Letters 42.1–45.7

The little question you sent is short, and the answer is plain. If, concerning what is written in the gospel, "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come," Novatian asserts that no one can sin against the Holy Spirit except one who is a Christian and afterwards has denied, then it is clear that the Jews who blasphemed at that time are not guilty of the sin of blasphemy; though they, the wicked tenants, having killed the prophets, were plotting the Lord's death, and were so lost that the Son of God answered that he had come to save them. Hence they are to be refuted from the whole course of that same Scripture: the blasphemy is called unforgivable not for those who, compelled by tortures and disemboweled by various torments, have denied the Lord, but for those who, seeing the works of God in the mighty deeds, slander them and cry out that the power is the devil's and that all the signs that were done belong not to divine majesty but to the devil. Hence the Savior's whole answer argues to teach that Satan cannot be cast out by Satan and that his kingdom is not divided against itself. For since the devil's aim is to harm God's creation, how can it be of the same will to heal the sick and to drive himself out of possessed bodies? So let Novatian prove that any of those compelled to sacrifice before the judge's tribunal answered that everything written in the gospel was done not by the Son of God but by Beelzebub, prince of the demons, and then he will be able to prove that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable.

And to ask something more pointed, let them answer what it is to speak against the Son of Man and to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. For I assert, according to his view, that those who denied Christ in persecution spoke against the Son of Man and did not blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. For one who is asked whether he is a Christian and answers that he is not, by denying Christ, that is, the Son of Man, has certainly not insulted the Holy Spirit. But if, by denying Christ, he denied the Spirit too, let the heretic explain how he who has denied the Son of Man does not sin against the Spirit. Or if he thinks the Holy Spirit here is to be understood as the Father, no mention of the Father was made by the denier when he denied. The apostle Peter, when, terrified by the maid's question, he denied the Lord, did he seem to have sinned against the Son of Man or against the Holy Spirit? If he wants to interpret absurdly his words, "I do not know the man," as meaning that he denied not Christ but a man, he will make the Savior a liar, who had foretold that he, that is, the Son of God, would be denied. But if he denied the Son of God, for which he also wept bitterly and afterwards wiped out his threefold denial by a threefold confession, it is clear that the sin against the Holy Spirit that cannot be forgiven is the one that involves blasphemy: when you see God in the mighty works, you slander Beelzebub in the deeds. So let him show someone who denied and called Christ Beelzebub, and I will willingly retreat and grant that a denier cannot obtain pardon. It is one thing to yield to torture and deny that one is a Christian, another to call Christ the devil, as Scripture itself and the context, read more attentively, will be able to show you.

It should indeed have been discussed at greater length; but since I cannot deny my presence to friends who have come to my little lodging, and it seemed very arrogant not to answer you at once, we have compressed a broad discussion into a short speech, so that we have dictated not so much a letter as a little commentary.

Ambrose, who supplied the paper, the expenses, and the secretaries by which our truly adamantine Chalcenterus produced such countless books, reports in a letter he wrote to him from Athens that he never took food in Origen's presence without reading, never went to sleep unless one of the brothers was reciting the sacred writings, and that he did this day and night, so that reading followed prayer and prayer reading.

What have we, creatures of the belly, ever done like this? If the second hour finds us reading, we yawn, rubbing our faces with our hands, we hold down our stomachs, and, as if after great labor, we busy ourselves again with worldly affairs. I pass over the dinners, by which the mind is weighed down. I am ashamed to speak of the frequent calls, by which we either go to others daily ourselves or wait for others to come to us. Then the talk begins, conversation is worn thin, the absent are torn to pieces, other people's lives are described, and, biting one another, we are consumed by one another. Such food both occupies us and dismisses us. And when our friends have gone, we reckon up our accounts. Now anger puts a lion's mask on us, now superfluous care plans ahead for many years to come; and we do not remember the gospel, which says: "Fool, this night they demand your soul of you; and what you have prepared, whose will it be?" Clothes are sought not only for use but for luxury. Wherever there is profit, the foot is quicker, the speech swift, the ear more attentive; if a loss is announced, as often happens in household affairs, the face is weighed down with sorrow. We rejoice at a coin; we are saddened at a penny. Hence, since there are such different faces of mind in one person, the prophet prays to the Lord, saying: "Lord, in your city scatter their image." For since we were created in the image and likeness of God, through our own fault we put on many masks. And just as in the theater one and the same actor now shows himself a sturdy Hercules, now bends softly into Venus, now trembles as Cybele, so we too, who, if we were not of the world, would be hated by the world, have as many likenesses of masks as we have sins.

Therefore, since we have spent a long span of life drifting, and our ship has been now shaken by the whirlwind of storms, now holed by striking on rocks, let us as soon as we can enter the seclusion of the country as a kind of harbor. There let coarse bread, vegetables watered with our own hands, and milk, country delicacies, provide cheap but innocent food. Living so, neither sleep will call us away from prayer nor fullness from reading. If it is summer, the shade of a tree will give privacy; if autumn, the very mildness of the air and the leaves strewn beneath will show a place of rest. In spring the field is painted with flowers, and psalms will be sung more sweetly among the complaining birds. If there is cold and winter snow, I shall not buy wood: I shall keep vigil or sleep warmer, and certainly, as far as I know, I shall not freeze more cheaply. Let Rome keep her tumults, let the arena rage, the circus go mad, the theaters run riot, and (since we must speak of our own) let the senate of married ladies be visited daily: for us it is good to cleave to God and to put our hope in the Lord, so that, when the kingdom of heaven has taken the place of this poverty, we may burst out: "For what remains for me in heaven, and what have I desired from you on earth?" So that, having found so much in heaven, we may grieve that we sought small and perishable things on earth.

To console the absence of our bodies by the conversation of the spirit, let each do what he can. You send gifts; we send back letters of thanks; yet in such a way that, since it is a gift for veiled virgins, we show that there are some mysteries in the little gifts themselves.

Sackcloth is a sign of prayer and fasting; chairs, that a virgin should not set foot outside; candles, that with lamp lit the Bridegroom's coming should be awaited; cups show the mortification of the flesh and a mind always prepared for martyrdom (for the Lord's cup is intoxicating and most excellent); and that you offer also to married ladies fans for waving off little creatures means that self-indulgence ought to be far from them, which, soon to perish with this world, drives out the oil of a sweeter life. Let this be the type for virgins, this the figure for married women.

But to us, though in a perverse sense, your gifts are fitting: to sit suits the idle, to lie in sackcloth suits penitents, to have cups suits drinkers; though, because of nocturnal fears and a mind always afraid of a bad conscience, it is welcome to have lit candles too.

If I thought I could repay you thanks, I would be foolish. God is able to render to your holy soul, on my behalf, what it deserves. For I, unworthy, could never have supposed or wished that you would grant me such affection in Christ. And although some think me a criminal, buried under every kind of wickedness, and even these things are small in comparison with my sins, yet you do well that, out of your own mind, you think even the bad good. For it is dangerous to judge another's servant, and it is not easy to be pardoned for having spoken evil of the upright. It will come, that day will come, and you will grieve with me that not a few are burning.

I am disgraceful, I am a turncoat and slippery, I am a liar deceiving by the art of Satan! Which is craftier: to have believed or invented these things about the innocent, or to have refused to believe them even of the guilty? Some kissed my hands and slandered me with a viper's mouth; they grieved with their lips and rejoiced in their hearts. The Lord saw and mocked them, and reserved his wretched servant for judgment together with them. One slandered my walk and my laugh; another disparaged my face; this woman suspected something else in my simplicity. I lived with them for almost three years; a crowd of virgins often surrounded me; I often expounded the divine books to some of them as well as I could; reading brought frequent meeting, frequent meeting familiarity, familiarity confidence. Let them say what they ever perceived in me other than what befitted a Christian. Whose money have I taken? Have I not rejected gifts, small or great? Has anyone's coin rung in my hand? Was my speech ambiguous, my eye wanton? Nothing is objected to me but my sex; and this is never objected except when Paula sets out for Jerusalem. Very well: they believed a liar; why do they not believe him when he retracts? The man himself is the same as he was: he now declares me innocent who lately called me guilty; and certainly torture draws out the truth more than laughter does; except that what is either invented and gladly heard, or not invented but driven to be invented, is more easily believed.

Before I knew the house of holy Paula, the whole city's favor was united toward me. By almost everyone's judgment I was deemed worthy of the highest priesthood; my speech was the mouth of Damasus of blessed memory; I was called holy, I was called humble and eloquent. Did I ever enter the house of any wanton woman? Did silk clothes, shining jewels, a painted face, or the display of gold ever carry me away? There was no other lady in Rome who could win my mind except one who mourned and fasted, filthy with neglect, almost blinded by weeping, whom the sun often found praying for the Lord's mercy through whole nights, whose song was the psalms, whose speech the gospel, whose delight continence, whose life fasting. No other could delight me but she whom I never saw eating; after I began to revere, honor, and look up to her for the merit of her holiness, all my virtues at once deserted me.

O envy, first biting yourself! O cunning of Satan, always persecuting holy things! No other women gave the city of Rome material for gossip but Paula and Melania, who, despising their wealth and leaving their children, raised the cross of the Lord like a standard of devotion. Had they gone to Baiae, chosen perfumes, kept their riches and widowhood as means of luxury and freedom, they would be called ladies and saints; now they wish to seem beautiful in sackcloth and ashes and to go down into the fires of Gehenna with fasts and filth. Evidently they are not allowed to perish with the crowd to the people's applause. If pagans criticized this life, if Jews did, I would have the comfort of not pleasing those whom Christ displeases; but now (what wickedness!) women by the name of Christians, neglecting the care of their own households and ignoring the beam in their own eye, look for the speck in another's. They tear apart a holy resolve and think it a remedy for their own punishment if no one is holy, if everyone is disparaged, if there is a crowd of the perishing and a multitude of sinners.

You like to bathe daily; another thinks such cleanliness is filth. You belch after a woodcock and boast of the sturgeon you have eaten; I fill my stomach with beans. Crowds of laughing people delight you; Paula and Melania, crowds of the weeping. You desire what is others'; they despise their own. Wines sweetened with honey delight you; they drink cold water, which is sweeter. You think whatever you have not drained, eaten, and devoured in the present is lost to you; they long for the future and believe that what is written is true. Very well: suppose it is foolish and old-womanish to be persuaded of the resurrection of the body; what is that to you? To us, on the contrary, your life is displeasing. Be fat, and good luck to you; I delight in thinness and pallor. You think such people wretched; we think you more wretched. The judgment is repaid in kind: we seem mad to each other.

This, my lady Asella, I have written hastily, weeping and grieving, as I was already boarding the ship, and I thank my God that I am worthy to be hated by the world. Pray that I may return from Babylon to Jerusalem, and that Nebuchadnezzar may not rule over me, but Jesus the son of Jozadak; let Ezra come, whose name is interpreted "helper", and bring me back to my homeland. Fool that I was, who wanted to sing the Lord's song in a foreign land, and, deserting Mount Zion, begged the help of Egypt! I did not remember the gospel: whoever goes out from Jerusalem at once falls among robbers, is stripped, wounded, killed. But though the priest and the Levite pass by, that Samaritan is merciful; and when it was said to him, "You are a Samaritan and have a demon," he denied the demon but did not deny that he was a Samaritan, because what we call "guardian" the Hebrews call samarites. Some chatter that I am a sorcerer: as a servant I acknowledge the title of my faith. The Jews called my Lord a magician too, and the apostle was called a deceiver. No temptation has seized me but what is human. What fraction of hardships have I suffered, who serve as a soldier of the cross? They have brought against me the infamy of a false crime; but I know that through good and evil report one reaches the kingdom of heaven.

Greet Paula and Eustochium (whether the world likes it or not, they are mine in Christ); greet mother Albina and the sisters Marcella, Marcellina too, and holy Felicitas; and tell them: "We shall stand before the tribunal of Christ; there it will be seen in what spirit each has lived." Remember me, noble example of chastity and virginity, and calm the waves of the sea by your prayers.