Letter to the Virgin Demetrias on Humility 1–12

Since you understand, devoutly and wisely, that the lofty purpose of your most splendid holiness rests on the foundations of humility, you incline the condescension of your dignity so far, O holy virgin Demetrias, as to ask that your advances be helped even by my pen. I, looking at the slenderness of my ability, would refuse this in every way, nor would I presume to offer my little exhortations to drink to so mature and learned a mind, did I not draw from the one who commands the confidence of accomplishing what is commanded, and trust that it will be granted through your merits and prayers that water may spring up in the desert and rivers be made in dry land. So you must labour together with me, so that he who gives wisdom to little ones and makes the tongues of the dumb eloquent may command to flow from the dryness of my heart what you can worthily draw. What matter, then, will be given to my pen, and from where will a reason for speaking with you be taken? If I undertake to write your praises and unroll the line of your ancestors, which is made much more illustrious through you, I think I might perhaps seem burdensome and shameless, either thrusting on you by flattery the temptation of human glory, or presuming that my talent is equal to proclaiming you and yours. But if I discuss the commendation of the good of virginity, it will now be superfluous to commend that purpose which you chose from the first flower of your age without human exhortations, and about which, at its very beginnings, many who were then eminent in the church rightly did not keep silent. For it was very wonderful, and to be counted among the chief examples of divine grace, that you, a virgin of the Anician house, raised above every height of consular nobility, from whose fruitfulness a posterity worthy of grandfathers and great-grandfathers was awaited by the hopes of both family and country, suddenly turned your mind and, from desire of heavenly nuptials, declined mortal marriage; and, so as to consecrate your whole lineage also with the title of this virtue, you, the first of your stock, pledged yourself a perpetual virgin to the Son of the Virgin. That age of yours, then, and those beginnings, most learned men reasonably spurred on with their exhortations; and although the supreme farmer gave strong growth to his planting for your progress, yet the co-workers of God's grace applied devout cultivation at the right time, so that the tender shoot might receive the robust strength of fortitude and the tree of your purpose might bear fruits worthy of its nobility. But what place will there be for my pages? And after the most elegant writings of excellent teachers, what usefulness will you find in the discourse you have deigned to require, unless perhaps, since by their teachings and your studies your habit is advancing to higher steps of virtues, I may warn you to beware of elation, and commend to you the sincerity of humility by faithful suggestion, so that in all the actions in which you are of good conscience you may never dare to be secure.

Let us discuss, then, as the Lord grants, this good which is most suited to you and most wholesome, so that not only its visible aspects but also its hidden ones may be opened to our inspection. For the quality of this virtue is manifold, and although it is beautiful in its outward parts too, yet in its inner parts it is much more lovely and much more radiant; there nothing is dark, nothing turbid, nothing restless: for "much peace have those who love the law of God, and there is no stumbling block for them." As we approach the contemplation of blessed humility, let us drive away all that abjectness which presses down slothful and inconstant minds; and let not the general name so exclude us from the judgment of discernment that we think all who are in any way humble to be praiseworthy. For necessity often imitates the will, and the form of sloth differs little from the image of modesty. But it is one thing that weighs down, another that exercises; nor does the inescapable labour of misery come to the same end as the strength of a patience that has been sought. There is one word, "poverty," but not one mind among the poor; for it is not the same to rejoice over riches well spent as either to groan over riches not acquired or to grieve over riches lost. In the fear too by which God is feared there is no distinction in the name; but it is one thing to fear because you have sinned, another to fear lest you sin; and in the one there is dread of punishment, in the other concern for the reward. For this reason it is said of that servile fear that "perfect love casts out fear"; but of this free fear, "The fear of the Lord is holy, enduring for ever and ever." Setting aside, then, that appearance of humility which is wholly without fruit, let us weigh only the voluntary affections, which, even if they are found unequal in the degrees of merit, are yet not at odds with the virtue itself.

The first form of humility, then, is found in the duties of common life, by which the divine clemency is won and human society is bound together. For it does much to strengthen love when, according to the apostolic teaching, men outdo one another in showing honour, and, each thinking the other superior, those under others love to serve and those set over others do not know how to swell with pride; when the poor man does not hesitate to put the rich before himself, and the rich man rejoices to make the poor his equal; when the lofty are not proud of the brilliance of their lineage, and the poor are not lifted up by their sharing of a common nature; when, finally, no more is granted to great wealth than to good character, and the decked-out power of the wicked is not held greater than the unhonoured righteousness of the upright. From this equal and modest law of concord, in which there is no contest for a higher rank, and in which one's own happiness does not puff one up nor another's burn one, many advance beautifully and wonderfully to that strength of humility which places itself outside all dignity, and prefers to be fit for receiving injuries rather than able to repel them; so that what the Lord says is fulfilled: "If anyone wishes to go to law with you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak too; and whoever forces you to go a mile, go with him two more." And what the apostle teaches, saying: "Why do you not rather suffer wrong? Why do you not rather suffer fraud?" For such people come very near to imitating our Lord and Saviour himself, who, though he was rich, became poor; and when he was reviled, did not revile, and did not threaten the one who struck him; and since he had said, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you," to confirm such kindness by example, he himself prayed for those by whom he was being crucified.

Those, then, who faithfully and knowingly understand by what work they have been saved and at what price redeemed, do not wish to be among the wise of this world, do not wish to be among the strong; for, as the apostle says, "God chose the foolish things of the world to put the wise to shame, and God chose the weak things of the world to put the strong to shame, and God chose the ignoble and despised things of the world, and the things that are not, to destroy the things that are, so that no flesh might glory in his sight": that is, so that no one may think he pleases God through the wisdom of the world, which is wholly carnal and is destroyed with all its vanity by true wisdom; for "the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." So when the disciples of truth flee human glory and fall away from love of temporal things, so as to mind the things of God and not those of men, they advance in their senses and do not fail; nor do they lose the vigour of the heart, but receive the light of the most excellent understanding: living indeed in this world, but leaving behind all the noise of the world, so as to redeem the time, because the days are evil. And at what price is the quiet of this time more fittingly bought than by giving back to the world itself all riches, all dignities, and the materials of all desires, and by buying Christian freedom in a holy and blessed exchange, and becoming sons of God, rich out of poverty, strong out of patience, lofty out of humility? For it is not, as the lovers of this age think, the mark of a crooked heart or a sluggish mind to spurn earthly wealth, to disdain passing honours, and not to seek glory where "the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does wicked things is blessed." Hence, if it is truly understood to what this contempt of present things tends and what it desires, nothing will be found more upright, nothing more lofty, than such minds, which by most holy desires transcend all things and aspire not to any creature, however powerful and wonderful, but to the very creator of all things visible and invisible; to draw near to whom is to become bright, to fear whom is to rejoice, to serve whom is to reign.

But this virtue, which, neglecting temporal wealth and power, strives toward eternal life by the narrow and steep way, ought not to admit the voluntary poor into the fellowship of Christian humility and exclude from the society of this good those who possess broad estates, magnificent patrimonies, and many resources in this world: since among God's people there have always been many who used riches well; nor may it in any way be said or thought that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose God the Lord declared himself to be, lacked true humility because they were not poor. Or that the most holy man Melchizedek, bearing the figure of our Lord and Saviour, was not perfectly humble because he was eminent both in priesthood and in kingship. Or that blessed Job, of whom God declares, saying, "Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a simple and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil?" lacked this virtue because, as it is written, there were in his possession seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels, also five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred she-asses, and a very large household, and that man was great among all the people of the East. If he was made a partaker of this grace only when, having lost all his resources, deprived also of his whole household and his children, and struck with a most grievous sore from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, he scraped the pus with a potsherd, sitting on a dunghill, was he afterward recalled to the image of elation and arrogance, when, his body restored to health, he became again the father of seven sons and three daughters and was enriched with a double increase in all his substance? Far from the minds of the faithful be so irreligious a persuasion, as to believe that either wealth or dignity hindered any of the saints, to whom God gave both riches and honours, from gaining the merit of true humility; since both helped them toward the advance of this virtue. For although the whole life of man upon earth is a trial, and both abundance and want are usually matter for sin, when either the rich man is lifted up to pride or the poor man breaks out into complaint, yet there have been at every time, and in our age too there are not lacking, both good poor and good rich. Nor in vain does the blessed apostle Paul admonish Timothy, saying: "Command the rich of this age not to be haughty, nor to hope in uncertain riches, but in God, who provides us richly with all things to enjoy; to do good, to be rich in good works, to give readily, to share, to store up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may lay hold of the true life." There is no doubt that this happens in the whole church, which is spread through the whole world, and that the poor of Christ are sustained not only by the resources of those who stripped themselves of all their wealth at once so as to follow the Lord more freely, but that the substance of those also serves the same work who preside over their possessions as over nothing other than the property of the poor, and serve the church's need in a kind of stewardship, each labouring according to the measure of his strength, so that what is necessary for the food and clothing of God's family may be supplied; and at the same time taking care that in their own houses, under just and holy government, kindness may cherish all and discipline restrain them; as the apostle says, "If anyone does not care for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."

Since, then, the church of God, which is the body of Christ, is woven together with such manifold variety that even things that are not equal run together into one beauty, and from every kind of men, every rank of office, every measure of work, and every quality of virtues there comes about the inseparable joining and undivided beauty of the whole building; and since nothing is lacking to the whole that is not lacking to a portion, and there is so great a peace and so great a concord there that nothing can belong to each that does not belong to all: it appears without doubt that there is a certain uniting virtue, by which the manifold unity and lovely diversity of the saints is bound together and sings in harmony. This virtue is true humility, which can never be unlike itself among any degrees of merit. For in the alternation of offices, in the gentleness of meekness, and in the choice of voluntary poverty great distance is found, and one is greater or less than another in devotion to his purpose; but in true humility nothing is divided and nothing is not solid; and therefore it makes all who share in it one, because it does not itself admit inequality.

The proper character of this good, then, lies in the confession of the grace of God, which is wholly rejected unless it is wholly received. For as he is a stranger to the number of the faithful and the lot of the saints who dissents from catholic truth in any point, so he is put outside grace who denies anything of its fullness, as though man needed God's help in some part of his actions and in another part did not need it, and there were any time or any moment at which it could not be ruinous to him if the Holy Spirit were absent from him. The Spirit, indeed, according to the essence of true Godhead, is whole everywhere and comprehends all things; but he is understood in a certain way to withdraw from those whom he ceases to govern. For the cessation of his help is taken as absence, which he most madly thinks useful to himself who rejoices that in what he has done rightly he himself rather than God has worked. The grace of God, then, must be confessed fully and truly, of whose gift this is the first, that his help be perceived. For this reason the apostle says: "But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things given to us by God." Hence, if there is anyone who thinks that he has any good things of which not God is the giver, but he himself is the author for himself, it is clear that he has not the Spirit of God but that of the world, and swells with that teaching of worldly wisdom of which the Lord says: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" According to this wisdom, as the apostle says, certain people, "when they had known God, did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For claiming to be wise, they became fools." Do you see what repayment is owed to the proud, and with what wages they are filled who, if in any way they have come to the knowledge of the truth, attribute it to their own wisdom and glory in their natural talent, as though they had known God not by God's gift but by the ability of their own understanding? All the elements of the world indeed, and the natures of all creatures, by their very form demand this, that "the invisible things of God may be understood and seen through the things that are made"; and in the beauty of heaven and earth there are, as it were, pages always open to the eyes of all and never silent about their author, whose testimony imitates the teaching of masters and the sayings of the Scriptures. But whatever it is by which the outward parts of the bodily senses are struck, in the field of the heart on which this cultivation is spent it can neither fix a root nor send forth a shoot unless that supreme and true farmer applies the power of his work and brings what has been planted to living growth. For whether the contemplation of creatures, or the series of the sacred volumes, or the knowledge of those who discourse, proclaims the truth with sincere and constant testimony, "neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth."

Among all the falls of men, then, among all the offences of sinners, none is heavier than the ruin of the proud, especially when the elation itself tends to an injury against God. For those swell in one way who, from a desire for singular eminence, seek to be preferred to all; but those swell in another way who, rejecting God's help, claim that things which cannot be done without his working are accomplished by their own power, and take their hope away from the Lord and transfer it to themselves: so that what is written is fulfilled in them, "Cursed is the man who has his hope in man, and makes flesh his strong arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord." This pride took its beginning from the devil, who, since he was pleased with his own power and dignity, which he had received from the Creator, and compared himself to the glory of his author, was cast down from the heavenly height together with those angels whom he had drawn into consent to his ungodliness. And he was able to harm the first men because he persuaded them, credulous to their harm, by poisoned lies, that they would be better if they leapt forth into the freedom of their own choice than if they remained in keeping the law that had been given.

Whether, then, in the fall of the devil or in the transgression of man, the beginning of sin is pride, which is also fittingly called avarice, because both names signify that appetite which both desires to exceed its own measure and does not deign to be rich except in its own things: as though it had this likeness to God, that it should be its own source of its goods and its own abundance. This elation is born of the perverse use of God's gifts. For if the founder of natures had conferred nothing beautiful, nothing lofty on rational natures, they would have nothing on which to pride themselves. For no one is proud of what he has not received, nor can anyone be puffed up over what he has no share in. The drunkard never glories in sobriety, nor the envious in kindness, nor the savage in gentleness, nor is the unchaste lifted up over chastity. The vices separate themselves from the virtues, and when we are driven into sins, they are loved as our own, not as implanted by nature but as conceived from an evil will; for, as it is written, "the liar speaks from his own." But when a praiseworthy life is led in good and right acts, what is done is God's, what is loved is God's. For "every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." Hence, since among the vices there is either no boasting or rare boasting, and he who glories in disgrace is easily despised, the evil of pride is to be guarded against above all by the virtues, because it lies in wait for none more opportunely than for those to whom just praise is owed.

When, then, through the ineffable mercy of God freedom is restored to captives, salvation to the lost, and life to the dead; when in the sacrament of Christ's cross and resurrection oldness returns to newness and ungodliness is regenerated to innocence, the ancient enemy rages more malignantly and burns more fiercely; and although he strives to overthrow the human race with innumerable arts of harming, sowing discords, stirring up angers, sharpening desires, urging shameful things, devising falsehoods, and multiplying the snares of errors through invented opinions, he is more burned by the virtue of those who stand than he rejoices at the frailty of those who fall. For many who serve God and meditate on his law day and night have crucified their flesh with its desires and lusts and have tamed the incitements of all enticements; not conquered by losses, not broken by persecutions, not corrupted by prosperity, they have neither loved this world when it flattered nor feared it when it threatened. With what assault, then, could the devil attack such firmness and so lofty a purpose, except that, in those whom he had been unable to persuade to love vices, he might put a desire for praise, and build his latest temptation from that from which his first deception did harm? So it was not through slothful and lukewarm, nor through idle and uncultivated, minds, but rather through certain minds bright with talent and the uprightness of good acts, that he crept in by human glory; and those whom he could not overthrow by pushing, he cast down by elation. For the more illustrious they were in merits, the more fit he found them for his snares. For he incited those set in the paradise of the church and abounding in the delights of virtues to confidence in free choice, so that they would place their progress in themselves and stretch out the hand of presumption to the tree of their own will. The upright hearts of innumerable saints indeed resisted this ungodliness; and not only all the learned bishops, but also the peoples of the whole church, following the example of the apostolic see, shuddered at the madness of the new doctrine. But certain people found viper-like counsels by which they might pour in the poison of their teaching, and armed their tongue with the deceits of false reasoning. Hence came that fraudulent praise of human nature and the defence of an original dignity kept unharmed in all men; hence it was asserted that Adam's sin harmed his descendants by example, not by transmission, and that as it had been possible for him not to violate the commandment, so it is open to each one to avoid wrongdoing; hence came the emptying of the baptism of infants, who, they said, are given adoption alone and absolved from no guilt; hence, finally, a pretended and insincere confession of divine grace, as given according to merits, not as that from which merits are born. This part of the proud preaching certain people kept for themselves while rejecting the rest. But there is no doubt that they did this either very ignorantly or very wickedly, so as to lift the general ruin of all men by the privilege of merits; and while among us they confessed the wounds of original sin, among their own they showed that they held that the transgression of the first men harmed only those who imitate it, but that natural ability lost nothing of itself in another's sin, so that it is both possible and free for it to earn the bounty of grace by voluntary devotion.

But catholic minds easily understand this portion of the condemned doctrine and rightly detest it. For since the Lord Jesus says, "It is not the healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners," these men are convicted of crying out in their pride even without a voice: "We are healthy; we have no need of a physician; what protection should we expect from the help of grace, we who have enough strength from the soundness of our nature?" But not in vain does John bear witness and say, "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world." Nor in vain is it written, "No one is clean from filth, not even an infant whose life upon the earth is of one day"; and, "Who can make clean one conceived of unclean seed? Is it not you, who alone are?" For this reason, as there now remains in the church the ordinance of the Saviour, who says, "Unless one is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven," so it was most solemnly provided in the law that a boy who was born, unless he was circumcised on the eighth day, his soul should be cut off from his people, to have no share in the inheritance of Israel. The Holy Spirit would not have inserted all these and many more proofs in the sacred pages with such care, if the nature in the sons of Adam were such as it was originally established in him. But since the Son of God came to undo the works of the devil and to seek and save what was lost, it is clear that all are liable to condemnation in Adam by being born, unless they are freed in Christ by being reborn. Hence we must consider watchfully what takes place in the very gift of regeneration. For although all the parts of the same mystery run together into one, yet what is done visibly is one thing, what is celebrated invisibly another; nor is the form in the sacrament the same as the power, since the form is applied by the service of a human minister, while the power is granted through the effect of divine working. To this power, certainly, must be referred the fact that while the outer man is washed, the inner man is changed; and a new creature is made from the old, vessels of wrath are transferred into vessels of mercy, and the flesh of sin is turned into the body of Christ; from ungodly men come righteous ones, from captives free men, from sons of men sons of God, who are born "not of blood, nor of the will of a man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God." Since we have received this without doubt, most true is what the apostle teaches, saying, "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." Let those see, then, whose sons they wish to be held, who have defined that all men are ruled by their own will, when the same apostle bears witness and says, "He who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him."

Having refuted, then, the ungodly vanity of the proud, to whom even the things in them that seem praiseworthy are turned into sin, let us choose that humility whose strength and glory is God, knowing that the prophet David sang of the saints: "O Lord, they will walk in the light of your countenance, and in your name they will exult all the day, and in your righteousness they will be exalted; for you are the glory of their strength." And elsewhere he most devoutly confesses that the Lord is to be praised in his saints, saying: "God is wonderful in his saints; the God of Israel himself will give strength and power to his people." Jeremiah also agrees with this and says: "Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows that I am the Lord." And from where this understanding and knowledge are had, the Proverbs of Solomon disclose, saying: "For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his face come knowledge and understanding." And in his book Ecclesiastes we read that both the hearts and the works of the righteous are in God's hand, and that they make only as much progress in their pursuits as he has advanced them. "However much," he says, "a man labours to seek, he will not find; and whatever the wise man says, in order to know, he cannot find; for all this my heart has seen, that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God." Such is what the apostle proclaims, saying that every good word and every holy work is a gift of the Holy Spirit, without whom nothing is done rightly. "Therefore," he says, "I make known to you that no one speaking in the Spirit of God says, Anathema to Jesus; and no one can say, Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit. There are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are divisions of operations, but it is the same God who works all things in all. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for profit. To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the working of powers, to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of words. But all these the one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each as he wills."