AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, SERVANT OF CHRIST AND OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST, TO JULIANA, RELIGIOUS HANDMAID OF GOD, GREETING IN THE LORD OF LORDS.

1. 1. So that I might no longer remain in debt to your request and to your love in Christ for the fulfillment of my promise, I have taken up, as best I could amid my other most pressing occupations, the task of writing something to you about the profession of holy widowhood,

for you both burdened me with your request while you were present and, since I could not refuse you this, you frequently demanded my promise by letter.

And indeed, in this work of ours, when you read some things that pertain not at all to you or to those of you who live together in Christ, and that are not properly necessary for the guidance of your life, you should not on that account judge them superfluous.

For this letter, although it was to be written to you, was nevertheless not to be written for you alone, but rather, that it might benefit others also through you, was something we certainly ought not to neglect. Whatever, then, you find here that either never was or no longer is necessary for you, and yet that you perceive to be of use to others, let it neither weary you to have it nor to give it to be read, so that your love may be a benefit to others.

1. 2. Since, then, in every question that pertains to life and morals, not only teaching but also exhortation is necessary—teaching, that we may know what is to be done, and exhortation, that we may be stirred up, lest we be reluctant to do what we already know ought to be done—what more should I teach you than what we read in the Apostle? For holy Scripture fixes the rule of our teaching, that we should not dare to be wiser than we ought to be, but to be wise, as he himself says, unto sobriety, according as God has dealt to each one the measure of faith (Rom 12, 3). Let it therefore be nothing else for me to teach you than to expound to you the words of the Teacher and to discuss them as the Lord shall grant.

2. 3. And so the Apostle, the Teacher of the Gentiles, the vessel of election (See 1 Tim 2, 7; Acts 9, 15), says: but I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they so remain, even as I (1 Cor 7, 8).

These words are to be understood in such a way that we do not suppose that widows ought not to be called unmarried, on the ground that they appear to have had experience of marriage; for by the term "unmarried" he means those women who are not bound by marriage, whether they once were or never were.

This he makes clear in another place, where he says: the unmarried woman and the virgin are divided (1 Cor 7, 33). Since indeed he also adds the virgin, what does he wish the unmarried woman to mean except a widow? Hence too he afterward embraces both professions under the single name unmarried, saying: she who is unmarried is anxious about the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord; but she who is married is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband (1 Cor 7, 34).

Certainly he did not wish unmarried to be understood only of her who never married, but also of her who, freed from the bond of marriage through widowhood, has ceased to be married; for likewise he calls married none but her who has a husband, not also her who had one and has him no longer.

Therefore every widow is unmarried; but because not every unmarried woman is a widow (for there are also virgins), he here set down both, where he says: but I say to the unmarried and to widows (1 Cor 7, 8); as though he said: "what I say to the unmarried, I say not to those alone who are virgins, but also to those who are widows; it is good for them if they so remain, even as I (Ibid)."

3. 4. Behold, this good of yours is compared to that good which the Apostle calls his own—if faith is present, indeed because faith is present. This teaching is brief, yet not on that account to be despised because it is brief; rather it is the more easily and dearly to be held, because in its brevity it is not cheap.

For the Apostle would not here be commending just any sort of good, since without any ambiguity he set it before the faith of married women.

But how great a good the faith of married women has—that is, of Christian and religious wives—can be understood from this, that when he was giving the precept to flee fornication, where he was certainly also addressing the married, he says: do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor 6, 15)

So great a good, then, is faithful marriage, that even its very members are members of Christ. But since the good of widowed continence is better than this good, this profession does not bring it about that a Catholic widow is something more than a member of Christ, but that she holds a better place among the members of Christ than a married woman. For the same Apostle says: for as in one body we have many members, but all the members do not have the same function; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another, having different gifts according to the grace that is given to us (Rom 12, 4-6).

3. 5. Therefore also, when he was admonishing the married not to defraud one another of the debt of carnal union, and through this lest one of them, when the marriage debt was denied to him, should through his own intemperance be tempted by Satan and slip into fornication, he says: but this I say by way of concession, not by way of command. For I wish all men to be even as I myself; but each one has his own gift from God, one after this manner, another after that (1 Cor 7, 6-7).

4. 5. You see too that conjugal chastity and the marital faith of the Christian marriage bed are a gift, and this from God, so that what carnal desire exceeds in some measure beyond the need of begetting children in the manner of intercourse is not an evil of marriage, but is venial on account of the good of marriage.

For it is not of marriage—which is joined for the sake of begetting children, and by the faith of conjugal chastity, and by the indissoluble sacrament of matrimony so long as both live, all of which are good things—

but of that immoderate use of the flesh, which is recognized in the weakness of married persons and is pardoned through the intervention of the good of marriage, that the Apostle says: I speak by way of concession, not by way of command (1 Cor 7, 6).

Likewise when he says: a woman is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is freed: let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord. But she will be more blessed if she so remains, according to my counsel (1 Cor 7, 39-40); he sufficiently shows that the believing woman who marries again after her husband's death is blessed in the Lord, but that the widow in the same Lord is more blessed: that is—to speak not only by the words of the Scriptures but also by their examples—that Ruth is blessed, but Anna more blessed (See Ruth 4, 13-15; Luke 2, 36-38).

4. 6. Therefore you ought first to know this, that by the good which you have chosen second marriages are not condemned, but honored less. For just as the good of holy virginity, which your daughter has chosen, does not condemn your one marriage, so neither does your widowhood condemn anyone's second marriage.

For it was chiefly from this that the heresies of the Cataphrygians and the Novatianists swelled up, which Tertullian also inflated with cheeks that sounded loud but were not wise (See Tertullian, De exhortatione castitatis 5ff), while with slanderous tooth he cut down second marriages as though unlawful—marriages that the Apostle, with a sober mind, grants to be altogether lawful (See 1 Cor 7, 39). From this soundness of teaching let no disputation of any unlearned man, of any learned man, move you; and do not so exalt your own good that you charge as evil what is another's and is not evil; rather rejoice in your own good all the more, the more you see that by it not only are evils avoided, but certain goods are even surpassed. For adultery and fornication are evils.

5. 6. But from these unlawful things she is very far removed who has bound herself by the freedom of a vow and has made even what is lawful for her not to be lawful—not by the command of the Law, but by the counsel of love. Conjugal chastity too is good, but widowed continence is a better good. This better good, then, is honored by the submission of that good; that good is not condemned by the praise of this better one.

5. 7. But as for the fact that the Apostle, when he was commending the fruit of the celibate and the unmarried, because they think on the things of the Lord, how they may please God (See 1 Cor 7, 33), added and said: but this I say for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you—that is, not that I may compel you—but for that which is seemly (1 Cor 7, 35),

we ought not, because he called the good of the unmarried seemly, on that account to suppose that the conjugal bond is shameful; otherwise we shall also condemn first marriages, which neither the Cataphrygians nor the Novatianists nor their most eloquent supporter Tertullian dared to call shameful (See Tertullian, Ad uxorem 2).

But just as, when he says: but I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they so remain (1 Cor 7, 8), he certainly used good for "better," since everything that is called better in comparison with a good is itself without doubt also good (for what else is that which is thus called better, except what is "more good"?),

and we do not therefore consequently judge that he meant it to be evil if they should marry, because he said: it is good for them if they so remain; so too, when he says: but for that which is seemly (1 Cor 7, 35), he did not show that marriage is shameful, but commended what was more seemly than the seemly under the general name of the seemly, since what is more seemly is nothing other than what is more seemly? And what is more seemly is certainly seemly.

For he openly declared this to be better than that good, where he says: he who gives his daughter in marriage does well; and he who does not give her in marriage does better (1 Cor 7, 38), and this more blessed than that blessed, where he says: but she will be more blessed if she so remains (1 Cor 7, 40).

Just as, then, what is good has its better and what is blessed its more blessed, so what is seemly has its more seemly, which he wished to call seemly. For far be it that what should be shameful of which the Apostle Peter, speaking, says: husbands, give honor to your wives as to the weaker and subject vessel, as to fellow heirs of grace (1 Pet 3, 7). And, addressing the wives, he exhorts them by the example of Sarah to be subject to their husbands: for so, he says, certain holy women, who hoped in God, adorned themselves, being obedient to their husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you have become by doing well and not fearing any disturbance (1 Pet 3, 5-6).

6. 8. Hence also that which the apostle Paul said of the unmarried woman: that she may be holy both in body and in spirit (1 Cor 7, 34), is not to be taken as though a wife who is faithful and chaste and, according to the Scriptures, subject to her husband, is not holy in body, but only in spirit.

For it cannot be that, when the spirit is sanctified, the body too is not holy, the body which the sanctified spirit uses. But lest we seem to anyone to be arguing rather than proving this from the divine word—since Peter, recalling Sarah, says only holy women, and does not say and in body (1 Pet 3, 5)—let us consider that text of the same Paul, where, forbidding fornications, he says: do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid (1 Cor 6, 15).

Let anyone, then, dare to say that the members of Christ are not holy; or indeed let anyone dare to separate the bodies of faithful married women from the members of Christ. Hence too a little later he says: your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own. For you were bought at a great price (1 Cor 6, 19-20).

He said that the body of the faithful is both members of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit, where assuredly the faithful of both sexes are understood. There, then, are the married, there too the unmarried; but distinguished by merits and, as members preferred to members, neither of which, however, are separated from the body.

Therefore, when, speaking of the unmarried woman, he says: that she may be holy both in body and in spirit (1 Cor 7, 34), he wished a fuller sanctification of the unmarried, both in body and in spirit, to be understood; he did not deprive the body of the married of all sanctification.

6. 9. Learn, then, your good—or rather, remember what you have learned—that your good is praised the more because there is another good than which it is better, rather than that this good could not otherwise be good unless that other were evil or did not exist at all.

The eyes in the body have great honor; but they would have less if they were alone and there were not other members of lesser honor. In heaven itself the sun surpasses the moon by its light, it does not disparage it, and star differs from star in glory (See 1 Cor 15, 41), it does not quarrel in pride.

Therefore God made all things, and behold, they were very good (Gen 1, 31): not only "good," but also very, for no other reason than that they were all together. For of each individual work it was said: God saw that it was good (Gen 1, 4). But where all things were named together, very was added, and it was said: God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good (Gen 1, 31).

For certain individual things are better than other individual things; but all things together are better than any individual things whatever. May the sound teaching of Christ, then, make you sound in his body through his grace, so that as for that in which you are better than others in body and in spirit, your own spirit, which rules the body, may neither exalt it insolently nor distinguish it ignorantly.

6. 10. Nor, because I have said that Ruth was blessed and Anna more blessed—since the former married twice, while the latter, widowed early after one husband, lived long—should you at once suppose that you too are better than Ruth.

7. 10. For there was a different dispensation for the holy women of prophetic times, whom obedience, not desire, compelled to marry, so that the people of God might be propagated, among whom the prophets of Christ were to be sent ahead,

since even that people itself, through the things that happened to them as a figure (1 Cor 10, 11)—whether in those who knew this or in those who did not—was nothing other than a prophet of Christ, from whom the flesh of Christ too was to be born. So that that people might be propagated, then, whoever did not raise up offspring in Israel was held accursed by the sentence of the Law (See Deut 25, 5-10).

Hence the holy women too were kindled not by the desire of intercourse, but by devotion to childbearing, so that it is most rightly to be believed that they would not have sought intercourse if offspring could have come about otherwise.

And to the men the practice of having several living wives was granted. That the cause of this was not the desire of the flesh but provision for procreation is shown by the fact that, just as it was lawful for holy men to have several living wives, it was not likewise lawful for holy women to be joined to several living husbands; since they would be all the more shameful the more they sought intercourse from which they would not be the more fruitful.

Accordingly the holy Ruth, since she did not have in Israel the offspring such as was needful at that time, sought, when her husband had died, another from whom she might have it. And so, although she was twice married, Anna, who had one husband, was as a widow more blessed than she, because she also merited to be a prophetess of Christ (See Ruth 4, 13-15; Luke 2, 36-38);

and it must be believed that she—even if she had no children, which indeed Scripture, by passing it over in silence, has left uncertain—foresaw by that same Spirit that Christ was soon to come from a virgin, by which she was able to recognize him even as a little child:

hence she rightly refused second marriage even without children, if indeed she had none, because she knew that the time had now come when Christ would be better served not by the office of childbearing, but by the zeal for continence—not by making the womb fruitful in marriage, but by making the conduct of widowhood chaste. But if Ruth also knew that through her flesh the offspring was being propagated from whom Christ was to take flesh, and by marrying offered her ministry to this knowledge, I no longer dare to say that the widowhood of Anna was more blessed than the fruitfulness of Ruth.

8. 11. But you, who both have children and live at that end of the age in which it is now a time not to cast away stones, but to gather them together; not to embrace, but to refrain from embracing (Eccl 3, 5)

—since the Apostle cries out: but this I say, brothers: the time is short; it remains that those who have wives be as though they had none (1 Cor 7, 29)—

assuredly, if you had sought a second marriage, it would have been no compliance with prophecy or the Law, no desire—at least carnal—for offspring, but a sign of incontinence alone.

For you would have done what the Apostle speaks of, when, having said: it is good for them if they so remain, even as I (1 Cor 7, 8), he at once added: but if they cannot contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn (1 Cor 7, 9).

For he said this so that the evil of unbridled lust might not rush headlong into the disgrace of shameful deeds, being taken up instead into the honorable estate of marriage.

But thanks be to the Lord, since you brought forth a child you were unwilling to be, and your daughter's virginity has made up for the loss of your own virginity;

for Christian teaching, when carefully questioned, answers that even first marriages, at this time, are to be despised, unless incontinence stands in the way. For he who said: if they cannot contain themselves, let them marry (Ibid), could have said: "if they have no children, let them marry"; if, after the resurrection and preaching of Christ—when now from all the nations so great a supply of children to be spiritually begotten is at hand—such an office as propagating children from the flesh were like what it was in the earliest times.

And as for what he says elsewhere: I wish therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, be mothers of households (1 Tim 5, 14), he commends the good of marriage with apostolic sobriety and authority; he does not impose the office of procreation, as though for compliance with a law, even on those who take up the good of continence.

Finally he discloses why he said this, when he adds and says: to give no occasion to the adversary for the sake of reviling; for already some have turned back after Satan (1 Tim 5, 15),

so that by these words of his we may understand that those whom he wished to marry could better have contained themselves than married, but could better marry than turn back after Satan,

that is, fall and perish by looking back from that excellent purpose of virginal or widowed chastity to what lies behind.

Accordingly, let those who cannot contain themselves marry before they profess continence, before they make a vow to God: for unless they pay it, they are justly condemned.

For in another place he says of such women: for when they have grown wanton against Christ, they wish to marry, incurring condemnation, because they have made void their first faith (1 Tim 5, 11-12), that is, they have bent their will toward marriage away from the purpose of continence.

For they have made void the faith by which they had first vowed what they were unwilling to fulfill by perseverance. The good of marriage, then, is indeed always a good; but among the people of God it was once compliance with the Law, now it is a remedy for weakness, and in certain persons indeed a comfort of human nature.

For to devote effort to the procreation of children, not after the manner of dogs through promiscuous use of women, but in the honorable order of marriage, is not an inclination to be condemned in a human being; yet even this the Christian mind, thinking on heavenly things, more laudably transcends and surpasses (See 1 Cor 7, 33-34).

9. 12. But since, as the Lord says: not all receive this word (Matt 19, 11), let her therefore who can receive it, receive it (See Matt 19, 12), and let her who cannot contain herself, marry (See 1 Cor 7, 9);

let her who has not begun, deliberate; let her who has undertaken it, persevere; let no occasion be given to the adversary (See 1 Tim 5, 14), let no offering be withdrawn from Christ. For in the conjugal bond, if chastity is preserved, condemnation is not to be feared; but in widowed and virginal continence the excellence of a fuller gift is sought:

and once this has been sought and chosen and offered by the obligation of a vow, it is now damnable not only to take up marriage, but even, though one does not marry, to wish to marry.

For to show this, the Apostle did not say: "when they have grown wanton against Christ, they marry," but: they wish to marry, he says, incurring condemnation, because they have made void their first faith (1 Tim 5, 11-12), even if not by marrying, but only by wishing it:

not because the marriages of such women, or the women themselves, are judged to be condemned, but the breach of purpose is condemned, the broken faith of the vow is condemned,

condemned is not the taking up of a lesser good, but the fall from a higher good; in short, such women are condemned not because they later entered into conjugal faith, but because they made void the first faith of continence.

And so that the Apostle might briefly suggest this, he was unwilling to say that those women incur condemnation who marry after a purpose of greater holiness (not because they are not condemned, but lest in them marriage itself be thought to be condemned)

but, having said: they wish to marry, he at once added: incurring condemnation. And he said why: because they have made void their first faith (Ibid), so that it might appear that the will which has fallen away from its purpose is condemned, whether the marriage follows or is absent.

10. 13. Accordingly, those who say that the marriages of such women are not marriages, but rather adulteries, do not seem to me to consider keenly and carefully enough what they are saying; for a likeness to the truth deceives them.

For because those who, out of Christian holiness, do not marry are said to choose marriage to Christ, certain people argue from this, saying: "if a woman who marries another while her own husband lives is an adulteress, as the Lord himself defined in the Gospel (See Matt 19, 9),

then, while Christ lives, over whom death has no more dominion (Rom 6, 9), a woman who had chosen marriage to him, if she marries a man, is an adulteress."

Those who say this are indeed keenly moved, but they pay too little attention to how great an absurdity of consequences follows from this argument. For since a woman may laudably vow continence to Christ, even while her husband lives, with his consent (See 1 Cor 7, 5),

then, according to their reasoning, no woman ought to do this, lest she make Christ himself—which it is impious to suppose—an adulterer, to whom she marries while her husband lives.

Then again, since first marriages are of better merit than second, far be it that this should be the meaning of holy widows, that Christ should seem to them a kind of second husband. For they had him even before, when they faithfully served their own husbands in subjection, having him as husband not carnally but spiritually (See 1 Pet 3, 5-6):

to whom the Church herself, whose members they are, is spouse, the Church which, by the integrity of faith, hope, and charity, is wholly virgin not in holy virgins alone, but also in faithful widows and married women.

For to the whole Church, of which all those are members, the Apostle says: I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor 11, 2).

And he knows how to make a virgin spouse fruitful without corruption, he whom his mother was able to bring forth, even in the flesh, without corruption.

But through this ill-considered opinion, by which they suppose that there are no marriages for women who have fallen from a holy purpose, if they should marry, no small evil comes about: that wives are separated from their husbands, as though they were adulteresses, not wives;

and when they wish to restore them, once separated, to continence, they make their husbands true adulterers, when these take other women while their own wives are living.

11. 14. Therefore I cannot indeed say that women who have fallen from a better purpose, if they should marry, are committing adulteries and not marriages; but I would plainly not hesitate to say that falls and ruins from the holier chastity that is vowed to the Lord are worse than adulteries.

For if—as is in no way to be doubted—it pertains to an offense against Christ when a member of his does not keep faith with her husband, how much more gravely is he offended when faith is not kept with him in that which he requires once it has been offered, though he had not required it to be offered?

For when anyone does not pay what she vowed, prompted not by command but by counsel, she increases the wickedness of the broken vow all the more, the less she was under necessity in vowing it.

I argue this so that you may not think either that second marriages are a crime or that any marriages, since they are marriages, are an evil. So do not wish those marriages to be condemned by you, but rather to be scorned.

The good of widowed continence shines forth more brightly, then, since by vowing and professing it women can scorn what is both pleasing and lawful;

but after the profession of the vow what pleases must be perseveringly bridled and overcome, because it is now no longer lawful.

12. 15. About third and fourth and yet more marriages people are wont to raise a question. To answer briefly: I dare neither to condemn any marriages nor to take from them the modesty their number deserves.

But lest the brevity of this answer of mine perhaps displease anyone, I am prepared to hear my critic argue more fully. For perhaps he may bring forward some reason why second marriages should not be condemned but third marriages should be. For I, as I warned at the beginning of this discourse, do not dare to be wiser than I ought to be (See Rom 12, 3).

For who am I, that I should think a thing must be determined which I do not see the Apostle to have determined? For he says: a woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7, 39).

He did not say "the first," or "the second," or "the third," or "the fourth"; but, a woman, he says, is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is freed. Let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord; but she will be more blessed if she so remains (1 Cor 7, 40).

What could be added to or taken from this statement, so far as this matter is concerned, I do not know. Next I hear the Master and Lord both of the Apostles and of us answering the Sadducees, when they had proposed a woman who was not the wife of one husband or of two, but, if it can be said, of seven, whose wife she would be at the resurrection.

For rebuking them he says: you err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; for they will not begin to die, but will be equal to the angels of God (Matt 22, 29-30).

And so he mentioned the resurrection of those who will rise (See John 5, 29) to life, not of those who will rise to punishment. He could therefore have said: "you err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God; for in that resurrection these women of many marriages will not be able to exist," and then added: "because no woman marries there (See Matt 22, 29-30)."

But not even that very woman of so many husbands did he condemn, as we see, by any indication of his judgment. Therefore I dare not say, against the sense of human modesty, that a woman may marry as often as she will when her husbands die; nor, out of my own heart and apart from the authority of holy Scripture, do I dare to condemn however many marriages.

But what I say to the widow of one husband, I say to every widow: "you will be more blessed if you so remain (See 1 Cor 7, 40)."

13. 16. For this question too is wont to be raised, not unwisely, so that whoever can may say which widow is to be preferred in merit: whether the woman of one husband, who, having lived rather long with her husband, having borne children and kept them safe, was widowed and professed continence, or she who, as a young woman, within two years lost two husbands, with no children surviving for her comfort, vowed continence to God, and grew old in it with most persevering holiness.

Here let them exercise themselves, if they can, in arguing and demonstrating something to us, who weigh the merits of widows by the number of their husbands, not by the strength of continence itself.

For if they say that the woman of one husband is to be preferred to the woman of two, unless they bring forward some special reason or authority, they will surely be found to be setting before strength of mind not a greater strength of mind, but a good fortune of the flesh. For it belonged to the good fortune of the flesh both to live long with a husband and to bear children.

But if they do not prefer her on this account, because she had children, surely the very fact that she lived long with her husband, what was it but a good fortune of the flesh?

Moreover, the merit of that Anna is commended chiefly because, having buried her husband so soon, she long struggled with the flesh through her long life and overcame it. For so it is written: and there was Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher; she was advanced in many days, and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity; and she was a widow up to eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, serving with fastings and prayers night and day (Luke 2, 36-37). You see how the holy widow is praised not only because she was the wife of one husband, but also because she lived few years with her husband from her virginity, and carried on the gift of widowed continence, with so great a service of devotion, up to so great an old age.

14. 17. Let us therefore set before our eyes three widows having each one of the things that were all present in her: let us suppose one to be the wife of one husband, who lacks both that long span of widowhood—that she lived long with her husband—and that great zeal for devotion—that she serves so with fastings and prayers;

another, who, after the very brief life of her first husband, also soon lost her second and is a widow through a long life (See Luke 2, 36-37), but who likewise does not give such effort to the most religious service of fastings and prayers;

a third, who not only had two husbands, but also lived rather long with both of them one after another, or with one of them, and, widowed at a later age—at which indeed, if she had wished to marry, she could even have borne children—took up widowed continence; but, being more intent upon God, she is more anxious to carry out what may please him, serving, like Anna, night and day with fastings and prayers (Luke 2, 37).

If it be disputed which of these is superior in merit, who does not see that in this contest the palm is to be given to the greater and more fervent devotion? So too, if three others be set up, in whom two of the three qualities are present and one is lacking, who would doubt that those will be better in whom, with their two goods, there has been a more prevailing devout humility, so that their devotion is exalted?

14. 18. None indeed of these six widows is equal to your standard. For you, if you carry this vow through to old age, can have all three things in which the merit of Anna excelled; for you both had one husband and he did not live long with you in the flesh. And through this, if you show obedience to the words of the Apostle who says: but she who is truly a widow and desolate has hoped in the Lord, and continues in prayers night and day (1 Tim 5, 5), and with sober vigilance avoid what follows: but she who lives in pleasures is dead while living (1 Tim 5, 6); all those three goods that Anna had will also be yours.

But you have children too, which perhaps she did not have; nor are you to be praised because you have them, but because you strive to nurture and bring them up devoutly. For that they should be born to you belongs to fruitfulness, that they should live, to good fortune; but that they should be so formed, to will and to power. In the former let people congratulate you, in the latter let them imitate you. Anna by prophetic knowledge recognized Christ with his virgin mother (See Luke 2, 36-38); you the grace of the Gospel has made the mother of a virgin of Christ.

And so that holy virgin, whom willing and asking you offered to Christ, has added to the widowed merits of grandmother and mother something of the virginal merit.

For you do not have nothing from it, you who have her, and in her you are what you are not in yourselves. For that holy virginity might be taken from you by your marrying, it came about that it should be born from you.

15. 19. I would not, then, argue in this work about the diverse merits of various married women and various widows, if what I write to you I were writing for you alone. But since there are certain most difficult questions in this kind of discourse, I wished to say something more than what properly pertains to you, on account of certain people who do not seem learned to themselves unless they try to deal with others' labors not by judging them, but by tearing and cutting them to pieces;

and then so that you yourself may not only keep what you have vowed and make progress in that good, but may also more carefully and firmly know that this good of yours is not distinguished from an evil of marriage, but set before the good of marriage.

For those who condemn the marriages of widowed women, even if they wonderfully and fervently exercise their own continence by abstinence from many things that you make use of, let them not on that account seduce you into thinking what they think, even if you cannot do what they do.

For no one wishes to be frenzied, even if he sees that the strength of a frenzied man is greater than the strength of the healthy. Therefore let sound teaching above all both adorn and fortify the goodness of your purpose.

For this indeed is why Catholic women, even those married more than once, are by a just judgment preferred not only to widows of one husband, but even to the virgins of heretics. There are indeed, on these three matters of marriage, widowhood, and virginity, many recesses of questions, many perplexities; to penetrate or resolve these by discussion requires both greater care and more copious discourse, so that we may either be rightly wise in all of them or, if we are wise in some other way, God may reveal that too to us (See Phil 3, 15).

Nevertheless, what the Apostle also says there consequently: let us walk in that to which we have attained (Phil 3, 16). And we have attained, so far as this matter of which we speak is concerned, to setting continence before marriage, and holy virginity even before widowed continence, and to not condemning any marriages—which are nonetheless not adulteries but marriages—by praise of the purpose of any of us or of our own.

Many other things on these matters have been said by us in the book The Excellence of Marriage and in another book, Holy Virginity, and in the work that we composed against Faustus the Manichee with as much labor as we could, since by most bitingly reproaching in his writings the chaste marriages of the patriarchs and prophets he twisted the minds of certain unlearned people away from soundness of faith.

16. 20. Accordingly, since at the beginning of this little work I had proposed two things as necessary and had promised to carry them out, one pertaining to teaching, the other to exhortation; and since for the former part I have, as I could, not failed the task I undertook, let us come to exhortation, so that the good which is prudently known may also be ardently loved.

In this matter I first give this admonition, that whatever love of devout continence you feel to be within you, you should attribute to the gift of God and give thanks to him,

who has bestowed so much on you of his Spirit that, his love being poured out in your heart (See Rom 5, 5), love of the better good took from you the liberty of a lawful thing.

For he granted that it should not please you to marry, when it was lawful, so that now it should not be lawful, even if it pleased; and from this it should the more firmly not please you, lest there be done what would not be lawful—what was not done even when it was lawful—and that you, a widow of Christ, should merit so much as to see your daughter too a virgin of Christ; for while you pray like Anna, she has become what Mary was.

The more you know these to be gifts of God, the more you are blessed by these very gifts; or rather, you are not otherwise blessed unless you know from whom you have what you have.

For consider what the Apostle said about this matter: but we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may know the things that have been given to us by God (1 Cor 2, 12).

For many have many gifts of God and, by not knowing from whom they have them, are puffed up with impious vanity.

But no one is blessed by the gifts of God who proves ungrateful to the giver. For even that we are bidden, amid the sacred mysteries, to have our hearts on high, we are able to do by the help of the very one by whose command we are admonished:

and therefore it follows that, lifted up in heart as we are about so great a good, we should not attribute the glory to ourselves as though it were of our own strength, but should give thanks to the Lord our God.

For we are at once reminded that this is fitting, this is right. You remember whence these words are, and you recognize likewise by what sanction and with how great holiness they are commended.

Hold fast, therefore, and keep what you have received, and give thanks to the giver.

For although to receive and to have is yours, yet you have what you received, since to the one who is proud and impiously boasts of what she had as though she had it from herself, the Truth says through the Apostle: for what do you have that you have not received? But if you received it, why do you boast as though you had not received it? (1 Cor 4, 7).

17. 21. These things compel me to warn you to beware of and shun the little talks of certain people, which have begun to creep through the ears into the souls of many—which must be said with tears—enemies of the grace of Christ (See Phil 3, 18), through whom it is urged that not even prayer to the Lord should seem necessary to us, that we may not enter into temptation.

For they try so to defend the free choice of the human person that by it alone, even without the help of God's grace, we are able to fulfill what is divinely commanded.

And through this it follows that the Lord said in vain: watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation (Matt 26, 41), and that we say in vain each day in the Lord's Prayer itself: lead us not into temptation (Matt 6, 13).

For if it is solely within our own power that we not be overcome by temptation, why do we pray that we may not enter or be led into it? Let us rather do what belongs to our free choice and most absolute power, and let us mock the Apostle who says: God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able (1 Cor 10, 13); and let us resist him, saying: "why do I ask of the Lord what he has placed in my own power?"

But far be it that anyone who is soundly wise should think this. Accordingly let us ask that he give what he commands us to have.

For he commands us to have what we do not yet have, in order to admonish us what we should ask for, and so that, when at his command we have found that we are able, we may also understand from whom we have received it, lest, puffed up and lifted up by the spirit of this world, we should not know the things that have been given to us by God (See 1 Cor 2, 12).

Accordingly we by no means destroy the choice of the human will, when we do not, by ungrateful pride, deny the grace of God by which that very choice is helped, but rather, by grateful devotion, proclaim it.

For to will is ours; but the will itself is both admonished, that it may rise, and healed, that it may be strong, and enlarged, that it may receive, and filled, that it may have.

For if we did not will, we would certainly not receive the things that are given, nor would we have them. For who would have continence—to speak rather of that one among God's other gifts, the one about which I am speaking to you; who, I say, would have continence except by willing it? For no one would receive it except by willing.

But if you ask by whom it is given, so that it can be received and had by our will, attend to Scripture; or rather, since you know it, recall what you have read. When I knew, he says, that no one can be continent unless God grants it, and this very thing was a part of wisdom, to know whose gift it was (Wis 8, 21).

These two gifts are great—wisdom and continence; wisdom, namely, by which we are formed in the knowledge of God, and continence, by which we are not conformed to this world.

God commands us to be both wise and continent, goods without which we cannot be righteous and perfect. But let us pray that he may give what he commands, helping and inspiring, who has admonished us what we should will, by commanding and calling.

Let us pray that he may preserve whatever he has given from this source; and that he may supply what he has not yet given, let us pray: yet let us pray and give thanks for what we have received, and let us trust that we shall receive what we have not yet received by this very fact, that we are not ungrateful for what we have received.

For he who gave to the faithful married to refrain from adulteries and fornications, he himself gave to holy virgins and widows to refrain from all intercourse: in which virtue it is now properly named either "integrity" or "continence."

Or do we perhaps receive continence from him, but have wisdom from ourselves? What then is it that the apostle James says: but if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all abundantly and does not reproach; and it will be given to him (Jas 1, 5)? But about this question we have already said much in our other little works, as the Lord has helped us, and we shall say more at another time, as we are able through him, when occasion is given.

18. 22. Now I have wished to say something on this matter on account of certain of our brothers, most friendly and most dear to us, who are not indeed maliciously entangled in this error, but entangled nonetheless,

who think, when they exhort some people to righteousness and devotion, that their exhortation will have no force unless they place the whole of that which they do with a person so that the person may act, within the person's own power—not helped by the gift of God, but exerted by the choice of the free will alone (as though a will could be free for the accomplishing of a good work unless it were freed by the gift of God).

Nor do they consider that this very thing too they have by the gift of God, that they exhort with such an ability as to rouse the sluggish wills of people to take up a good life, to kindle the cold, to correct the depraved, to turn the averse, to pacify the resisting. For thus they can persuade what they urge.

Or if they do not work these things in the wills of people, what do they do? Why do they speak? Let them rather leave those wills to their own choice. But if they do work these things in them, does a human person then, after all, work so much in another person's will by speaking, and does God there not work anything by helping?

Indeed, however much a person may excel in the faculty of speech, so as by skill in arguing and sweetness in speaking to plant truth in a person's will, to nourish love, to remove error by teaching and torpor by exhorting, neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3, 7).

For in vain would the laborer contrive everything from without, unless the Creator worked secretly from within. I hope, then, that these letters of mine, by the merit of your excellence, will soon come into the hands of such people too. For this reason I have judged that some things ought to be said here: and then, so that you yourself and whatever other widows shall read these things or hear them when they are read, may know that you make more progress toward loving and having the good of continence by your prayers than by our exhortations; since, if anything helps you in that our words too are ministered to you, the whole is to be attributed to the grace of him in whose hand, as it is written, are both we and our words (Wis 7, 16).

19. 23. If, then, you had not yet vowed widowed continence to God, we would surely exhort you to vow it; but since you have now vowed it, we exhort you to persevere. Yet I see that I must say such things as may make even those who were still thinking of marrying love and seize upon it.

Let us therefore incline our ear to the Apostle. She who is unmarried, he says, is anxious about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she who is married is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband (1 Cor 7, 34).

He did not say: "she is anxious about the things of the world, so that she is not holy"; but certainly that conjugal holiness is less, in that part of its cares by which worldly pleasure is thought of.

And so whatever intention of mind would be expended even on those things by which a husband was to be pleased, the unmarried Christian woman ought in some way to gather up and bring back into that intention by which the Lord is to be pleased. And see whom she pleases who pleases the Lord; and certainly she is the more blessed the more she pleases him; but the more she thinks of the things of the world, the less she pleases.

Please, then, with your whole intention him who is beautiful in form beyond the sons of men. For by his grace you please him, the grace which is poured out upon his lips (Ps 45, 2 (44, 3)).

Please him also with that part of your thought which would have been occupied with the world, that a husband might be pleased. Please him who displeased the world, so that those pleasing to him might be freed from the world. For men saw this one, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, on the cross of the Passion, and he had no form nor comeliness, but his face was despised and his bearing deformed (Isa 53, 2-3).

Yet from this deformity of your Redeemer flowed the price of your beauty—but of an inner beauty. For all the beauty of the king's daughter is from within (Ps 45, 13 (44, 14)). With this beauty please him; this beauty compose with diligent care and anxious thought. He does not love the dyes of deceits; the Truth delights in true things; and he, if you recognize what you have read, is called the truth. I am, he says, the way and the Truth and the life (John 14, 6). Run to him through him; please him from him; live in him, with him, of him. With true affections and most holy chastity love to be loved by such a husband.

19. 24. Let the inner ear of your daughter, a holy virgin, hear these things too. I see how far she goes before you in the kingdom of that King: that is another question. Yet you have found, mother and daughter, the one whom, marriages despised—she all marriages, you a second—you ought together to please by the beauty of chastity.

Certainly, if there were husbands to be pleased, you would perhaps now be ashamed to be adorned together with your daughter; now let it not shame you to do the things by which you are adorned together, because it is not blameworthy but rather glorious that you should be loved together by that one alone.

But feigned whiteness and ruddiness smeared on with pigments you would not use, even if you had husbands; thinking neither them worthy whom you would deceive, nor yourselves, who ought to be deceiving. Now therefore please together truly that King who has desired the beauty of his only bride, of whom you are members (See Ps 45, 11 (44, 12); 1 Cor 12, 27), cleave together to him—she by virginal integrity, you by widowed continence, both by spiritual beauty.

In which beauty her grandmother too, your mother-in-law, who has now certainly grown old, is beautiful with you. For while love stretches forward the vigor of this beauty into what lies ahead, length of years makes no wrinkle in it. You have with you a holy old woman, both in the household and in Christ, whom you may consult about perseverance—how to fight with this or that temptation, what to do that it may be easily overcome, what defense to take up lest it easily lie in ambush again; and if there be anything of this kind, she teaches you, by an experience now sure, kindly in love, anxious in devotion, secure in age.

You especially, you, consult her in such matters, who has experienced what you have experienced. For your daughter sings that song which, in the Apocalypse, none but virgins can sing (See Rev 14, 3-4). Yet she prays more anxiously for both of you than for herself; but she is more anxious for her niece, for whom there remains a greater span of years for overcoming temptations:

but you she sees as nearer to her own age, and the mother of her daughter,

whom, if you had seen married—which is now not lawful, and far be it—I think you would have blushed to bear children along with her.

How great a thing is it, then, that there now remains for you of perilous age, you who are for this reason not called a grandmother, that you may be fruitful, along with your daughter, in the offspring of holy thoughts and works?

Not without reason, then, is the grandmother more anxious for her, for whom you too are a mother, because both what she has vowed is greater and the whole of what she has just begun remains to her.

May the Lord hear her prayers, that you may holily comply with the merits of her who bore the flesh of your husband in youth, and brought to birth the heart of your daughter in old age (See Jerome, Epistula 8).

And so all of you alike and in concord, please by your conduct the one husband of one spouse, in whose body you live by one spirit, and persist in prayers (See Rom 12, 12; Col 4, 2).

20. 25. The day that is past does not return into the future, and after yesterday comes today, and after today tomorrow is to come: and behold, all times and temporal things pass away, that the abiding promise may come, and he who perseveres to the end, he will be saved (Matt 10, 22). If the world is now perishing, for whom does the married woman bear children?

Or why does she marry who is to bear in heart and not to bear in flesh? But if the world is still to last, why is not he the more loved through whom the world was made?

If the worldly enticements are now failing, there is nothing for the Christian mind to seek after with desire; but if they are still to remain, there is something for it to despise with holiness. Of these two, in the one there is no hope of lust, in the other a greater glory of love. How many, or of what sort, are the very years in which the flower of carnal age seems to flourish?

Some women, thinking of marriage and ardently desiring it, while they are scorned or put off, have suddenly grown old, so that it now shamed them to marry more than it pleased them.

But many wives, by the most recent union of their marriage, when their husbands had set out for distant parts, in awaiting their return grew aged, and, as though widowed early, sometimes did not deserve, even as old women, to receive back their old men, not even returning.

If, then, the desire of the flesh could be contained—whether by women whose betrothed scorned them, or delayed, or whose husbands were away on travels—so that no defilement or adultery should be committed, why can it not be contained so that no sacrilege should be committed? If it was repressed when it grew hot while postponed, why is it not put down when it has grown cold once cut off? For those bear a more burning lust who do not despair of the pleasure of that same lust. But women who vow to God the chastity of the unmarried withdraw that very hope which is the kindling of love. Hence desire is more easily bridled which is set ablaze by no expectation: yet unless one prays against it, that it may be overcome, the very unlawful thing is longed for more ardently.

21. 26. Let spiritual delights, then, succeed carnal delights in holy chastity: reading, prayer, the psalm, good thought, the frequent doing of good works, hope of the world to come and the heart on high, and, for all these, the giving of thanks to the Father of lights, from whom without any doubt, as Scripture witnesses, every best gift and every perfect gift (Jas 1, 17) comes down.

For when, in place of the delights of married women, which they have in the flesh of their husbands, the use of other carnal delights is taken up as if for comfort, what shall I say of the evils that follow, since the Apostle has briefly said that a widow is dead while living, who lives in pleasures (1 Tim 5, 6)?

But far be it from you that you should be captured by the desire of riches in place of the desire of marriage, and that in your hearts money should succeed to the love of a husband.

For observing the conduct of people, we have often found by experience that in some, when wantonness was suppressed, avarice grew. For just as in the very senses of the body those who do not see hear more keenly, and by touch distinguish many things, while those who use their eyes do not touch with such liveliness—whereby it is understood that from one avenue, that is, when the intent of the eyes to perceive is repressed, it exerts itself more readily into the other senses with a keenness of discernment, as though from the one it tried to make up what is denied in the other;

so too often carnal desire, when held back from the pleasure of intercourse, extends itself with greater force into the appetite for money, and, turned away from the one, turns to the other with a more ardent impulse.

But in you let the love of riches grow cold together with the love of marriage, and let the devout use of the things you possess be applied to spiritual delights, so that your generosity may burn more for helping the needy than for enriching the avaricious (See Wis 1, 11; 1 Cor 8, 11-12).

For into the heavenly treasure are sent not the gifts of the covetous, but the alms of the poor, which help the prayers of widows beyond measure. Fasts too and vigils, insofar as they do not disturb health, if they are spent in praying, singing psalms, reading, and meditating on the law of God, are turned into spiritual delights even those things which seem laborious. For the labors of those who love are in no way burdensome, but even themselves delight, as do those of hunters, fowlers, fishers, vintagers, traders, and those who amuse themselves with some game. It matters, then, what is loved. For in that which is loved either there is no labor, or even the labor is loved. And see how shameful and grievous it is, if labor delights so that a wild beast may be caught, that a cask and a purse may be filled, that a ball may be thrown, and it does not delight so that God may be won.

22. 27. Indeed, in all the spiritual delights that the unmarried enjoy, their holy conduct ought also to be cautious, lest perhaps, while their life is not evil through wantonness, their reputation be evil through negligence.

Nor are they to be listened to, whether holy men or women, when, their negligence having been reproached in some matter through which it comes about that they fall under an evil suspicion—from which they know their life to be far removed—they say that before God a clear conscience suffices them, and despise the esteem of others not only imprudently, but even cruelly, since they kill the souls of others (Ibid),

whether of those who blaspheme the way of God, to whom, according to their own suspicion, the life of the saints, which is chaste, displeases as though it were shameful, or even of those who, with this excuse, imitate not what they see, but what they suppose.

Accordingly, whoever guards his life from the crimes of shameful and wicked deeds does well for himself; but whoever guards his reputation as well is also merciful toward others. For our life is necessary for us, our reputation for others. And certainly even what we minister mercifully to others for their salvation redounds also to our own benefit.

Hence not in vain does the Apostle say: we provide good things not only before God, but also before men (2 Cor 8, 21). Likewise he says: please all men in all things, as I also please all in all things, not seeking what is profitable to myself, but to the many, that they may be saved (1 Cor 10, 33).

In a certain exhortation too he says: for the rest, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever holy, whatever just, whatever chaste, whatever lovely, whatever of good report, if there is any virtue, if any praise, think on these things, which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me (Phil 4, 8-9). You see how, among the many things of which he gave admonition in exhorting, he did not neglect to set down: whatever of good report, and concluded them all in two words, where he says: if any virtue, if any praise.

For to virtue belong the goods I mentioned before; to praise, indeed, belongs reputation. I think that the Apostle did not take the praise of men for a great thing, since in another place he says: but to me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by man's day (1 Cor 4, 3); and elsewhere: if I were pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ (Gal 1, 10); and again: for our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience (2 Cor 1, 12).

But of those two things, that is, a good life and a good reputation—or, to say it more briefly, of virtue and of praise—the one he most wisely retained for its own sake, the other he most mercifully provided for the sake of others. But since human caution, however great, cannot in every respect avoid the most malevolent suspicions, when we have done for our esteem whatever we rightly can, if some try to discolor our reputation, whether by inventing evil or by believing evil, let there be at hand the consolation of conscience, and plainly even joy, that our reward is great in heaven (See Matt 5, 11-12), even when people say many evil things about us, while we nevertheless live devoutly and justly. For that reward is, as it were, the wages of those who soldier through the weapons of righteousness not only on the right hand but also on the left, through glory, namely, and dishonor, through ill repute and good report (2 Cor 6, 7-8).

23. 28. Run your course, then, and run perseveringly, that you may lay hold of the prize;

and by the example of your life and the discourse of exhortation, draw into the same course of yours whomever you can.

Let not the complaint of vain people break you off from this zeal by which you rouse many to imitation, those who say: "how will the human race subsist, if all are continent?"

As though this age were delayed for any other reason than that that predestined number of the saints might be filled up—and once it is filled up the sooner, the end of the age will surely not be deferred.

Nor let that hold you back from the zeal of persuading others to your good, if it be said to you: "since marriages too are good, how will all things in the body of Christ be good—both the greater, namely, and the lesser—if all imitate continence by its praise and love?" First, because by striving that all may be continent, then there will be even few. For not all receive this word (Matt 19, 11).

But since it is written: let him who can receive it, receive it (Matt 19, 12), then those who can do receive it, if it is not kept silent even to those who cannot receive it. Next, neither ought we to fear that perhaps all may receive it and something of the lesser goods, that is, of conjugal life, be lacking to Christ in his body.

For if all should hear and all should receive it, we ought to understand that this very thing was predestined, that the goods of marriage should also suffice in the number of those members which have passed so many in number out of this life.

For not even now, if all should be continent, are they going to give the honor of the continent to those who have already brought into the Lord's barns the thirtyfold fruit, if it is itself understood in the good of marriage (See Matt 13, 8). There, then, all those goods will have their place, even if henceforth no woman should wish to marry or no man to take a wife. Securely, therefore, press on, that those whom you can may become what you are; and pray watchfully and fervently that, by the help of the right hand of the Most High and the abundance of the most merciful grace of the Lord, you may both persevere in what you are and make progress toward what you shall be.

23. 29. Next I beseech you, through him from whom you have received this gift and from whom you hope for the rewards of this gift, that you remember to include me too in your prayers, together with your whole household Church. For it has come about in the most orderly way that I should write a letter on prayer to your mother, now of great age (See Letter 130)

(for it especially pertains to her to strive in prayer for you, who is less anxious about herself than about you), and that I should make this little work on widowed continence to you rather than to her, because there still remains for you to overcome what her age has already overcome.

But your daughter, the holy virgin, if she desires anything about her own profession from our labors, has a large book, Holy Virginity, which she may read. About reading which I had also reminded you, since it contains many things necessary for both kinds of chastity, that is, the virginal and the widowed, which here, for that reason, I have partly touched lightly upon, partly altogether passed over, because there I discussed them more copiously. May you persevere in the grace of Christ. Amen.