Letter 5

Abraham is tested in his son and is found the more faithful for it; Joseph is sold in Egypt so that he may feed his father and his brothers; Hezekiah is carried to the brink of death so that, dissolved in tears, he may have his life extended by fifteen years; the apostle Peter is shaken by the Lord's passion so that, weeping bitterly, he may hear the words, "Feed my sheep"; Paul, a ravening wolf and the youngest son of Benjamin, is blinded in a trance so that he may see, and, hemmed in by a sudden horror of darkness, he calls upon the Lord whom a moment before he had been persecuting as a mere man.

So now too, my dear Marcella, we have seen our own Blesilla burn for nearly thirty days together in the heat of fever, so that she might learn to cast off the indulgences of a body soon to be furrowed by worms. The Lord Jesus came to her also and touched her hand, and she rose and ministered to him. There was about her a certain air of negligence; bound in the wrappings of riches, she lay in the tomb of the world. But Jesus groaned, and, troubled in spirit, he cried aloud, saying: "Blesilla, come forth." At the call she rose, and coming out she now feasts with the Lord. Let the Jews threaten and swell with rage, let them seek to kill the one who has been raised; the apostles alone rejoice. She knows that she owes her life to him in whom she has believed; she knows that she now embraces the feet of him whose judgment she dreaded a little while ago. Her body lay all but lifeless, and approaching death shook her gasping limbs. Where then were the helps of kinsmen, where the words emptier than any smoke? You are owed nothing, ungrateful family, by one who has died to the world and come alive again to Christ. Whoever is a Christian, let him rejoice; whoever is angry shows that he is not a Christian.

A widow who has been loosed from the marriage bond has nothing she needs to do but persevere. But her dark dress offends someone: then let John offend, than whom no one greater has been born among the children of women, who was called an angel and who baptized the Lord himself, who was clothed in a covering of camel's hair and girded with a leather belt. Cheaper food is found unpleasing: nothing is cheaper than locusts. Far more should Christian eyes be offended by those women who paint their faces and eyes with rouge and various dyes, whose plastered faces, disfigured by excessive whiteness, are the counterfeits of idols, on which, if by some mischance an unforeseen teardrop breaks out, it runs down in a furrow; whom not even the number of their years can teach that they are old; who build up the crown of their head with hair that is not their own, and burnish a vanished youth out of the wrinkles of age; who, in short, prink themselves up as trembling little girls before a flock of grandchildren. Let a Christian woman blush if she forces the comeliness of nature, if she takes care of the flesh to gratify desire—for those who are in the flesh, according to the apostle, cannot please Christ.

Our widow once adorned herself with necklaces and spent whole days at the mirror searching out what she lacked; now she says with confidence: "But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." Then maidservants arranged her hair, and her harmless head was cramped under crimping kerchiefs; now her neglected head knows that it is enough for it merely to be veiled. In those days even the hard softness of feathers seemed too much for her, and she could scarcely lie upon her piled-up couches; now she rises in haste to pray, and in a tuneful voice, leading the rest in their alleluia, she is the first to begin praising her Lord. Her knees are bent upon the bare ground, and the face that her white lead once soiled is washed clean with frequent tears. After prayer the psalms ring out, and her weary neck, her tottering knees, her eyes sinking toward sleep are scarcely granted rest by the great ardor of her mind. Her tunic is dark: it is the less stained when she lies upon the ground. Her shoe is cheaper: the price of a lover's footwear she will lavish on the needy. Her belt is not picked out with gold and gems, but is of wool, of the purest simplicity throughout, and made rather to bind her clothes together than to tear them. If the scorpion envies this resolve of hers and with smooth talk persuades her once again to eat of the forbidden tree, let him be crushed, and let an anathema serve her for a sandal against him, and over him as he dies in his own dust let it be said: "Get behind me, Satan," which is to be interpreted "the adversary"; for the antichrist is indeed the adversary of Christ, and to him the precepts of Christ are displeasing.

I ask you, what have we ever done such as the apostles did, that men should rightly be offended at us? They leave their aged father with his boat and net; the publican rises from his tax-booth and follows the Savior; a disciple who wishes to return home and first take leave of his own is forbidden by the master's word; a man is not allowed to bury his father, and it is a kind of piety to be unfilial for the Lord's sake. We, because we do not wear silk garments, are judged to be monks; because we are not drunk and do not loosen our faces in guffaws, we are called continent and gloomy. If a tunic is not gleaming white, at once comes that gibe from the crossroads: "An impostor and a Greek!" Let them jeer with sharper wit if they like, and parade men stuffed out with fat little paunches: our Blesilla will laugh, and will not deign to listen to the abuse of croaking frogs, since her Lord himself was called Beelzebub.