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Letter CXVII (A.D. 405)
JEROME'S PREFACE:
1. A certain brother from Gaul has told me that his virgin-sister and widowed mother, though living in the same city, have separate abodes and have taken to themselves clerical protectors either as guests or stewards; and that by thus associating with strangers they have caused more scandal than by living apart.
When I groaned and expressed what I felt more by silence than words, "I beseech you," said he, "rebuke them in a letter and recall them to mutual harmony; make them once more mother and daughter."
To whom I replied, "A nice task this that you lay upon me, for me a stranger to reconcile two women whom you, a son and brother, have failed to influence. You speak as though I occupied the chair of a bishop instead of being shut up in a monastic cell where, far removed from the world's turmoil, I lament the sins of the past and try to avoid the temptations of the present. Moreover, it is surely inconsistent, while one buries oneself out of sight, to allow one's tongue free course through the world."
"You are too fearful," he replied. "Where is that old hardihood of yours which made you 'scour the world with copious salt,' as Horace says of Lucilius?" [Sat., I. x. 3,4]
"It is this," I rejoined, "that makes me shy and forbids me to open my lips. For through accusing crime I have been myself made out a criminal. Men have disputed and denied my assertions until, as the proverb goes, I hardly know whether I have ears or feeling left. The very walls have resounded with curses levelled at me, and 'I was the song of drunkards,' [Ps. lxix. 12]. Under the compulsion of an unhappy experience I have learned to be silent, thinking it better to 'set a watch before my mouth and to keep the door of my lips than to incline my heart to any evil thing,' [Ps. cxli. 3,4] or, while censuring the faults of others, myself to fall into that of detraction."
In answer to this he said: "Speaking the truth is not detraction. Nor will you lecture the world by administering a particular rebuke; for there are few persons, if any, open to this special charge. I beg of you, therefore, as I have put myself to the trouble of this long journey, that you will not suffer me to have come for nothing. The Lord knows that, after the sight of the holy places, my principal object in coming has been to heal by a letter from you the division between my sister and my mother."
"Well," I replied, "I will do as you wish, for after all the letters will be to persons beyond the sea and words written with reference to definite persons can seldom offend other people. But I must ask you to keep what I say secret. You will take my advice with you to encourage you by the way; if it is listened to, I will rejoice as much as you; while if, as I rather think, it is rejected, I shall have wasted my words and you will have made a long journey for nothing."
THE LETTER:
2. In the first place my sister and my daughter, I wish you to know that I am not writing to you because I suspect anything evil of you. On the contrary I implore you to live in harmony, so as to give no ground for any such suspicions. Moreover had I supposed you fast bound in sin -- far be this from you -- I should never have written, for I should have known that my words would be addressed to deaf ears.
Again, if I write to you somewhat sharply, I beg of you to ascribe this not to any harshness on my part but to the nature of the ailment which I attempt to treat. Cautery and the knife are the only remedies when mortification has once set in; poison is the only antidote known for poison; great pain can only be relieved by inflicting greater pain.
Lastly I must say this that even if your own consciences acquit you of misdoing, yet the very rumour of such brings disgrace upon you. Mother and daughter are names of affection; they imply natural ties and reciprocal duties; they form the closest of human relations after that which binds the soul to God. If you love each other, your conduct calls for no praise: but if you hate each other, you have committed a crime. The Lord Jesus was subject to His parents, [Luke ii. 51]. He reverenced that mother of whom He was Himself the parent; He respected the foster-father whom He had Himself fostered; for He remembered that He had been carried in the womb of the one and in the arms of the other. Wherefore also when He hung upon the cross, [Joh. xix. 26,27], He commended to His disciple the mother whom He had never before His passion parted from Himself.
3. Well, I shall say no more to the mother, for perhaps age, weakness, and
loneliness make sufficient excuses for her; but to you the daughter I say:
Is a mother's house too small for you whose womb was not too small? When
you have lived with her for ten months in the one, can you not bear to
live with her for one day in the other? or are you unable to meet her
gaze? Can it be that one who has borne you and reared you, who has brought
you up and knows you, is dreaded by you as a witness of your home-life? If
you are a true virgin, why do you fear her careful guardianship; and, if
you have fallen, why do you not openly marry? Wedlock is like a plank
offered to a shipwrecked man and by its means you may remedy what
previously you have done amiss. I do not mean that you are not to repent
of your sin or that you are to continue in evil courses; but, when a tie
of the kind has been formed, I despair of breaking it altogether. However,
a return to your mother will make it easier for you to bewail the
virginity which you have lost through leaving her.
Or if you are still
unspotted and have not lost your chastity, be careful of it for you may
lose it. Why must you live in a house where you must daily struggle for
life and death? Can any one sleep soundly with a viper near him? No; for,
though it may not attack him it is sure to frighten him. It is better to
be where there is no danger, than to be in danger and to escape. In the
one case we have a calm; in the other careful steering is necessary. In
the one case we are filled with joy; in the other we do but avoid sorrow.
4. But you will perhaps reply: "My mother is not well-behaved, she desires
the things of the world, she loves riches, she disregards fasting, she
stains her eyes with antimony, she likes to walk abroad in gay attire, she
hinders me from the monastic vow, and so I cannot live with her."
But
first of all, even though she is as you say, you will have the greater
reward for refusing to forsake her with all her faults. She has carried
you in her womb, she has reared you; with gentle affection she has borne
with the troublesome ways of your childhood. She has washed your linen,
she has tended you when sick, and the sickness of maternity was not only
borne for you but caused by you. She has brought you up to womanhood, she
has taught you to love Christ. You ought not to be displeased with the
behaviour of a mother who has consecrated you as a virgin to the service
of your spouse.
Still if you cannot put up with her dainty ways and feel
obliged to shun them, and if your mother really is, as people so often
say, a woman of the world, you have others, virgins like yourself, the
holy company of chastity. Why, when you forsake your mother, do you choose
for companion a man who perhaps has left behind him a sister and mother of
his own? You tell me that she is hard to get on with and that he is easy;
that she is quarrelsome and that he is amiable. I will ask you one
question: Did you go straight from your home to the man, or did you fall
in with him afterwards? If you went straight to him, the reason why you
left your mother is plain. If you fell in with him afterwards, you shew by
your choice what you missed under your mother's roof!
The pain that I
inflict is severe and I feel the knife as much as you. "He that walketh
uprightly walketh surely,"
[Prov. x. 9]. Only that my conscience would smite me, I
should keep silence and be slow to blame others where I am not guiltless
myself. Having a beam in my own eye I should be reluctant to see the mote
in my neighbour's. But as it is I live far away among Christian brothers;
my life with them is honourable as eyewitnesses of it can testify; I
rarely see, or am seen by, others. It is most shameless, therefore, in you
to refuse to copy me in respect of self-restraint, when you profess to
take me as your model.
If you say: "My conscience is enough for me too.
God is my judge who is witness of my life. I care not what men may say,"
let me urge upon you the apostle's words
[Rom. xii. 17]: "Provide things honest", not only
in the sight of God but also "in the sight of all men". If any one
carps at you for being a Christian and a virgin, mind it not; you have
left your mother it may be said to live in a monastery among virgins, but
censure on this score is your glory. When men blame a maid of God not for
self-indulgence but only for insensibility to affection, what they condemn
as callous disregard of a parent is really a lively devotion towards God.
For you prefer to your mother Him whom you are bidden to prefer to your
own soul,
[Luke xiv. 26]. And if the day ever comes that she
also shall so prefer Him,
she will find in you not a daughter only but a sister as well.
5. "What, then," you will say, "is it a crime to have a man of religion in
the house with me?"
You seize me by the collar and drag me into court
either to sanction what I disapprove or else to incur the dislike of many.
A man of religion never separates a daughter from her mother. He welcomes
both and respects both. A daughter may be as religious as she pleases;
still a mother who is a widow is a guaranty for her chastity. If this
person whoever he is is of the same age with yourself, he should honour
your mother as though she were his own; and, if he is older, he should
love you as a daughter and subject you to a mother's discipline. It is not
good either for your reputation or for his that he should like you more
than your mother; for his affection might appear to be less for you than
for your youth.
This is what I should say if a monk were not your brother
and if you had no relatives able to protect you. But what excuse has a
stranger for thrusting himself in where there are both a mother and a
brother, the one a widow and the other a monk? It is good for you to feel
that you are a daughter and a sister. However, if you cannot manage both,
and if your mother is too hard a morsel to swallow, your brother at any
rate should satisfy you. Or, if he is too harsh, she that bore you may
prove more gentle. Why do you turn pale? Why do you get excited? Why do
you blush, and with trembling lips betray the restlessness of your mind?
One thing only can surpass a woman's love for her mother and brother; and
that is her passion for her husband.
6. I am told, moreover, that you frequent suburban villas and their
pleasant gardens in the company of relatives and intimate friends. I have
no doubt that it is some female cousin or connexion who for her own
satisfaction carries you about with her as a novel kind of attendant. Far
be it from me to suspect that you would desire men's society; even though
they should be those of your own family. But pray, maiden, answer me this;
do you appear alone in your kinsfolk's society? Or do you bring your
favourite with you? Shameless as you may be, you will hardly venture to
flaunt him in the eyes of the world. If you ever do so, your whole circle
will cry out about both you and him; every one's finger will be pointed
at you; and your cousins, who in your presence to please you call him a
monk and a man of religion, will laugh at you behind your back for having
such an unnatural husband.
If on the other hand you go out alone (which I
rather suppose to be the case) you will find yourself clothed in sober
garb
among slave youths, women married or soon to be so, wanton girls, and
dandies with long hair and linea
[tight-fitting vests]. Some bearded fop will
offer you his hand, he will hold you up if you feel tired, and the
pressure of his fingers will either be a temptation to you, or will shew
that you are a temptation to him. Again when you sit down to table with
married men and women, you will have to see kisses in which you have no
part, and dishes partaken of which are not for you. Moreover it cannot but
do you harm to see other women attired in silk dresses and gold brocades.
At table also, whether you like it or not, you will be forced to eat flesh
[monstics are vegetarians]
and that of different kinds. To make you drink wine, they will praise it
as
a creature of God. To induce you to take baths, they will speak of dirt
with disgust; and, when on second thoughts you do as you are bid, they
will with one voice salute you as spotless and open, a thorough lady.
Meantime some singer will give to the company a selection of softly
flowing airs; and as he will not venture to look at other men's wives, he
will constantly fix his eyes on you who have no protector. He will speak
by nods and convey by his tone what he is afraid to put into words. Amid
inducements to sensuality so marked as these, even iron wills are apt to
be overcome with desire; an appetite which is the more imperious in
virgins because they suppose that sweetest of which they have no
experience. Heathen legends tell us that sailors actually ran their ships
on the rocks that they might listen to the songs of the Sirens; and that
the lyre of Orpheus had power to draw to itself trees and animals and to
soften flints. In the banquet-hall, chastity is hard to keep. A shining
skin shews a sin-stained soul.
7. As a schoolboy I have read of one (and have seen his effigy true to the
life in the streets) who continued to cherish an unlawful passion even
when
his flesh scarcely clung to his bones, and whose malady remained uncured
until death cured it. What then will become of you -- a young girl
physically
sound, dainty, stout, and ruddy -- if you allow yourself free range among
flesh-dishes, wines, and baths, not to mention married men and bachelors?
Even if when solicited you refuse to consent, you will take the fact of
your being asked as evidence that you are considered handsome. A sensual
mind pursues dishonourable objects with greater zest than honourable ones,
and, when a thing is forbidden, hankers after it with greater pleasure.
Your
very dress, cheap and sombre as it is, is an index of your secret
feelings. For it has no creases and trails along the ground to make you
appear taller than you are. Your vest is purposely ripped asunder to shew
what is beneath and while hiding what is repulsive, to reveal what is
fair. As you walk, the very creaking of your black and shiny shoes
attracts the notice of the young men. You wear stays to keep your breasts
in place, and a heaving girdle closely confines your chest. Your hair
covers either your forehead or your ears. Sometimes too you let your shawl
drop so as to lay bare your white shoulders; and, as if unwilling that
they should be seen, you quickly conceal what you have purposely
disclosed. And when in public you for modesty's sake cover your face, like
a practised harlot you only shew what is likely to please.
8. You will exclaim "How do you know what I am like, or how, when you are
so far away, can you see what I am doing?"
Your own brother's tears and
sobs have told me, his frequent and scarcely endurable bursts of grief.
Would that he had lied or that his words had been words of apprehension
only and not of accusation. But, believe me, liars do not shed tears. He
is indignant that you prefer to himself a young man, not it is true
clothed in silk or wearing his hair long but muscular and dainty in the
midst of his squalor; and that this fellow holds the purse-strings, looks
after the weaving, allots the servants their tasks, rules the household,
and buys from the market all that is needed. He is at once steward and
master, and, as he anticipates the slaves in their duties, he is
carped at by all the domestics. Everything that their mistress has not
given them they declare that he has stolen from them.
Servants as a class
are full of complaints; and no matter what you give them, it is always too
little. For they do not consider how much you have but only how much you
give; and they make up for their chagrin in the only way they can, that
is, by grumbling. One calls him a parasite, another an impostor, another a
money-seeker, another by some novel appellation that hits his fancy. They
noise it abroad that he is constantly at your bed-side, that when you are
sick he runs to fetch nurses, that he holds basins, airs sheets, and folds
bandages for you. The world is only too ready to believe scandal, and
stories invented at home soon get afloat abroad. Nor need you be
surprised if your servantmen and servantmaids get up such tales about you,
when even your mother and your brother complain of your conduct.
9. Do, therefore, what I advise you and entreat you to do: if possible, be
reconciled with your mother; or, if this may not be, at least come to
terms with your brother. Or if you are filled with an implacable hatred of
relationships usually so dear, separate at all events from the man, whom
you are said to prefer to your own flesh and blood, and, if even this is
impossible for you, (for, if you could leave him, you would certainly
return to your own) pay more regard to appearances in harbouring him as
your companion. Live in a separate building and take your meals apart; for
if you remain under one roof with him slanderers will say that you share
with him your bed. You may thus easily get help from him when you feel you
need it, and yet to a considerable degree escape public discredit.
Yet you
must take care not to contract the stain of which Jeremiah
[ii. 22] tells us that
no nitre or fuller's soap can wash it out. When you wish him to come
to see you, always have witnesses present; either friends, or freedmen, or
slaves. A good conscience is afraid of no man's eyes. Let him come in
unembarrassed and go out at his ease. Let his silent looks, his unspoken
words and his whole carriage, though at times they may imply
embarrassment, yet indicate peace of mind.
Pray, open your ears and listen
to the outcry of the whole city. You have already both of you lost your
own names and are known each by that of the other. You are spoken of as
his, and he is said to be yours. Your mother and your brother have heard
this and are ready to take you in between them. They implore you to
consent to this arrangement, so that the scandal of your intimacy with
this man which is confined to yourself may give place to a glory common to
all. You can live with your mother and he with your brother. You can more
boldly shew your regard for one who is your brother's comrade; and your
mother will more properly esteem one who is the friend of her son and not
of her daughter.
But if you frown and refuse to accept my advice, this
letter will openly expostulate with you. "Why," it will say, "do you beset
another man's servant? Why do you make Christ's minister your slave? Look
at the people and scan each face as it comes under your view. When he
reads in the church all eyes are fixed upon you; and you, using the
licence of a wife, glory in your shame. Secret infamy no longer contents
you; you call boldness freedom; you have a whore's forehead and refuse
to
be ashamed,
[Jer. iii. 3]."
10. Once more you exclaim that I am over-suspicious, a thinker of evil,
too ready to follow rumours. What? I suspicious? I ill-natured? I, who as
I said in the beginning have taken up my pen because I have no suspicions?
Or is it you that are careless, loose, disdainful? You who at the age of
twenty-five have netted in your embrace a youth whose beard has scarcely
grown? An excellent instructor he must be, able no doubt by his severe
looks both to warn and frighten you! No age is safe from lust, yet gray
hairs are some security for decent conduct. A day will surely come (for
time glides by imperceptibly) when your handsome young favourite will find
a wealthier or more youthful mistress. For women soon age and particularly
if they live with men. You will be sorry for your decision and regret your
obstinacy in a day when your means and reputation shall be alike gone, and
when this unhappy intimacy shall be happily broken off. But perhaps you
feel sure of your ground and see no reason to fear a breach where
affection has had so long a time to develop and grow.