Letter 117

117. Without Address, concerning the Ascetic Life

I consider myself in your debt on other grounds, and this present care in which we are engaged necessarily makes us accountable for service in such matters, even were those who give the orders ordinary men — much more you, who are bound to us by many just claims and others besides. There is no need to bring the past under examination; for one might say that we ourselves were the cause of our own troubles, having contended to depart from that good discipline which alone leads to salvation — and so perhaps we were handed over to this trouble as a trial.

But those things have happened and have been deemed worthy of remembrance, that we may not a second time fall into the like. As for what follows, I much wish to assure your reverence that, God permitting, it will be most easily settled for us, since the matter is both lawful and has nothing burdensome in it, and many of our friends in the camp are ready to grant the favour. A petition, then, will be drawn up by us, after the likeness of the document presented to the vicar; and in it, if there be no obstruction, we shall at once send it off, providing the security that comes from the document. And I am persuaded that in such matters our resolve has greater force than imperial commands; and if we display it unchanging and unswerving from the prime of life onward, then, by the help of God, the guarding of virginity will be for us inviolable and secure.

The brother whom you put in our charge we have both gladly received and hold among our intimates, praying that he may prove worthy of God and of your testimony.