Now indeed, as to the fact that when he was about to go forth to his Passion he washed the disciples' feet, and most openly admonished them to do this to their fellow-disciples and fellow-servants which the Master and Lord had done to them—how greatly he commended humility! For commending which he even chose that time when they beheld him with great longing as soon about to die, so that they would surely retain in memory above all that the Master to be imitated had demonstrated as his last act. Yet he did this at that time which surely he could have done on other days before, when he had lived among them; when, had it been done, this very thing indeed would have been handed on, but surely would not have been received in the same way.
Since therefore humility is to be kept by all Christians, seeing that Christians are named from Christ, whose Gospel no one carefully beholds who does not find him to be the teacher of humility, then it is above all fitting that the followers and preservers of this virtue be those who excel the rest by some great good, so that they take the greatest care of that which I set forth first: 'By how much thou art great, so much humble thyself in all things, and before God thou shalt find grace.' Accordingly, since perpetual continence, and above all virginity, is a great good among the saints of God, most vigilantly must it be guarded lest it be corrupted by pride. Paul the apostle marks the curious and wordy wicked unmarried women, and says that this vice comes from idleness.
'And at the same time,' he says, 'they learn also to be idle, going about from house to house; and not only idle, but also curious and wordy, speaking things which they ought not.' Concerning these he had said above: 'But the younger widows avoid; for when they have wantoned in Christ, they wish to marry, having condemnation, because they have made void their first faith'—that is, in that which they had first vowed they did not stand. Yet he does not say, 'they marry,' but, 'they wish to marry.' For many of them are recalled from marrying not by love of the noble resolve, but by fear of open disgrace, which fear itself also comes from pride, whereby it is dreaded to displease men rather than God.
These women, therefore, who wish to marry and yet do not marry because they cannot do so with impunity—who would do better to marry than to burn, that is, than to be laid waste in their very concupiscence by the hidden flame of concupiscence—who repent of their profession and are irked by their confession: unless they direct a corrected heart and by the fear of God again conquer lust, they are to be reckoned among the dead, whether they live in wantonness (whence the apostle says, 'She that liveth in wantonness is dead while she liveth'), or in labours and fastings that are superfluous through no correction of heart, and serve ostentation rather than amendment. I do not press upon such women a great care for humility, in whom pride itself is confounded and is bloodied by the wound of conscience.
Nor upon those lying in drunkenness or avarice or any other kind of damnable disease do I impose this great solicitude of pious humility, since, though they have the profession of bodily continence, yet by their perverse morals they are discordant with their own name—unless perhaps in these evils they will even dare to make a show of themselves, for whom it is not enough that their punishments are deferred. Nor do I treat of those in whom there is a certain craving to please, either by more elegant dress than the necessity of so great a profession requires, or by a conspicuous headband, or by swelling coils of hair, or by veils so fine that the little nets placed beneath appear through them: to these are to be given precepts not yet about humility, but about chastity itself, or the integrity of modesty.
Give me a woman professing perpetual continence and free from these and all vices and stains of this kind of morals: for her I fear pride, for her, in so great a good, I dread the swelling of self-exaltation. The more she has whereby she may please herself, the more I fear lest, by pleasing herself, she displease him who resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Certainly the chief mastership and example of virginal integrity is to be beheld in Christ himself. What more, then, shall I enjoin upon the continent concerning humility than what he enjoins who says to all, 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart'?
When he had mentioned his greatness above, wishing to show this very thing—how small he was made for our sake, though how great he is—he says, 'I confess to thee, O Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing before thee. All things are delivered to me by my Father, and no one knoweth the Son but the Father, and no one knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall be pleased to reveal him. Come to me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.'
He to whom the Father delivered all things, and whom no one knows but the Father, and who alone knows the Father and him to whom he shall be pleased to reveal him, does not say, 'Learn of me to fashion the world or to raise the dead,' but, 'for I am meek and lowly in heart.' O salutary teaching! O Master and Lord of mortals, to whom death was proffered and poured out in the cup of pride! He was unwilling to teach what he himself was not; he was unwilling to command what he himself did not do. I see thee, good Jesus, with the eyes of faith which thou hast opened for me, crying out as in an assembly of the human race and saying, 'Come to me, and learn of me.' What, I beseech thee, O Son of God, through whom all things were made, and yet made among all things, O Son of Man—what have we come to thee to learn from thee?
'For I am meek,' he says, 'and lowly in heart.' To this, then, have all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in thee been reduced, that we should learn this from thee as some great thing—that thou art meek and lowly in heart? Is it then so great a thing to be small, that unless it were done by thee, who art so great, it could not be learned at all? So it is indeed. For rest is not otherwise found for the soul than by digesting the restless swelling whereby it was great to itself, when it was not sound to thee. Let those hear thee and come to thee and learn from thee to be meek and lowly, who seek thy mercy and thy truth, living to thee, to thee and not to themselves.
Let him hear this who labours and is heavy laden, oppressed by such a burden that he dares not lift his eyes to heaven—that sinner smiting his breast and drawing near from afar; let the centurion hear, not worthy that thou shouldst enter under his roof; let Zacchaeus hear, the chief of the publicans, restoring fourfold the gains of damnable sins; let the woman hear, a sinner in the city, the more tearful at thy feet the more she had been estranged from thy footsteps; let the harlots and publicans hear, who go before the scribes and Pharisees into the kingdom of heaven; let every kind of the sick hear, in whose company banquets were cast up against thee as a crime, forsooth as by the whole who did not seek the physician, since thou camest not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
All these, when they turn to thee, easily grow meek and are humbled before thee, mindful of their most iniquitous life and of thy most indulgent mercy, for where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. But look upon the ranks of virgins, of holy boys and girls: in thy Church this kind has been reared; there it sprang up for thee from a mother's breasts; unto thy name it loosed its tongue to speak; thy name, poured in, it sucked as the milk of its infancy. No one from this number can say, 'I who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, but obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief'; nay rather, thou hast set before those willing to seize it something thou didst not merely command, saying:
'He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' They seized it, they vowed, and for the kingdom of heaven's sake they made themselves eunuchs—not because thou didst threaten, but because thou didst exhort. Cry aloud to these; let these hear thee, for thou art meek and lowly in heart. Let these, by how much they are great, so much humble themselves in all things, that before thee they may find grace. They are righteous; but is it as thou art, who justifiest the ungodly? They are chaste; but their mothers nourished them in sins within the womb. They are holy; but thou art also the Holy of holies. They are virgins; but they are not also born of virgins. They are whole both in spirit and in flesh; but they are not the Word made flesh.
And yet let them learn, not from those to whom thou forgivest sins, but from thee thyself, the Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world, that thou art meek and lowly in heart. It is not thee, O pious and chaste soul, who hast relaxed carnal appetite not even to the permitted point of marriage, who hast not indulged the body destined to perish even for the propagation of a successor, who hast suspended thy earthly and flowing members into the habit of heaven—it is not thee that I send, in order to learn humility, to the publicans and sinners who nevertheless go before the proud into the kingdom of heaven; I do not send thee to these. For they are unworthy, who have been freed from the abyss of uncleanness, that unblemished virginity should be sent to imitate them:
I send thee to the King of heaven, to him through whom men were created and who was created among men for the sake of men; to him who is beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, and despised by the sons of men for the sake of the sons of men; to him who, ruling over the immortal angels, did not disdain to serve mortals. Him surely not iniquity but charity made humble—charity which envies not, is not puffed up, seeks not her own; for Christ also pleased not himself, but, as it is written of him, 'The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me.' Go, come to him, and learn, for he is meek and lowly in heart.
Thou shalt not go to him who dared not lift his eyes to heaven under the burden of iniquity, but to him who came down from heaven under the weight of charity; thou shalt not go to her who bathed with tears the feet of her Lord, seeking indulgence for grave sins, but thou shalt go to him who, while he was giving indulgence for all sins, washed the feet of his servants. I know the dignity of thy virginity: I do not set before thee the publican humbly accusing his own faults to be imitated, but I fear for thee the Pharisee proudly boasting his own merits. I do not say, 'Be such as she of whom it was said, Her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much'; but I dread lest, when thou thinkest that little is forgiven thee, thou love little.
I fear, I say, vehemently for thee, lest, while thou gloriest that thou wilt follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes, thou be unable, through the swelling of pride, to follow him through the narrow ways. It is good for thee, O virginal soul, so that, in the way thou art a virgin, so keeping wholly in thy heart that thou hast been born again, keeping in thy flesh that thou wast born, thou mayest nevertheless conceive from the fear of the Lord and bring forth the spirit of salvation. Fear indeed is not in charity, but perfect charity, as it is written, casts out fear—yet the fear of men, not of God; the fear of temporal evils, not of the divine judgment at the end. Be not high-minded, but fear; love the goodness of God, fear his severity: both suffer thee not to be proud. For in loving thou fearest lest thou grievously offend him who is loved and who loves.
For what graver offence is there than to displease by pride him who for thy sake displeased the proud? And where ought that chaste fear, which endures for ever and ever, more to be than in thee, who thinkest not on the things of the world, how thou mayest please a husband, but on the things of the Lord, how thou mayest please the Lord? That other fear is not in charity; but this chaste fear does not depart from charity. If thou lovest not, fear lest thou perish; if thou lovest, fear lest thou displease. That fear charity casts out; with this it runs in within. The apostle Paul also says, 'For we have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but we have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.'
That fear, I believe, he means which had been given in the Old Testament, lest the temporal goods should be lost which God had promised, not yet to sons under grace, but to servants still under the law. There is also the fear of eternal fire, on account of which, to serve God for the sake of avoiding it, is not yet assuredly the fear of perfect charity. For the desire of reward is one thing, the dread of punishment another. These are one set of voices: 'Whither shall I go from thy spirit? and whither shall I flee from thy face?' And these are another set of voices: 'One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may behold the delight of the Lord and be protected in his temple'; and, 'Turn not away thy face from me'; and, 'My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord.'
Those first voices let him have who dared not lift his eyes to heaven, and she who bathed with tears his feet to obtain pardon of grave sins; but these latter voices do thou have, who art solicitous for the things of the Lord, that thou mayest be holy both in body and in spirit. Those first voices are accompanied by the fear that has torment, which perfect charity casts out; but these latter voices are accompanied by the chaste fear of the Lord that endures for ever and ever. And to each kind it must be said, 'Be not high-minded, but fear,' so that a man extol himself neither by the defence of his own sins nor by the presumption of righteousness. For even Paul himself, who said, 'For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear,' nevertheless, with the fear that is charity's companion, says:
'I was with you in much fear and trembling'; and that sentence which I have mentioned, lest the wild olive grafted in should be proud against the broken branches of the olive, he himself used, saying, 'Be not high-minded, but fear'; he himself, admonishing all the members of Christ in general, says, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.' Lest that which is written should seem to pertain to the Old Testament: 'Serve the Lord in fear, and exult before him with trembling.' And what members of the holy body, which is the Church, ought more to take care that the Holy Spirit may rest upon them, than those who profess virginal holiness? But how does he rest, where he finds not his own place?
What else than a humbled heart, which he may fill, not from which he may recoil; which he may lift up, not which he may press down? Since it has been most plainly said, 'Upon whom shall my Spirit rest? Upon the humble and the quiet and him that trembleth at my words.' Thou already livest justly, thou already livest piously, chastely, holily, thou livest in virginal chastity; and yet thou still livest here, and art not humbled by hearing, 'Is not human life upon earth a temptation?' Does it not beat thee back from over-confident self-exaltation, 'Woe to the world because of offences'? Dost thou not tremble lest thou be reckoned among the many whose charity grows cold because iniquity abounds? Dost thou not smite thy breast when thou hearest, 'Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall'?
Amid these divine warnings and human perils, do we still thus labour to persuade humility to the holy virgins? Or is it for any other reason to be believed that God permits many men and many women, who are to fall, to be mingled in the number of your profession, than that, by these falling, your fear may be increased, whereby pride may be repressed? Which pride God so hates that against this one alone the Most High so humbled himself. Unless perhaps thou wilt in truth fear the less and be the more puffed up, so as to love little him who so loved thee that he delivered himself up for thee, because he has forgiven thee little—namely, thee who from childhood hast lived religiously, chastely, in pious chastity, in unblemished virginity.
As though, forsooth, thou oughtest not far more ardently to love him who did not permit thee to fall into those things which he forgave to the wicked when they were converted to him. Or was that Pharisee, who therefore loved little because he reckoned that little was forgiven him, blinded by this error for any other reason than because, ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish his own, he was not subject to the righteousness of God? But you, a chosen generation and the more elect among the elect, choirs of virgins following the Lamb, you also have been saved by grace through faith; and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God: not of works, lest perchance anyone be exalted. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them.
Will you then, the more richly you are adorned by his gifts, love him so much the less? May he himself avert so horrible a madness. Accordingly, since the Truth has spoken truly that he to whom little is forgiven loves little, in order that you may love most ardently him by loving whom you are free and at leisure from the bonds of marriages, reckon to yourselves as altogether forgiven whatever of evil has not been committed by you, he being your governor. For your eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he shall pluck your feet out of the snare; and, 'Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it.' And the apostle, speaking of continence itself, says, 'I would that all men were even as myself; but every one hath his proper gift from God, one after this manner, another after that.'
Who then gives these things? Who distributes to each his own as he wills? Assuredly God, with whom there is no iniquity. And on this account, by what equity he makes some after this manner and others after that, for a man to know is either impossible or altogether difficult; yet that he does it in equity, it is not lawful to doubt. What therefore hast thou that thou hast not received? Or by what perversity dost thou love less him from whom thou hast received more? Wherefore let this be the first thought of humility to be put on: that the virgin of God think not that it is from herself to herself that she is such, and not rather that this best gift descends from above from the Father of lights, with whom is no change nor shadow of turning.
For thus she will not think that little has been forgiven her, so as to love little, and, ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish her own, be not subject to the righteousness of God. In which vice was that Simon, whom the woman surpassed, to whom many sins were forgiven, because she loved much. But more cautiously and more truly she will consider that all sins are so to be reckoned as forgiven, from which God keeps that they be not committed. Witnesses are the voices of pious supplications in the holy Scriptures, by which it is shown that those very things which are commanded by God are not done except by the giving and helping of him who commanded. For they are asked for mendaciously, if we could do them without the help of his grace.
What is so generally and above all commanded as obedience, whereby the commandments of God are kept? And yet we find this to be prayed for. 'Thou,' he says, 'hast commanded thy commandments to be kept exceedingly.' Then follows: 'O that my ways may be directed to keep thy justifications; then shall I not be confounded, while I look into all thy commandments.' What he set above as God's having commanded, this he wished to be fulfilled by himself. This indeed is done, that one may not sin; but if sin has been committed, it is commanded that one repent, lest by defence and excusing of sin he who did it perish by being proud, while he is unwilling by repenting to let perish what he did. Even this is asked of God, that it may be understood not to be done except by his bestowing of whom it is asked.
'Set, O Lord,' he says, 'a watch before my mouth and a door of restraint about my lips. Incline not my heart to evil words, to make excuses in sins with men that work iniquity.' If, then, both obedience, by which we keep His commandments, and penitence, by which we do not excuse but accuse our sins, are longed for and asked from Him, it is manifest that when it comes to pass, it is had by His giving, and by His help it is fulfilled. It is said still more plainly concerning obedience: 'By the Lord are the steps of a man directed, and He shall will his way'; and of penitence the Apostle says: 'Lest perchance God grant them repentance.' Concerning continence itself, was it not said most openly:
'And when I knew that no one can be continent unless God grant it, this very thing also was of wisdom, to know whose gift it was.' But perhaps continence is a gift of God, while wisdom man supplies to himself—the wisdom by which he acknowledges that gift to be not his own but God's. Nay rather, 'the Lord maketh the wise blind,' and 'the faithful testimony of God giveth wisdom unto little ones,' and 'if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.' But virgins ought to be wise, that their lamps be not extinguished. How wise, save by not being high-minded, but consenting to lowly things? For Wisdom itself said to man: 'Behold, piety is wisdom.'
If, then, you have nothing which you have not received, be not high-minded, but fear; and love not little, as one to whom little has been forgiven, but rather love much, as one to whom much has been bestowed. For if she loves, to whom it was granted that she should not have to repay, how much more ought she to love, to whom it was granted that she might have! For whoever remains chaste from the beginning is governed by Him; and whoever from being unchaste becomes chaste is corrected by Him; and whoever unto the end remains unchaste is forsaken by Him. This, moreover, He can do by a hidden judgment, but not by an unjust one. And perhaps it lies hidden for this reason, that He may be the more feared and men be the less proud.
Then, when a person now knows that by the grace of God he is what he is, let him not fall into another snare of pride, so as, on account of the very grace of God, to exalt himself and despise others. By this vice that other man, the Pharisee, even while giving thanks to God for the good things he possessed, nevertheless exalted himself above the publican who was confessing his sins. What then shall a virgin do, what shall she think, that she may not exalt herself above those men or women who lack this so great a gift? For she ought not to feign humility, but to display it; for the feigning of humility is the greater pride. Therefore Scripture, wishing to show that humility must be truthful, when it had said, 'The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things,' at once also added:
'and thou shalt find grace before God'—clearly, where she could not humble herself deceitfully. Accordingly, what shall we say? Is there anything which a virgin of God may truly think, whereby she should not dare to prefer herself to a faithful woman—not only to a widow, but even to one that is married? I do not say to a reprobate woman; for who does not know that an obedient woman is to be preferred to a disobedient virgin? But when both are obedient to the commandments of God, will she so tremble to prefer holy virginity even to chaste marriage, and continence to wedlock, the hundredfold fruit to the thirtyfold? Nay rather, let her not doubt to set this thing above that. Yet this or that obedient and God-fearing virgin let her not dare to set herself before this or that obedient and God-fearing woman;
otherwise she will not be humble, and 'God resisteth the proud.' What then shall she consider? Namely, the hidden gifts of God, which nothing but the questioning of temptation reveals to each one even in his own self. For, to say nothing of the rest, whence does a virgin know—however solicitous she be about the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord—that she is not perhaps, on account of some infirmity of mind unknown to herself, not yet ripe for martyrdom, while that other woman, before whom she was eager to prefer herself, is already able to drink the cup of the Lord's humility, which He set before the disciples who were lovers of loftiness as a thing to be drunk first? Whence, I say, does she know that she herself is perhaps not yet a Thecla, while the other is already a Crispina? Assuredly, unless temptation be present, no demonstration of this gift is made.
This, moreover, is so great a thing that some understand it to be the hundredfold fruit. For ecclesiastical authority bears most illustrious testimony to it, in which it is known to the faithful in what place martyrs and in what place departed consecrated women are recited at the sacraments of the altar. But what that diversity of fruitfulness may signify, let those see who understand these matters better than we: whether the virginal life be in the hundredfold fruit, the widowed in the sixtyfold, and the married in the thirtyfold; or whether the hundredfold fertility be rather reckoned to martyrdom, the sixtyfold to continence, the thirtyfold to wedlock; or whether virginity, with martyrdom added, fills up the hundredfold fruit, while alone it is in the sixtyfold, and the married who bear thirtyfold attain to the sixtyfold if they be martyrs;
or—what seems to me more probable—since the gifts of divine grace are many, and one is greater and better than another (whence the Apostle says, 'But covet the better gifts'), it is to be understood that they are more than can be distributed into three distinctions. First, let us not set widowed continence either in no fruit at all, or lower it to the merit of conjugal chastity, or make it equal to virginal glory; nor let us reckon that the crown of martyrdom—whether established in the disposition of the soul, even if the trial of temptation be lacking, or in the very experience of suffering—is added to any one of those three chastities without any increase of fruitfulness.
Next, where do we place the fact that many men and women so guard virginal continence, yet do not do what the Lord says—'If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me'—nor dare to join themselves to the community of those among whom no one calls anything his own, but they have all things in common? Do we think that nothing of fruitfulness accrues to the virgins of God when they do this? Or that the virgins of God are without any fruit, even if they do not do this? There are, then, many gifts, and some clearer and higher than others, each having its own. And sometimes one is fruitful with fewer gifts, but more excellent ones; another with lower gifts, but more numerous.
And in what manner they may be either made equal to one another or distinguished in the receiving of eternal honors, what man would dare to judge? Provided, however, it be established both that these things are many and diverse, and that the better ones profit not for the present time but for eternity. But I think the Lord willed to mention three differences of fruitfulness, leaving the rest to those who understand. For another Evangelist also mentioned only the hundredfold. Is He therefore to be thought either to have disapproved of the other two or to have been ignorant of them, and not rather to have left them to be understood?