SIXTH LETTER

ABELARD TO HELOISE

Love, my dearest sister, divine love leads you to ask about the origin of your calling and how the religious life of nuns began. I will respond to you and to your daughters in the spirit as directly and succinctly as I can.¹ The order of monastics, of nuns and monks alike, took the form of its religious life most fully from Jesus Christ, our Lord. Even before his incarnation, though, the rudiments of this way of life existed among men and women both; hence, Jerome can write to Rusticus about “the sons of the prophets, the monks we read of in the Old Testament,”² and the Gospel speaks of the widow Anna, who devoted herself to God and the temple and, alongside Simeon, was found worthy to receive the Lord in the temple and to prophesy about him when he came.³ But Christ is the end of righteousness and the consummation of all good, and in the fullness of time he came to reveal the good that had been hidden and to perfect what as yet had only been begun. And coming as he did to summon men and women both to their redemption, he thought it best to unite each sex in the true monkhood of his community. In this, then, lies the source and the foundation of the calling for men and women both, its perfection of life set out for all to follow.

Already in the Gospel we read of a gathering of holy women who, along with the apostles and other disciples and the mother of the Lord herself, renounced the world and all of their possessions to be possessed of Christ alone. “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance,” it is written, and they fulfilled the precept the Lord laid down, by which all those who turn from the world may enter into this communal life: “Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple.”⁴ They followed Christ devotedly—these most blessed women, these nuns in the true sense—winning honor and favor from Christ himself and later from the apostles, as our sacred histories carefully record. We read in the Gospel, for example, that the Lord rebuked the Pharisee who had invited him to his table and then complained that his hospitality was valued less than the service of the woman who had sinned.⁵ We also read that, when the resurrected Lazarus sat with the others among the guests, his sister Martha served at supper alone, and that Mary poured a pound of precious oil on the feet of the Lord and dried them with her hair—the fragrance of the oil filled the house, angering the disciples with its seeming vanity and cost, and leading Judas finally into greed.⁶ So, while Martha was busy with the food, Mary dispensed the oil: one inwardly, one outwardly, they both attended to the Lord.

Only women ministered to the Lord, according to the Gospel, devoting their resources to his daily maintenance and providing the necessities of this life. He himself would serve the disciples at table and wash their feet as an example of complete humility;⁷ but we never hear of any disciple, or in fact of any man, doing this for him, only of women, as I’ve said, rendering him these and other services his humanity required. Martha, we see, did it in one way and Mary in another; and Mary served the Lord with all the more devotion, the more sinful her earlier life had been. When he washed the disciples’ feet, the Lord poured water out into a basin; Mary used the tears of her inner remorse. He dried their feet with a linen cloth; she used her hair in place of linen. And she added oil over and above, which is nothing we read the Lord had ever done. The woman then so presumed upon his favor that she also anointed his head with oil, not simply letting it pour from an alabaster bottle but breaking the bottle open, it is said, in her desire to show her great devotion, so that once it had been used for such a service, it never could be put to use again. In this she fulfilled the prophecy of Daniel, that the time would come when the Holy of Holies would be anointed.⁸ And see—it was a woman who anointed the Holy of Holies and by her act proclaimed that he was the one whom the prophet had predicted and the one in whom she placed her faith. I ask you then, What is this benevolence of the Lord? Or what is this intrinsic dignity of women, that the Lord would offer his head as well as his feet to no one but to them to be anointed? What is this prerogative of the weaker sex, that the supreme Christ, who from his very conception had been anointed by all the oils of the Holy Spirit, should be anointed again, and by a woman, as though she consecrated him priest and king with these material sacraments and made him the Christ in body, that is to say, the Anointed One?

We know that the patriarch Jacob first anointed a stone in type of the Lord,⁹ and that afterward only men could anoint priests and kings or celebrate any rite of unction—although women may at times perform baptisms. As the patriarch once sanctified a stone, the bishop now sanctifies a temple and an altar with oil. Men thus enact these sacraments in symbols, but a woman wrought in truth itself, as the Truth himself proclaimed, “The woman wrought a good work upon me.”¹⁰ Christians are anointed by men, Christ himself by a woman; the members of the Church by men, its head by a woman. And she let the oil pour upon his head not drop by drop, it is said, but in full flow, in accord with what the bride in Canticles sings: “Thy name is as oil poured out.” The veiled speech of the Psalmist, too, prefigures this abundance: “Like the precious oil on the head that ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, which ran down to the hem of his garment.”¹¹

We read that David was anointed three times over, as Jerome points out in his commentary on Psalm 26, and Christ and Christians also three times over. For Christians it is at baptism, confirmation, and the anointing of the sick. For the Lord it was when a woman anointed his feet and then his head with oil, and when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus prepared his body with spices after his death, as the Gospel of John reports.¹² Consider, then, the dignity of the woman who anointed Christ twice while he was still alive, his feet and then his head, as she consecrated him priest and king. The myrrh and aloes used to preserve the bodies of the dead prefigured the incorruptibility of his body, which at their resurrection the chosen of God will share; but his earlier anointings by a woman express the dignity unique to Christ as priest and king, the higher dignity by the anointing of his head and the lower by the anointing of his feet. He accepted the sacrament of kingship from a woman when he had rejected a kingdom offered him by men and even fled when they came to seize him and force him to be king.¹³ But it was as heavenly, not as earthly, king that she anointed him, for as he later said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”¹⁴ Our bishops strut in all their pride when they anoint earthly kings, and all the populace watches and applauds; or they dress themselves in their fine golden robes when they consecrate mortal priests, and in fact they often bless those whom God cursed. But the woman was humility itself—no change of garment, no elaborate rite, and the apostles even took offense—when she performed this sacrament for Christ, invested with no office of the Church but only with the merit of her devotion. How great is the constancy of faith, how priceless the fervor of charitable love, which “believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”¹⁵ The Pharisee complained when a sinner anointed the feet of Christ, and the apostles were outraged that a woman had dared anoint his head. But a woman’s faith remained unmoved on each of these occasions, trusting in the goodness of the Lord, and thus she won his favor. Her oils were acceptable and pleasing to the Lord, and when Judas objected, he said to him, “Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of my burial.”¹⁶ In other words, “Do not dismiss her service to the living, or you deny her devotion to the dead.”

Women prepared the spices for the burial of the Lord—this is certain—which this woman would not have done with the same intense devotion if her earlier service had been refused. But when the disciples turned on her in anger, Mark recounts, the Lord answered them with mild words and praised her act of kindness, even saying it should be included in the Gospel, that wherever the Gospel itself would be proclaimed, her act would also be proclaimed as her memorial, praise for the woman who had done this daring thing.¹⁷ Nowhere do we read of any act of any other person receiving such commendation from the Lord. Then—and earlier when he praised the poor widow’s gift over any other offerings to the temple¹⁸—he showed how thoroughly acceptable to him was the devotion of women. Peter once boasted that he and his fellow apostles had renounced all things for Christ,¹⁹ and Zacchaeus, who received the Lord at his coming, gave half of all his riches to the poor and returned fourfold whatever he might have taken deceitfully;²⁰ and there were many others who had given even more on Christ’s behalf, had made far richer offerings to God, or had renounced even more to follow Christ. But none of them won such praise from the Lord as the praise he gave to women.

We see their devotion to him most clearly toward the end of his life. When Peter, the prince of the apostles, denied the Lord and John, the beloved apostle, ran away, when the rest of the apostles then were scattered, these women remained firm.²¹ No terror, no despair could keep them from Christ, not in his Passion nor in his death, and to them in particular the words of the Apostle apply: “What then shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation or distress? Shall famine, nakedness, danger, persecution, or the sword?”²² Matthew says of himself and the others, “Then all of the disciples left him and fled,” but he also says that the women were undaunted, staying with the crucified Lord so long as it was allowed them—“There were many women there afar off, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him”—and waiting without stirring from his tomb: “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sat against the sepulcher.” Mark, too, speaks about these women:

And there were also women looking on afar off, among whom was Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome, those who followed him when he was in Galilee and ministered to him, and many other women that came up with him to Jerusalem.²³

John tells how he was there beside the cross, standing by the crucified Lord although he had run away before; but before he mentions himself, he mentions the resolution of the women, as though it were the force of their example that heartened him and called him back:

There stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother, “Woman, behold thy son.” After that, he saith to the disciple, “Behold thy mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.²⁴

Now the failure of the disciples and the constancy of the women had already been predicted long before, that is, by Job, who was speaking in the persona of the Lord: “The flesh being consumed, my bone hath cleaved to my skin, and nothing but lips are left around my teeth.”²⁵ The strength of the body lies in the bone, which supports the flesh and skin. In the body of Christ, which is the Church, the bone is the foundation of the faith or the fervor of that charitable love about which it is sung, “Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it,”²⁶ and which, the Apostle says, “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”²⁷ The flesh is the inward part of the body and the skin its outward part; and so, the apostles, who looked to the inward nourishment of the soul, and the women, who supplied the necessities of the body, can be compared to the flesh and skin. When the flesh was consumed, the bone of Christ cleaved to the skin; that is to say, while the apostles fell away at the Passion of the Lord and yielded to despair at his death, the dedication of these holy women remained unmoved, not drawing back from the bone of Christ even to the slightest extent. It held so firm in faith, hope, and love that they never could be apart from him in body or in mind, even after his death. Since men are by nature stronger than women both in body and in mind, masculine nature is signified by the flesh, which is nearer the bone, and feminine weakness by the skin. The apostles are also called the teeth of the Lord, since it is their duty to bite, as it were, at the faults of others. And so, only the lips had been left for them—that is to say, their words and not their deeds—since in their despair they more spoke of Christ than they acted on his behalf.

Such were the disciples, then, to whom the Lord appeared as they went out to Emmaus, talking with each other about what had happened and earning his reproach for their despair.²⁸ Peter and the others had nothing else but words when the Lord foretold their failure at his Passion:

“Even if they all shall fall away on thy account,” Peter said, “I will never fall away…. Yea, though I should die with thee, I will not deny thee.” And all of the disciples said the same.²⁹

Yes, they all said the same but did not act. And so, the first and greatest of the apostles—the one whose constancy to the Lord in words could lead him to pronounce, “I am ready to go with thee, both into prison and to death,” the one into whose hands the Lord had just entrusted his Church, saying, “And thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren”—this very one denied the Lord at a single sound from a serving-maid.³⁰ Not once but three times did he do it, denying Christ while he was still alive; and all of the disciples, too, deserted him while he was still alive.

The women, on the other hand, would not part from the Lord in body or in mind, even after his death. The blessed sinner, Mary Magdalene, searched for his body, proclaiming him her Lord: “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher,” she said; “if thou hast taken him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him and I will take him away.”³¹ The rams all flee and the shepherds of the flock, but the ewes are unafraid. For their weakness of the flesh the Lord reproached the men because even at the moment of his Passion they could not stay awake with him one hour.³² But the women spent a sleepless night in tears beside his tomb, and thus they were found worthy to be first to see the glory of the risen Lord. By their devotion after his death, by their deeds and not only their words, they showed how much they had loved him while he was still alive.³³ From their concern about his Passion and his death, they became the first to rejoice in his resurrection to life. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped his body in linen along with spices for his burial, according to John, but Mark tells how Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph were watching to see where the body was laid.³⁴ Luke also speaks of them: “And the women that were come with Jesus from Galilee, following after, saw the sepulcher and how his body was laid. And returning, they prepared spices and ointments”—since the spices of Nicodemus would not have been enough if they had not added their own—“and on the Sabbath day they rested, according to the commandment.”³⁵ And then, Mark tells us, when the Sabbath was over, in the earliest morning on the very day of his resurrection, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome came to his tomb.³⁶

That was their devotion—now for the honor they won. First, they saw an angel, who brought them comfort in the news that he had risen. Then they saw the Lord himself and touched him with their hands. The very first was Mary Magdalene, whose devotion was more fervent than the rest. Soon after they saw the angel, she and the others

went out from the sepulcher … running to tell his disciples about the resurrection of the Lord. And behold, Jesus met them, saying: “All hail.” But they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them: … “Go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee. There they shall see me.”³⁷

Luke says, “It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary mother of James and the other women that were with them, who told these things to the apostles,” and Mark says that they were sent to the apostles by the angel: “He is risen” the angel said, “he is not here…. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee.”³⁸ But first the Lord himself appeared to Mary Magdalene and told her, “Go to my brethren and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God.”³⁹ From this we conclude that these holy women were appointed female apostles, so to speak, to the apostles,⁴⁰ being sent—whether by angels or by the Lord—to announce the joy of his resurrection and to bring the apostles the first tidings of what they would later preach to all the world.

After the resurrection, Matthew tells us, the Lord greeted the women as a mark of his great favor and concern. We never read that he gave the formal greeting of “All hail” to anyone but them—on the contrary, he had ordered his disciples to refrain from any greeting: “Greet no one by the way,” he said, as if he would reserve for devout women the privilege he himself would show them when he had attained the glory of his immortality. Then, after his ascension, when the apostles had returned from the Mount of Olives and assembled in that sacred gathering in Jerusalem, the women joined them in their constant devotion, as the Acts of the Apostles tell: “All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women and with Mary the mother of Jesus.”⁴¹

Now these Hebrew women had turned to the faith while the Lord was still preaching and living in the flesh, and they first adopted the form of this religious life; but there were also the widows of the Greeks who were received by the apostles afterward, and we must now consider them as well. Their care was entrusted to Stephen, first martyr and glorious standard-bearer in the army of the Lord, and to other men of the Holy Spirit, as the Acts of the Apostles record:

The number of the disciples increasing, there arose a murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews, for that their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve, calling together the multitude of the disciples, said: “It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And the saying was liked by all the multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Prochoros and Nicanor, and Timon and Parmenas and Nicolas of Antioch. These they sat before the apostles, and they, praying, imposed hands on them.⁴²

It was the highest tribute to Stephen’s self-restraint that he would have been selected for the task. Ministering to holy women was a noble service in the eyes of God and the apostles, as they indicated by their prayer and laying on of hands: those whom they appointed were solemnly entreated, as it were, by blessing and by prayer to act as faithfully as they could in aiding them. In fact, Saint Paul would claim this service as his own to help him fulfill his duties as apostle: “Have we not the power to carry about a woman, a sister as well as the rest of the apostles?” he said.⁴³ In other words, “May we too not bring holy women with us when we preach? The other apostles do this, and the women provide the necessities for them from their substance.” As Augustine says in his book on the work of monks:

Faithful women of means would go with them and provide for them from their substance so that they would lack none of the necessities of life…. If anyone doubts that women of holy life traveled with the apostles wherever they preached the Gospel …, let him but read the Gospel itself and learn that in this they had the example of the Lord…. In the Gospel of Luke it is written: “And it came to pass afterwards that he traveled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God, and the twelve with him and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary who is called Magdalene …, and Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for him from their substance.”⁴⁴

Again we see how women sustained the bodily needs of the Lord when he went out to preach and how they traveled with him and the apostles as their inseparable companions.

Soon after the beginning of the Church, the number of women living the religious life, like the number of men, had grown to the point where women, like men, took up residence in monasteries of their own. The History of the Church records the praise the learned Jew Philo gave the church of Alexandria under Mark; in Book 2, Chapter 17 we read:

There are people leading this life in many parts of the world…. In each place there is a house of prayer called a semneion, a holy place or monastery…. There they not only learn the hymns of the ancient sages but compose new hymns to God in a range of different melodies and meters, singing them in sweet and solemn arrangement.

He spoke at length about their austerity and their worship of God, and then continued:

Along with the men I have mentioned, there are also women, most of them elderly virgins who maintain their chastity not out of some necessity but out of devotion. They consecrate themselves body and soul to the pursuit of wisdom and think it unworthy to give over to lust the vessel which had been prepared to receive that wisdom, or to bring forth mortal children when their relations ought to be the sacred and immortal intercourse with God’s word, which leaves no offspring subject to the corruption of death.

“Philo also wrote about their meetings, about the segregation of men and women living in a single place, and about the vigils they kept in the way that we still do.”⁴⁵

The Tripartite History has this to say in praise of the Christian philosophical life, that is, the monastic privilege taken up no less by women than by men:

Some say the founder of this most scrupulous philosophy was the prophet Elijah; others say it was John the Baptist. Philo the Pythagorean says that the outstanding Hebrews of his time came from all over to take up the practice of philosophy on an estate overlooking the Lake of Mary. Their dwellings, food, and discourse are of the kind we now see among the monks of Egypt. He also writes that they … touched no food before sunset …, completely abstained from meat and wine, ate only bread flavored with hyssop and salt, and drank only water. Women lived among them, older virgins who, from their love for philosophy, abstained from marriage of their own accord.⁴⁶

[And Jerome has this to say in praise of Mark and his church in Chapter 8 of his book on distinguished men:

The first to bring the news of Christ to Alexandria, he established a church of such rigor and self-restraint that all the followers of Christ were led to take up his example. Philo, the most eloquent among the Jews, saw that the church of Alexandria continued Jewish practices at first, and so he wrote a book on its way of life, as if in praise of his own people. As Luke tells of the communal life of the faithful in Jerusalem, Philo records what he observed in Alexandria under the tutelage of Mark.

And in Chapter 11:

Philo, an Alexandrian by birth and from a priestly family of Jews, is nonetheless considered among the historians of the Church because he praises our people in the book he wrote about the church in Alexandria, established by the evangelist Mark. He speaks about them not only in Alexandria but in many different regions, and he calls their residences monasteries.⁴⁷

Monastics now strive to follow the ways of the early Church, holding no property of their own, none of them rich, none of them poor, sharing their inheritance with those in need, devoting themselves to prayers and psalms, to learning and self-restraint—as Luke recounts of the first believers in Jerusalem.]⁴⁸

In earlier history, too, no distinction is made between women and men in any matter that pertains to God or in any particular of the religious life. Women sang hymns, as men did, and composed them as well. In fact, the very first song the people of Israel sang to the Lord on their deliverance from bondage was sung by men and women both, which became the source and precedent for the role of women in the divine services of the Church:

Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went forth after her with timbrels and with dances. And she began the song to them, saying, “Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea.”⁴⁹

There is no mention here of Moses acting as a prophet or singing as Miriam did, and no mention of men taking up timbrels and dancing as the women did. When Miriam is called a prophetess in her song, it is not because she recited or dictated what she sang but because her voice was lifted in prophetic utterance. When it is said that she began the song to them, we understand that they all chanted in concord and fine order. That they sang with timbrels and with dances and not with the voice alone suggests their great devotion, certainly, but also signifies in veiled speech the form of song particular to monastic congregations. We too are urged to the same form of song by the Psalmist who tells us, “Praise him with timbrel and dance,” that is, in the mortification of the flesh and the concord of that charitable love about which it is written, “The multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul.”⁵⁰ That all the women went forth in song signifies the joys of the contemplative soul, which, so long as it is fixed on heavenly things, abandons, as it were, the tabernacle of its earthly dwelling and makes a hymn to the Lord from the inner sweetness of its own contemplation. Hence, in the Old Testament we also have the songs of Deborah, Hannah, and the widow Judith, and in the Gospel the song of Mary, mother of the Lord.⁵¹ [Hannah’s offering of her son Samuel to the tabernacle of the Lord set the precedent for accepting children into monasteries, as Isidore writes to the monks of the Honorian abbey, Chapter 5:

Whoever has been designated for the monastery by his parents must know that he will remain there in perpetuity. For Hannah gave her son Samuel to God, and he remained in the service of the temple as his mother had intended, serving where he was established.]⁵²

Clearly the daughters of Aaron belonged to the sanctuary and shared with their brothers in the portion of Levi, the means the Lord established for their maintenance. As he said to Aaron in the Book of Numbers:

All the first fruits of the sanctuary which the children of Israel offer to the Lord, I have given to thee and to thy sons and daughters by a perpetual ordinance.⁵³

Hence, women in religious life, it seems, were not distinct from the order of clerics. Their titles also clearly were the same, since we speak of deaconesses along with deacons, recognizing, as it were, both male and female members of the tribe of Levi. In the Book of Numbers, too, we read how the consecration of Nazirites of the Lord, which entailed the strictest form of religious vow, applied to women as well as men. As the Lord said to Moses:

Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, “When a man or woman shall make a vow to be sanctified and will consecrate themselves to the Lord, they shall abstain from wine and from every thing that may make a man drunk. They shall not drink vinegar of wine or of any other drink, nor any thing that is pressed out of the grape, nor shall they eat grapes either fresh or dried. All the days that they are consecrated to the Lord by vow, they shall eat nothing that cometh of the vineyard, from the raisin even to the kernel.⁵⁴

It was women of this way of life, I believe, who watched at the door of the tabernacle, and from whose mirrors Moses made a basin for Aaron and his sons to wash themselves. It is written:

Moses set out a bronze vessel for Aaron and his sons to wash themselves … which he fashioned from the mirrors of the women who watched at the door of the tabernacle.⁵⁵

We read of their fervor and devotion as they watched outside the closed door of the tabernacle, praying and keeping vigil through the night, while the men were asleep. That the door was closed to them signifies the life of penitents, who keep themselves apart from the rest to afflict themselves with harsher penance—indeed, the monastic calling in particular is said to be just such a life, nothing, that is, but a relatively mild form of penance. The tabernacle also must be understood symbolically, as the Apostle understood it in his letter to the Hebrews: “We have an altar whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle”⁵⁶—that is to say, no one is fit to have a share in the altar who indulges in the pleasures of the body while serving in this life on earth as in a camp. The door of the tabernacle is the end of this life on earth, when the soul goes forth from the body to enter into the life to come. Those who watch at the door are those who are concerned with the transit from this life and by repentance so arrange their death as to be worthy of eternal life. [The Psalmist refers to this daily entering in and going out of the holy Church in his prayer, “May the Lord keep thy coming in and thy going out.”⁵⁷ He keeps our coming in and going out when, once we have left this life and have been purged through our repentance, he leads us directly to that other life. The Psalmist very properly places “coming in” before “going out,” acknowledging its priority in value, if not in time, since we leave this mortal life in pain but come to that eternal life in highest exaltation.] [The women’s mirrors are the outward works by which the beauty or ugliness of the soul is judged, like a human face by a material mirror. So, the vessel in which Aaron and his sons wash themselves is fashioned from these mirrors when the works of holy women and the constancy of their sex become a rebuke to the negligence of priests and bishops and move them to tears of remorse: if they look after the women as they should, the women’s works will win them pardon for their sins. Saint Gregory turned these mirrors into a vessel of remorse for himself when he marveled at the virtue of holy women and at their victory in martyrdom, asking with a groan:

What will big bearded men have to say when these delicate girls bear such burdens for Christ and the members of the fragile sex triumph in a struggle that wins them the double crown of virginity and martyrdom?]⁵⁸

I have no doubt that the blessed Anna belonged among those women standing watch outside the door, the ones who had consecrated their widowhood to the Lord as if they were his female Nazirites. For she, no less than Simeon, was found worthy to receive the unique Nazirite of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and to recognize him through the Holy Spirit at the same hour Simeon did, becoming something greater than a prophet as she revealed his presence and publicly proclaimed him to the world. [As Luke recounts:

There was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser. She was far advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity. And she was a widow until fourscore and four years, who departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day. Now she, at the same hour, coming in, confessed to the Lord, and spoke of him to all that looked for the redemption of Jerusalem.⁵⁹

Note each thing he says and how he praises her in such detail. The grace she was granted with the gift of prophecy, her father, her tribe, the seven years she lived with her husband, the long period of her widowhood, which she devoted to God, her dedicated service to the temple, her fasting and her prayers, her praise of the Lord and her thanks to him, her public proclamation of the Savior who had been promised and now was born—all this the evangelist carefully sets down. He had praised Simeon earlier, but for his righteousness and not his prophetic gift, and he made no mention of his austerity or self-restraint nor said anything about his speaking of Christ to others.]

Also among the women of this calling are the true widows Saint Paul described to Timothy:

Honor widows that are widows indeed…. She that is a widow indeed and desolate, let her trust in God and continue in prayer night and day…. And this give in charge, that they may be blameless…. If any of the faithful have widows, let him minister to them and let not the Church be charged, so that there may be sufficient for them that are widows indeed.⁶⁰

The true widows, widows indeed, are those who have not disgraced their widowhood by a second marriage and have dedicated themselves to God out of devotion, not necessity. They are desolate having renounced the world and all their earthly possessions with no one to care for them. Such women, Paul instructs us, must be honored and supported by the Church, as if from the property of Christ, their Husband; and from their number women should be chosen for the ministry of the diaconate, as he says:

Let a widow be chosen of no less than threescore years of age, who hath been the wife of one husband, having testimony for her good works, if she have brought up children, if she have offered hospitality, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have ministered to them that suffer tribulation, if she have diligently followed every good work. But the younger widows avoid.⁶¹

[Jerome comments on this passage: “Avoid appointing to the diaconate someone who would set a bad example for others.”⁶² Younger widows are more likely to set this bad example, being less steady and more open to temptation through their lack of experience, as Paul had learned from his own observation.]⁶³ He goes on to explain:

For when they have grown wanton in Christ, they will marry, having damnation because they have made void their first faith. And being idle, they learn to go about from house to house, and are not only idle but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will, therefore, that the younger should marry, bear children, be mistresses of families, and give the adversary no occasion to speak evil. For some are already turned aside after Satan.⁶⁴

And Saint Gregory agrees, writing to Maximus, bishop of Syracuse:

We strictly forbid young abbesses. Bishops should only give the veil to virgins at least sixty years of age whose life and character have been thoroughly tested.⁶⁵

Those we now call abbesses were once called deaconesses, that is, ministers rather than mothers. The word deacon itself means minister or servant, and deaconesses were named for the ministerial function of their service rather than their rank. This is in accord with both the words and the example of the Lord: “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant,” he said, and “For which is greater, he that sitteth at table or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at table? But I am in the midst of you, as he that serveth,” and “Even as the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister.”⁶⁶ So, when Jerome objected to the use of the term abbot, knowing how many gloried in the name, he relied on the authority of the Lord. Commenting on the phrase, “Crying, ‘Abba, Father,’” in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, he said:

Abba is the Hebrew word for father … and the Lord said that only God should be called father. I do not understand, then, how we can use that term in monasteries, of ourselves or of someone else. The Lord also told us not to swear oaths, so if we do not swear oaths, we should not call any man father. If we understand father otherwise, we will have to think otherwise about swearing oaths.⁶⁷

The Phoebe whom Saint Paul commended to the Romans was certainly one of these early deaconesses:

I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is in the ministry of the church in Cenchrae, that you receive her in the Lord as becometh saints and that you assist her in whatsoever business she shall have need of you. For she also hath assisted many, and myself also.⁶⁸

In their commentaries on this passage, both Cassiodorus and Claudius assert that Phoebe was indeed a deaconess of her church. Cassiodorus says:

He means she was a deaconess of her mother church, an office which still exists today in parts of the Greek world as a kind of training. In that church deaconesses are allowed to perform baptisms.

And Claudius:

The passage tells us on apostolic authority that women also may be ordained in the ministry of the Church. Phoebe had such an office in the church of Cenchrae, and the Apostle praises her highly.⁶⁹

When Paul writes to Timothy about the ranks of the Church ministry, he discusses these women along with deacons and holds them to a similar moral standard:

Deacons should be chaste, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre, holding the mystery of faith in a pure conscience. And let them also first be proved, and so let them minister, having no crime. The women also should be chaste, not slanderers but sober and faithful in all things. Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, who rule their children and their own houses well; for they that have ministered well shall purchase to themselves a good degree and much confidence in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.⁷⁰

Deacons must not be double-tongued, he says, and deaconesses not be slanderers; deacons must not be given to much wine and deaconesses must be sober— all the other details he summarizes as faithful in all things. Deacons, like bishops, cannot have been married more than once, nor can deaconesses, as we noted before:

Let a widow be chosen of no less than threescore years of age, who hath been the wife of one husband, having testimony for her good works, if she have brought up children, if she have offered hospitality, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have ministered to them that suffer tribulation, if she have diligently followed every good work. But the younger widows avoid.

In fact, Paul is more precise in his requirements of deaconesses than he is in his requirements of deacons or of bishops. A deaconess must have testimony for her good works and must have offered hospitality, but not a deacon. Of a deaconess he says if she have washed the saints’ feet and so on, but says nothing of a deacon or bishop beyond their having no crime. A deaconess should be blameless, he insists, but he adds that she should have diligently followed every good work. He also is cautious in stipulating her age—no less than threescore years—eager for her to have a general authority and command respect for her years as well as her mode of life.

[For a similar reason, the Lord set Peter over all the other disciples despite his greater love for John. There is less resentment at the preferment of an elder: we are more willing to obey him since his precedence derives not only from his character but from the passage of time and the order of nature itself. As Jerome says of the choice of Peter:

A single one is chosen, one head appointed to reduce the chance of schism. But why wasn’t it John? Well, Peter was the elder, and deference was paid to age to keep someone who was young—still almost a boy, in fact—from being preferred to men of advanced years. The good master forestalled quarrels among his students, as he should, giving them no cause to envy the youngster whom he loved.⁷¹

Similarly, the abbot in the Lives of the Fathers transferred seniority from a younger to an elder brother even though the younger had joined the monastery first: the elder would take it hard, he was afraid, if his younger brother in the flesh took precedence over him.⁷² The abbot remembered how even the apostles were annoyed when two among them seemed to have gained some privilege with Christ at their mother’s request, especially since one of them was younger than the rest, in fact, this same John of whom we spoke just now.]⁷³

[Saint Paul was certainly careful about the appointment of deaconesses, but he also showed remarkable concern for widows of the holy calling in general and how to isolate them from temptation. Just after “Honor widows who are widows indeed,” he wrote:

But if any widow have children or grandchildren, let her learn first to govern her own house and to make a return of duty to her parents…. But if any man have not care of his own and especially those of his house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.⁷⁴

Here he looked to both a human need and the needs of the religious life at once. No woman should leave her children in poverty on the pretext of her calling: her feeling for them could well interfere with her vows, causing her to look back or even leading her into sacrilege if she steals from the community to provide for her own. And so, he added this necessary caution, that before they pass to true widowhood and become entirely free for their service to God, women with family ties must first return the duty they owe their parents; that is, they must provide for their children out of the same obligation that had bound their parents to provide for them. While his emphasis was on their religious life, with instructions to “continue in prayer night and day,” nonetheless he remained concerned with their material needs: “If any of the faithful have widows,” he said, “let him minister to them and let not the Church be charged, that there may be sufficient for them that are widows indeed.”⁷⁵ In other words, “If a widow has family with the means to provide for her, it must do so, in order to allow the public funds of the Church to provide for the needs of others.” If a family is reluctant to fulfill this obligation, it then should be compelled, upon the authority of Paul. This is not only a matter of a widow’s needs but also of her honor: “Honor widows,” he said, “who are widows indeed.”]

[We also can count among these women both the one whom Paul called “mother” and the one whom John called “lady” out of respect for her calling. Writing to the Romans, Paul said, “Greetings to Rufus, chosen of the Lord, and to his mother and mine,” and in his second letter John wrote, “To the lady chosen of God and to her children…. I ask thee, my lady, … that we love one another.”⁷⁶ Jerome later followed John’s precedent when, writing to Eustochium, a virgin of your calling, he addressed her without embarrassment as “my lady”—indeed why should he have been embarrassed at all? “I write to you as ‘My lady Eustochium,’” he said, “because, surely, I ought to call my Lord’s own bride ‘my lady.’”]⁷⁷

[Later in the letter, he set the privilege of the religious life above every earthly glory:

Avoid contact with married women. Avoid visiting the mansions of the rich. Avoid looking upon what you once despised when you chose to be a virgin…. If there is a crush to greet the emperor’s wife, why insult your Husband and join it? You are the bride of God: why fawn over the wife of man? Learn a bit of holy pride in this and know that you are better than they.]⁷⁸

Jerome also wrote about the heavenly blessedness and earthly dignity belonging to virgins consecrated to God:

We learn from scripture and the ways of the Church the blessedness virginity has in heaven and the special merit subsisting in those who have been consecrated in the spirit. All believers receive an equal gift of grace, and all glory alike in the blessings of the sacraments, but they have something of their own beyond all others. Out of the pure and holy flock of the Church, these holier and purer victims come, chosen by the Holy Spirit for their merits and of their will, to be offered by the high priest on the very altar of God…. Virginity, then, has what others do not have, a special grace and the joy of its own privileged consecration.⁷⁹

Except when there is imminent danger of death, the consecration of virgins is reserved for only a few days in the year—Epiphany, Pentecost, and the nativities of the apostles—and only a high priest, that is, a bishop, may sanctify them or their veils. Monks, on the other hand, may be blessed at any time whatever, and they receive their own religious garments, that is, their cowls, from their abbot, even though monks are of the same order as nuns and the male sex has a higher dignity. Priests and those of lesser rank may be ordained throughout the fasts of Ember Days, and bishops may be ordained on any Sunday. The consecration of virgins, though, is as precious as it is rare, claiming the leading festivals for itself, when all the Church rejoices in their virtue, as the Psalmist said: “After her shall virgins be brought to the king…. They shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing … into the temple of the king.”⁸⁰ [It is also said that the apostle and evangelist Matthew wrote about their consecration, as one reads in his Passion, which tells of his martyrdom in defense of their consecration and their calling.⁸¹ No apostle, though, has left us a written blessing either for clerics or for monks.]

The religious life of women alone is marked with the name of sanctity, for nuns are known as sanctimoniales. As women are the weaker sex, their power is more perfect and finds greater favor with God. For this we have the testimony of the Lord himself, who urged Saint Paul in all his weakness on to win the crown: “My grace is sufficient for thee,” he said, “for power is made perfect in weakness.”⁸² Through the same apostle in the same letter [—the first to the Corinthians—]⁸³ he spoke as if to praise the weaker members of his body, that is to say, the weaker members of the Church:

Those members of the body that seem to be the weaker are also the more necessary, and what we think to be the less honorable members of the body, we adorn with more abundant honor. Those that are our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness, for our comely parts are not in need. But God hath tempered the body together, giving the more abundant honor to what was in need, that there might be no schism in the body, but its members might be mutually careful one for another.⁸⁴

It is in the weakness of the female sex, debased by sin and nature, that the grace of God fulfilled these words completely. Look around at each of the conditions of the sex—at virgins and widows, married women, yes, but also at the hatefulness of whores—and you see the grace of Christ most fully there, in accord with what the Lord and his Apostle have said: “So shall the last be first and the first last” and “Where sin abounded, grace did more abound.”⁸⁵ If we look for the benefits of that grace and the honor shown to women at the origin of the world, we find that, in one respect at least, the creation of woman had a higher dignity than that of man: woman was created inside Paradise but man outside. Paradise, then, is women’s natural home, as women should take note, and the celibate life of Paradise more fit for them to lead. As Ambrose wrote in his book on Paradise:

God took the man he made and set him in Paradise…. You see how man already existed when God took him and set him in Paradise…. Note then that man was created outside Paradise but woman inside…. In the inferior place man is found to be superior and woman, who was created in the superior place, is found to be inferior.⁸⁶

[Moreover, the Lord restored Eve in Mary before he repaired Adam in Christ—as sin began in woman, so grace began in woman and the privilege of virginity flowered again—and the form of women’s holy calling was revealed in Anna and Mary before the pattern of men’s religious life was set by the apostles or by John.]

But if, beyond Eve, we look at Deborah, Judith, Esther and their power, we will surely feel ashamed for the powerful male sex. Deborah, a judge of the people of the Lord, gave battle when the courage of men failed; she conquered her enemies, freed her people, and won a mighty triumph. Judith went unarmed and alone against a fearsome army with only her maidservant at her side; she cut off the head of Holofernes with his own sword, destroyed the entire army, and set her people free. At the secret prompting of her spirit, Esther married a pagan king against the precept of the law; but she thwarted the designs of Haman and the edict of the king, and, in almost an instant, turned the import of the cruel decree into its opposite.⁸⁷ That David could overcome Goliath with no more than a sling and stone is set down as a mark of his great virtue. The widow Judith, on the other hand, went out against the enemy with not even sling and stone, in fact with no weapon at all, and she did battle. Esther freed her people with only a word—her enemies fell by a plot of their own devising—and her deed is remembered every year in a joyous festival among the Jews, something no act of a man has ever achieved, no matter how splendid it was.

And who has read the story in the Book of Maccabees of the mother of seven sons and does not marvel?⁸⁸ There was no equal to her constancy when the godless King Antiochus caught them all and tried in vain to force them to eat pork, which the law did not allow. Forgetting her maternal nature and blind to human feeling, she kept only the Lord before her eyes. One by one she sent her sons ahead, urging them all to win the sacred crown; and one by one she triumphed in their martyrdom until at last she won a martyrdom of her own. Throughout all of the Old Testament we find nothing to compare with the constancy of this woman. The great Seducer, violent to the last against Job, thought human nature weak in the face of death: “Skin for skin,” he said, “and all that a man hath he will give for his life.”⁸⁹ All of us shrink so naturally from death that to defend one limb we will often risk another, deterred by nothing if it will save our lives. But she could face the loss of all she had, of her sons’ lives and her own, rather than offend against the law. And what was the transgression forced upon her? Renouncing God? Burning incense before idols? No—the only thing demanded of them was that they eat some meat in contravention of the law.

Let me ask my brothers and my fellow monks, who every day gape after meat in violation of the Rule that governs their calling: What will you have to say to the constancy of this woman? Are you really so entirely without shame that you can hear her story and not blush? Remember the Lord’s reproach of unbelievers, that the queen of the south shall rise in judgment and condemn this generation,⁹⁰ and know, my brothers, that even more will the constancy of this woman rise in judgment against you; for her deeds were so much greater than the queen’s, and you are bound more strictly by your religious vows. Her virtue was tested in such a struggle that her martyrdom deserved the honor of a Mass and solemn lessons in the Church, something never granted to any of the holy who died before the coming of the Lord.⁹¹ [As the Book of Maccabees relates, however, the venerable scribe Eleazar had already won the crown of martyrdom for much the same reason.⁹² But it did not deserve commemoration in a feast because women’s virtue is more honorable and acceptable to God, that sex being naturally weaker, as we said, and in this martyrdom no woman was involved. It is as though it were considered no great matter for the stronger sex to endure with strength. Hence, scripture praises the woman all the more:

Now the mother was to be admired beyond measure and worthy to be remembered by good men, who beheld her seven sons slain in the space of one day and bore it with a good courage, for the hope that she had in God. And she bravely exhorted every one of them … being filled with wisdom and joining a man’s heart to a woman’s thought.]⁹³

The daughter of Jephtha, too, his only one, deserves a place in the praise of virgins.⁹⁴ Rather than see her father break his word and defraud God’s grace of the sacrifice he promised, she offered her own throat to her father’s knife and urged him on to cut it. Imagine, then, what she would have done if she were faced with the struggle of the martyrs and ever forced by infidels to deny God. If asked about Christ, could she ever say, “I know him not,” as Peter did, who at the time was already prince of the apostles?⁹⁵ Her father released her for two months, but when the time had passed, she returned to him to meet her death willingly and unafraid—she even demanded it. Her father repented of his foolish vow, but she saved him from a lie in her supreme devotion to the truth. If she could not bear such a lapse in her father, how much would she have despised it in herself? If this was her love for her earthly father, what must it have been for her Father in heaven? By her death she kept Jephtha’s word intact and insured that God would have his sacrifice. And so, the courage of the girl deserved the memorial it received, as every year the daughters of Israel assemble to commemorate her death with solemn hymns and lament her suffering with pious tears.

But to pass over other examples, was anything more essential to our redemption and the salvation of the world than the female sex, which gave birth to the Savior? The woman who dared approach Saint Hilarion defended herself with this special honor: “Why avert your eyes?” she said, “why run away? Do not look on me as a woman but as a wretched being. This sex, remember, gave birth to the Savior.”⁹⁶ Can anything compare with the glory this sex won in the mother of the Lord? If he had wished, the Redeemer could well have taken his bodily form from a man, as he formed the first woman from the body of a man, but he brought the grace of his humility to the honor of the weaker sex. He also could have been born from another part of her body and a worthier part than where other men are born, that is to say, from the place where they are conceived. But to the incomparable honor of the weaker body, he consecrated the genitals of woman by his birth far more than the genitals of man by circumcision.

But to leave aside this special honor of virgins, let me write, as we proposed, of the rest of womankind.⁹⁷ Consider the grace which the coming of Christ brought to Elizabeth, who was married, or to Anna, who was a widow.⁹⁸ While her husband Zachariah remained afflicted with the muteness he incurred through his lack of faith, Elizabeth felt her child leap inside her womb as soon as Mary came to greet her. Filled with the Holy Spirit, she proclaimed her prophecy about Mary’s conception and so proved herself more than a prophet; for immediately she knew that the virgin had conceived and urged her then to magnify the Lord. In her the gift of prophecy was more complete than it was in John, for Elizabeth could recognize the Son of God from the time of his conception while John revealed him only after he was born. As we called Mary Magdalene the apostle of apostles, so the title prophet of prophets belongs to Elizabeth [or maybe to the widow Anna, who was treated more fully above].

And if we extend the grace of prophecy to include the pagans, we must also bring the Sibyl to the fore and have her reveal her prophesies of Christ.⁹⁹ In any comparison of prophets—including Isaiah, who, as Jerome said, was more an evangelist than a prophet¹⁰⁰—woman far surpasses man in this grace as well. In his treatise against five heresies, Augustine says:

Let us also hear what the Sybil has to say: “The Lord has offered another to be worshipped by men of faith.” And: “Know that your Lord is the Son of God.” Elsewhere she calls the Son of God the symbolum, that is, Counsel or the Counselor. And the prophet says: “They will call his name Wonderful, Counselor.”¹⁰¹

[In Book 18 of the City of God, the same Father Augustine writes:

Some say the Sibyl of Erythrae was prophesying at that time … though others believe it was the Sibyl of Cumae…. One passage contains a poem of twenty-seven lines … which in Latin translation runs:

Justice will soak the earth with its standard;
Enduring forever, the king will come,
Sent in the flesh to judge the world at its end….

The initial letters of the lines yield an acrostic in Greek reading, “Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior” … Lactantius also introduces a Sibylline prophecy of Christ …:

He will later fall into the hands of unbelievers, who will beat him with their unclean hands and spit on him with their poisoned spittle. He will offer his back to their blows in meekness and endure their beatings in silence—no one may learn what word he speaks in hell or whence he comes—and he will be crowned with thorns. They have given him vinegar to drink and gall to eat, spreading for him their inhospitable table. You have not known your God, you ignorant nation, but have mocked him with the minds of mortal men. You have crowned him with thorns and have fed him with gall. But the veil of the temple will be rent, and at midday it will be as night for three hours, and he will fall into death for three days. But returning from hell, he will come to the light and be revealed at the beginning of his resurrection.]¹⁰²

[Unless I am mistaken, our greatest poet, Virgil, had also heard a prophecy of the Sibyl, which he then recorded in his fourth Eclogue. It foretold the miraculous birth soon to take place in the consulship of Pollio under Augustus Caesar, the birth of a child, sent to earth from heaven to take away the sins of the world and establish, as it were, a whole new age. His source, he says, was the prophecy of Cumaean song, that is, the Sibyl of Cumae, and he writes as if to call upon the world to rejoice in the birth of the child, in comparison to which all else seems low and mean:

Now I would lift my song to a loftier plane,
For the lowly woodland shrubs do not please all….
The final age foretold in Cumaean song
Has come, the cycle of time begins again:
The Virgin returns and the realm of Saturn,
A child, new and wondrous, descends from heaven….]¹⁰³

[See each thing the Sibyl says, how completely she embraces Christian teaching about Christ. She includes his humanity and his divinity, his first and second coming, his first and second judgment—that is, the Passion in which he was unjustly judged and the majesty in which he will justly judge the world—his descent to hell and his resurrection. In this, she seems to surpass not only the prophets but the evangelists as well, who actually wrote little about the descent to hell.]

And who does not marvel at the woman of Samaria and her private conversation with the Lord?¹⁰⁴ The apostles themselves were amazed when he spoke to her alone, carefully instructing her, a gentile and an unbeliever, rebuking her for the number of her husbands, and even asking for something to drink, which he never asked of anyone else. The apostles come offering him food they have bought: “Rabbi, eat,” they say, but he replies, “I have food to eat which you know not,” and their offerings are not accepted. But he asks her for something to drink, while she even would decline his gracious favor:

How dost thou, being a Jew, ask of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans…. Thou hast nothing wherein to draw and the well is deep.¹⁰⁵

I ask you then, What is this grace shown to the weaker sex, that he who has given life to all men should now seek water from this woman? Does it not plainly indicate that the weaker the virtue of women is by nature, the more it is pleasing to him, and the more astonishing their virtue, the deeper his thirst for their salvation? When he asks the woman for something to drink, he indicates that his thirst can be satisfied best by the salvation of women. “I have food to eat which you know not,” he says and adds, “My food is to do the will of my Father,”¹⁰⁶ as if the salvation of the weaker sex is the Father’s particular will. Nicodemus, ruler of the Jews, also had a private conversation with the Lord, coming in secret for instruction about salvation, but it never bore the same fruit.¹⁰⁷ For the spirit of prophecy filled this woman, and she proclaimed that Christ had come to the Jews and soon would come to the gentiles as well: “I know that the Messiah cometh, who is called Christ,” she said; “therefore, when he is come, he will tell us all things.” And at her words, a crowd came from the city and believed in Christ, and he stayed with them two days, despite his telling the disciples, “Go ye not into the way of the gentiles, and into the city of the Samaritans enter ye not.”¹⁰⁸ John elsewhere says that there were gentiles who had come to worship in Jerusalem and sent word to Christ through Andrew and Philip that they wanted to see him.¹⁰⁹ He does not say, however, that any were admitted or were granted the abundance of Christ that this woman received, even though they sought it and she did not. Christ’s preaching to the gentiles began with her: she both turned to the faith herself and was the means through which he brought others to believe.¹¹⁰ The Magi came to Christ as they were guided by the star but are not said to have brought any others to him.¹¹¹ But she ran to her city to announce his coming and won many converts from her people, and in doing so she won herself grace from Christ among the gentiles.

[Throughout the pages of the Old Testament and Gospel, we will find that the greatest miracles of God’s grace, the miracles of raising the dead, all were performed especially for women, either at their request or on their bodies. First, we read of the men Elijah and Elisha raised from death and restored at the entreaties of their mothers. And the Lord himself also performed this miracle for women, resurrecting the son of a widowed mother, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, and Lazarus at the request of his sisters. And so, the Apostle wrote to the Hebrews, “Women received their dead raised to life again,” since on her return to life, the girl took back the body she had, as those women took back the bodies of the dead men they had mourned.¹¹² The grace the Lord has always shown to women is clear, first, in his resurrection of them and their kinsmen and, later, in his own resurrection where he exalted women, as we said, by appearing earliest to them. Women were found worthy because of their natural compassion toward the Lord, amid a people who had persecuted him. While men were leading him out to crucifixion, their women followed bewailing and lamenting him, as Luke has said. And he turned to them in mercy and in pity, even at the moment of his Passion, and told them how to escape the destruction he foretold:

Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me, but weep for yourselves and your children. For behold, the days shall come wherein they will say, “Blessed are the barren and the wombs that have not borne and the paps that have not given suck.” Then they shall begin to say to the mountains, “Fall upon us,” and to the hills, “Cover us.” For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?¹¹³

Matthew explains how the wife of Pilate, Christ’s most unjust judge, worked faithfully for his release:

As he was sitting in the place of judgment, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have thou nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.¹¹⁴

And while the Lord was preaching, a woman from the crowd lifted her voice in praise of him, saying: “Blessed is the womb that bore thee and the paps that gave thee suck.” Although her declaration was most true, still she was found worthy to hear his holy correction: “Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.”¹¹⁵]

[Among all of Christ’s apostles John alone was called beloved of the Lord, but John himself writes, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary and Lazarus.”¹¹⁶ The same apostle who records that he alone had the privilege of being beloved of the Lord distinguished these women with the privilege he ascribes to no other apostle. If he included Lazarus in this honor, he nonetheless put the women’s names before their brother’s because he believed that they came first in love.]¹¹⁷

To return to women of the Christian faith,¹¹⁸ we finally must speak in wonder and must wonder in our speech about the mercy God has shown even to common whores. Was anything more abject than the early life of Mary Magdalene or Mary the Egyptian?¹¹⁹ But afterward God’s grace raised them both in honor and in merit, the first remaining all her days in the communal life of the apostles, as I’ve mentioned,¹²⁰ and the second contending beyond the bounds of human virtue in the solitary struggle of the anchorites. We then can see how much in both these modes of monastic life the virtue of women excels, and how the Lord’s words to unbelievers apply also to men of faith: “The harlots go before you into the kingdom of God.” In the differences of sex and way of life, the last shall be first and the first last.¹²¹

Women embraced the words of Christ and the guidance of the apostles with such a love for chastity that, to preserve the integrity of their minds and bodies, they offered themselves to God in martyrdom and, now victorious with a double crown, sought to follow the Lamb, the Bridegroom of virgins, wherever he might go.¹²² This perfection is rare in men, but we know it is common among women. There even have been some who have so longed for this privilege of the flesh that they laid violent hands upon themselves to preserve the purity they vowed to God and to come as virgins to their Virgin Bridegroom. And God so loves their devotion that he saved a throng of pagans from the fires of Mount Etna, when they sought the protection of Saint Agatha’s veil.¹²³ Never do we hear of a monk’s cowl winning grace like this. We may read of the Jordan River being divided at the touch of Elijah’s cloak, allowing him and Elisha to cross over on dry ground;¹²⁴ but a virgin’s veil saved a throng of unbelievers and turned them to the pathway to heaven. It also commends the dignity of holy women, that they are consecrated with the words, “He has espoused me with his ring: I am his bride.” These are the words of Saint Agnes, and virgins of her calling are wed to Christ in them.¹²⁵

Now if anyone would search among the pagans for the dignity and form of your religious life, there are many examples that can be found and used for your encouragement. For among the pagans, as among the Jews, there were many early forms of institutions which the Church retained but transmuted for the better. From the Synagogue, the Church derived the clerical ranks from doorkeeper to bishop, the use of tonsure, the fasts of Ember Days, and the sacrifice of unleavened bread, not to mention the ornaments of priestly vestments and other sacraments and ceremonies of dedication. From pagans who converted to the faith, the Church adopted the secular ranks of kings and other rulers, some ranks of ecclesiastical authority, many legal decrees and philosophical teachings, as well as a scrupulous form of bodily cleanliness and self-restraint. Hence, where once there had been flamens and archflamens, bishops and archbishops now preside, and temples once dedicated to pagan idols now are consecrated to the Lord and the memory of saints.

The privilege of virginity, too, flourished among the pagans in the days when the law enforced marriage among the Jews,¹²⁶ and the purity of the flesh was so valued among them that many women would dedicate themselves to the celibate life in their temples. Jerome, then, writes in his commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians:

What should we do, then, when Juno has her Women-of-One-Husband to hold against us, and Vesta has her Virgins, and other idols their other women of self-restraint?¹²⁷

[What he calls “Women-of-One-Husband” and “Virgins” are our monastic women, those who have been married and those who are virgins; for the word “monastic,” meaning “solitary,” derives from monos, meaning “one.”]¹²⁸ In his first book against Jovinian, he also sets out many examples of chastity and self-restraint among pagan women, and concludes:

I know I have made a long list of women … but it was to allow those women who despise the Christian faith at least to learn some chastity from the pagans.¹²⁹

He so praised self-restraint that it seems as if the Lord particularly approved of purity of the flesh among all peoples and had exalted it even among some unbelievers by rewarding them with his gifts and manifesting miracles through their virtues:

There is the Sibyl of Cumae, the Sibyl of Erythrae, and eight others. Varro claims that there were ten in all, each distinguished by her virginity and each rewarded for it by the power of prophecy.

And:

To vindicate her chastity, the Vestal Virgin Claudia is said to have drawn a large vessel, which thousands of men could not move, simply with her girdle alone.¹³⁰

[Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, writes in his preface:

This was no Tanaquil, this was no Lucretia,
This was no Vestal, who, against the tide of Albula,
Could draw a vessel with her virgin’s hair.¹³¹

Augustine, City of God, Book 22:

The claims of pagan miracles held up against our martyrs will redound to our advantage in the end. Among the great miracles of their gods is one that Varro relates about a Vestal Virgin whose chastity was falsely challenged. She is said to have drawn water from the Tiber in a sieve and carried it to her judges without losing a drop. But who was it who kept the water in the sieve … despite its open holes? … Cannot Almighty God … move the heaviness of an earthly body so that the quickened body may exist in whatever element the quickening spirit wishes?]¹³²

It is not strange at all that God should honor the chastity even of unbelievers with these miracles or allow it to be exalted through the agency of demons: it could only inspire the faithful all the more toward what they see is exalted among unbelievers. We know that the grace of prophecy was bestowed on the office, not the person, of Caiaphas,¹³³ and that even spurious apostles might occasionally succeed in working wonders¹³⁴—again, through their office, not their persons. Why then should it seem strange if God should grant—not to the persons of unbelieving women but to the virtue of their self-restraint—the exculpation of an innocent virgin and the disproof of a false charge against her? The love of self-restraint is a good even among infidels, as respect for the bond of marriage is God’s gift among all peoples. It is not strange if God should honor his gifts—his gifts and not the error of unbelief—through the signs he sends to unbelievers, especially when it also means that innocence will be vindicated, wickedness defeated, and all people urged to extol this good: that even unbelievers sin the less, the more they refrain from pleasures of the flesh. So, Jerome is right to conclude in his book against the heretic Jovinian that what does not surprise him in a Christian makes him blush to find among the pagans. The power enjoyed by pagan rulers—no matter if they do not use it well—their love of justice, the clemency they derive from natural law, or any of the other things that rulers ought to have—who would deny that these are gifts of God? Is a good no longer a good because it may be mixed with evil? Does not Augustine argue and does not reason agree that evils cannot exist except in a good nature?¹³⁵ Would anyone condemn the thought of Horace—“Out of a love of virtue do the good hate sin”¹³⁶—or the miracles of healing the blind and lame which Suetonius says Vespasian performed,¹³⁷ or what Saint Gregory reportedly did for the soul of the emperor Trajan?¹³⁸ Men can find a pearl in the mire and tell the wheat from the chaff; and God cannot be ignorant of his gifts, even when they are joined with unbelief, nor can he hate anything he has made. The more brightly they glow with his signs, the more he shows that they are his, and that what is his can never be corrupted by any depravity of men. If this is how he shows himself to unbelievers, what must he be in the hope of all believers?

The chastity women vowed in pagan temples was held in high enough esteem to have called down a terrible penalty on its violation. Juvenal writes about it in his satire against Crispinus—

With whom a sacred Vestal recently lay,
And soon she’ll lay again, her blood still hot,
Beneath the earth¹³⁹

—as does Augustine in Book 3 of the City of God:

The ancient Romans used to bury alive … any Vestal Virgin proved guilty of sexual misconduct. They punished adulterous wives, certainly, but not with death, so much more heavily did they avenge what they considered a divine sanctuary than a human bed.¹⁴⁰

The care that Christian rulers devote to protecting your chastity likewise indicates the sanctity with which it is regarded. The law of the emperor Justinian provides:

If anyone dares, I do not say to rape, but merely to make an attempt upon the holy virgins with a view toward matrimony, let him be sentenced to death.¹⁴¹

The sanction of the Church, which stresses penance and not death, is also unambiguous in the severity with which it responds to any lapses on your part. In the words of the decree of Pope Innocent, Chapter 13, addressed to Bishop Victricius of Rouen:

If those who are spiritually married to Christ and veiled by a priest either openly marry or secretly become corrupted afterwards, they shall not be admitted to a course of penance, unless the one to whom they had been joined has already departed this life.¹⁴²

And those who have not taken the veil but have consistently asserted a wish to remain virgins will undergo a course of penance, even though they have not been veiled, because their vow to the Lord remains intact. Now, if it is the practice among men that a contract made in good faith cannot be broken for any reason, how much less can a promise made to God be broken without some penalty? And if, as the apostle Paul has said, those who have left their widowhood for a second marriage are to be condemned “because they have made void their first faith,”¹⁴³ how much more should those virgins be condemned who have not kept the faith of their earlier vow? As Pelagius says to the daughter of Mauritius:

Adultery against Christ incurs more guilt than adultery against a husband. The Roman Church, then, properly has decreed a sentence for this crime that is severe enough to judge them hardly fit for penance who have polluted with lust a body sanctified to God.¹⁴⁴

If we turn now to consider the Doctors of the Church, the diligent attention and the love they have always shown devoted women, we find that, like the Lord and the apostles, they embraced women’s devotion with enthusiasm, continually seeking to foster and advance their religious life through various forms of teaching and encouragement. I will leave aside the rest and bring only the most important to the fore, namely, Origen, Ambrose, and Jerome. The first, the greatest Christian philosopher, embraced the religious life of women with such zeal that he even dared lay hands upon himself, as the History of the Church records, in order to place his teaching and encouragement of women beyond any suspicion.¹⁴⁵

And who is unaware of that great harvest of books Jerome wrote for Eustochium and Paula? In a sermon he composed for them on the assumption of the mother of the Lord, he told them, “I cannot deny you anything you ask, bound as I am by your great love. I will, then, attempt to do what you request.”¹⁴⁶ And yet we know that many of the greatest learned men, men of the highest eminence of rank and moral conduct, would write to him from the corners of the world, asking without success for some short, simple piece of writing. One of them was Saint Augustine, who in the second book of his Retractions says:

I sent two books I had written to Jerome in Bethlehem—one on the origin of the soul, the other about the dictum of the apostle James, “Whoever shall keep the whole law but offend in one point is become guilty of all”—eager to consult him about them. In the first I knew I did not solve the question I posed, although in the second I put forward what seemed to me a likely solution; nonetheless, I wanted his opinion about both. He wrote back, glad that I had consulted him, but said that he had no time to reply. I held off publishing the books as long as he was alive, in the hope of eventually including his reply. I published them only after his death.¹⁴⁷

Now here is a man of enormous distinction waiting for the smallest piece of writing from Jerome but never receiving it. The women, on the other hand, we know inspired book after book from him, as he sweated over his writings and transcriptions, showing them far more respect in this than he ever showed Augustine. Perhaps it was that he embraced their virtue all the more because of their weak nature and could not bear to see them disappointed. At times his love toward women of this calling seemed to lead him in his praise of them a bit beyond the limits of the truth—as if he were speaking from his own experience when he wrote “Love knows no bounds.”¹⁴⁸ He begins his Life of Paula, in fact, by directing the reader’s attention to himself:

If all the members of my body were turned to tongues and all its limbs could speak with a human voice, nothing I could say would yet be worthy of the virtues of this saintly and venerable woman.¹⁴⁹

Jerome could recount the lives of many venerable Fathers—lives which shine with the light of miracles and far more remarkable events—but he never spoke of them with such warm praise as he spoke of the widow Paula. The beginning of his letter to Demetrias is another place where he seems to fall into excessive adulation:

Of all things I have written from my childhood to my old age, whether I have dictated it to a scribe or wrote it out with my own hand, nothing has been more difficult than the present work. In writing to Demetrias, virgin of Christ and foremost in nobility and wealth in all the city of Rome, I should be called a flatterer if I should attempt to say everything her virtue deserves.¹⁵⁰

It was the greatest pleasure for Jerome to use all the verbal art at his command in rousing a weak nature to the pursuit of virtue. But in the end it is his actions, not his words, that offer the best argument for the love he had for these women, reaching the point where his very saintliness imperiled his reputation. Writing to Asella about his false friends and detractors, he said:

Some think I am wicked and overwhelmed with vice…. You, however, do well to think that even bad men are good. It is dangerous to judge another’s servant and a grievous fault to speak evil of the just…. Some men have kissed my hand and then attacked me with a serpent’s tongue. There is grief on their lips but joy in their hearts. And yet can they say that they have seen anything in me but what is proper to a Christian? My only crime is my sex, and even that is not an issue except when Paula comes to Jerusalem…. Before I knew the house of that saintly woman, all of Rome sang my praises and thought I was worthy of the highest priestly office. But since I began to revere the woman, to honor her and take her in my charge for the sake of her sanctity and merit, all my virtues have deserted me, it seems…. Still, greet Paula and Eustochium for me: whether they will it or not, they are mine in Christ.¹⁵¹

We read that even the Lord incurred suspicion for associating with Mary Magdalene: the Pharisee began to doubt him in his heart, saying, “This man, if he were a prophet, would surely know who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, that she is a sinner.”¹⁵² Can it then be any wonder if, inspired by Christ’s example, his followers do not hesitate to risk their reputations for the sake of souls like these? Origen, as I said, risked even more.

[Not only did the charity of the Fathers leave its mark in their teaching and encouragement of women but in their consolation of women as well. At times their compassion has been so great that, in their eagerness to console, they seemed to promise things contrary to the faith. One example is the consolation Ambrose wrote for the sisters of the emperor Valentinian. There he assured them that their brother had been saved when he had died only a catechumen, and this is at variance with the truth of the Gospels and the Catholic faith.]¹⁵³

They understood how acceptable to God is the virtue of the weaker sex. Hence, many women follow the mother of the Lord in the excellence of this way of life, although only a few men have gained the grace of chastity by which they might follow the Lamb wherever he might go. There even have been women who laid violent hands upon themselves to preserve the integrity of the body they vowed to God—this is nothing we should blame in them: their martyrdom has earned them the dedication of many churches in their name. (Betrothed virgins, too—if they have decided on the monastery and have rejected their partners in favor of Christ before they have known them carnally—are allowed a freedom of action in this, a freedom which is denied to men.) And there also have been many who, inflamed with their desire for chastity, have dared to violate the law, to put on male attire and enter into monasteries, where they so surpassed the monks themselves in virtue that they were thought worthy of election as abbot. This was the case of Saint Eugenia, who, with the knowledge, even the encouragement, of her bishop Saint Helenus, put on men’s clothing, received baptism from her bishop, and was taken into a monastery of monks.¹⁵⁴

My dearest sister in Christ, I have, I think, written enough in response to the first of your requests. I have described the source and the foundation of your order and have praised its proper dignity in the hope that all of you can embrace your calling with greater warmth and in fuller recognition of its excellence. And now, God willing, for me to address the second, I must rely on your merit and your prayers.

Farewell.

_______________

1 Only the first half of the letter, in fact, responds directly to Heloise’s request, offering a roughly chronological account of the women followers of Jesus and the parity of women’s and men’s roles in the institutions of the early Church, with continual backward glances at Jewish precedents. The remainder may be described, as Abelard describes it in the final paragraph, as praise of the “proper dignity” of nuns, although it is somewhat more than that—a wide-ranging assertion of the nature of women’s virtue in general and the prerogatives and privileges of women in the religious life of pagans, Jews, and Christians. At times the letter takes on the character of an exhortation or a catalog of exempla similar to what Abelard in the Second Letter claims Heloise does not need. To judge by its repetitions, rough transitions, tangential remarks, gross disproportion of emphasis and treatment, and other inconsistencies of its internal organization, much of the letter seems to have been cobbled together by Abelard from texts composed for other purposes (parts resemble in their rhetoric and structure the extant sermons Abelard wrote for audiences at the Paraclete and elsewhere), then overlaid with comments and additions by others sympathetic to his project and imitative of his methods. Since some transitions in the text appear to have been modified to accommodate these additions, it is often very difficult to disentangle layers of the text with confidence. However, sections that are most likely later additions and not by Abelard himself have here been enclosed in brackets. This should not, though, attest to the completeness or secure authenticity of everything left unbracketed.

Some of these sections were identified and used by John F. Benton (1975) to support an argument against Abelard’s authorship of this letter and others in the collection. Benton later (1980) retracted many of his claims, but problems remain. The letter shows signs of having been extensively reworked, and I have put forward the most conservative suggestions I believe are consistent with making sense of the text as it exists.

2 Epistulae 125.7. For Jerome’s reference, see 4 Kings 6:1; cf. also the Calamities, p. 32.

3 See Luke 2:25–38.

4 Ps. 15:5; Luke 14:33.

5 See Luke 7:36–50.

6 A conflation of Matt. 26:8 ff., Mark 14:3 ff., Luke 10:38 ff., and John 12:1 ff.

7 See John 13:5 ff.

8 Dan. 9:24.

9 See Gen. 28:18. For the typological reading of scripture, see the Fourth Letter, p. 86.

10 Mark 14:6.

11 Cant. 1:2; Ps. 132:2.

12 See John 19:38.

13 See John 6:15.

14 John 18:36.

15 1 Cor. 13:7.

16 John 12:7.

17 See Mark 14:9.

18 See Mark 12:41–44.

19 See Matt. 19:27.

20 See Luke 19:1–10.

21 For Peter’s denial of Jesus, see Matt. 26:69 ff.; for the flight of John and the other disciples, see Matt. 26:56 and Mark 14:50.

22 Rom. 8:35, where the Vulgate reads “the love of Christ.” The manuscripts include the passage only through the word “distress,” adding “etc.”

23 Matt. 26:56, 27:55, 61; Mark 15:40–1.

24 John 19:25–27. The manuscripts break off with “etc.” after “his mother and the disciple standing.”

25 Job 19:20.

26 Cant. 8:7. The manuscripts quote only through “charity,” indicating the rest of the verse by “etc.”

27 1 Cor. 13:7.

28 See Luke 24:13 ff.

29 Matt. 26:33–35.

30 See Luke 22:33, 32; see Matt. 26:69 ff.

31 John 20:2 and 20:15.

32 Matt. 26:41.

33 Cf. Abelard’s request of the women of the Paraclete in the Second Letter, p. 70.

34 See John 19:38–40 and Mark 15:47.

35 Luke 23:55–56.

36 See Mark 15:1.

37 Matt. 28:8–10.

38 Luke 24:10; Mark 16:6–7.

39 John 20:17. The manuscripts quote only through “to my Father” and add “etc.” The inconsistencies, real or apparent, among these Gospel accounts become the subject of the fifth question in Heloise’s Questions.

40 Abelard’s qualification “so to speak” refers to his use of the feminine form apostolae, “female apostles,” not to the fact that he calls them apostles.

41 Luke 10:4; Acts 1:14.

42 Acts 6:1–6.

43 1 Cor. 9:5.

44 Augustine, De Opere Monachorum 4.5 and 5.6; the internal quotation is from Luke 8:1 ff. The passage is also cited in this form in Abelard’s Calamities.

45 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae 2.17. Abelard cites Eusebius’ Greek text in the Latin paraphrase of Rufinus.

46 Historia Ecclesiastica Tripartita 1.11, formerly attributed to Cassiodorus.

47 De Illustribus Viris 8 and 11.

48 This section, which takes up further comments on Philo and the early church of Alexandria but veers away from the main subject of the letter, is most likely a later addition to the text.

49 Exod. 15:20–21. The manuscripts quote only through “gloriously magnified”; “etc.” indicates the rest of the verse.

50 Ps. 150:4; Acts 4:32.

51 For Deborah, see Judg. 5:2–31; for Hannah, see 1 Kings 2:1–10; for Judith, see Jth. 16:2–21; for the song of Mary, see Luke 1:46–55.

52 A likely later addition to the text, prompted by the mention of Hannah. The figures of Hannah and Samuel apparently evoked considerable interest at the Paraclete, becoming the subject of no fewer than seven of Heloise’s Questions (31–37). The passage quoted here is not actually by Isidore, as Muckle (1955, 261 n. 19) points out, but was accepted as Isidore’s on the authority of Smaragdus and Gratian.

53 Num. 18:19.

54 Num. 6:2–4.

55 Cf. Exod. 30:18–19 and 38:8. The exact form of the passage as quoted is found in Gregory, Homiliae in Evangelia 17.10, which also introduces the image of the mirrors of remorse taken up later in the paragraph.

56 Heb. 13:10.

57 Ps. 120:8.

58 Not Gregory’s actual words, but very like his Homiliae in Evangelia 11.3. The stress on outward works throughout this passage seems so at odds with the thrust of Abelard’s arguments elsewhere that it may be enough in itself to cast doubt on his authorship of the section.

59 Luke 2:36–38, in which the Vulgate has “the redemption of Israel.”

60 1 Tim. 5:3–7.

61 1 Tim. 5:9–11.

62 Actually from Pelagius’ Expositions of the Epistles of Paul, which had been attributed to Jerome; see Muckle 1955, 264 n. 70.

63 A likely later addition, perhaps derived from Abelard’s Sermon 31, which it paraphrases.

64 1 Tim. 5:11–15.

65 Epistulae 4.11.

66 Matt. 23:11; Luke 22:27; Matt. 20:28.

67 Commentarii in Epistulam ad Galatas, 2.4.451. Paul’s phrase is in Gal. 4:6. Cf. also Matt. 23:9 and 5:34.

68 Rom. 16:1–2.

69 Abelard cites these passages to the same purpose in his Sermon 31. Cassiodorus’ commentary is now lost, Claudius’ not published.

70 1 Tim. 3:8–13.

71 Contra Jovinianum 1.26.

72 See Vitae Patrum 5.10.113.

73 See Matt. 20:24 ff. and Mark 10:35 ff.

74 1 Tim. 5:4–8.

75 1 Tim. 5:5, 15.

76 Rom. 16:13; 2 John 1:1–5.

77 Epistulae 22.2.

78 Epistulae 22.16.

79 Cf. Virginitatis Laus 1, once attributed to Jerome.

80 Ps. 44:15–16.

81 Cf. Acta Sancti Matthaei 2.19.

82 2 Cor. 12:9.

83 The citation “in the same letter” is an error and the phrase “the first to the Corinthians” was apparently added to correct it.

84 1 Cor. 12:22.

85 Matt. 20:16; Rom. 5:20.

86 De Paradiso 4.24. Cf. also Abelard’s hymn “After the Virgin’s Highest Honor,” which also makes reference to Deborah, Judith, the anonymous mother in the Book of Maccabees, and Jephtha’s daughter.

87 For the story of Deborah, see Judg. 4:4 ff.; for Judith, see Jth. 8 ff.; for Esther and the festival of Purim, see Est. 2:5 ff.

88 See 2 Macc. 7.

89 Job 2:29.

90 Matt. 12:42.

91 Cf. also the Seventh Letter.

92 Cf. 2 Macc. 7:18 ff.

93 2 Macc. 7:20–21.

94 See Judg. 11:30–40; also cf. the Second Letter, and Abelard’s “Lament of the Virgins of Israel for the Daughter of Jephtha.”

95 Luke 22:57.

96 Jerome, Vita Sancti Hilarionis 13.

97 It is hard to reconcile this transition with the text of the letter as it has been transmitted: the immediately preceding subject is not in fact virgins. The indication of a proposal to treat the “rest of womankind” may refer to the earlier division of women into the various “conditions” of virgin, married woman, etc., but the paragraph begins a larger section on the gift of prophecy among women, which may derive from a work originally separate in conception.

98 For Elizabeth, see Luke 1:5 ff.; for Anna, Luke 2:25 ff.

99 There were several Sibyls, prophetesses of great authority and fame installed at various oracular centers throughout the pagan world. In the second or third century Christians took up the practice of composing Sibylline prophecies of Christ after the fact, which were taken as genuine by some Church Fathers.

100 See the Prologue to his Commentarii in Isaiam Prophetam.

101 Adversus Quinque Hereses, chapter 3, no longer considered to be by Augustine.

102 De Civitate Dei 18.23 ff., citing Lactantius, Divina Institutio 4.18 ff. The subject of the acrostic poem is the last judgment, and Augustine includes the poem in its entirety. The manuscripts of this letter, the translator is happy to say, include only its first three lines.

103 Eclogues 4.1–7, the so-called Messianic Eclogue, widely held among the Fathers of the Church to be a Christian prophecy. The section seems to be an interpolation within an interpolation, since the comments that follow it in the text refer to the earlier Sibylline prophecy cited by Lactantius.

104 See John 4:7 ff.

105 John 4:9–11.

106 John 4:34, in which the Vulgate reads “the will of him who sent me.”

107 See John 3:1–21.

108 John 4:25; Matt. 10:5.

109 See John 12:20 ff.

110 See John 4:41.

111 See Matt. 2:12.

112 This section closely paraphrases a section in the Second Letter; see p. 66 and the references there.

113 Luke 23:28–31. The manuscripts quote only through “wombs that have not borne,” indicating the remainder by “etc.” The preceding section closely paraphrases a section in the Fourth Letter; see p. 99.

114 Matt. 27:19.

115 Luke 11:27–28.

116 John 11:5.

117 The preceding two paragraphs are very spottily preserved in the manuscripts, only two of the surviving seven retaining them in full.

118 Implying a direct transition, perhaps, from the Sibyls and the woman of Samaria.

119 Mary the Egyptian (possibly of fifth-century date) was a prostitute of Alexandria who, after her conversion, lived as a solitary penitent in the wilderness.

120 It is not clear where in the letter this is.

121 Matt. 21:31; cf. Matt. 20:16

122 Cf. Apoc. 14:4.

123 Agatha was said to have been martyred in 251 in Sicily. Her veil was taken several times from her tomb and carried in procession as protection against eruptions of Mt. Etna.

124 See 4 Kings 2:8 ff.

125 The words are from the response to the seventh Lesson of the Feast of St. Agnes in the Roman Breviary. The manuscripts preserve a second version of this paragraph, although with a different conclusion, as the penultimate section of the letter.

126 See Deut. 25:5.

127 Commentarii in Epistulam ad Galatas 3.6.528.

128 This comment is in apparent response to an earlier manuscript corruption. The word univiras, “Women-of-One-Husband,” had prompted the copyist’s error of univirgines for virgines, “Virgins.” The difficult form univirgines—“Single-virgins”? “Women-of-One-Virginity”?—would then demand some sort of explanation that also could apply to univiras.

129 Contra Jovinianum 1.6.

130 Contra Jovinianum 1.41.

131 Sidonius Apollinaris, Poem 24.39–43. Tanaquil and Lucretia were heroines of early Rome; Albula was another name for the Tiber.

132 De Civitate Dei 22.11.

133 See John 11:49–52.

134 Cf. Matt. 24:24.

135 See, e.g., De Civitate Dei 12.6.

136 Epistles 1.16.52.

137 Vitae Caesarum, Vespasian 7.

138 As reported, e.g., by Paul the Deacon, Vita Gregorii 27, and John the Deacon, Vitae Gregorii 2.44, Gregory was so moved by an example of Trajan’s kindness toward a widow that he prayed for the soul of the pagan emperor to be spared the pains of hell. His prayers, it seems, were answered—at least to judge from the testimony of Dante’s Paradiso 20.44 ff.

139 Satires 4.8–9.

140 De Civitate Dei 3.5.

141 Codex Iustinianus 1.3.5.

142 Epistula 2 to Victricius, chapter 13.

143 1 Tim. 5:12.

144 From the work known as Virginitatis Laus, Praise of Virginity, surviving under the names of various authors but not Pelagius. See Muckle 1955, 278 n. 99.

145 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae 6.8 ff.

146 This sermon is now attributed to Paschasius Radbertus.

147 Retractiones 2.79. The internal quotation is from Jas. 2:10.

148 Epistulae 46.1.

149 Epistulae 108.1.

150 Epistulae 130.1.

151 Epistulae 45.1–2 p. 39.

152 Luke 7:39.

153 Cf. De Obitu Valentiani Consolatio 5.1. An orphan paragraph and a likely later comment.

154 For this episode in the life of Eugenia, see Vitae Patrum 1.7–9. The paragraph contains an alternate version of material presented earlier in the letter; see p. 160. It seems to have been set at the end of the letter as if in storage, either in anticipation of an integration of the text that never occurred or out of an editorial piety that could not discard something Abelard had written.