You see how, among the many things of which he admonished in exhorting, he did not neglect to set down: 「whatsoever things are of good report,」 and how he concluded them all in two words, where he says: 「if there be any virtue, if any praise.」 For to virtue belong those good things which I mentioned before, but reputation belongs to praise. I think that the Apostle did not take the praise of men for a great thing, saying in another place: 「But to me it is a very small matter to be judged by you, or by man's day」; and elsewhere: 「If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ」; and again: 「For our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience.」
But of those two, that is, of a good life and a good reputation—or, to say it more briefly, of virtue and praise—the one he most wisely retained for its own sake, the other he most mercifully provided for the sake of others. But since human caution, however great, cannot on every side avoid the most malevolent suspicions, when we shall have done for our reputation whatever we rightly can, if some try to blacken our reputation, whether by inventing evil or by believing evil, let there be present the solace of conscience and plainly also joy, because 「our reward is great in heaven」—even when men say many evil things against us who nevertheless live piously and justly.
For that reward is like the wages of those who war through the arms of righteousness not only on the right hand but also on the left—that is, through glory and ignobility, through infamy and good report. Run therefore your course and run perseveringly, that you may lay hold; and by the example of your life and by the word of exhortation carry off into the same course as many as you can. Let not the complaint of the vain break you from this zeal, whereby you rouse many to imitation—those who say: 「How does the human race subsist, if all shall be continent?」 As though this age were retarded for any other cause than that the predestined number of the saints may be filled up, which being the more quickly filled, assuredly the end of the age would not be deferred.
Nor let this retard you from the zeal of persuading others of your good, if it be said to you: 「Since marriages also are good, how will all things be good in the body of Christ—both the greater, that is, and the lesser—if all are changed into the praise and love of continence?」 First, because, in striving that all be continent, then either few will be so; for not all receive this word. But since it is written: 「He that can receive it, let him receive it,」 then those who can, do receive, if it be not kept silent even from those who cannot receive it. Next, neither ought we to fear lest perchance all should receive it and something of the lesser goods, that is, of the conjugal life, should be lacking in the body of Christ.
For if all should hear and all should receive it, we ought to understand that this very thing was predestined, namely, that the conjugal goods should suffice even in the number of those members who have passed out of this life so many in number. For neither now, if all should be continent, are they about to give the honor of the continent to those who bore the thirtyfold fruit. If in the conjugal good he himself is understood, they have already carried it into the Lord's storehouses. There, then, all these goods will have their place, even if thereafter no woman should wish to marry or any man to take a wife. Securely, therefore, press on with those whom you can, that they may become what you are;
and pray watchfully and fervently, that by the help of the right hand of the Most High and by the abundance of the most merciful grace of the Lord you may both persevere in that which you are and advance toward that which you shall be. Then I beseech you, through Him from whom you have received this gift and from whom you hope for the rewards of this gift, that you remember to insert me too in your prayers, together with your whole household church.
Most fittingly indeed it has come about that I should write to your mother, now advanced in years, an epistle concerning prayer—for it pertains especially to her to strive in praying for you, who is less solicitous about herself than about you—and that I should compose this little work concerning widowed continence to you rather than to her, because there remains for you still to surmount that which her age has already surmounted. But your holy virgin offspring, if she desires anything from our labors concerning her profession, has the large book On Holy Virginity, which she may read.
Concerning the reading of which I had also admonished you, since it contains many things necessary to both chastities—that is, the virginal and the widowed—which here for that reason I have partly touched lightly upon, partly wholly passed over, because there I discussed them more copiously. May you persevere in the grace of Christ. Amen.