Letter 289

289. Without superscription, concerning a woman who was wronged

Judging it an equal fault both to leave sinners unpunished and to exceed due measure in the punishment, I have imposed upon this man the penalty that falls to me to impose, expelling him from the fellowship of the Church; and I have urged those who were wronged not to avenge themselves, but to leave the requital to the Lord—so that, if our instructions are of any use, I might then have been heeded, my word carrying far more weight than any letter could ever avail to enforce.

But since I heard words of great gravity, I kept silent at the time, and now too I do not think it fitting for me to speak about the same matters. "For I," she says, "have set at naught a husband, and the bearing of children, and a life of my own, that I might attain this one thing—to be well thought of by God and to be held worthy of the better repute among men. Yet a man, bred from childhood in the corruption of households, forcing his way in once with his habitual shamelessness, fell upon our house, and became known to us only to the extent of a bare acquaintance; and out of ignorance of his ways and a certain ill-instructed modesty I plainly was ashamed to drive him off. He has gone to such a length of impiety and outrage as to fill the whole city with his slanders against me, and to brand me with a public placard set up at the doors of the church. And when for this he met with some indignation from the laws, returning again he renewed his slanders. Once more the marketplace is full of his abuse of me, the gymnasia, the theatres, the houses of those who, through likeness of life, receive him. Nor has it even been granted me to be known for the better things, in which I was held in honour, but rather for the most shameful, because through his licentious spirit I have become notorious among all.

At this," she says, "some take pleasure in the slanders, because men by nature delight in abuse; others say they are grieved, but do not share my pain; others are persuaded that the slanders are true; others are in doubt, swayed by the multitude of his oaths. But there is no one who shares my pain. Now indeed I have felt my desolation, and I lament my own self, having no brother, no friend, no kinsman, no slave, no free man—no human being at all—to share my pain. And, it seems, I find myself alone more pitiable than the city, in which there is so great a scarcity of those who hate wickedness, who do not consider that the wantonness done to one another, going round in a circle, will one day overtake themselves as well."

These things, and others still more piercing, she went through to me with countless tears, and departed, not even leaving me free from her reproaches—that, when I ought to feel a father's pain with her, I am indifferent to so great an evil and play the philosopher amid the sufferings of another. For you do not bid me overlook the remission of money, nor to share in bodily toils, but to suffer loss in reputation itself, the harm of which becomes a common loss to the clergy.

After these words, decide yourself, my admirable friend, what you would now have me say to her, holding as you do such a judgement of your own: not to hand wrongdoers over to the magistrates, yet not to rescue them either when they have been handed over—men of whom it was long ago foretold by the Apostle that the ruler is to be feared for the evil deed: "For he does not," he says, "bear the sword in vain." As, then, to hand a man over is not humane, so to rescue him is to foster his wantonness. Perhaps there might be some postponement of the proceedings until our own arrival; and then we shall show that we are of no use, since there are none who obey us.