The Letters and Other Writings

Now that I have responded to one part of your request, I will turn, God willing, to the other. You and your daughters in the spirit have asked me to provide a directive for your order that would function in its way as a rule, some written instructions which, more securely than custom, would guide you on an appropriate path. Relying in part on scripture, in part on reason, and in part on the best of our traditions, I have brought these disparate elements together to allow me to adorn God’s spiritual temple, which you are, with only the choicest paintings, as it were, and out of these imperfect parts to compose a single work.¹

In this, I have followed the procedure of the ancient painter Zeuxis, who worked in a material temple as I propose to work in a spiritual one. As Cicero tells the story, the people of Croton asked Zeuxis to decorate a temple they held in high esteem with the finest paintings he could devise.² He approached the task with care, selecting five of the town’s most beautiful women to sit beside him as he worked and model their beauty for his painting. There were several good reasons for this. Zeuxis, we know, was a master in portraying women’s beauty, which by nature is more elegant and delicate than men’s. But as Cicero makes it a point to explain, he chose several women because he did not think he could find one who was uniformly lovely in all her parts. Nature, he thought, had never conferred such beauty on a single woman that all her parts should have an equal share: nothing composed by nature is complete in all respects, as if, in bestowing all her bounties in one place, nature would have none left to bestow elsewhere.

Similarly, in my depiction of the beauty of the soul and the perfection of the bride of Christ—in which, as in a mirror of one spiritual virgin, you can all see your true ugliness or beauty—I have sought to guide your religious life by drawing from different teachings of the Fathers as well as from the best monastic customs, taking up each thought as it comes to mind and gathering them all like flowers in a wreath appropriate to the sanctity of your order. I have included some instructions to monks as well as nuns, since as monastics we are united in our name and our common dedication to self-restraint, so nearly everything that has applied to monks will also be applicable to you. Selecting from all these flowers, as I said, to set off the lilies of your chastity, I then should be able to depict the bride of Christ with greater warmth than Zeuxis could depict a pagan idol. For him, five women were enough to model a share of their beauty; but I will have a far greater store in the teachings of the Fathers, and trusting in the assistance of the Lord, I have no doubt that I will leave you with a far more finished work. Through it, I hope, you will be able to attain the state of the five wise virgins whom the Lord put forward to depict the virgin of Christ.³ But if I am to accomplish all I would like, I must ask the help of your prayers.

The treatise I have planned for your instruction, to detail and reinforce your religious practice and organize your worship of the Lord, is in three parts, constituting, in my judgment, the whole of monastic life, I mean, chastity, poverty, and silence. These, in turn, follow from the teaching of the Lord about girding the loins, renouncing all possessions, and refraining from idle or empty speech.⁵

About chastity, Saint Paul says, “The unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.” Note that he speaks of the whole body, not one part, for she must not succumb to licentiousness of word or deed in any part whatever. She is holy in spirit when pride does not puff her up and when consent does not lead her mind to sin like the foolish virgins of the parable, who ran off to buy their oil and were shut outside the door: although they knocked and shouted, “Lord, Lord, open to us,” they heard their Bridegroom answer, “I say to you, I know you not.”⁶

And about poverty—We become like the apostles and follow naked a naked Christ⁷ not simply when we renounce all our possessions and earthly attachments for his sake but when we put our will itself behind us and live, that is, not by our own lights but at the command of our superior, obeying for the sake of Christ the one who rules in place of Christ as we would Christ himself; for as he says, “He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me.” If it so happens—though I pray it never will—that our superior lives an evil life though his teachings themselves are good, still we must not reject the word of God because of the sins of man: “Whatsoever they say to you, observe and do, but according to their works do ye not.” This spiritual turning from the world to God the Lord himself describes: “Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple,” and “If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”⁸ To hate one’s father, mother, and so on, is to renounce one’s earthly attachments, and to hate one’s life is to renounce one’s will, as he says elsewhere, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” We follow him most closely, then, when we take him for our model in his saying, “I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me”⁹—in other words, when obedience governs all our actions.

What else is self-denial but subordinating our own will and earthly attachments to the will of another? We carry our own cross, through which the world is crucified to us and we to the world,¹⁰ when we forbid ourselves our earthly desires by the free profession of our calling, and so renounce our will. What else do the worldly seek but the satisfaction of their will? What else is earthly pleasure but the fulfillment of that will, even when it involves us in great suffering and risk? And what else is it to bear the cross, to suffer some crucifixion, but to act in a way against the will, though it seems so easy or advantageous? As the other, lesser Jesus says in Ecclesiasticus, “Go not after thy lusts, but turn away from thy own will. If thou give to thy soul her desires, she will make thee a joy to thy enemies.” But when we renounce our possessions and ourselves, then truly is our property cast aside and truly do we enter on the life of the apostles, in which all things are held in common. “The faithful had but one heart and one soul,” it is written. “None said of anything he possessed that it was his own, but all things were common unto them…. And distribution was made to each according to his need.”¹¹ They did not have equal need nor an equal share of things, but each received according to his need—one heart in faith, for belief comes from the heart, and one soul in their mutual charity, for each wanted for the other what he wanted for himself, not seeking more for himself than for another. All things were for the common good and no one sought what was his own but only what was Christ’s. There was no other way they could live without property, which consists more of desires than possessions.

And, finally, about silence—An idle or unnecessary word is the same thing as excessive speech; hence, Augustine says in the first book of his Retractions, “I cannot call it excessive speech when what is said is needed, no matter how many words are used.”¹² Solomon tells us, “In excessive speech sin shall not be wanting, but he that refraineth his lips is most wise.”¹³ Where sin shall not be wanting, we must especially beware and guard against the condition all the more when it is so dangerous and difficult to avoid. This is what Saint Benedict did, saying, “Monks should study silence at all times.”¹⁴ Studying silence is something more than simply keeping silent, for study is the pointed application of the mind to accomplish a given task. We do many things in negligence or even against our will, but we cannot study a thing without acting with purpose and will.

The apostle James, however, tells us how difficult it is to curb the tongue, but also how beneficial it will be. “We all offend in many things,” he says,

but if any man offend not in word, then he is a perfect man…. For every nature of beasts and birds and serpents and the rest is tamed, and hath been tamed, by the nature of man, but the tongue no man can tame…. The tongue is indeed a small part of the body … but see how small a fire can kindle a great wood…. It is a world of iniquity …, an unquiet evil, full of deadly poison.¹⁵

Nothing is more dangerous than poison or more to be avoided. But as poison will destroy a life, so babbling will destroy religious practice. As James says earlier, “If any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue but deceiving his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.” And as it is written in Proverbs, “As a city that lieth open and is not compassed with walls, so is a man that cannot restrain his spirit in speech.”¹⁶

I am reminded of the old man who once came to visit the abbot Anthony with a group of babbling monks. When Anthony asked him, “Father, have you found some good companions in these monks?” he answered, “Very good companions, I suppose, but it seems to me their barn still needs a door. Anyone can come into their stable and let loose the ass inside.”¹⁷ It is as though our soul were tethered to the manger of the Lord, feeding on holy meditations there; but it is loose to run at random in its thoughts if silence does not restrain it. Words impart understanding to the soul, but with the end of directing it toward what it understands and having it hold fast by means of thought. Thought is the means we use to speak with God, as we speak with men through words; and so long as our minds are on the words of men, they must be misdirected, for we cannot direct our minds to men and to God at the same time.

We must avoid not only idle words but even speech that seems to have some purpose—from the necessary to the idle, from the idle to the harmful are easy steps. “The tongue is an unquiet evil,” as James said,¹⁸ smaller and subtler than other parts of the body, quicker in motion but not fatigued by use—rest, in fact, will sap its strength. And the subtler and more pliant it is because of the softness of your female bodies, the quicker it is in motion and the readier in words, the seedbed of every evil, to be sure. Because he saw this vice especially in women, Saint Paul strictly forbade them to speak in church or even to ask questions about God, except of their husbands at home: in what they were to learn and what they were to do, women were enjoined to total silence. As he wrote to Timothy, “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. I suffer not a woman to teach or have authority over a man, but to exist in silence.”¹⁹

These instructions were for married women and the laity, but what, then, is appropriate for you? Paul argued—again, to Timothy—that women are talkative by nature, prone to speaking when they should not. So, if we are to find a remedy for this, we should discipline the tongue with complete silence at least at certain times and in certain places: at prayer, at meals, in the hours after compline, in the kitchen, the dormitory, the refectory, and the cloister. There, if it is necessary, you should use signs in place of words. Teach and learn these signs with special care, and when words are indispensable, use the signs to summon someone to a conversation in an appropriate place designated for the purpose. Then, after only the briefest and most necessary use of words, you should both return directly to your tasks.

Excessive use of words or signs should be disciplined severely, but the overuse of words more so, since the greater danger is there. As Saint Gregory says in Book 7 of his Moralia:

If we are not careful about idle words, we soon will slip into harmful words, and there the seeds of discord are sown, quarrels arise, the flames of hatred are kindled, and all peace is extinguished in the heart. Solomon is surely right to say, “The beginning of quarrels is as when one letteth out water.” For letting out water is releasing the tongue in a flood of speech. He does say, on the other hand, “Words from the mouth of a man are as deep water.” But “the beginning of quarrels is as when one letteth out water” because whoever does not restrain his tongue also destroys concord. And so it is written, “He that putteth a fool to silence, appeaseth anger.”²⁰

We must then be strict in correcting this vice and prompt in punishing it, for it seriously endangers religious practice, bringing slander, strife, and calumny, and sometimes spawning the conspiracies and plots which do not so much undermine as overthrow the entire structure of religious life. Cutting off the vice may not eliminate evil thoughts completely, but it will stop them from corrupting others. In fact, the abbot Macharius thought that avoiding this one vice is almost all there is to religious practice, as the following story shows:

In far-off Scythia, Macharius the Elder told his monks, “After Mass is said, my brothers, I want you all to withdraw from the church.” “But Father,” one of the monks replied, “to what place of solitude can we withdraw that is further than this wilderness around us?” The abbot put his finger on his lips and said, “This is what I am telling you to flee,” and with that he went into his cell, closed the door, and sat down there alone.²¹

Silence will make a man perfect, as James says; Isaiah calls silence “the service of justice”; and the Fathers pursued silence with such deep passion, it is said, that the abbot Agatho “kept a stone in his mouth for three whole years until he finally learned to keep silent.”²²

A place in itself cannot bring us salvation, but the location of the monastery can facilitate religious life and aid in its reinforcement, becoming a help or a hindrance as may be. This is why the sons of the prophets, whom Jerome calls the monks of the Old Testament, retired to the wilderness and built huts for themselves on the banks of the Jordan.²³ And John and his followers, who were the founders of our calling, and Paul and Anthony and Macharius after them, and all those other flowers of the monastic way of life—this is why they fled the world with all of its temptations and brought their beds of contemplation to the quiet of the wilderness, where they could devote themselves more wholeheartedly to God. Even the Lord himself, who certainly feared no temptation, set us the example of leaving crowds of men behind and going off to lonely places whenever he had a thing of great importance to do. He consecrated the wilderness with his forty days of fasting; he refreshed the people in the wilderness and would withdraw there to the purity of prayer, not only from the crowds of men but even from the apostles.²⁴ But he also led the apostles to a mountain to appoint them; on a mountain he was transfigured in their presence; on a mountain he revealed to them his glorious resurrection; and from a mountain he ascended into heaven—everything he did of great importance he did in the lonely places of the wilderness.²⁵ He came to Moses and the patriarchs in the wilderness; through the wilderness he led his people to the promised land; for forty years he kept them in the wilderness, where he delivered his law, rained down his manna, drew water from a rock, consoled his people, appeared to them, and worked his miracles to show how much his Oneness loves a place of solitude, a place where we as well can devote ourselves to him in all the greater purity of prayer.

In the veiled speech he spoke to Job, the Lord praised the freedom of the onager, which loves the wilderness:

Who hath sent out the onager free, and who loosed his bonds, to whom I have given a house in the wilderness and dwellings in the barren land? He scorneth the multitudes of the city, he heareth not the cry of the driver, he looketh round about the mountains of his pasture, and seeketh for every green thing²⁶

—in other words, “Who has done this, if not I?” The onager, which we know as the wild ass, represents the monastic who has been loosed from the bonds of worldly things, has retired to the tranquil freedom of the solitary life, and, fleeing from the world, has not remained within the world. He lives in the barren land where his body is parched and dry through abstinence. He heareth not the cry of the driver but only his quieter voice when he provides his belly with nothing more than what it needs. No driver is as constant and as urgent as the belly, whose cry is the demand for extravagance in food and not merely for what is needed; and to that cry he never should give ear. The mountains of his pasture are the lives and lofty teachings of the Fathers, which restore us by our reading and meditation. And what he calls every green thing are the writings of the life in heaven that will not ever fade.²⁷

Saint Jerome in particular urged us to this solitary life, as he wrote to the monk Heliodorus, “You are called a monastic, but think what that word means. If you are truly alone, then what are you doing among the crowd of men?”²⁸ And he distinguished our monastic way of life from the life that clerics lead, writing to the priest Paul:

If you want to function as a priest, if the duties of a bishop—though I should call them the burdens—appeal to you, then by all means live in the towns and cities and make the salvation of others a source of profit to your soul. But if you want to be what you say you are, a monastic—that is to say, alone—what are you doing in the city, where no man can live alone but only among the many? Every way of life has its forefathers. When it comes to the religious life, let priests and bishops follow the example of the apostles and men like them—they already have their honors: let them strive to have their merit. But we have forefathers of our own to follow: the Pauls, the Anthonies, the Hilarions, Macharius, and—to go back to the scriptures—Elijah and Elisha, leaders of the prophets, who lived in the fields and the wilderness and built themselves huts on the banks of the Jordan, and the sons of Rechab who lived in tents and drank no sikera or wine, and heard Jeremiah tell them of God’s praise, that they shall never lack a man of their stock to stand before the Lord.²⁹

If we too are to stand before the Lord and better attend to his worship, then we too must build our huts in the wilderness, where the society of men can never shake the bed of our repose, disturb our quiet, or distract our minds from the holiness of our calling.

When the Lord led Saint Arsenius to the tranquil freedom of this life, he gave to all of us an example in this one man:

While he still lived in the palace, Abbot Arsenius prayed to the Lord, saying, “Lord, lead me to my salvation.” And a voice came to him, saying, “Arsenius, retire from mankind and you will be saved.” Then after he retired to monastic life, he prayed the prayer again, “Lord, lead me to my salvation.” This time he heard a voice that said, “Arsenius, retire, keep silent, and be still: these are the roots of avoiding sin.”

And so, he was instructed in the single rule of God’s teaching: not only did he avoid all men but he drove them all away. One day, the archbishop came to him along with a certain judge to ask for some instruction. Arsenius said to them:

“If I answer you, will you follow my advice?” They promised him they would, and then he told them, “Wherever you hear Arsenius may be, do not come near him.” A second time the archbishop wanted to see him, but he first sent word to ask if he would be admitted. “If you come, I will admit you,” Arsenius sent word back, “but if I admit you, I admit all men, and then I can no longer stay here.” When the archbishop heard this, he said, “If my going means I persecute him, I will never go to see this holy man.”³⁰

“How could you have dared make this long journey? Don’t you know that, as a woman, you should never leave your home? Or is it that you want to go back to Rome and tell the other women, ‘I have been to see Arsenius,’ and they will make the sea a women’s highway leading to my door?” She said, “If it is God’s will that I return to Rome, I will not allow another woman to come here. But pray for me and remember me always.” Arsenius answered, “I pray that God will wipe your memory from my mind.” Dismayed by this reply, she went away.³¹

And when the abbot Marcus asked him why he withdrew from men, he told him, “I love men, as God knows, but I cannot be with them and be with God.”³²

Some of the holy Fathers went so far in their aversion to the company of men that they pretended to be mad or—strange to say—even spread the word that they were heretics. You can read in the Lives of the Fathers how Abbot Simon prepared for a visit from the provincial judge by sitting in the doorway to his cell and nibbling on a handful of bread and cheese, all the while keeping hidden under a sack.³³ Or how a hermit, seeing men with lanterns on their way to visit him, stripped off all his clothes, threw them in the river, and stood there washing them, stark naked:

The man who looked after him blushed at this and told the visitors, “Please go away, for you see our old man has lost his mind.” Then he turned and asked the hermit, “Father, why have you done this? Everyone who saw you said you were possessed by a demon.” And the old man answered, “That’s just what I wanted to hear.”³⁴

Or how Abbot Moses ran off into a swamp to avoid a visit by the provincial judge:

The judge and his company caught up with him and asked, “Tell me, old man, where can I find the cell of Abbot Moses?” “What do you want him for?” Abbot Moses replied. “The man is crazy and a heretic.”³⁵

There was also Abbot Pastor, who would not see the provincial judge even to free his sister’s son from prison.³⁶ See how the great men of this world seek out the presence of the saints with the utmost veneration and respect, and how the saints drive them away, even if it means their public shame.

Your own sex, too, has shown its virtue in this matter. Can there be adequate praise for the virgin who refused a visit from the most holy Saint Martin so that she could devote herself completely to her contemplation? As Jerome wrote to the monk Oceanus:

Sulpicius tells us in his life of Saint Martin that he traveled to see a virgin outstanding in her chastity and moral way of life. She refused to see him but sent him a guest-gift instead and spoke to him through her window. “Pray from where you are, my father,” she said, “for I have never been visited by any man.” Saint Martin then gave thanks to God that here was a woman of such moral conduct who could preserve the chastity of her will. He blessed her and went away, filled with joy.³⁷

She would not rise, this reverend woman, from her bed of contemplation but was prepared to say to her beloved at the door, “I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?”³⁸

Now, imagine how the bishops and other prelates of our day would respond if Arsenius or this woman treated them in such a way. Imagine their offense at the rebuff. The monastics in the wilderness—if there still are any left—should be ashamed to welcome the company of bishops as they do, erecting special houses to entertain them. Not only do they not avoid the so-called great men of this world who come with their huge retinues to visit, but they actually invite them to come, using hospitality as a pretext to set up building after building and turn the solitude they once sought into a city. Nearly all the monastic houses of our time have succumbed to this temptation of the devil: first founded to escape society, as their early fervor for religious life has cooled, they now invite society, assembling a mass of servants, men and women both, heaping up vast villages on their monastic sites, and in this way returning to the world, or I should say, attracting the world to them. Embroiled in the greatest misery, enslaved to ecclesiastical and secular powers, and living at ease on another’s labor, these monks do not live alone at all but have abandoned their very name as well as their own proper mode of life. The troubles of the world so press on them that, in their struggle to safeguard their followers’ possessions, they often come to lose what truly is their own. And when nearby houses burn, their monasteries too go up in flames.³⁹

Yet even this does not curb their ambition in the world. There are some monks who submit to no monastic restriction at all but go off by twos and threes into villages, towns, and cities, or even live by themselves outside any rule, and in this apostasy from their calling become worse than men of the world. The places where they live they abuse by calling them obedientaries, though they observe no rule and obey nothing but the belly and the flesh, and there they stay with their friends and kin and act as freely as they like, far even from the fear of their own conscience. In these shameless apostates sins are criminal which in other men might be forgiven. The lives of men like these—I would not have you even hear about them, much less follow their example. On the contrary, women’s weakness requires isolation from the world all the more, a place where the temptations of the flesh are less severe and the senses less distracted toward bodily things. As Saint Anthony said:

Whoever resides in the wilderness and at rest is exempt from the three great wars of hearing, speech, and sight. Only one war remains for him to fight, and that is the war of the heart.⁴⁰

And so, the great Doctor of the Church, Jerome, recommended a dwelling in the wilderness. “The wilderness rejoices in God’s presence,” he told Heliodorus. “What then, my brother, are you doing in the world when you yourself are more than the world?”⁴¹

Now that I have spoken of the proper location of the monastery, I should also say a word about the kind of place it should be. As Saint Benedict advised, the monastery should be established in a place which, if possible, will allow for the inclusion in its precincts of the things most necessary to it: a garden, a source of water, a mill, a bakery with an oven, and various other work places where the sisters may perform their daily tasks without the need for going about outside.⁴²

As in the military camps of the world, so in the camps of the Lord—that is to say, our monastic communities—there must be certain persons who have charge of the others. In a military camp, a single individual is in overall command. Because of the size of the army and the sheer diversity of duties, however, he delegates responsibility to subordinates who look after different tasks or different troops of men. So, too, in the convent—one senior woman must preside and all the others do their work under her auspices and according to her judgment: no one must presume to oppose her in any matter or demur from any of her instructions. Without this unity of governance under a single head, no community can remain intact, not even the smallest household. [Hence, the ark of Noah, which provides the model for the Church, was many cubits in length and breadth but was finished in a single cubit.]⁴³ Hence, it is written in Proverbs, “Because of the sins of the land, many are the princes thereof.”⁴⁴ When Alexander died and his kingdom was divided, the number of ills increased in proportion to the new number of kings. And when Rome was entrusted to multiple rulers, it also lost the harmony it had. As Lucan says:

With your three masters,
Rome, you brought these evils on yourself:
There is no concord in realms divided
Among a multitude….
So long as earth supports the sea and air
Supports the earth, so long as Titan rolls
Across the sky and night comes after day,
Distrust will reign when rule is shared: all power
Detests a partner.⁴⁵

Compare the situation that developed with the seventy followers of the abbot Saint Frontonius. So long as he remained in their monastery in his native town, he won great favor in the eyes of God and men, but when he brought them to the wilderness with only their portable goods, they started to complain like the people of Israel complaining to Moses that he led them to the desert away from the fleshpots of Egypt. “Is there chastity only in the wilderness,” they asked him, “and none in the cities?”

Then why don’t we return to the city we left? Or will God hear prayers offered only in the wilderness? Do you think we can survive on the food of angels, or take pleasure in the company of flocks and wild beasts? Why can’t we go back and bless the Lord in the place where we were born?⁴⁶

As the apostle James once warned, “Be ye not many masters, my brethren, knowing that you receive the greater judgment.”⁴⁷ And as Jerome wrote to Rusticus:

No art is ever learned without a master. Even dumb animals and wild herds follow leaders of their own. Bees fly after their queen; cranes line up in their V-formation behind a single bird. There is but one emperor and one judge to a province. At the founding of Rome, two brothers could not act as king at one and the same time, so Rome began with an act of fratricide. Jacob and Esau battled in Rebecca’s womb. Each church has a single bishop, a single archpriest, a single archdeacon; and every ecclesiastical order is subject to its ruler. One pilot to a ship, one master to a house. No matter how large the army, it looks to the standard of just one man. My aim in all of this is to tell you not to follow your own lights: live in a monastery under a single father’s control but with many companions around you.⁴⁸

For the sake of harmony and good governance, then, there must be one woman at the head of the convent, whose instructions all the others will obey. But there should be several others under her, as she herself determines, to function as magistrates, as it were, in charge of the duties she assigns them and acting as she sees fit—captains, we might call them, or lieutenants in the army of the Lord, and all the rest like knights or foot soldiers fighting against the minions of the enemy under the careful watch of these officials.

Seven women, I believe, will be needed for the management of the convent, and seven should be enough: a portress, a cellaress, a wardrober, an infirmarian, a chantress, a sacristan, and, over them all, a deaconess, who in these times is called an abbess.⁴⁹ In this camp, this army of God—for you know that it is written, “The life of man upon earth is a warfare,” and “terrible as an army in array”⁵⁰—the deaconess functions as commander, obeyed implicitly by all. The six others under her—the officials, as I called them—hold the positions of captains or lieutenants. All the others, the nuns of the cloister, duly perform their service to God after the fashion of knights. And the lay sisters—those who have renounced the world and devoted themselves to the service of the nuns, wearing a kind of religious garb but not the full monastic habit—hold the lower rank of foot soldiers.

Now, if the Lord inspires me, I will set these ranks in order, so that they may truly constitute an army in array against the assaults of the devil. I will begin with the head, the one I called a deaconess when I traced the history of this calling, and I will marshal her duties as she is to marshal the duties of the others. As I noted in my previous letter, Saint Paul required that she be proven and distinguished in her sanctity:

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 received to harbor, if she have washed the saint’s feet, if she have ministered to them that suffer tribulation, if she have diligently followed every good work. But the younger widows avoid….⁵¹

He also spoke of deaconesses when he considered the life of deacons: “The women also should be chaste, not slanderers but sober and faithful in all things.”⁵² The intelligence and good sense of these requirements I have already discussed in my earlier letter, especially Paul’s stipulation that she have been married and be advanced in age; so I am not a little surprised at the offensive and dangerous practice that has developed in the Church of electing virgins rather than women who have been married and of putting younger women in charge of their elders, as now is often the case. The Book of Ecclesiastes speaks against it: “Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child,” and also the Book of Job: “In the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days prudence,” the Book of Proverbs: “Old age is a crown of dignity when it is found in the ways of justice,” and the Book of Ecclesiasticus:

O how comely is judgment for a gray head, and for ancients to know counsel! O how comely is wisdom for the aged, and understanding and counsel to men of honor! Much experience is the crown of old men, and the fear of God is their glory.⁵³

Young man, scarcely speak in thy own cause. (This one was needed, too.) If thou be asked twice, let thy answer be short. In many things, be as if thou wert ignorant, and hear in silence and withal seeking. In the company of great men take not upon thee, and when ancients are present, speak not much.

In this way, the presbyters, or priests, who have charge of the people, are also understood to be “elders,” showing by their titles the kind of men they ought to be. And those who recorded the lives of the holy men we now call abbots referred to them as “elders.”]⁵⁴

Every care must be taken, then, to see that Paul’s counsel is followed in the election and consecration of the deaconess. Her life and doctrine should justify the charge she will have over others, her age should guarantee the ripeness of her character, and her own obedience should have earned her the right to govern. She should have learned the rule through daily practice, not merely by hearing it read. If she is not trained in letters, she should know how to apply herself, not to the logical wrangles of the philosophical schools, but to the doctrine of life as manifested in her deeds. It is written of the Lord, “He began to do and to teach,”⁵⁵ by which we understand that doing is prior to teaching, since teaching is more perfect through action than through speech, better through the deed than through the word. What Abbot Ipitius said will help confirm this: “He is truly wise who teaches others by his deed, not by his words.”⁵⁶ And there is also the argument of Saint Anthony, by which he confounded all the windy philosophers who laughed at his teaching as the teaching of a fool and a man untrained in letters:

“Now, answer me this,” he said, “which comes first, sense or letters? Which is the beginning of the other? Does sense arise from letters or do letters arise from sense?” When they replied that sense was both the source and the foundation of letters, he went on, “So, whoever is whole in sense will not need letters. Then let him hear the word of the Apostle and be strengthened in the Lord: ‘Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?’ and ‘But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong. And the base things of the world and the contemptible hath God chosen, and things that are not, that he might bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in his sight.’ For the kingdom of God, as he afterwards said, is not in speech but in virtue.”⁵⁷

But if she needs to turn to scripture for fuller knowledge of any point, she should not be ashamed to ask the educated and take instruction from them. She should never reject an education in letters but rather should accept it diligently, as even Peter took correction from his fellow apostle Paul, for as Saint Benedict remarked, “The Lord often reveals to the lesser man what is better.”⁵⁸

The better to fulfill the Lord’s command which Saint Paul noted above, we should never elect a deaconess from a noble or powerful family, except when there is the most pressing need and the clearest possible reason. With their easy confidence in their origins, people of this sort become too proud or too boastful or presumptuous in their conduct. Especially if they are native to the area, their prelacy may be harmful to a convent: the proximity of their relations may make them much more proud, their frequent visits may disrupt or burden the convent, and this familiarity may breed contempt for religious life and the prelates themselves, according to what the Lord has said: “A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country.”⁵⁹ Saint Jerome raised these and similar problems when he listed for Heliodorus the difficulties facing monks who remain in their own country. “In sum,” he concluded, “a monk in his own country cannot be perfect, and not to wish to be perfect is a sin.”⁶⁰

Think what a great loss of souls it would be if the woman who has charge of the teaching of religion should fall short in her own religious life. If she shows her virtues individually to each of her individual subordinates, that certainly is enough; but in her all virtues ought to shine, so that all those things she teaches to the others she may evince herself through her example. She must not undo in conduct what she teaches or destroy in deeds what she builds in words; she must not let the word of rebuke be taken from her mouth by her shame to correct in others what she herself is known to do. It was the Psalmist’s prayer that this never happen to him. “Take not the word of truth utterly from my mouth,” he said, for he knew it was the harshest of God’s punishments: “But to the sinner God hath said, ‘Why dost thou declare my justices and take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hadst hatest discipline and hast cast my words behind thee?’” And Saint Paul said, “But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become cast out.” Whoever’s life has been despised will see his preaching and his doctrine both condemned. When someone ought to heal another of a sickness he himself is suffering from, the sick man then will charge him properly, “Physician, heal thyself.”⁶¹

Whoever has high position in the Church must always be aware of the ruin his fall will cause if he himself ever comes to the brink and brings his followers with him. “He that shall break the least of these commandments and so teach men, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”⁶² To break a commandment is to act against it, and if someone corrupts others by example, he becomes an instructor of evil. But if that makes him least in the kingdom of heaven—that is to say, in the Church on earth—then what should we call that contemptible prelate whose carelessness has led the Lord to seek not his blood only but the blood of all souls under him? The Book of Wisdom rightly curses such a man:

For power is given to you by the Lord, and strength by the Most High, who will examine your works and search out your thoughts because, being ministers of his kingdom, you have not judged rightly, nor kept the law of justice, nor walked according to the will of God. Horribly and speedily will he appear to you, for a most severe judgment shall be for them that bear rule. For to him that is little, mercy is granted, but the mighty shall be mightily tormented…. and a greater punishment is ready for the more mighty.⁶³

It is enough for a subordinate to see to his own sins, but for superiors, there is death in the sins of others as well. When gifts increase, the reasons for those gifts also increase, and to whom more is given, of him more is demanded. And so the Book of Proverbs warns against this danger:

My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, thou hadst engaged fast thy hand to a stranger. Thou art ensnared with the words of thy mouth, and caught with thy own words. Do therefore, my son, what I say, and deliver thyself because thou art fallen into the hand of thy neighbor. Run about, make haste, stir up thy friend. Give not sleep to thy eyes, neither let thy eyelids slumber.⁶⁴

We become surety for a friend whenever our charitable love receives someone into the life of our community; we extend to him our supervisory care, as he extends to us his obedience. And we engage fast our hands when, by becoming surety for him, we commit ourselves to working for his benefit. But we also are fallen into his hands because, unless we guard against him, we will find him to be the destroyer of our souls. And so, the words run about, make haste, and so on, provide advice against the danger.

So let her now run all about her camp, first here, then there, like a watchful and untiring commander, checking to see if, through someone’s negligence, a way has been left open for the adversary, who “goeth about as a roaring lion seeking someone he may devour.”⁶⁵ She should be first to see all the evils of her house and correct them before anyone can follow their example. She must always beware of the charge Saint Jerome laid at the door of the negligent and foolish: “We are the last to learn the evils of our own house or the faults of our wives and children, and the first to turn a deaf ear to what all the neighbors are saying.”⁶⁶

The woman who presides in the convent must recognize that she has become the guardian of both bodies and souls. About the guardianship of bodies the Book of Ecclesiasticus says:

Hast thou daughters? Have a care of their body and do not show thy countenance light-hearted toward them…. The father waketh for his daughter … and the care for her taketh away his sleep … lest she should be corrupted.⁶⁷

But bodies are corrupted not only by fornication but by doing anything unseemly with them—I mean with any part, including the tongue—or by misusing our senses for any vanity. “Death comes through our windows,” it is written, meaning that sin comes to the soul through our five senses.⁶⁸

No death, though, is more fearful than the death of souls, and no guardianship is more fraught with risk. The Lord said, “Fear ye not them that kill the body and have no more that they can do to the soul.”⁶⁹ But will anyone hear these words and still not fear the body’s death more than the soul’s? Who is less afraid of a sword than a lie? And yet it is written, “The mouth that belieth killeth the soul.”⁷⁰ What can be killed more easily than the soul? What arrow can be fashioned more quickly than a sin? Who can guard himself against a thought? Who is strong enough to guard against his own sins, much less another’s? What fleshly shepherd can protect his spiritual flock against wolves of the spirit, guarding what cannot be seen against what cannot be seen? Who would not fear a predator who never ceases from his prowl, whom no wall will keep out and no sword slay? His snares are always set and, above all, for men and women of the religious life. “His portion is made fat and his meat dainty,” the prophet Habakkuk said, and the apostle Peter: “Your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion seeking someone he may devour.” The Lord told Job about the adversary’s great presumption in devouring us: “He will drink up a river and not wonder, and he trusteth that the Jordan may run into his mouth.”⁷¹ For what would he then not presume to do, when he also dared to tempt the Lord himself, when he lured our first forefathers from paradise, and when he snatched away from the company of apostles an apostle whom the Lord himself had chosen? What place is ever safe from him? What cloister can he not penetrate? Who can guard against his snares? Who can resist his strength? For he is the wind that shook the corners of Job’s house and at one blast crushed his innocent sons and daughters.⁷²

Then what can the weaker sex do to stand against him? No one should fear his seduction more than a woman, since it was a woman he first seduced and through her ensnared her husband and descendants: the desire for a greater good robbed woman of a lesser. And now by this same artfulness, he will easily seduce a woman who, in her love for wealth or honor, is more attracted by supremacy than service. But which it was that first attracted her, the aftermath will prove. If she lives in greater luxury as a superior than she had as a subordinate, or if she claims something special for herself beyond her needs, then doubtless this was always her desire. If she seems more interested in costly adornments after her election than before, then plainly she is puffed up with vainglory. Whatever she had been before will later be revealed, and whether it was her virtue or only a charade that led to her election, her conduct in her office will show.

She should be forced to her position and not come to it on her own, for the Lord said, “All who have come are thieves and robbers,”⁷³ and Jerome observed, “Note who have come, not who were sent.”⁷⁴ That is, she should be taken for the honor and not take it to herself, according to the words of Paul: “Neither doth any man take the honor to himself but he that is called by God, as Aaron was.”⁷⁵ If called, she should lament, as if being led to death; if rejected, she should exult, as if reprieved. If we hear it said that we are better than the others, we modestly blush at the words; but if these words are proven true by the fact of our election, we carry on without any shame at all. Most certainly, the better should be chosen over others—hence, Saint Gregory says in Book 24 of his Moralia:

No one ought to undertake the leadership of others who is not in a position to correct them. Nor should someone who is elected to correct the faults of others do himself what ought to be rooted out⁷⁶

—but if to avoid this shamelessness we only voice some weak refusal, we open ourselves to the charge of merely wanting to appear more righteous and deserving.

How many have we seen at their election, tears in their eyes and laughter in their hearts, proclaiming their unworthiness but currying men’s favor all the more. They take note of the words, “The just is first accuser of himself,”⁷⁷ but afterward, when it comes their turn to be accused and they have the chance to retire from the field, with what supreme, tenacious impudence do they assert their claims to those same honors which, with false tears but with truthful accusations of themselves, they originally said they were unwilling to accept. Think of all the canons we have seen in our churches who resist their bishops’ call to take holy orders, avowing their unworthiness for such a sacred office, entirely unwilling to accept. But if a little later those same canons should be chosen for a bishopric by some chance, how weak will their refusal appear then—if in fact we hear a refusal at all. Those who only yesterday protested that the danger to their soul must force them to decline a deaconship, become reconciled to the higher office overnight and now no longer fear the precipice. About such men the Book of Proverbs says, “A fool will clap his hands when he is surety for his friend.”⁷⁸ For only a wretch will exult at what ought to make him lament, when, coming to the governance of others, he is bound by his calling to the care of his subordinates, by whom he should be loved rather than feared.

We must guard against this evil as securely as we can. Therefore, we strictly forbid the superior to live in greater comfort than her subordinates. She should not have private rooms for sleeping or eating, but should do everything alongside her flock: the more she is with them, the better she can look after them. I know that Saint Benedict had assigned a separate table for the abbot to dine with pilgrims and guests.⁷⁹ Although he acted out of a pious concern for the monastery’s visitors, a more recent and sensible practice has developed in some monasteries by which the abbot does not separate himself from the community at large, but rather delegates the care of pilgrims to some other responsible person. Yes, it is easy to sin at table and discipline should be enforced especially during meals, but there are additional reasons for it. Many people use hospitality as an opportunity to cater to themselves more than their guests, and it is chiefly from a suspicion of this that those who are not present feel offended and complain. The authority of the superior is weakest when his life is not open to his followers, and further, any privation becomes easier to bear when it is shared equally by all, including—and especially—the superior. This we learn from the example of Cato, who, as Lucan tells it, would not accept the water offered to him “when the people in his ranks were thirsty,” and so “the stream became enough for them all.”⁸⁰

Since sobriety is necessary for all prelates, they must live frugally to allow provision for the rest. They must not turn their office, a gift conferred by God, into a source of pride, nor ever lord it over their subordinates. Instead, they must attend to what is written: “Be not as a lion in thy house, terrifying them of thy household and oppressing them that are under thee.” “Pride is hateful before God and men.” The beginning of pride is man’s turning from God, as the beginning of sin is pride, for then his heart withdraws from his Creator. “The Lord hath overturned the thrones of proud princes and hath set up the meek in their stead.” “Have they made thee ruler? Be not lifted up. Be among them as one of them.” And as Saint Paul instructed Timothy about his subordinates, “Rebuke not an ancient man but entreat him as a father, young men as brothers, old women as mothers, young women as sisters.” And the Lord said, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen and appointed you that you should go and bring forth fruit.”⁸¹ All other prelates are chosen by their subordinates, created and constituted by them for service, not for lordship. The Lord alone is truly Lord and chose his own subordinates for his service; yet he showed himself as servant, not as lord, and by his own example corrected those of his followers who aspired to high honors, saying:

The kings of the gentiles lord it over them and they that have power over them are called beneficent. But you are not so. He that is the greater among you should become as the lesser, and he that is the leader as he that serveth.⁸²

Someone follows the way of the kings of the gentiles, then, if he strives for lordship and not service among his subordinates, if he seeks to be feared more than loved, and if, swollen with the authority of his office, he loves “the first places at feasts and the first chairs in the synagogues, and greetings in the market place and to be called Rabbi by men.” We should not glory in that title or in any titles at all but should look to humility in all things, as the Lord said, “But be not you called Rabbi … and call none your father upon earth.” And then, forbidding all boasting, he continued, “Whoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled.”⁸³

We must also insure that the absence of the shepherds does not endanger the flock, letting discipline grow slack when they are away. I have resolved, therefore, that the deaconess, with her attention more on spiritual than on worldly things, is not to leave the convent for any business outside its walls. Her constant presence among her women will demonstrate her greater care, and her appearance in the world will be as honored as it is rare, as is written, “If thou be invited by one that is mightier, withdraw thyself, for so he will invite thee the more.”⁸⁴ If the convent requires any mission sent abroad, it should be monks or lay brothers who undertake it. Men always must see to the needs of women, and the greater women’s religious life becomes and the more they devote themselves to God, the more they will need the protection of men. Hence, the angel told Joseph to watch over the mother of the Lord, though he was not permitted to lie with her, and the Lord at his death found for his mother a second son, as it were, to care for her in worldly things.⁸⁵ The apostles, too, arranged for the care of holy women and appointed the seven deacons to serve them, as I have already discussed at length.⁸⁶ So, following their authority and aware of the real necessity, I have determined that in matters which concern the outside world the needs of women’s convents should lay in the hands of monks and lay brothers, after the manner of the apostles and first deacons. Monks will be needed chiefly for the Mass, lay brothers for their physical labor.

It is therefore necessary—as was the practice under Mark in Alexandria at the very beginnings of the Church—that women’s convents be located near monasteries of men, and that all their business outside the walls be conducted through men who share the religious life. It is also my belief that women’s convents adhere more securely to the tenets of their practice if they are guided by the wisdom of spiritual men and if a single shepherd watches over rams and ewes alike, that is to say, if the man presiding over the men also presides over the women. For always, as Paul says, “Let the head of every woman be the man, as the head of every man is Christ and the head of Christ is God.”⁸⁷ It was for this reason that the convent of Saint Scholastica, which had been built on land belonging to a monastery of monks, was also guided by a monk and received his frequent visits, or his brothers’, for its consolation and instruction.⁸⁸

Question: Should the presiding monk ever speak with the nuns to offer them instruction except in the presence of the woman who directs the sisters?

Answer: How then will we follow Saint Paul’s command, “Let all things be done decently and according to order”?

Question: Should the presiding monk often speak with the woman who directs the sisters if it offends some of the brothers?

Answer: As Saint Paul says, “Why is my liberty judged by another man’s conscience?” But it is also good to follow him when he says, “I have not used my power … lest I should hinder the gospel of Christ.” He should see the women, then, as little as possible and all their conversations must be brief.⁸⁹

It is decided by our common consent that women’s convents in the province of Baetica be guided by the supervisory ministry of monks. It is only to the good of these devoted women if we choose spiritual fathers to protect and instruct them. Yet we caution the monks to keep far from the women’s quarters, not coming even so close as the entryway. Neither the abbot nor any man set in authority shall speak with the nuns to instruct them in morals, except in the presence of the woman who directs the sisters, nor should he often speak with her alone, but only in the presence of two or three sisters. Their visits should be infrequent and their conversations brief. Far be it from us to wish that the monks become familiar with the virgins of Christ—it is improper even to speak of it—but the men must be kept separate and apart, in accord with our canons and our rule. We entrust the women only to their guidance, calling for the selection of a single man, the most tested of the monks, to have charge over the management of their town or country properties, the construction of their buildings, and the provision of anything else the convent may require. This will free the handmaids of Christ to live for the worship of God alone and see to their own tasks, concerned only for what will benefit their souls. The man chosen for this office by the abbot will of course be subject to the approval of the bishop. For their part, the nuns will make clothing for the monks who look over them, receiving in exchange both their support and the fruits of their labor, as we said.⁹⁰

Accordingly, I would have it that convents of women always be subject to monasteries of men, that brothers see to the care of their sisters, and that a single man preside as father over both communities. Both should look to his judgment, making “one fold and one shepherd” in the Lord.⁹¹ Indeed, such a spiritual family will be more pleasing to God and men when it can more fully accommodate anyone of either sex who would enter religious life, that is, when monks take in the men and nuns take in the women and the whole provides for every soul who is looking toward salvation. If a man with a wife or a mother, a daughter or a sister, or any other woman in his charge wishes to turn to the religious life, he can find full comfort there; and charitable love would bind the two communities more closely to each other if their members are united by family connections as well.

The one they call the abbot should preside over the nuns in recognition that they are brides of Christ, who is his lord, and that each of them, as such, is now his lady.⁹² He should exult in his service to them, not in his supremacy, acting as a steward in the house of the king, a steward who does not bend his lady to his command but is always attentive to her interests, who obeys her at once in what is necessary but declines in what may do her harm, and who sees to all external matters in such a way that he never need enter her chamber unless ordered. This is how the servant of Christ should see to the brides of Christ, attending them faithfully for the sake of Christ. All important matters he should discuss with the deaconess and, without consulting her, should not decide anything about the nuns or their affairs; nor should he presume to instruct them or speak to them except through her. Whenever the deaconess summons him, he should come without delay, and whatever she advises him about her or her charges’ needs, he should carry out as quickly as he can. And when the deaconess summons him, he should not speak with her except in the open and in the presence of other responsible persons. He should never draw too close to her or engage her in long conversations.

The sisters will collect all food and clothing and any money there may be and set it aside; whatever they have in excess they will make over to the brothers as needed. The brothers, then, will supply all outside goods, and the sisters only do what is fit for women to do within the confines of the walls, for example, sewing and washing their own and the brothers’ clothes, and kneading, baking, and handling bread. They will also take charge of the cows and the poultry and whatever else that women can do more easily and suitably than men.

When the man takes up his appointment as superior, he will swear in the presence of the sisters and the bishop that he will be a faithful steward in the Lord and will scrupulously preserve them from any carnal contact. If he is ever found negligent—and I pray he never is—he should immediately be deposed for perjury. Likewise, all the monks, when they make their vows, must bind themselves to the sisters by this sacrament that they will never allow them to be wronged and will protect their chastity with all their power. No man will approach the sisters without permission of the superior; nothing will be sent to them without going through the superior. No sister will leave the precincts of the convent, but rather, as I said, the brothers will supply all outside goods as is only fitting, the hard sex sweating in its hard work. No brother will ever enter the convent grounds without permission of the superior and the deaconess, and then only for a virtuous and compelling reason. If anyone dares act in any way against this rule, he will summarily be expelled from the monastery.

To insure that the men with their greater strength do not wrong the women in any way, I have resolved that they, too, should be subject to the deaconess and carry out her will in every matter. All members of these communities, the men and women alike, will make their profession to her and vow her their obedience. Peace will be more lasting and concord better preserved if the strong are set strict limits, while, on the other hand, the stronger sex will not feel wronged by its obedience to the weaker as it has no reason to fear the weaker’s violence. The more a man is humbled before God, the more he is sure to be exalted.

I think I have said enough about the deaconess for the moment. I will turn, then, to the other officials.

The sacristan, or treasurer, will look after the oratory and everything connected with the place of prayer. She will keep all its keys and safeguard its necessary items, and if there are any offerings, she will receive them. She will have charge over the manufacture and repair of items needed in the oratory and over all of its furnishings. It is also her responsibility to look after the hosts, the vessels and books of the altar and all of its furnishings, the relics, the incense, the lights, the clock, and the striking of bells. The nuns will prepare the hosts, if it is feasible, purify the flour from which they are made, and also wash the altar-cloths. But neither they nor the sacristan herself must ever touch the relics or the vessels of the altar or even the altar-cloths, unless they are brought to them to wash. For this they will rely on the monks and lay brothers. When it becomes necessary, certain worthy men will be appointed to act under the sacristan’s supervision, and they will be the ones to remove the items from the chests, which she will have unlocked, and return them to their place again. The woman who presides over the sanctuary should be outstanding in the purity of her life, whole both in body and in mind, if possible, and proven in austerity and self-restraint. She also should be trained in lunar calculation, so that she may look after the oratory according to the order of the seasons.

The chantress will look after the choir, set the order of worship, and have charge over the teaching of reading and singing in the convent and everything connected to writing. She also will have custody of the convent’s books, taking them to and from their storage, and either arrange for their copying and decoration or undertake it herself. She will organize and assign the seats in choir, allocate the spoken or sung parts, and make the list of weekly duties to be read each Saturday in chapter. She should, therefore, be well trained in letters and especially knowledgeable in music. She also will see to all the education in the convent, after the deaconess; if she happens to be busy with other matters, she will act as her deputy in this.⁹³

The infirmarian will tend the sick, keeping them from both bodily privation and sin. Whatever their illness demands in the way of food, baths, or anything else, should be allowed them, for as the saying goes, “The law was not made for the sick.” Meat, too, should be permitted them, except on Fridays and the chief vigils or during the fasts of Ember Days and Lent. But they also should be cautioned against sin all the more since illness is a time for them to be thinking about death, a time for silence and insistent prayer, as it is written, “My son, neglect not thyself in thy sickness, but pray to the Lord and he shall heal thee. Turn away from sin and order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all offense.”⁹⁴ There must always be an attendant for the sick, someone who can rush to their aid if the need arises, and the house should be equipped with everything necessary for their illness, including a supply of medicines so far as the convent’s resources will allow. This, of course, is more easily done if the infirmarian has some medical knowledge. Her charge also extends to the women who are issuing blood. It is important as well that she be skilled in bloodletting, so that no man will have to come among the women for that purpose. There should also be provision for the sick to celebrate the Offices of the Hours and take communion on Sundays at the least, but always after their confession and whatever atonement they are able to make. About the anointing of the sick, the words of the apostle James should be strictly observed, especially when the patient is beyond hope of recovery.⁹⁵ For this, two of the elder priests and a deacon from the monastery should be admitted to the convent, bringing the consecrated oil with them, and they should administer the sacrament with the sisters in attendance, separated from them, however, by a partition wall. When the need arises, a similar procedure should be followed with communion. The infirmary, therefore, must be so arranged that the monks can easily come in and go out without seeing the nuns or being seen by them.

At least once each day, the deaconess and cellaress will visit the sick woman as if she were Christ himself to look after her physical and spiritual needs, and so they may deserve to hear the Lord say, “I was sick and you came to me.”⁹⁶ If the woman is near the end and has come to her death struggle, one of the attendants will run to the convent as quickly as she can, beating on a board to proclaim her sister’s departure. The whole convent then must rush to the dying woman’s side, no matter the hour of the day or night, unless the Offices of the Church prevent it. Since “nothing must be set before the work of God,”⁹⁷ it is enough in this circumstance that the deaconess go herself with a few chosen women and that the convent as a whole follow later. But whoever comes running at the beating of the board should at once begin the litany down through the invocation of the male and female saints and then continue with the psalms or other texts appropriate to a death. As the Book of Ecclesiastes tells us:

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for in that we are put in mind of the end of all, and the living thinketh what is to come…. The heart of the wise is where there is mourning, and the heart of fools where there is mirth.⁹⁸

The nuns then will wash their dead sister’s body, clothe it in sandals and a clean but common garment, and place it on a bier, wrapping her head in her veil. They will stitch or tie the clothes tightly to the body and not move them afterward. And they will carry the body to the church for the monks to bury at the proper time, during which they themselves, retired to the oratory, will chant the psalms or meditate in prayer. The burial of a deaconess will have only one distinction: her body will be wrapped in a shroud and the whole stitched together, as if in a sack.

The wardrober will look after everything concerning clothing, including shoes as well as everything else. She will arrange for the shearing of the sheep and will receive the leather for making sandals. She will spin the flax and wool, collect it, and see to all the weaving, and she will provide the others with their scissors, needles, and thread. She also will have charge of the dormitory and will see to all the beds. The table coverings, hand cloths, and every other article of cloth along with their cutting, sewing, and washing—all this is her responsibility, and to her in particular these words apply:

She hath sought wool and flax and hath wrought by the counsel of her hands…. She hath put out her hand to the distaff and her fingers have taken hold of the spindle…. She shall not fear for her house in the cold of snow, for all her domestics are clothed with double garments … and she shall laugh in the latter day…. She hath looked well to the paths of her house and hath not eaten her bread idle. Her children rose up and called her blessed.⁹⁹

She will keep the implements needed for her tasks and assign the sisters their own share of the work, since she also will have charge over the novices until they are received into the community.

The cellaress will oversee everything having to do with food: the cellar, the refectory, the kitchen, the mill, the bakery and oven, the gardens, the orchards, the beehives, the cows, the sheep, and the poultry—whatever is needed in the way of foodstuff will be her responsibility. It is especially important, then, that she be generous in nature, ready and willing to furnish what is needed, “for God loveth a cheerful giver.”¹⁰⁰ She is strictly forbidden to favor herself over others in carrying out her duty, to prepare food for herself alone, or to keep something for herself and so cheat the others. “The best steward,” says Jerome, “keeps nothing for himself,”¹⁰¹ unlike Judas, who abused his stewardship of the purse and was lost to the company of the apostles, or Ananias and his wife Saphira, who received the sentence of death for holding back part of the price of the land.¹⁰²

The portress, or gatekeeper, will have the responsibility of receiving guests and anyone else who comes to the convent, announcing them, bringing them to the appropriate place, and taking general charge over hospitality. She should be discreet in mind and years, know how to receive and to give a message, and be able to determine whom to admit, whom to turn away, and the manner appropriate for each. Since acquaintance with the convent begins with her, she must be an adornment to its religious life, as if she herself were the vestibule of the Lord. She therefore should be soft in speech and mild in address, eager to increase the good will even of those she turns away by giving them a suitable reason—as it is written, “A mild answer breaketh wrath, but a harsh word stirreth up fury,” and “A sweet word multiplieth friends and appeaseth enemies.”¹⁰³ Because she will be the one to see the poor most often and come to know them best, she also should distribute whatever food or clothing there is to distribute. If she or any other official needs assistance or relief, the deaconess will appoint deputies for her, choosing them mainly from the lay sisters, so that none of the nuns need ever be absent from divine worship or from the refectory or chapter.

The portress will have a small lodge by the gate, where either she or her assistant will always be on hand to meet people as they arrive. But that is not a place for them to be idle or forget their study of silence, especially since it is that much easier for outsiders to overhear their talking from there. It is her responsibility, in fact, to keep the convent closed not only to unsuitable visitors but also to gossip of any kind—none must come inside without control, and for any lapse in this the portress should be held accountable; if she does hear some important news, however, she should bring it to the deaconess in private for her to act on as she herself sees fit. When someone knocks or calls out at the gate, the woman stationed there will ask who it is and what they want and, if it is appropriate, open the gate immediately and take them in. Only women may be received as guests in the convent; men should be directed to the monks. No man will be admitted for any reason without the prior consultation and order of the deaconess, but women will have entry at once. The portress then will have the women—or any men who have occasion to enter—wait in her lodge until the deaconess can come to greet them, or some other sisters if it is necessary or more convenient. If the visiting women are poor and require washing of their feet, the deaconess herself or some of the sisters should perform this act of hospitality. The Lord himself was called a deacon for performing this service for the apostles, as is mentioned in the Lives of the Fathers: “On your account, O man, … did the Savior become a deacon, gird himself with a linen towel, and wash his disciples’ feet, and in this way teach them to wash their brothers’ feet.”¹⁰⁴ For this reason, Saint Paul required that the deaconess “have offered hospitality and have washed the saints’ feet.” And the Lord himself said, “I was a stranger and you took me in.”¹⁰⁵

All of these officials, except for the chantress, should be selected from the women who do not study letters if there are others in the convent better suited to spend their time on reading.

All the furnishings of the oratory should be necessary, not extravagant, and clean rather than costly. There should be nothing of gold or silver except for a single silver chalice, or more than one if needed, and nothing of silk except the stoles and maniples. There should be no carved images. A wooden cross should be set above the altar, nothing more, with a painting of the Savior, if desired, but no other images. The convent should be content with a single pair of bells. Outside the entrance to the oratory, there should be a vessel of holy water, where the women can bless themselves as they come in in the morning and go out after compline.

The nuns will all be present in the oratory at each canonical Hour. As soon as the bell is struck, they will put aside any other business and come to the Divine Office at a swift but modest pace. They will enter the oratory quietly, but those who can should recite the words, “I will come into thy house and worship at thy holy temple in fear of thee.”¹⁰⁶ No book will be kept in the choir except the one needed for the current service. The words of the psalms should be pronounced clearly and distinctly so as to be understood, and the music should be slow enough to allow the weaker voices to keep up. No text is to be read or sung in church except what is taken from authoritative scripture, and from the Old and New Testaments in particular; these will be so divided among the lessons that they may be read in their entirety over the course of a year. Other instructional texts, including the commentaries and sermons of the Doctors of the Church, will be read in chapter or at meals; in other circumstances that call for reading, any other book will be permitted. No one will read or chant a text that she has not prepared, and if someone makes a mistake of pronunciation in the oratory, she will make open atonement then and there by saying quietly, “Forgive me for my carelessness, O Lord, this time as well.”

At midnight, they will rise for the Night Office, as the prophet has commanded.¹⁰⁷ For this, they must retire early enough to enable their weak nature to sustain the vigil and continue with the Offices of the day when it is light, in the manner Saint Benedict prescribed.¹⁰⁸ After the Night Office, they will return to the dormitory until the bell is struck for morning lauds. For the remainder of the night, they may sleep if they like, for sleep refreshes a weak and weary nature, preparing it for toil and keeping it steady and alert. If any of them, however, feel the need to meditate on the psalms or other readings, as Saint Benedict suggests,¹⁰⁹ they should take up their study in such a way that no one is disturbed—in fact, he speaks of meditation and not reading in that passage to insure that the sounds of reading will not keep anyone awake. When he speaks of “any brothers who feel the need to meditate,” he does not require meditation of everyone. At times there may be need for singing practice, for example, but in such cases those who need the practice should see to it that no one is disturbed.

The Morning Office will be celebrated as soon as it is light, the bell rung at sunrise if it can be arranged. At the end of the service, they will return to the dormitory. During the summer months, when the nights are short and the mornings long, they may sleep a little before prime until awakened by the bell. There is a reference to this morning nap after lauds in the second chapter of Saint Gregory’s Dialogues, where he recounts a story of the venerable Libertinus:

But on the following day, there was a court case to be heard which would mean much for the monastery’s benefit. So, after the morning hymns had been sung, Libertinus came to the bedside of the abbot and humbly asked his blessing.¹¹⁰

The morning nap should be permitted from the time of Easter to the autumn equinox, when the nights begin to be longer than the days.

When they leave the dormitory, the nuns will wash, then sit in the cloister with their books, reading or singing until the bell for prime. After prime, they will go to their chapter, where the phase of the moon will be announced and a portion of the martyrology will be read. This should be followed by an instructional sermon or the reading and exposition of a portion of the Rule. Then, if there are things to be set in order and corrected, this is the proper time.

We must recognize that a monastery or any other house should not be called disorderly simply because disorderly things may happen there, but rather because when such things happen, they pass without correction. No place is entirely free from fault, as Saint Augustine reminds us:

The discipline of my house can be as watchful as you like—I am still a man and live among men. I dare not claim that my house is better than the ark of Noah, where of the eight people aboard only one was found to be a sinner; or the house of Abraham, where it was said, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son”; or the house of Isaac, where Jacob was loved but Esau hated; or the house of Jacob, where a son defiled the bed of his father; or the house of David, where one son lay with his sister and another took up arms against the indulgence of his father; or the company of the apostle Paul, who if he lived among good men would never say, “Combat without and terror within,” or “There is no man of the same mind who is solicitous for you: all seek the things that are their own and not the things of Christ”; or the company of Christ himself, where eleven good men put up with the treachery and theft of Judas; or, finally, better than heaven itself, which saw the fall of angels.¹¹¹

I confess before God that, from the day I first became his servant, I have seen few men better than those who have prospered in monasteries. But I also have seen few men worse than monks who have fallen.¹¹²

[As I believe is written in the Book of Apocalypse, “He that is just, let him become more just, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still.”]¹¹³

Strict discipline must therefore be enforced. Whoever witnesses a fault in another but conceals it will be subject to a harsher punishment than the one who committed the original fault. No one must be remiss in pointing out a failing, whether it is another’s or her own; but if she comes forward to accuse herself first, she will deserve a lighter punishment if her negligence has ceased, for “the just is first accuser of himself.”¹¹⁴ No one must make excuses for another, unless the deaconess questions her about the truth of a matter she alone may know. No one must ever strike another for any fault whatever, unless the deaconess so orders it. Some passages about discipline and correction:¹¹⁵

My son, reject not the correction of the Lord, and do not faint when thou art chastised by him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth, and as a father in the son he pleaseth himself.

He that spareth the rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes.

He that rebuketh a man shall afterward find favor with him more than he that deceiveth him with flattering tongue.

Now all the chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy but sorrow. But afterwards it will yield to them that are exercised by it the most peaceable fruit of justice.

A son ill taught is the confusion of the father, and a foolish daughter shall be to his loss.

He that loveth his son frequently chastiseth him that he may rejoice in his latter end…. He that instructeth his son shall be praised in him, and shall glory in him in the midst of his household.

A horse not broken becometh stubborn, and a child left to himself will become headstrong. Give thy son his way, and he shall make thee afraid. Play with him, and he shall make thee sorrowful.¹¹⁶

In the advisory discussions of the chapter, anyone may offer her opinion; but whatever may seem best to everyone else, the decision of the deaconess will be final, for everything is subject to her will, even if she is in error and her decision turns out for the worse, as I pray will never be the case. “To disobey one’s superiors in any matter is a sin,” Augustine says in his Confessions, “even if one chooses better things than he has been ordered to do.”¹¹⁷ It is far better to do well than to do good, since we should not weigh what is done so much as how it is done and what is in the heart.¹¹⁸ Whatever is done in obedience is done well, no matter if what is done seems the least good. However great the material harm, it is right to obey superiors in all things, so long as it does not entail a danger to the soul. A superior must see that he orders well since for subordinates it is enough to obey well and follow not their own will but the will of their superiors, according to the terms of their profession.

In these discussions, we strictly forbid that custom ever be valued over reason, that any action be justified by custom rather than by reason or because it is the practice rather than because it is good. The better a thing is, the more warmly we should embrace it; otherwise, we act like Jews, who reject the Gospel, preferring their old law. Saint Augustine speaks to this matter, drawing on the counsel of Saint Cyprian:¹¹⁹

Whoever dares scorn truth to follow custom is acting either out of envy of his brothers, to whom the truth has been revealed, or out of an ingratitude to God, whose inspiration has instructed his Church.

In the Gospel, the Lord said, “I am truth,” not “I am custom.” And so, let custom yield to truth, now that the truth has been made plain.¹²⁰

Now that truth has been revealed, let error yield to truth, as Peter, who had been circumcised, yielded to Paul, who preached the truth.

Those who are vanquished by reason now plead custom against us, but in vain—as though custom were greater than truth, or what the Holy Spirit has revealed for the better were not to be followed in spiritual things. But plainly reason and truth must be valued over custom.¹²¹

And surely, to use the words of Saint Cyprian, no custom, however ancient or widespread, is ever to be valued over truth, and practices which are contrary to the truth must be abolished.¹²²

We are told in Ecclesiasticus how much we should love truth in our words as well:

In all thy works let the true word go before thee, and steady counsel before every action.¹²³

Nothing must be taken as authority because it is done by the many but because it is proven by the wise and the good. As Solomon says, “The number of fools is infinite,” and according to the Lord, “Many are called but few are chosen.”¹²⁴ What is rare is precious, and as things become more common they also diminish in price. No one, then, should follow the majority but rather what is best, not looking toward a person’s age but to that person’s wisdom, and not regarding friendship but the truth; hence Ovid’s saying, “It is right to learn even from an enemy.”¹²⁵

Meetings should be called whenever there is need for counsel or serious matters to decide. Less important matters the deaconess may discuss with a few of the senior sisters alone. Some passages about counsel:¹²⁶

Where there is no governor, the people shall fall, but there is safety where there is much counsel.

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he that is wise hearkeneth unto counsels.

My son, do nothing without counsel, and thou shalt not repent when thou hadst done.¹²⁷

A thing done without counsel may turn out well by chance, but fortune’s gift does not excuse man’s presumption. A thing done with counsel at times may go astray, but the power that asked for counsel is not guilty of presumption. The man who took advice is less to blame than those to whom he yielded in his error.

When the chapter meeting is over, the women will turn to the tasks that are suited to them—reading, singing, or handiwork—until terce. Afterward, Mass will be said. To celebrate the service one of the monks from the monastery should be appointed priest for the week. If their community is large enough, he should have a deacon and a subdeacon to assist him in his duties, but they also may perform their own offices. The sisters must not be able to see their coming in or going out. If more than these are needed, provision should be made for them, but only if it can be arranged without taking the monks from the Divine Offices in their own monastery on account of the masses they say for the nuns.

If the sisters will receive communion, an older priest should be chosen to administer the sacrament after Mass, during which time the deacon and subdeacon will have withdrawn to remove any opportunity for temptation. The convent as a whole will receive communion at least three times a year, at Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, as the Fathers established for the laity as well. They will prepare for these communions in the following way: three days before, they will offer confession and do appropriate penance; then for three days they will purify themselves with a fast of bread and water and frequent prayer, taking to heart, in all humility and awe, those fearsome words of the Apostle:

Whoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep. But if we would not judge ourselves, we should not be judged.¹²⁸

After Mass, they will return to their work until sext. At no time will anyone be idle, but each will do what she can and what is appropriate for her. After sext, they will go to their meal, unless it is a fast day when they must wait until none or even until evening during Lent. There will be someone reading to them throughout every meal; when the deaconess wishes her to end, she will say, “It is enough,” and then all will rise and give thanks to God. In the summer, they will rest in the dormitory until none and afterward return to their work until vespers. Immediately after vespers, they will take something to eat or drink, or, depending on the season, go on to collation.¹²⁹ Before collation on Saturdays, however, they will wash their hands and feet, the deaconess acting as their servant in this task, assisted by the kitchen workers for the week. After collation, they will go straight to compline and then retire to sleep.

About food and clothing, the dictum of Saint Paul must be observed: “But having food and covering, with these we are content.”¹³⁰ That is to say, what is necessary is enough: we must not seek more than that. Whatever can be purchased most cheaply or had most easily should be permitted, and whatever can be used without offense. For in matters of food, Saint Paul avoided only what would cause offense to his own or another’s conscience, knowing that the fault is in the appetite and not in the food itself:

Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and he that eateth not, let him not judge him that eateth…. Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? … He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth thanks to God…. Let us not therefore judge one another any more. But judge this rather, that you not offend your brother nor put a stumbling block in his way.

I know and am confident that nothing is unclean in itself in the Lord Jesus but to him that esteemeth it unclean…. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…. All things indeed are clean, but it is evil for that man who eateth with offense. It is good not to eat flesh and not to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother is offended, weakened, or undone.¹³¹

After discussing the offense to his brother, Paul continues with the offense a man commits against himself when he eats in violation of his conscience:

Blessed is he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth. But he that discerneth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith. For all that is not of faith is sin.¹³²

We sin in everything we do against our conscience and against what we believe. And we judge and condemn ourselves in what we allow—by the terms, that is, of a law we accept and approve—if we eat the foods which we discern—that is, distinguish as unclean and exclude according to the law. So powerful is the witness of our conscience that this, above all, will condemn or acquit us before God. Hence, John remarks in his first letter:

Dearly beloved, if our hearts do not reprehend us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we shall ask we shall receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do those things which are pleasing in his sight.¹³³

Paul, then, spoke correctly when he said above, “Nothing is unclean in Christ but to him that esteemeth it unclean,” or impure and forbidden to the man who believes it so. We apply the term common, or unclean, to foods which are called impure according to the law,¹³⁴ because when the law forbids these foods to its adherents, it makes them available or public, as it were, to those outside its jurisdiction; hence, common is also a term for impure women, and anything cheap or less valuable which is made public is also known as common.¹³⁵ And so, Paul says that in Christ no food is common, or impure, because the law of Christ forbids no food, except to avoid an offense to one’s own or another’s conscience. As he says elsewhere:

Wherefore, if meat be an offense for my brother, I will never eat meat, lest I set a stumbling block in his path. Am not I free? Am not I an apostle? Have I not seen Christ Jesus our Lord?¹³⁶

In other words, “Do I not have the freedom which the Lord gave the apostles to use what others offer and eat any food at all? For when he sent out the apostles, as he says, ‘eating and drinking such things as they have,’¹³⁷ he did not distinguish one food from another.” And so, Paul carefully proceeds to say that every sort of food—even the food of unbelievers which has been consecrated to idols—is lawful for Christians to eat, so long as it does not constitute an offense to another’s conscience. “All things are lawful to me,” he said, “but not all things are expedient.”

All things are lawful for me, but all things do not edify. Let no man look to his own, but to that which is another’s. Eat whatever is sold in the markets, asking no questions for conscience’s sake, for “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” If any unbeliever invite you and you be willing to go, eat of anything that is set before you, asking no questions for conscience’s sake. But if any man say, “This has been sacrificed to idols,” do not eat of it for the sake of him that told it and for conscience’s sake—conscience, I say, not thy own but the other’s…. Do no offense to the Jews and to the gentiles and to the church of God.¹³⁸

The clear inference from his words is that we are forbidden nothing we may eat without offense to our own or another’s conscience. Now, we act without offense to our conscience if we believe that we are keeping that calling in life that enables us to be saved; and we act without offense to another’s if we are believed to be living such a life. Indeed, we will live such a life if we keep away from sin while allowing for the requirements of our nature, if we stay within our strength and do not bind ourselves by our calling to such a heavy yoke that, overburdened, we collapse. And our fall will be the worse, the steeper the ascent of our calling has been.

To forestall such a collapse and the foolish taking of a vow, the Book of Ecclesiastes says:

If thou hadst vowed anything to God, defer not to pay it, for an unfaithful and foolish promise displeaseth him: whatsoever thou hadst vowed, pay it. But it is much better not to vow than after a vow not to perform the things promised.¹³⁹

I would have it, therefore, that the younger widows marry, bear children, be mistresses of families, and give no occasion to the adversary to speak evil. For some are already turned aside after Satan.¹⁴⁰

He considers what is natural to women’s weakness at that age and weighs the remedy of a looser life against the risks inherent in a better. In the end, he advises remaining in the low places to keep from falling from the heights. And Saint Jerome agrees, saying in his letter to Eustochium:

But if, because of some other faults, even those who are virgins are not saved, what will happen to those who have prostituted the body of Christ and turned the temple of the Holy Spirit into a brothel? … Better for a person to have married and to have walked on level ground than to strain for the heights and plunge into the depths of hell.¹⁴¹

Throughout all of Saint Paul’s writings, it is only women who are permitted this second marriage—men are urged to the highest self-restraint: “Is any man called who has been circumcised? Let him not then seek to be uncircumcised,” he says, and “Art thou loosed from a wife? Then seek not a wife.” Moses gave men more latitude than women, allowing a man more than one wife but a woman only one husband, and setting stricter penalties for adultery on a woman than a man. But Paul said, “A woman, if her husband be dead, is delivered from the law of her husband, so that she is not an adulteress if she be with another man”; and elsewhere, “But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they continue so, even as I. But if they do not restrain themselves, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn”; and again, “If her husband die, a woman is at liberty. Let her marry whom she will, but only in the Lord. More blessed shall she be if she abide according to my counsel.”¹⁴² And he allowed them not only a second marriage but any number of marriages: if their husbands have died, they may marry again. No limit is set on the number of times, so long as they do not incur the guilt of fornication. Let them marry again and again rather than fornicate once; let them discharge their carnal debts to many husbands rather than prostitute themselves even to one man. For although the payment of the marital debt is not entirely without sin, still the lesser sins are permitted them to keep them from the greater.

Is it any wonder, then, if, to keep women from sin, something is permitted them in which there is no sin at all—that is, whatever food they like, so long as it is necessary and nothing more than that? The fault is not in the food itself but in the appetite, as I said, by which I mean, in taking pleasure in what is unlawful, desiring what is forbidden, and using it without shame even when it creates the greatest possible offense. In fact—of all our foods is there one so dangerous to us, so condemned, or so inimical to our devotions and repose as wine? Solomon, the wisest of the wise, would keep us from it more than anything else: “Wine is a luxurious thing, and drunkenness riotous: whosoever is delighted therein shall not be wise.”¹⁴³

Who hath woe? Whose father hath woe? Who hath contentions? Who falls into pits? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? Surely they that pass their time in wine and study to drink off their cups. Look not upon the wine when it is red, when its color shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly, but in the end it will bite like a snake and will spread poison abroad like a basilisk. Thy eyes shall behold strange women and thy heart perverse things. And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a pilot fast asleep when the stern is lost. And thou shalt say, “They have beaten me, but I was not sensible of pain. They drew me, and I felt not. When shall I wake and find wine again?¹⁴⁴

Give not wine to kings, O Lamuel, because there is no secret where drunkenness reigneth, and they might drink and forget judgments and pervert the cause of the children of the poor.¹⁴⁵

A workman that is a drunkard shall not be rich, and he that condemneth small things shall fall little by little. Wine and women make even the wise fall away.¹⁴⁶

And Isaiah mentions no other food, blaming wine alone for the captivity of his people:

Woe to you that rise up early in the morning to follow drunkenness and to drink till the evening to be inflamed with wine. The harp and the lyre and the timbrel and the pipe and wine are in your feasts, and you regard not the work of the Lord nor consider the work of his hands. Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge…. Woe to you that are mighty at drinking wine and stout men at drunkenness.¹⁴⁷

But these also have been ignorant through wine and through drunkenness have erred. The priest and the prophet have been ignorant through drunkenness; they are swallowed up with wine; they have gone astray in drunkenness; they have not known him that seeth; they have been ignorant of judgment. All their tables were full of vomit and filth, so that there was no more place. Whom shall he teach knowledge, and whom shall he make to understand the hearing?¹⁴⁸

And the Lord said through the prophet Joel, “Awake, ye that are drunk, and weep all ye that take delight in drinking sweet wine,” though he did not forbid the use of wine when it is necessary, as Saint Paul advised Timothy, “for thy stomach’s sake and for thy frequent infirmities”—not only “infirmities,” note, but “frequent infirmities.”¹⁴⁹

Noah first planted the vine, perhaps still unaware of the evils of drunkenness, but he became drunk and uncovered his loins—since lust is connected to wine—then cursed the son who mocked him to a life of slavery, which we never hear happening before. Lot, who was a holy man, would never have been induced to commit incest with his daughters if they had not first arranged that he was drunk. And the blessed widow Judith, too, thought that only by this trick could Holofernes be deceived and undone. The angels who appeared to the patriarchs, we read, were offered meat but never wine. And Elijah, too, the first and greatest forefather of our calling, was brought meat and bread by ravens in the morning and the evening, but we never read that they brought him any wine. The people of Israel even fed on the sumptuous meat of quails in the desert, but took no wine and did not wish for it; and the meals of loaves and fishes which sustained the people in the wilderness are never said to have included wine.¹⁵⁰ Only a wedding, where some loosening of self-restraint is permitted, saw the miracle of wine, “wherein is lechery.”¹⁵¹ But the wilderness, which is the proper habitation of monastics, has known the gift of meat but not of wine.

The single most important point in the rule by which the Nazirites consecrated themselves to God was that they stay away from wine or anything else that can intoxicate.¹⁵² There is no virtue and no good in intoxication, and so the priests of former days were forbidden not only wine but anything that can intoxicate. [So, when Jerome wrote to Nepotianus about the cleric’s way of life, he was outraged that the priests of the old law could surpass our own in their abstinence from drink:

Never smell of wine, or else the words of the philosopher will be spoken about you, “This is not offering a kiss, but proffering a cup.” Saint Paul condemned drunken priests, as does the old law before him: “Whoever serve at the altar shall not taste wine or sikera.” In Hebrew, sikera means anything that can intoxicate, whether it is made by fermentation, or pressing dates, or boiling down apples or honey into a rough, sweet drink, or brewing roasted grain in water. Whatever can intoxicate and disturb your mental balance—stay away from it as you would wine.]¹⁵³

The Rule of Saint Pachomius tells us, “Let no one touch wine or liquor except in the infirmary.”¹⁵⁴ And who has not heard that wine is not a thing for monks and that they used to avoid it with such horror they called it Satan? In the Lives of the Fathers we read, “Abbot Pastor was once told about a monk who did not drink wine, and he replied that wine is not a thing for monks.” And just afterward:

Once there was a celebration of the Mass on Abbot Anthony’s mountain, and they found a jar of wine left over. One of the elders filled a cup and brought it to Abbot Sisoi, who drank it off. Then he brought him a second cup, which he also took and drank off. But when he brought him a third cup, he refused it, saying, “Peace, brother, don’t you know that this is Satan?”

So his disciple Abraham asked him, “If it happens in church on the Sabbath or the Lord’s Day, is it still too much to drink three cups?” And the old man answered, “If it were not Satan, it would not be too much.”¹⁵⁵

And Saint Benedict was aware of this, even while he allowed wine to his monks by a special dispensation:

Yes, we read that wine is not a thing for monks. But since the monks of our day can never be convinced of this….¹⁵⁶

For monks to be completely barred from what Saint Jerome strictly forbids to women would not in fact be strange, since women’s nature, though weaker in itself, is nonetheless stronger against the effects of wine. Jerome wrote sternly to the virgin of Christ, Eustochium, about the importance of preserving chastity:

If my counsel has any force with you or my experience any credit—before anything else, I warn the bride of Christ to keep away from wine as she would from poison. It is the devil’s first weapon against youth. Greed does not unsteady us so much, nor pride so puff us up, nor ambition so lead us on—we can forgo these other vices easily. But this enemy is within us, and we carry him with us wherever we go. Wine and youth together make a double conflagration. So why throw oil on the flames or add fuel to a young body, which is already on fire?¹⁵⁷

Yet medical writers agree that wine has much less effect on women than on men. In Book 7 of his Saturnalia Macrobius explains why:

Aristotle says that old men are often drunk, but women very rarely…. The female body is extremely moist—witness the lightness and clarity of a woman’s skin and, especially, the regular purgation of her excess humors. So, when wine has been swallowed and incorporated into this great general moisture, it loses its strength … and does not easily strike the seat of the brain, once its force has been dissipated.

The female body, designed as it is for frequent purgation, is pierced with several holes, so that channels and passageways are open for the humors to drain out. Through these holes the fumes of wine quickly evaporate.¹⁵⁸

If this is the case, then what can be the sense in allowing to monks what is denied to the female sex? Madness, it seems, to permit it to those who would suffer most harm while denying it to these others. Is there anything more foolish than for religious life not to shrink in horror from what is most contrary to it and most makes us turn away from God? Is there any greater audacity than for the abstinence of Christian perfection not to shun completely what was forbidden even to kings and the priests of the old law? But no, we see it even takes the greatest pleasure in it. For we all know how devoted the monks of our time—and the clerics even more—are to the contents of their cellars, how they stock them with wines of different sorts, how they flavor them with honey, herbs, and spices to increase their pleasure in the taste as they get increasingly drunk, how they sharpen their lust as they grow hotter in their wine. It is not so much a lapse as lunacy that those who bind themselves most tightly by their vows of self-restraint should prepare themselves least carefully to keep those very vows—or I should say, that they should so arrange it that their vows are certainly least likely to be kept. Their bodies may be walled inside a cloister, but their hearts are filled with lust and on fire for fornication.

When Saint Paul wrote to Timothy, “Do not still drink water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thy frequent infirmities,”¹⁵⁹ it was clearly because Timothy would take no wine when he was in good health. So, if we profess the apostles’ way of life and vow abstinence as a form of penance, if our calling is to renounce the world, then why do we take most pleasure in what is most hostile to our calling and in what is the most enjoyable of all foods? In his book on penance, Saint Ambrose condemns no food except for wine:

Would anyone call it penance when we still seek worldly honors, when wine still flows and we still enjoy the pleasures of the marital bed? No, we must renounce the world. I have always thought it easier to find someone who has kept his innocence intact than someone who has done a proper penance.¹⁶⁰

Your renunciation is well done if your eye also renounces the sight of bowls and goblets and does not become voluptuary as it lingers over wine.¹⁶¹

Wine is the only food he mentions, and he makes our renunciation of the world subject to our renunciation of wine, as if every worldly pleasure depended on it alone. He does not in fact speak of the palate renouncing the taste of wine but of the eye renouncing its sight, to prevent its being caught by pleasure and desire for what it sees—as Solomon said in the words noted above, “Look not upon the wine when it is red, when its color shineth in the glass.”¹⁶² But what will we say, I ask you, when, to gratify the palate as well as the eye, we flavor our wine with honey, herbs, and spices and even want to serve it up in bowls?

When Saint Benedict felt obliged to allow wine to his monks, he did so with this limitation: “Let us at least agree to drink sparingly and not to the point where we are sated, because ‘wine makes even the wise fall away’”¹⁶³—though I would call for a limit at the point where we are sated, to keep us from the greater sin of drinking to excess. Saint Augustine, too, in the Rule he wrote for clerics in monastic life, allowed them wine but limited it to Saturday and Sunday—“On Saturday and Sunday, those who wish may take some wine, as is the custom”¹⁶⁴—out of respect for the Lord’s Day and its vigil, which is Saturday, but also because the brothers would be gathering at those times, when otherwise they lived separately in their cells, [as Saint Jerome also noted in the Lives of the Fathers when he wrote of the place he called The Cells: “They remain in their individual cells except on Saturday and Sunday, when they come together in church and greet one another as if they had been restored to each other’s sight in heaven.”¹⁶⁵ So it was meet to grant them this allowance, to allow them to rejoice with some refreshment when they meet,¹⁶⁶ each one thinking, although not saying aloud, “See how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”¹⁶⁷]

See, though, how important many people seem to find it if we simply abstain from meat, no matter how far we may exceed any limit when we feed on other foods. Even if we spend vast sums to buy our platters of fish, even if we season them with pepper and other spices, even if, when we are drunk on the strongest unmixed wine, we add goblets and bowls of mulled and herbed wine over and above—everything—so long as we devour these meals in private—everything is pardoned by our abstinence from meat, as though the fault lay in the kind of food and not in the excess. The Lord himself, however, prohibited “surfeit and drunkenness” alone, that is to say, not the kind of food or wine but only its excess.¹⁶⁸

But Saint Augustine understood this well and, opposed to nothing in food except for wine and excluding no kind of food in itself, believed that a single principle would suffice for abstinence, which he expressed succinctly: “Subdue your flesh with fasts and abstinence from food or drink so far as your health permits.”¹⁶⁹ Now, unless I am mistaken, he had been reading this passage in Saint Athanasius’s exhortation to monks:

There should be no fixed limit on fasts for the willing, but only so far as possibility allows and not to the point of suffering; and, except on Sunday, they always should be solemnized if they have been vowed.¹⁷⁰

In other words, if fasts are undertaken in fulfillment of a vow, they must be performed devoutly at all times, excepting Sundays. The term of fasts is not fixed here except as health permits; as it is said, “He looks only to the capacity of our nature and allows it to set its own limits, aware that there can be no delinquency if moderation is observed.”¹⁷¹ That is to say, we must not become relaxed by our pleasures beyond what is right, as was written about the people fed “with the marrow of wheat and the purest wine”: “The beloved grew fat and kicked.”¹⁷² But on the other hand, we must not waste away from abstinence beyond the proper measure and then collapse completely, or squander by our complaining any good we might have gained, or glory in what we take to be our own special distinction. As the Book of Ecclesiastes says, “A just man perisheth in his justice…. Be not over just, and be not more wise than is necessary, lest thou become stupid” and swell with pride at your sense of your own distinction.¹⁷³

Instead, it must be discretion, the mother of all virtues, that governs our diligence in this. It must carefully take note what burdens are placed on whom and allot to each individual only what his strength will bear, following rather than forcing nature, and preserving the good use of being sated while destroying the abuses of excess. Vices should be rooted out without injuring nature. For the weak it is enough to keep from sin even if they do not reach the summit of perfection; and, yes, it is enough to find a corner of paradise if you cannot claim a place among the martyrs.¹⁷⁴ There is no risk in making only modest vows, in order to add something of your own accord beyond what you are already bound to do; for as it is written, “When you shall have done all those things that are commanded you, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do.’”¹⁷⁵ As Saint Paul said, “For the law worketh wrath. Where there is no law, neither is there transgression.” And also:

For without the law sin was dead. And I lived some time without the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment that was ordained to life was found to be unto death to me. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment seduced me, and by it killed me … so that sin … might become sinful above measure.¹⁷⁶

[Augustine to Simplician: “Forbidding desire has made it sweeter, and so it has undone me.” And in his book of eighty-three questions: “Pleasure persuades us to sin all the more when the pleasure is forbidden.” And as Ovid writes, “We desire the forbidden and denied.”¹⁷⁷]

This should give pause to anyone who would take on the yoke of monastic rule as if he were professing some new law.¹⁷⁸ Let him choose only what he is able to do and avoid what he is not. No one becomes guilty of breaking a law which he has not professed. So, think before you enter into orders, but once you have entered orders, persevere; what first is voluntary, afterward becomes obligatory.¹⁷⁹ “In my Father’s house there are many mansions,” and many paths lead to it.¹⁸⁰ The married are not damned, but those who practice self-restraint are more easily saved. The rules of the holy Fathers were not laid down in order that we may be saved, but in order that we may be more easily saved and with greater purity devote ourselves to God. “And if a virgin marry,” Saint Paul says, “she hath not sinned: nevertheless, such shall have tribulation of the flesh. But I spare you.”

The unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she that is married thinketh on the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your profit, not to cast a snare upon you, but for that which is decent and which may give you power to attend upon the Lord without impediment.¹⁸¹

And this, of course, is most easily done when we retire to the cloisters of our monasteries, physically withdrawing from the world so that none of the world’s troubles may disturb us.

Likewise, whoever makes the law must not create a multitude of sins by laying down a multitude of strictures. In coming to earth, the Word of God curtailed the word on earth. The words of Moses were many, yet Paul says, “The law brought nothing to perfection”¹⁸²—yes, his words were many and so onerous that Peter admits no one could endure all of his commandments: “Men, brethren,” Peter says,

why do you tempt God to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we ourselves have been able to bear? But by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe we are saved in like manner as they were.¹⁸³

Christ’s words on ethical conduct and the holy life were few, and yet he taught perfection. Eliminating the harsh and onerous, he commanded what was sweet and light, and thereby brought religious practice to its full consummation:

Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon you and learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.¹⁸⁴

What often happens in worldly business also happens in our good works. There are many people, we know, who work hard in their business but with only diminishing returns. And there also are many who afflict themselves the more in outward acts of penance but earn less reward from God, who looks more to our hearts than to our deeds. In fact, the more these people are taken up with outward things, the less they can devote themselves to inward things; and the more they receive the attention of men, who judge by outward things, the more they seek out glory among them and more easily are beguiled by their esteem. Saint Paul corrects this error by disparaging outward works in favor of justification by faith:

For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath glory, but not glory before God. For what saith the scripture? “Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice.” … What then shall we say? That the gentiles, who followed not after justice, have attained to justice, even the justice that is of faith. But Israel, by following after the law of justice is not come unto the law of justice. Why so? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were of works.¹⁸⁵

Those who scour the outside of the platter or the cup are looking less to the cleanliness within, and when they guard the body more closely than the soul, they become more worldly than spiritual themselves. But when we desire that Christ live in the inner man through faith, we count as only little those outward things which are common to God’s chosen and rejected alike, taking to heart what is written: “In me, O God, are vows to thee, which I will pay, my praises to thee.” And so, we do not follow that outward abstinence of the law which cannot justify us, to be sure. In matters of food, the Lord forbids us nothing but “surfeit and drunkenness” alone,¹⁸⁶ that is to say, excess; and what he allowed us, he was not ashamed to exhibit in himself, although many were offended and reproached him severely for it, as he said:

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, “He hath a devil.” And the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they said, “Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners.”¹⁸⁷

He defended his followers, who did not fast like the followers of John nor even care if they washed their hands before they ate:

Can the children of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when then bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then they shall fast.¹⁸⁸

Not what goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but what cometh out of the mouth…. The things that proceed from the mouth come forth from the heart, and those things defile a man…. But to eat with unwashed hands doth not defile a man.¹⁸⁹

No food in itself defiles the soul, but only the appetite for foods that are forbidden. As the body cannot be defiled except by some physical stain, the soul cannot be defiled except by a spiritual stain. We should never waste our fear on what may happen in the body if the heart has not been forced to give consent; we should never dare to trust in any cleanness of the flesh if the mind has been corrupted by the will. The life and death of the soul, therefore, lie entirely in the heart. Hence, Solomon in the Book of Proverbs says, “Keep thy heart with all watchfulness, because life issueth out from it.”¹⁹⁰ And there come forth from the heart the things that can defile a man, as the Lord said just above, because the soul is saved or damned by good or evil desires. But since the union of body and soul within a person is so close, it is especially important to see that the pleasures of the flesh do not lead the soul to give consent, and that the flesh itself, becoming lawless with immoderate indulgence, does not struggle against the soul and begin to take command when it should obey.¹⁹¹ Now, we will be able to accomplish this if we permit all that is necessary but entirely eliminate excess, as I’ve often said, not denying the weaker sex the use of any foods but denying them the abuse of them all. Let them take and consume anything at all, but nothing outside the bounds of moderation. “For everything made by God is good,” the Apostle says,

and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. Proposing these things to the brethren, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and the good doctrine which thou hast attained unto.¹⁹²

So let us then, like Timothy, follow this teaching of Saint Paul, avoiding nothing in food but “surfeit and drunkenness” alone, according to the word of the Lord. But let us also temper everything in such a way that we support the weak nature in all things and do not encourage its vice: whatever can do more harm must be limited more strictly. Eating in moderation is in fact more worthy of praise than total abstention. Hence, Augustine says in his book on the good in marriage during his discussion of the sustenance of the body:

No one uses these things well unless he can refrain from using them. For many, in fact, it is easier to abstain and thereby not use them at all than to temper their use and thereby use them well. But no one can use them wisely unless he can exercise self-restraint and not use them.¹⁹³

And Paul spoke, too, out of the same disposition: “I know both how to have plenty and how to suffer need.”¹⁹⁴ Any sort of man can suffer need, but only the great know how to suffer need; and any man can have plenty, but to know how to have plenty is only for those whom plenty does not corrupt.

Now, since “wine is a luxurious thing and riotous,” as it is said,¹⁹⁵ contrary both to self-restraint and silence, women should either abstain completely for the sake of God—as the wives of the gentiles did out of fear of committing adultery—or temper their wine with water in such a way that it will quench their thirst and serve their health without having the strength to do them harm—I recommend a mixture of at least a fourth part water. But it is extremely difficult, when the wine is right there before us, to keep from drinking to the point where we are sated, as Saint Benedict would have it.¹⁹⁶ Therefore, to avoid the greater risk, I think it is safer not to prohibit being sated, as I’ve said, for the fault does not lie in being sated but rather in excess. And herbed wine may be prepared as medicine, and even unmixed wine may be drunk—neither should be forbidden—but this is only for the sick and never for the convent as a whole.

[We also forbid the use of pure wheat flour; when the nuns have wheat flour, it must always be mixed with at least a third part coarser grains. And they should never indulge themselves with bread hot from the oven, but only after it has been sitting at least a day.]¹⁹⁷

As for all the other kinds of food, the deaconess should see to it that the women’s needs are met by whatever can be purchased most cheaply or had most easily. [Is it not the height of foolishness, when our own goods will suffice, for us to go and buy the goods of others? Or when we have what we need at home, for us to seek something more outside the walls? Or when we have enough at hand, for us to struggle for what would be excess?]¹⁹⁸ Indeed, for this lesson in moderation and discretion we have the teaching, not only of mortal men, but also of angels and the Lord himself, that in serving the needs of this earthly life, we should not be particular about the kind of food we eat but should rest content with whatever is before us. The angels ate the meat which Abraham set out for them, and the Lord Jesus fed the hungry multitude with fish found in the wilderness¹⁹⁹—from which we learn that the eating of meat or fish indifferently is not to be condemned: any food may be eaten which does not give offense, which presents itself freely, is most easily had, and involves the least expense.

This is also the teaching of Seneca, who of all philosophers was the foremost teacher of ethical conduct and the greatest exponent of austerity and self-restraint. “My idea,” he said, “is to live in accord with nature.”

But it is against nature to torment the body, to despise cleanliness and seek out squalor, to eat food that is not only cheap but loathsome and disgusting. If it is luxury to crave expensive things, it is lunacy to thumb your nose at ordinary things that are available for only little cost. Philosophy calls for thrift, not penance, but there is such a thing as thrift without disorder, and that is what I like.²⁰⁰

Gregory, too, teaches us to look less to our food than our hearts; in Book 30 of his Moralia, he distinguishes among the different appeals of the palate. “At times,” he says, “the palate may want more sumptuous food or, at times, a dish that requires more elaborate preparation.”²⁰¹ But sometimes what it desires is more humble, yet still it sins by the heat of its desire. The people of Israel succumbed in the desert because they scorned God’s manna and longed for meat instead, which they considered a more sumptuous kind of food. But Esau, on the other hand, lost the glory of his birthright because he longed for a simple dish of lentils, which in the great heat of his desire meant more to him than the sale of his own birthright. The fault is in the appetite, not the food itself. We often can eat a humble food and incur substantial guilt, but still can take the more sumptuous food without any sin at all, just as Esau lost his birthright for some lentils while Elijah in the wilderness kept his physical strength intact by eating the meat which God had sent him. So, knowing that the desire for food and not the food itself can lead to our damnation, the old adversary tempted the first man with an apple, not with meat, and tempted the second man with bread alone.²⁰² Since we often commit the sin of Adam when we eat humble or simple foods, we must eat only those foods that the requirements of our nature demand and not those foods that pleasure may suggest. Our desire, though, is less intense for what we take as less valuable, for what is plentiful and can be cheaply bought, and this is the case with common meat. Meat also strengthens a weak nature better than fish, is less expensive, and is easier to prepare.

The use of wine or meat—like marriage itself—is a matter that falls between good and evil and is therefore called indifferent,²⁰³ though the marriage bond is not entirely without sin and wine remains the most dangerous kind of food. But if the moderate use of wine is not forbidden in religious life, why do we forbid any other kind of food, so long as it too is used in moderation? If Saint Benedict admits that wine is not a thing for monks, yet is compelled to allow it by a special dispensation in these times when the initial fervor of charity has cooled,²⁰⁴ why should we not allow women all those things which none of their vows now forbids? If popes and other leaders of the Church may all eat meat, if canons regular in their monasteries too may all eat meat because none of their vows prevent it, what reason can there be to find fault in allowing the same to women, especially if they are bound more strictly in every other thing? It is enough for the disciple if he be as his master;²⁰⁵ and it seems a great injustice if what monasteries of clerics have is forbidden to convents of women. It also should not be taken as a small thing if women, with all the other strictures of the monastery, could equal the devout among the laity in this single matter of having access to meat. Chrysostom says, “A layman should have no more latitude than a monk—except that he may lie with his wife”;²⁰⁶ and in Saint Jerome’s judgment, the religious obligations of clerics are not less than the obligations of monks: “Whatever is said against monks reflects also upon clerics, who are the forefathers of monks.”²⁰⁷

For the weak to bear the same burdens as the strong, for women to be bound to the same standards of abstinence as men, is at odds with the principle of discretion. If someone needs an authority beyond the teaching of nature, let him consult Saint Gregory, who, while not a Doctor of the Church himself, instructed other Doctors. In Chapter 24 of his Pastoral, he notes:

Men should be admonished in one way and women in another, in that heavy burdens should be placed on men and lighter ones on women. Let men take up the greater tasks, but let women be corrected gently with the light ones….²⁰⁸

For what seems of little moment in the strong is something we all admire in the weak. Moreover, eating common meat affords less pleasure than eating the flesh of birds and fish, which Saint Benedict does not in fact forbid.²⁰⁹ Now, Saint Paul distinguishes among different kinds of flesh, saying, “All flesh is not the same flesh, but one is the flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, and another of fish,”²¹⁰ and since the law includes the flesh of beasts and birds among permitted sacrifices to the Lord but does not mention fish, no one would suppose that the eating of fish was cleaner in the sight of God than the eating of other flesh. Fish also imposes a greater burden on our poverty than meat because it is more expensive, being in scarce supply, and does less than meat to strengthen a weak nature, so that one presents the greater burden, the other the greater sustenance.

So, considering both human nature and resources, I forbid nothing in the way of food, as I’ve said before, nothing but excess. But I also place such limits on the eating of meat and other foods, that, with every kind of food permitted them, the abstinence of nuns may be greater than the abstinence of monks, who still are forbidden certain kinds of food. The nuns will not eat meat at more than one meal a day; no more than one dish will be prepared for any person; no separate dish of condiments will be added to the meat; and under no circumstances will anyone eat meat more than three times in a week—on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, that is—no matter how many feast days the week contains. In fact, the greater the feast, the greater should be the abstinence that honors it. As Gregory of Nazianzus, that great Doctor of the Church, tells us in the third book of his treatises, “On Lamps, or Second Epiphany,” “Let us celebrate a feast by exulting in the spirit, not by indulging the belly”;²¹¹ and in his fourth book on Pentecost and the Holy Spirit:

This is our feast: let us lay down in the treasure-house of the soul something that will last forever, not transient things that will melt away. The body has enough in its own evil, it does not need anything more; and the insolent beast of the belly does not need another meal to make it both more insolent and insistent.²¹²

A feast should rather be celebrated in the spirit, as Gregory’s follower, Saint Jerome, also remarks:

So, we must be careful to celebrate a feast day less with an overflow of food than with an exultation of the spirit. How thoroughly absurd to gorge ourselves in remembrance of a martyr who we know had honored God by fasting.²¹³

Think of the thousands of martyrs. Why does it please us to celebrate their births with all these worthless banquets and not please us to follow their example with our conduct?²¹⁴

At meatless meals, however, the nuns may have two vegetable dishes of any sort, and fish may be added to these. No expensive flavorings will be served at the convent: the nuns must be content with whatever grows locally. Fruit will only be eaten at the evening meal, but it may be served, along with roots, herbs, and other things of the sort, to those who require it for medicinal reasons. If there is a visiting nun at table, received as the convent’s guest, let her feel the kindness of its charitable love by being offered an additional dish; if she wishes to share any of it, she may. But she—and any other visitors there may be, no matter the number—will sit at the high table, where the deaconess will serve her before taking her own meal with the others who are serving at table. A sister who wishes to subdue the flesh with a leaner, more sparing diet must not presume to do so without permission; if her wish seems grounded in virtue and not caprice, and if her physical strength can bear it, permission should not be withheld, but no one will be permitted to leave the convent for this purpose or spend a whole day without eating.

The nuns will not use animal fat to flavor their meals on Fridays but must be content instead with Lenten fare, enduring some abstinence out of compassion for their Bridegroom, who died on that day of the week. And they are not only forbidden but must absolutely shun the custom that is practiced in some monasteries of wiping food-stained hands and knives on some part of the bread that is held back for the poor: merely to spare their hand-cloths, they pollute the bread of the poor—no, not in fact their bread but his, who said, “What you have done for the least of my brethren, you have done also for me.”²¹⁵

On the matter of fasting, what the Church has established for the general populace will be enough. I do not presume to impose a burden on nuns beyond what is observed by the devout among the laity, and would not dare set their weakness in this above the strength of men. From the time of the autumn equinox to Easter, though, I think one meal a day will be enough—not, however, for the sake of religious abstinence, but because of the shortness of the days, and here I make no distinction among the different kinds of food.

The rich clothing which scripture condemns must also be avoided, as the Lord himself warns against it, condemning the pride of the rich while praising the humility of John. Saint Gregory knew this well, saying in his sixth homily on the Gospels:

What does it mean to say, “They that are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings”? It means that they are soldiers in an earthly, not a heavenly, kingdom, who will not suffer hardships for God but devote themselves to outward display, seeking the softness and pleasure of this, our present life.²¹⁶

Some think there is no sin in the love of fine, rich dress. But if there were not, the Lord would not have made the point that the rich man tortured in hell had been “clothed in purple and fine linen.” For no one wants or needs expensive clothing except to seem superior, that is, for the sake of the empty pomp and glory of the world. Here is the proof: no one adorns himself like this in private, but only where he can be seen.²¹⁷

[The first letter of Peter also warns married women and the laity against this vanity:

In like manner, also let women be subject to their husbands, that if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word by the conversation of the wives, considering your chaste conversation with fear. Let their adornment not be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel, but the hidden man of the heart in the incorruptibility of a quiet and meek spirit, which is rich in the sight of the Lord.²¹⁸

The warning is properly directed more toward women than toward men because, women’s minds being weaker, they are more susceptible to the lures of luxury. But if secular women are to be so warned, what then is appropriate for women devoted to Christ, whose adornment consists in remaining unadorned? A woman who seeks out adornment, or who does not refuse it when it is offered, forgoes this witness to her chastity and should be thought readying herself for fornication, not religious practice, less nun, that is, than whore. Her adornment itself announces her whoredom, betraying an unchaste heart, as it is written, “The attire of the body and the laughter of the teeth and the gait of the man show what he is.”]²¹⁹

As I noted above, the Lord praised John more for the roughness and cheapness of his clothing than for his rough food. “What went you into the desert to see?” he said, “A man clothed in soft garments? But they that are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings.”²²⁰ At times there may in fact be reason to eat expensive food, but there never is a use for expensive clothing. The more expensive the clothing, in fact, the more carefully it must be protected; and the less it is then used, the less use it will be, creating only problems for its owner: its fabric can be easily be ruined and affords only little warmth. Black cloth is most appropriate for the garb of penitence, and lamb’s wool best for the brides of Christ, who in their very habit may be seen, or reminded, to be clothed in the Lamb, who is their Bridegroom.

Their veils should not be silk, but dyed linen. I recommend two different kinds of veils, one for nuns who have already been consecrated by the bishop, the other for the sisters who will not be. The first should bear the sign of the cross to indicate that they belong to Christ in the chastity of their bodies: as they are set apart by consecration, so their habits will be distinguished by this sign, a warning to the faithful not to burn with lust for them. The virgin will wear this mark of purity detailed in white thread at the top of her head, but she will not presume to wear it before her consecration, and no other veils will bear this sign.

The women should wear clean shifts next to the skin and always sleep in them as well. They may use soft mattresses and sheets because of the weakness of their nature, but each of them must sleep and eat alone. No one ever must presume to take offense if an item of clothing or anything else allotted for her use is made over to a sister who needs it more. Instead, she should be glad to have realized the fruit of her charity in meeting the needs of her sister and also to have recognized that she is living for others and not for herself alone. Otherwise, she is not part of a sisterhood of holy community but is guilty of the sin of claiming possessions.

For covering the body, I think a shift and woolen gown will be enough, and an outer cloak when it is very cold, which may also be used as a coverlet in bed. Because of the need to wash them and to treat them against vermin, there should be two of each article of clothing, exactly as Solomon says in his praise of the strong and prudent housewife: “She shall not fear for her house in the cold of snow, for all her domestics are clothed with double garments.”²²¹ The cloaks should not be more than ankle-length, so as not to stir up dust, and their sleeves should not extend beyond the arms and hands. Shoes and stockings will be worn; no one must ever go barefoot on the pretext of religious practice. A single mattress, cushion, pillow, blanket, and sheet should be enough for their bedding. They should wear a white headband with a black veil over it and a lamb’s wool cap if needed, because of their close-cropped hair.

Not only in matters of food and dress but in buildings and other material possessions, excess must be avoided. What constitutes excess in buildings is in fact easy to see—if they are larger and more beautiful than we need or if they are ornamented with paintings and sculptures, not humble dwellings for the poor, that is, but stately palaces for kings. Jerome once said, “‘The son of man hath not where to lay his head,’ but you lay out wide porches and vast expanses of roof.”²²² The pleasure we take in beautiful, expensive things betokens vanity as well as excess. When we multiply our herds of cattle or extend our holdings of land, our ambition swells for outward things; and the more things we possess on earth, the more we are forced to give them our attention and so are called away from thoughts of heaven. While our bodies may be walled inside a cloister, our hearts are compelled to follow what they are attached to in the world outside, and become widely scattered like the things themselves. And the more things we possess that can be lost, the more we are tormented by the fear that we may lose them; and the more costly they are, the more they can attach us and the more ensnare the wretched heart with ambition to possess them.

For this reason, we must fix limits on our households and expenditures, never going beyond what is needed, not in our desires, nor in the offerings we receive, nor in what we keep for ourselves of what we gather. Everything we have beyond our needs, we have by theft, and we are guilty of the deaths of as many of the poor as we might otherwise have been able to sustain. Each year, therefore, when all the food has been collected, a determination should be made of how much will be needed for the year, and anything beyond that should be given, or rather returned, to the poor.

There are some for whom economy has no meaning, who despite their meager revenues, still rejoice in the grandeur of their household. In their struggle, then, to secure its maintenance, they shamelessly go begging or use violence to extort from others what they do not have themselves. We see many such monastic fathers in these times, who glory in the size of their monasteries and work to increase the number, if not the virtue, of their sons, anxious to seem superior in their own esteem by becoming the superiors of a multitude. They attract these crowds with the promise of ease—when they should be talking of the hardships they will face—accepting anyone without discrimination, without scrutiny or standards, and losing them all easily, as they all fall away. The Lord said of such men, “Woe to you who go round land and sea to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him the child of hell twice more than yourselves.”²²³ They would surely glory less in the number of souls if they cared more about their salvation and put less reliance on numerical strength in the final accounting of their rule.

The Lord himself chose few apostles and of these only one fell away, of whom he said, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?”²²⁴ Just as Judas was lost to the apostles, Nicolas was lost to the seven deacons;²²⁵ and when the apostles had not yet assembled many followers, Ananias and his wife Saphira were found worthy of the sentence of death.²²⁶ Many of his disciples turned away from the Lord while a few remained with him, for “strait is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it,” but wide and broad is the way “that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat.” As the Lord himself bears witness, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” and as Solomon confirms, “The number of fools is infinite.” So, whoever rejoices in the number of his subordinates must be afraid that only few of them are chosen, and that he himself, in increasing his flock beyond the proper limit, may fail in his guardianship of souls; in the words of the prophet, “Thou hast multiplied the nation but hast not increased the joy.”²²⁷ While they glory in the size of their monasteries, they are compelled to go out in the world again and again, scurrying about for handouts to supply their own and their subordinates’ needs. Their concerns are now for material things and not for the things of the spirit, and while they look for glory in the world, they find there only infamy and scorn.

For women, there is even more shame in this scurrying through the world, more shame, to be sure, and considerably more risk. Whoever would lead a life of tranquility and honor, devoted to the Offices of God, whoever would be held as dear to God as to the world, must never assemble a flock whose needs he cannot meet, nor rely for his expenditures on the depths of another’s purse. His attention must be set on giving alms, not on receiving them. Even the apostle Paul, that great preacher of the Gospel, who had power from the Gospel to accept offerings, did manual labor himself because he would not “be chargeable to any” and “make his glory void.”²²⁸ If that is so, then how can we, whose business is not preaching but lamenting our sins, go out begging through the world in recklessness and shame merely to support a mass of followers, which we have so thoughtlessly assembled? Look how we erupt into such madness that, unable to preach ourselves, we bring preachers along with us and go out through the world with these spurious apostles, toting our reliquaries and crosses to sell these things and the word of God itself—and even figments of the devil—to those poor, ignorant Christians who are simple enough to credit whatever promises we make to extort their money.²²⁹ And by this greed—which has no shame, which seeks only its own and not the things of Christ—our order and the preaching of God’s word are both debased—how much debased, I think is plain to all.

And so, these abbots and so-called superiors go knocking at the doors of earthly princes and soliciting at the gates of worldly courts. They become more courtiers than common monks, using every art and charm to curry favor and gossiping with men more than they talk to God.²³⁰ Perhaps they read but never paid attention, perhaps they heard but never stopped to listen to the warning of Saint Anthony:

If fish try to live on dry land, they die. If monks try to live outside their cells or spend their time among men of the world, they weaken their ties to the tranquil life. Just as fish must return to the sea, so we must hasten back to our cells or else, in our lives outside, forget our guardianship of what lies within.²³¹

But the author of the monastic Rule, Saint Benedict, knew this well and, not only by his writings but by the force of his example, taught abbots to keep careful watch over their flock by their constant presence at the monastery. Once, when he was away from his monks on a visit to his most holy sister, she begged him to remain with her, at least for a single night, to continue her education, but he refused; there was no way, he said, that he could remain away from his cell. He did not say that they could not, only that he could not, because the monks in fact could do so, given his permission, but he himself could not, except by a revelation from the Lord, as did happen afterward.²³² For this reason, then, when he wrote the Rule, he never referred to the abbot’s absence from the monastery, but only to the absence of the monks. His provision for the abbot’s constant presence is implied by his insistence that the Gospel readings at the Night Office on Sundays and feast days, and other matters that pertain to them, are to be done by the abbot himself.²³³ His requirement that the abbot take his meals with pilgrims and guests or, “when there are no guests, with whomever of the brothers he chooses to invite, leaving one or two senior monks with the others,”²³⁴ implies the abbot’s presence at all meals, never forgoing the daily bread of his subordinates in a preference for the luxurious food of princes, unlike those who “bind heavy burdens on men’s shoulders but do not move a finger themselves,” as the Lord said. And as he also said about false preachers, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”²³⁵ For they are not sent by God, he says, but come of themselves in the expectation of an offering. John the Baptist, our founder and forerunner, to whom the priesthood passed by right of inheritance, left the city for the wilderness—that is to say, the priesthood for the monkhood—only once, withdrawing from the towns to the lonely places; and the people came out to him, he did not go in to the people. When he became so great that he even was believed to be the Christ and able to put right many things that were wrong in the cities of the world, he was already on the narrow bed of contemplation and was prepared to say to the beloved at the door, “I have put off my garment; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?”²³⁶

And so, whoever longs to withdraw to the tranquility of monastic life should rejoice that his bed is narrow and not wide. From the wide bed, the Lord says, “The one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.” But the narrow bed, we read, belongs to the bride of the Lord, that is to say, to the contemplative soul, which is closely bound to Christ and clings to him with the most intense desire; and once someone has come into that narrow bed, we do not read that he ever has been left. For of him the bride herself says, “In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth.”²³⁷ But she does not deign to rise from that bed but rather speaks to her beloved at the door as I have said, for she knows that there is no stain except out of that bed, and she does not want to defile her feet.

Dinah went out into the world to see the women of a strange country, and was defiled.²³⁸ And as the captive monk Malchus heard from his abbot and later discovered for himself, the sheep that leaves the fold quickly becomes prey to the wolf.²³⁹ We should never, then, assemble a great number in our monasteries and use its maintenance as a reason—or excuse—to go out into the world, acquiring wealth for others while we bring harm to ourselves and are consumed, as lead is in a furnace, for the sake of a little silver; for the lead and silver both will be consumed in the furnace of temptation. They will object that the Lord has said, “Him that cometh to me, I will not cast out,” but I do not want to cast out those we have already accepted, only that we provide for them without casting out ourselves when we accept them. For the Lord himself did not cast out anyone he had accepted, but rejected anyone who too eagerly offered himself; when the scribe said, “Master, I will follow thee wherever thou shalt go,” he replied, “The foxes have holes, and the birds have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head.”²⁴⁰

He also told us to look to the charges that are necessary before we consider any action:

For which of you having a mind to build a tower doth not first sit down and reckon the charges that are necessary, whether he hath the means to finish it, lest after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all that see it begin to mock him, saying, “This man began to build but could not finish”?²⁴¹

If someone has the means to save himself alone, that certainly is a great thing, but it is dangerous to provide for others when one hardly has the means to look after himself. No one can be careful in looking after others if he has not been cautious in accepting them; and no one can persevere in a task he has undertaken as well as someone who is slow and deliberate in beginning. Indeed, the caution of women must be all the greater as their strength to bear burdens is less and their need to foster stillness is more.

Scripture is the mirror of the soul, it is agreed. We live through its reading and thrive through its understanding. In it each of us sees the beauty or ugliness of his character, endeavoring to increase the one and remove the defects of the other. As Saint Gregory says in his Moralia:

Holy Scripture is like a mirror held up before the eyes of the mind, in which our inner aspect can be seen. In it we see our faults and look upon our beauty. In it we realize how far we have advanced and how far we are from advancing.²⁴²

But someone who looks at scripture without understanding is like a blind man holding up a mirror to his eyes. He does not have the means to see who he is and does not seek to learn what scripture teaches, which is its only purpose. Like an ass with a lyre, he sits idly with the book,²⁴³ as if he had some bread set down before him that does not satisfy his hunger. He cannot enter God’s word through his own understanding or use another’s teaching to break his way in. His bread does him no good; he does not thrive.

This is why the Apostle calls us all to the study of scripture. “For whatsoever things were written,” he says, “were for our learning, that through patience and the comfort of the scriptures, we might have hope.” And elsewhere: “Be ye filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and good songs of the spirit.” A man speaks to himself or with himself when he understands what is to his good and can reap from his understanding the harvest of his words. Paul also said to Timothy, “Till I come, attend to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine,” and:

But continue in those things which thou hast learned and which have been committed to thee, knowing from whom thou hast learned them, and because from thy infancy thou hast known the holy scriptures, which can instruct thee to salvation by the faith which is in Jesus Christ. All scripture inspired by God is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.²⁴⁴

He also urged the Corinthians to understand scripture to be able to expound what others say about it:

Follow after charity, be zealous for spiritual gifts, so that you may prophesy. For he that speaketh in a tongue, speaketh not unto men but unto God, for no man heareth…. But he that prophesieth, edifieth the church…. And therefore he that speaketh in a tongue, let him pray that he may interpret. I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the understanding; I will sing with the spirit, but I will also sing with the understanding. Else, if thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that holdeth the place of the unlearned say “Amen” to your blessing because he knoweth not what thou sayest? For thou indeed givest thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank my God I speak with all your tongues, but in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding that I may instruct others also than ten thousand words in a tongue. Brethren, do not become children in sense, but in malice be children and in sense be perfect.²⁴⁵

To speak with a tongue means to form words with the mouth alone and not minister to others by an explanation that operates through the understanding. But to prophesy, or interpret, means to understand what one says and so be able to explain it to others, in the manner of the prophets, who are also called seers, and those who see are those who understand. To pray or sing with the spirit is to form words with a certain prolongation of the breath alone without fitting them to the understanding of the mind. But when our spirit prays—that is, forms words only with the prolongation of our breath without conceiving in the heart what is uttered by the mouth—our mind loses the benefit it ought to have from speech, that is, to be impelled toward God through its own understanding. So, Paul tells us to realize this full perfection in our words, so that we may not, like children, merely utter words but know how to understand their sense. Otherwise, he indicates, all our prayers and singing bear no fruit.

[Saint Benedict also follows him in this, saying, “Let us approach our singing in such a way that our mind may be in harmony with our voice.”²⁴⁶ And the Psalmist tells us, “Sing ye wisely,” that is to say that the savor of understanding should be added to our song so that we may say in truth along with him, “How sweet are thy words to my palate, more than honey to my mouth.” And elsewhere he says, “The Lord shall not take pleasure in the legs of a man,”²⁴⁷ for the tibia, or the leg bone, that is to say, the flute, produces sounds for the pleasure of the senses, not for the understanding of the mind. So, people are said to sing well or to play well on the flute but not to please God by their music if their pleasure in the melody is such that they derive no understanding from it.]

[And, the Apostle asks, how can someone say “Amen” to the blessings offered in church if he does not understand what the blessings pray for?²⁴⁸ He couldn’t know if it is for something good or not. We often see many people in church who do not know any Latin, and they could end up praying for something harmful by mistake. For example, the words, “That we may so pass through temporal things that we lose not eternal things,” could be confused with “we choose not eternal things” because they sound so much alike, or maybe “use not eternal things.” But the Apostle says something to prevent it: “Else, if thou shalt bless with the spirit”—that is, if you form the words of a blessing with the prolongation of the breath but do not instruct the mind of your hearer with its sense—“how shall he that holdeth the place of the unlearned”—that is, somebody nearby who is supposed to answer and give an answer that the unlearned couldn’t or shouldn’t give—“say ‘Amen’?” and so forth—that is, when he doesn’t know if you’re making him give a blessing or a curse? And finally, how can women even edify themselves with a sermon, or understand and explain the Rule, or correct someone’s bad pronunciation, if they do not understand what the writing says?]²⁴⁹

So, I cannot help but wonder what wiles of the devil have brought it about that there is no study of scriptural interpretation in our monasteries, although there is formal education in singing alone and in the formation of words alone, but not in their understanding. It is somewhat as if the bleating of sheep were considered more useful than the feeding of them. But the soul has its own food, its own spiritual nourishment, and that is the understanding of God’s scripture. When the Lord sent out Ezekiel to preach, he first caused him to eat a book, which suddenly “became as sweet as honey in his mouth.” And of such food it is written in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, “The children have asked for bread, but there was none to break it unto them.” To break bread unto children is to open the meaning of the letter to the ignorant, but these children ask for their bread to be broken when they long to feast their souls on the understanding of scripture. As the Lord bears witness elsewhere, “I will send forth a famine into the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.”²⁵⁰

But our ancient enemy has sent forth into our cloisters a famine and a thirst for hearing the words of men and the swiftly passing rumors of the world. As we devote ourselves to this vain, empty talk, the more tiresome we think the word of God, more stale and flat and tasteless to us without the spice or sweetness of understanding. And so, the Psalmist says, “How sweet are thy words to my palate, more than honey to my mouth,” and the source of that sweetness he reveals in the next verse, “By thy commandments I have had understanding—that is to say, I have taken understanding from your commandments and not the commandments of men, and they have taught me and instructed me. The result of this understanding follows next: “Therefore, I have hated every way of iniquity.” The ways of iniquity are many and so open in themselves that they are hated and contemned by all, but only by the word of God do we recognize these ways and become able to avoid them. And so, he says, “Thy words have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against thee.”²⁵¹ They are hidden in the heart, not merely sounded on the lips, when our thought retains the understanding of them. But the less we apply ourselves to this understanding, the less we can recognize and avoid those evil ways, and the less we can protect ourselves from sin.

Such negligence is reprehensible, especially in monks, who aspire to perfection and have all the facilities for learning at hand: their libraries abound in sacred books, and they have all the tranquil leisure they can use. But those who glory in the number of their books but still refrain from reading deserve the stinging rebuke from the elder in the Lives of the Fathers:

The prophets composed the books, and your forefathers came after them and added many things. Their successors then committed them to memory. Then the present generation came and copied them out on paper and on parchment, and put them back to sit idle on the shelves.²⁵²

And Abbot Palladius calls us both to learn and to teach: “It is fitting for the soul that lives according to Christ’s will either to learn faithfully what it does not know or to teach plainly what it knows.”²⁵³ But if, when it can, the soul will do neither, it suffers under a madness; for the first step in withdrawing from God is a weariness with learning, and when the soul has lost an appetite for what the soul forever craves, how can it love God?

In his exhortation of monks, Saint Athanasius recommended reading and learning to the point where he allowed it even to interrupt prayer. “I will trace the course of our way of life,” he said:

First, the cultivation of abstinence, endurance of hunger, persistence in prayer and reading—or, for someone who has not yet learned to read, let him have the desire to hear, born from an eagerness to learn. These are the first stages, as if of nurselings in the cradle, of our progressive knowledge of God.

But soon he continues, saying first, “But we must become so insistent in our prayers that scarcely any time should come between them,” and adding finally, “And nothing should interrupt them, except for intervals of reading.”²⁵⁴

[The apostle Peter would offer no different advice: “Be always ready to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of the word of hope and faith.”²⁵⁵ And the apostle Paul: “We do not cease to pray for you and to beg that you be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” And again: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly in all wisdom.” In the Old Testament, too, God’s word inspired men with a similar concern for his teaching; so David says, “Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly…. But his will is in the law of the Lord….” And the Lord says to Joshua, son of Nun, “Let not this book depart from thy hands and thou shalt meditate upon it day and night.”²⁵⁶]

[The slippery ways of evil thoughts often work themselves into these matters as well. Constant diligence may prepare the heart for God, but the cares of the world gnaw at us and make us apprehensive for them. If a man must endure this without end who is devoted to the struggles of religious life, surely the indolent man will never be free from them.]²⁵⁷

We lament the fact that the time has already begun when we see many with positions in the Church who do not act on what they understand, or who even scorn to understand and know the holy word itself. They turn their attention from the truth and listen only to fables, and “all seek the things that are their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ’s.” The scriptures of God are everywhere and are set before their eyes, but men think it beneath them to come to know his word. There is hardly a man who seeks to know what he has believed.²⁵⁸

Both the Rule that governs their calling and the examples set by the Fathers strenuously urge them to this reading. Benedict says nothing about the practice and teaching of singing, but lays down many instructions about reading, even setting fixed times for reading as he does for manual labor. He also makes provision for the teaching of writing and composition, including tablets and a pen among the necessary articles the abbot should supply the monks.²⁵⁹ And when among other things he commands, “At the beginning of Lent, each monk will receive a book from the library, which he will read straight through from the beginning,”²⁶⁰ what can be more absurd than to spend this time on reading without troubling to understand? [The proverb of the wise man is well known: “Reading without understanding is not reading at all,” and to such a reader the words of the philosopher apply: “An ass set in front of a lyre.”]²⁶¹ For a reader with a book but without the capacity to fulfill its purpose is like an ass confronted with a lyre. Far better for him to turn to other things, in which there may be some use, than to sit there dumbly staring at the letters and then idly flip the page, for we see in such a reader the words of Isaiah fulfilled:

And the vision of all shall be unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which when they shall deliver to one that is learned, they shall say, “Read this,” and he shall answer, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” And the book shall be given to one that knoweth no letters, and it shall be said to him, “Read,” and he shall answer, “I know no letters.”

And the Lord said, “As much as this people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips glorify me, still their heart is far from me, and they have feared me with the commandment and with the doctrines of men. Therefore, behold I will proceed to cause an admiration in this people by a great and wonderful miracle. For wisdom shall perish from their wise men, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”²⁶²

These days in our cloisters men are said to know letters who have learned only to make the sounds. But as far as understanding is concerned, they might as well not know how to read, since for them the book remains as sealed as it is for those they call illiterate. The Lord rebukes these men, saying they draw near him with their mouth and lips but not with their heart, for the words which they can pronounce in a fashion they cannot understand at all. In their ignorance of the word of God, they tamely follow the customs of men rather than the useful value of scripture. Because of this, the Lord threatens that those who are considered wise and sit as doctors among such men also will be blinded.

The greatest true Doctor of the Church and the glory of our monastic calling, Saint Jerome, calls us to a love of reading—“Love knowledge of the scriptures and you will hate sins of the flesh”²⁶³—and we know from his own testimony the labor and expense he incurred to learn. Among the many things he wrote about his own course of study to help teach us through the force of his example, he wrote this to Pammachius and Oceanus:

When I was young, I burned with a love of learning, but I was not so presumptuous, as some men are, as to try to teach myself. I heard Apollinaris often at Antioch, and I honored him because he made me learned in scripture. I already had some gray in my hair—more like a teacher myself than a student, I’m afraid—but I went off to Alexandria to study with Didymus; I am still grateful to him for many things, for I found out how much I didn’t know. They thought I’d put an end to all this schooling but, back to Jerusalem, back to Bethlehem—the work! the cost!—where I took lessons from the Hebrew Baranina. The lessons had to be at night because he was afraid of the Jews, but he turned out to be a second Nicodemus.²⁶⁴

Surely, he remembered what he had read in Ecclesiasticus: “My son, from thy youth receive instruction and even to thy gray hairs thou shalt find wisdom.”²⁶⁵ But he himself found instruction not only in the words of scripture but in the example of his monastic fathers; to his rich praises of that most excellent monastery, he added this on its practices in scriptural education: “I never saw such study or understanding of sacred knowledge and scripture. You would have thought that almost every one of them was an orator on divine learning.”²⁶⁶ The Venerable Bede also, who was taken into a monastery as a boy, has this to say in his history of the English:

Spending all the remaining time of my life in that same monastery, I wholly applied myself to the study of scripture, and along with my observance of the discipline of the Rule and my daily singing in church, I always took delight in both learning and writing.²⁶⁷

But those who are educated in monasteries nowadays remain so stubbornly foolish that, content with the sound of the letters, they ignore the meaning of the words, happy to instruct the tongue and leave the heart alone. As Solomon says in Proverbs, “The heart of the wise seeketh instruction, and the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness.”²⁶⁸ And the less these men are able to love God, the further they would keep us from an understanding of him and from the meaning of the scripture that teaches us about him.

I think there are two main reasons for this: the envy of the lay brothers or the superiors themselves, and the empty talk of idleness, which has captured the devotion of so many monastic cloisters in these times. When they want to have us concentrate, as they do, on earthly rather than spiritual things, these men act like the Philistines who persecuted Isaac, continually filling his wells with earth, even as he dug them, and stopping the flow of water.²⁶⁹ As Saint Gregory explains in Book 16 of his Moralia:

When we concentrate on the holy word, we often have to put up with the intrigues of malignant spirits, who throw the dust of earthly thoughts on our mind to darken the eyes of our concentration against the light of inner vision.²⁷⁰

The Psalmist had put up with this too long when he said, “Depart from me, ye malignant, and I will search the commandments of my God,”²⁷¹ indicating that he could not observe the commandments of God while he had to put up with the intrigues of malignant spirits in his mind. In the work of Isaac this is signified by the wickedness of the Philistines, who kept filling the wells he dug with earth. For we are digging wells of our own when we penetrate the depths of holy scripture for meanings that are hidden there. But the Philistines—in the hidden or symbolic sense—fill these wells with earth when unclean spirits heap thoughts of earthly things upon us as we strive for these depths, and they keep us, as it were, from the water of sacred knowledge we have found. No one overcomes these enemies by his own strength, as we hear from Eliphaz: “And the Almighty shall be against thy enemies, and silver shall be heaped together for thee,”²⁷² or in other words, “So long as the strength of the Lord keeps malignant spirits from you, the great treasure of his word will shine in you the brighter.”

But unless I am mistaken, Saint Gregory had been reading the homilies of Origen, the great Christian philosopher, and had drawn from Origen’s wells what he now is saying about Isaac’s. For Origen worked hard to dig wells of the spirit and urged us both to drink from them and to dig others of our own. As he says in his twelfth homily:

Let us try to do what wisdom advises: “Drink water from thy wells and from thy springs, and let thy spring be thine own.” And you, my listener, even you, try to have a well of your own and a spring of your own, so that when you take up a book of scripture, even you may begin to bring forth some understanding derived from your own sense and following what you have learned in the church. And try, even you, to drink from the spring of your inborn intelligence. Inside you is a source of living water, veins that never cease to flow, running channels of rational understanding—if only they are not clogged with earth and stones. Dig away your earth, clear away the rubble that is blocking your intelligence, rid yourself of sloth, shake off the torpor of the heart. For hear what scripture says: “Prick the eye and bring forth tears, but prick the heart and bring forth understanding.” Free your intelligence from rubble, even you, so that someday you may drink from your own springs, swallow drafts of living water from your wells. For if you have taken the word of God into yourself, if you have received the living water from Jesus and have received it with faith, it will become in you a spring of water flowing to eternal life.²⁷³

The wells the Philistines had filled with earth are, no doubt, men who are blocked in their spiritual understanding; they do not drink themselves nor allow any others to drink. Hear what the Lord has said: “Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves have not entered in, and those that were entering in you have hindered.” And the passage continues: “And as he was saying these things to them, they began violently to oppress him and to stop his mouth about many things, lying in wait for him and seeking to catch something from his mouth that they might accuse him.”²⁷⁴

But we must never give up digging wells of living water but, by arguing all things, disputing all things—sometimes new things, sometimes old—become like the scribe, instructed in the kingdom of heaven, of whom the Lord said, “He bringeth forth out of his treasure both new things and old.” Let us then return to Isaac and dig wells of living water as he did. And even if the Philistines stop these wells, and even if they fight, let us continue digging nonetheless, so that we too may hear it said, “Drink water from thy cisterns and thy wells.” And let us dig them deep, and let the water overflow, not only so that the knowledge of scripture may be enough for ourselves alone but so that we may educate others and teach all men to drink. Yes, let them drink, and the beasts of the fields as well. In the words of the prophet, “Thou wilt preserve both men and beast, O Lord.”

A Philistine knows earthly things but does not know where in all the earth to find water, where to find rational sense. What is the good in having education but not knowing how to use it, in having language but not knowing how to speak? That is the condition of the children of Isaac, who dig for living water across the earth.²⁷⁵

But it must not be that way with you. Those of you who, standing aloof from vain and idle talk, have attained the grace of some learning must apply yourselves to become deeply learned in those things that pertain to God, as it is written of the man called blessed in the psalm: “His will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night.” The good that results from this study follows next: “And he shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit in due season.” For a tree is dry and barren which is not watered by the rivers of God’s word, of which it is written, “From his belly shall flow streams of living water.” These are the streams the bride in Canticles describes as part of her praise of the Bridegroom: “His eyes are as doves on brooks of waters, which are washed with milk and sit beside the plentiful streams.”²⁷⁶ And you as well, washed with the milk that is the whiteness of your chastity, must sit like doves beside these streams and drink drafts of wisdom from them—not only to learn but to teach, to show others, as it were, the way to turn their eyes; not only to know the Bridegroom for yourself but to have the means to speak of him to others.

It is written of the matchless bride of God, who was found worthy to conceive him through the ears of her heart, “But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.”²⁷⁷ And so, the great mother of the highest Word itself, keeping these words in her heart, not on her tongue, then pondered them all carefully, arguing every one, weighing each against the other, to determine how they might all be consistent. She knew that, according to the veiled speech of the law, every animal was called unclean which did not ruminate, or chew the cud, and have divided hooves. For, in fact, no soul is clean which does not, by meditating to the best of its ability, ruminate, or chew the cud of God’s commandments, and which does not display discretion in following them, so as not only to do good but to do well, that is, to act with correct intention. This discretion of the heart is the division of the hooves of all clean animals, and of it, it is written, “If thou offerest rightly but dividest not rightly, thou hast sinned.”²⁷⁸

“Anyone who loveth me will keep my word,” the Truth has said.²⁷⁹ But who can keep the words and the commandments of the Lord in all obedience without first understanding them? No one will be diligent in observance who has not been attentive in her listening. Think of that blessed woman who put aside all other things and sat at the feet of the Lord to hear his words;²⁸⁰ and she heard them with the ears of her understanding, which is precisely what the Lord himself demands: “He that hath ears to hear,” he tells us, “let him hear.”²⁸¹

[But if you cannot be fired to such intense devotion, at least follow in your study of holy scripture the example of Paula and Eustochium, those blessed students of Saint Jerome, at whose request he brought light to the Church with so many volumes of his writings.]²⁸²

1 The extant rule of the Paraclete in fact disregards many of the suggestions Abelard will make, in favor of a somewhat stricter and more traditional regime. For that rule, see Waddell 1987; for some significant divergences from Abelard’s proposals, see McLeod 1971, 219–24.

4 The formal close of a letter introducing the main body of the text, similar to the letters accompanying the collections of sermons and hymns Abelard composed for use at the Paraclete and the Introductory Letter to The Questions of Heloise.

15 A collage of phrases from Jas. 3:2–8, here minimally restored with other phrases from the passage to allow at least for an intelligible sequence.

20 Moralia 7.37. The internal quotations are from Prov. 17:14, 18:4, and 26:10.

27 Abelard interprets the allegory at greater length, while making similar points, in his Sermon 33 on John the Baptist.

37 The anecdote does not in fact appear in Sulpicius’ Life of St. Martin, and the source of the quotation has not been identified.

43 See Gen. 6:15–16. This sentence, included in one manuscript, is most likely a later interpolation.

46 Loosely paraphrased from the Life of St. Frontonius 2–3, contained in Vitae Patrum 1.

49 For Abelard’s objection to the titles abbess and abbot and his preference for the term deaconess, see the Sixth Letter.

54 The additional quotations, from Ecclus. 32:4 and 32:10–13, and subsequent remarks are evident interpolations in the text. The comment, enim necesse fuit, “This one was needed, too,” is parenthetical and refers to the second quotation; McLaughlin omits it from his text of the letter. The final comment in the paragraph, “And those who recorded the lives of the holy men …,” takes notice of the fact that four books of the Vitae Patrum are known as the Verba Seniorum, “Sayings of the Elders.”

57 Athanasius, Life of Anthony, in Vitae Patrum 1.45. The internal quotations are from 1 Cor. 1:20, 27–29.

79 Rule of St. Benedict, chapters 53 and 56. Abelard here begins to address one of Heloise’s specific concerns from the Fifth Letter; see p. 107.

81 Ecclus. 4:35, 10:7, 10:17, 32:1; 1 Tim. 5:1–2; and John 15:16 (the manuscripts include only the first phrase, adding “etc.”).

82 Luke 22:25–26. The manuscripts include the passage only through the words “But you are not so,” indicating the rest by “etc.”

84 Ecclus. 13:12. Cf. also Abelard’s comments on Heloise in the Calamities, p. 136 ff.

88 St. Scholastica was the sister, and by tradition the twin, of St. Benedict. They were buried in the same grave, as Heloise and Abelard also were to be.

89 Basil was a fourth-century bishop of Caesarea in Cappodocia, a leading light in eastern monasticism, and a Doctor of the Church. Abelard cites his “Greater Rule,” not in the original Greek, but in the Latin translation of Rufinus; see Rufinus, Regula Fusius Tractata, 197 and 199. The internal quotations are from 1 Cor. 14:40, 10:29, and 9:12.

93 In the single manuscript that preserves this section, the word infirmaria is added at the end of the sentence, apparently anticipating the paragraph to come. McLaughlin, however, includes it as part of the text, according to which reading, then, the infirmarian would act as deputy of the chantress in matters of convent discipline.

95 See Jas. 5:14: “Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”

107 See Ps. 118:62: “I rose at midnight to give praise to thee.” Cf. Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 16.

108 The Offices of the day being the Morning Office or lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline; for the manner of their celebration, see Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 8 ff.

111 Epistulae 78.8. The internal quotations and references are to Gen. 9:22 ff., 21:10; Mal. 1:2–3; Gen. 25:22; 2 Kings 13:11, 15; 2 Cor. 7:5; Phil. 2:20–21; John 13:29; and Apoc. 12:9.

113 A close but inexact citation of Apoc. 22:11, included in one manuscript and a likely later interpolation.

115 It is not possible to determine which, if any, of these passages might belong to Abelard’s original text and which might be later additions.

116 Prov. 3:11–12, 13:24, 19:25, 21:11, 26:3, 28:23; Heb. 12:11; Ecclus. 22:3, 30:1–2, 8–9.

118 Cf. the First and Fifth Letters and Abelard’s Ethics (Luscombe 1971, 24).

119 Reading consilio Cypriani with two of our three manuscripts against Concilio Cypriani, “the Council of Cyprian,” which McLaughlin accepts.

126 It is not possible to determine which, if any, of these passages might belong to Abelard’s original text and which might be later additions.

129 That is, the evening readings instituted by Benedict, which on fast days are to follow vespers directly after a short interval; see Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 42.

134 Reading immundi with mss. C and E against mundi of ms. T, which McLaughlin accepts.

135 Much of what seems to be an odd punctiliousness about language in this paragraph derives from a divergence between the usage of the Vulgate and the normal Latin usage of Abelard’s time. The word the Douay-Rheims version reasonably translates as “unclean” in Rom. 14:14 is commune, normally “common.” Abelard then feels a need to gloss what would appear to be a strained meaning at the least.

141 Epistulae 22.6. The passage is also quoted in this form in the Fifth Letter, where it also directly follows Paul’s words from 1 Tim. 5.

150 For Noah, see Gen. 9:20 ff.; for Lot, see Gen. 19:31 ff.; for Judith, see Jth. 13; for the patriarchs’ receiving angels, see, e.g., Gen. 18:7–8; for Elijah, see 3 Kings 17:6; for the feasts of quails, see Exod. 16:13; for the meals of loaves and fishes, see Matt. 14:13 ff., Mark 6:31 ff., Luke 9:10 ff., and John 6:5 ff.

151 See the wedding at Cana in John 2:1–10. The quoted phrase is from Eph. 5:18.

153 Epistulae 52.11; cf. 1 Tim. 3:3 and Lev. 10:9, 35; the source of “the words of the philosopher” has not been identified. The passage is quoted with virtually the same introductory words in the Fifth Letter, from which it is likely to have been imported as an interpolation here.

154 Pachomius was a fourth-century Egyptian monastic and the first to organize monks in communal life according to a written rule. Abelard here quotes chapter 45 of Pachomius’s Rule in the Latin translation of Jerome.

156 Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 40. The interrupted sentence is continued below.

163 Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 40, the continuation of the interrupted sentence above. The internal quotation is from Ecclus. 19:2.

164 Regula Secunda Augustini, fragmentary fifth-century work once attributed to Augustine.

165 From Rufinus, Historia Monachorum 22, which forms the second book of Vitae Patrum, and had been attributed to Jerome.

166 The English pun on “meet” reflects the Latin, I’m afraid: “conveniens erat haec indulgentia ut … convenientes … congauderent.”

170 Athanasius, Exhortatio ad Monachos, an appendix to the Codex Regularium of Benedict of Aniane.

172 Deut. 32:14–15; reading dilectus, “beloved,” with the Vulgate and mss. C and E against dilatatus, “distended,” with ms. T, which McLaughlin accepts.

177 Augustine, De Quaestionibus ad Simplicianum 1.1.5, De Diversis Quaestionibus LXXXIII 66.5; Ovid, Amores 3.4.17. These later interpolations miss the point that Paul and Abelard are making: the issue is not in fact psychological but structural.

179 Cf. Augustine, De Bono Viduitatis 9.13, cited in the Fifth Letter, p. 112.

188 Matt. 9:11. The manuscripts include only the first sentence of this passage, indicating what follows by “etc.”

198 These rhetorical questions, included in one manuscript, emphasize a different point and are most likely later interpolations.

202 For Esau, see Gen. 25:29; for Elijah, see 3 Kings 17:2–6; for the temptation of Jesus, “the second man,” see Matt. 4:1–4.

209 Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 39, specifies only the flesh of four-footed animals as prohibited.

211 Oratio 39, In Sancta Lumina 20. Abelard cites Gregory in the Latin translation of Rufinus, where it is presented as the third of a set of treatises.

219 Ecclus. 19:27. The stress in this passage on outward forms, so at odds with Abelard’s consistent position elsewhere, may be enough in itself to cast doubt on his authorship.

220 Matt. 11:8. The manuscripts quote only through “a man clothed in soft garments,” inserting “etc.”

225 Nicolas is named as a deacon in Acts 6:5. The tradition that he was “lost” to them apparently derives from the identification of the “Nicolaites” condemned in Apoc. 2 as his followers. Abelard refers to his downfall more pointedly in his Sermon 31.

230 Making a similar point in his Sermon 33 on John the Baptist, Abelard says (also with rhetorical alliteration), “They become more citizens than solitary monks.”

235 Matt. 23:4, 7:15. The manuscripts quote only through “who come to you,” indicating the rest of the verse by “etc.”

236 Cant. 5:3. The point is elaborated in Abelard’s Sermon 33 on John the Baptist.

240 John 6:37; Matt. 8:19–20. The manuscripts quote only through “foxes have holes,” adding “etc.”

247 Ps. 46:8, 118:103 (the manuscripts quote only through “palate,” indicating the rest of the verse by “etc.”), 146:10.

249 Likely later additions to the text by readers eager to try their own hands at scriptural exegesis.

255 Cf. 1 Pet. 3:15, in which the Vulgate reads, “a reason of that hope which is in you.”

256 Col. 1:9, 3:16; Ps. 1:1–2; cf. Josh. 1:8, in which the Vulgate reads, “Let not the book of this law depart from thy mouth.”

257 A series of comments on a variety of points made over the last several pages, most likely added by later hands.

261 Distichs of Cato, prologue (Chase 1922, 12); cf. Jerome, Epistulae 61.4. One manuscript includes this passage, most likely added by later hands.

264 Epistulae 84.3. For Nicodemus, who came to Jesus secretly at night, see John 3:1.

273 Homilia in Genesim 12.5. Internal quotations are from Prov. 5:15 and Ecclus. 22:24.

274 Luke 11:52. The manuscripts quote only through “you have hindered,” indicating by “etc.” the rest of the passage, which Abelard, of all people, surely knew.

275 Origen, Homilia in Genesim 13.2–4. Internal quotations are from Matt. 13:52, Prov. 5:15, and Ps. 35:7.

276 Ps. 1:2, 3 (the manuscripts quote only through “waters,” indicating the rest of the verse by “etc.”); John 7:38; Cant. 5:12.

282 This anticlimactic passage, which also segues a bit too neatly into Abelard’s letter on the nuns’ studies and The Questions of Heloise, is likely a later addition.