Letters 22.25–22.38

Let the privacy of your room always guard you; let the Bridegroom always play with you within. Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you; and when sleep overcomes you, he will come behind the wall and put his hand through the opening and touch your body, and you will rise trembling and say: "I am wounded with love"; and again you will hear from him: "A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed." Take care not to go out of the house, not to wish to see the daughters of a foreign land, even though you have patriarchs as brothers and rejoice in Israel as your father: Dinah went out and was violated. I do not want you to seek the Bridegroom in the streets; I do not want you to go round the corners of the city. You may say, "I will rise and go about the city, in the market and in the streets, and seek him whom my soul loved," and ask, "Have you seen him whom my soul loved?" No one will deign to answer you. The Bridegroom cannot be found in the streets ("narrow and strait is the way that leads to life"); and so it follows: "I sought him and did not find him; I called him and he did not answer me." And would that not finding him were enough! You will be wounded, stripped, and you will tell with groaning: "The watchmen who go about the city found me; they struck me, they wounded me, they took my veil from me." But if she suffers this when she goes out, she who had said, "I sleep, but my heart wakes," and "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he will lie between my breasts," what will become of us, who are still young girls, who remain outside while the bride goes in with the Bridegroom? Jesus is jealous; he does not want your face to be seen by others. You may make excuses and plead: "I drew my veil over my face; I sought you, I said to you: Tell me, you whom my soul loved, where you feed your flock, where you rest at noon, lest I become like one veiled beside the flocks of your companions." He will be indignant, he will swell with anger, and say: "If you do not know yourself, O fairest among women, go out in the tracks of the flocks and feed your kids beside the shepherds' tents." "You may be fair," he says, "and your beauty may be loved by the Bridegroom above all women; but unless you know yourself and guard your heart with all watchfulness, unless you flee the eyes of young men, you will go out of my bridal chamber and feed the kids that are to stand on the left."

So, my Eustochium, daughter, lady, fellow servant, sister (the first name belongs to age, the second to merit, the third to religion, the last to love), hear Isaiah saying: "My people, enter your rooms, shut your door, hide yourself a little while, until the wrath of the Lord passes." Let the foolish virgins wander outside; you be within with the Bridegroom; because, if you shut the door and, according to the precept of the gospel, pray to your Father in secret, he will come and knock and say: "See, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone opens to me, I will come in and dine with him, and he with me." And you will at once answer eagerly: "The voice of my beloved knocking: Open to me, my sister, my near one, my dove, my perfect one." Nor is there reason to say: "I have put off my tunic; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them?" Rise at once and open, lest, while you delay, he pass by, and afterwards you complain, saying: "I opened to my beloved; my beloved had passed by." For what need is there that the doors of your heart be shut to the Bridegroom? Let them be opened to Christ and shut to the devil, according to the saying: "If the spirit of one who has power rises up against you, do not give him place." Daniel in his upper room (for he could not remain below) had windows open toward Jerusalem; you too have open windows, but those by which light may come in and from which you may see the city of God. Do not open those windows of which it is said: "Death has come in through your windows."

You must also avoid more carefully being caught by the fever of vainglory. "How can you believe," says Jesus, "who receive glory from men?" See what an evil it is, that whoever has it cannot believe. But let us say: "For you are my glory"; and: "Let him who glories glory in the Lord"; and: "If I still pleased men, I would not be a servant of Christ"; and: "Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world"; and that: "In you we shall be praised all day long"; and: "In the Lord my soul shall be praised." When you give alms, let God alone see. When you fast, let your face be cheerful. Let your clothing be neither too neat nor dirty, and marked by no peculiarity, so that the crowd of passersby does not stop to look at you and point you out with the finger. A brother has died; a sister's body must be escorted to burial: take care that, while you do this too often, you do not die yourself. Do not wish to seem too religious, nor more humble than necessary. Do not seek glory by fleeing it. For many who avoid witnesses of their poverty, mercy, and fasting wish to please by this very contempt of pleasing; and, strangely, praise is sought while it is shunned. From the other passions by which the human mind rejoices, grieves, hopes, and fears, I find many free; from this vice very few are exempt, and he is best who, like a beautiful body, is sprinkled with only a rare blemish. Nor do I warn you not to glory in riches, not to boast of the nobility of your family, not to set yourself above others: I know your humility; I know that you say from the heart, "Lord, my heart is not lifted up, nor are my eyes raised high." I know that in you and in your mother pride, by which the devil fell, has no place at all. Therefore I have not written about it; for it is most foolish to teach one what he already knows. But lest this very thing, that you have despised the boasting of the world, breed boasting in you; lest the silent thought creep in that, since you have ceased to please in golden garments, you should try to please in rags, and, when you come to a gathering of brothers or sisters, sit on a low stool, plead that you are unworthy, deliberately make your voice faint as if worn out by fasting, and, imitating the gait of one who is fainting, lean on another's shoulders. For there are some women who disfigure their faces so that they may appear to men to be fasting; who, as soon as they see anyone, groan, lower their eyebrows, and, with their face covered, free scarcely one eye to see; their dress is dark, their girdle sackcloth, their hands and feet dirty; only their stomach, because it cannot be seen, seethes with food. To them that psalm is sung daily: "God has scattered the bones of those who please themselves." Others, changing their dress for a man's garb, are ashamed to be women, as they were born; they cut off their hair and shamelessly lift up the faces of eunuchs. There are some who are clothed in goat's hair and hoods made for the purpose, so that they return to infancy and imitate night owls and screech owls.

But lest I seem to discuss only women, flee also men whom you see in chains, with women's hair, against the apostle, a goat's beard, a black cloak, and bare feet to endure the cold. All these are marks of the devil. Such a one Rome once groaned over in Antimus, and recently in Sophronius. After they have entered the houses of the nobility and deceived silly women laden with sins, "always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth," they feign sadness and, as it were, prolong long fasts with secret meals at night. I am ashamed to say the rest, lest I seem to rail rather than to warn. There are others (I speak of men of my own order) who seek the presbyterate and diaconate precisely in order to see women more freely. All their care is for their clothes, whether they smell good, whether their foot is snug in a tight shoe. Their hair is curled by the trace of the curling iron, their fingers flash with rings, and lest the wet road splash their soles, they barely touch the ground with the tips of their toes. When you see such men, think of them as bridegrooms rather than clergy. Some have devoted all their zeal and life to learning the names, houses, and characters of married ladies. One of these, who is the master of this art, I will describe briefly and concisely, so that, having recognized the master, you may more easily recognize the disciples. He rises in haste with the sun; the order of his calls is arranged; shortcuts are sought out; and the troublesome old man almost enters the bedrooms of those still asleep. If he sees a cushion, a fine napkin, or some piece of household furniture, he praises it, admires it, handles it, and, complaining that he lacks such things, he does not so much obtain as extort them, since every woman fears to offend the city's courier of gossip. Chastity is his enemy, fasting his enemy; he judges a dinner by its smell, and by the fattened fowl; he is commonly called "the old smacker." His mouth is barbarous and impudent, always armed for abuse. Wherever you turn, he is the first before your face. Whatever news is heard, he is either its author or its exaggerator. He changes horses every hour, so sleek and so spirited that you would think him a brother of the Thracian king.

The cunning enemy fights with various snares. "The serpent was wiser than all the beasts that the Lord God had made on the earth." Hence the apostle too says: "We are not ignorant of his devices." Neither affected dirtiness nor studied elegance befits Christians. If there is anything you do not know, if you have any doubt about the Scriptures, ask someone whom his life commends, whom his age excuses, whom his reputation does not reprove, who can say: "For I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." Or if there is no one who can explain it, it is better to be safely ignorant of something than to learn it with danger. Remember that you walk in the midst of snares, and many veteran virgins have lost from their hands, on the very threshold of death, the crown of chastity that seemed beyond doubt. If any maidservants are companions of your resolve, do not lift yourself up against them, do not be puffed up as their mistress. You have begun to have one Bridegroom, you sing psalms to Christ together, you receive the Body together: why should your table be different? Let others be invited too. Let the honor paid to virgins be an invitation to the rest. And if you perceive one weaker in faith, take her up, comfort her, speak kindly to her, and make her chastity your gain. If any woman pretends in order to escape servitude, read the apostle openly to her: "It is better to marry than to burn." But those virgins and widows who, idle and curious, go round the houses of married ladies, who, having worn away the blush from their foreheads, have outdone the parasites of the mimes, cast away like plagues. "Evil conversations corrupt good morals." They care for nothing but the belly and what is next to the belly. Women of this kind are accustomed to urge and say: "My little puppy, enjoy your means and live while you live," and, "Are you saving for your children?" Given to wine and wantonness, they insinuate every kind of evil and soften even iron minds to luxury; and "when they have grown wanton against Christ, they want to marry, incurring condemnation because they have made void their first faith." Do not wish to seem very eloquent or to play with meter in merry lyric songs. Do not, out of delicacy, follow the languid lisp of married ladies, who, now with clenched teeth, now with lips relaxed, moderate their stammering tongue into half-words, thinking everything natural rustic. So much do they delight in adultery even of the tongue. "For what fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial?" What has Horace to do with the Psalter? Virgil with the Gospels? Cicero with the apostle? Is not a brother scandalized if he sees you reclining in an idol's temple? And although "to the pure all things are pure" and "nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving," yet we ought not to drink the cup of Christ and the cup of demons together. I will tell you the story of my own unhappiness.

Many years ago, when for the sake of the kingdom of heaven I had cut myself off from home, parents, sister, relatives, and (what is harder than these) from the habit of richer food, and was setting out for Jerusalem to serve as a soldier, I could not do without the library I had gathered for myself at Rome with the greatest care and labor. So, wretch that I was, I would fast, only to read Cicero. After frequent night vigils, after the tears that the memory of my past sins drew from my inmost heart, Plautus was taken in hand. If ever I came to myself and began to read a prophet, the uncultivated style repelled me, and because I did not see the light with my blind eyes, I thought the fault lay not in my eyes but in the sun. While the ancient serpent was mocking me in this way, about the middle of Lent a fever spread through my marrow and attacked my exhausted body, and without any respite (which is incredible even to say) it so consumed my unhappy limbs that I scarcely held together by my bones. Meanwhile my funeral was being prepared, and the warmth of the living soul was throbbing only in my little breast, which was still lukewarm while my whole body was already cold, when suddenly I was caught up in the spirit and dragged before the tribunal of the Judge, where there was so much light and so much brightness from the radiance of those standing by that I threw myself on the ground and did not dare to look up. Asked what I was, I answered that I was a Christian. And he who sat there said: "You are lying; you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian; for where your treasure is, there is your heart also." At once I was dumb, and amid the blows (for he had ordered me to be beaten) I was tormented more by the fire of conscience, considering that verse: "But in hell who will confess to you?" Yet I began to cry out and say with wailing: "Have mercy on me, Lord, have mercy on me." This cry rang out amid the lashes. At last those who stood by fell at the knees of the one presiding and begged him to pardon my youth and grant room for repentance for my error, exacting torture afterwards if I ever again read books of pagan literature. I, who in such a tight spot would have been willing to promise even greater things, began to swear and, calling on his name, to say: "Lord, if I ever possess worldly books, if I read them, I have denied you." Released on the terms of this oath, I return to the upper world, and, to the amazement of all, I open my eyes, drenched with such a shower of tears that even the unbelieving were convinced by my grief. Nor was that a sleep or the empty dreams by which we are often deceived. The tribunal before which I lay is my witness; the judgment I feared is my witness (may it never befall me to face such an inquiry again!) that my shoulders were black and blue, that I felt the blows after I woke, and that from then on I read divine things with as much zeal as I had not read mortal things before.

You must also avoid the evil of greed: not that you should not covet what belongs to others (for public laws too punish that), but that you should not keep your own things, which are not really yours. "If you have not been faithful," he says, "in what is another's, who will give you what is your own?" The weights of gold and silver are another's; our possession is spiritual, of which it is said elsewhere: "The ransom of a man's life is his own riches." "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will bear with the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon," that is, riches; for in the native Syriac language riches are called mammona. Thought for one's living is the thorns of faith, the root of greed, the care of the Gentiles. But you will say: "I am a delicate girl and cannot work with my own hands. If I reach old age, if I begin to be ill, who will take pity on me?" Hear Jesus speaking to the apostles: "Do not be anxious in your heart what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not the soul more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them." If clothing is lacking, the lilies will be set before you; if you are hungry, you will hear the poor and the hungry called blessed; if any pain afflicts you, read: "For this reason I take pleasure in my infirmities," and: "There was given me a thorn in my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me, lest I be exalted." Rejoice in all God's judgments; for "the daughters of Judah rejoiced in all your judgments, O Lord." Let that saying always sound in your mouth: "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return," and: "We brought nothing into this world, nor can we take anything out."

But now you may see many women cramming their wardrobes with clothes, changing their tunics daily, and yet unable to overcome the moths. One who is more religious wears out one garment while her chests are full of clothes. Parchment is dyed purple, gold is melted into lettering, books are clothed in jewels, and Christ dies naked before their doors. When they stretch out their hand, they sound a trumpet; when they invite to a love feast, a herald is hired. I saw recently (I suppress names, lest you think this a satire) the noblest of Roman ladies in the basilica of blessed Peter, with eunuchs going before her, distributing coins one by one to the poor with her own hand, so that she might be thought more religious. Meanwhile (as is very easy to know from experience) an old woman, covered with years and rags, ran ahead to receive a second coin; and when she reached her in turn, a fist was given her instead of a denarius, and for so great a crime her blood was shed. "The root of all evils is greed," and therefore it is also called by the apostle the service of idols. "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you." "The Lord will not kill the soul of the righteous by famine." "I have been young and now am old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread." Elijah is fed by ravens ministering to him. The widow of Zarephath, about to die that night with her sons, feeds the prophet though she is hungry, and, in wonderful fashion, when her jar is filled, the one who had come to be fed feeds her. The apostle Peter says: "Silver and gold I do not have; but what I have I give you: in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, rise and walk." But now many, though they are silent in word, say in deed: "Faith and mercy I do not have; but what I have, gold and silver, I do not give you." "Having food and clothing, let us be content with these." Hear what Jacob asks for in his prayer: "If the Lord God is with me and keeps me on this way on which I am traveling, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear." He prayed only for necessities, and after twenty years he returns to the land of Canaan a rich lord and a richer father. Countless examples from the Scriptures are at hand that teach that greed must be shunned.

But since greed is mentioned here only in passing, and is reserved, if Christ grants it, for a volume of its own, I will tell what happened at Nitria not many years ago. A certain brother, more thrifty than greedy, and not knowing that the Lord was sold for thirty pieces of silver, left at his death a hundred solidi, which he had earned by weaving linen. A council was held among the monks (for about five thousand live in that place in separate cells) as to what should be done. Some said the money should be distributed to the poor, others that it should be given to the church, some that it should be sent back to his relatives. But Macarius, Pambo, Isidore, and the others whom they call fathers, the Holy Spirit speaking in them, decreed that it should be buried with its owner, saying: "Your money perish with you." And let no one think this was done cruelly: such fear seized everyone throughout Egypt that to leave behind a single solidus is counted a crime.

And since we have mentioned monks, and I know that you gladly hear holy things, lend me your ear for a little. There are three kinds of monks in Egypt: the cenobites, whom they call sauhes in their native language and whom we may call "those living in common"; the anchorites, who live alone in the deserts and are named from their having withdrawn far from men; and a third kind, which they call remnuoth, the worst and neglected, which in our province is either the only kind or the chief one. These live two or three together, not many more, living by their own will and rule, and they contribute part of what they earn to a common fund so as to have common food. They live mostly in cities and fortified towns, and, as if it were their craft that is holy and not their life, whatever they sell fetches a higher price. There are often quarrels among them, because, living on their own food, they do not bear being subject to anyone. They do indeed compete in fasting, and make a matter of victory what should be secret. With them everything is affected: loose sleeves, baggy boots, coarse clothing, frequent sighs, visits to virgins, disparagement of the clergy; and whenever a feast day comes, they eat till they vomit.

Having driven out these as if they were plagues, let us come to those who live many together in common, whom we said are called the cenobium. Their first compact is to obey their elders and to do whatever they command. They are divided into groups of ten and a hundred, so that a tenth man is over nine, and again a hundredth has under him ten such leaders. They stay apart, but in adjoining cells. Until the ninth hour there is a kind of suspension of business: no one goes to another except those we called deans, so that, if anyone happens to waver in his thoughts, he may be comforted by their conversation. After the ninth hour they gather in common; psalms resound; the Scriptures are read in the customary way; and when the prayers are finished and all are seated, the one in the middle, whom they call father, begins to discourse. While he speaks there is such silence that no one dares to look at another or to cough. The speaker's praise is the weeping of his hearers. Tears roll silently down their faces, and grief does not break out even into sobs. But when he begins to announce the kingdom of Christ, future blessedness, and the glory to come, you may see all of them, with a restrained sigh and eyes raised to heaven, saying within themselves: "Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly away and be at rest?" After this the assembly is dismissed, and each group of ten goes with its father to the tables, at which they serve in turn week by week. There is no noise at meals; no one talks while eating. They live on bread, pulse, and vegetables, seasoned with salt and oil. Only the old receive wine, and for them and the young a midday meal is often provided, so that the tired age of the one may be sustained and the beginning age of the other not broken. Then they rise together, and after singing a hymn return to their quarters. There each one talks with his companions until evening and says: "Did you see so-and-so, how much grace is in him, how much silence, how restrained his walk?" If they see someone weak, they comfort him; if someone fervent in the love of God, they encourage him in his zeal. And since at night, besides the common prayers, each keeps vigil in his own cell, they go round the cells of each and, putting their ear to the door, carefully find out what they are doing. Anyone they catch being slow they do not rebuke, but, concealing what they know, they visit him more often, and, beginning first themselves, they challenge him rather than force him to pray more. The day's work is fixed; it is handed to the dean and taken to the steward, who himself gives account to the father of all every month with great trembling. By him too the food is tasted when it has been prepared; and since no one may say, "I have no tunic, cloak, or mat woven of rushes," he so regulates everything that no one asks for anything and no one lacks anything. If anyone falls ill, he is moved to a larger room and cared for by the old men so attentively that he does not miss the luxuries of cities or a mother's affection. On Sundays they are free only for prayer and reading, which indeed they do at all times after finishing their little tasks. Every day something from the Scriptures is learned by heart. The fast is the same throughout the year, except in Lent, when alone a stricter life is permitted. At Pentecost suppers are changed to midday meals, both to satisfy church tradition and so as not to burden the stomach with a double meal. Philo, the imitator of Plato's style, reports such men, and Josephus, the Greek Livy, in the second book of his history of the Jewish captivity, reports the Essenes to be such.

But since, writing about virgins, I have discussed the monks almost superfluously, I will come to the third kind, whom they call anchorites, who go out from the monasteries and carry nothing into the desert except bread and salt. The founder of this life was Paul, its great example Antony, and, to go back further, its first leader John the Baptist. The prophet Jeremiah also described such a man, saying: "It is good for a man when he has borne the yoke from his youth. He will sit alone and be silent, because he has taken the yoke upon himself; he will give his cheek to the one who strikes him; he will be filled with reproaches; for the Lord will not cast off for ever." Their labor and way of life, in the flesh but not of the flesh, I will explain at another time if you wish. Now let me return to my subject, since I had come to the monks while discussing greed. Setting their examples before you, you will despise, I will not say gold and silver and other wealth, but earth and heaven themselves, and, united to Christ, you will sing: "The Lord is my portion."

Next, although the apostle commands us to pray always, and for the saints even sleep itself is prayer, yet we ought to have set hours of prayer, so that if we happen to be held back by some work, the time itself may remind us of our duty: the third, sixth, and ninth hours, dawn, and evening, which no one fails to know. Take no food without first praying, and do not leave the table without giving thanks to the Creator. Rise two or three times in the night and go over the passages of Scripture we know by heart. When we go out of the house, let prayer arm us; when we return from the street, let prayer meet us before we sit down; and let the body not rest before the soul is fed. At every act, at every step, let the hand trace the cross. Speak ill of no one, and do not set a stumbling block against your mother's son. "Who are you, to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for God is able to make him stand." Nor, if you have fasted for two days, think yourself better than one who has not fasted. You fast and are angry; he eats and perhaps is gentle. You work off the vexation of your mind and the hunger of your stomach in quarreling; he is fed more moderately and gives thanks to God. Hence Isaiah cries daily: "Not such a fast have I chosen, says the Lord"; and again: "For in the days of your fasts your own wills are found, and you goad all who are under your power. If you fast for lawsuits and quarrels and strike the lowly with your fists, why do you fast for me?" What kind of fast can that be, whose anger, I will not say night overtakes, but the full moon leaves behind? Considering yourself, do not glory in another's fall, but in your own work.

Nor should you set before yourself the example of those women who, making provision for the flesh, reckon up the income of their estates and the daily expenses of their household. The eleven apostles were not broken by the betrayal of Judas, nor, when Phygelus and Alexander made shipwreck, did the rest stop in the course of faith. Nor say: "So-and-so enjoys her means, is honored by all, brothers and sisters gather at her house; has she therefore ceased to be a virgin?" First, it is doubtful whether such a woman is a virgin. For God will not see as man sees: man sees the face, God sees the heart. Next, even if she is a virgin in body, I do not know whether she is a virgin in spirit. And the apostle defined a virgin thus: "that she may be holy both in body and in spirit." Finally, let her keep her glory to herself. Let her overrule Paul's judgment, enjoy her luxuries, and live: let us follow the examples of better women. Set before yourself blessed Mary, who was of such purity that she deserved to be the mother of the Lord. When the angel Gabriel came down to her in the form of a man, saying, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you," she was dismayed and could not answer, for she had never been greeted by a man. Then she learns the message and speaks, and she who had feared a man converses fearlessly with an angel. You too can be the mother of the Lord. "Take for yourself a great new roll, and write in it with the pen of a man, 'Quickly strip the spoils'"; and when you have gone to the prophetess and conceived in the womb and borne a son, say: "From fear of you, Lord, we have conceived and been in pain and brought forth; we have wrought the spirit of your salvation on the earth." Then your son too will answer you and say: "Behold my mother and my brothers." And wonderfully, he whom you had just now inscribed on the breadth of your heart, whom you had marked with flying pen in the newness of your heart, after he has taken spoils from the enemies, after he has stripped the principalities and powers and nailed them to the cross, grows up, conceived, and, grown greater, begins to have you as bride instead of mother. It is a great labor, but a great reward, to be what the martyrs are, what the apostles are, what Christ is. All these things, indeed, profit only when they are done in the church, when we celebrate the Passover in one house, if we enter the ark with Noah, if, when Jericho perishes, Rahab, justified, holds us. But virgins such as are said to exist among various heresies and with the most impure Manichaeus are to be considered harlots, not virgins. For if the devil is the author of their bodies, how can they honor the handiwork of their enemy? But because they know that the name of virgin is glorious, they cover wolves with sheep's skins. Antichrist counterfeits Christ, and they clothe the foulness of their life with the false honor of a name. Rejoice, sister; rejoice, daughter; rejoice, my virgin: what others pretend, you have truly begun to be.