Letter 46

46. To a virgin who had fallen away.

Now is the time to cry aloud that prophetic word, and to say: "Who will give water to my head, and to my eyes a fountain of tears, and I will weep for the wounded of the daughter of my people?" For even if a deep silence holds these, and they lie, once for all stupefied by the terrible thing, deprived even of the sensation of their suffering by the mortal blow, yet we must not pass by so great a fall without tears. For if Jeremiah judged those wounded in body in war to be worthy of countless laments, what could one say in the face of so great a calamity of souls? "Your wounded," he says, "are not the wounded of the sword, and your dead are not the dead of war." But it is the sting of death indeed, the grievous sin, that I bewail, and the fiery darts of the evil one, which barbarously consumed souls together with bodies.

Surely the laws of God would groan greatly, looking upon so great a pollution upon the earth — those laws which ever forbid and cry aloud, of old: "You shall not covet your neighbour's wife," and through the holy Gospels: "Everyone who looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." But now they look upon her, the bride of the Master, whose head is Christ, committing adultery without fear. And the very spirits of the saints would groan: Phinehas the zealous, that it is not now permitted to him, taking the spear in his hands, to avenge bodily the abomination; and John the Baptist, that he cannot, leaving the regions above, as he then left the wilderness, run to the reproof of the lawlessness, and, if he must suffer anything, lay down his head rather than his boldness of speech. Or rather, perhaps, if indeed for us also, after the manner of blessed Abel, he too, though dead, still speaks, even now John cries out and calls aloud, more than then concerning Herodias: "It is not lawful for you to have her." For even if the body of John, by the necessity of nature, received the divine limit, and his tongue is silent, yet "the word of God is not bound." For he who, because the marriage of a fellow servant was set at nought, carried his boldness of speech as far as death — what would he suffer, looking upon so great an outrage done to the holy bridal-chamber of the Lord?

But you, having cast off the yoke of that divine union, and having run away from the undefiled bridal-chamber of the true King, and having fallen shamefully into this dishonoured and impious corruption, since you have no way to escape this bitter accusation, and there is for you no manner nor device to cover over this terrible thing, you advance to meet your daring. And since, being impious, you have fallen into a depth of evils and now despise it, you deny the very compacts made with the true Bridegroom, crying out that you are not a virgin, and that you never made the promise — you who received many tokens of virginity, and displayed many.

Remember the good confession which you confessed before God and angels and men. Remember the venerable company, and the sacred choir of virgins, and the congregation of the Lord, and the Church of the holy ones; and your grandmother, grown old in Christ, yet still young and at the height of virtue; and your mother in the Lord, contending against her, and striving with strange and unwonted toils to break down the habits of common life; and your sister likewise, partly imitating those, partly ambitious even to surpass them, and outstripping by her virginal advantages the achievements of her forebears, and calling you, her sister, as she thought, to the contest of equals, both by word and by life, with all diligence. Remember these things, and the angelic dance about God in their company, and the spiritual life in the flesh, and the heavenly citizenship upon earth; remember the days without disturbance, and the nights full of light, and the spiritual songs, and the melodious psalmody, and the holy prayers, and the pure and undefiled bed, and the virginal procession, and the temperate table, and those who prayed earnestly that your virginity might be kept for you uncorrupted.

Where is that venerable habit, where the orderly bearing, and the plain dress befitting a virgin, and the blush, beautiful, that came of modesty, and the pallor, comely, that blossomed from self-control and watching, shining forth more gracefully than any fair colour? How often in prayers, for the sake of keeping your virginity unspotted, did you perhaps pour out tears? How many letters did you trace to the saints, by which you besought them to pray for you — not that you might obtain a human marriage, much less this dishonoured corruption, but that you might not fall away from the Lord Jesus? How many gifts of the Bridegroom did you receive? And what need is there to speak of the honours paid you for his sake by those who were his — the living together with virgins, the processions with them, the receptions by virgins, the eulogies upon virginity, the virginal blessings, the letters addressed to you as to a virgin? But now, having received a little breath of the airy spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, you have denied all those things, and have bartered that precious and much-fought-for possession for a brief pleasure, which for a season anoints your throat, but afterwards you will find bitterer than gall.

At these things, who would not, grieving, say: "How has the faithful city, Zion, become a harlot?" And how would not the Lord himself declare to one of those who now walk in the spirit of Jeremiah: "Have you seen what the virgin of Israel has done to me? I betrothed her to myself in faith and incorruption, in righteousness, and in judgement, and in mercy and compassions, as I promised her also through Hosea the prophet. But she has loved strangers, and while I, her husband, am living, she is named an adulteress, and is not afraid to become another man's." And what, then, would the bridesman, the divine and blessed Paul — both that ancient one, and this new one under whose mediation and teaching you, having left your father's house, were joined to the Lord — what would each say, sorrowing deeply over so great an evil? "For the fear which I feared has come upon me, and that which I dreaded has met me. For I espoused you to one husband, to present you a pure virgin to Christ, and I feared ever lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your thoughts should at some time be corrupted." For this very reason I tried ever, with countless charms, to allay the tumult of the passions, and with countless guards to keep safe the bride of the Lord, and I always set forth the life of the unmarried woman — that the unmarried woman alone cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. And I expounded the dignity of virginity, and, calling you a temple of God, I gave, as it were, a wing to your eagerness, lifting you up toward Jesus, and by the fear of the terrible thing I helped you not to fall, saying: "If anyone corrupts the temple of God, God will corrupt him." And indeed I added also the security that comes from my prayers, that somehow your whole body and soul and spirit might be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But in vain have I laboured all these things upon you, and the end of those sweet toils has come out bitter for me; and I must groan again over her over whom I ought to have rejoiced. For behold, you have been deceived by the serpent more bitterly than Eve. For not your thoughts only have been corrupted, but together with those, your very body also; and that dreadful thing, which I shrink even to utter, and cannot keep silent (for it is like a fire burning and blazing in my bones, and I am undone on every side, and cannot bear it): you have taken the members of Christ and made them members of a harlot.

This alone, among all evils, is incomparable; this is a new daring in the world. "For pass over," he says, "to the isles of Chittim, and see; and send to Kedar, and consider exceedingly, whether such things have been done, whether the nations will change their gods, who yet are not gods. But the virgin has changed her glory, and her glory is in her shame. The heaven was astonished at this, and the earth shuddered exceedingly the more." The Lord says even now that the virgin has done two evil things: she has forsaken me, the true, the holy Bridegroom of holy souls, and has run away to an impious and lawless corrupter of soul and body together. She has departed from God her saviour, and has presented her members as slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness. She has forgotten me, and has gone after her lover, by whom she shall not be profited.

It were better for him if a millstone for an ass were hung about his neck, and he were cast into the sea, than that anyone should cause a virgin of the Lord to stumble. Has a self-willed slave gone so far in madness as to fling himself upon his master's bed? Or what robber has been led on to so great a madness as to lay hold of the very offerings of God — not lifeless vessels, but living bodies, having a soul dwelling within, made after the image of God? Who from of old has been heard of, who has dared, in the midst of a city and at full noonday, to inscribe upon a royal image the forms of unclean swine? He who has set at nought a human marriage dies, without mercies, at the word of two or three witnesses; of how much worse punishment, do you think, will he be deemed worthy who has trampled upon the Son of God, and corrupted the bride betrothed to him, and outraged the spirit of virginity? But "she was willing," he says, "and I did not force her against her will." Why, even that wanton mistress, the Egyptian woman, was mad with passion for the fair Joseph, but the madness of the licentious woman did not overcome the virtue of the chaste man, nor, though she forced him with her hands toward the transgression, was he forced. "But this was determined by her," he says, "and she was no longer a virgin; and if I had not been willing, she would have been corrupted by another." For "the Son of Man," he says, "had to be betrayed, but woe to him by whom he was betrayed"; and "the offences must come, but woe to him through whom they come."

At these things, "Does not he who falls rise again? Or does not he who turns away return?" Why has the virgin turned away with a shameless turning, even though she heard Christ the Bridegroom saying through Jeremiah: "And I said, after she had committed all these fornications, Return to me; and she did not return." "Is there no balm in Gilead? Or is there no physician there? Why has there not arisen healing for the daughter of my people?" Surely you would find in the divine Scripture many remedies against the evil, many medicines from ruin unto salvation: the mysteries concerning death and resurrection, the words concerning the dreadful judgement and eternal chastisement, the doctrines concerning repentance and the forgiveness of sins, those countless examples of conversion — the drachma, the sheep, the son who devoured his living with the harlots, the lost and found, the dead and come to life again. Let us use these as remedies against the evil; through these let us heal our own soul.

Take into your mind the last day (for surely you will not live the age alone), and the distress, and the choking, and the hour of death, and the pressing sentence of God, and the angels hastening on, and the soul in these things terribly disturbed and bitterly scourged by a sinful conscience, and turning back pitiably toward the things here, and the inexorable necessity of that long departure. Trace out for me in your mind the final overthrow of our common life, when the Son of God shall come in his glory with his angels. For he will come and will not keep silence, when he comes to judge the living and the dead, and to render to each according to his deed; when that trumpet, sounding something great and dreadful, shall waken those who have slept from of old, and they who have done good things shall come forth to the resurrection of life, but they who have done evil things to the resurrection of judgement. Remember the vision of God granted to Daniel, how he brings the judgement before our eyes. "I beheld," he says, "until thrones were set, and the Ancient of Days sat, and his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head as pure wool; his wheels were burning fire. A river of fire drew on before him; a thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The judgement sat, and the books were opened" — the good, the evil, the manifest, the hidden, the deeds, the words, the thoughts, all of them at once, clearly revealing them to the hearing of all, both angels and men. In the face of these things, what manner of men must those be who have lived ill? Where, then, will that soul sink down, which, in the sight of so many beholders, is suddenly seen full of shame? With what body will it endure those endless and unbearable scourges, where there is unquenchable fire, and a worm chastising immortally, and a dark and dreadful depth of Hades, and bitter wailings, and a fearful shrieking, and weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the terrors have no end? From these there is no deliverance after death, nor any device, nor contrivance, of slipping through the bitter places of chastisement.

These things it is possible to flee now. While it is possible, let us raise ourselves from our fall, and let us not despair of ourselves, if we depart from the evils. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Come, let us worship and fall down before him, and weep before him. The Word, calling us to repentance, cries out and calls aloud: "Come to me all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." There is, then, a way of salvation, if we are willing. Death, having prevailed, swallowed us up; but know well that again God has taken away every tear from every face of those who repent. "The Lord is faithful in all his words." He does not lie who said: "Though your sins be as crimson, I will make them white as snow; and though they be as scarlet, I will make them white as wool." The great physician of souls is ready to heal your suffering — he who is ready to set free not you alone, but all who have been enslaved to sin. His are the words; that sweet and saving mouth spoke them: "They who are strong have no need of a physician, but they who are ill. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." What pretext, then, have you, or any other, while he cries these things aloud? The Lord wishes to cleanse you from the pain of your wound, and to show you light out of darkness. The good shepherd seeks you, who left the sheep that had not gone astray. If you give yourself up, he, the lover of mankind, will not shrink, nor will he count you unworthy to bear you upon his own shoulders, rejoicing that he has found his lost sheep.

The Father stands and awaits your return from your wandering. Only depart from your sin, and, while you are still far off, he will run and fall upon your neck, and with friendly embraces will enfold you, now already cleansed by repentance. And he will clothe with a robe, the first robe, the soul that has put off the old man with his deeds; and he will put a ring upon hands washed clean of the blood of death, and will put shoes upon feet that have turned from the evil way to the course of the gospel of peace. And he will proclaim a day of gladness and joy to his own, both angels and men. And in every way he will keep festival over your salvation. "For verily I say to you," he says, "that there is joy in heaven before God over one sinner that repents." And even if one of those who think they stand should accuse you, that you were received quickly, the good Father himself will plead on your behalf, saying: "It was meet to make merry and be glad, for this my daughter was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found."