he may offer God a voluntary sacrifice for an odour of sweetness, so that your mind, stripped of all worldly ties and bodily pleasures, may be free, and you may cling more fully to the Lord's precepts. That you may not think anything has been said carelessly by us, we have taught this by the testimonies of the divine Scriptures, as the apostle also says: “And the two shall be in one flesh”; no longer one flesh, but one spirit.

This mystery is great, and the road of chastity is hard, but great are the rewards, and the Lord calls us in the gospel, saying: “Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” The same Lord says: “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for my yoke is easy and my burden light.” The same Lord also says to those who will be on his left: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels. I do not know you, workers of iniquity. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Surely all those will lament and mourn who so entangle themselves in the cares of the present life that they forget the future, whom, weighed down by a kind of sleep of ignorance and evil security, the Lord's coming will overwhelm as with floods. Hence he himself says in the gospel: “Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be weighed down with carousing and drunkenness and the cares of this life, lest perhaps that day come upon you suddenly; for like a snare it will come upon all who sit upon the face of the whole earth”; and again: “Watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is.”

Blessed are those who so await and so watch for that day that they prepare themselves for it daily, who, not flattering themselves on their past righteousness, are renewed in virtue day by day, according to the apostle. For righteousness will not profit a man from the day on which he ceases to be righteous, just as his iniquity will not harm the wicked man from the day on which he turns from his iniquity. So neither should the saint be secure as long as he is engaged in the contest of this life, nor should the sinner despair, who, according to the prophet's saying already cited, can make himself righteous in one day. But so that you may carry out righteousness through the whole span of your life to which you are tending, do not become slacker by trusting in past righteousness, but, as the apostle says: “Forgetting what lies behind and stretching out to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the heavenly calling”, knowing that it is written that God is the searcher of the heart. And therefore he is busy to keep his soul clean from sin. For this reason it is written: “Keep your heart with all watchfulness”; and again: “The Lord loves clean hearts, and all the blameless are acceptable to him.” So act, then, that you may order the rest of your life without offence, so that you may securely sing with the prophet: “I walked in the innocence of my heart in the midst of my house”; and again: “I will go in to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth.” For it is not enough to have begun; righteousness is to have completed.

Concerning the solemn feasts, sabbaths and new moons which the Lord commands in the law to be observed: since the command of your charity compels us to say what should be rejected according to the letter and what should be observed spiritually, we are first obliged to answer the lovers of the letter and opponents of the truth. Although I could strike back at them by my own right, I would rather address them gently and mildly and wish them to come to the knowledge of the truth. For they, wishing to chew the bitter bark of the roots, spit out the fruit, and admiring the dust of gold, despise the wrought metal; since, although they insist that everything be observed according to the letter of the law, with the veil laid over the face of Moses they cannot be enlightened by the light of the Spirit of truth. Even if they do not assent to the truth, we are willing (to carry) them on the shoulder of our patience, after the manner of the scapegoat, ready to give satisfaction for the faith that is in us, to the desert of their own perdition, and afterwards to wash our garments, lest we remain defiled by the contagion of heretical thinking.

But we, taught by the example of Jeremiah first to root up and destroy and afterwards to plant and build, propose at the beginning of this little work to show first from the Scriptures how these feasts of the Lord, which the law commands to be kept, are celebrated not in shadow but by spiritual observance. And if any wish to think little of the authority of our weakness, let them hear the prophets, who with provident protection, foreseeing it, openly foretold the rejection of these things in the time of the gospel; nay rather, the Lord spoke beforehand in them: “Your feast days and new moons and sabbaths my soul hates.” And the Lord declares that he did not command these things, although it is plain that he himself commanded them in the law. What else is shown in these words (than) that, since with Christ the end of the law has come, he has not commanded them to be kept according to the letter? Concerning sacrifices he speaks through another prophet: “I will not reprove you for your sacrifices; your burnt offerings are always before me. I will not take calves from your house nor goats from your flocks,” and the rest, down to “or shall I drink the blood of goats?” In agreement with these words the apostle, filled with the same Spirit, says: “Let no one lead you astray in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath, which is a shadow of things to come,” and the rest. By these words he declares most clearly (that) in these things, whether days observed temporally or carnal foods, one can find nothing but the emptiest shadow and a sedition of error. And the Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel declared that he was loosing the sabbath, when he had commanded the paralytic: “Take up your bed”, which is plainly forbidden by the law, namely the carrying of burdens on the sabbath. He also loosed the feast of Tabernacles when he said: “I will not go up to this feast”, as if he had said: in the observance of this festival the glory of my honour will not go up.

About the Passover, as the greatest mystery of our salvation, I am going to say something a little more fully, even though this is not the time to discuss everything; but first I wish to show by what and how many rules the Lord's Passover is commanded to be kept. In the first month, on the tenth day of the month, a lamb of a year old and without blemish is commanded by the Lord through Moses to be set apart and kept until the fourteenth, and on the fourteenth to be killed by the whole assembly of the children of Israel towards evening. Of these rules the Lord himself, the true Lamb, when he came to the Passover towards evening, kept some, wishing them to remain, and changed others, wishing them not to be kept. Although he deigned to be sacrificed in the first month according to the command of the law, and in no way allowed the time of his passion to come before the fourteenth, yet the gospel tells that he did some things contrary to the figure, since, when he was handed over by Judas to the Jews, he was not taken on the tenth day of the first month. And since he deigned to give the sacraments of his body and blood to his disciples during his life, he is shown to have done this contrary to the figure, since that lamb, which is commanded to be killed at Passover as a type of Christ, was ordered to be roasted with fire, with its head, feet and entrails, and eaten by the people after it was killed. This the Lord is known to have done, as it seems to me, for two reasonable causes. The first, lest, since he ate the Passover with his disciples, unless he had afterwards changed the sacrifice, saying “This is my body,” it should be believed that it ought to be observed so afterwards too. The other cause, as I think, is this: that, (since) they saw the Lord's body entire and containing his own blood in itself before the passion, they might believe that they were spiritually refreshed by this body, and that so it should be believed by us even now. And we should also notice this: that the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and our Passover, Christ, was sacrificed not on the fourteenth day towards evening, as the law commands, but on the fifteenth; by which it is plain that the Jews' feast day with its sacrifice was loosed by the Lord. But what are we to understand in this, that he first ate the flesh of the figurative lamb and afterwards refreshed our apostles with the food of his own body, and that Christ was sacrificed after the typical Passover of the Jews? This, I think, so that not the truth might precede the figure, but the figure the truth; for it is not the spiritual that comes first but the natural, then the spiritual. Hence the chosen and beloved bride of Christ, the universal church, anathematizes those who determine that the paschal festival be celebrated with the Jews on the fourteenth, and the sabbaths and other things of this kind of shadowy observance. And the Lord deigned to keep only this: so that it is decreed without any ambiguity that the paschal festival be celebrated in the first month, after the fourteenth day, on the first day of the week that follows. Although in this matter the truth of the church has arisen, some believe it enough not to celebrate the Passover with the Jews on the fourteenth, while others keep this firmly and carefully: they do not dare to celebrate the sacrifice of the true Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, before the fourteenth, according to that legal precept which the Lord too, coming to his passion, did not at all despise: “You shall keep it until the fourteenth”; and this the church now chiefly observes, following the authority of the apostolic see. But leaving these things, since this is not the time to discuss them one by one, we turn the eye of the mind to the spiritual understanding. We are commanded to eat the flesh of the paschal lamb in the month of new things, on the fourteenth day of the month, so that we, being born for the fruit of good works, when the words of the decalogue have been fulfilled by us, and standing in the perfection of the gospel, in the number four, may eat the flesh of our Lamb at the evening of the world, upon whom the end of the ages has come, not with darkened hearts, the Holy Spirit lighting up our night.

On the sabbath. We are commanded to work for six days, but on the seventh, that is, the sabbath, we are forbidden all servile work. By the number six the perfection of works is signified, because in six days God made heaven and earth. On the sabbath we are forbidden to do any servile work, that is, sin, because whoever commits sin is the slave of sin; so that, when in the present age we have completed the perfection of works, not hardening our hearts, we may deserve to come into the true rest, which is denied to the stubborn, as the Lord says through David: “If they shall enter into my rest.” On Pentecost. The law commands us to count seven full weeks from the day after the sabbath, until the day after the completion of the seventh week, that is, the fiftieth day, on which the first fruits are offered. This counting is full of perfection through the number seven, and five times ten, and ten times five. By this I think it is signified that through the number fifty, which contains remission in itself, (and) through love, which, with the sevenfold Spirit of grace coming upon us, has been poured into our hearts, we may keep the five senses of our body subject to the law of God. These words contain the decalogue in themselves, and through love, as I said, for love covers a multitude of sins; and so, yielding them for the use of our priest with our peace-offering victims, we offer a new sacrifice to the Lord from all our dwellings, if we have made peace with the Lord, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. He, as our high priest, eats the loaves of the first fruits of our land, though leavened, yet consecrated to him; he who, passing through heaven, is able to sympathize with our weaknesses; and since we have him as an advocate with the Father, he devours through his tender mercy our works, which, leavened with the leaven of our frailty and lifted up by the hand of prayer, yield to the use of this priest; they give God an odour of sweetness, but they call rather for pardon.

On the feast of Tabernacles and at the end of the solar year. Among the Hebrews likewise, in the seventh month, when the fruits are gathered into barns or storerooms, the law commands that solemn feasts be celebrated then: that is, on the first day the feast of trumpets, on the tenth day the sabbaths of atonement are to be kept, and from the fifteenth day for seven days, until they are finished, and on the eighth, the holidays of tabernacles are commanded. By these it may perhaps be signified that, since at the end of the age we have been consecrated by the sacrament of the threefold invocation, we should not cease, now that the time of the law is ended, to proclaim with the trumpet of the gospel preaching faith and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, in which is true propitiation; and that, having gathered the fruits of good works and resting from every evil work through the grace of the sevenfold Spirit, having endured persecution, we may deserve to come to the number of the eighth beatitude. That this is done through the toil of fasting and prayer there is no doubt, since the law also commands that souls be afflicted.

On new moons. On the new moon we are commanded to blow the trumpet, that is, at the new moon, because one who has been enlightened by the light of knowledge ought not to cease preaching to others; which Paul, enlightened by the brightness of the knowledge of Christ, did not neglect to observe, preaching in the synagogues of the Jews. I had decided to say a few things about the sacrifices, which, since they contain in themselves the figure of the victim of the true high priest, ought also to be offered spiritually by us to the Lord. For by the calf is understood our labour; by the sheep, innocence; by the he-goat, the mortification of sexual pleasure; by the she-goat, which feeds on high pastures, the contemplative life; by the ram, the force of preaching, which begets lambs for the good shepherd; by the turtle-dove, the chastity of a solitary mind joined to no one but Christ; by the dove, clear-sightedness in beholding the mysteries; by the bread, the solidity of the precepts; by the fine flour, sincerity of life; by the wine and salt, the truth of preaching; by the oil, the comforts of love. The law commands that all these, whether feasts or sacrifices, be celebrated and offered in one place, because all things profit then, when they are performed in the unity of the church without any error of schism. Discussing these few out of the many precepts of the law in their abyss, I have not feared, a poor man to a rich one, a stranger to a citizen, to offer this small draught, since perfect love casts out fear; believing this too, O venerable father, that obedience with faith is worth more than the resources of human intellect. These things were both asked by you and said by me because of those who, though they seem Christians on the surface, do not fear to tear the body of Christ, the church, with their schisms by the ungodliness of a Jewish way of thinking. We have run through these things briefly; if they were treated fully, they would require a great volume, which the leisure of this time does not allow. Pray for me, venerable father.

I have learned from the report of many who come here that you have fought bravely against the heretics and won the Lord's battles. For they stain not only Gaul and Italy but also the most celebrated city of Palestine with their frauds and perjuries, having a patron and partner of their master, whom the Lord Jesus has slain with the breath of his mouth, and has left an example to all of how dangerous it is to resist the catholic faith and to seek to overthrow the foundations of the church.

But where your holiness is to be, or whether you are still living in the city, I cannot know. So that at least our rare correspondence may not perish year by year, but that we may keep up by mutual letters the friendship begun in Christ: the sudden falling asleep of the holy (and) venerable virgin of Christ Eustochium has greatly saddened us and has almost changed the state of our life, while also we cannot do many things we wish, and the weakness of old age overcomes the ardour of the mind.

The holy brothers who are with me greet you warmly. I commend to your honour my holy son Theon the deacon, and I ask you to send me a friendly letter about all your life and condition, and where you plan to live. May the clemency of Christ our God keep (you) safe and mindful of me, truly holy lord and brother to be honoured.

The arrival of the holy and venerable presbyter Innocent gave me great joy, both because he delivered your letter to me and because by his words he showed you to be burning with the warmth of faith. As for the fury of Julian and his associates, the dirges of Pelagius, and the chatter of Caelestius, do not greatly care; of whom one blasphemes with his own wordiness, the other speaks with borrowed words. Nor am I moved by their writings, which I do not know, since I know that they have indeed the worst will to blaspheme but not the strength of wisdom and eloquence, and especially not the knowledge of the holy Scriptures, which are the foundation of faith, and the law of the church's court and the authority of our forebears. Yet if they write, and anything comes into my hands, I think that (not to speak proudly, but to be a match for their madness) all their laboriously composed volumes can be refuted with the same wordiness, perhaps in one short night's work and dictation. As for your urging me to write, you put a heavy load on an old donkey. For both sharpness of mind and strength of body have entirely deserted us; we have lost them through the constant weakness of illnesses. May the clemency of Christ our God keep you safe and mindful of me, truly holy lord and brother greatly longed for.

How much joy I received at your ordination to the pontificate, when the holy presbyter Innocent brought both the news and your beatitude's letter, your reverence cannot doubt, since we have long been joined by mutual affection and began to love one another before we knew one another, and our inner men are so joined to each other that they do not feel the losses of the outer man. This one thing has softened our grief at the falling asleep of the holy and venerable virgin of Christ Eustochium; except that in this too there is no less sorrow, because she has been deprived of so great a joy with us. For how she would have exulted with joy, if, while still in this body, she had been granted to hear it; with what prayers and thanksgiving she would have besought the clemency of Christ, on learning that her holy and venerable father was the successor to the apostolic chair! The infant Paula, who was nursed in your hands, has been laid upon our shoulders as a pledge of Laeta, of holy and venerable memory; whether we can carry this burden, the Lord knows, whom the future does not deceive; in us there is no help except a holy will, which is proved not by the outcome of things but by the desire of the mind. I beseech your reverence always to count us as your own, and to know that we rejoice especially in the progress and honour of your reverence. Certainly the holy and venerable presbyter Innocent will be able to tell your beatitude how much joy we felt in our very grief, and how, if it were possible, we should wish to cling to your embraces. What I write with my own hand, I write to your beatitude: let the heretics feel that you are an enemy of their unbelief, and let them hate you, so that you may be loved more by catholics; and be the executor and fulfiller of the sentence of your predecessors, and do not tolerate, under the name of bishop, patrons and partners of the heretics.

It is written: “Many are the scourges of sinners”; which we testify that we have deservedly endured and are enduring, provided they profit for future salvation. But that the hearts of heretics cannot be cleansed I am a witness, who have resolved never to believe their repentance. For they pretend love for this purpose, that those whom they could not kill by enmity they may slay by feigned friendships. Their hearts are full of poison, and, as you have put it excellently, neither can the Ethiopian change his skin nor the leopard his spots. Yet we trust in the mercy of Christ that my lord, the holy and venerable bishop Boniface, will root them out by the Spirit of Christ; we must forgive him if at his beginnings he offers love and tries by his clemency and gentleness to save those who nevertheless are never to be healed. I will say truly what I think: against these heretics that saying of David must be carried out: “In the mornings I killed all the sinners of the land.” They must be destroyed, killed spiritually, indeed cut down by the sword of Christ, since they cannot receive health by plasters and gentle treatments.

The falling asleep of the holy and venerable lady Eustochium has greatly saddened us; know that she gave up her spirit in the very ardour of confession, and that she preferred to leave both her property and her house and to endure an honoured exile rather than be defiled by communion with heretics.

I pray you to greet my holy son Mercator with my respects, and to admonish him to show the ardour of his faith and to detest those who are stained with any suspicion of the Pelagian heresy. And especially I beseech you to greet my holy sons Marcus, Januarius, Primus, Restitutus, Trajan, all fellow soldiers in the Lord, for whom the perdition of others was the cause of salvation. As for me, worn out by grief and long age and broken by frequent illnesses, I have hardly managed to break out into these few words.