Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 28 part 2/3

For this too is not unwisely wont to be proposed, that whoever can may say which widow is to be preferred in merits: whether the woman of one husband who, having lived rather long with her husband, and her children begotten and safe, was widowed and professed continence; or she who, as a young girl, within two years having lost two husbands and having no children for consolation, vowed continence to God though children were surviving, and grew old in that most persevering sanctity. Let them here exercise themselves, if they can, by disputing and demonstrating something to us — they who weigh the merits of widows by the number of husbands, not by the strength of continence itself.

For if they say that the woman of one husband is to be preferred to the woman of two, unless they bring forward some spiritual reason or authority, they will assuredly be found to prefer to strength of soul not a greater strength of soul, but a felicity of the flesh. For to the felicity of the flesh it belonged both to live long with a husband and to beget children. But if they do not prefer her on this account — because she had children — that very thing, that she lived long with a husband, what else was it than a felicity of the flesh? Furthermore, the merit of that Anna is chiefly commended by this: that, having so quickly buried her husband, she strove long against the flesh through her extended age, and conquered. For thus it is written: 'And there was Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser:

she had advanced in many days, and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity; and she was a widow up to eighty-four years, who departed not from the temple, serving with fastings and prayers night and day.' You see how the holy widow is praised not only because she was the wife of one husband, but also because she lived few years with her husband from her virginity, and because she carried on the office of widowed continence up to so great an old age with so great a service of devotion. Let us therefore set before our eyes three widows, each having one of all those things which were in this woman:

let us set down one as the wife of one husband, who lacks both so great a length of widowhood — namely, that she lived long with her husband — and so great a zeal of devotion, namely that she does not so serve with fastings and prayers; another, who after the very brief life of her first husband also quickly lost a second and has been a widow for a long age, but who likewise does not so much give her attention to the most religious service of fastings and prayers;

a third, who not only had two husbands, but also lived with both of them singly, or with one of them, for a longer time, and being widowed in her later age — in which, indeed, if she had wished to marry, she could also have begotten children — took up widowed continence, but is more intent upon God, more solicitous to keep doing the things that please him, serving night and day, like Anna, with fastings and prayers. If it be contended which of these women is superior in merits, who does not see that in this contest the palm must be given to the greater and more fervent devotion?

So too, if three other women are set down, in whom two of those three things are present and one is lacking, who would doubt that those would be the better in whom, among their two goods, a devout humility more excellently prevailed, so that their devotion might be lofty? Now none of these six widows is equal to your standard. For you, if you carry this vow through to old age, can have all three things by which the merit of Anna excelled; for you both had one husband, and he did not live long with you in the flesh. And through this, if you exhibit obedience to the words of the Apostle, who says: 'She who is truly a widow and desolate has hoped in the Lord and continues in prayers night and day,' and if by sober vigilance you avoid that which follows:

'But she who lives in wanton pleasures is dead while she lives' — all those three goods which were Anna's will also be yours. But you also have children, whom perhaps she did not have; nor are you to be praised on this account, that you have them, but because you take pains devoutly to nourish and educate them. For that they were born to you belongs to fruitfulness; that they live, to felicity; but that they are so instructed, to your will and power. In them let men congratulate you; in this let them imitate you. Anna, through prophetic knowledge, recognized Christ in his virgin mother; evangelical grace made you the mother of a virgin of Christ. That holy virgin, therefore, whom you offered to Christ, willing and asking it, has added something of virginal merit to the widowed merits of grandmother and mother.

For you who have this virgin do not have nothing from her, and you are in her what in yourselves you are not. For that holy virginity might be denied to you when you married, it was for this cause brought about that it should be born of you. These things, therefore, concerning the diverse merits of married women and of diverse widows, I would not discuss in this work, if what I write to you I were writing to you only. But since there are certain most difficult questions in this kind of discourse, I have wished to say something more than what properly pertains to you, on account of certain persons who do not seem learned to themselves unless they attempt to shake others' labors — not by judging, but by tearing to pieces with lacerating;

then also so that you yourself may not only keep what you have vowed and make progress in that good, but also may more diligently and more firmly know that this good of yours is not distinguished from an evil of marriage, but is preferred to the good of marriage. For those who condemn the marriages of widowed women — even though they wonderfully and fervently exercise their own continence by abstinence from many things which you use — let them not for this reason seduce you into thinking what they think, even though you cannot do what they do. For no one wishes to be frenzied, even if he should see the strength of the frenzied to be stronger than the strength of the sound. Let sound doctrine, therefore, especially both adorn and fortify the goodness of your purpose.

For this is the reason why Catholic women, even those often married, are by a just judgment preferred not only to widows of one husband, but even to the virgins of the heretics. There are indeed many recesses of questions concerning these three things — marriage, widowhood, and virginity — and many perplexities; for penetrating and resolving these by disputation there is need both of greater care and of more copious discourse, so that either in all of them we may be rightly wise, or, if we are otherwise wise in anything, God may reveal that also to us. Nevertheless, what the Apostle also there consequently says, 'in what we have attained, let us walk in that.'

Now we have attained — as far as pertains to this matter of which we speak — that we prefer continence to marriage, and holy virginity even to widowed continence, and that we do not condemn any marriages, which are nevertheless not adulteries but marriages, by the praise of the purpose of any one of us or of our people. Many other things concerning these matters have been said by us in the book On the Good of Marriage, and in another book On Holy Virginity, and in the work which, with as much labor as we could, we wrote against Faustus the Manichean — since, by most bitingly reproaching in his writings the chaste marriages of the patriarchs and prophets, he perverted the minds of certain unlearned persons away from the soundness of the faith.

Accordingly, since at the beginning of this little work I had proposed two certain necessary things and had promised to carry them out — one which pertains to doctrine, the other which pertains to exhortation — and to the former part, as I could, in accordance with the undertaken task, I have not been wanting, let us now come to the exhortation, so that the good which is prudently known may also be ardently loved. In which matter I first admonish this: that whatever love of devout continence you feel to be in you, you should attribute to the gift of God and give thanks to him, who has bestowed so much upon you from his Spirit, that, his charity being poured out in your heart, the love of a better good might take away from you the license of a permitted thing.

For he granted that it should not be pleasing to marry, though it was permitted; and that it should now not be permitted, even if it were pleasing; and from this, more firmly, that it should not be pleasing, lest that be done which would not be permitted — that which was not done even when it was permitted; and that you should merit so much as a widow of Christ, that you should also see your daughter a virgin of Christ; for while you pray like Anna, she became what Mary was. The more you know these to be gifts of God, the more you are blessed by his gifts; nay rather, you are not otherwise blessed, unless you know from whom you have what you have. For attend to what the Apostle has said concerning this matter: 'But we have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are given to us by God.'

For many indeed have many gifts of God, and, not knowing from whom they have them, are puffed up with impious vanity. But no one is blessed by the gifts of God who is ungrateful to the Giver; for that also, whereby amid the sacred mysteries we are bidden to have our heart on high — by his own help we are able to do that whereto, by his command, we are admonished. And therefore it follows that, lifted up in heart concerning so great a good, we should not attribute the glory to ourselves as though of our own strength, but should give thanks to the Lord our God. For we are immediately reminded of this, that this is worthy, this is just. You recall from whence these words are, and you recognize by what sanction and by how great a sanctity they are commended. Hold, therefore, and keep what you have received, and give thanks to the Giver.

For although to receive and to have is yours, yet you have that which you have received, since to the one who is proud, and who glories impiously from that which he had as though he had it from himself, truth says through the Apostle: 'For what have you that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?' These things compel me to admonish you to beware of and to shun the little talks of certain persons, which have begun to creep through the ears into the souls of many — which must be said with tears — enemies of the grace of Christ, through whom it is urged that not even prayer to the Lord should seem necessary to us, that we enter not into temptation. For thus they try to defend man's free will, that by it alone, not even aided by the grace of God, we may be able to fulfill what is divinely commanded.

And through this it follows that in vain the Lord said, 'Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation,' and in vain we daily say in the Lord's own Prayer: 'Lead us not into temptation.' For if it is only of our own power that we not be overcome by temptation, why do we pray that we enter not, or be not led, into it? Let us rather do what is of our own free will and most absolute power, and let us mock the Apostle when he says, 'God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able,' and let us resist him, saying, 'Why do I ask of the Lord that which he has placed in my own power?' But far be it that he who is soundly wise should think this. Accordingly, let us ask that he give what he commands us to have.

For to this end he commands what we do not yet have, that we may have it: that he may admonish us what we should ask, and that when we have found ourselves able to do what he has commanded, we may also understand from whom we have received it, lest, puffed up and elated by the spirit of this world, we not know the things that are given to us by God. Accordingly, we by no means destroy the free choice of the human will, when the grace of God, by which that very choice is aided, we do not by ungrateful pride deny, but rather by grateful devotion proclaim. For to will is ours; but the will itself is both admonished that it may rise, and healed that it may be strong, and enlarged that it may take in, and filled that it may have. For if we did not will, neither should we receive the things that are given, nor should we have them.

For who would have continence — to speak of this rather among the other gifts of God, concerning which I speak to you — who, I say, would have continence unless willing? For no one would receive it unless willing. But by whom it is given, so that it can be received and had by our will — if you ask, attend to Scripture; nay rather, since you know it, recall what you have read. 'When I knew,' he says, 'that no one can be continent unless God grant it, this too was of wisdom, to know whose gift it was.' Great are these two gifts — wisdom and continence: wisdom, namely, by which we are formed in the knowledge of God; continence, indeed, by which we are not conformed to this world.

Now God commands us to be both wise and continent, without which goods we cannot be just and perfect. But let us pray that he give what he commands, by aiding and inspiring, who has admonished us what we ought to will, by enjoining and calling. Whatever he has hence given, let us pray that he preserve it; but what he has not yet given, let us pray that he supply it: yet let us pray and give thanks for what we have received, and let us trust that we shall receive what we have not yet received, by this very fact — that we are not ungrateful for what we have received. For he who gave to the faithful married to contain themselves from adulteries and fornications, he himself gave to holy virgins and widows to contain themselves from all intercourse: in which virtue now, properly, either integrity or continence is named.

Or perhaps from him indeed we have received continence, but from ourselves we have wisdom? What then is it that the Apostle James says: 'But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and upbraids not; and it shall be given him'? But concerning this question we have already said much in our other little works, as far as the Lord has helped, and we shall say more, on another occasion given, as far as through him we shall be able. Now I have wished to say something on this subject for the sake of certain of our brethren, most friendly and most beloved to us, and indeed not maliciously entangled in this error, but entangled nonetheless — who think that, when they exhort any persons to justice and devotion,

their exhortation will have no power, unless they place all that — which they do together with man, so that man may act — in the power of man, not aided by the gift of God, but exerted by the free will alone — as though the free will could be capable of accomplishing a good work except by being freed by the gift of God — nor do they attend to this, that they themselves have even this very thing by the gift of God, that with that faculty they exhort, so that toward taking hold of the good life they rouse the sluggish wills of men, kindle the cold, correct the depraved, convert the averse, pacify the resisting. For thus they can persuade what they urge. Or if they do not effect these things in the wills of men, what do they effect? Why do they speak? Let them rather dismiss those wills to their own choice.

But if they do effect these things in them, is it then so, that man in man's will effects so much by speaking, and God there effects nothing by aiding? Nay rather, however much a man may excel in the faculty of speech, so that by skill of disputing and by sweetness of speaking he may implant truth in a man's will, may nourish charity, may by teaching remove error, by exhorting remove torpor — 'neither he that plants is anything, nor he that waters, but God that gives the increase.' For in vain would the workman labor at everything outwardly, unless the Creator worked inwardly and in a hidden manner. I hope, therefore, that these my letters, by the merit of your excellence, will quickly come into the hands even of such persons. Therefore I have judged that some things should here be said on this matter;

Then, that you yourself and whatever other widows may read these things, or hear them when they are read, may know that you avail more toward loving and holding fast the good of continence by your own prayers than by our exhortations; for if anything helps you—even that our words too are ministered to you—the whole of it is to be attributed to the grace of Him in whose hand, as it is written, are both we and our words. If, therefore, you had not yet vowed widowed continence to God, we would surely exhort you to vow it; but since you have already vowed it, we exhort you to persevere. Yet I see that such things ought to be said by me as would move even those who were still thinking of marriage to love and lay hold of continence. Let us therefore incline our ear to the Apostle.

「She who is unmarried,」 he says, 「is careful for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she who is married is careful for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.」 He did not say: she is careful for the things of the world, so that she may not be holy. But surely the divine sanctity is the less on that side of cares whereon worldly pleasure is pondered. Whatever intentness of soul, therefore, would be expended even on those things whereby a husband was to be pleased, the unmarried Christian woman ought in a certain manner to gather up and redirect into that intention whereby the Lord is to be pleased. And consider whom she pleases who pleases the Lord. And assuredly she is the more blessed the more she pleases Him; but the more she thinks upon the things of the world, the less she pleases.

Therefore please with your whole intent Him who is beautiful in form beyond the sons of men. For it is by His grace, which is poured out upon His lips, that you please Him. Please Him also with that part of your thought which would have been occupied with the world in order that a husband might be pleased. Please Him who displeased the world, that those pleasing Him might be freed from the world. For this One, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, men beheld upon the cross of His passion, and He had no form nor comeliness, but His face was despised and His posture deformed. Yet out of this deformity of your Redeemer flowed the price of your comeliness—but of an inner comeliness; for all the beauty of the king's daughter is within. With this beauty please Him;

compose this beauty by earnest care and solicitous thought. He loves not the paints of deceits; the Truth is delighted with things true. And He—if you recognize what you have read—is called the Truth: 「I am,」 He says, 「the Way and the Truth and the Life.」 Run to Him through Him; please Him from Him; live in Him, with Him, of Him. With true affections and most holy chastity, love to be loved by such a Husband. Let the inner ear of your holy virgin offspring also hear these things. How far she goes before you in the kingdom of that King, I shall see: that is another question. Yet you have found, mother and daughter, Him whom, with marriage despised—she despising all marriage, you second marriage—you ought together to please by the beauty of chastity.

Surely, if there were husbands whom you had to please, you would perhaps now be ashamed, together with your daughter, to adorn yourself; but now let it not shame you to do those things whereby you may both be adorned together, since it is not a thing of reproach but rather of glory that you should both together be loved by that one Husband. But a feigned whiteness and redness smeared on with paints you would not employ, even if you had husbands, deeming them unworthy whom you would deceive, nor yourselves who ought to deceive. Now, then, please truly and together that King who has desired the beauty of His one and only Bride, whose members you are. Cleave to Him together—she in her virginal integrity, you in widowed continence, both in spiritual beauty. In which beauty even His grandmother, your mother-in-law, who now surely has grown old, is beautiful together with you.

For while charity extends the vigor of this beauty into the things that are before, old age makes no wrinkle in it. You have with you a holy aged woman, both in the house and in Christ, whom you may consult concerning perseverance—how one must fight against this or that temptation, what must be done that it may be easily overcome, what defense must be taken up lest it easily lay its snares again; and if there be anything of this sort, she teaches you with a duration now assured, with a love benevolent, with a piety solicitous, with an age secure. You especially, you consult her in such matters, who has experienced what you have experienced. For your offspring sings that song which none but virgins can sing in the Apocalypse. Yet for both of you she prays more anxiously than for herself;

but she is more solicitous for her granddaughter, for whom a longer space of years remains for the conquering of temptations. But she sees you as nearer to her own age and as the mother of her granddaughter; and had she seen you married—which is now not lawful, and God forbid—I think she would have blushed to bear children along with her granddaughter. How great, then, is the perilous portion of age that now remains to you, who are for this reason not called a grandmother, that you may be fruitful together with your daughter in the offspring of holy thoughts and works? Not without reason, therefore, is the grandmother more solicitous for her for whom you also are a mother, because both what she has vowed is greater and the whole of it remains to her which she has but now begun. May the Lord hear her prayers, and may we holily comply with the merits of her who bore the flesh of your husband in her youth and travailed to bring forth the heart of your daughter in her old age.

Therefore all of you together and in concord, please by your conduct and press on in prayers to that one Husband of your one wedlock, in whose body you live by one Spirit. The day that is past does not return into the future, and after yesterday comes today, and after today tomorrow is about to come on: and behold, all times and temporal things pass away, that the abiding promise may come, and 「he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.」 If the world is now perishing, for whom does the married woman bear children? Or why does she marry, who is to bear in heart and not to bear in flesh? But if the world is still to last, why is He not rather loved through whom the world was made? If the allurements of the age are now failing, there is nothing for the Christian mind to seek after with desire;

but if they are still to remain, there is that which sanctity may despise. Of these two, in the one there is no hope of lust, in the other there is a greater glory of charity. How many, or how great, are those very years in which the flower of carnal age seems to flourish? Not a few women, thinking of marriage and ardently desiring it, while they are spurned or put off, have suddenly grown old, so that it now shamed them to marry more than it pleased them. And many wives, by the most recent bond of their union, when their husbands set out to far countries, awaiting their return have become aged, and, as though soon widowed, sometimes when their old men did not even return, they, now old women, were counted worthy to receive them. If, then, whether when suitors spurned or delayed them,

or when their husbands were traveling abroad, carnal concupiscence could be restrained, that no fornication or adultery might be committed, why can it not be restrained, that no sacrilege may be committed? If it was repressed when, being deferred, it burned, why is it not suppressed when, being cut off, it has grown cold? For they bear a more burning lust who do not despair of the pleasure of that same lust. But those unmarried women who vow their chastity to God withdraw the very hope which is the tinder of love. Whence concupiscence is the more easily bridled, which is kindled by no expectation: whereas, unless prayer be made that it may be overcome, that which is unlawful is the more ardently longed for. Let spiritual delights, therefore, in holy chastity, succeed to carnal delights:

reading, prayer, the psalm, good thought, the frequent doing of good works, the hope of the age to come, and the heart lifted up, and, concerning all these, thanksgiving to the Father of lights, from whom, without any doubt—Scripture being witness—every best gift and every perfect gift descends. For when, in place of the delights of married women, which they have in the flesh of their husbands, the use of other carnal delights is taken up as though for solace, what shall I say of the evils that follow, since the Apostle has briefly said that a widow living in pleasures is dead while she lives? But far be it from you that you should be captured by the desire of riches in place of the desire of marriage, and that in your hearts money should succeed to the love of a husband.

For, observing the conduct of men, we have often found by experience that in certain persons, when wantonness was checked, avarice grew. For just as in the very senses of the body those who do not see hear more keenly and by touching discern many things—nor do they who use their eyes touch with such liveliness—wherein it is understood that from one avenue, that is, the intent of perceiving being repressed in the case of sight, it puts itself forth in the other senses with a sharper edge of discernment, as if it strove from the one to fill up what is denied in the other—so also often carnal desire, restrained from the pleasure of lying together, stretches itself with greater force into the appetite for money, and, turned away from thence, converts itself hither with more ardent impulse.

But in you let the love of riches grow cold together with the love of marriage, and let the pious use of the things you possess be conferred upon spiritual delights, and let your liberality glow more warmly toward helping the needy than toward enriching the greedy. For into the heavenly treasury are sent, not the gifts of the covetous, but the alms of the poor, which help the prayers of widows in immeasurable measure. Fastings also and vigils, insofar as they do not disturb health, if they be spent in praying, singing psalms, reading, and meditating on the law of God, are turned—even those very things that seem laborious—into spiritual delights.

For in no way are the labors of lovers burdensome; rather, they themselves even delight—as with those who hunt, fowl, fish, gather the vintage, do business, or amuse themselves with some game. It matters, therefore, what is loved. For in that which is loved, either there is no labor, or the labor itself is loved. And consider how shameful and lamentable it is, if labor delights that a wild beast may be caught, that a cask and a purse may be filled, that a ball may be thrown—and it does not delight that God may be gained. In all spiritual delights, indeed, which the unmarried enjoy, their holy conversation ought also to be circumspect, lest perchance, though there be no evil life through wantonness, there be an evil reputation through negligence.

Nor are those—whether holy men or women—to be heeded who, when their negligence has been reproved in some matter, through which it comes about that they fall into evil suspicion (from which they know their life to be far removed), say that a conscience clear before God suffices for them, despising the estimation of men not only imprudently but even cruelly, when they slay the souls of others—either of those blaspheming the way of God, to whom, according to their suspicion, the chaste life of the saints displeases as if it were shameful, or even of those imitating with an excuse not what they see but what they suppose. Accordingly, whoever guards his life from the crimes of disgraceful and wicked deeds does well for himself; but whoever guards his reputation also is merciful toward others as well.

For our life is necessary to us, your reputation to others. And assuredly even what we minister mercifully to others for salvation redounds also to our own advantage. Whence not in vain the Apostle says: 「We provide good things not only before God, but also before men」; likewise he says: 「Please all men in all things, as I also please all men in all things, not seeking what is profitable to me but what is profitable to the many, that they may be saved.」 In a certain exhortation also he says: 「For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever holy, whatsoever just, whatsoever chaste, whatsoever most dear, whatsoever of good report, if there be any virtue, if any praise, think on these things: which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.」