On the Singleness of Clerics 1–14

I had indeed promised you some time ago, dearest sons, a letter which, commending the rules of all conduct from the Law, would contain in summary everything that applies generally to all clergy for directing the rule of discipline. But since some among you have now been commonly rolled into disgrace by living with women, I have been compelled by the Lord's rebuke to write to you specially on this matter too. He has commanded wretched me, because of your negligence, to give a fitting charge with severity: that clergy should not live with women. And although this admonition would be sufficient on the sole authority of my letter, yet lest anyone mock me as a dreamer, as his brothers mocked Joseph, we add the firmness of the Scriptures, so that all may know that the Lord commands in this way also through revelation what is known to have been commanded before in writing; and that we are not adulterating the word of the Lord, nor wishing boastfully to glory in revelations, but, reporting thus before the sight of the Lord, do not lie in what we say. For we trust that we have not heard a lie from the Lord, relying on the voice of the apostle Paul, who declares: “For we are not, as so many, adulterating the word of God; but as from sincerity, as from God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.” So, set in the greatest grief over certain wasted members of our body, and groaning at the loss of the lamenting church, which through our sloth is reduced day by day to excessive fewness, we believe we are relieved in some measure by this: that the negligence of certain people cannot prejudice our diligence, since our letters have never failed them, letters which during my absence have made up to all for my presence. Let each one who despises it write himself down as guilty of his own disregard; but we, with a free brow, cry out to the despisers what Solomon confidently reproaches: “Because I called,” he says, “and you did not obey; and I stretched out my words, and you did not attend, but made my counsels void and did not attend to my rebukes, therefore I too will laugh at your destruction. I will rejoice over you when ruin comes upon you, when sudden tumult comes upon you and overthrow like a storm, and when distress and siege come upon you. For it shall be that when you call upon me, I will not hear you. The wicked will seek me and not find me; for they hated wisdom. They did not take up the word of the Lord, nor were they willing to attend to my counsels; for they spurned my rebukes. Therefore they shall eat the fruits of their way and be filled with their own impiety.”

Our exhortation now turns to you, whom we do not wish to experience such headlong ruins. Fear as much as you can the destructions of such falls, and let the experiences of those slipping in this overthrow terrify us. He is too reckless who strives to pass on when he has seen another fall, and he is very unbridled who is struck with no fear when another perishes. But he is a lover of his own salvation who avoids running into another's death; and he is provident who becomes anxious at the disasters of others, as Solomon approves, saying: “The shrewd man, seeing evil punished, will be greatly instructed”; and again: “When the wicked fall, the righteous will be greatly afraid.” Confidence is an adversary which commits its life to dangers as if they were certain, and hope is slippery which hopes to be saved amid the kindlings of sin. Victory is uncertain when one fights amid hostile weapons, and deliverance is impossible when one is surrounded by flames and does not burn. Solomon denies this, saying: “Who will bind fire in his bosom and not burn his clothes? Or who will walk on coals of fire and not burn his feet? So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; he will not be unpunished, nor anyone who touches her.” Believe, I beg you, believe the divine faithfulness rather than your own, since nothing that it promises can deceive, for the Lord says: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of the Law to fall.” And again: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” We deceive ourselves, then, whenever we believe in a disordered way, thinking that through our faith the precepts of the Law can be changed, so that we hope that unshakable chastity can be kept everywhere between men and women.

One will hardly drink poison and live. Whoever sleeps on a riverbank must fear falling in, since the apostle says: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” In this matter it is better to fear well than to trust badly. And it is more useful for a man to know himself weak so that he may prove strong than to wish to seem strong and turn out weak. For this reason the apostle rebukes the presumptuous, saying: “If anyone thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” Certainly a man is his own deceiver and cheats his own soul who, by not guarding against things contrary, has committed himself to harmful things. But he takes counsel more safely for himself who, always distrustful about evils, fears any harmful appearances. Solomon set out the difference between them, saying: “The wise man, by fearing, will turn away from all evil; but the fool, trusting in himself, mixes with the wicked.” A great counsel of divine wisdom has been found, by which we may be freed with the help of fear. A great economy of providence, that sometimes virtue and victory come through fear. Great remedies has the Lord bestowed for salvation, that even the timid may have praise, as Solomon repeats, saying: “Blessed is the man who reveres all things through fear.” Inestimable is the Lord's mercy, which has bestowed glory on his human creature from every side; and incomprehensible his goodness, which has given palms according to the kind of battles: so that by confidence we may overcome the savagery of men and by fear conquer the allurements of women, provided the Lord works glories over us both from strength and from weakness, so that in all and through all he may show himself almighty, distributing different kinds of triumphs, that wars may be won by us as much by counsel as by strength; and lest, if we conquered by the strength of faith alone, the works of wisdom should be empty, contrary to Solomon. Now, then, the arms of wisdom must be borne, where the female and male sexes declare war. So Solomon instructs, saying: “Make prudence known to you, that it may keep you from the strange and evil woman.” See now that in this war it is prudence, not faith, that has been given us as victor, prudence which would free us by the remedy of timidity; and consider what arms must now be taken up, if you wish to have the help of the Law. Be timid, so that you may be fearless; and although fear in combat seems weakness, yet according to the apostle's word, power is made perfect in weakness. Separate yourselves, I beg you, separate yourselves from the pestilential contagion.

The farther each one is from adversities, the less he feels adversities. He is less goaded by pleasures who is not where pleasures abound; and he suffers less from the troubles of greed who does not see riches, if we accept the apostle's assurance: “Those who wish to become rich fall into temptation and a snare and many useless and harmful desires, which plunge a man into ruin and destruction.” In just the same way he lies open to temptations who is joined to a woman, in whom there is nothing but what strikes the one who comes near. The female form has become the sting of sin, and the condition of death arose from nowhere else than from the substance of woman. Solomon recalls this for our caution, saying: “From a woman came the beginning of sin, and because of her we all die.” From that we are held mortal, and do we not fear? What if we were already immortal? Christ has indeed freed us through a woman, but we must still dread that from which we still die. Then deliverance itself will be established in the woman, if death, which had come through a woman, is overcome by us. But if scandals still rule around us through a woman, we have surely made a loss of Christ's deliverance; since that hope of freedom, which we believe Christ has bestowed on our faith, remains for the future, so that then a woman will not harm us at all, when death itself has been abolished. For if we now think ourselves untemptable by women's darts, then nothing remains for the heavenly kingdom. Not undeservedly the apostle rebukes such thoughts, saying: “Already you are filled, already you have become rich; without us you reign; and would that you did reign.” The time of wrestling, then, is still going on, and death through a woman still rages. I lie if we do not see from it the destruction of very many. How many and what great bishops and clergy, and laymen too, after the trampled contests of confessions and victories, after mighty deeds and signs and wonders shown everywhere, are known to have suffered shipwreck with all these, when they wished to sail in a fragile ship? How many lions has one delicate weakness tamed, which, though cheap and wretched, makes prey of the great? Solomon speaks of this, saying: “The price of a harlot is as much as one loaf; but a woman captures precious souls.”

These things are done before our eyes, and we are restrained by no terrors: what would we do if we heard of these deeds only as rumored histories? But this is always the unbelief of human hardness: not only by hearing but even by seeing it does not believe that others have perished, unless it sees itself perishing too. Nor is it shaken by the deaths of its companions, since it thinks they deserved it or were weak; but it confidently thinks itself of great merit or great strength, not knowing that examples are given to all when punishments are inflicted on some, as the Lord sets forth in the gospel, saying: “Do you think that these Galileans, who suffered such things, were sinners above all Galileans? No, I tell you; unless you repent, you will likewise perish, like those on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they too were debtors above all people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; if you do not repent, you will likewise perish.”

We wonder that Adam was seduced through Eve, whom no examples of the dying had preceded, but only one command had bound, when now neither countless examples nor endless commands restrain us. To us it is fittingly said, after the pattern of the Lord's rebuke: “If Adam had seen the deaths that have been done among you, he would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable for Adam on the day of judgment than for you.” Far, far away be this plague and pestilence and hidden ruin, the disordered nearness of a woman! It shoots darts, and its neighbor is the robbery of sins. In this companionship there is no approvable sincerity, since it has collisions as if from turbulent waves. In this familiarity no friendly concord dwells, since it creates nothing but discordant enmities. The Lord indeed made the woman a helper for the man, but by the serpent's envy she took on a hostile role. And if she who was born of her husband still tempts to this day the very man to whom she is joined, how much more she who is coupled to him bound by no law? And if those who are grown together as two in one flesh prick each other with mutual temptations, what do those do who were neither born nor joined in one flesh? Especially since he who is called away by love of another is no longer permitted to call upon God, nor allowed to think on divine things who has sought someone for whom to show domestic care. Therefore the apostle counsels thus, saying: “I want you to be free from anxiety. He who is without a wife is anxious how to please God; but he who has a wife thinks of the things of this world, how to please his wife.” What is there now to delight in this union, in which there are only battles? Or what usefulness favors it, where there are no conjugal duties, since even these cannot be secure? Everything that belongs to a woman is a cause of trouble, and union with her is always hostile. By her compact she causes great annoyances, and inflicts an incurable wound on the one to whom she has clung unlawfully. Sparks leap from coals, rust is bred from iron, asps hiss diseases, and a woman pours out the pestilence of desire, which Solomon compares thus, saying: “From garments comes the moth, and from a woman the iniquity of a man.” I want to know what this common affection is, what this disagreement of disease.

Always ambiguous, it troubles its own purpose by attacking it with wavering counsels. Why has he taken a woman to himself who scorned to marry a wife? Why does everyone who will not eat meat fill his dwelling with provisions of meat? And why does he who will not drink wine take his delight in wine? As if the mind were not often fed by having, without tasting, an abundance of food, and as if the mind were not more often aroused by the mere fragrance of scented wine. Why, through hypocrisy, does he wish to be called abstinent by people while in secret he is swollen with meat and drunkenness? Many have riches which they deny to their own use but keep out of desire; if no desire had clung to them, they would not possess the emblems of desire. But because they are possessed by desire, they enjoy in mind what they do not touch in use. So he who has despised the bond of marriage is bound by female bonds in another way: though he is joined in no intercourse, yet he always takes delight in desire, in sight, in conversation, in companionship. For if he had no desire for a woman, he would never take a woman for his delights. Indeed, he has given me a more suspicious resolve still, who took one who was not lawful and refused one who was lawful: unless I am mistaken, he has contrived in public to promise holiness to people and in secret not to be without a wife. Two proofs, of lust and of holiness, are to be wondered at on either side, each covering the other and each betraying the other. The ingenious eunuch and adulterer begrudges himself while he takes counsel for himself, and while he seeks both. He has done neither, so that he is by no means counted holy, who does not enjoy a true union, since the apostle Paul says: “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” But I grant that the modesty of this chastity has not been violated; yet he gives a bad reputation to the suspicious, and in vain guards within, by a laborious struggle, the good of modesty, which outwardly he causes to be defamed, destroying the teaching of the apostle Paul, who both foresees and warns: “Why,” he says, “is my liberty judged by an unbelieving conscience? If I partake with thanks, why am I blamed for that for which I give thanks?” It is worse than adultery to make continence criminal and holiness infamous. He brings blasphemy on the religion he has practiced who does not fulfill before all what he professes, so that Christianity is believed to be a deception and adultery seems to be clothed with the veil of holiness. For this reason the Lord forewarns in the gospel, saying: “So let your light shine before men, that seeing your good works they may magnify your Father who is in heaven.” The apostle Paul follows this, saying: “Let not your good, then, be blasphemed.” And again: “providing what is good not only before God but also before men.” And in another place: “Whether, then, you eat or drink or do anything, do all to the glory of God, and be without offense to Jews and Greeks and to the church of God, as I too please all in all things.”

But perhaps the objection is raised: what of his saying elsewhere, “If I wished to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ”? The sayings of the Law never exclude one another, but each answer is fixed to its own place. There it is not permitted to please men, where the will of men does not accept the will of the Lord; but where men accept what advances God's glory, the apostle Paul himself commanded that it be made known to all. “Let each of us,” he says, “please his neighbor for good edification.” How far, then, does he expect the reward of holiness who not only provokes blasphemy of holiness from unbelievers but also offers a ruinous example to the faithful? So that the weak, under the pretext of love, commit sexual immorality subtly, and the chaste man offers a lesson in a most unchaste chastity, destroying what the apostle Paul threatens: “Has the weak brother perished by your knowledge, for whom Christ suffered? Thus, sinning against the brothers and striking their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” And indeed it befits not only the young but the old as well to take care for the weakness of the brothers, lest old age, from which all salutary lessons should proceed, provoke the young to perish; as Eleazar in the book of Maccabees declares, saying, “to be sent ahead to the underworld.” “For it is not worthy of our age to pretend, so that many of the young, thinking that Eleazar at ninety years has gone over to the life of foreigners, should themselves be led astray through me, because of my pretense and for a short and perishable time of life, and I should bring hatred and stain on my old age.” He preferred to expose his life to tortures rather than become a teacher of ruin to anyone; and we, where there are no tortures, are unwilling to put the brothers who are to be saved before our mere indulgences, and are not content to benefit ourselves as well as others without any tortures, when he would not live, being about to die, as he went on below, saying: “Therefore, departing life bravely, I will appear worthy of my old age, and I will leave to the young a brave example, that with ready mind and courage they may depart by an honorable death for the grave and holy laws.” While this befits laymen too, so that they do not put before outsiders occasions for blasphemy or before the brotherhood an opportunity for sexual immorality, this necessity binds clergy most of all, on whom either religion blasphemed or the brotherhood ruined will bring a double penalty. Nor will those find any comfort at all in the Lord's judgment who have supplied tinder for sin to outsiders and brothers. For this reason the apostle Paul instructs Titus thus: “showing yourself an example of good works in teaching, in integrity, in gravity, in sound and blameless speech, so that the adversary may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.” And again: “Show all good faith, so that they may adorn the good teaching of our Savior the Lord in all things.” So too he writes to Timothy: “Be an example to the faithful in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in chastity.” And the apostle Peter also satisfies this, saying: “Let your conduct among the Gentiles be good, so that in that in which they speak against you as evildoers, they may glorify the Lord for your good works.” And again: “For such is the will of God, that by doing good you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.”

Nor let anyone put it to himself and say: “I want to have something to conquer.” For that is to say: “I desire to live under ruin.” Who is so foolish as to wish to be pressed into labor when he is offered a more comfortable triumph? For it is not a double triumph to be proved victor in the presence of a woman rather than to keep intact the pledge of holiness in living alone. And since there is one title of glory, in this case he is vainly brave who labors much and is rewarded equally with him who has conquered with little labor. What of the fact that he is rather written down as perfect who shows himself cut off on every side from female affections? For the Lord in the gospel calls him perfect who has cut away his whole patrimony from his own uses. Certainly, too, to anyone living alone daily triumphs for chastity are not lacking, since the human body never ceases to harass the spirit with carnal desires, as the apostle affirms, saying: “The flesh desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do whatever you wish.” You now have your own flesh to overcome always: why do you also want to hire another? No one wants to add a worse fever on top of one fever, lest he begin to suffer from an incurable semi-tertian, which no physician can relieve. Nor does anyone take up another's burden on top of his own, lest, weighed down by two burdens, he be sunk to the underworld. So the prophet Jeremiah teaches that the weight of holiness must be borne alone: “It is good,” he says, “for a man when he has carried a heavy yoke in his youth; he will sit alone and be silent, because he has taken a heavy yoke upon himself.”

But let some malicious follower flee to the saying of the apostle Paul: “Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.” These are not the burdens which the apostle Paul commands to be carried; rather, that no discord should divide us as we bear with one another, and that we should offer mutual help to brothers set in temptations; not that we should procure temptations for ourselves through women, but rather that we should lighten the weights of temptations, since he knows what the yoke of holiness is, which is borne alone with difficulty. Concerning it not only he but the Lord too was unwilling to lay down a fixed command, saying: “Not all receive this saying, but those to whom it has been given.” And again: “Let him who can receive it, receive it.” If, then, the greatness of this weight is borne with difficulty by one alone, how will it be borne if it is weighed down with doubled weights? And if almost all who live alone barely endure carnal snares, what do those do who do not hesitate to fall on swords hanging over them from both sides? I say more. If husbands and wives, who daily satisfy conjugal desires, are not enough for themselves, what are they to do who are associated with women to increase the attacks, when even a woman's glance, met unexpectedly or in passing for a moment, shoots as it were arrows into another's eyes? When simple reverence is not free, what goes on where a woman takes on the boldness of liberty in sharing a dwelling? When in household tasks she now bares her arms and thighs in woolwork, now, being hot, uncovers her limbs, now tired tosses herself about, or sometimes dissolves in laughter, now shows caresses, and, what is more poisonous than all, delights to play the harp or sing? It is more tolerable to hear the hissing of a basilisk than her singing. Against her Solomon makes us cautious, saying: “Do not be constantly with a dancing girl, nor listen to her, lest you perish by her power.” I pass over the rest, which is more shameful to say than to speak of; this alone I say: to see a woman broken in grief or anger is already not without allurement. What shall we say if you see her merry or, what is worse, caressing? Let me say it once: every unfitting companionship of women is the glue of sins and the poisoned birdlime with which the devil goes fowling. The society of women is unsuitable, whose companionship Solomon again teaches us to guard against in every way: “Do not sit at all with a strange woman,” he says, “and do not dispute with her over wine, lest your heart turn toward her and you slip in your blood into destruction.”

Finally, if we trust that our own mind will always persevere in this shared life, at least this ought to be suspect to us: that the women who live with us may perhaps be moved toward us, or, because of their hasty age, be goaded by frenzied incitements to other loves; and it will be a cause for us, which is worse, that another's sexual immorality should stain us without cause, since with us an occasion for the brothel is suggested to others, and we shall be swallowed up in the crime of another's guilt, for which we ourselves suborn the procuring of impurity. For this reason the apostle Paul instructs us thus about similar things: “If your brother is offended because of food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not by your food destroy him for whom Christ died.” And again: “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or weakened.” And in another place: “Rather judge this, not to put a stumbling block or occasion of offense before a brother.” And of himself he says: “Therefore, if food offends my brother, I will never eat meat, lest I offend my brother.” So, since the detestable trouble of this union strikes us, even if it cannot make us adulterers, it makes us procurers for adulterers and the incestuous. For who, searching another's heart, could weigh the quality of each one, and presume to fight against Satan on behalf of another person, and to be a fit surety before God? He is mad who promises anything about himself, not to say if he is seen to give a pledge for a woman too, since the apostle Paul declares of himself thus: “Not that I have already received, or am already justified, or already perfect; but I follow on, if I may lay hold of that for which I also have been laid hold of by Christ. Brothers, I do not consider that I have yet laid hold of it; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and stretching forward to what lies ahead, I follow by the rule toward the prize of the upward call of our Lord Jesus Christ. As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us think this.” And again: “To me it is a very small thing to be judged by you or by any human day; I do not even judge myself. He who judges me is the Lord.” And in another place: “Blessed is he who does not judge himself in what he approves.” Although, then, we have nothing certain about our own steadfastness, we who are ceaselessly shaken among the waves of the world, bearing its stormy onsets, yet if anyone has such confidence in the immovability of his own firmness, let him at least anxiously dread being a stumbling block in others' sight, and be terrified at the voice of the Lord threatening: “Woe to this world because of offenses; but woe to that man through whom the offense comes.” If we fear and revere these threats of the Lord with a religious heart, let us fear our danger more from others than from ourselves, who are bound by the apostle Paul to mutual benefits: “not each considering his own things,” he says, “but those of others.” And again: “Let no one seek his own, but what is another's.”

But someone seizes on something from Paul himself to object: “Each of us,” he says, “will give account of himself to God, and each will carry his own load.” He, then, who does not wish to give account for another ought not to take part unlawfully in his affairs or business; and he who tries to be free and exempt from others' loads should, by the opposite rule, keep nothing of another's in his charge. For he who has handled another's business must be subject to the other's account. He must be bound by the loss or damage of the loads with whom a brother's loads perished under unsafe custody; for whatever in our house has been under too little protection, or thieves have broken into, is ours, and whatever has been badly done through our sloth is required of us. Then indeed we are free of one another, when nothing of another's is kept with us.

Perhaps someone will say: “Then we should not even gather together in the house of prayer, lest anyone offend anyone?” This slanderous objection is of heretical profession, which prejudges good things in order to assert evil things, which pronounces against holiness in order subtly to introduce impurity, which raises slanders about what is lawful in order to obtain what is unlawful. For this reason the apostle Paul answered this heresy beforehand, saying: “Nevertheless neither is woman without man nor man without woman in the Lord.” Far, far be it that women should be excluded everywhere or that permission be given everywhere. They have their places: with a husband, with children, with brothers, with parents, with servants; and in the house of prayer only, alongside all the clergy. But in a single dwelling they do not suitably have companions without kinship. This is the balance that stands; whatever has tilted the balance cannot stand, as Scripture says: “You shall not turn aside to the right or to the left”; and the Lord in the gospel: “Whatever is more is from evil.” Learn now the measure of moderation, you who seek excess through license. Love women amid the sacred solemnities and hate them in private companionship, if you wish to keep the teaching of Solomon: “a time to love,” he says, “and a time to hate.”

The company of women must be guarded against, then, when the business of carnal cares is carried on in continual agreement; for amid its cares the flesh always provokes incitements of desire and gives birth to kindlings of sin there, where, handling the conveniences of temporal life, it has felt itself relaxed a little by its thoughts, as Solomon asserts, saying: “The earthly dwelling weighs down the mind that thinks of many things.” But in the assembly of the sacred rites, where the Spirit rules, the handmaid, knowing herself, loses the use of her pleasure, loses luxury too while heavenly things are treated, while the holy mysteries are celebrated. All humanity is occupied where all things are not human but divine; where veneration, or terror and trembling, strikes all minds, carnal substance is surely buried. Even amid the very traffic of the flesh many neglect bodily pleasure, when soldiers in the legions practice the exercises of their years, or the forum resounds with lawsuits, or lecture halls echo with letters, or merchants press on with their trade, or craftsmen are bent on their crafts: how much more where the work carried on is not the carnal work of men but the spiritual work of angels? Attacks can do nothing there, where the demons themselves give way, and no difference of either sex is allowed to be considered, where neither age nor rank but equality alone reigns; and, to say it more fully, all there receive such sense that even married life is forgotten, where Christ speaks, is heard, is attended to, and through all and in all he alone is everything, as the apostle testifies, saying: “where there is not Jew and Greek, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian and Scythian, male and female, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all.” It is plainly a glory to celebrate this assembly with women, in which there is no distinction of kind, which is permitted to make all equal without any difference, so that even in baptism no one's nakedness blushes, where the infancy of Adam and Eve is renewed, and one does not lay aside but rather receives a tunic.