From faults no mortal man is wholly free;
The best is he who has but few of them. [2461]
And, to quote the same poet,
At moles men cavil when they mark fair skins. [2462]
To the same effect in different words the prophet says:--"I am so troubled that I cannot speak," [2463] and in the same book, "Be ye angry and sin not." [2464] So Archytas of Tarentum [2465] once said to a careless steward: "I should have flogged you to death had I not been in a passion." For "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." [2466] Now what is here said of one form of perturbation may be applied to all. Just as anger is human and the repression of it Christian, so it is with other passions. The flesh always lusts after the things of the flesh, and by its allurements draws the soul to partake of deadly pleasures; but it is for us Christians to restrain the desire for sensual indulgence by an intenser love for Christ. It is for us to break in the mettlesome brute within us by fasting, in order that it may desire not lust but food and amble easily and steadily forward having for its rider the Holy Spirit.
10. Why do I write thus? To shew you that you are but human and subject, unless you guard against them, to human passions. We are all of us made of the same clay and formed of the same elements. Whether we wear silk or rags we are all at the mercy of the same desire. It does not fear the royal purple; it does not disdain the squalor of the mendicant. It is better then to suffer in stomach than in soul, to rule the body than to serve it, to lose one's balance than to lose one's chastity. Let us not lull ourselves with the delusion that we can always fall back on penitence. For this is at best but a remedy for misery. Let us shrink from incurring a wound which must be painful to cure. For it is one thing to enter the haven of salvation with ship safe and merchandise uninjured, and another to cling naked to a plank and, as the waves toss you this way and that, to be dashed again and again on the sharp rocks. A widow should be ignorant that second marriage is permitted; she should know nothing of the apostle's words:--"It is better to marry than to burn." [2467] Remove what is said to be worse, the risk of burning, and marriage will cease to be regarded as good. Of course I repudiate the slanders of the heretics; I know that "marriage is honourable...and the bed undefiled." [2468] Yet Adam even after he was expelled from paradise had but one wife. The accursed and blood-stained Lamech, descended from the stock of Cain, was the first to make out of one rib two wives; and the seedling of digamy then planted was altogether destroyed by the doom of the deluge. It is true that in writing to Timothy the apostle from fear of fornication is forced to countenance second marriage. His words are these:--"I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully." But he immediately adds as a reason for this concession; "for some are already turned aside after Satan." [2469] Thus we see that he is offering not a crown to those who stand but a helping hand to those who are down. What must a second marriage be if it is looked on merely as an alternative to the brothel! "For some," he writes, "are already turned aside after Satan." The upshot of the whole matter is that, if a young widow cannot or will not contain herself, she had better take a husband to her bed than the devil.
A noble alternative truly which is only to be embraced in preference to Satan! In old days even Jerusalem went a-whoring and opened her feet to every one that passed by. [2470] It was in Egypt that she was first deflowered and there that her teats were bruised. [2471] And afterwards when she had come to the wilderness and, impatient of the delays of her leader Moses, had said when maddened by the stings of lust: "these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt," [2472] she received statutes that were not good and commandments that were altogether evil whereby she should not live [2473] but should be punished through them. Is it surprising then that when the apostle had said in another place of young widows: "when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they will marry, having damnation because they have cast off their first faith," [2474] he granted to such as should wax wanton statutes of digamy that were not good and commandments that were altogether evil? For the reason which he gives for allowing a second husband would justify a woman in marrying a third or even, if she liked, a twentieth. He evidently wished to shew them that he was not so much anxious that they should take husbands as that they should avoid paramours. These things, dearest daughter in Christ, I impress upon you and frequently repeat, that you may forget those things which are behind and reach forth unto those things which are before. [2475] You have widows like yourself worthy to be your models, Judith renowned in Hebrew story and Anna the daughter of Phanuel famous in the gospel. Both these lived day and night in the temple and preserved the treasure of their chastity by prayer and by fasting. One was a type of the Church which cuts off the head of the devil [2476] and the other first received in her arms the saviour of the world and had revealed to her the holy mysteries which were to come. [2477] In conclusion I beg you to attribute the shortness of my letter not to want of language or scarcity of matter but to a deep sense of modesty which makes me fear to force myself too long upon the ears of a stranger, and causes me to dread the secret verdict of those who read my words.
[2389] Matt. xi. 29.
[2390] Lev. xix. 15.
[2391] Isa. xli. 8; Jas. ii. 23.
[2392] Also named Nebridius, Prefect of Gaul, then of the East.
[2393] See letter CXXIV.
[2394] Luke xviii. 1-5.
[2395] Ælia Flaccilla, the wife of Theodosius who is here called "the unvanquished emperor."
[2396] Salvina was the daughter of Gildo who at the time was tributary king of Mauritania.
[2397] Acts x. 1, 2.
[2398] Wisdom iv. 11, 14.
[2399] Acts x. 34, 35.
[2400] Matt. viii. 10.
[2401] Gen. xli. 42-44.
[2402] Gen. xli. 50-52.
[2403] Eccl. vii. 12.
[2404] Matt. xix. 23, 24.
[2405] Mark x. 27.
[2406] 1 Tim. vi. 17-19: A.V. has "eternal life" in the last verse.
[2407] Animal tortuosum. The epithet recurs in Letter CVII. § 3.
[2408] Ps. lv. 6.
[2409] Matt. xiii. 31, 32.
[2410] Isa. lx. 6.
[2411] Gen. xxxvii. 25.
[2412] Jer. viii. 22.
[2413] So the Vulgate renders Zaphnath-Paaneah the name given to Joseph by Pharaoh. (Gen. xli. 45).
[2414] Horace, Epist. I. vii. 30, 31.
[2415] 1 Tim. vi. 9.
[2416] Matt. xix. 21.
[2417] Luke xvi. 9.
[2418] Matt. iv. 18-22.
[2419] 2 Cor. viii. 14.
[2420] 1 Tim. vi. 8.
[2421] Ecclus. iii. 30.
[2422] Cf. Dan. iii. 25.
[2423] Gen. xxxix. 12.
[2424] The allusion is to the word "officer" in Gen. xxxvii. 36. See A.V. margin.
[2425] Rom. vii. 23.
[2426] Arcadius and Honorius.
[2427] Isa. xl. 6.
[2428] Gen. iii. 19.
[2429] Wisd. iv. 9.
[2430] Wisd. iv. 13.
[2431] Virg. A. iii. 490.
[2432] Virg. G. iv. 82.
[2433] Arcadius.
[2434] Eudoxia.
[2435] Ps. cxxvii. 3.
[2436] 1 Tim. v. 9, 10.
[2437] The three degrees of chastity are those of a virgin, a widow, and a wife.
[2438] 1 Tim. iv. 12.
[2439] Gal. ii. 9, 10.
[2440] Cf. 1 Tim. v. 3.
[2441] 1 Tim. ii. 15. A.V. has sobriety' for chastity.'
[2442] 1 Tim. v. 22.
[2443] 1 Tim. v. 6.
[2444] Acts ix. 15.
[2445] 2 Cor. xiii. 3, Vulg.
[2446] Rom. vii. 19.
[2447] 1 Cor. ix. 27.
[2448] 1 Kings iii. 3.
[2449] Many drew a distinction between the flesh of quadrupeds and that of birds, abstaining from the former but using the latter.
[2450] 1 Tim. iv. 4.
[2451] Rom. xiv. 21.
[2452] Eph. v. 18.
[2453] 1 Cor. vii. 34.
[2454] Virgil, Æn. iv. 28, 29.
[2455] Dido, queen of Carthage.
[2456] Quoted from Tertullian (ad Mart. IV.). The same words recur in Letters CVII. § 8 and CXXX. § 9.
[2457] Prov. iv. 23.
[2458] Matt. xv. 19.
[2459] Gen. viii. 21.
[2460] Gal. v. 19-23.
[2461] Horace, Sat. I. iii. 68, 69.
[2462] Horace, Sat. I. vi. 66.
[2463] Ps. lxxvii. 4.
[2464] Ps. iv. 4, LXX. Quoted Eph. iv. 26.
[2465] A pythagorean philosopher, mathematician, general, and statesman. He was a contemporary of Plato.
[2466] Jas. i. 20.
[2467] 1 Cor. vii. 9.
[2468] Heb. xiii. 4.
[2469] 1 Tim. v. 14, 15.
[2470] Ezek. xvi. 25.
[2471] Ezek. xxiii. 3.
[2472] Exod. xxxii. 4.
[2473] Ezek. xx. 25.
[2474] 1 Tim. v. 11, 12.
[2475] Phil. iii. 13.
[2476] As Judith cut off the head of Holofernes (Judith xiii.).
[2477] Luke ii. 36-38.