I had indeed promised you before this time a letter, most beloved sons, which, commending from the law the ordinances of all conduct, should contain summarily all things that pertain generally to all clerics for the directing of the rule of discipline. But because now some among you, by consorting with women, have commonly sunk into disgrace, I have been compelled to write to you specially about this matter also, by the Lord's chastisement—who, meeting wretched me with severity on account of your negligence, commanded me to charge you that clerics should not dwell together with women.
And although this admonition might suffice by the authority of my letter alone, yet, lest anyone mock me as a dreamer, as Joseph's brothers mocked him, we add the firmness of the Scriptures, so that all may know that the Lord commands, even in this manner, through revelation, what he is known to have commanded before by letter; and that we are not adulterating the word of the Lord, nor wishing boastfully to glory in revelations, but that, by thus referring it before the sight of the Lord, we do not lie in what we say—just as we trust that we have not heard a lie from the Lord, taking to ourselves the voice of the apostle Paul, who protests: 'For we are not,' he says, 'like the many, adulterating the word of God, but out of sincerity, as from God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.'
Set therefore in the greatest grief over certain wasted members of our body, and in the groaning of the Church that laments its loss—the Church which through our sloth is reduced day by day to an excessive fewness—we believe that we are in some part relieved, in that the negligence of certain persons cannot harm our diligence, to whom our letters have never been wanting, which through my absence have made up to all for my frequent presence. Let each despiser of his own dissimulation enroll himself as guilty; but we, with open brow, cry out to the despisers what Solomon confidently reproaches: 'Because,' he says, 'I called, and you did not hearken:'
'and I stretched out my words, and you gave no heed, but made my counsels of no effect, and gave no heed to my rebukes: therefore I too will laugh over your destruction. I will rejoice against you when ruin comes upon you, when tumult suddenly comes upon you, and overthrow like a storm, and when distress and assault come upon you. For it shall be that when you call upon me, I will not hear you. The wicked shall seek me, and shall not find me: for they hated wisdom, and did not take up the word of the Lord, nor would they give heed to my counsels. For they spurned my reproofs: therefore they shall eat the fruits of their own ways, and be filled with their own impiety.'
Now our exhortation is turned to you, whom we do not wish to experience such headlong plunges of ruin. Fear as much as you can the destructions of such downfalls, and let the examples of those slipping in this overthrow strike terror into us. Too headlong is he who strives to pass on when he has seen another fall, and violently unbridled is he into whom no fear is struck while another perishes. But he is truly a lover of his own salvation who avoids the onrush of another's death. And he himself is provident who becomes anxious at the disasters of others—as Solomon approves, saying: 'A prudent man, seeing evil punished, will be strongly instructed,' and again: 'When the impious fall, the just will be strongly terrified.'
Contrary to us is the confidence that entrusts its life to perils as a thing assured, and slippery is the hope that hopes to be saved amid the fomentations of sin. Uncertain is the victory of fighting amid hostile arms, and impossible is deliverance to be surrounded by flames and not burn. This Solomon denies, saying: 'Who will bind fire in his bosom, and not burn his garments? Or who will walk upon coals of fire, and not burn his feet? So he who goes in to his neighbor's wife shall not be innocent, nor anyone who touches her.' Believe, I beseech you, believe divine faith, nay rather than your own: for whatever it promises cannot deceive, since the Lord says:
'It is easier,' he says, 'for heaven and earth to pass away than for one jot of the law to fall.' And again: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.' We ourselves therefore deceive ourselves, as often as we believe irregularly, supposing that through our faith the precepts of the law can be changed, so that we should hope for immovable chastity to be preserved indiscriminately between males and females. Hardly will anyone drink poison and live. He who sleeps on the bank must fear lest he fall, since the apostle says: 'Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.' In this matter it is expedient to fear well rather than to trust ill. And it is more useful for a man to know himself weak, that he may prove strong, than to wish to seem strong, and emerge weak. On which matter the apostle rebukes the presumptuous, saying:
'If anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.' Assuredly the self-deceiver deludes his own soul, who, by not singing against things noxious, has committed himself to them. But he consults more safely for himself who, ever distrustful concerning the wicked, dreads all noxious appearances whatsoever. Their difference Solomon set forth, saying: 'The wise man, fearing, will turn aside from all evil; but the fool, confident of himself, mingles with iniquity.' A great counsel of divine wisdom has been found, whereby we are set free by the help of fear. Great are the shortcuts of providence, that at times virtue and victory may come to pass through fear. Great remedies has the Lord conferred unto salvation, so that even the fearful may have praise, as Solomon repeats, saying:
'Blessed is the man who reveres all things through dread.' Inestimable is the Lord's mercy, which has on every side conferred glory upon his man, and incomprehensible his goodness, which has granted, according to the battles, also the palms of victory, so that by trusting we may overcome the fierceness of males, and by fearing we may vanquish the blandishments of females—provided that the Lord works our glories over us both from strength and from weakness, so that in all things and through all things he may attest himself Almighty, dividing the differences of triumphs, so that both by counsels and by strength wars may be won by us; nor, if we should conquer by the fortitude of faith alone, would the works of wisdom, against Solomon, be void. Now therefore the arms of wisdom must be borne, where the female and the male sexes proclaim their contest.
Whence Solomon thus instructs, saying: 'Make prudence known to yourself,' he says, 'that it may preserve you from the strange and most wicked woman.' See now prudence in this war—that it is not faith that has been given to us as victress to set us free by the remedy of timidity—and contemplate what arms are now to be taken up, if you wish to have the helps of the law. Be fearful, that you may be undaunted; and although fear in a contest may seem to be weakness, yet, according to the word of the apostle, 'strength is made perfect in weakness.' Separate yourselves, I beseech you, separate yourselves from the pestilent contagion. However much further each one is from adversities, so much the less does he feel adversities. He is less goaded by pleasures who is not where there is a throng of pleasures.
And he suffers less the troubles of avarice who does not see riches—if we admit the apostle's promise: 'Those who wish,' he says, 'to become rich fall into temptation and a snare and many desires, useless and harmful, which plunge a man into perdition and destruction.' Not otherwise is he subject to temptations who is joined to a woman, in whom there is nothing else but that which wounds the one drawing near. The form of woman has become the sting of sin, and the condition of death arose from no other source than from womanly substance. This Solomon recalls to our vigilance, saying: 'From a woman was made the beginning of sin, and because of her we all die.' Thence we are held as mortals, and yet we do not fear. What if we were now immortal?
Through a woman Christ indeed set us free; but so long as we still die, we ought to be afraid. Then will that very deliverance stand fast in woman, if by us death be conquered which had come through woman. But if scandals still lord it over us through woman, we have assuredly made a loss of Christ's deliverance; since for the future there remains that hope of liberty which we believe Christ to have conferred upon our faith, so that then woman may not harm us at all, when death itself shall have been made void. For if we now suppose ourselves to be beyond temptation by womanly darts, then nothing remains for the heavenly kingdoms. Not undeservedly does the apostle rebuke such sentiments, saying: 'Now you are filled, now you have become rich:'
'without us you reign—and would that you did reign!' The time therefore of the struggle is still being waged, and death still ravages even now through woman. I lie, if we do not thereupon see the destruction of very many. How many and what kind of bishops and clerics, together with laymen, after the trodden-down contests of confessions and victories, after mighty deeds and signs or wonders shown on every side, are known to have made shipwreck along with all these things, when they choose to sail in a fragile boat? How many lions has one delicate weakness tamed—which, though it be cheap and wretched, makes prey of great ones? This Solomon says: 'The price of a harlot is as much as one loaf of bread, but a woman captures precious souls.' These matters are handled before us, and yet we are curbed by no terrors:
What would we do, if we heard of past histories only by report? But this is ever the unbelief of human hardness: that not only by hearing but even by seeing it does not believe that others have perished, unless it should also see its own self perishing; nor is it shaken by the deaths of its companions, so long as it reckons them to have deserved it or to have been weak. Yet it confidently supposes that it itself merits much or avails much, not knowing that examples are set before all when punishments have been inflicted upon certain persons, even as the Lord in the Gospel sets forth and says: 'Do you think that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? No; I say to you:'
'unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish, even as those upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they too were debtors above all the men dwelling in Jerusalem? No; I say to you: if you do not repent, you shall all likewise perish.' We marvel that Adam was seduced through Eve, though no examples of the dying had gone before him, but only one command had bound him, whereas now neither countless customs nor infinite commandments restrain us. To such as us it is fittingly said, according to the Lord's rebuke: 'If Adam had seen the deaths that have come to pass among you, long ago would he have done penance in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, that it shall be more tolerable for Adam in the day of judgment than for you.'
Far, very far, be that pestilence and plague and hidden ruin. O how disorderly is the nearness of a woman! It hurls the robbery of transgressions upon whomsoever it dwells beside. In this fellowship there is no approvable sincerity, for it holds clashings as though amid certain turbulent waves. In this familiarity no friendly concord dwells, since it breeds nothing but discordant enmities. The Lord indeed made woman a helper to man, but through the serpent's envy she took on a hostile role. And if she who was born of her own husband tempts to this very day the very one to whom she is joined, how much more she who is coupled, bound by no law?
And if those who, being two, are grown together into one flesh prick one another by mutual temptations, what do these do who in one flesh are neither born nor joined? Especially since he who is called away by love of another is no longer permitted even to call upon God, nor is he who has sought for himself one to whom he might render domestic care allowed to think upon divine things. On which account the Apostle thus counsels, saying: 'I would have you to be without solicitude. He who is without a wife is careful how he may please God; but he who has a wife thinks on the things of this world, how he may please his wife.' What is there now in this coupling that should delight, in which there are only quarrels? Or what advantage favors it, where there are no conjugal duties, since not even these themselves can be secure?
Everything that belongs to woman is a cause of trouble, and her coupling is always hostile. By her bond she brings great vexations, and to him who has clung to her against what is right she drives in an incurable wound. From coals sparks leap forth, from iron rust is nourished, asps hiss diseases, and woman pours forth the pestilence of concupiscence, which Solomon thus compares, saying: 'From garments comes forth the moth, and from a woman the iniquity of a man.' I wish to know what this common affection is, what disorder of disease it is. Ever ambiguous, she disturbs her own purpose by wavering counsels, assailing it. Why has he taken a woman to himself, who has scorned to lead home a wife? Everyone who will not eat flesh, why does he fill his dwelling with the equipment of the flesh?
And he who will not drink wine, why does he enjoy the delight of wine? As if the mind were not oftentimes fed by having, without tasting, an abundance of dainties, and as if the mind were not frequently roused by the mere fragrance of fragrant wine. Why through hypocrisy does he wish to be called abstinent by men, and in secret to be stuffed with meats and drunkenness? Many have riches which they deny to their own uses but keep for their covetousness; and if no covetousness had clung to them, they would not possess the tokens of covetousness either. But because they are possessed by covetousness, they enjoy in mind what they do not touch in use. So too he who has despised the bond of marriage is yet in another way bound by feminine bonds:
although he mingles in no intercourse, yet by desire, by sight, by conversation, by companionship he is ever delighted. For if he had no desire for the woman, he would never take a woman as his delight. Nay rather, over and above, he has given me a suspect resolve, who has not led home a lawful wife and has refused a lawful one: unless I am deceived, he has argued in public to promise sanctity to men, and in secret not to be without a woman. Two arguments, of lust and of sanctity, here and there are to be wondered at, which both mutually conceal each other and both mutually betray each other. The ingenious eunuch and adulterer envies himself while he takes counsel, and while he seeks both at once.
He did neither, so that he should by no means be reckoned holy who does not enjoy a true union, since Paul the Apostle says: 'Art thou bound to a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.' But I grant that the chastity of this continence is not violated: yet to the suspicious it holds out an evil reputation, and in vain does it guard the good of chastity within by laborious struggle, when outwardly it causes it to be defamed—destroying the teaching of Paul the Apostle, who alike provides and warns: 'Why,' he says, 'is my liberty judged by another's conscience? If I partake by grace, why am I blasphemed for that for which I give thanks?' It is worse than adultery to lead a continence that is criminal, and to make holiness infamous.
He brings blasphemy upon the religion which he has cultivated, who does not fulfill before all what he professes, lest Christianity be believed a deception and adultery seem clothed with the veil of sanctity. On which account the Lord in the Gospel thus forewarns, saying: 'So let your light shine before men, that seeing your good works they may glorify your Father who is in heaven.' Paul the Apostle follows this, saying: 'Let not then your good be blasphemed.' And again: 'Providing things good not only before God, but also before men.' And in another place:
'Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever else you do, do all to the glory of God, and be without offense to Jews and Greeks and to the Church of God, as I also in all things please all men.' But perhaps it is objected: what of the fact that he himself again said, 'If I still pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ'? Never do the sayings of the law exclude one another, but in certain places all the answers are firmly fixed. There it is not permitted to please men, where the will of men does not receive the will of the Lord; but where men accept what advances to the glory of God, Paul the Apostle himself commanded that it be made known to all. 'Let each one of us,' he says, 'please his neighbor unto good edification.'
To what extent, then, does he look for the reward of sanctity, who not only provokes blasphemy of sanctity from unbelievers, but also offers a pernicious example to the faithful? So that the weak, under the pretext of love, subtly commit fornication, and the chaste man most unchastely gives a schooling in chastity—destroying that which Paul the Apostle threatens: 'The weak brother,' he says, 'perishes in thy knowledge, for whom Christ died. But thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.' And indeed this befits not only the young but also the old, to have regard for the weakness of the brethren, lest old age provoke youth to perish, from which all salutary examples ought to proceed:
even as Eleazar in the book of the Maccabees professes and says that it is better for the wicked to be sent forward into hell [than to forsake the ancestral laws]. 'For it is not worthy of our age to feign, that many of the young, supposing that Eleazar at ninety years of age had gone over to the life of aliens, should through my pretense and for the sake of a little and corruptible span of life be led astray through me, and I should acquire hatred and a stain upon my old age.' He chose rather to expose his own life to torments than to become to anyone a master of perdition:
and we, where there are no torments at all, are unwilling to set the salvation of our brethren before mere idle pleasures, nor are we content, without any tortures, to profit ourselves as much as others—whereas he was unwilling to live, though about to die, as he further went on to say: 'Wherefore, bravely departing from life, I shall indeed appear worthy of old age, and shall leave to the young a brave example, that with ready mind and bravely they may withdraw by an honorable death for the sake of the grave and holy laws.' Since this befits even the laity, that they set before neither strangers occasions of blasphemy nor before the brotherhood opportunity of fornication, then most of all does this necessity vehemently bind the clergy, upon whom either religion blasphemed or brotherhood destroyed will inflict a double penalty.
Nor will they find in the Lord's judgment any consolation at all, who have ministered to strangers and to brethren the tinder of sinning. On which account Paul the Apostle thus instructs Titus, saying: 'Showing thyself in all things an example of good works, in doctrine, in integrity, in gravity, in sound and irreproachable speech, that the adversary may be abashed, having no evil to say of us.' And again: 'Show,' he says, 'good faith to all, that they may in all things adorn the good doctrine of our Savior the Lord.' So too he writes to Timothy, saying: 'Be a pattern to the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity.' And Peter the Apostle satisfies this too, saying:
'Let your conversation,' he says, 'among the Gentiles be good, that whereas they detract from us as from evildoers, they may by your good works glorify the Lord.' And again: 'For so,' he says, 'is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.' Nor let anyone set before himself and say: 'I do not wish to have that which I may overcome.' For this is to say, 'I desire to live beneath ruin.' Who is so foolish that he should long to be straitened toward labor, to whom it is offered more delightfully to triumph? For it is no double triumph to be proved a victor in the presence of a woman, rather than in solitude to preserve unbroken the pledge of holiness.
And since there is one single title of glories, in this case he is vainly brave who labors much, and yet is rewarded equally with him who, laboring little, has conquered. What of the fact that he indeed is rather reckoned perfected, who shows himself in every part cut off from feminine affections? For the Lord in the Gospel calls him perfect who has amputated his whole patrimony for his own uses. Certainly even to any solitary man daily triumphs on behalf of chastity are not wanting, since the human body never ceases to assail the spirit with carnal desires—which the Apostle affirms, saying: 'The flesh,' he says, 'lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: for these are contrary one to another, so that you may not do whatever things you would.'
You have now your own flesh which you must ever overcome: why do you wish to hire another as well? No one over one fever wishes to bring on a worse, lest he begin to labor under an incurable semitertian fever, which no physician might avail to relieve. Nor does anyone over his own burden take up besides another's, lest, oppressed by two burdens, he be plunged even to the depths. Whence Jeremiah the prophet thus teaches that the weight of holiness is to be borne singly. 'It is good,' he says, 'for a man when he has borne the heavy yoke in his youth: he shall sit solitary and shall keep silence, because he has taken the heavy yoke upon himself.' But should some malicious follower take refuge in the saying of Paul the Apostle, saying: 'Bear one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ':
These are not the burdens which Paul the Apostle commands to be carried, but rather that, bearing with one another, no discord may sever us, and that we may render mutual aids to brethren set amid temptations—not that we should procure temptations for ourselves through women, but rather that we should lighten the weights of temptations: since he knew what manner of thing the yoke of holiness is, which is scarcely borne even singly. Concerning which not only he himself but the Lord too was unwilling to define a fixed precept, saying: 'Not all receive this word, but they to whom it is given.' And again: 'He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' If therefore the greatness of this weight is with difficulty endured singly, how shall it be endured, if it be doubly weighed down by burdens twice increased?
And if almost all solitary men scarcely hold out to endure the snares of the flesh, what do those do who do not hesitate to press forward with swords hanging on either side? I say more. If husbands and wives, daily bearing conjugal desires, are not sufficient for themselves, what do those do who, for the increasing of assaults, are associated with women? Unexpectedly, or in passing for an hour, a feminine appearance meeting one hurls as it were arrows through another's eyes. When simple reverence is not free, what is transacted there, where a woman assumes the boldness of liberty in cohabitation?
When in domestic affairs she now bares her arms and thighs at wool-working tasks, now in her heat uncovers her limbs, now flings herself about wearied, or is sometimes dissolved in laughter, now displays blandishments, and—what is more venomous than all—delights to chant or to sing? To hear whose singing it were more tolerable to hear a basilisk hissing. Against which Solomon thus makes us cautious, saying: 'Be not continually with a dancing-woman, nor listen to her, lest perchance thou perish in her power.' I am silent about the rest, which are more shameful to be done than to be told; this only I say: to behold a woman broken down in grief or in anger is even now not without a certain sweetness. What shall we say if you should see her sporting, or—what is worse—caressing? Once for all let me have said:
Every unsuitable companionship with women is the glue of transgressions and the poisoned birdlime by which the devil catches his prey. Incongruous is the society of women, whose companionship Solomon again thus teaches us in all things to guard against beforehand: 'Sit not,' he says, 'at all with another man's wife, nor dispute with her over wine, lest perchance thy heart turn aside toward her, and by thy blood thou slip into perdition.' Finally, if we trust our own mind ever to persevere in this fellowship, even this ought to be suspect with us, lest the very women who consort with us be perhaps moved against us ourselves, or, on account of their rapid age, be goaded by furious incitements into other loves:
and it shall be to us a cause—what is worse, without a cause—that another's fornication should defile us, in whose case an occasion for the brothel is suggested to others, and we shall be swallowed up in the guilt of another's crime, for whom we ourselves have subverted the pandering to uncleanness. On which account the Apostle Paul thus instructs us concerning such things, saying: 'If because of food thy brother is scandalized, thou no longer walkest in charity. Destroy not with thy food him for whom Christ died.' And again: 'It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother is offended or scandalized or made weak.' And in another place: 'Judge this rather,' he says, 'that you put not a stumbling-block or scandal before a brother.' And concerning himself he thus speaks:
'Wherefore, if food scandalizes my brother, I will never eat flesh, lest I scandalize my brother.' Since therefore the detestable trouble of this union assails us, even though it cannot make men adulterers, yet it makes them procurers for adulterers and for the incestuous. For who is a searcher of another's heart, that he should weigh the quality of each one and presume to be a champion against Satan on behalf of another person, and yet a fit surety before God? He is out of his mind concerning his own self, who promises anything—I will not say if he even seem to lay down a pledge on behalf of a woman—when Paul the Apostle thus pronounces concerning himself, saying:
'Not that I have already attained, or am already justified, or am already perfect; but I follow after, if I may lay hold, in that in which I also am laid hold of by Christ. Brethren, I do not reckon myself to have laid hold yet: but one thing—forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to the things that are before—I follow after, according to the rule, unto the prize of the supernal calling of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded.' And again: 'To me,' he says, 'it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by man's day: but neither do I judge my own self. He who judges me is the Lord.' And in another place: 'Blessed,' he says, 'is he who judges not himself in that which he approves.'