On the saying "Let a widow be enrolled" (complete)

Opportunely has the grace of the Spirit arranged that this passage of the apostolic letter, which you heard today, should be read; for it has much kinship and connection with what was said the other day, if not in the words, at least in the thoughts. For what was read the other day was this: “But concerning those who have fallen asleep, I do not wish you to be ignorant, brothers”; and much was said then about the resurrection, about bearing such sufferings nobly, and about giving thanks to God who takes those who belong to us. Today what was read is this: “Let a widow be enrolled not less than sixty years old.” Since, then, widowhood comes from death, and this above all is what sharpens the pain and rouses grief, remember what was said the other day, which we said in consoling those who mourn, and, receiving these things too with all eagerness, lay them up with those in the storerooms of your mind. For the name of widowhood seems to be a name of misfortune, but it is not; it is a dignity, an honour, and the greatest glory; not a reproach, but a crown. For even if the widow does not have a husband living with her, she has Christ living with her, who drives away all the terrible things that come upon her. For it is enough, in the abuses that come upon a widow, to go in, bend the knee, groan bitterly, and shed tears, and … the plot of those who … For through these the weapons of the widow can drive back not only human abuse but even the assaults of demons. The widow is freed from the affairs of this life and journeys thereafter toward heaven; and the zeal and service she showed toward her husband she will be able to spend on spiritual things. And if you should say that of old the thing was a misfortune, I would say this: that death too was a curse, but it has become an honour and a dignity to those who bear it nobly when it comes. So the martyrs, at any rate, are crowned; in the same way the widow too passes to a great dignity.

Do you wish to learn how great a thing a widow is? How honoured she is by God, how beloved and how great an advocate, so that those condemned, those despaired of, those without boldness, those at war with God and deprived of every defence, when she appears, she snatches away and reconciles; and she brings them not only pardon nor release from punishment, but also much boldness and brightness, and makes them purer than the sun's rays, even if they are more defiled than all men? Hear God himself saying to the Jews: “When you stretch out your hands, I will turn my eyes from you; if you multiply your prayer, I will not hear you; for your hands are full of blood.” But nevertheless to these defiled men, these murderers, … for having said, “I will turn my eyes away, and I will not hear,” he says: “Judge for the orphan and vindicate the widow; and come, let us reason together; and if your sins are like crimson, …” … [Do you see how great a thing] the widow is? Where she shows her patronage, not before a ruler or king of those on earth, but before the King of the heavens himself? How much wrath she can dissolve, reconciling the Master to those dyed incurably with the filth of sins, washing them of that stain and bringing them to the height of purity? Let us not, then, despise a widowed woman, but show her every care. The true widow is our patroness. But it is worth stopping to see what kind of widows he speaks of here. For those too are called widows who have fallen into the utmost poverty, are enrolled, and are maintained from the church's funds, as in the time of the apostles: “For there arose,” it says, “a grumbling among the Hellenists, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily ministry.” But not these only are called widows, but also those who need nothing, but enjoy abundance and preside over households, and have only lost their husbands. Let us see, then, what kind of widows he speaks of here, saying, “Let a widow be enrolled not less than sixty years old”: is it about the one who needs help and has need to be maintained from the church's funds, or about the one without need and living in abundance? Clearly about the latter. For when he speaks about the former, the one perishing with hunger, he sets no age, he demands no exactness of character; but simply, “If any believing man or woman has widows,” he says, “let them relieve them, and let the church not be burdened.” He did not say, “When she has reached sixty years”; he did not say, “If she has shown hospitality, if she has washed the feet of the saints”; and very naturally. For where poverty must be relieved, he does not wait for age. For what if, being fifty years old, she should perish of hunger? And what if in youth she happened to be maimed in body? Will she sleep on, waiting for her sixtieth year? But that would be the utmost inhumanity. That is why, when hunger must be relieved, he is not at all exact about age and virtue of soul; but when it is not a matter of relieving poverty but of granting an honour according to worth …

… For just as there are choirs of virgins, so of old there were choirs of widows too, and it was not permitted for them simply to be enrolled among the widows. He does not speak, then, about the one living in poverty and needing help, but about the one who has chosen widowhood. And for what reason does he demand an age in her case too? He knows that youth is a kind of fire, a sea full of waves and with many uprisings. When, then, they are about to have exemption because of their age, and are spending their time in old age as in a harbour, their desires having been quenched, he brings them safely into this choir. What then, someone says, have not many, beginning even after their twentieth year, shone brightly to the end, and borne the yoke, and displayed an apostolic life? Shall we then forbid them, tell me, and compel those who wish to live in widowhood to engage in second marriages? And how is this worthy of the apostolic mind? What, then, is the meaning? Attend carefully, beloved, to the very sense of the expression. For he did not say, “Let a widow become one not less than sixty years old,” but, “Let a widow be enrolled”; and again he did not say, “Let younger widows not be enrolled,” but, “But refuse younger widows”; for he is speaking to Timothy. For since many men are easily inclined to slander, and have sharpened their tongues against those who preside over the church, wishing to rescue the ruler from accusations, he lays down these laws and says: You refuse, and you do not enrol. If she herself wishes to choose these things from her own home and by herself, let her do so; but you are not yet to accept her, lest they say, “She was young, wished to marry and to manage a household, and so-and-so compelled her; that is why she fell and was tripped up.” Do not enrol her, so that, even if she falls, you may be free of the accusations; and if she does not fall, you may enrol her at the fitting time with greater safety. And if he says, “I wish the younger widows to marry, to bear children,” hear what younger widows he means: those who, after growing wanton against Christ, wish to marry; the gossips, the busybodies, those who go about from house to house, those who say what they should not, those who have turned aside after Satan. For he did not simply say, “I wish younger widows to marry,” and fall silent, but says also what younger widows, and goes through their falls. What falls? “When they grow wanton,” he says, “against Christ, they wish to marry, and they learn to be idle, and busybodies, going about from house to house, saying what they should not, and they have turned aside.” After whom? “After Satan.” Since, then, after choosing widowhood and enduring all this shame, they wish to marry again, it is better that before they are held fast, and trample on their compacts with Christ, they come to this; so that, if a woman is not such, he lays no necessity of a second marriage.

And that this is true is clear from the following. For if he had laid this down as a law for all women, to marry and to manage households, he would have demanded those other things superfluously: if she has brought up children, if she has washed the feet of the saints, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has devoted herself to every good work … having been the wife of one husband. For if you command all the younger women to marry, how will anyone be able to be the wife of one husband? So his word is directed to those women. So he does too regarding intercourse in marriage. For having said, “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement … to prayer, and come together again,” lest you think the thing a law, he adds the reason afterwards, saying, “that Satan may not tempt you. But I say this by way of concession, not of command, because of your lack of self-control.” Just as, then, he does not say these things there to all, but to the more incontinent and easily captured of men, so here too he advises and counsels those women who are easily overcome and cannot bear the exact life of widowhood to bring in a second bridegroom. For widowhood is a double thing. What double thing is it? A display of good works, and the eminence of a very great honour. Just as office too is a double thing (for it has both works and dignity: the dignity of office is the authority, the service paid by the many, and being a ruler itself; the works of office are helping the wronged, hindering wrongdoers, presiding over cities, spending nights awake in cares for public affairs, and countless other things), so widowhood too is both a dignity and a work. The dignity is being a widow itself, which is very great, as we showed earlier; the work is not to bring in a second husband, but to keep faith with the first, to bring up children, to show hospitality, to wash the feet of the saints, to relieve the afflicted, to devote oneself to every good work. Paul, then, in speaking about them, lets the widow carry out all the works of a widow; but into the dignity of widowhood, into the choir and the order, he does not let her enter until she has passed her sixtieth year, all but saying: Let her do the works of a widow, but let her be counted worthy of the honour then, when, having displayed everything, she has thereafter both the safety that comes from age and the proof from her works and the testimony from outside. Let no one think that this word is suited to women only. For it is useful to men too, so that they too may cherish their own … children, bringing in stepmothers, and overturning all their own security.

We say these things not legislating against turning to a second marriage, but advising and counselling to be content with the first in self-control. It is one thing to advise and counsel, another to legislate. For one who advises and counsels leaves the hearer master of the choice of what is counselled; but one who legislates takes away this power from them. But the church does not legislate these things, but only advises; for Paul too permitted a second marriage, saying thus: “A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if the husband falls asleep, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord; but she is more blessed if she remains as she is.” Just as, then, marriage is good, but virginity better, so a second marriage too is good, but the first and only one better than it. We do not, then, reject a second marriage, nor do we legislate these things, but we advise, if anyone can be self-controlled, to remain with the first. And we advise and counsel also for the very security of the household; for a second marriage has often become the beginning and pretext of fighting and daily wars. Often, at any rate, a husband sitting at table, remembering his first wife in the presence of the second, has wept quietly; and she at once has grown savage and, like a wild beast, leapt up, demanding a penalty from him for his affection toward the other; and if he wishes to praise the departed, the occasion of praise becomes a pretext for war and fighting. And with enemies who have departed we make peace, and with their life we end our enmity toward them too; but with women it is entirely the opposite. For the woman she has not seen, has not heard, from whom she has suffered nothing terrible, her she hates and turns away from, and not even death quenches the hatred. Who has seen, who has heard, of jealousy against dust, of war against ashes? 6. But the evil does not stop there; but whether children are born from the second wife or not, there is war and fighting again. If they are not born, she grieves the more, and for this reason she looks on the children of the first as enemies who have done her the greatest wrongs, getting a clearer sense of her own childlessness from their life. And if they are born, again the evil is no less. For the husband, often affectionately disposed toward the departed, holds to these children, loving them and at the same time pitying them for their orphanhood; but she wishes her own to be preferred everywhere, and wishes these to be not even in the rank of brothers but in that of cast-off servants; all of which could overturn a household and make life unlivable for the man who has married. For these reasons we advise, if possible, to be self-controlled, to be content with the first marriage, and neither for wives to bring in bridegrooms nor for husbands to bring in wives, so that the whole household may not be overturned. And for what reason, speaking about widowhood, was he not content with the first point only, saying, “the wife of one husband”? That you may learn that what makes a widow is not simply not marrying a second time, but flourishing in good works, in almsgiving and love for humankind, and in the care of strangers. For if virginity did not profit the virgins (and yet virginity is much greater than widowhood), but they went away dishonoured, the fire of their lamps quenched, because they had no fruit of love and almsgiving to show, much more the widows. Having heard that parable, at any rate, and fearing for them, Paul is very exact about the matter, lest, trusting in their single marriage, they neglect the rest of virtue; that is why he says, “well attested for good works.” For just as virginity is good, but without the rest has become fruitless and shut them out of the bridal chamber, so widowhood is good, but without the rest of virtue it is vain and superfluous. For this reason Paul did not stop his exhortation at not bringing in a second husband, but demands of the widow other things far more numerous and greater. And just as those who enrol soldiers seek good condition of body, so he too, enrolling her in the army of Christ, sought good condition of soul, vigour, and zeal in all good works, so …