Letter 18

It is a difficult business to write to a little girl who does not understand what you say, whose soul you do not know, of whose will you make promises at peril — so that, according to the opening of a distinguished orator, the hope in her is more to be praised than the reality. For why should you exhort to continence one who longs for cakes, who babbles with prattling voice in her mother's lap, to whom honey is sweeter than words? Should she hear the deep things of the Apostle, who is delighted rather by old wives' tales? Should she perceive the riddles of the prophets, whom the sadder face of her bearer frightens off? Should she understand the majesty of the Gospel, at whose lightnings every sense of mortals was dulled? Should I exhort her to be subject to her parent, who with tender hand strikes her laughing mother? Therefore let our Pacatula receive this little letter to read afterward; for the present let her only learn the elements of the little letters, join syllables, learn nouns, link words together; and, that she may rehearse these with ringing voice, let a little cake of honey be set before her as a reward, and let her hasten to take whatever is sweet to the taste, whatever blooms in flowers, whatever glows in gems, whatever charms in dolls; meanwhile let her also try with her tender thumb to draw out the threads, let her often break the strands, that one day she may not break them; after labour let her exult in play, let her hang from her mother's neck, let her snatch the kisses of her kinsfolk, let her sing psalms for a reward, let her love what she is compelled to say, that it may be not a task but a delight, not a necessity but a wish.

Some, when they have promised a future virgin, are wont to clothe her in a dark tunic and cover her with a black little cloak, to take away the linens, to allow no gold on the neck, none on the head — with good counsel indeed, lest she learn to have in her tender years what afterward she may be compelled to lay aside. To others the opposite seems best. "For what," they say, "if she herself has not had it, will she not see others who have?" The female sex is fond of adornment, and we know that many even of distinguished chastity, though for no man, yet for themselves, gladly deck themselves out. Nay rather, let her be sated by having, and see others praised who do not have these things. And it is better that, being sated, she should despise them, than that, not having them, she should desire to have them. The Lord did something of the kind too for the people of Israel, when, to those longing for the flesh of Egypt, he furnished swarms of quails even to nausea and vomiting; and many men of the world have by experience more easily done without the pleasure of the body than those who from boyhood know nothing of lust; for things known are trampled by the one, things unknown sought by the other; the former by repenting avoid the snares of sweetness which they fled, the latter are caught by the allurements of the flesh and the sweet titillation of the body's flattery, while they think to find honey and discover noxious poisons; for honey distils from the lips of a harlot woman, which for a time fattens the throats of those who eat it, and afterward is found bitterer than gall. Hence too honey is not offered in the Lord's sacrifices, and the wax, which is the lodging of honey, being despised, oil is kindled in the temple of God, which is pressed out from the bitterness of olives; the Passover too is eaten with bitter herbs, in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and whoever has these will endure persecution in the world. Hence too the prophet mystically sings: I sat alone, because I was filled with bitterness.

What then? Must one revel in youth, that afterward luxury may be more strongly despised? "God forbid," they say; For let each one, in the calling in which he was called, in that abide. Is anyone called circumcised — that is, a virgin? Let him not draw on the foreskin — that is, let him not seek the skin-tunics of marriage, with which Adam, cast out of the paradise of virginity, was clothed. Is anyone called in the foreskin — that is, having a wife and girded about with the skin of matrimony? Let him not seek the nakedness of virginity and eternal chastity, which he has once ceased to have, but let him use his own vessel in sanctification and chastity, and drink from his own fountains, and not seek the shattered cisterns of the brothels, which cannot contain the purest waters of chastity. Hence too the same Paul, in the same chapter, disputing of virginity and marriage, calls those constituted in matrimony servants of the flesh, and free those who, without any yoke of marriage, serve the Lord with all liberty. What we say, we say not of all in general, but treat in part, nor speak of all, but of certain ones. Our discourse is directed to both sexes, not to the weaker vessel only. You are a virgin: why does the society of a woman delight you? Why do you commit a frail and patched raft to the great waves, and, secure, embark on the great peril of an uncertain voyage? You know not what you desire, and yet you so join yourself to her as though you had either desired before or — to speak most lightly — would desire afterward. "But that sex is more fit for service." Choose, then, an old woman; choose a deformed one; choose one of proved continence in the Lord. Why does a young one delight you, why a beautiful one, why a luxurious one? You use the baths, with shining skin, you walk about ruddy, you feed on flesh, you abound in riches, surrounded with precious garments, and do you believe that you sleep secure next to a deadly serpent? Or do you not dwell in the same lodging — at night at least? But spending whole days in conversation of this kind, why do you, alone with a woman alone, sit and not with witnesses? Even though you yourself do not sin, you may seem to others to sin, so that you are an example to the wretched, who by the authority of your name may transgress. You too, virgin or widow, why do you detain a man with so long a discourse? Why, left alone with one alone, do you not fear? At least let the necessity of the bowels and the bladder compel you to go out, that you may leave him, with whom in this matter, more freely than with a brother, far more modestly you have acted than with a husband. "But you ask something of the Holy Scriptures": ask in public; let your maids hear, let your companions hear. Everything that is made manifest is light. Good speech does not seek secret places; nay rather, it delights in its own praises and the testimony of very many. The excellent master despises men, scorns brothers, and sweats over the secret instruction of one little woman.

I have turned a little from the way on the occasion of others, and, while I instruct the infant Pacatula — nay, nourish her — I have suddenly taken up wars with many women ill at peace with me. I will return to my purpose. Let the female sex be joined to its own sex; let her not know — nay, let her fear — to play with boys. Let her know no unchaste word, and, if perchance in the tumult of the bustling household she hear anything foul, let her not understand it. Let her have her mother's nod for words and her warning for a command. Let her love her as a parent, be subject to her as a mistress, fear her as a teacher. But when the seventh year of her age has received the little maiden, still untaught and toothless, and she has begun to blush, to know what to keep silent, to be in doubt what to say, let her learn the psalter by heart, and until the years of puberty let her make the books of Solomon, the gospels, the apostles, and the prophets the treasure of her heart. Let her not go out too freely into public, nor always seek the gatherings of the churches. Let her have all her delights in her own chamber. Let her never see young men, never curled fellows wounding the soul through the ears with sweetness of voice. The wantonness of girls too is to be repelled, who, the more freely they approach, the more difficultly they are avoided, and who teach in secret what they have learned, and violate a shut-in Danaë by the talk of the crowd. Let her teacher be a companion, her tutor a guardian, not much given to wine, not, according to the Apostle, idle and wordy, but sober, grave, a worker of wool, and speaking only those things which instruct the minds of girls to virtue. But as water in a little channel follows the finger going before it, so the soft and tender age is flexible to either side, and is drawn wherever you lead it. Wanton and trim young men are wont to seek for themselves, through the nurses, an approach to the foster-children by blandishments, affability, and little gifts, and, when they have gently entered, to rouse fires from sparks and gradually to advance to shamelessness, and to be by no means able to be prevented, that little verse being proved upon them: You can hardly find fault with what you allow to become a habit. It is shameful to say, and yet it must be said: noble women, destined to have nobler suitors, are coupled with men of the cheapest condition and with servants, and, under the name of religion and the shadow of continence, sometimes desert their husbands. They are Helens following Alexanders, and do not fear the Menelauses. These things are seen, are lamented, and are not avenged, because the multitude of those who sin supplies the license of sinning.

Oh, the wickedness! The world is falling to ruin, and in us our sins do not fall. The renowned city, the head of the Roman Empire, has been swallowed up by one conflagration. There is no region that does not have its exiles. Churches once sacred have fallen into ashes and embers, and yet we are zealous for avarice. We live as though about to die the next day, and we build as though always about to live in this world. The walls gleam with gold, the panelled ceilings with gold, the capitals of the columns shine with gold, and naked and hungry before our doors Christ dies in the person of the poor. We read that Aaron the high priest went to meet the raging flames, and, the censer kindled, checked the wrath of God; the great priest stood between death and life, and the fire dared not advance beyond his footsteps. God says to Moses: Let me alone, and I will destroy this people. When he says "Let me alone," he shows that he is held back from doing what he had threatened; for the servant's prayers were hindering the power of God. Who, do you think, is there under heaven who could now meet the wrath of God, who could go to meet the flames and, with the Apostle, say: I myself wished to be anathema for my brethren? The flocks perish with the shepherds, because, as the people, so the priest. Moses spoke with the affection of compassion: If you forgive this people, forgive; but if not, blot me out of your book. He wishes to perish with those who perish, nor is he content with his own salvation. For the glory of a king is the multitude of his people. In these times Pacatula was born; amid these rattles she snatches her first age, destined to know tears before laughter, to feel weeping before joy. Scarcely has she entered, and already is the exit; she thinks the world has always been such. She knows not the past, she flees the present, she desires the future. That I should dictate these things in hasty speech, and that I, an old man, should write to an infant, after the deaths of friends and perpetual mourning, by a long return from exile, your love, brother Gaudentius, impelled me; and to give my hand to one asking less than nothing at all — because in the one case the will is oppressed by grief, in the other there is a dissembling of friendship.