Letter to the Virgin Demetrias on Humility

Contents

Reading pages: 1–12 · 13–24

1. 1The author, asked by the consecrated virgin Demetrias for a letter, declines to praise her family or virginity, already praised by others, and proposes instead to commend humility.
2. 2True humility, inwardly peaceful, is distinguished from the abjectness of sloth or forced poverty, just as holy fear is distinguished from servile fear.
3. 3Humility first appears in common life, where people honour one another regardless of rank and wealth, and rises to willingly suffering wrong in imitation of Christ.
4. 4Those who know their redemption renounce the world's wisdom, wealth, and honours, not from weakness but because they aspire to the Creator himself.
5. 5Humility is open to the rich as well as the voluntary poor, as the wealthy patriarchs, Melchizedek, and Job show, and rich Christians who use their goods as stewards for the poor share in it.
6. 6Humility is the virtue that binds the varied members of the church into one body, since it alone admits no inequality among them.
7. 7Humility consists in confessing God's grace wholly, since no good, not even the knowledge of God, comes from ourselves; creation and Scripture teach only when God gives the growth.
8. 8The gravest sin is the pride that claims for oneself what only God's help can do; it began with the devil and through him led the first humans to fall.
9. 9Pride, the beginning of sin in devil and man, wants to be the source of its own goods; it feeds on God's gifts and therefore threatens the virtuous most of all.
10. 10The devil, unable to corrupt the virtuous by vice, tempted them to pride in free will; the Pelagian teaching that followed, condemned by the apostolic see, is summarized, along with a partial form of it that makes grace depend on merit.
11. 11Against the Pelagian denial of original sin, the author cites Scripture, infant baptism, and circumcision to show that all are condemned in Adam unless reborn in Christ, distinguishing the visible form of baptism from its invisible power.
12. 12True humility takes God as its strength and glory, as the Psalms, Jeremiah, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Paul's teaching on the gifts of the Spirit show.
13. 13Christ the vine shows that no one bears fruit without grace; grace does not take away free choice but heals and strengthens the will.
14. 14God's mercy goes before every merit, as Jeremiah, John, and Paul teach; grace does not replace the will but, like a physician healing the eyes, enables it to see and burn with love.
15. 15Believers must cooperate with grace, neither proud nor slothful; God's commands are given so that his help may be sought, and their obedient fulfilment shows his work.
16. 16Spiritual progress brings greater danger of pride, against which Paul and Peter teach that all good is God's gift; the pride that claims virtue for itself is the most harmful of all.
17. 17True humility, the strength of all virtues, consists in being subject to God in everything; the soul, God's image and bride, must be adorned only with what it receives from him.
18. 18Demetrias, distinguished by noble birth as well as virginity, must especially guard humility, not ascribing even her choice of Christ to herself; love of anything not from God is unchaste.
19. 19Paul's hymn on love shows that even almsgiving and martyrdom profit nothing without love, which is patient, kind, and not puffed up.
20. 20Pride can make even almsgiving and martyrdom worthless; it is the worst sin because the proud do not seek the physician but trust in themselves for healing.
21. 21Humility and love are inseparable, each part of the other, so that what Paul says of love applies equally to humility.
22. 22The author invites Demetrias to examine her heart and recognize all her gifts as God's, and to ask his help in using them, since even right prayer comes from the Spirit.
23. 23The Spirit plays on the hearts of the saints like an instrument, as at Pentecost; not only in persecution but always, even right thoughts come from God.
24. 24Every good in the saints is from God; true humility already shares in future blessedness, though in this life no one is without sin; the letter ends urging Demetrias to glory only in the Lord.