On the Singleness of Clerics 29–46

Unmoved by this chastisement, they despise the divine prohibitions with the obstinacy of an unspeakable familiarity, and still plead love besides, when, according to the word of Isaiah, devouring bitterness for sweetness, they cover naked foulness with the veil of a good name, and among them true love is violated under false love. But love cries out and appeals: “I did not join such people; it is another who counterfeits me by pretense. I never oppose God's precepts, I never favor the dissolute, I do not wish holiness to be blamed through me. An adverse brotherhood brings slanders on me; I too have run into dangers among false brothers. Help, my herald, help, apostle Paul; speak my testimony, lest what you proclaim of me be perverted: ‘The end of the commandment is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.’” Will it be counted love, through which holiness is attacked with the injury of accusations? Or is their brotherhood to be judged sincere through whom the daughters of mother church are led into guilt? If such is marked down as Christian love, without doubt hatreds are better, which, while they separate, stain no one. But this parricidal love usually unites brothers as persecutors, who gladly allow the daughters of the church to be defamed as fornicators because of their companionship, against the love which the apostle Paul taught, saying: “Love of neighbor works no evil.” An excellent proof of love, which not only harms the neighbor by a noxious brotherhood but also does not wish to be subject to the rules of the apostolic command! Let the champions of such love be confounded, judged by those who, for the common good, abandon even the love of kin.

In all the world almost the whole human race is joined together, and everywhere natural kinship is separated by mutual travels abroad. Parents can, children can, brothers can, and, what is more, spouses themselves can break the bonds of nature granted them by God; and clergy cannot refuse a love enslaved to the bonds of women, though God does not grant it but even forbids it? The affinity of their nearest, always longed for, is absent from kinsfolk, and clergy struggle against going away from women who are strangers? They ought to have done it even if the Lord had commanded something peculiar or unusual, since for accomplishing impossible things they have the Holy Spirit, whom worldly people do not have. Hence the apostle John admonishes thus: “Little children, overcome them, for greater is he who is in you than he who is in this world.” But now what is possible even for pagans, not to say Christians, and is seen to be light, is made void among clergy without any effect, so that it is too little for them to despise God's commands unless they have another disgrace besides: that they do not even follow, not to say surpass, the custom of all nations. To them the Lord reproaches through Ezekiel and says: “You have not walked in my statutes nor done my judgments; you have not even done according to the judgments of the nations that are around you.” This love signifies something shameful, since it is thought to be extorted against nature.

I still have something to wonder at: when I see that many husbands and wives among Christians, resolving on continence, choose rather separate dwellings, so that, by a harmonious withdrawal, they may maintain the agreement of their common vows without the provocation of each other's presence, our eunuchs cannot bear to sleep without the company of a woman? Among the former, conjugal love is outweighed by the love of continence; and among the eunuchs, cohabitation with a woman can never be wearisome. Let the love of the eunuchs speak now, let it speak, lest perhaps conjugal love sins rather in this withdrawal, so that the counsel of the apostle Paul seems to have suggested divorce to spouses: “The time that remains is short; it remains that those who have wives be as though they had none.” What a perversion of love is maintained, that those who have strive to be as though they had not, and those who have not boast as though they had! Of these the apostle himself says: “glory in their shame.”

“It is love,” they say. O love that begrudges itself! O charity that longs to be praised for what deserves blame! A great wonder, that the love of virgins makes virgins believed to be like spouses, and the love of spouses makes spouses thought to be like virgins! See the true love which divides in married life in order to join in chastity! See the holy love which leads spouses to separation for common praise! These surely love each other inseparably, who separate from each other in order to win triumphs for themselves; from whom neither crime nor nature nor law nor the Lord nor the apostle has forbidden or taken away the right to live together, but love has persuaded them, with united minds apart, to absent themselves in order to guard their equal vows. But let those see whose love it is that they know, who yield neither to crime nor to nature nor to law nor to the Lord nor to the apostle nor to married life itself; whom a shameful virginity condemns as much as a castrated married life glorifies those others; to whom it may be enough of a disgraceful punishment that eunuchs are judged by spouses. For their rebuke the children of Israel must not be passed over either, who in Ezra did not hesitate to put away wives and children taken against the divine laws, nor tried to excuse themselves against the love of the Lord. Let me speak the truth, if I am permitted: those who now join together for the sake of not dismissing women who are not theirs, what would they do if they were ordered to cast away children and wives? Or when will they be able to renounce their kin for Christ, who put little women not their own before Christ's commands? I say they would more easily deny their own parents for the sake of these little women than be able to leave these little women for Christ, despising what the Lord himself testified in the gospel, saying: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father or mother or wife and children and brothers and sisters and his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

If those who hesitate to cast off parents are unworthy of Christ, what do they promise themselves whom not parental affection but something else shows to be despisers of Christ? And by this they are made void by the merits of those whom they see, in contemplation of Christ, making no exception of any persons among their kin. And those confound them no less, indeed worse, who, fearing to wrestle not only with another's flesh but even with their own, cut themselves off by amputating their genitals. On them I suspend judgment for now, leaving it to be set out in another discussion. But to confound the eunuchs I do not hesitate to declare those better who do not spare even themselves, not to say dare to offer temptations to women. Let the spiritual eunuchs answer: what madness is there in the love of women, or what mystery in sharing a dwelling with a woman, that they indulge others' members to their own ruin, while those men unhesitatingly cut off even their own? These cast away limbs grown firm in themselves, and those are glued to hostile limbs. These do not hesitate to fight for spiritual integrity with the torment of a body no longer whole; and those refuse to be whole without torment, without their female half. But no comparison is to be made of ours with them, lest those condemned by any Christian judgments take comfort. Some worse ones also must be mentioned, so that the punishment may be greater to be condemned by the condemned. Let them consider the Jews, who to this day, at the command of the Law, cut off part of their flesh by the torment of circumcision, and let them know what they deserve who, though the gospel commands it, neglect to do the Lord's will circumcised from the presence of women, not understanding that the Lord himself said: “Unless your righteousness abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” I think too that the idolaters insult us reproachfully with their Galli, who, cutting themselves, gladly torture themselves, provided that with damage to their state they obey the pretenses of the idols. But our clergy, for the gain of their own body, prefer to bear the harm of women living with them, whom they ought to tear out even from their own substance if it happened that they were born with them, lest they blush when compared with idolaters and the sacrilegious. Of these the Lord too rebukes the despisers, saying: “The children of this world are wiser than the children of light.” So the profane devotion of such people is to be preferred to our clergy, to whom shameful priesthoods are lovable at the cost of such destruction. But clergy, for the dignity of the heavenly priesthood, do not shed blood, do not endure the knife; there is no wound, no torture; only the sight of a woman burns them against the Lord. So they rush upon women, so they love women, that they do not expect that the pure mysteries of their love can ever be made manifest, as they have been shamefully published and exposed through those like them, whom the apostle Paul already then foresaw, saying: “The sins of some men are manifest, going before to judgment; but some they follow after. Likewise also good deeds are manifest, and whatever is otherwise cannot be hidden.”

But they in turn say: “Some of those who despise us, who likewise had women in their houses, have obtained martyrdom, so that their conscience was proved innocent among them.” Let no one bring an action against me on the ground of martyrdom; for very often adulterers and murderers and drunkards and those guilty of every crime, having found an occasion for combat, were converted and earned the pardon of martyrdom. For martyrdom is called both a crown and a baptism, because it baptizes and crowns alike. Come now: if it was granted to some to earn martyrdom while their companionship with women was inviolate, martyrdom itself was not without pardon for them too, whom the guilt of forbidden cohabitation did not absolve, nor could it prove them innocent in their very innocence, since it is seen to have pardoned in them contempt of the Law, the foulness of an unlawful way of life, and, what is graver than all, a crime against the church. For innocence is harmful which hurts the reputation of the bride of Christ. And since Christ, the innocent Lamb, indeed, more truly, heavenly innocence itself, gave himself up wholly for the church, that he might present her unblemished, without any spot or wrinkle, what kind of cleric is he to whom the bride of Christ is entrusted for this, that for the love of one woman he allows the whole church to be blamed? I would dare to say: the Son was sent from the bosom of the Father by God the Father and endured being absent from the kingdom in order to make the church innocent; and a cleric cannot leave a woman's side, so as not to make Christ's church infamous?

But they say: “In martyrdom we are forgiven, as was granted to our fathers.” Then let all of us too trust this about all sins, so that we who labor to do well may wander amid luxuries and run along the paths of sins, let go the reins and loosen the bridles. Let us go wherever the world carries us off and wherever the devil invites us; let us freely commit sexual immorality, envy, rob, defraud, commit all evils without care: martyrdom will come to our aid and we will escape. For so the apostle Paul promises: “Let us do evil that good may come”; “their condemnation is just.” Let those place their hope in this martyrdom whom astrologers have taught to have foreknowledge of tomorrow; and let those expect these crowns who, above the angels and Christ, have learned through astrologers to know the times which the Father has put in his own authority; so that they may at least remember then that they ought to have done well before the time of martyrdom, when they feel the day of the Lord coming like a thief. But let us believe that martyrdom is hanging over them any moment. Meanwhile, before they become martyrs, they are subject to the laws, so that they are subjected to judgment, unless they are disarmed of their arms. It is a wicked audacity for them to set the persons of their fathers against the Lord's authority; the Lord himself has taken away the voice of this objection: “Do not walk,” he says, “in the statutes of your fathers, nor keep their judgments, nor mix in their pursuits, nor be defiled. I am the Lord your God; walk in my precepts and keep my judgments.”

Let them know now that the patronage of their fathers has been taken from them, who, running back and forth, seek the hiding places of objections so as never to be without women. And because they are deserted on every side by the support of a defense, finally, with all arguments exhausted, they think the sentence of the apostle Paul helps them, and say: “Who are you to judge another's servant?” The apostle Paul indeed recognizes the words of his ruling that they cite, but he does not know the rulers and citers themselves. For he gave that defense to those who attack no part of the Law, and granted that patronage to those who do something by their own vow and hinder nothing of the church's law. He is treating the right of eating and of not eating, confirming each one's choice. In such matters he commanded that no one be judged, since divine authority, granting them to the will of individuals, kindly allowed doing and not doing on either side. But he subjected to the church's tribunals those transgressors of the ordinary rule whom no impunity excused; so that those who everywhere put forward against us “Who are you to judge another's servant?” as a counter-plea may recognize the reasoned and certain rejoinder which we have received from the same apostle Paul: “We command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from brothers who walk disorderly and not according to the tradition which you received from us.”

We have escaped, I think, such great entanglements of questions, with which the embraces of women have bound the loving eunuchs, who are driven to alter the Law's decrees by perverse interpretations, and would rather be heard putting forward vain and fabulous inventions than themselves hear what is true. The apostle Paul announces them, saying: “They will turn their hearing away from the truth and turn aside to fables.” Whatever they may still wish to search out, so as to resist the truth for the sake of women, they have no victory, for among them, contrary to Ezra, woman rather than truth has conquered. But you, dearest sons, I address not only by persuasion but also by authority. Despise such madness, whose questions you know the apostle Paul condemned everywhere, as he wrote to the Romans: “I beg you, brothers, to watch carefully those who say or do dissensions and offenses contrary to the teaching you have learned, and turn away from them.” So too he charges Timothy: “Do not quarrel about words; it is of no use, except for the ruin of the hearers. Take care to present yourself approved to God, a workman not to be blamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid foolish and empty talk; for it advances much to impiety, and their word spreads like a cancer.” And to show what teaching is fitting for the clergy who are to be appointed, to empty such questions, he suggests thus to Titus too: “But you speak what befits sound teaching: that the older men be sober, prudent, sound in faith, in love, in sincere patience.” Let your obedience, then, receive simple teachings and avoid the shifty deceit of objections. Clear a pure path for your steps and do not tread upon thorns and thistles, lest the good seed be unable to bring forth for you the fruit of holiness because of the thickets of thorns. Hence the prophet Jeremiah exhorts and teaches thus: “Do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to your God, circumcise the foreskin of your heart.” Everything, then, that usually pricks and tears must be cut away from your field, lest the farmer's mind be caught in his own property by malignant briars. And we must cut off everything with which the furnace of seething flesh boils over, teeming with the sulfurous flames of fiery tinder, lest even a tiny spark preserved should kindle greater fires. Solomon shows this, saying: “From one spark the fire grows.” Turn away impure occasions, by which the inner parts of the breast are penetrated, so that a clear transparency may be honored in you. Be content rather to endure a laborious solitary life to preserve modesty than to come to disgrace without labor.

Consider what it is to preside over a holy people, and reflect what it is to attend upon the divine sacraments. Those who live by the altar must please the altar, and the care for sincerity fitting for consecrated men must be such as the sacred things themselves to which they render the duties of service, lest they themselves offend before the Lord in what they handle, or begin to hinder before the people what they preach. For this reason the apostle Paul testifies thus and says: “And we endure all things, lest we put any hindrance in the way of the gospel of Christ.” And again: “giving no offense to anyone, so that our ministry may not be blamed.” By this instruction, then, you must labor as much as possible over those for whom, to show their gravity, solitary living rather than paired living is the true witness. Consider how many evils the conduct of this pairing acquires, which sows nothing but corruption, sprouts vices, conceives desire, gives birth to disgrace, stirs up rage, offers frenzy, feeds wantonness, nourishes petulance, exalts falls, builds ruins, raises riverbanks, prepares precipices, sails into dangers, spreads sail for shipwrecks, rejoices in perdition, fosters destruction, purchases confusion, treasures up reproach, heaps up accusations, inflames charges, and, rolling together in troops at once into a bundle numberless snares of capture, brings manifold deaths through endless disgraces to the ruin of the lost.

So many and such great massacres of calamity and of the worst conduct no one lays low, no one tramples, no one destroys, except solitary chastity alone, which is the unconquered fortification of holiness and the strong storming of infamy, the firmness of strength and the weakness of petulant wantonness, the defense of honesty and the overthrow of dishonesty, the victory of the soul and the spoil of the body, the abundance of glories and the captivity of crimes, the bridesmaid of holiness and the divorce of shamefulness, the sign of sincerity and the abolition of scandals, the exercise of continence and the entire emptying of luxury, the secure peace of virtues and the quiet ending of wars, the summit of purity and the prison of lust, the harbor of honor and the place of shipwreck for disgrace, the mother of virginity and the enemy of impurity, the breastplate of modesty and the spoil of shamelessness, the destruction of corruption, the wall of strictness and the demolition of vulgarity, the sword of severity, the conqueror and slayer of dissoluteness, the armor of strength and the disarming of looseness, the dignity of integrity and the condemnation of sexual immorality, the pinnacle of glory and the precipice of disgrace, the will for good works and the affliction of vices, the refreshment of modesty and the punishment of petulance, the gaining of triumphs and the loss of crimes, the rest of salvation and the exile of perdition, the life of the spirit and the death of the flesh, the state of angelic quality, the funeral of human substance. By its reins all obscenity is bridled, and by its fetters the heels of raging lust are held fast. On it, as on a rock, the onslaughts of overflowing blood, of whatever kind, are broken, and in it the foaming madness of bodily swelling is calmed. While it withdraws from itself the supports of desire, it is known to carry its members dead, of which the apostle Paul forewarns, saying: “Put to death, then, your members which are on earth: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is the service of idols, on account of which the wrath of God comes.”

From all these things human nature is castrated only by the shining knife of solitary living, so that it may bring unblemished eunuchs to the banquet of holiness, with circumcision as the one who betroths. To her holiness has so promised the wedding seal of its ring that without it virginity is unsealed. Content with itself alone, it tames desire and makes the mind chaste, subdues concupiscence, extinguishes the desires of passion, weakens the limbs, enslaves the body, and so crucifies carnal things that both male and female seem to belie themselves in their way of life, since it cuts them off from the activity of either sex; or, making neither of the two, it glories in conferring a third form on both, so that before the resurrection it is known to rehearse the image of the resurrection after the likeness of the angels. The Lord, promising this for the future, says: “Those who are counted worthy of that age and of the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they will no longer die; for they are like the angels of God, since they are children of the resurrection.” Holy solitary living demands this of its merits: that before it is transfigured it may already be seen transfigured into the appearance of angelic glory, cutting off from itself all the contests of concupiscence and despoiling them. Solomon sets forth its praises, saying: “Better is it to be without children, with glory; for immortality is in its memory, because it is known both with God and with men. When it is present, they imitate it, and they long for it when it has departed; and crowned forever it triumphs, winning the contest of undefiled struggles.”

Only solitary living is “without children, with glory,” which not only its conscience stains with no filth, but no suspicious opinions of paired living defame either. For if chastity, which is difficult, preserves a man and a woman alike in virginity, it does not have glory, which shared living itself cannot but obscure with certain shadows of shamefulness. But solitary living is so clear and open to all that it is shown to everyone pure and bright in the splendor of its whiteness. Hence the apostle teaches us thus: “Walk as children of light; for the fruit of light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is pleasing to God.” And again: “Do all things without murmuring and hesitation, that you may be blameless and simple, as children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” So solitary living shines everywhere, that all do not hesitate to vouch for it; and it so makes holiness bright in itself that it wrings praise for itself even from enemies. The apostle Paul commands this especially of every overseer, saying: “He must also have a good testimony from those outside, so that he may not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.” Love it, then; hold it fast, which alone can conquer women. While no desire yet strikes the breast, and while simplicity still remains uncorrupted or quiet, run quickly to the secret protection of solitary living, lest afterward you be unable to escape.

Every approach must be secured beforehand against all snares, lest hostility, creeping up first, meet the unprepared. It is a saving remedy to forestall rather than be forestalled, and it befits brave men to anticipate rather than be anticipated. Wherever there is foresight, all adversities are frustrated; but where foresight is neglected, all adversities rule. We struggle before famine; we exert ourselves by labor before want. So in everything we take away the place for all calamities, while we exercise foresight for future times. How much more must the calamity of women be forestalled by every provision, whose desire, if it is allowed to begin, never accepts an end at all? Solomon sets out its comparison, saying: “The underworld and the love of a woman, and the earth that is not satisfied with water, and fire, do not say, ‘Enough.’” So let each one who is secure because he is not yet tempted be afraid. Because nothing is said of him, let him take care that it is not said. We are human; we carry our frailty in the flesh. So we must now surround and gird ourselves on every side with watchful vigor, so that there is no part that wavers. We do indeed receive spiritual strength, by which the frailty of our substance is strengthened. But spiritual strength has been conferred on us in such a way that it protects the provident, not the reckless; that it fortifies those who renounce the importunities of sins, not those who plunge themselves rather into importunate sins. The Spirit has been given us as guardian, but to help by standing by those who turn aside from adversities, not to favor those who choose them; nor to strengthen those who are willing and inclined toward adversities, but to confirm those who strive to be separated from them. For whoever dares to exercise strength by ruinous attempts does not have the help of the Holy Spirit, who wants no man to be pressed, of his own accord, into deceitful victories as a brave man; nor does he protect him, but rather deserts him, whom he knows to be rushing into dangers to seek triumphs by unlawful outcomes; as he himself already then spoke through Solomon, saying: “He who loves danger will perish in it.”

The power of the Holy Spirit, then, is supplied in his order, not by our choice, and battles prosper according to his plan. No army ever fell unless it rushed headlong, eager to do bravely, and broke through the dispositions of its general or emperor; much more does he spend a strength doomed to perish who presumes to triumph without the arms of the teaching of the Spirit, his master, since he says: “Woe to those who do anything by their own presumption, not through God.”

If, then, there is in you any confidence in spiritual strength, let it remember what befits spiritual men; and if you believe you serve as soldiers spiritually, recognize that what we teach is not carnal, as the apostle Paul says: “If anyone thinks himself a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge what I write to you.” There is no reason to flatter yourselves with this deceptive persuasion, that because you are spiritual you may wish to move among the weapons of the wicked; nor that you are unfit for the dignity of the clerical office because greater conflicts usually meet greater men. The rich are envied more keenly than the poor, and the savage attack of robbers troubles not the needy but the wealthy. Generals and princes rather than soldiers are sought by the enemy in battle, and whatever peaks are higher are battered more violently by winds and whirlwinds. Therefore, the more each one can do than others, the more let him know that he must fear lest he be diminished in anything; for which reason Solomon admonishes thus: “He who glories,” he says, “in riches, let him fear poverty.” I beg you, as much as I can and beyond what I can, let this be the endeavor of all clergy: to practice the retirement of a blameless solitary life, lest either they through women or women through them be provoked to disgraceful mockery. If anyone has a mother or daughter or sister or wife or kinswoman, let him have her in such a way that no maidservant is among them and no stranger enters, lest he seem to keep his own relatives for this purpose, that on their account he may freely bring in strangers. And if those who are related cannot be without the service of maidservants or the comfort of friends, it is better that they move to another dwelling than that persons who are a danger be kept because of them. For it is humane that neither the cleric should defraud them of necessary women nor they defile the cleric through unsuitable women. They can be assigned to holy women with whom to live, provided no woman lives with the cleric. No woman, not even a despised or elderly one without kinship, is to be taken especially into domestic service; for sin is committed more quickly where sin can be secure without suspicion, especially since to desire no deformity, no despised appearance, is repulsive or cheap: the devil, painting it, makes beautiful whatever was foul or ugly.

And if anyone, compelled by a journey, lodges with brothers or with strangers where women are present, let him restrain himself altogether, lest he be corrupted by any passion. Withdrawn and secluded, let him devote himself to God and himself, lest he be caught within by the devil, and he who could not be caught outside fall among his own. Having escaped enemies, let him come forward to someone's presence for a time for salutary reasons, and again hasten quickly to depart from sight. Everywhere presence with women must be tasted, not prolonged; access to women is to be shown as if in passing, in a fugitive sort of way. For the beginnings of wantonness are always brought out into the open, and it is a rehearsal of perdition to make frequent appearances among women. On this Solomon imposed a measure on us, saying: “Do not be constantly in the midst of women.” So walk, then, so act, that the senate of the church may always stand spotless in its clergy. Let severity toward women flourish in us, let authority prevail, let vigor be kept, let gravity be revered.

To gather everything together once for the close, we read back to you a summary which the apostle Paul gives, reducing it to a concise fullness: “Finally, brothers,” he says, “whatever things are true, whatever chaste, whatever just, whatever holy, whatever lovely, whatever of good report, if there is any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things, which you have received and learned and heard and seen in me. Do these things, and the God of peace and love will be with you.” Amen.